New York Bar May Crack Down on Blogging Lawyers

An anonymous reader writes "While you might not guess it from watching late night TV, advertisements by lawyers are regulated by a web of regulations intended to protect potential clients from deceptive claims in such ads. Generally, these rules require lawyers to submit their ads to a review board, often with a filing fee paid with each new advertisement. The New York bar has proposed new rules which would define blogging as advertising. Should these rules be enacted, any New York lawyer who blogs on any legal topic in New York would be required to submit any new blog post to the New York Bar for review. For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs, this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day."

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

For a lawyer, Bar Association membership is, depending on the state, de facto mandatory, or legally mandatory.

Re:Or...

[xero91]

$100/hr??? 99% of my clients are lawyers and they regularly bill upwards of $300/hr

Re:Who cares

[Mr. X]

This is a mandatory bar that all lawyers admitted in New York State must join.

Re:Misleading article

[Kupek]

From the proposed rules:

(k) "Advertisement" means any public communication made by or on behalf of a lawyer
or law firm about a lawyer or law firm, or about a lawyer's or law firm's services.

I think it's reasonable to call a lawyer's blog a public communication made by that lawyer about that lawyer. And that fits the proposed definition of advertisement. That seems to be a broad definition of advertising.

Re:Who cares

[damsa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Bar_As sociation [wikipedia.org], In New York there is no mandatory bar, but the title in the Slashdot summary is confusing because it's not the bar association imposing the rule but the New York's Administrative Board of Courts which is in fact a government entity which all lawyers who wish to practice in New York must abide by.

Re:Recording Industry vs The People based in NY

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Thank you. I agree that it is way over the top. I can see where big corporations -- who can pay top dollar for legal information -- would love to see the information become less available to the public. For example, how happy do you think the record labels would be to see my recording industry blog shut down?

Fortunately, though, the entire legal community in New York agrees with you as well, that it is way over the top. So I don't think the rules will go through in that overbroad format.

For those of you who haven't seen the rules, they're posted here [nycourts.gov].

Re:Or...

[DragonWriter]

Then why are they so clearly considering violating the First Amendment rights of other lawyers in New York?

The bar association can condition the practice of law on adherence to regulations that, were they laws rather than conditions attached to the practice of law, would be Constitutionally barred, because practicing law isn't a right.

Re:Why censor lawyers?

[DragonWriter]

While limitations on advertising by lawyers have been around for a long time, they seem to have their roots in in pre-democratic times, when [...] the very practice of law was considered a somewhat questionable activity that had to be strictly regulated in order to be kept respectable.

The practice of law is still widely considered a somewhat questionable activity (hence the regard many people have for lawyers), and it is still one that needs to be strictly regulated (both in the view of nonlawyers and that of lawyers) to be kept respectable.

Lawyers would still be deterred from false advertising and libel by the existing laws of general application.

No one knows better than lawyers that those laws are incredibly flimsy, even at what they are supposed to do, but the rules against advertising aren't there merely to prevent false advertising but to discourage lawyers promoting lawsuits rather than serving in response to clients interests.

Re:Or...

[anagama]

However, one thing I've never seen properly explained: what keeps someone who isn't certified by the bar association from practicing law?

In Washington state for example, the State Bar Act [wa.gov] defines who can and cannot practice law under various circumstances. It looks like the meat of the prohibition is at RCW 2.48.170 [wa.gov] and RCW 2.48.180(2) & (3) [wa.gov]. So google for your state's statutes -- they're almost certainly provided free online. This isn't legal advice.