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."

to affect slashdot's own.

[tddoog]

Too bad for Newyorkcountrylawyer [slashdot.org] and his blog [blogspot.com].

I wonder if slashdot interviews would count?

Missing the point

[SpeedBump0619]

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.

Don't be absurd. It won't force them to report more, it will force them not to update their web logs, which is, no doubt, the real point.

Who cares

[bkr1_2k]

Honestly, who cares? It's not like the government is doing this, it's a "voluntary" organization maintained by a group of lawyers. This has zero effect on anyone except lawyers and probably won't go through anyway, because there are plenty of lawyers who are capable of showing how blogging isn't advertisement.

Some blogging...

[DragonWriter]

...is certainly akin to advertising, but some is more akin to writing op-ed pieces for a newspaper and doing commentary in other media, or just writing a book (but that it is published incrementally.)

Seems to me it makes more sense to regulate based on the content than the medium, in this case, but then, I'm not a member of the NY Bar.

Misleading article

[nosredna]

Having read through the rule changes, this seems to be limited to actual solicitation for services. Legal commentary or discussion of legal issues isn't anywhere in this, that I could see.

Basically, it applies the limitations currently in place for print and television ads to internet ads as well, which is a reasonable step to take... regulate all advertising, or regulate none.

Re:Or...

[Reverend528]

I don't think causing problems for lawyers is very bright.

I imagine the New York Bar has some pretty good lawyers of their own.

Re:IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you phrased it wrong. It should be:

First they came for the lawyers.
But IDC, because IANAL.

Odd

[debrain]

IIANYL, and this strikes me as a red herring. I've read through this, and the gist of the amendments have to deal with solicitations and advertisements as applied to modern technology. I can't read the arguments on the second link, but there are two things that were immediately clear from reading the amendments. First, they are narrowly construed to apply only to solicitation and advertisement, not publications in general. Second, it is in large part a technological amendment, to deal with new methods of advertisements like pop-up advertisements.

The first is the relevant part. I don't, on the face of it, see how this would preclude blogging. It would prevent blogging as a form of advertisement, but that's the very point of the restrictions on professional attorney and counselor publications. Advertisements for lawyers are permitted insofar, but only insofar, as the advertisement aids the public's ability to make an informed decision. Extensions of that are generally barred as being potentially misleading.

The second comment is relevant because it shows that they are technologically savvy. This gives some hope that even if this comes into force and causes problems, they will be conscious of the problems it creates and amend it appropriately. Incidentally, before this amendment, by interpretation, there appears to be some technical requirement to have every partner's name in the law firm's domain name.

Again, though, I haven't read the criticisms, and I've only given it a once-over. I don't pretend to be defending the NY bar; I don't know the arguments against it. I've just read through it and this is all I could come up with. If there is something there that unduly inhibits an attorney or counselor-at-law's ability to publish online, I would be interested in seeing that amended before it goes into force. If someone points a good argument out to me, I'll be sure to send along my comments, as a member of the bar.

The only criticism I could see was an extraterritorial clause which makes the law apply to out-of-NY lawyers who solicit or advertise their services in NY. But that seems reasonable, given the nexus between the out-of-NY lawyers and their purported NY services, and is totally unrelated to this slashdot article.

Re:to affect slashdot's own.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

tddoog wrote:

"Too bad for Newyorkcountrylawyer and his blog. I wonder if slashdot interviews would count?"

If those rules go into effect, both of my blogs, Recording Industry vs. The People [blogspot.com], and Ohio Election Fraud (formerly "Fairness") [blogspot.com], along with my web sites, info.riaalawsuits.us [riaalawsuits.us] and Ohio Election 2004 [ohioelection2004.com] would be taken down, as it would be far too costly and time consuming to comply with the new rules. See my collection of articles on New York's rules and the impact they would have on lawyer blogs here [blogspot.com]j.

Fortunately, though, the various bar associations and other lawyer groups are very concerned about the rules, and are putting in detailed comments explaining how the proposed rules are too overbroad. And the Appellate Divisions have postponed the proposed effective dates, in order to give the legal community and the public at large more time to comment.

Arguably my entire membership in Slashdot would indeed count, since my profile identifies me. It would of course be impossible to comply with those rules, so I might just have to stop participating in Slashdot, which for me would be sad indeed. I have really come to enjoy it here.

Blogs by lawyers are a pretty new thing, but I think they have made a significant contribution. I think it would be a shame if we had to stop blogging just because we're lawyers.

I don't think the proposed rules will be passed in that form, so I'm not too worried.

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

Re:Who cares

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I agree with you that there are huge First Amendment issues with the proposed rules. But if they were to go through in that format, most lawyers who need to make a living are not going to take a chance on violating the rules and then using the First Amendment as their defense.