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Thursday, December 29, 2005
Ind. Law - Lawyers quick to respond after crash
"Lawyers quick to respond after crash: Their letters soliciting business illustrate the changes since attorneys began advertising" is the headline to this great column by Kevin Leininger is the Fort Waye News-Sentinel. Some quotes:
“Recently, our firm learned that you were in an accident that was not your fault,” began a letter from Fort Wayne attorney Dennis Golden. “You may have a claim to collect monetary compensation if you received any physical injuries.”“You’ve been in an automobile collision and may be hurt,” attorney Randolph L. Roebuck wrote in another letter. “It was not your fault, but now you must make some critical decisions!”
My favorite, from the firm of Blackburn & Green, began like this: “We have recently learned that some law firms are hiring runners to go to the police station after accidents to obtain a copy of the reports . . . then send letters to potential accident victims. . . We think it is important to remind you not to rely upon solicitation letters that don’t give you adequate facts about the lawyer or firm.”
Where do you suppose Blackburn & Green got Hubartt’s name if not from accident reports and “runners”?
People reared on Perry Mason reruns – and that includes a lot of attorneys – may consider those letters undignified, or worse. But they’re just one example of how the legal profession has changed since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977 overturned state ethics code banning all forms of legal advertising. States can still regulate the content of legal ads, however, said Don Lundberg, executive secretary for the Indiana Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Commission.
Even though in-person solicitation of clients is prohibited in Indiana, attorneys can send “targeted solicitation” letters, such as those sent to Hubartt, if they meet certain guidelines. They must be marked as “advertising material,” for example, and attorneys cannot claim to specialize in a certain kind of law unless they have been certified as specialists by the state.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 29, 2005 05:34 PM
Posted to Indiana Law