The Ethics of Attorney Advertising: The Effects of Different State Regulatory Regimes
![handle is hein.journals/geojlege18 and id is 1063 raw text is: The Ethics of Attorney Advertising: The Effects of
Different State Regulatory Regimes
EMILY OLSON*
INTRODUCTION
Today's increasingly urbanized environment forces law firms and other
providers of legal services to adapt to new ways of doing business. As
information technology continues to speed up the ability of consumers to attain
information about desired goods and services, increasing competition places
additional strains on legal service providers. In this increasingly competitive and
global marketplace, law firms realize that they must understand their market
and have a strategy for protecting and enhancing their market share.' The new
marketplace conditions now require law firms, more than ever before, to react to
market pressures like other traditional businesses. Competition for both clients
and lawyers thus has led firms to rationalize their operations more explicitly
along business lines.2 Logically, this shift in operations style results in a greater
dependence on traditional business tools such as advertising and marketing
mediums.
Legal service providers now operate in an environment that is shaped by the
dynamics of a competitive market for legal services.3 In contrast to the golden
age of the law firm, which occurred in the mid-20th century, clients [today] no
longer give all or most of their business to a single law firm.4 In-house counsel
now handle routine legal work that large firms traditionally handled. Large firms
are focused on large-scale litigation or transactional work, which has forced the
legal profession to become highly specialized.5 In order to compete in the new
environment, firms vigorously market their services and seek to differentiate
themselves from competitors through seminars, brochures, and explicit advertis-
ing.6
Because legal advertising now plays a more economically vital role to the legal
* B.A. in Peace, War, and Defense from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (2003); J.D.,
Georgetown University Law Center (expected May 2006).
1. Arash Mostafavipour, Law Firms: Should They Mind Their Own Business?, It GEO. J. LEGAL ETHics 435,
435 (1998).
2. Milton C. Regan, Law Firms, Competition Penalties, and the Values of Professionalism, 13 GEO. J. LEGAL
ETHIcs 2, 11 (1999).
3. Id. at 6.
4. Id.
5. Id. at 9.
6. Id.
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The Ethics of Attorney Advertising: The Effects of Different State Regulatory Regimes
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