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19 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 757 (2006)
Direct Client Solicitation: When Does Informing Someone of Available Legal Services and Remedies become Ambulance Chasing

handle is hein.journals/geojlege19 and id is 767 raw text is: Direct Client Solicitation: When Does Informing Someone of Available Legal Services and Remedies Become Ambulance Chasing? ROBERT KIRBY* INTRODUCTION In March of 1994, Molly Glass waited anxiously at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital while her son was treated in the intensive care unit.1 Ms. Glass' son was severely injured when he was struck by an automobile while riding his bicycle. At this moment of obvious weakness, a potential defendant approached Ms. Glass with an offer of $10,000 in exchange for an agreement not to bring suit.' Gravely worried about her son and angered by the attempt to take advantage of her situation, Ms. Glass was likely in need of emotional support. That support appeared to have arrived when Chad Everett Cooper, dressed like a pastor, approached Ms. Glass and identified himself as a hospital chaplain.3 Cooper offered prayer-and the business card of a local law firm. The business card referred Ms. Glass to the Tallahassee law firm of Barrett, Hoffman, and Hall, P.A.4 Cooper's referral of the firm was not based on an altruistic desire to see justice done for Ms. Glass' critically injured son. Rather, Cooper was employed by David A. Barrett, the senior and managing partner of the firm, to bring in new clients.5 Although Cooper was an ordained minister prior to his association with Barrett, it was Barrett who paid for the hospital chaplain's course that Cooper attended at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. In 1999, long after Barrett's firm obtained a settlement for Ms. Glass in her son's wrongful death action, she read an article in the local newspaper about improper client solicitation by attorneys.6 Ms. Glass realized that Cooper had exploited her vulnerability, just as the potential defendant had attempted to do with his offer of a premature settlement. She was not alone. All told, Cooper solicited twenty-one other clients for Barrett's law firm from the hospital and a chiropractor's office.7 * J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (expected May 2007). 1. Fla. Bar v. Barrett, 897 So. 2d 1269, 1271 (Fla. 2005). 2. Id. at 1277 n.4. 3. Id. at 1271. 4. Id. 5. Cooper testified that Barrett asked him to do whatever you need to do to bring in some business and offered him $100,000 for a big case. Id. 6. Id. at 1271-72. 7. Id. at 1272.

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