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58 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1084 (1983)
Why Lawyers Should be Allowed to Advertise: A Market Analysis of Legal Services

handle is hein.journals/nylr58 and id is 1104 raw text is: WHY LAWYERS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO ADVERTISE: A MARKET ANALYSIS OF LEGAL SERVICES GEOFFREY C. HAZARD, JR. * RUSSELL G. PEARCE** JEFFREY W. STEMPEL*** Last August, the American Bar Association adopted the Model Rules of Proje ional Conduct. which significantly altered the ABA' position on lawyer advertising. It is still unclear how the states will respond to the ABA's new position, and the debate about the propriety of lawyer advertising continue. In the authors' view, both sides of the debate have overlooked an impur- tant point: For purposes of analyzing the advertising problem, legal services are of two types, and the effect of advertising on the legal services market will vary with the type of service involved. Individualized services involve legal matters that pose a significant risk of loss for clients and require close personal attention from an attorney. For lawyers who provide this type of service, the authors argue, advertising is of little use since their clients are likely to rely orn personal knowledge and reputation in selecting an attorney. Standardizable services, how- ever, involve low risk matters and can be provided by means of routinized production systems. The authors believe that these services can be mass produced at low cost without logs of quality. They argue that advertising is necessary to generate the mass demand and economics of scale required to make mass production profitable. The authors conclude that lawyer adt ertLsing will likely result in more affordable legal services of the standardizable type and in improt ed product information about these services, thus benefiting low and middle income consumers as well as the attorneys who specialize in providing standardizable services. INTRODUCTION In Bates v. State Bar of Arizona,' a 1977 decision, the United States Supreme Court overturned the American Bar Association's (ABA) sixty-nine-year-old prohibition of advertising by lawyers.2 The * Nathan Baker Professor of Law and Management, Yale University. B.A., 1953, Swarthmore College; LL.B., 1954, Columbia University. Reporter, ABA Commission on the Evaluation of Professional Standards. Since writing this Article, Professor Hazard has become a Board Member of Hyatt Legal Services. The views expressed in this Article do not reflect those of any commission or organization with which he is affiliated. Member, New York Bar. B.A., 1978, J.D., 1981, Yale University. Member, Minnesota Bar. B.A., 1977, University of Minnesota, J.D., 1981, Yale Univer- sity. 433 U.S. 350 (1977). 2 The legal clinic of Bates & O'Steen of Phoenix, Arizona, had placed nev spaper advf rtisc- ments publicizing its offer of legal services at fixed fees and was charged with L iolating Arizona State Bar standards, 17A Ariz. Rev. Stat. Sup. Ct. Rules, Code of Professional Responsibility, Rule 29(a), DR 2-101(B) (Supp. 1976). The Arizona bar's rules were substantially similar to th ABA's Model Code of Professional Responsibility standards in effect at that time. The ABA Model Code provided, in relevant part, that 'a lawyer shall not prepare or use public media in order to attract law clients. Model Code of Professional Responsibility DR 2-101 (1977) (re- placed by Model Rules of Professional Conduct on August 2, 1983), reprinted in House of 1084 Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. Law Review

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