ABSTRACT
Advertising in the legal profession was prohibited by the American Bar Association since its founding in 1908 (Hite and Kiser, 1985). This longstanding tradition was challenged by the 1977 Supreme Court decision in the case of Bates v. State Bar of Arizona. The court ruled that state bar associations could no longer prohibit legal advertising in general. However, the court did not provide any specific information on what constitutes acceptable legal advertising. This situation naturally resulted in the raising of various issues in the discussions between advocates and opponents of legal advertising. The major issues brought forth in this debate are still as controversial as they were in 1977. For a more extensive discussion of these issues see Shimp and Dyer (1978) and Hite and Fraser (1988).
