ABSTRACT
Lawyer advertising raises important issues under the First Amendment to the US Constitution. As a form of commercial speech, such advertising enjoys limited constitutional protection. On the one hand, lawyer advertising serves the public by educating accident victims, who are often unaware of their legal rights and vulnerable to pressure from insurance adjusters. On the other hand, many lawyers wince at the undignified pitches that undercut the image of the law as a learned profession. Before 1977 every state barred lawyer advertising. In In re Primus, 436 US 412, the Court supported a volunteer American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had written to a woman asking her to become a plaintiff in a lawsuit against a doctor. Each state prohibits false or misleading advertising content, including material misrepresentations of facts or of the law, omissions of pertinent information, the creation of unjustified expectations about what a lawyer can do, and unsubstantiated comparisons with the competence of other lawyers.
