Attorney advertising, specifically on TV, is usually a combination of low-budget, cheesy, and distasteful. Unfortunately, it works and a lot of good lawyers go out of business because they refuse to advertise or go to work for those that are unashamed enough to advertise on TV. Insurance companies aren’t complaining because T.V. Attorneys are the puppy mills of the legal professional: high volume and low quality with a few exceptions. Everybody is getting rich except the injured client. Criminal lawyers can be as bad as sending jail mail or bribing bondsmen and tow truck drivers to run cases to them. Their clients get it in the end. But where do you draw the line? An attorney in Savannah has pushed the line way out there this time. While not necessarily cheesy or distasteful, I believe he has created an entirely new category of attorney advertising. He ran this commercial during the local feed of the 2014 Superbowl High-quality production, but is there an outer limit to free speech in attorney advertising? At some point, you poison the jury pool not only to lawyers in general but potentially to any client who hires a TV attorney to represent them that runs a commercial of this nature. At that point, it would seem that the lawyer is putting his interest before that of the client which turns the lawyer-client relationship on its head. I wonder if he got consent from current and former clients before the commercial was aired? There could be a conflict of interest. You be the judge. Georgia Bar Ethics Rule on Attorney Advertising
-Author: George Creal