New rules on attorney ads still leave gray areas, room for lameness

Anyone who picks a lawyer from a television ad must be a moron. And there must be a lot of morons out there because the TV ads work.

Whether the attorney looks dignified and competent or silly and deceptive, they still work because of the persuasive power of television.

However, despite new rules governing lawyers who advertise, rest easy, nobody will be forcing lawyers to show good taste. Las Vegas attorney Glen Lerner can dress up like a gorilla or Carmen Miranda if he chooses. But neither he nor any other lawyer can claim he wins all his cases or can get you a million-dollar settlement.

The Nevada Supreme Court adopted rules regulating false and misleading advertising by attorneys. But the justices realize they can't regulate bad taste, so Lerner can keep on trucking, but he has to watch what he says. He can't make incredible claims on Spanish television unless he can back them up.

There are already rumblings from the ACLU that regulating advertising is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. However, Las Vegas attorney Bill Turner, who headed the State Bar of Nevada committee which made the rule recommendations, said even tougher rules are already in effect in Texas and haven't been brought down as unconstitutional. In Texas, all ads are reviewed first by its state bar.

The new Nevada rules, starting Sept. 1, will require ads be submitted to the State Bar of Nevada for review within 15 days of broadcast or publication. Also, ads may be submitted before they go public.

One rule will stop ads touting low contingency fees but failing to mention the fee increases if the case isn't resolved in 30 days. In the news biz, we call that lying by omission.

Lucky Reno; Lerner's ads no longer are played there.

He agreed to leave the Reno market to settle a Bar complaint, agreeing he violated rules governing advertising, disclosure, fees and paralegals.

However, he's facing a civil lawsuit up there filed by a former client, Cecilia Llamas, who after being injured in a car accident in 2000, met with a paralegal in Lerner's Reno office and assumed the paralegal was a lawyer. Since then, the Nevada Supreme Court has restricted paralegals, saying they cannot practice law without a license. A brief conversation with Lerner on the phone during the meeting with the paralegal convinced Llamas she was hiring Lerner himself, Llamas alleged.

Actually, despite his ads, Lerner admits he is rarely in a courtroom. But that's not the impression he leaves with the television viewers on English and Spanish stations.

The civil case is moving forward, though an arbitrator already has opined Lerner mishandled the case and used deceptive advertising. During discovery, because it is a punitive-damages case, details of Lerner's finances may become public. Then we might learn just how lucrative it is to whirl like a tornado. Lerner didn't return calls.

But I connected with another advertising attorney, Chad Golightly.

Golightly leaves shtick to Lerner and opts for a more serious approach. He stands with various law-enforcement officials from North Las Vegas and the Nevada Highway Patrol, cloaked with the law-enforcement aura of respectability.

His latest ads include a dramatization of someone being hit by a drunk driver. Golightly wonders whether that will be banned. For now, it's a gray area.

The Supreme Court repealed a rule that banned attorneys from using ads that created suspense, contained exaggerations or dramatizations. The court also opened the door so that lawyers can use celebrity voices in their ads.

Golightly wasn't prepared yet to say whether or not he would challenge the rules as violating his First Amendment rights, especially because he doesn't know where the line will be drawn.

Will the court limit what he says when he does anti-drunken driving messages? Golightly has no idea. The ads move into a gray area until people get a feel for what the State Bar's screening committees say about specific ads.

If Lerner wants to use the celebrity voice of Bugs Bunny and gnaw on a carrot, will that be allowed? Probably depends on what Bugs says.

Even with its new teeth, the Bar can't block ads just for being tasteless. This is still America, where buyer beware is the best admonition for the gullible ... and the most ignored.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.