Public Citizen has filed another lawsuit challenging restrictive attorney advertising rules, this time in Louisiana. The Louisiana advertising rules which have yet to take effect are, according to Public Citizen, “among the most restrictive in the country.” Public Citizen has successfully challenged New York’s advertising rules (a decision that is currently on appeal) and has a pending lawsuit against the Florida Bar advertising rules.

What could Public Citizen have against rules designed to prevent sleazy attorney advertising? For starters, these rules are typically overreaching, and often descend into surreal levels of detail when describing what can and can’t be done in attorney ads. By broadly prohibiting all sorts of common advertising techniques, these rules ensure that most attorney marketing will be a bland mush, useless to both attorneys trying the set themselves apart and consumers trying to find the right lawyer. Such restrictions may also, as the Federal Trade Commission contends, actually even raise the prices consumers pay for legal services.

So why not just proscribe ads that are false and deceptive, and let attorneys advertise within those broad parameters? The fact of the matter is that the filter of “false and deceptive” advertising will capture virtually all ads that may cause consumer harm, while providing the greatest amount of information and protecting the constitutional rights of attorneys to commercial speech.

The problem is that state bar regulators, while justifiably concerned about consumer harm, are at least equally concerned with “preserving the nobility of the profession,” or some such thing. So they continue to enact misguided, overreaching regulations such as those in Louisiana. The good news is that most of these regulations are unconstitutional (commercial speech being entitled to First Amendment protection so long as it is not deceptive, after all) kudos to the folks at Public Citizen for taking the issue to the courts for resolution.

Copyright is one of the few issues that did *not* arise when Avvo Blog last visited Tattoos. In the NYT Ideas Blog today, the issue of tattoo artists having copyright claims to their tattoos is explored. The post links to a couple of law review articles that explore the implications of this issue. The Lewis & Clark law review article explores the issues in the context of the dispute that arose between Rasheed Wallace, Nike and Rasheed’s tattoo artist:

Tattoos are almost ubiquitous these days, with body piercing likely following closely behind. With advertising increasingly displaying skin- from hip huggers to cropped shirts to a basketball jersey showing an athlete’s tattooed arm-actors, actresses, and sports figures display both forms of body art on television, the silver screen, billboards, and the Internet for consumer product and service providers who hope to benefit from increased sales. But businesses, advertising agencies, and celebrities often lose sight of any interest that tattoo artists may have in the tattoos and body piercings. In this Article, Mr. Harkins uses the recent copyright infringement lawsuit stemming from the advertising use of basketball player Rasheed Wallace’s tattoo to analyze the current state of copyright law’s application to body art.

I wrote a while ago about a friend of mine, newly minted with a JD and licensed by Uncle Sam to carry an M-16, who was heading to Iraq to serve in the Army JAG corps. Turns out Chris found love amongst the sand, scortching heat and legal problems of our servicemen and women and will be marrying fellow JAG, Captain Kathryn Waits some time next year. Nothing like an engagement photo taken in a C-130 in full bail out gear:

Read the full story in the Princeton Packet.

I’ll repeat my reminder from the first post: “Whatever you may think of the war, please remember the young lawyers who have chosen a very different path and volunteered to put themselves in harm’s way to serve the legal needs of our servicemen and women.”

Jack Thompson Disbarred

Anti-video-game crusader Jack Thompson made the news this week for being disbarred. For those who haven’t heard, Jack Thompson is a (former) Florida lawyer who has become infamous for suing video game makers, blaming them for school shootings and more. Thompson is also partially responsible for removing Howard Stern from Orlando airwaves in 2004 by filing an FCC complaint. Thompson’s disbarment is the result of a variety of misconduct, including false statements to tribunals, improperly practicing law outside of Florida, and disparaging and humiliating litigants and other lawyers.

Former Medtronic Senior Counsel Airs Dirty Laundry

Ami Kelley, former senior counsel for Medtronic’s spinal device unit, made the news this week for airing Medtronic’s dirty laundry in court. Kelley is the plaintiff in an action against Medtronic to recover damages on behalf of the federal government. The suit alleges that Medtronic improperly induced doctors to use Medtronic devices covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Kelley revealed salacious details about how exactly Medtronic improperly induced doctors, saying it provided them with

Continuing our foothold in the Southeast, last night we launched in the wonderful states of North Carolina and Tennessee. Sitting side-by-side, these states add roughly 32,000 profiles to the Avvo system. Here are links to the top Avvo-rated NC and TN lawyers:

Top North Carolina Lawyers
Top Tennessee Lawyers

We are proud to be operating in both of these states. Whether you are a lawyer or someone looking to hire one, please send us any comments you have about the site good or bad. It is the only way we can improve.

Onward!

Mark

Hat tip to jurisnipper for drawing my attention to this amazingly accurate illustration of the length of time / odds for a foreign national to secure U.S. citizenship – courtesy of Reason Magazine. In the future, if lawyers tell me that they cannot possibly explain a complex body of law in a simple manner, I plan to refer them to this.

Update: If anyone interested in the broken state of the immigration system post 9/11, Rinku Sen and Fekkak Mamdouh will be giving a talk about their book The Accidental American at Elliott Bay Book Company at 8 pm

Are you befuddled by Twitter? Not sure if you should be on Facebook? Carolyn Elefant, a noted expert on setting up a solo legal practice, recently released an e-book entitled Social Networking For Lawyers (download available). Thanks Carolyn – we send you blog love.

Lawyers may have noticed that as of last week, in the “C” column of your dashboard appears a message, “Display Avvo answers and guides on your website”. Many of you who contribute to Avvo Answers and Avvo Legal Guides have clamored for the ability to syndicate this Avvo content back to your own blog or site. You now have that ability! Check out the implementation by Jefferson Coulter on his website:

The LA Times op-ed page has weighed in on Prof. Richard Sander’s fight to obtain information from the California State Bar, describing the bar’s denial as “indefensible.”

I’ve focused on the fact that the bar is claiming that State Bar records – unlike any other public agency records or court records – are not subject to California and common law public access rights. As noted in the comments to my last post, the Bar has also trotted out that venerable war horse of an argument long-used by recalcitrant public agencies trying to avoid transparency: “The request calls for a compilation, and that’s too much work.” This, in a day where responding likely requires spending five minutes setting up a query in the Access or SQL database holding the data.

My concern is government transparency, and it’s frustrating to see this politically-driven fight potentially lead to a decision that limits public access in CA. The opponents of Sander’s work would be far better served fighting his conclusions in a more direct – and scientific – manner. Instead they’ve chosen to try to throttle him from even gathering evidence, neatly ceding the moral high ground and giving Sander a PR bonanza to boot. Let’s hope their zeal to fight this request doesn’t set back the work California has done to date in making state government open and accessible.икони

Question: What do Young Buck, Keith Murray and Gabriel Schwartz all have in common?

Answer: They were all robbed while in possession of large amounts of cash and jewelry.

Question: What do they not have in common?

Answer: While Young Buck and Keith Murray are rappers who were robbed in nightclubs, Gabriel Schwartz is an attorney who was robbed at the Republican National Convention.

That’s right. Gabriel Schwartz is no rapper, although with the cash and jewelry he carries on him, you might think he’s one. Mr. Schwartz is actually a Denver attorney and delegate at this year’s RNC in Minnesota who was robbed of $50,000 in cash and jewelry (some reports claim the amount is as high as $120,000).

The unfortunate events that transpired are an all too familiar story, events some might assume to be an urban legend”a beautiful woman lures a single man back to a hotel, where instead of giving him the night of his life, she slips him a mickey and takes everything he’s got. When he wakes up, he finds the woman gone along with all his possessions.

But even if this is a clichéd MO, it still raises some pretty harrowing questions in the case of Mr. Schwartz”what was he doing carrying around $50,000 in cash and jewelry at the RNC? And why did his attacker sexually assault him (as this story claims) in addition to robbing him?

Perhaps we will never know the answers to these and other very important questions, but for those seeking insight into the mind of Gabriel Nathan Schwartz, this interview done at the RNC may help: