New York Attorneys Challenge Advertising Rules
A Judge in the Northern District of New York set a June 18 trial date for the pending challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s attorney advertising rules, which took effect on February 1, 2007.
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is New York law firm Alexander & Catalano–a firm well known for its flamboyant advertising. The state objects to “patent falsities” in Alexander & Catalano’s advertising; those “falsities” include the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound and a sketch in which an alien wants to fight an insurance company’s denial of claims for damages to its spaceship. Tellingly, Public Citizen, Inc., the Washington D.C.-based consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, joins Alexander in challenging the restrictions.
Even more disturbing, however, is the provision prohibiting attorneys from contacting victims or their families for thirty days following a personal injury. While it may seem on the surface that the provision provides a useful protection against vulnerable injury victims being pushed into hasty decisions, the fact that there is no such prohibition on insurance company contact renders the provision a dangerous one for consumers. Perhaps the greatest risk to an injury victim in the immediate aftermath of an injury is misinformation from an insurance company designed to compromise the victim’s claim, and the larger the potential claim–that is, the more serious the injuries and losses involved–the more incentive the insurance company has to lead the victim into statements against his interest, provide misleading information, discourage him from hiring an attorney, or encourage him to waive critical rights or future claims in the interests of getting medical bills paid.
