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Tidbits

    This page is where were attorney can list good finds and bad finds.  The warnings and the hey, look at this.  If you have a Tidbit please e-mail it to me. VRW@WhelanLawOffice.com

    The solo group has essentially disbanded I am sad to say.

Marketing Tips- If you go to http://www.sharronsenter.com,or click on the green bubble below, you can sign up to receive a free e-mailed marketing tip weekly from Senter and Associates.  They are good, short to the point tips, and they don't clog your in-box.

Advertising warning on web pages

This is talking about when do we have to put a warning label on our ads and web pages.  Answer is really never.

Rule 7.2 the gist is don't lie or mislead.  It is at the website beolw.

Comment to Rule 7.2 Advertising  http://www.state.ma.us/obcbbo/rpc7.htm#Rule%207.2

 [3A] The advertising and solicitation rules can generally be applied to computer-accessed or other similar types of communications by analogizing the communication to its hard-copy form. Thus, because it is not a communication directed to a specific recipient, a web site or home page would generally be considered advertising subject to this rule, rather than solicitation subject to Rule 7.3. For example, when a targeted e-mail solicitation of a person known to be in need of legal services contains a hot-link to a home page, the e-mail message is subject to Rule 7.3, but the home page itself need not be because the recipient must make an affirmative decision to go to the sender’s home page. Depending upon the circumstances, posting of comments to a newsgroup, bulletin board or chat group may constitute targeted or direct contact with prospective clients known to be in need of legal services and may therefore be subject to Rule 7.3. Depending upon the topic or purpose of the newsgroup, bulletin board, or chat group, the posting might also constitute an association of lawyer or law firms name with a particular service, field, or area of law amounting to a claim of specialization under Rule 7.4 and would therefore be subject to the restrictions of that rule. In addition, if the lawyer or law firm used an interactive forum such as a chat group to solicit for a fee professional employment that the prospective client has not requested, this conduct may constitute prohibited personal solicitation under Rule 7.3(d)

Part of Rule 7.3

 (c) Except as provided in paragraph (e), a lawyer shall not solicit professional employment for a fee from a prospective client known to be in need of legal services in a particular matter by written communication, including audio or video cassette or other electronic communication, unless the lawyer retains a copy of such communication for two years.

 Comment To rule 7.3

[1] This rule applies to solicitation, the obtaining of business through letter, e-mail, telephone, in-person or other communications directed to particular prospective clients. It does not apply to non-targeted advertising, the obtaining of business through communications circulated more generally and more indirectly than that, such as through web sites, newspapers or placards in mass transit vehicles. This rule allows lawyers to conduct some form of solicitation of employment from all prospective clients, except in a small number of very special circumstances, and hence permits prospective clients to receive information about legal services that may be useful to them. At the same time it recognizes the possibility of undue influence, intimidation, and overreaching presented by personal solicitation in the circumstances prohibited by this rule and seeks to limit them by regulating the form and manner of solicitation by rules that reach no further than the danger that is perceived.

Below is an article by a BBO  bigwig. It is at http://www.state.ma.us/obcbbo/ad%5Fthis.htm

ADVERTISE THIS!

Changes to the Disciplinary Rules
on Advertising and Solicitation

by Constance V. Vecchione

Love it or hate it, twenty-two years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, advertising by lawyers is a fixed fact of life. Although the chasm that divides the Bar on this issue remains as deep as ever, the public seems largely either accepting or indifferent. The SJC’s recent revisions to the rules on lawyer advertising are therefore as important for what was not changed as for what was. This article will attempt—ever-so-neutrally!—to summarize the current state of lawyer advertising regulations in Massachusetts.
The recent amendments to Mass. R. Prof. C. 7.1 through 7.5 took effect October 1, 1999. Among the changes are amendments (and most particularly the amendments to the comments) clarifying the application of the rules to electronic, computer-accessed, or similar types of communications. The SJC has also ended the ban on in-person or personal solicitation but only of other lawyers, certain family members, former clients, and businesses. And the revisions remove the previous requirement that targeted written communications, such as direct mail, be labeled "advertising".

The article goes on ….