Lawyer Blogs and the Right to Advertise

In the United States, the growing phenomenon of blogging has added a twist to the broader debate about advertising by lawyers. In 1978, the US Supreme Court affirmed lawyers' First Amendment rights to advertise, and each State drafted guidelines to protect consumers from deceptive legal advertisements. Most large corporate law firms prefer not to advertise but, instead, choose to disseminate news about the firm in the hope of generating relatively cost-free publicity. Although not advertising as such, it achieves a similar purpose: to promote the firm's name and activities. Enter a new medium: the blog, which falls somewhere between the two. Some commentators refer to weblogs involving the law and law firms as "blawgs", and in some States, they are being regulated as advertising. For example, in Kentucky, which has broad rules that define advertising as any communication to the public that contains information about the lawyer or the lawyer's practice, some blogging lawyers have struggled to comply with rules requiring all ads to be submitted for approval to Kentucky's Attorney Advertising Commission. After some negotiations, the Commission reached a compromise: bloggers don't have to submit and pay a review fee for every new entry, but must do so if the blog contains a link to biographical information about the lawyer. In Canada, fewer than 100 lawyers currently have blogs, but the issue of regulation is likely to arise in the future as more and more are created. For the full text of relevant news article, see: http://makeashorterlink.com/?M1CE23C3E; and http://kevin.lexblog.com/ Summary by: Heather Watts