Bar’s Monitoring of Ads by Lawyers OKd by Court
The State Bar’s ban on “misleading” advertisements by attorneys has been upheld by the state Supreme Court, which ruled that two Los Angeles lawyers who mailed brochures to 250,000 people who had been sued was improper.
The court ruled that unsolicited mailings sent by attorneys Houston Slate and Andrew Leoni were “almost certain to cause panic and to mislead the recipients.”
Upholding a State Bar’s regulation, the court said Thursday that lawyers must clearly state that such mass mailings are advertisements.
Slate and Leoni started sending letters in 1978 to people who had been sued for damages or debt collection, using public records of court cases in the Los Angeles area.
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