Bill Limiting Lawyers’ TV Ads Nears Passage : Law: Backers say the heavily amended measure targets misleading commercials of personal injury attorneys. Opponents say it threatens free speech.

Sandwiched between the soaps and talk shows, commercials for attorneys saturate California television with an implicit message: Simply call the toll-free number on the screen and you are on your way to easy cash.

In one, a motorcyclist claims his lawyer got him “$175,000 even though the police report said I was totally at fault.” In another, an accident victim happily reports that his lawyer came “to my hospital bed and less than a year later he got me $550,000.”

Now, the Legislature appears ready to put the brakes on what critics call false or misleading TV commercials that are pitched to unsophisticated consumers without regard to the circumstances of particular cases.

If the bill becomes law, “blood on the street” commercials will vanish, predicts David Allen, a personal injury attorney who advertises on television in Northern California and Nevada.

“You are not going to see a guy in a Hawaiian shirt drinking a mai tai and saying so and so got me $500,000,” said Allen, who supports the measure. “He’ll also have to tell you that he can never walk again or that his medical bills were over $1 million.”

Until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1976, advertising by lawyers was essentially prohibited. Since then, ads have evolved from mundane but straightforward pleas for business in newspapers and telephone directories to full-blown, professionally produced television commercials.

The proposed restrictions are contained in a heavily lobbied bill sponsored by the influential California Trial Lawyers Assn. It grew out of complaints of members in the fertile television marketing areas of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Douglas K. deVries, president of the association, asserts that the public’s perception of justice has eroded to an “image of accident victims calling attorneys through toll-free numbers before calling their doctors and loved ones.”

On the other side of this family fight among personal injury attorneys are lawyers who defend their advertising as an important service to low-income Californians who have legitimate claims but may not know how to obtain legal services.

These lawyers say the restrictive legislation threatens their constitutional right to free speech and that, although it is being advanced as a safeguard for consumers, it is really a grab by competitors.

Larry H. Parker, a lawyer who frequently advertises on Southern California television, says the trial lawyers association wants to “eliminate competition under the guise of attempting to protect the consumer. These country club lawyers don’t like guys like me taking cases from them.”

Parker accused the association of targeting television advertisers for discriminatory treatment while ignoring virtually identical lawyer messages in the telephone directory Yellow Pages.

“Some people may say some of my ads are distasteful. Some will say they are great,” Parker said. “The problem is, you cannot ban 1st Amendment rights (on the basis of taste). . . . If the consumer doesn’t like the ad, they can turn the channel.”

The measure (AB 3659) by Assemblyman Paul Horcher (R-Diamond Bar) has passed the Assembly. It is undergoing negotiation in the Senate and is expected to be approved before the Legislature adjourns Aug. 31.

Originally, the bill was more restrictive. It would have essentially banned lawyer commercials from television, including those of divorce, bankruptcy and other attorneys. One version would have restricted commercials to a line-by-line scrolling on the screen of the lawyer’s name, address, telephone number, date of birth and other objective but dull information.

But the bill was substantially amended by the Senate Judiciary Committee in the face of heavy opposition from attorneys who advertise, including Parker and the nationwide law firm of Jacoby & Meyers.

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), himself an attorney with long political ties to the trial lawyers association, said he sponsored a pair of “gruesome” negotiating sessions between the two sides in an effort to reach a compromise.

“I agree with the general view that the high mark for lawyers was when they wrote the United States Constitution and it has been mostly downhill ever since,” he said. “So, I think efforts by lawyers to try to clean up their profession are laudatory.”

The amended bill says a commercial “taken as a whole” must not be false, misleading or deceptive and that the lawyer must factually substantiate the veracity of the message.

The portrayal of certain issues, including references to money or the outcome of a case, would be presumed to be false or misleading.

Suspected violators could be reported to the State Bar by anyone. Depending on its findings, the State Bar could recommend shelving the commercial, although it would not have the authority to pull the ad.

If lawyers refused to take ads off the air, they could be sued in court by the person who made the initial complaint. Violators would be subject to a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per broadcast.

Parker argues that such suits actually would be filed by competitors--not consumers--and that the advertisers could be endlessly tied up in court defending themselves. Proponents maintain the bill has safeguards against harassment suits.

Current law requires truthfulness in all advertising. But proponents of AB 3659 argue that more is needed to cover lawyers who advertise on TV. Changes made in the Senate appear to have mollified most of the bill’s detractors.

“Once the emphasis of the bill changed from essentially prohibiting lawyer advertising to prohibiting false and misleading advertising, that was fine with us,” said Steve Meyers of Jacoby & Meyers, which switched from opposing the bill to supporting it.

Parker, himself a former official of the trial lawyers association, agreed that compromises in the bill have eliminated some of his objections, but says it still contains some “ugly stuff.”

The association’s deVries dismissed Parker’s contention that the measure discriminates against television advertisers as opposed to those who advertise for clients in the Yellow Pages.

He noted, for example, that most law firms who fought the early versions of the bill now support the compromise. “There is only a small segment of advertising lawyers, specifically Parker, who at this point continue to object,” he said.

“This is a truth-in-advertising law specific to attorney advertising,” deVries said. “It aims only at attempting to assure that the public will not be bombarded by false, misleading or deceptive advertising.”