Lawyer Advertising: Then and Now

In his 1953 classic, Legal Ethics, Henry Drinker recounted a traditional rule about advertising by hanging a shingle outside your office: to determine whether the shingle is too conspicuous, "the test is whether the sign is intended and calculated to enable persons looking for a laywer, already selected, to find him, or to attract the attention of persons who might be looking for a lawyer, although not for him."  (p. 231)  Anything more conspicuous than that is too much.  An elegant rule for a more civilized age, perhaps.  Compare that with my favorite example of gonzo TV advertising: Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro, whose TV ads promised to "rip out the hearts of [the defendants]" and "hand you their severed heads."   (Unfortunately, the ads take a very long time to download.)

Comments

[markm]

And I thought the role of a tort lawyer was merely to "rip out their wallets".