Superhero Lawyer Ads Are Ruled Fit for TV

Citing the First Amendment, an upstate federal judge is allowing lawyers to once again televise gimmicky ads, scrapping the efforts of top state judges who banned much attorney advertising in the name of the dignity of the legal profession.

A decision yesterday sides with a Syracuse personal injury firm, Alexander & Catalano, whose television spots featured its lawyers consulting with space aliens over a dented flying saucer, and sprinting at superhuman speeds to reach clients. The eight-attorney firm has not aired these ads since February, when a statewide ban went into effect on advertisements that use attention-grabbing gimmicks, such as portraying lawyers "exhibiting characteristics clearly unrelated to legal competence."

The effect of yesterday's ruling, by Judge Frederick Scullin of U.S. District Court in Syracuse, is to do away with many of the rules.

Top-ranking judges in the four judicial districts across the state had drawn up the ban. At the time it went into effect, state court officials justified the ban by saying it would protect clients from being misled and would raise the esteem of the legal profession.

The issue of attorney advertising has proven divisive among members of the bar. The disagreement generally cuts between corporate lawyers, who don't rely on television or billboard advertising, and personal injury attorneys, some of who do. Age may also play a factor in deciding sympathies.

"It's an internecine dispute," a legal ethicist at New York University, Stephen Gillers, said. "There are lawyers who hate it. They tend to be the older crowd that didn't grow up with it in the world. … Then there are lawyers who see it as a way of building their practice."

A lawyer for the consumer advocacy group representing Alexander & Catalano suggested the attention lawyers have given the issue is misplaced.

"The only people who are so concerned about the dignity of this advertising are lawyers," an attorney with Public Citizen, Gregory Beck, said. "Consumers couldn't care less, they're used to seeing these types of advertisements on TV." In striking down much of the ban, Judge Scullin mustered some sympathy for the critics of such advertising.

"Without question there has been a proliferation of tasteless, and at times obnoxious, methods of attorney advertising in recent years," Judge Scullin wrote, adding that those ads have "greatly diminished" the public's perception of lawyers.

Judge Scullin cautioned state judges to see that " the regulation of such advertising is accomplished in a manner consistent with established First Amendment jurisprudence."

Mr. Beck said it was "troublesome" that state judges did not manage to get that jurisprudence right when they drew up the rules dealing with the ban.

"If lawyers can't get the First Amendment right, how can we expect others to?" Mr. Beck asked. Judge Scullin upheld some of the new rules, including a ban on personal injury lawyers seeking clients right after a mass disaster.

"We're reviewing the decision and considering our options," a spokeswoman for the state court system, Kali Holloway, said, declining to comment further.