Case Title: In re PRB Docket No. 2002.093

Citation: 177 Vt. 629, 2005 VT 2, 868 A.2d 709

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2005-01-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re PRB Docket No. 2002.093  (2003-519); 177 Vt. 629; 868 A.2d 709

2005 VT 2

[Filed 11-Jan-2005]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                  2005 VT 2

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2003-519

                               JUNE TERM, 2004

  In re PRB Docket No. 2002.093     }     APPEALED FROM:
                                    }
                                    }
                                    }     Professional Responsibility Board
                                    }     
                                    }
                                    }     DOCKET NO. PRB 2002.093

       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶  1.     We review, sua sponte, a Professional Responsibility Board
  Hearing Panel decision that respondent attorney placed a misleading
  advertisement of professional services, in violation of Rule 7.1 of the
  Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct, and should be privately admonished
  as a consequence.(FN1)  We affirm the hearing panel's finding and penalty
  recommendation.
  
       ¶  2.     The facts, as stipulated by the parties and found by the
  hearing panel, may be briefly summarized.   Respondent placed an
  advertisement in the Yellow Pages describing his law firm-in large capital
  letters placed at the top of the advertisement-as "INJURY EXPERTS."  Below
  this description was a list of the firm's attorneys and a second, smaller
  caption reading: "WE ARE THE EXPERTS IN" followed by three enumerated areas
  of law. A complaint concerning the advertisement was filed with the Board,
  resulting in the firm's decision to revise the advertisement the following
  year by removing the quoted language.  

       ¶  3.     Based on respondent's and disciplinary counsel's joint
  recommendation, the hearing panel concluded that respondent had violated
  Rule 7.1(c), by placing an advertisement that implicitly compared his
  firm's services with those provided by other lawyers in a way that can not
  be "factually substantiated." The panel noted that the phrase "the experts"
  was "an implicit statement of superiority" as compared with other firms,
  and had a "serious potential to mislead the consumer, since there is no
  objective way to verify the claim."  The panel further concluded that the
  alternative description of the firm as "injury experts" was not "likely to
  create an unjustified expectation about results the lawyer can achieve,"
  and therefore was not misleading under Rule 7.1(b).  In response to
  disciplinary counsel's subsequent motion, however, the panel amended its
  decision, ruling that the phrase "injury experts" was "likely to create an
  unjustified differentiation and expectation among those reading the
  advertisement about the results which can be achieved by a lawyer claiming
  to be an expert" that could not be objectively substantiated, and therefore
  was a violation of the Rule.  We ordered review on our own motion, under
  A.O. 9, Rule 11(E), to address an issue of substantial and continuing
  import to the bar and the public at large.  

       ¶  4.     On review by this Court, a disciplinary hearing panel's
  findings, "whether purely factual or mixed law and fact, are upheld if they
  are clearly and reasonably supported by the evidence."  In re Sinnott, 2004
  VT 16, ¶ 10, 15 Vt. L. W. 63,