These ads urge interested prospective legal clients to call a toll-free number. These calls go to a city in the South. No local or member attorney is identified by name in any advertisement. Neither organization is affiliated with, or endorsed or sponsored by, any New Jersey bar association, or the New Jersey Supreme Court. We find A and B are primarily lawyer referral schemes which utilize advertising.
Lawyers pay fees to receive referrals of cases.
This determination is communicated to the client, either explicitly or implicitly, by either giving the client a referral to a specific lawyer or declining to make such a referral. The lawyer must first establish that the party is either a New Jersey lawyer or someone acting under the direct supervision of a New Jersey lawyer, in accordance with the Rules of Professional Conduct. A lawyer or law firm purchasing advertising which does not mention the lawyer or law firm by name, but which still leads to client referrals or other benefits to the lawyer or firm, remains fully bound by the ethical rules governing attorney advertising, RPC 7.1 through RPC 7.5. If a lawyer is deriving benefit from ads directed toward the general public, the ads must comply in all respects with the advertising rules. We note that the use of advertising making claims about a large number of lawyers carries an especially high potential for misleading the public, because of the inevitable variations among the lawyers in ability, background, experience, and the like.