Opinion ID: 38
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lawyers' Reputations

Text: Finally, Florida Bar recognized the state's substantial interest ... in preventing the erosion of confidence in the [legal] profession that ... repeated invasions [of privacy by lawyers] have engendered. 515 U.S. at 635, 115 S.Ct. 2371. The Florida Bar court distinguished between two kinds of direct-mail advertisements: (1) those that cause offense to the recipient and whose harm can be eliminated by a brief journey to the trash can, id. at 631, 115 S.Ct. 2371; see also Bolger, 463 U.S. 60, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (rejecting federal ban on direct-mail advertisements for contraceptives), and (2) those whose harmful effects extend beyond the recipient by, for example, tarnishing the reputation of a professional group. See Florida Bar, 515 U.S. at 631, 115 S.Ct. 2371 (The Bar is concerned not with citizens' `offense' in the abstract, but with the demonstrable detrimental effects that such `offense' has on the profession it regulates. Moreover, the harm posited by the Bar is as much a function of simple receipt of targeted solicitations within days of accidents as it is a function of the letters' contents. Throwing the letter away shortly after opening it may minimize the latter intrusion, but it does little to combat the former. (internal citations omitted)). A solicitation that offends is not likely to be any less detrimental to the reputation of lawyers when spoken aloud, displayed on a computer screen, or conveyed by television. Accordingly, we conclude that ads targeting certain accident victims that are sent by television, radio, newspapers, or the Internet are more similar to direct-mail solicitations, which can properly be prohibited within a limited time frame, than to an untargeted letter mailed to society at large, which involves no willful or knowing affront to or invasion of the tranquility of bereaved or injured individuals and simply does not cause the same kind of reputational harm to the profession as direct mail solicitations. Florida Bar, 515 U.S. at 630, 115 S.Ct. 2371. Moreover, we do not find constitutional fault with the 30-day time period during which attorneys may not solicit potential clients in a targeted fashion. As with Florida Bar 's short temporal ban, New York's moratorium permits attorneys to advertise to the general public their expertise with personal injury or wrongful death claims. It thereby fosters reaching the accident victims, so long as these victims are not specifically targeted. It further allows accident victims to initiate contact with attorneys even during the thirty days following an accident. See Florida Bar, 515 U.S. at 633, 115 S.Ct. 2371. In fact, as amici New York State Bar Association point out, New York's moratorium is more narrowly tailored than that of Florida Bar insofar as it incorporates the Task Force Report's fifteen-day black-out period, which shortens the moratorium period to fifteen days where an attorney or law firm must make a filing within thirty days of an incident as a legal prerequisite to a particular claim. N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs., tit. 22, §§ 1200.52(e), 1200.36(a), 1200.36(b). No doubt the statute could have been more precisely drawn, but it need not be perfect or the least restrictive means to pass constitutional muster. Bd. of Trustees of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 480, 109 S.Ct. 3028, 106 L.Ed.2d 388 (1989). New York's moratorium provisions prohibit targeted communications by lawyers to victims, their families, or their representatives as to a specific personal injury or wrongful death event, where such communications occur within thirty days of the incident in question. Where a legal filing is required within thirty days, the moratorium is limited to fifteen days. These provisions, although they reach a broader range of advertisements than those proscribed by the moratorium in Florida Bar, do not impose barriers inconsistent with the First Amendment. We conclude that the moratorium provisions, as construed, are sufficiently narrowly tailored to survive constitutional scrutiny.