Opinion ID: 2103926
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: The Constitutionality of DR 2-101(C)(3)

Text: The Board argues that Tennessee's interest in requiring non-certified attorneys who advertise specialty services to include a disclaimer in their ads is substantial: protecting consumers of legal services by allowing them to make informed judgments about which attorney to hire to handle their legal needs. We agree that this interest is substantial. As one court has put it, the state, as part of its duty to regulate attorneys, has an interest in ensuring and encouraging the flow of helpful, relevant information about attorneys. Mason, 208 F.3d at 956; see also Peel, 496 U.S. at 110, 110 S.Ct. at 2293 (Information about certification and specialties facilitates the consumer's access to legal services and thus better serves the administration of justice.). See generally Florida Bar, 515 U.S. at 625, 115 S.Ct. at 2376 (States have a compelling interest in the practice of professions within their boundaries, and ... as part of their power to protect the public health, safety, and other valid interests they have broad power to establish standards for licensing practitioners and regulating the practice of professions.) (quoting Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 792, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 2016, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975)). Since the state's interest is substantial, the question is whether DR 2-101(C)(3) is reasonably related to promoting that interest. See Douglas, 921 S.W.2d at 186 (quoting Zauderer, 471 U.S. at 650-51, 105 S.Ct. at 2281-82). The record before this Court when the certification disclaimer rule was considered in 1993 reveals that the Commission on Continuing Legal Education (Commission), which petitioned this Court to adopt the rule, had the following concern: lawyers who were advertising specialties were actually obtaining far fewer Continuing Legal Education hours of training than leading practitioners in that specialty area who were not advertising. See Commission on Continuing Legal Education, Attorney Specialization in Tennessee 5 (1992) ( reprinted in In re Petition to Amend Supreme Court Rules 8 and 21, No. 01S01-9304-OT-00066 (filed Feb. 26, 1993) (Ex. C)). [2] This was problematic because an American Bar Association survey indicated that the public expected a lawyer who advertised in a particular area of law to have greater education in that area than other lawyers. See id. (citing ABA Specialization Desk Book, A Survey on How the Public Perceives a Specialist (1990)). The Commission thought the public would be better served if presented with a more accurate picture of an advertising lawyer's level of education. The disclaimer rule the Commission advocated and this Court ultimately adopted promotes the Commission's legitimate goal by clearly and succinctly providing the public with information about the certification status of attorneys who advertise their services. This information will help a consumer identify which lawyers may have more experience and education in a particular area of law [3] knowledge which will help that consumer hire a lawyer to represent his interests. It is not contended, of course, that the disclaimer rule by itself provides all the useful information the public might wish to obtain; indeed, many attorneys advertise, and consumers will still have to make choices among attorneys with a similar certification status. But the information required by DR 2-101(C)(3) is one piece of information that will assist consumers in making those choices. The required disclaimer is therefore reasonably related to promoting the substantial interest of helping consumers to make informed judgments about which attorneys they should entrust with their legal needs. Next, we must determine whether DR 2-101(C)(3) is unduly burdensome. The United States Supreme Court in Ibanez confronted a Florida Board of Accountancy rule that required a Certified Financial Planner who included a specialist designation on an advertisement to disclose, among other things, the requirements for recognition of the agency that certified her as a specialist. Ibanez, 512 U.S. at 146, 114 S.Ct. at 2090. Although the Court concluded that the disclosure requirement was unconstitutional because the Florida Board had failed to justify the need for such regulation, it also noted that the disclosure requirement was too burdensome: The detail required in the disclaimer currently described by the Board effectively rules out notation of the `specialist' designation on a business card or letterhead, or in a yellow pages listing. Id., 512 U.S. at 146-47, 114 S.Ct. at 2090-91. In contrast to the detailed disclaimer in Ibanez , the disclaimer required by DR 2-101(C)(3) is as short and free of burdensome detail as possible. It simply requires the following language: Not certified as a (area of practice) specialist by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization. This statement does not require an attorney who advertises his skills to disclose anything more than the basic fact of his non-certification; no extraneous information or lengthy detail is required. We hold that the disclaimer here satisfies the constitutional standard. Finally, Walker argues that even if the disclosure rule is constitutional, the State cannot require him to use the precise language listed in DR 2-101(C)(3). He argues that any statement that conveys the same meaning as the specific language in the disciplinary rule is sufficient. He claims that his disclaimer, which states that he was not certified as a specialist by the Tennessee Commission on Certification and Specialization, meets this standard. Consequently, he argues that no sanction against him is permissible on this ground. We will respond to this argument directly, but we first note that Walker received one of the lighter sanctions, a private reprimand, and that this sanction was fully justified by Walker's failure to include any disclaimer on some of his ads. Walker argues that the United States Supreme Court's decision in In re R.M.J., 455 U.S. 191, 102 S.Ct. 929, 71 L.Ed.2d 64 (1982) supports his position. We disagree. R.M.J . held that an attorney could not be disciplined for deviating from the precise listing of areas of practice which a Missouri disciplinary rule required him to follow when advertising his specialty skills. Id., 455 U.S. at 205, 102 S.Ct. at 938. Specifically, the attorney advertised his skills in the area of real estate instead of the required property, and he listed his skills in contracts and securities though no such designations has been approved by the Missouri state board. Id. The Court's rationale was that the listing published by the appellant has not been shown to be misleading, and... the [Missouri Board] suggests no substantial interest promoted by the restriction. Id. Unlike R.M.J ., where the attorney's advertisements could not have been misleading, we think that deviations from the specific wording of DR 2-101(C)(3) could lead to public confusion. The required disclaimer statement was worded in the most simple, direct fashion so that the public would have no difficulty understanding its meaning or comparing different attorney advertisements. This goal might easily be thwarted if attorneys were allowed to write their own disclaimer statements. Rather than focus on the intended messagethat an attorney is not certifieda consumer would be forced to parse the meaning of different disclaimer statements, attempting to understand without any guidance why one attorney's disclaimer was different than another's. The Board's interest in requiring uniform language is significant for another reason. Just as the absence of uniformity would require a consumer to compare many different disclaimer statements, so would the Board, and subsequently the courts, be forced to examine advertisement after advertisement in an effort to determine which attorneys substantially complied with DR 2-101(C)(3) and which attorneys fell somewhat short. This costly and inefficient task seems entirely unnecessary in light of the ease of complying with a uniform ruleespecially one which is as short and free of burdensome detail as possible. In upholding the requirement that lawyers who advertise adhere to the exact language in DR 2-101(C)(3) we note what the United States Supreme Court stated in Zauderer . Responding to the appellant's argument that the Ohio Supreme Court's disclosure rule in that case was unduly burdensome, the Court stated that [t]he vagueness of the Ohio Supreme Court's opinion regarding precisely what an attorney must disclose in an advertisement mentioning a contingent fee is ... unfortunate. Zauderer, 471 U.S. at 653 n. 15, 105 S.Ct. at 2283 (suggesting that Ohio's failure to articulate the requirements of its disclosure rule would prohibit disbarment of an attorney who violated the rule on due process and First Amendment grounds). In contrast, DR 2-101(C)(3) is perfectly clear, and that clarity buttresses rather than undermines its constitutionality.