Court Opinion

ID: 9427213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:02.283121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.515783
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.*
I agree with the majority that the factual circumstances presented by appellant Ohralik’s conduct “pose dangers that the State has a right to prevent,” ante, at 449, and accordingly that he may constitutionally be disciplined by the disciplinary Board and the Ohio Supreme Court. I further agree that appellant Primus’ activity in advising a Medicaid patient who had been sterilized that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would be willing to represent her without fee in a lawsuit against the doctor and the hospital was constitutionally protected and could not form the basis for disciplinary proceedings. I write separately to highlight what I believe these cases do and do not decide, and to express my concern *469that disciplinary rules not be utilized to obstruct the distribution of legal services to all those in need of them.
I
While both of these cases involve application of rules prohibiting attorneys from soliciting business, they could hardly have arisen in more disparate factual settings. The circumstances in which appellant Ohralik initially approached his two clients provide classic examples of “ambulance chasing,” fraught with obvious potential for misrepresentation and overreaching. Ohralik, an experienced lawyer in practice for over 25 years, approached two 18-year-old women shortly after they had been in a traumatic car accident. One was in traction in a hospital room; the other had just been released following nearly two weeks of hospital care. Both were in pain and may have been on medication; neither had more than a high school education. Certainly these facts alone would have cautioned hesitation in pressing one’s employment on either of these women; any lawyer of ordinary prudence should have carefully considered whether the person, was in an appropriate condition to make a decision about legal counsel. See Note, Advertising, Solicitation and the Profession’s Duty to Make Legal Counsel Available, 81 Yale L. J. 1181, 1199 (1972).
But appellant not only foisted himself upon these clients; he acted in gross disregard for their privacy by covertly recording, without their consent or knowledge, his conversations with Wanda Lou Holbert and Carol McClintock’s family. This conduct, which appellant has never disputed, is itself completely inconsistent with an attorney’s fiduciary obligation fairly and fully to disclose to clients his activities affecting their interests. See American Bar Association, Code of Professional Responsibility, Ethical Considerations 4-1,4-5. And appellant’s unethical conduct was further compounded by his pursuing Wanda Lou Holbert, when her interests were clearly *470in potential conflict with those of his prior-retained client, Carol McClintock. See ante, at 451.1
What is objectionable about Ohralik’s behavior here is not so much that he solicited business for himself, but rather the circumstances in which he performed that solicitation and the means by which he accomplished it. Appropriately, the Court’s actual holding in Ohralik is a limited one: that the solicitation of business, under circumstances — such as those found in this record — presenting substantial dangers of harm to society or the client independent of the solicitation itself, may constitutionally be prohibited by the State. In this much of the Court’s opinion in Ohralik, I join fully.
II
The facts in Primus, by contrast, show a “solicitation” of employment in accordance with the highest standards of the legal profession. Appellant in this case was acting, not for her own pecuniary benefit, but to promote what she perceived to be the legal rights of persons not likely to appreciate or to be able to vindicate their own rights. The obligation of all lawyers, whether or not members of an association committed to a particular point of view, to see that legal aid is available “where the litigant is in need of assistance, or where important issues are involved in the case,” has long been established. In re Ades, 6 F. Supp. 467, 475 (Md. 1934); see NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 440 n. 19 (1963). Indeed, Judge Soper in Ades was able to recite numerous instances in which lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton, Luther Martin, and Clarence Darrow, volunteered their services in aid of indigent persons or important public issues. 6 F. Supp., at 475-476. The American Bar Association Code of Professional Responsibility itself recognizes that the “responsibility for providing *471legal services for those unable to pay ultimately rests upon the individual lawyer,” and further states that “[e]very lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, should find time to participate in serving the disadvantaged.” 2
In light of this long tradition of public interest representation by lawyer volunteers, I share my Brother Blackmtjn’s concern with respect to Part VI of the Court’s opinion, and believe that the Court has engaged in unnecessary and unfortunate dicta therein. It would be most undesirable to discourage lawyers — so many of whom find time to work only for those clients who can pay their fees — from continuing to volunteer their services in appropriate cases. Moreover, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that, where “political expression and association” are involved, ante, at 438, “a State may not, under the guise of prohibiting professional misconduct, ignore constitutional rights.” NAACP v. Button, supra, at 439. For these reasons, I find particularly troubling the Court’s dictum that “a State may insist that lawyers not solicit on behalf of lay organizations that exert control over the actual conduct of any ensuing litigation.” Ante, at 439. This proposition is by no means self-evident, has never been the actual holding of this Court, and is not put in issue by the facts presently before us. Thus, while I agree with much of the Court’s opinion in Primus, I cannot join in the first paragraph of Part VI.
Ill
Our holdings today deal only with situations at opposite poles of the problem of attorney solicitation. In their aftermath, courts and professional associations may reasonably be *472expected to look to these opinions for guidance in redrafting the disciplinary rules that must apply across a spectrum of activities ranging from clearly protected speech to clearly proscribable conduct. A large number of situations falling between the poles represented by the instant facts will doubtless occur. In considering the wisdom and constitutionality of rules directed at such intermediate situations, our fellow members of the Bench and Bar must be guided not only by today’s decisions, but also by our decision last Term in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U. S. 350 (1977). There, we held that truthful printed advertising by private practitioners regarding the availability and price of certain legal services was protected by the First Amendment. In that context we rejected many of the general justifications for rules applicable to one intermediate situation not directly addressed by the Court today — the commercial, but otherwise “benign” solicitation of clients by an attorney.3
The state bar associations in both of these cases took the position that solicitation itself was an evil that could lawfully be proscribed. See Brief for Appellee in No. 76-1650, p. 17; Brief for Appellee in No. 77-56, p. 19. While the Court’s Primus opinion does suggest that the only justification for non-solicitation rules is their prophylactic value in preventing such evils as actual fraud, overreaching, deception, and misrepresentation, see ante, at 432-433, 437-438, I think it should *473be made crystal clear that the State’s legitimate interests in this area are limited to prohibiting such substantive evils.
A
Like rules against advertising, rules against solicitation substantially impede the flow of important information to consumers from those most likely to provide it — the practicing members of the Bar. Many persons with legal problems fail to seek relief through the legal system because they are unaware that they have a legal problem, and, even if they “perceive a need,” many “do not obtain counsel . . . because of an inability to locate a competent attorney.” Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, supra, at 370.4 Notwithstanding the injurious aspects of Ohralik’s conduct, even his case illustrates the potentially useful, information-providing aspects of attorney solicitation: Motivated by the desire for pecuniary gain, but informed with the special training and knowledge of an attorney, Ohralik advised both his clients (apparently correctly) that, although they had been injured by an uninsured motorist, they could nonetheless recover, on the McClin-tocks’ insurance policy. The provision of such information about legal rights and remedies is an important function, even where the rights and remedies are of a private and commercial nature involving no constitutional or political overtones. See Mine Workers v. Illinois Bar Assn., 389 U. S. 217, 221-223 (1967). See also United Transportation Union v. Michigan Bar, 401 U. S. 576, 585 (1971).
*474In view of the similar functions performed by advertising and solicitation by attorneys, I find somewhat disturbing the Court’s suggestion in Ohralik that in-person solicitation of business, though entitled to some degree of constitutional protection as “commercial speech,” is entitled to less protection under the First Amendment than is “the kind of advertising approved in Bates.” Ante, at 455.5 The First Amendment informational interests served by solicitation, whether or not it occurs in a purely commercial context, are substantial, and they are entitled to as much protection as the interests we found to be protected in Bates.
B
Not only do prohibitions on solicitation interfere with the free flow of information protected by the First Amendment, but by origin and in practice they operate in a discriminatory manner. As we have noted, these constraints developed as rules of “etiquette” and came to rest on the notion that a lawyer’s reputation in his community would spread by word of mouth and bring business to the worthy lawyer.6 Bates v. *475State Bar of Arizona, supra, at 371-372, 374-375, n. 30; see ante, at 460-461. The social model on which this conception depends is that of the small, cohesive, and homogeneous community; the anachronistic nature of this model has long been recognized. See, e. g., B. Christensen, Lawyers for People of Moderate Means 128-134 (1970); Note, 81 Yale L. J., at 1202-1203; Garrison, The Legal Profession and the Public, 1 Nat. Law. Guild Q. 127-128 (1938). If ever this conception were more generally true, it is now valid only with respect to those persons who move in the relatively elite social and educational circles in which knowledge about legal problems, legal remedies, and lawyers is widely shared. Christensen, supra, at 130; Note, 81 Yale L. J., at 1203. See also Comment, A Critical Analysis of Rules Against Solicitation by Lawyers, 26 U. Chi. L. Rev. 674, 684 (1958).
The impact of the nonsolicitation rules, moreover, is discriminatory with respect to the suppliers as well as the consumers of legal services. Just as the persons who suffer most from lack of knowledge about lawyers’ availability belong to the less privileged classes of society, see supra, at 473, and n. 4, so the Disciplinary Rules against solicitation fall most heavily on those attorneys engaged in a single-practitioner or small-partnership form of practice7 — attorneys who typically earn less than their fellow practitioners in larger, corporate-oriented firms. See Shuchman, Ethics and Legal Ethics: The *476Propriety of the Canons as a Group Moral Code, 37 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 244, 255-266, and n. 77 (1968); Note, 81 Yale L. J., at 1204-1208; see also Garrison, supra, at 130. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the rules against solicitation were developed by the professional bar to keep recently immigrated lawyers, who gravitated toward the smaller, personal injury practice, from effective entry into the profession. See J. Auerbach, Unequal Justice 42-62, 126-129 (1976). In light of this history, I am less inclined than the majority appears to be, ante, at 460-461, to weigh favorably in the balance of the State’s interests here the longevity of the ban on attorney solicitation.
C
By discussing the origin and impact of the nonsolicitation rules, I do not mean to belittle those obviously substantial interests that the State has in regulating attorneys to protect the public from fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, overreaching, undue influence, and invasions of privacy. But where honest, unpressured “commercial” solicitation is involved — a situation not presented in either of these cases — I believe it is open to doubt whether the State’s interests are sufficiently compelling to warrant the restriction on the free flow of information which results from a sweeping nonsolicitation rule and against which the First Amendment ordinarily protects. While the State’s interest in regulating in-person solicitation may, for reasons explained ante, at 457-458, 460-462, be somewhat greater than its interest in regulating printed advertisements, these concededly legitimate interests might well be served by more specific and less restrictive rules than a total ban on pecuniary solicitation. For example, the Justice Department has suggested that the disciplinary rules be reworded “so as to permit all solicitation and advertising except the kinds that are false, misleading, undignified, or champertous.” 8
*477To the extent that in-person solicitation of business may constitutionally be subjected to more substantial state regulation as to time, place, and manner than printed advertising of legal services, it is not because such solicitation has “traditionally” been banned, nor because one form of commercial speech is of less value than another under the First Amendment. Rather, any additional restrictions can be justified only to the degree that dangers which the State has a right to prevent are actually presented by conduct attendant to such speech, thus increasing the relative “strength of the State’s countervailing interest in prohibition,” ante, at 455.. As the majority notes, and I wholeheartedly agree, these dangers are amply present in the Ohralik case.
Accordingly, while I concur in the judgments of the Court in both of these cases, I join in the Court’s opinions only to the extent and with the exceptions noted above.

[This opinion applies also to No. 77-56, In re Primus, ante, p. 412.]

 Appellant’s advice to Wanda Lou Holbert that she could get money from the McClintocks’ insurance policy created the risk that the financial interests of his two clients would come into conflict.

 EC 2-25. The Disciplinary Rules of the Code, moreover, while generally forbidding a lawyer from “knowingly assist [ing] a person or organization that furnishes or pays for legal services to others to promote the use of his services,” makes an exception for attorney participation in, inter alia, legal aid or public defender offices. DR 2-103 (D)(1).

 By “benign” commercial solicitation, I mean solicitation by advice and information that is truthful and that is presented in a noncoercive, nondeceitful, and dignified manner to a potential client who is emotionally and physically capable of making a rational decision either to accept or reject the representation with respect to a legal claim or matter that is not frivolous. Cf. Louisville Bar Assn. v. W. Hubbard, 282 Ky. 734, 739, 139 S. W. 2d 773, 775 (1940) (attorney may personally solicit business “where he does not take advantage of the ignorance, or weakness, or suffering, or human frailties of the expected clients, and where no inducements are offered them”); see also Petition of R. Hubbard, 267 S. W. 2d 743, 744 (Ky. 1954).

 As we noted only last Term in Bates, there appears to be substantial underutilization of lawyers’ services. 433 U. S., at 370-371, nn. 22, 23; see 4 ABA Alternatives 1 (July 1977), summarizing report of ABA Special Committee to Survey Legal Needs. This problem may be especially acute among the middle-class majority of this country, persons too affluent to qualify for government-funded legal services but not wealthy enough to afford the fees of the major law firms that serve mostly corporate clients. See generally B. Christensen, Lawyers for People of Moderate Means (1970).

 The Court may mean simply that conducting solicitation in person presents somewhat greater dangers that the State may permissibly seek to avoid. See infra, at 476-477. But if instead the Court means that different forms of “commercial speech” are generally to be subjected to differing levels of First Amendment scrutiny, I cannot agree. The Court also states that “in-person solicitation of professional employment by a lawyer does not stand on a par with truthful advertising about the availability and terms of routine legal services.” Ante, at 455. The relevant comparison, however, at the least is between truthful in-person solicitation of employment and truthful advertising.

 The Court’s opinion in Bates persuasively demonstrated the lack of basis for concluding that advertising by attorneys would demean the profession, increase the incidence of fraudulent or deceptive behavior by attorneys, or otherwise harm the consumers of legal services. It is interesting in this connection to note that for many years even those in favor of the rules against solicitation by attorneys agreed that solicita*475tion was not ‘‘malum, in se.” H. Drinker, Legal Ethics 211 n. 3 (1953). Dr. Johnson, a venerable commentator on mores of all sorts, expressed well the prevailing view of the profession when he stated: “I should not solicit employment as a lawyer — not because I should think it wrong, but because I should disdain it.” Quoted in R. Pound, The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modem Times 12 n. 3 (1953). As Bates made clear, “disdain” is an inadequate basis on which to restrict the flow of information otherwise protected by the First Amendment.

 According to the American Bar Foundation, 72.7% of all lawyers were in private practice in 1970; of these, over half practiced as individual practitioners. The 1971 Lawyer Statistical Report 10 (1972).

 Remarks of L. Bernstein, Chief, Special Litigation Section, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice, reprinted in 5 CCH Trade Reg. Rep. *477¶ 50,197 (1974) (emphasis added). In addition, at least one bar association has recently considered proposals to eliminate its current prohibitions on solicitation and instead to prohibit false and misleading statements and the solicitation of clients who have given adequate notice that they do not want to hear from the lawyer. Petition of the Board of Governors of the District of Columbia Bar for Amendments to Rule X of the Rules Governing the Bar of the District of Columbia, reproduced in App. B to Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, O. T. 1976, No. 76-316.