Court Opinion

ID: 9559211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:24:39.173371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:07.228667
License: Public Domain

HOLOHAN, Justice
(dissenting).
The matters presented by this case involve important issues of constitutional law and public policy. Recent decisions of the Federal Supreme Court have brought into question activities which were once assumed lawful in the regulation of professional conduct of attorneys. Assumptions of the past must be reexamined in light of the continual development of First Amendment rights. Despite my own personal dislike of the concept of advertising by attorneys, I have concluded that the advertising ban contained in DR 2-101 (B) of the Disciplinary Rules is unconstitutional.
There is an additional consideration present in this case which, aside from the constitutional issues, suggests that we should not enforce the ban on advertising when it deals with the fees to be charged for services. In Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975), the United States Supreme Court held that minimum fee schedules for attorneys is price fixing forbidden by the Sherman Act. The ban on advertising by attorneys is also under attack as 'a method of price fixing which is equally unlawful under the Sherman Act. The majority opinion does not contend that the absolute ban on advertising by attorneys is not a violation of the Sherman Act. This Court is content to rely on the position that the ban is exempt from the Sherman Act as state action, citing Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341, 63 S.Ct. 307, 87 L.Ed. 315 (1943).
Since the ban on advertising by attorneys was enacted by this Court under the authority of the State Constitution, the time has arrived for us to review that ban in light of the fact that such action is in fact contrary to the national public policy. It may be that we have the power to exempt attorneys from the Sherman Act, but should we continue such a position in the face of national public policy to the contrary ?
While this Court may enact an exemption from the Sherman Act, it may not limit the rights of persons under the First Amendment. What is at stake in this case is more than regulation of a profession or the discipline of two lawyers. More fundamentally there is involved the right of the public as consumers and citizens to know about the activities of the legal profession. Obviously the information of what lawyers charge is important for private economic decisions by those in need of legal services. Such information is also helpful, perhaps indispensable, to the formation of an intelligent opinion by the public on how well the legal system is working and whether it should be regulated or even altered. This Court’s power to *403regulate the profession of law comes from the people, and what the people give they can also take away. The rule at issue prevents access to such information by the public.
In May of this year, the United States Supreme Court struck down a ban on advertising of prices by pharmacies in the State of Virginia. Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976). The case held that “commercial speech” (advertising) is entitled to First Amendment protection. Society and consumers were held to have strong interest in the free flow of commercial information.
The majority opinion correctly points out that the U.S. Supreme Court reserved judgment on whether a ban on commercial advertising might be constitutional, stating:
“We stress that we have considered in this case the regulation of commercial advertising by pharmacists. Although we express no opinion as to other professions, the distinctions, historical and functional, between professions, may require consideration of quite different factors. Physicians and lawyers, for example, do not dispense standardized products; they render professional services of almost infinite variety and nature, with the consequent enhanced possibility for confusion and deception if they were to undertake certain kinds of advertising.” 425 U.S. 748, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.E.2d 346.
While the majority concludes that this statement supports a complete ban of advertising by attorneys, I am not inclined to such a conclusion. Certain kinds of advertising by lawyers may cause confusion and deception, but the remedy is to ban such kinds of advertising rather than any form of advertising. This appears to me to be what the Court meant in Va. Pharmacy Bd. when it stated: “In concluding that commercial speech, like other varieties, is protected, we of course do not hold that it can never be regulated in any way.” Slip Op. p. 22. Similarly, the Court noted: “Untruthful speech, commercial or otherwise, has never been protected for its own sake.” Slip Op. p. 23.
Disciplinary Rule 2-101 (B) purports to ban advertising by attorneys, but in reality the rule discriminates between one type of commercial advertising and another type which is permitted by Disciplinary Rule 2-102(A) (6).
“(A) A lawyer or law firm shall not use professional cards, professional announcement cards, office signs, letterheads, telephone directory listings, law lists, legal directory listings, or similar professional notices or devices, except that the following may be used if they are in dignified form:
“(6) A listing in a reputable law list or legal directory giving brief biographical and other informative data. A law list or directory is not reputable if its management or contents are likely to be misleading or injurious to the public or to the profession. A law list is conclusively established to be reputable if it is certified by the American Bar Association as being in compliance with its rules and standards. The published data may include only the following: name, including name of law firm and names of professional associates; addresses and telephone numbers; one or more fields of law in which the lawyer or law firm concentrates; a statement that practice is limited to one or more fields of law; a statement that the lawyer or law firm specializes in a particular field of law or law practice but only if authorized under DR 2-105 (A) (4); date and place of birth; date and place of admission to the bar of state and federal courts; schools attended, with dates of graduation, degrees, and other scholastic distinctions; public or quasi-public offices; military service; posts *404of honor; legal authorships; legal teaching positions; memberships, offices, committee assignments, and section memberships in bar associations; memberships and offices in legal fraternities and legal societies; technical and professional associations and societies, foreign language ability; names and addresses of references, and, with their consent, names of clients regularly represented.”
By whatever name described the “reputable law list” is advertising. It strains reason to contend that listing a law firm’s clients is not a method of publicizing the success and expertise of the members of the firm in serving clients, especially well-known corporate enterprises. The discrimination between other commercial media and reputable law lists has no rational basis. It is true that law lists are generally directories furnished to subscribers who are lawyers and other special groups. The record in this case notes that some law lists appear in public libraries. If the information in such directories is not misleading or injurious to the public or to the profession, there appears to be no justifiable reason why such material cannot also be used in the commercial media generally.
In summary, the ban on advertising by attorneys contained in DR 2-101 (B) is contrary to national policy, is a denial of First Amendment rights, and violates the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court should forthrightly declare the rule unconstitutional. We can then attempt to write rules which provide for public access to information about attorneys. It may be that the information currently permitted to be published in “reputable law lists” is also suitable for the members of the public. In any event what we have now is defective. We need to create new guidelines which allow for broader dissemination of information to the public but at the same time protect them from misleading or deceptive statements.