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More Bar Silliness: Heavy Hitter is Misleading

by Carolyn Elefant on March 3, 2006 · 3 comments

in Ethics & Malpractice Issues, Legal Profession Trends, Marketing Ethics

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A Nevada attorney, Glen Lerner, is challenging an ethics decision that prohibits him from calling himself “The Heavy Hitter,” according to this article, Lawyer to Sue Over Heavy Hitter Name. What’s even sillier than the title “Heavy Hitter” is the bar’s reason for banning it:  the bar believes that Lerner’s use of the term is misleading because it gives the public the impression that he is the only Heavy Hitter.   The article reports that reviously, Lerner had a run in with the bar over a television ad where a giant phone falls on a victim – and the bar believed that the ad could generate undue anxiety.

I don’t know whether Lerner’s the only heavy hitting lawyer in town.  But one things for sure.  With this kind of reasoning, the Nevada Bar shows that it’s a lightweight.

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  • http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq David Giacalone

    Wow, Ernie better not go around calling himself “The Attorney” in Nevada! This is more of the “dignity police” at work stifling advertising and competition in the name of protecting what is apparently a very dimwitted public.
    For those interested, there is a fuller version of this story in the Las Vegas Review Journal of March 2, 2006, here.
    You might also check out the “Public Blog” set up by the Nevada State Bar, on September 30, 2005, with the explanation “The image of the legal profession is important to us. We want to know how you feel about lawyers and their advertising.” After five months, there is not even one Comment on the site (of course the webmaster might have deleted unacceptable ones), which lists six questions:
    - “Are you offended by any particular attorney’s advertising?”
    - “Do you think lawyer advertising should be more strictly regulated?”

  • http://cowgill.blogs.com/legalethics/2006/03/heavy_hitters_h.html Ben Cowgill on Legal Ethics

    Heavy hitters: here, there and everywhere

    The State Bar of Nevada has advised a Las Vegas lawyer that he must stop running television ads in which he calls himself The Heavy Hitter. But apparently it will be okay if he calls himself a heavy hitter

  • gayle

    I personally believe that the bar should go after Lerner for misrepresenting himself. I can assure you that he did no “heavy hitting” when I hired him. While the State Real Estate Division found those involved guilty of fraud, Lerner dropped the ball and half the case was “dismissed for lack of action.”

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