Lawyer and law firm web pages as advertising: proposed guidelines.

Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal, June, 2002 by Vanessa S. Browne-Barbour

I. INTRODUCTION

Currently, there are no uniform standards designed specifically to regulate lawyer communications on the Internet. Each state and each federal district court is free to promulgate its own rules of professional conduct. (1) Each federal court can adopt the rules of ethics for the state in which it is situated, develop its own set of rules or choose not to develop any local rules to govern professional conduct. (2) For example, without uniform standards, lawyers and law firms advertising through websites accessible to the general public risk violating ethics rules in numerous states, thereby becoming subject to civil and criminal penalties in multiple jurisdictions and possible disciplinary proceedings. (3) Even if the proposed Model Rules of...