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Arlington Bar Association: Wrong Position on Advertising Certification

By Ben Glass

Virgina has a wierd ethics rule regarding the advertising that you are a board certified specialist. Essentially, you can advertise that you are, say, certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Then you have to add the silliest, dumb disclaimer that says something like "but Virginia has no method in place for approving certification agencies."

What's really dumb about the disclaimer requirement is that it confusing. Drag 10 people off the street and ask them what the heck this means.

So Virginia is thinking about changing the rule and eliminating this silly requirement for some of the big, well-known and respected certification agencies.

So I guess they asked organizations for comment. So get this. The Arlington Bar Association actually had a meeting, took valuable time to discuss this earth shattering development and voted NO, its a bad idea. "Don't need it", they say.

This is so typical of the elite bar. Without a shred of evidence (I'll bet they never received one consumer complaint) they continue to seek to impose silly (and, in this case, confusing) limitations on a lawyers right to deliver accurate, non-controversial information to a potential client without the government sticking its nose in the matter.

Bad idea, Arlington County Bar.

Full post as published by Effective, Ethical Marketing For Attorneys on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).