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Lawyers Masquerade Online as VA Hospitals to Attract Plaintiffs

By Eric Lipman

Though Overlawyered often exposes the lighter side of things legal, yesterday it picked up a story about some pretty deplorable lawyer advertising tactics. Fortune had a lengthy article about a handful of law firms that had created Web sites with urls like www.vamedicalcenterpaloalto.com and used a Red Cross-like logo (though in the pictured screen capture from one of the sites, the cross appears to be orange) in an attempt to recruit asbestos plaintiffs. The sites reportedly listed three firms as "sponsors": Seeger Weiss, the Flood Law Office and the Law Office of Melinda J. Helbock. It was only after the Fortune reporter, Roger Parloff, began making inquiries of the law firms that disclaimers indicating the sites were not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs were added. Then the sites were taken down entirely. Though Parloff's calls to the "hotline" number listed on the sites was answered by someone who purported to be a legal assistant at Seeger Weiss, Christpher Seeger disclaimed all knowledge of the supposed link between the sites and his firm and -- this is priceless -- "blamed the problem on his firm's newly opened Los Angeles office." It doesn't take a legal ethics expert to detect...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on April 02, 2010 (boomark / email).