S.C. App. Ct. R. 7.2
S.C. App. Ct. R. 7.2
Comment
[1] To assist the public in learning about and obtaining legal services, lawyers should be allowed to make known their services not only through reputation but also through organized information campaigns in the form of advertising. Advertising involves an active quest for clients, contrary to the tradition that a lawyer should not seek clientele. However, the public's need to know about legal services can be fulfilled in part through advertising. This need is particularly acute in the case of persons of moderate means who have not made extensive use of legal services. The interest in expanding public information about legal services ought to prevail over considerations of tradition. Nevertheless, advertising by lawyers entails the risk of practices that are misleading or overreaching.
[2] This Rule permits public dissemination of information concerning a lawyer's name or firm name, address, email address, website, and telephone number; the kinds of services the lawyer will undertake; the basis on which the lawyer's fees are determined, including prices for specific services and payment and credit arrangements; a lawyer's foreign language ability; names of references and, with their consent, names of clients regularly represented; and other information that might invite the attention of those seeking legal assistance.
[3] Questions of effectiveness and taste in advertising are matters of speculation and subjective judgment. Some jurisdictions have had extensive prohibitions against television and other forms of advertising, against advertising going beyond specified facts about a lawyer, or against "undignified" advertising. Television, the Internet, and other forms of electronic communication are now among the most powerful media for getting information to the public, particularly persons of low and moderate income; prohibiting television, Internet, and other forms of electronic advertising, therefore, would impede the flow of information about legal services to many sectors of the public. Limiting the information that may be advertised has a similar effect and assumes that the bar can accurately forecast the kind of information that the public would regard as relevant. But see Rule 7.3(a) for the prohibition against a solicitation through a real time electronic exchange initiated by the lawyer.
[4] Regardless of medium, a lawyer's advertisement should provide only useful, factual information presented in an objective and understandable fashion so as to facilitate a person's ability to make an informed choice about legal representation. A lawyer should strive to communicate such information without the use of techniques intended solely to gain attention and which demonstrate a clear and intentional lack of relevance to the selection of counsel, as such techniques hinder rather than facilitate intelligent selection of counsel. A lawyer's advertisement should reflect the serious purpose of legal services and our judicial system. The state has a significant interest in protecting against a public loss of confidence in the legal system, including its participants, and in protecting specifically against harm to the jury system that might be caused by lawyer advertising. The effectiveness of the legal system depends upon the public's trust that the legal system will operate with fairness and justice. Public trust is likely to be diminished if the public believes that some participants are able to obtain results through inappropriate methods. Public confidence also is likely to be diminished if the public perceives that the personality of their advocate, rather than the legal merit of their claim, is a key factor in determining the outcome of their matter. It is necessary to ensure that lawyer advertisements do not have these detrimental impacts. This rule is intended to preserve the public's access to information relevant to the selection of counsel, while limiting those advertising methods that are most likely to have a harmful impact on public confidence in the legal system and which are of little or no benefit to the potential client.
[5] Neither this Rule nor Rule 7.3 prohibits communications authorized by law, such as notice to members of a class in class action litigation.
Record of Advertising
[6] Paragraph (b) imposes upon the lawyer who disseminates an advertisement or causes its disseminationthe responsibility for reviewing each advertisement prior to dissemination to ensure its compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct. It also requires that a record of the content and use of advertising be kept in order to facilitate enforcement of this Rule.
Paying Others to Recommend a Lawyer
[7] Except as permitted under paragraphs (c)(1)-(c)(3), lawyers are not permitted to pay others for recommending the lawyer's services or for channeling professional work in a manner that violates Rule 7.3. A communication contains a recommendation if it endorses or vouches for a lawyer's credentials, abilities, competence, character, or other professional qualities. Paragraph (c)(1), however, allows a lawyer to pay for advertising and communications permitted by this Rule, including the cost of print directory listings, on-line directory listings, newspaper ads, television and radio airtime, domain-name registrations, sponsorship fees, Internet-based advertisements, and group advertising. A lawyer may compensate employees, agents and vendors who are engaged to provide marketing or client-development services, such as publicists, public relations personnel, business development staff and website designers. Moreover, a lawyer may pay others for generating client leads, such as Internet-based client leads, as long as the lead generator does not recommend the lawyer, any payment to the lead generator is consistent with Rules 1.5(e) (division of fees) and 5.4 (professional independence of the lawyer), and the lead generator's communications are consistent with Rule 7.1 (communications concerning a lawyer's services). To comply with Rule 7.1, a lawyer must not pay a lead generator that states, implies, or creates a reasonable impression that it is recommending the lawyer, is making the referral without payment from the lawyer, or has analyzed a person's legal problems when determining which lawyer should receive the referral. See also Rule 5.3 (duties of lawyers and law firms with respect to the conduct of nonlawyers who prepare marketing materials for them); Rule 8.4(a) (duty to avoid violating the Rules through the acts of another).
[8] A lawyer may pay the usual charges of a legal service plan or a not-for-profit lawyer referral service, which is itself not acting in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. A legal service plan is a prepaid or group legal service plan or a similar delivery system that assists people who seek to secure legal representation. A lawyer referral service, on the other hand, is any organization that holds itself out to the public as a lawyer referral service. Such referral services are understood by the public to be consumer-oriented organizations that provide unbiased referrals to lawyers with appropriate experience in the subject matter of the representation and afford other client protections, such as complaint procedures or malpractice insurance requirements. Consequently, this Rule only permits a lawyer to pay the usual charges of a not-for-profit lawyer referral service. The "usual charges" may include a portion of legal fees collected by a lawyer from clients referred by the service when that portion of fees is collected to support the expenses projected for the referral service.
[9] A lawyer who accepts assignments or referrals from a legal service plan or referrals from a lawyer referral service must act reasonably to assure that the activities of the plan or service are compatible with the lawyer's professional obligations. See Rule 5.3. Legal service plans and lawyer referral services may communicate with the public, but such communication must be in conformity with these Rules. Thus, advertising must not be false or misleading, as would be the case if the communications of a group advertising program or a group legal services plan would mislead the public to think that it was a lawyer referral service sponsored by a state agency or bar association. See also Rule 7.3(b).
[10] Paragraph (d) is intended to work in conjunction with paragraph (b) to provide accountability for the content of lawyer advertising. It applies only to communications that contain substantive advertising or soliciting statements and inferences beyond a lawyer or law firm's mere name, design logo, and ordinary contact information. Thus lawyers may advertise through promotional items, such as pens, clothing, coffee mugs, and signage without the need for the name and address of an individual lawyer responsible for the materials, provided that such items or signage contain nothing other than the firm name, logo, and contact information; that any logo is merely a design shape and not a depiction; and that any included contact information does not contain a tagline or slogan. Any depiction (such as an animal, hammer, or other recognizable thing) within a logo triggers the requirement of paragraph (d), as does any slogan, tagline, or logo whether used as a part of contact information (e.g., www.sclawyer.com or 1-800-SC-LAWYER) or otherwise.