Can a lawyer let a prepaid legal service plan list his name, services, and fees in a brochure to its members, and can he distribute or pay for that brochure?
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This page answers the general question as of 1976. Ezel answers yours: whether it's allowed on your facts, under the current New York Rules of Professional Conduct, with citations.
Plain-English summary
The committee addressed a lawyer's cooperation with a qualified legal assistance organization that circulates a brochure to its members promoting a group legal service program. The brochure listed the lawyer's name, office address, telephone number, fields of concentration, biographical information, and a schedule of charges. The committee explained that the general ban on advertising in DR 2-101(B) was relaxed, effective in New York on April 19, 1975, for group legal service plans sponsored by "qualified legal assistance organizations," to help make counsel available to people above the indigency line but below the means to retain counsel at usual rates (EC 2-33; Definition 8; see N.Y. State 416 (1975)).
Under the amended rule, the organization (not the lawyer) may engage in dignified commercial publicity that does not name any lawyer, and, in communications directed to its members or beneficiaries, may identify a lawyer and furnish biographical information along with the fields he concentrates in and a fee schedule. The schedule should disclose any factors that might affect the stated fee (N.Y. State 417 (1975)). Such member communications need not wait for an inquiry; the organization may send them to its membership at large. The committee said a lawyer may "assist" the organization, for instance by furnishing information and helping prepare descriptive material.
The line the committee drew is who acts. The rule requires that the organization promote the plan. A lawyer may not distribute, cause distribution of, or pay the cost of printing or mailing the brochure, because doing so would use the organization as an indirect means of soliciting business in violation of DR 2-103(A) (see also DR 2-103(B), (D)(4)(b)-(c); Judiciary Law section 479). The committee added that its conclusion assumed a bona fide organization and a dignified brochure containing no untrue statement of material fact and omitting no material fact needed to keep it from being misleading.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 1976, before New York replaced the Code of Professional Responsibility with the Rules of Professional Conduct in 2009 (lawyer advertising and solicitation are now governed by Rules 7.1 through 7.3) and well before the U.S. Supreme Court's lawyer-advertising decisions began with Bates v. State Bar of Arizona in 1977. Subsequent rule amendments or later opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current guidance. Verify against current rules before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or requirement mentioned here.
Common questions
Q: Can a lawyer's name, services, and fees appear in a legal-plan brochure?
A: Under this opinion, yes, where the brochure is a communication from a qualified legal assistance organization to its members or beneficiaries; the amended DR 2-101(B)(6) permits identifying the lawyer and furnishing biographical information, fields of concentration, and a fee schedule.
Q: Can the lawyer hand out the brochure or pay for printing and mailing it?
A: Per the opinion, no. The lawyer may not distribute, arrange distribution of, or pay for the brochure, because that would use the organization as an indirect means of solicitation prohibited by DR 2-103(A).
Q: Must the brochure wait for a member to ask for it?
A: No. The committee read the rule to allow the organization to send such member communications to its membership at large without a preliminary request.
Background and rules framework
The opinion interprets the then-current New York Code's advertising and solicitation provisions as amended for group legal service plans, DR 2-101, DR 2-103, and DR 2-104, with EC 2-33 and Definition 8, building on N.Y. State 416 (1975) and 417 (1975). The current analogues are Rule 7.1 (communications about a lawyer's services), Rule 7.2 (advertising), and Rule 7.3 (solicitation).
Citations and references
Rules of Professional Conduct:
- MR 7.1 (communications concerning a lawyer's services)
- MR 7.2 (advertising)
- MR 7.3 (solicitation of clients)
- NY EC 2-33; DR 2-101, DR 2-103, DR 2-104; Definition 8
Statutes:
- N.Y. Judiciary Law section 479 (solicitation of legal business)
Other opinions cited:
- N.Y. State 416 (1975): guidelines for group legal service programs
- N.Y. State 417 (1975): fee schedules in member communications
- ABA Inf. 1298 (1974); ABA 334 (1974): communications to plan members
See also
- NY State Bar Op. 441: A fee-schedule brochure for office visitors
- NY State Bar Op. 452: A bar association's consumer legal directory
- NY State Bar Op. 458: A firm newsletter prepared by others
Source
- Landing page: https://nysba.org/opinion-428/
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