After the phone company left a lawyer's name out of the yellow pages, may it mail every subscriber a card correcting the omission?

Plain-English summary

A lawyer reported that his name and those of two other local attorneys had been omitted from the yellow pages of the last telephone directory. Rather than sue the telephone company, the lawyers proposed that the company send every telephone subscriber a card showing the omission and acknowledging its error. They asked whether distributing those cards would be unethical.

The committee held that distributing such cards would be a clear violation of Canon 27, which prohibits advertising directly or indirectly. It reasoned that mailing the cards to all subscribers would call undue attention to the attorneys' names and telephone numbers, and noted it had repeatedly held that bold-faced or specialty listings are improper because they serve to advertise rather than to help someone locate a particular attorney. Citing ABA Opinion No. 150 (Appendix A to the 1957 compilation), which stated that where a lawyer is omitted from the telephone book by mistake the proper practice is not to insert an advertisement but to send a letter to those whose personal relations warrant it, the committee said it would be proper for the telephone company to send a correction to other members of the bar and to the clients of the lawyers in question whose personal relations warrant such procedure. Any wholesale distribution, and certainly any distribution to all subscribers, would be a clear violation of Canon 27.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1959, decades before Oklahoma replaced its original Rules of Professional Conduct (patterned on the ABA Canons of Professional Ethics) with the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct (adopted 1988) and the later Ethics 2000 revisions. The advertising prohibitions underlying the opinion no longer reflect current law: the United States Supreme Court held in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977), that categorical bans on truthful lawyer advertising violate the First Amendment, and lawyer communications are governed by different rules today. Treat this page as historical context, not current guidance.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: Could the phone company mail a correction card to every subscriber?

A: No. The committee said distributing the cards to all subscribers would be a clear violation of Canon 27 as indirect advertising.

Q: Was any correction permissible at all?

A: Yes, a limited one. The committee said the company could send a correction to other members of the bar and to the lawyers' clients whose personal relations warrant it, following ABA Opinion No. 150.

Q: Why was a mass mailing treated as advertising?

A: The committee said it would call undue attention to the attorneys' names and numbers, which serves to advertise rather than to help someone locate a particular attorney they are already seeking.

Background and rules framework

The opinion applied Canon 27 of the Canons of Professional Ethics, adopted in Oklahoma, which bars direct or indirect advertising, to a proposed mass mailing correcting a directory omission. It relied on ABA Opinion No. 150. The opinion predates the Model Rules and made no Model Rule citation.

Citations and references

Rules of Professional Conduct:

• Canon 27 (ABA Canons of Professional Ethics, adopted by the Oklahoma Bar): prohibits advertising directly or indirectly.

Other opinions cited:

• ABA Formal Opinion No. 150 (Appendix A, 1957 compilation): where a lawyer is omitted from the telephone book by mistake, the proper practice is a letter to those whose personal relations warrant it, not an advertisement.

See also

• Okla. Bar Ethics Op. 202: Listing in the telephone directory of an out-of-town community
• Okla. Bar Ethics Op. 129: Bold-type listing in a telephone directory
• Okla. Bar Ethics Op. 197: Telephone-directory listing under "Adjuster"

Source

• Landing page: https://www.okbar.org/ethics/ethics-opinion-no-201/

Original opinion text

Reproduced from the official source for research purposes. The linked source is authoritative.

Adopted November 2, 1959

The Executive Council of the Oklahoma Bar Association has submitted to its Legal Ethics Committee the following inquiry:

INQUIRY

A member of the Bar has advised that his name and that of two other local attorneys was omitted from the yellow pages of the local telephone directory last published by the telephone company. He states that in lieu of a “lawsuit against the telephone company, we have proposed that they send out to each telephone subscriber a card showing that these names were left out of the telephone book, and acknowledging that they made this error in publishing the book.” He asks would the distribution of these cards be considered unethical?

OPINION

It is the opinion of the Committee that the distribution of such cards would be a clear violation of Canon 27, which prohibits advertising either directly or indirectly. The distribution of these cards to all subscribers would call undue attention to the names and telephone numbers of the attorneys in question. This Committee has on several occasions held that bold faced listings or listings under a specialty are improper in that such listings are obviously for the purpose of advertising and not for the purpose of facilitating location of an attorney’s name by one seeking that particular attorney.

This particular set of facts has been before the Ethics Committee of the American Bar Association. In Opinion No. 150 appearing in Appendix “A” to the compilation of 1957, the following statement is found:

“Where by mistake a lawyer was omitted from the telephone book, the proper practice is not to insert an advertisement but to send a letter to those whose personal relations warrant this.”

The Committee feels that this opinion is correct, and that it would be proper for the telephone company to send a correction to other members of the Bar and to the clients of the lawyers in question, whose personal relations warrant such procedure. Any wholesale distribution of these notices and certainly any distribution to all telephone subscribers would be a clear violation of Canon 27.