Personal Injury Victims Deserve The Right Treatment From Lawyers

The mother of a young boy who suffered serious brain damage in an automobile accident immediately received a minimum of three mailed solicitations from different lawyers, one who even stooped down so low as to ask the mother how much money she would like to get from this case. Would a lot of parents be offended by being targeted of this blatantly intrusive inquiry? No questions about it, absolutely parents will feel offended by this type of intrusive inquiry. Will this certain movement dishonor the legal profession as a whole?

Most assuredly, yes. Upon urging the Florida Supreme Court by the state's bar association, the Supreme Court then decided to do something good by adapting a modest and very welcoming initiative. Before personal injury lawyers can send mails to victims of accidents or to their relatives, these lawyers will have to wait first for 30 days, according to this initiative.

The constitutionality of the rule however was challenged by a referral service whose main business is to look for clients to be referred to these personal injury lawyers by soliciting accident victims and their families. Knocked over by the US District Court in Tampa, Florida was the Florida rule where this US District Court stated that the lawyer's rights on freedom of speech under the First Amendment as applied to the States through the 14th Amendment has been violated. The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta agreed, albeit reluctantly, on the basis of its interpretation of US Supreme Court precedents over the past two decades those have granted lawyers the right to advertise their services.

The US Supreme Court has upheld the Florida rule, fortunately, on a vote of 5 to 4. While the case is being written, a female justice stated that the implementation of the Florida rule involved two convincing justifications. For personal injury victims to be protected against disturbing unneeded contact by personal injury lawyers or by their authorized agents is the first justification.

Only days after the accidents happened, direct solicitation takes place which angers the state licensed legal profession , the second one then aims to prevent this legal profession from getting irritated. As a form of commercial speech, advertising is subject to reasonable government regulations according to the lady justice. She added that the Florida rule somehow imposes a mild restriction that doesn't touch a lot of alternative channels for communicating the needed information about attorneys.

She noted in this regard that lawyers can broadcast and advertise on prime time television, radio as well as in newspapers. Lawyers could also rent space on billboards as well as to other forms of outdoor advertisements. Also, letters may be sent to the general population or to some discrete segments of society.

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