To some of his colleagues in the Florida Bar, that's $4 million worth of negative publicity for the state's 55,000-member legal industry.
But to Morgan, and plenty of other lawyers, it's good business and a First Amendment right. More to the point, advertising has been the difference between his two-lawyer shop in 1989 and the 30-lawyer, 200-employee firm he runs today. He says his radio and TV spots generate 500 calls a day.
Such is the debate between advocates of tougher restrictions on lawyer advertising and the Florida lawyers who aggressively advertise their services.
A Bar task force that studied the issue for two years recently released a host of new limits, citing studies that purport to link lawyer advertising and diminishing respect for the legal system.
That argument has the majority of the Bar's governing board convinced. "I am totally opposed to advertising," says board member and West Palm Beach personal injury lawyer Robert Romani. "I think it has disgraced our profession."
Board members scrapped the task force's most controversial suggestion - to ban TV and radio ads altogether - amid concerns it would not survive a First Amendment challenge. But approval is likely of an alternate proposal that puts some further limits on ads.
Florida's 1991 restrictions are already among the toughest in the nation, prohibiting dramatizations, testimonials, celebrity endorsements and virtually any form of self-promotion beyond name, address and specialty.
According to Miami lawyer Stephen Zack, who chairs an American Bar Association commission on advertising, only Iowa has more restrictions.
Anti-advertising advocates were buoyed by a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that recognized the Bar's interest in maintaining the image of the profession as being in the public's interest as well. Until that decision, the high court cited First Amendment rights to reject almost every case of ad restrictions.
Now the Bar, encouraged by the decision, wants to limit TV ads to those featuring a single attorney speaking from an office or standing in front of law books in an "unadorned bookcase" or a one-color backdrop. No audio other than the lawyer's voice would be permitted, and the lawyer couldn't describe past successes or make statements to the "quality" of his services.
Proposals also severely limit the use of illustrations in print ads and restrict the name of the law firm to actual partners, except for firms that include the names of deceased or retired partners. The board approved a ban on the use of law firm trade names, such as "The Ticket Clinic" or "Accident Advocacy Center."
To some, giving a law firm a trade name, such as The Ticket Clinic, is no different than using the names of long-deceased founders. "Holland and Knight have been dead since Christ was a baby, but they're still advertising it," complains Morgan.
The Bar is unlikely to have the last word on advertising. A suit filed by personal injury lawyers Richard Mulholland of Tampa and David Singer of Hollywood challenging the 1991 rules on advertising is on hold in federal district court in Tallahassee, awaiting the Bar's decisions on new limitations, so the complaint can be amended to include them.
And while the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision may seem promising to anti-advertising advocates, the First Amendment lawyers say Florida's restrictions are constitutionally suspect. "I think they've got a problem with (the ban on) testimonials," says Fort Lauderdale constitutional lawyer Bruce Rogow, who is handling the suit along with co-counsel Beverly Pohl. "A testimonial, if truthful, is an honest statement, and the only thing it needs is a disclaimer that what worked for client A may not work for client B," Rogow says.
Rogow characterizes Bar surveys that suggest the public is losing respect for lawyers because of advertising as a "joke." With thousands of lawyers disciplined for serious misdeeds like stealing from clients' trust accounts, he asks, can aggressive advertising really be seen as a threat?
To Rogow, the issue has less to do with constitutional law than Freudian analysis. "These are lawyers so insecure in their own self image that they want to make everybody look like Atticus Finch."
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UNIONS
Government Lawyers, Unite!
A 1994 Florida law that put collective bargaining off limits to government lawyers has been struck down by a Tallahassee Circuit Court judge. The lawsuit had been brought by the roughly 700-member State Employed Attorneys Guild, which is seeking approval to organize such a union in Florida.
Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who argued that a government-lawyers union would undermine the confidential relationship between government lawyers and their client, the state, has appealed the ruling to the 1st District Court of Appeal.
The Florida Bar's nearly 800-member government-lawyers section has not taken a position on the matter, but chairman Thomas D. Hall says the group's executive council is "troubled" by efforts to organize such a union.
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