Florida Rule's New Law on How Lawyers Should Treat Victims of Accidents

The young boy who suffered from a serious brain damage because of a car accident was the reason why his mother received so many mailed solicitations from different lawyers asking the price that she wanted to get out of this case. Do you think parents in this kind of position would be offended because they were asked with this type of inquiry? Definitely, a lot of parents will be offended by this kind of invasive inquiry. Upon implementing modern style ambulance chasers, will it bring discredit on the legal profession as a whole?

Well, of course. To respond accordingly to this situation, the Florida Supreme Court which was consistently insisted by the state's bar association, decided to take a somehow modest and very much welcomed initiative. It announced that 30 days would be the waiting period for personal injury lawyers before they can actually solicit business by mail intended for victims of accidents or their relatives.

These personal injury lawyers are helped by a referral service whose business is to look for clients by soliciting accident victims and their families, this business of theirs is challenged by this rule. The US District Court in Tampa, Florida was declared as an intrusion on lawyer's rights to freedom of speech, under the First Amendment as applied to the States through the 14th Amendment, this court also overturned the Florida rule. The 11th Circuit in Atlanta of the US Court of Appeals agreed but based on its interpretation of US Supreme Court examples over the last 20 years, those lawyers granted the right to advertise their services may only do so.

The Florida rule has been fortunately upheld by the US Supreme Court on a 5 to 4 vote. There were two convincing justifications for the implementation of the Florida rule according to a female justice who was writing about the case. One is to protect the privacy and tranquility of personal injury victims and their loved ones against intrusive, unsolicited contact by personal injury lawyers or their authorized agents.

The second one is to prevent the outrage with the state licensed legal profession because the practice of direct solicitation occurred only days after accidents. Pointed out by the lady justice is that being a form of commercial speech, advertising should be subjected to reasonable government regulations. The Florida rule restricts the communication of the needed information about attorneys according to her.

With this given, she stated that Florida does allow lawyers to advertise through media whether it may be on television, radio or in the newspapers. Other forms of outdoor advertisements and spaces on billboards may be rented by lawyers. They may also send letters to the general population or to some discrete segments of society.

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