This will be a mostly short entry for this week because the most important item to put into your reading pile is what I’m writing about rather than the post itself. (Admittedly, I’m certain many of you are thinking … “well, that’s kind of always true Einstein.”)
I have written over the years here about a number of cutting-edge undertakings occurring in various states to try to address re-regulating the practice of law. I will not repeat that content here, but I will confess that I’ve fallen behind as there are some that have happened that have avoided my attention.
Many of those endeavors involve changes to the rules on legal advertising as a secondary-level improvement to other, bolder regulatory reforms. Here in Tennessee I don’t think we are very close to launching any sort of task force aimed at re-regulating the practice of law in the immediate future, but I am pleased to report that the wheels are beginning to turn on the topic of seeking reform of the rules on lawyer advertising.
Earlier this week, the Tennessee Bar Association filed a petition with the Tennessee Supreme Court asking it to adopt proposed revisions to the current ethics rules in Tennessee located at RPCs 7.1 through 7.6.
As the petition indicates, the rules revision proposal involves a blend of what APRL proposed back in 2015 and 2016 and what the ABA ultimately adopted as revisions to the Model Rules in 2018 regarding advertising matters. Like those reforms, the TBA petition would delete three rule provisions (RPC 7.2, 7.4., and 7.5) and move remaining comment guidance from those rules into the Comment to RPC 7.1. Tennessee would retain an RPC 7.3 addressing solicitation and some other issues.
The TBA also retains some existing Tennessee-specific approaches to issues, but, on the whole, the revisions would be significant progress toward two goals as explained in the petition itself:
(1) winnowing down restrictions imposed on lawyer advertising to the core requirement that lawyers not make false or misleading statements about themselves or their services, and (2) removing restrictions on communications by lawyers where the types of communications now barred are not likely to cause consumer harm.
As the petition was only filed this week, the Court has not taken any action on it such as putting it out for public comment.
Because I know a guy, if you’d like to read the petition and review its proposed changes, you can download those documents at the links below.