For years, Ontario lawyers were barred from advertising their services. Crass commercial pleas, it was thought, would reflect badly on the profession and undermine trust in the legal system. This prohibition was eventually – and reasonably – deemed an impediment to the public’s right to know what legal services are available and, in 1987, the Law Society of Upper Canada changed the rules to allow for ads as long as they were factually verifiable, accurate and generally preserving of the public trust.
Or, at least, that was the idea. Since the rule change, according to a Star investigation, the world of legal advertising has become a “wild west,” with firms regularly making false or misleading claims or otherwise flaunting the regulations. Meanwhile, the law society, which is supposed to regulate the profession, appears to be doing little about it.
With trust in the legal system and other institutions on the decline, these truth-bending advertisements threaten to compound the problem. It’s time the law society took another look at the rules and how they’re enforced.
One issue is the touting of dubious awards and other unsubstantiated accolades in legal advertising. The current rules caution against any one firm stating it is “qualitatively superior” to another. Yet, as Star reporters Kenyon Wallace and Michele Henry discovered, dozens of firms, particularly ones specializing in personal injury, regularly break this rule.
Lawyer Brian Goldfinger, for instance, bragged on his website of having been voted “#1 in Client Satisfaction” and “#1 Personal Injury Law Firm” by “Elite Lawyers Ontario.” But the Star could find no trace of an organization by that name, other than a URL registered by Goldfinger himself.
Another web address, www.bestpersonalinjurylawyertoronto.com , led directly to the Preszler injury firm’s site. Contacted by the Star, a representative of the firm said Preszler does not own the URL and, in any case, he added, “I don’t think the name of a domain suggests that somebody is better than the other.” But how else, one wonders, can bestpersonalinjurylawyertoronto.com be read?
The law society is currently reviewing the rules around advertising and is expected to report back with recommendations later this month, possibly including an outright ban on the use of awards, real or imaginary, in ads. Given how widespread this practice is – the Star found 25 examples with a perfunctory Google search – and how many of the awards appear to be invented or paid for, that would be a good start.
A second issue is enforcement. Between 2011 and 2015, the law society received 604 complaints about problematic advertising – 304 of which were initiated by the regulatory body itself. Yet not one lawyer has been disciplined. Most of the cases have been resolved through compliance, such as changing the offending advertisements. With this the law society seems content, telling the Star that better enforcement is not likely to be among its upcoming recommendations.
That’s a mistake. Lawyers should not be allowed to lie to or mislead the public with impunity. Serious or repeated transgressions should lead to some form of discipline.
Going back to an outright ban on legal advertising would be misguided, but neither can lawyers be allowed to mislead the public and undermine trust in the crucial institution they represent. The law society has a responsibility to impose more stringent rules and to discipline those who break them.
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