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Some DUI Lawyers Use Unethical Practices to Gain New Clients
Intense competition amongst attorneys in efforts to gain new clients has caused increasing numbers of lawyers to violate their code of professional conduct. Such unethical business practices have become commonplace on the internet. For example, at least one state has found that using another lawyer’s name to gain web site traffic subjected the lawyer to bar sanctions. As held by the North Carolina State Bar Ethics Committee:
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. Rule 8.4(c). Dishonest conduct includes conduct that shows a lack of fairness or straightforwardness. The intentional purchase of the recognition associated with one lawyer’s name to direct consumers to a competing lawyer’s website is neither fair nor straightforward. Therefore, it is a violation of Rule 8.4(c) for a lawyer to select another lawyer’s name to be used in his own keyword advertising.
This practice is sadly is a low to which more and more lawyers have stooped. The answer to “why” is pretty straightforward. In the last 20 years, competition for DUI clients has reached proportions that could almost be called cut-throat. This at the same time that competition at all levels has increased exponentially.
According to Time.com:
After the 2008 economic meltdown, the employment rate was far lower and the quality of jobs a lot worse. In 2009, only 65.4% of law school graduates secured jobs for which they needed to pass the bar. A sad sport has emerged of attorneys exchanging tales about just how bad things are for them. Many attorneys are stuck doing tedious, document-intensive contract work for as little as $25 an hour — certainly not the worst job in the world, but it significantly differs from what many of them had envisioned when they spent three years of their lives and $150,000 to get a law degree.
This bleak picture has only gotten worse since then, and this was all well before the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the world economy. Faced with few real job prospects, more and more new lawyers are trying to “hang a shingle” and go out on their own. At the same time, there are mass lay-offs of existing lawyers at large law firms.
According to the New York Times:
[T]he market for high-end legal services is continually shrinking. Dan DiPietro, chairman of the law firm group at Citi Private Bank, said he believed that the could experience a wave of job cuts. He believes that there were too many lawyers at the country’s largest firms, estimating that as much as 10 percent of the attorney population are excess personnel.
As a result of this otherwise dismal job market, marginally qualified lawyers are now holding themselves out as “experts” in practice areas such as DUI defense. Since they have not taken the necessary steps to establish their expertise in their own right, they do whatever they can to attract new clients, including trying to ride on the coat-tails of others.
What the unethical lawyer in North Carolina did is a practice engaged in by lawyers in nearly every state, including Michigan. Here’s how it works:
Lawyer A pays Google or Bing for search terms including the name of another, more established lawyer; let’s say in this example Lawyer B, who enjoys the reputation as the more established name in DUI defense.
In this example, attorney A’s keyword advertisement would establish a link to their practice’s website to be displayed on the search engine’s Google search results page anytime someone searched for the term “Attorney B.” Attorney A’s advertisement might then show up on the side of, or above the organic unpaid results, in an area designated for “ads,” “sponsored links,” and paid promotions.
Lawyers that do this in Michigan are simply unethical. Michigan’s Rule 8.4(b) is nearly identical to North Carolina’s in stating that it is unethical for a lawyer to: engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or violation of the criminal law, where such conduct reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer.
If you are facing criminal charges for drunk driving in Michigan, you would be well-advised to carefully select a lawyer who is meticulous in following professional conduct. Beware of any lawyer who makes promises or outrageous “guarantees,” about the outcome. Be sure to get your fee agreement in writing, and be sure that the lawyer that you choose is qualified to represent you. To learn more, call today and schedule a no-obligation consultation.