United States Second Circuit

In a First Amendment challenge to attorney advertising rules issued by the New York Appellate Division barring, inter alia, testimonials from clients relating to pending matters, portrayals of judges or fictitious law firms, attention-getting techniques unrelated to attorney competence, and trade names or nicknames that imply an ability to get results, and establishing a thirty-day moratorium for targeted solicitation following a specific incident, including targeted ads on television or in other media, summary judgment order invalidating most of the content-based restrictions and upholding the thirty-day moratorium is affirmed in part where the content-based restrictions in the disputed provisions regulated commercial speech protected by the First Amendment. However, the order is reversed in part where: 1) the prohibition on advertising mentioning fictitious firms was valid because it targeted potentially misleading advertising; and 2) as to the moratorium, there was a substantial state interest in protecting the privacy and tranquility of personal injury victims and their loved ones against intrusive, unsolicited contact by lawyers.

Appellate Information

• Argued 01/22/2009
• Decided 03/12/2010
• Published 03/12/2010

Judges

• CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:, Before WALKER and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Gregory A. Beck (Brian Wolfman, on the brief), Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C., for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants., Owen Demuth, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Andrew D. Bing, Deputy Solicitor General, and Peter H. Schiff, Senior Counsel, of counsel), for Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General of the State of New York, Albany, N.Y., for Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees., David G. Keyko and Ryan G. Kriger, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, New York, N.Y., for amicus curiae Bar of the City of New York in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants., Kathryn Grant Madigan, New York State Bar Association, Albany, N.Y., and Bernice K. Leber (Jennifer L. Bougher and Ali M. Arain, on the brief), Arent Fox LLP, New York, N.Y., for amicus curiae New York State Bar Association in support of Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees.