Commentary on Lawyer Advertising

Sam Johnson writes to the Greensboro Law Blog:

I have just been through the recent issue of The Jurist, from Wake Forest Law School, and was disappointed to see page after page of the names of lawyers, many of them from Greensboro and the Triad, indulging in the self-advertising which is so obvious in their saying they each have been selected to be included in Super Lawyers or Elite Lawyers or something similar. Everyone should know that the “selection” is a matter of subscribing to the publication, and has virtually nothing to do with the abilities or skills of the lawyers themselves. This is a disservice to the profession and the public. It is simply more of the self-promotion that has ruined us as a profession, and I wish some movement could be initiated to put a stop to it. I was taught at Wake Forest that this sort of thing is clearly unethical, and yet it has become the norm. It is a pathetic way to “market” oneself in a supposedly dignified profession, which has lowered itself to being just another competing business.