Recently I was involved in an accident in which my truck was rear-ended. Briefly scary, and productive of some fairly impressive body damage, but no one was hurt (Mr. Brainless Tailgater wound up being cited by the cops).
A couple of weeks later I got a large envelope in the mail, prominently marked “Important Documents Relating To Your Accident” from a local attorney. He enclosed a copy of my official accident report (which I’d obtained previously from the police) and an advertising come-on which revolved heavily around the idea that if I’d been injured in the crash, I had money coming and he was just the guy to get it for me.
The problem here is that the accident report prominently states that <i>no one was injured</i>. There are undoubtedly potential clients to whom that wouldn’t matter if they saw a chance to climb aboard the gravy train, but that seems besides the point.
So the question is, how would this mailing appear to the legal community: 1) innocuous, 2) somewhat embarassing but aboveboard, 3) unethical ?
You know, I think I’m developing head and back pains.
If you’re willing to name your state, the legal types can perhaps more easily figure out which of the varying versions of the ethics rules apply.
Your letter exemplifies what’s probably the worst societal aspect of the tort situation today: It’s created almost a presumption (I hope a rebuttable one) that if you’ve been injured, you’re probably in line for money from someone else – without knowing anything else about the circumstances. I love the subway/bus ads that show a laundry list of things that are in many cases <just bad outcomes of life> (“Head injury? Birth Defect? Asthma? Back Pain?”), then urge you to call a lawyer. Strikes me as an exceedingly bad way of socializing the young/poor/immigrant populations they seem to be targeting, but who can then blame those groups if they end up thinking that accident/bad luck=someone else’s fault? I remember witnessing a fender bender that was probably 60% car A’s fault, 40% car B’s fault, and watching with bemusement as the occupants of car A, before even checking to see if their kids in the backseat were all right, got out of the car and started excitedly stating their demands for their “compensation,” which was one of the few comparatively clear words in their otherwise heavily-accented English. The power of advertising.
I think it’s unethical, and if I received it I’d forward it to my state’s Bar Association with a letter of complaint. I don’t care if it’s technically okay or not; it would offend me.
spooje’s point had occurred to me. The likelihood of any significant injury without symptomatology at the time of the crash is exceedingly low, in my opinion. Some years ago I had mild neck soreness developing a day or two after a rear-end accident (the dreaded “whiplash”), but I somehow worked through that without feeling the need to sue the ass off somebody.
I’m not looking to make trouble for this lawyer. My gut feeling was that his mailing was creepy (and I had little doubt that the bozo who was at fault got the same exact come-on). This is not the kind of person I’d ever want to hire.
IAAL and this appalls me, but depending on your jurisdiction it may be legal. That said, I agree with Jodi that you should send it on to your state’s bar association. Ethics rules tend to be written as broad principals with quite a bit of wiggle room - so enforcement really depends on the people hearing actual complaints. That way, you at least provide an opportunity for the profession to take a stand against potentially misleading or abusive solicitations.
In the movie “Let’s Kill All the Lawyers,” one of the sleazy attorney characters has his business cards done on magnets so he can just drive by accident scenes and toss them on the cars.
Similarly, when my mother died, we started getting sympathy cards from people who sold tombstones. If that wasn’t creepy enough, real estate agents started calling within a week just to see if anyone here happened to have a house they needed to sell.
You know, I am a lawyer and this type of stuff still creeps me out. I’m very much against stirring up litigation for the sake of stirring up litigation. That said, as long as the guy clearly indicated that his letter to you was an advertisement, then there was no ethical violation. You did inidicate that this was an advertisement so there must have been something in the letter.
When I was in law school, I worked for an older attorney for a few weeks before a better offer came along. That attorney operated on the same basis as the one who sent the letter in this instance. You should have seen the lines of attorneys waiting for the accident record books down at city hall. Luckily I’ve been able to move away from PI work and am a practicing patent attorney now. While we do advertise, its hard to find out when you’ve had that great idea for a microwave sock dryer so you’re safe from my ilk . . . for now.
