Lawyers in Ontario are debating whether to tighten up the rules
that govern how they can advertise their services to the
public.
The debate emerges out of a package of amendments the
country's largest legal profession regulator, the Law Society
of Upper Canada, has proposed to its rulebook.
Maia Bent, president of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association
(OTLA), says the proposed LSUC changes address some issues that had
been flagged by her organization. For example, the OTLA is troubled
when it sees ads that declare a particular lawyer to be better than
a competitor. In other businesses, such hyperbole might be
dismissed as mere puffery. But the OTLA thinks such ads should be
out of bounds because there's no way for the public to verify
such assertions.
