In a future century, historians will write books analyzing the decline and fall of the American Republic in the same way that historians analyze the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. I fully expect that the consensus of these future scholars will be to lay the blame for the fall on lawyers for corrupting the law and undermining the foundation on which the Republic was established. While readers may think I am simply trying to get a laugh at the expense of my profession, I can assure them that I am at least half serious and I ask that they bear with my hyperbole to hear me out.
If my hypothesis is correct, the future historians will conclude that the decline began precisely on June 27, 1977, the date the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bates v. State Bar of Arizona. Prior to Bates, lawyers were prohibited from advertising. However, in the early 1970s, the Court began to expand constitutional free speech principles to protect "commercial speech" against government regulation; and these expanded principles were applied to an unassuming newspaper advertisement used by attorney John Bates to publicize his modest fees at a law clinic serving the less affluent. Bates argued that he had to advertise because he needed a substantial volume of cases to cover his costs, and the Court permitted him to do so.
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