This term, the high court addressed the public’s right to be informed — through trade-name recognition — of the substantive area of law in which a prospective lawyer engages, as well as the lawyer’s right to commercial free speech. The right of clients to change counsel at any time, and the virtues of diligence and promptness in legal practitioners were also winners in this past term’s decisions.
What’s in a Name? (Almost) Everything!
In a fast-changing world, institutional change is all too often either slow or entirely elusive. But time moves on, and the practice of law with its longstanding rules sometimes must give way to the reality of current business models. This is the case with the Supreme Court’s March 2013 opinion in In the Matter of the Letter Decision of the Committee on Attorney Advertising, the latest chapter in a multi-year reconsideration of the rules governing law firm names and the longstanding prohibition on the use of trade names.
