The last Moral Compass column criticized the Virginia Supreme Court’s reasoning in Hunter v. Virginia State Bar, which disciplined Richmond, Va., attorney Horace Hunter for advertising violations relating to posts on his blog. In several respects, Hunter was a case of first impression about lawyer bloggers. Hunter had blogged mostly about his own criminal cases all of them successfully resolved in his view without disclaiming that these results could not be used to predict future success. For this, Hunter received a public reprimand.
The worst part of the Hunter court’s decision was not the court’s analysis of Hunter’s blog, but its misinterpretation of its own rule on confidentiality. One of the charges against Hunter was that by using his clients’ names, he had violated Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6(a). This rule reads very much like those of most states. Here’s the language:
