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Narrowing “Publicity Rights”
I’ve written before about the burgeoning trade in “publicity rights,” which has become one of the sillier backwaters of the already-murky shoals of intellectual monopolization law. What started as a straightforward proposition – a commercial…
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Avvo Launches Legal Services
Last week, Avvo launched “Avvo Legal Services” – a suite of fixed-price legal services, fulfilled by local attorneys. It’s the boldest effort yet to address the “access to justice” gap between do-it-yourself and full-scope,…
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Doctor Files Grievance Against Attorney Over Blog Post
Sure, writing a blog post has the potential to get an attorney in trouble with the disciplinary authorities. But it’s usually going to be because you’ve had the bad judgment to reveal client confidences…
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More Protection for Commercial Speech
It’s been nearly 5 years since the Supreme Court’s last big commercial speech case, Sorrell v. IMS Health. Sorrell is interesting because it’s one of the only commercial speech cases to address something other than out-and-out…
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Must You Be Licensed to Call Yourself a “Lawyer?”
Apparently not, at least if we are to follow the recent Fifth Circuit decision in Serafine v. Branaman, in which a political candidate was allowed to refer to herself as a “psychologist” despite lacking…
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OMG, an Ethics Opinion that Actually Gets the Law Right on Advertising and Online Profiles!
Thanks, New York City Bar Association, for this comprehensive opinion concluding that most attorney uses of LinkedIn are not “attorney advertising” and thus not subject to the attorney advertising rules. How so? Because, as…
