Posted by Eugene Volokh:
"'Life's Short. Get a Divorce.' -- Chicago Billboard Turns Heads":
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_30-2007_10_06.shtml#1191627645
Here's the [1]ABC News story:
An all-female law firm is turning heads in Chicago with a new
billboard and a blunt message:
"Life's Short. Get a Divorce."
The billboard, sponsored by Fetman, Garland & Associates, Ltd., a
firm that specializes in divorce cases, features the six-pack abs
of a headless male torso and tanned female cleavage heaving forth
from a black lace bra....
"It's grotesque," said John Ducanto, past president of the American
Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. "It's totally undignified and
offensive."
"It trivializes divorce and I think it's absolutely disgusting,"
Rick Tivers, a clinical social worker at the Center for Divorce
Recovery in Chicago, told ABC News....
Ducanto called on the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary
Committee of Supreme Court of Illinois to sanction [lawyer Corri]
Fetman.... But the ARDC's deputy administrator James Grogan told
ABC News that traditionally Illinois has been reluctant to sanction
lawyers for anything short of false or misleading advertising....
"This has to be the Academy Award of bad taste," [leading divorce
lawyer Raoul] Felder told ABC News.... Karen Enright,
president-elect of the Women's Bar of Illinois, shared similar
feelings. "It's actually a disappointment to the profession and to
the institution of marriage, which is something our community holds
as sacred," she said. "Our profession, and lawyers in general, have
been under attack for advertisements similar to this and I think,"
she said, pausing. "I think that it's not in good taste." ...
"Lawyers don't cause divorces. People cause divorces," [Fetman
replies]. "If you think somebody's going to look at a billboard and
go out and get a divorce as a result, you're insulting the
intelligence of people. If that's the case, our next billboard is
going to read, 'Gimme Your Money.'" ...
"Everybody's got a pretty good sense of humor in this
neighborhood," said Greg Horan, director of operations for Gibson's
Steakhouse, one of the three restaurant/bars [near the billboard]
.... "We don't endorse it or anything, but sure, people will look
up and get a chuckle out of it."
As to the legal question, I think it's unlikely that the state bar
would punish the lawyer, and such punishment would probably be
unconstitutional. It's possible that the Court would uphold
restrictions on lawyer advertising when the advertising is seen as
reflecting poorly on the legal profession; see [2]Florida Bar v. Went
for It (1995). But I doubt that Went for It would go that far (and I'm
not sure whether Went for It would be decided the same way today,
given that Justice Thomas, one of the votes in the five-Justice
majority, has since shifted to being far more protective of commercial
speech rights). As to the taste question, my tentative sense is that
this is indeed in poor taste, though on the other hand it is pretty
clearly a joke -- maybe it's not much different from other humor that
makes light of sad situations.
Thanks to George Weiss for the pointer.
References
1. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LegalCenter/story?id=3147979
2.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=U10264
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