In addition to the ethical obligations and restrictions governing lawyer marketing and advertising, attorneys should consider carefully how well they are protecting any intellectual property that they hired third parties to prepare on their behalf. Many lawyers use head shots, websites and advertising copy prepared by nonemployees in their marketing and advertising materials. Attorneys should ensure that they have the appropriate agreements in place to assign ownership of these materials to themselves.
Many lawyers are familiar with the work-for-hire doctrine; it’s a statutorily created exception to the general rule that an author owns copyrightable material. However, it’s easy to misunderstand how the work-for-hire doctrine applies in various scenarios, such as a firm website that features photos of and biographies about lawyers.
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