Once a judge has been removed due to a misconduct, they should no longer be given the respect for their judicial title.

I read your column on how to address a judge. How does one address a judge who has been removed from their judicial office due to a suspension or removal by the Court of Judicial Discipline?

In the previous article written several weeks ago, I tried to outline when, where and how to address a judicial officer once they are retired or no longer on the bench. A judicial officer who has been removed due to serious misconduct and not reinstated should not be addressed by their judicial term any longer. That would be the appropriate answer.

Having said that, of course, lawyers get to know judges over the years. If a judge has been long-standing and everyone has called the person “judge” and they are removed and one runs into them, it's natural that someone might still call the person judge. Many judges who have been removed don't want to be called judge any longer because they are embarrassed at what happened.

The better practice would be not to call someone judge if they've been removed from the bench due to some sort of misconduct. It is particularly true in the courtroom setting, because it would be very unfair for someone to be called judge when they've been removed due to misconduct yet get the benefit of a jury or fact-finder thinking that they had served honorably in the judicial position.

The bottom line is, officially, once a judge has been removed due to a misconduct, they should no longer be given the respect for their judicial title. On the other hand, if lawyers who have dealt with a judge for years and see that person privately want to still use the term judge, assuming there is no objection to it by the former judge, then there's no harm. There is certainly nothing that prohibits continuing to use the term privately.

Obviously, if the judge was suspended but reinstated, they are certainly entitled to be called judge once reinstated. If they retire, you can still be give them the respect of the judicial title. But, if they are removed permanently and lost their position or suspended and never came back, then the better practice would be not to call that person by the title judge.

Advertising has changed the practice of law, leaving the old-fashioned lawyer behind.

Attorneys' legal advertisements have been allowed for 42 years. What is the verdict on the effect of legal advertisements on the legal profession?

The answer is an interesting one. Before 1977, no lawyer was allowed to advertise. Prior to 1977, advertising could result in serious discipline. This writer prosecuted the last advertising case in Pennsylvania in 1976 and early 1977 when he was assistant disciplinary counsel.

The world changed after Bates v. Arizona, 434 US 881, 98 Supreme Court 242 (1977), came down. That case held that the restraints imposed by the Arizona Supreme Court prohibiting advertising was protected speech and fell within the First Amendment protection as long as it was not misleading. The decision resulted in changes over the years and an expansion of advertisements. Directed letters have been allowed. Internet advertising occurs all the time.

Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct under Rules 7.1 through 7.3 set forth what one can and cannot do in the world of advertising. Unfortunately, looking at many current legal advertisements, these rules are honored in the breach.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument that advertising would reflect badly on the legal profession. The court saw that advertising would benefit the public and allow comparison pricing of legal fees among other issues.

Now 42 years later, where has this left the legal profession? One of the negative aspects of allowing advertising was it sort of undercut to a large extent a lawyer's involvement in the community, politics, civic associations, churches, etc. Traditionally, a lawyer got hired because people got to know the lawyer. There were far more newspaper coverages of trials in the past and lawyers who tried regularly became known due to their trial skills or lack of trial skills because the decisions were reported. But most lawyers met their clients through just hard work and being involved in the community. In those days, many lawyers served as committee people in politics and got to know their constituents well, who often hired them for legal issues. Also, the political organization would send the lawyer clients. Lawyers were involved in service clubs and would meet people as a result of their involvement. Clients would come to lawyers because they got to know them in the community. Similarly, activity in a church or synagogue often would result in new clients. There was a real benefit for lawyers being involved in the community because it got them to know their community, develop people skills and resulted in more courtroom work. Lawyers became a vital part of the community.

With the advent of legal advertising, particularly as it became more sophisticated through the internet world, the lawyer's life changed. A lawyer could still do the community activities and not get business anymore. The internet has taken over where people shop, what doctors they see, and what lawyers they go to, to a large extent. There are also rating services. Most of these services are worthless, but the public relies on them. Also, promotions such as Super Lawyers and things of that nature which have no real objective standards, but are now relied on by people to hire lawyers.

What's the bottom line? The bottom line is that small firms are slowly but surely losing business because of the way modern advertising works. For instance, firms that have money can spend half a million to a million dollars a year advertising on the internet and other appropriate places and get the legal business as a result. Small firms usually don't have that kind of advertising money and, therefore, cannot compete for legal business. Classic examples are the massive personal injury advertising campaigns which divert many clients to these firms.

Smaller firms know the feeling where they get no business anymore even though they are excellent lawyers because another lawyer is spending six figures or more on advertising and is getting all the business even though they often don't have a quarter of the skills of the other lawyers.

Many of the advertisements are shameless. Lawyers advertise as experienced lawyers or trial lawyers when they probably have not tried more than 10 or 20 jury trials in their whole career. Many of modern advertising violates Rules 7.1 and 7.2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Therefore, modern advertising has evolved, particularly with computer-based advertising. How much money one has to spend is the way clients are obtained. It makes no sense. Experienced lawyers will represent a client and have a not guilty or a good verdict and then see the client in court a few years later represented by someone else who they saw advertised on the internet.  It's a strange world that we all live in.

But modern advertising has gone far away from the rationale in the aforementioned Bates decision. It has allowed the rich and wealthy firms to predominate and take a great deal of business. Just look in any inner city and there are only a few firms that have advertisements covering all the buses, billboards, TV and radio. It's not the way it was supposed to work. Many of those doing those major advertisements are personal injury mills. Some of the good smaller firms that are starving would actually treat someone as a client as opposed to just a file.

Now there are firms from out-of-state advertising even though they have a very scant presences in the Pennsylvania area. Therefore, the verdict is that modern advertising hasn't accomplished what it really set out to do. The purpose of modern advertising was to help clients pick lawyers and also to compare legal fees and prices. It was also to better inform the public.

Now advertisements are driven by money and websites that are expensive, etc. TV, radio, etc. costs a lot of money. As a result, many good lawyers are left out of the advertising game and not able to get clients like in the past.

This writer can tell from personal experience. Having tried hundreds and hundreds of serious criminal trials, at least in this writer's area, he is lucky if he gets five or 10 calls a year. Others who are spending tens of thousands of dollars in advertising are getting all the business even though they may not have nearly the trial skills. In other words, money has taken over the advertising game and where clients go.

Should advertising be stopped? Obviously, it should not be. There is a First Amendment right and it does benefit the public to some extent. But, like everything else, massive money can pollute and change the world of advertising and the legal profession. It's like politics. In the old days, one was a committee person for years and worked their way up and then ran for office with the party support and won. Nowadays, that is almost a myth. One gets to office now not by being a committee person, but by coming in and raising larges sums of money or having the ability to attract large sums of money or having large sums of money.

But modern advertising does take away from the legal profession. The old-fashioned lawyer who was involved so heavily and deeply in the community, who was respected by all, who worked with organizations to solve community problems, who ran their churches, who were the head of the board of trustees, who coached all the sports, who often was the local committee person, don't exist as they used to. There is no need to. A lawyer can spend his life doing all those things and lose all their business to someone who spent $50,000 to $100,000 in flashy ads that gets the public's attention. But in reality, those people don't have half the skills of some of the old-fashioned lawyers. Advertising had a good purpose, but I believe it is now changing the nature of the legal profession in unforeseen ways because of the great expense. By changing the way lawyers run their life outside of their office is a tragedy. The old public-spirited criminal lawyers are slowly disappearing because the monied lawyer with the good advertising organizations negate the need for public involvement. These monied firms will set up pro bono divisions. But there is nothing to replace the former old-fashioned community activist lawyers who once were the strength of their local community and the backbone of the legal profession.

Chester County lawyer Samuel C. Stretton has practiced in the area of legal and judicial ethics for more than 35 years. He welcomes questions and comments from readers. If you have a question, call Stretton directly at 610-696-4243 or write to him at 301 S. High St. P.O. Box 3231, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 19381.