BigLaw Firms Band Together to Protest New Limits on Their Web Sites

MIAMI - While the American Civil Liberties Union and other nonprofit legal groups have been declared exempt from a strict proposal for regulating lawyer Web sites, Florida’s largest law firms are starting to band together to protest the regulations, largely on First Amendment grounds.

Facing protests, lawsuits and threats of more lawsuits from lawyers, The Florida Bar has postponed rules that were to take effect July 1. The Florida Supreme Court is allowing lawyers to file comments about the proposal by Aug. 16.

The new rules would have barred online testimonials, summaries of case results and “deceptive, misleading, manipulative” or confusing audio or visual content. The Bar, facing protests that the rules were overly vague and unfair, offered a compromise amendment that would allow existing sites to be viewed if visitors clicked a disclaimer box.

Florida already is acknowledged to have some of the toughest rules in the nation for lawyer advertising. Many lawyers consider the latest version of online regulations a violation of their First Amendment right to free speech. Additionally, some lawyers complain that a disclaimer box could scare away or discourage viewers, including potential new clients. The Washington consumer advocacy group Public Citizen has sued The Bar over the proposed rules.

In a May 13 letter to The Bar, the ACLU of Florida stated it had no intention of requiring the public to click and view a disclaimer. Practically threatening a lawsuit, the civil liberties group asked The Bar to advise by June 1 whether it would be required to comply with the new Web rules.

The ACLU’s site seeks to educate the public through news releases about its successes, encourage participation in civil liberties issues and allow people to seek legal assistance from the ACLU. All actions would have been barred by the new rules.

“Because of the importance of the public education component of t ...