Remember, it is not what you think about the Super Lawyers program, it is about what the potential client thinks!

Thus spake Bart Taylor, trying to sell advertising in the Super Lawyers online directory in an email purporting to come from Houston PI lawyer Randy Sorrels:

Lots of lawyers seem to agree with Bart. As exhibit “A,” I would offer the trumpeting of bullshit “Top 100 Lawyers” “honors”:

Here’s Jim:
(Jim says that this website listed him and this “honor” without his consent. So here’s his Avvo page:Hmm.)

Grant:

Phil:

Joe:I have nothing against Jim, Grant, Phil, or Joe. I like them all, and have found them to be smart, generally ethical lawyers, ((I’ve even listed Grant in my 10-of-the-best list.)) but they are playing with fire here. Because lying in advertising is pretty much frowned upon, not only by me, but also by the State Bar. I hope this post will prompt them all to return to the ethical fold.

The “Top 100” are not “the top 100 trial lawyers” (as Jim and Grant claim) “the top 100 trial lawyers in Texas” (as Phil claims) “the top 100 trial lawyers in criminal law” (as Joe claims) or even the top 100 trial lawyers in criminal law in Texas.

The “Top 100” are the top 100 lawyers willing to pay $350 to the “National Trial Lawyers” for the privilege of lying to potential clients about the ranking in a geographical area specifically gerrymandered to contain 100 or fewer such lawyers.

A lawyer would have to be stupid not to know this, and none of these guys are stupid. All of them know that they haven’t been named “one of the top 100.” Yet they advertise that false claim, perhaps because they, like Bart, think it is not what you think about the honor, it is about what the potential client thinks.

But that’s crap, of course. Because unlike marketers, lawyers have ethical rules we have to follow. And if we know that an honor is bought-and-paid-for bullshit, ((Super Lawyers, for all its faults, is not bought and paid for — I’ve yet to buy the advertising Bart is selling.)) we have a duty not to mislead the public.

I’ll go farther: We have a duty to not be ignorant about the claims that we make about ourselves.

And of course we are responsible for things done on our behalf as though we had done them ourselves.

So the marketers say “all that matters is what the potential client thinks.” This is a siren song — who doesn’t want clients thinking of him as one of the top 100 lawyers? — that we must resist. For if the potential client thinks our marketing means something that we know it not to mean, we are deceiving him.