Lawyers Urged to Halt Ads Until After Election

With the encouragement of the president of the California Trial Lawyers Assn., a Long Beach attorney has sent a letter calling upon all trial lawyers in the state to cease television advertising for new clients until after the Nov. 8 election, at which the voters will decide on five insurance initiatives.

The attorney, Larry H. Parker, a member of the Trial Lawyers Assn., listed more than 60 attorneys who he said had agreed to go off the air as of Sept. 30. Parker frequently has advertised his own services.

Parker’s letter quoted association President J. Gary Gwilliam as having told him that attorney commercials “will have a negative impact on the voting public.”

“The polling clearly shows that attorney advertising during the weeks immediately preceding the election will escalate the chances that (the insurance industry’s Propositions 101, 104 and 106) will pass,” the Parker letter said.

Propositions 101, 104 and 106 would mandate changes in the legal system, reducing or discouraging lawsuits, which would adversely affect the practice of the trial lawyers.

Parker did not return telephone calls Friday. But Gwilliam said he had “strongly encouraged” the Parker letter out of a feeling that lawyers ought to take the money they have been spending to advertise themselves and contribute it to the campaign the trial lawyers are supporting, Proposition 100.

Proposition 100 would put the brunt of financial sacrifices necessary to lower insurance rates on the insurance industry rather than trial attorneys, and it would specifically preempt the limitation on attorneys’ contingency fees called for in Proposition 106.

Gwilliam said he knew of no polls taken in California that indicate that lawyers’ advertising for business is a detriment to the lawyers’ campaign, but he said polls taken in other states in similar situations have shown the advertising is not liked by the public.

“We have in general encouraged all the lawyers to give to us (the Proposition 100 campaign) rather than advertising,” the Trial Lawyers Assn. president said.

In San Francisco, insurance industry campaign spokesman Scott Carpenter said: “It appears that the California Trial Lawyers Assn. is ashamed of its own members, as well it should be. This marks the second time that the association has tried to limit public exposure of its members and hide its embarrassment at their predatory behavior.”