Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY): Web ad for lawyer linked to competitor spurs dispute

Most lawyers have always taken a dim view of advertising. State bar associations frequently ban the practice among lawyers, attempting to maintain the archaic and probably never quite accurate image of lawyers as civil aristocrats unsullied by motives of profit. Which makes the competitive keyword advertising campaign of one Kentucky attorney the potential source for still more controversy over the practice of using a competitor's name as a targeting mechanism. That state's bar association will consider whether or not to take action for this case and future ones.

Local opinion seems to be fairly negative on the practice, likening it to one lawyer putting his nameplate on his competitor's door. While the subtleties of trademark protection among competitive brands in keyword advertising continues to wend their way through courts across the country, this case may prove one of the more restrictive because of the industry involved. Coincidentally, both lawyers in the case practice legal ethics as their specialties.