Heavy Regulations on Lawyer Advertising

Over the last several months we have learned a great deal about the legal regulations that surround advertising online, especially in the legal arena.  It is surprising that field of law is so heavily regulated when it comes to advertising.  After all, just about any service provider can scam an unsuspecting individual, so why are lawyers targeted for such tough regulation?

Even more frustrating for lawyers is that regulations vary from state to state.  So if you're admitted to the bar of three states, as attorneys in the NY/NJ/CT area or the DC/MD/VA area might be, you have to worry about differing advertising regulations in three jurisdictions.   Kelley Spradley, VP of Marketing & Sales at Impirus Legal Websites wrote an insightful guest blog post on MyShingle.com that delves further into this issue.

If state regulations cover attorney websites as advertisements, how long will it take before they start policing Facebook pages or SEM campaigns?  Have any states started doing this?  We'd love to hear from readers.