According to the Wall St. Journal's Objection! Funny Legal Ads Draw Censure, Florida leads the nation in restrictions on the use of animals in lawyer advertising.
Tigers are OK. Lions probably. But no sharks or pit bulls. Go figure.
The article is limited only to animals and TV ads; had they mentioned advertising rules more generally, and especially the evolving rules relating to law firm web pages, they'd have had to mention New York state's increasingly restrictive policies, quite possibly worse than Florida's.
Over regulated? Yes, in some ways. But we still run up against the age-old problem of precisely how much regulation is optimal, and indeed optimal modes of regulation. Well, not so much for clear-cut things like lawyer advertising, in a relative sense.
By way of comparison, or perhaps of distraction, consider the class-action lawsuit just filed against Network Solutions. No regulation involved, and two things are present: A strong plaintiff case and a risk that the defendant, with whom I do not sympathize, will suffer due to a lack of regulation plus really lousy judgment.
It wasn’t illegal, how was I to know I would suffer damages!!
But fear not, because the senior managers of Countrywide (the lovely ARM-bearing suitor of so many pawns) are being integrated into Bank of America as we speak. The proof? I saw it printed at the time in straight news stories, but now can only locate this link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSN3131226820080131