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Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Insurance
September 26, 2024
Page 2

One of the ways we have done this is by creating the extensive online database, as required by the May
2021 amendments to rules governing attorney advertising and set forth in the Rules of Professional
Conduct implemented by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The genesis for the Supreme Court’s action was
SCR 57, adopted in May 2020 (attached here). This resolution requested that the Louisiana Supreme
Court and the Louisiana State Bar Association implement a “lawyer advertisement review recognition
program” and described the database which we ultimately created. Creation of this database was a
massive undertaking which included the efforts of several staff members, an outside programmer, and a
temporary employee who was charged with uploading advertisements to the database. Through these
significant efforts, we were able to launch the online searchable public database on January 1, 2022, a
little more than six months after the Court’s amendments to the Rules. Since then, we have continued to
upload new advertisements to that online public database as they are filed with us.

Specific provisions of these amendments include:
• Lawyers are obligated to file ALL non-exempt advertisements and unsolicited written
communications (UWCs) with the LSBA Rules of Professional Conduct Committee,
through LSBA Ethics Counsel, prior to or concurrent with first use/dissemination of the
advertisement/communication;
• Each non-exempt advertisement/UWC is assigned a unique filing number at the time the
advertisement/UWC is filed, and this number must be included on all advertisements and
unsolicited written communications which are not identified by the Rules as exempt from the
filing requirements;
• The lawyer whose name is included on the advertisement or UWC as responsible for its content
thereby certifies that it has been filed and assigned a filing number in accordance with the Rules;
• Upon receipt by the LSBA, filed advertisements/UWCs are posted to the online searchable
public database on the LSBA website: LSBA Lawyer Advertising Filing Search; and
• Rule 7.2(c)(1)(D) was amended to require a disclaimer such as “Results May Vary” or “Past
Results Are Not a Guarantee of Future Successes” whenever an advertisement or UWC contains
a reference or testimonial to past successes or results obtained.

Complete information on the requirements and the filing process may be found here: Lawyer Advertising
(lsba.org).

As you may know, the Legislature has been interested in lawyer advertising for a number of years, and
SCR 113, from the 2006 Regular Session (attached), requested that the Louisiana Supreme Court
“establish a committee to study attorney advertising and the need and feasibility of creating a standing
committee to evaluate such advertising, provide written advisory opinions thereon, develop a handbook
on advertising, and recommend amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct.” The resolution
further advised that the committee should report its findings to the Court by March 1, 2007.

The Court and the LSBA took the following steps in response to this resolution:
• The Court established an Ad Hoc Committee to Study Lawyer Advertising;
• The LSBA referred the issue of possible amendments regarding lawyer advertising to its Rules
of Professional Conduct (RPC) Committee, which considered this matter on an expedited basis;
• The RPC Committee met in September and October 2006 and approved proposed amendments;