UK Law Firm Slammed Over Advert

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

22 September 2006

Litigation specialists, Barlow Lyde and Gilbert have this week been slammed by the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for an advert which has also attracted the ire of several of the country's leading in-house lawyers.

The national press advert in question featured an extensive list of names of legal counsel and the companies for which they worked, with the tag-line "If you'd like your name kept out of the legal pages, take a note of ours".

However, several of those named in the ad brought the matter before the ASA, arguing that the advert misleadingly implied that they (or their firms) could be involved in litigation, in addition to using their names without permission, and implying that they endorsed BLG's services.

In a statement on the matter, the Advertising Standards Agency revealed that:

"Barlow Lyde and Gilbert (BLG) maintained that the ad did not imply the people listed were involved in litigation or that they approved or endorsed BLG's services. They pointed out that, as litigation specialists, BLG's role was to resolve disputes efficiently to prevent corporate legal counsel from receiving unwelcome publicity. BLG said the ad invited the people named to use their services to avoid the risk of unwanted publicity associated with involvement in litigation."

"They believed the large number of names listed in the ad meant that it was highly implausible that everyone named was involved in litigation. They maintained that the people were listed because they were not clients of BLG and that readers would realise that the purpose of the ad was to target them as new clients by encouraging them, in a light-hearted manner, to take note of BLG's name."

It continued:

"The ASA noted BLG's argument that the ad was directed at the people named in the ad and was intended to be an invitation to them to "take a note" of BLG's name to keep them "out of court". We considered, however, that the purpose of the ad was not clear and was likely to be misunderstood by some readers; some readers might infer that the ad listed people who were currently, or had recently been, involved in litigation and others might infer that the people in the ad approved or endorsed BLG."

"Because the meaning was unclear, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead and asked BLG not to use the approach again."

According to a report in The Times, the advertisement has lost BLG at least one of its clients, Barclays, and the impact in terms of potential business lost remains to be seen.

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