By James Osborne | The Philadelphia Inquirer
New Jersey legislators are considering bills that would force lawyers and other professionals to wait 30 days before contacting defendants and accident victims whose information was drawn from public-records searches.
Marcus Rayner was pulled over for speeding in North Jersey recently, and within days he had received a half-dozen letters from lawyers all over the state seeking to represent him.
Rayner, of Lambertville, heads a group advocating tort reform, so he knows how the game is played.
“I don’t find it offensive, but I can see how someone would,” he said. “It’s more of a personal-privacy issue.”
For decades there have been efforts to limit lawyers’ ability to solicit and advertise for clients, but those attempts have run up against court rulings that largely uphold their right to do so.
Now, New Jersey legislators are considering bills that would force lawyers and other professionals to wait 30 days before contacting defendants and accident victims whose information was drawn from public-records searches.
Most states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prohibit lawyers from soliciting clients in person or over the telephone but make exception for the mail.
“It’s a consumer-protection issue,” said State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D., Union), a civil-litigation lawyer who sponsored the Senate bill. “We get calls from numerous people complaining about this. And it’s not just attorneys; it’s health-care professionals, investigators, chiropractors. It’s a pretty unseemly practice.
