The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) has closed its investigation of Total Attorneys and Kevin Chern with “no finding of wrongdoing.” In so doing, Illinois becomes the fourth state to drop a nationwide ethics complaint filed by a Connecticut attorney in 47 states against 500 participating attorneys. Hawaii and Alaska dismissed similar ethics charges, while North Carolina found that Chern had not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. Total Attorneys General Counsel Pam Gracyalny called the complainant’s actions unprecedented, saying “there has never before been an ethical complaint filed nationwide on the basis of a single model.”

The “pay per performance” advertising model utilized by Total Attorneys has come under fire recently with criticis arguing that the company charges unethical referral fees from its attorney customers.  Indeed, attorneys nationwide pay Total Attorneys $65 per potential lead the company leaves at their office doorstep. Is this a referral fee? Kevin Chern would argue, no, as Total Attorneys makes no representation as to the qaulity or competence of its attorneys. Further, the fee charged is contingent upon a potential client filling out a contact form, not payment of a legal fee or retention of a particular attorney.

Much has been made of the exclusive territories that Total Attorneys assings to its attorneys, a potential ethics issue because consumers who visit Total Attorney’s websites are not made aware of the competition. Let’s get real here, people aren’t stupid. Anyone looking for an attorney on the web or elsewhere knows all too well just how many lawyers are out there.  The fact that Total Attorneys deals with only one lawyer in a geographic area means nothing. Total Attorneys is one of many voices on the internet, any search query for a bankruptcy attorney will offer a host of choices. Query the term “Charlotte bankruptcy attorney” for an example. The potential client who chooses to contact Total Attorneys does not do so in a vacumn but rather after being flooded with numerous options. If they land on a Total attorneys site and do not enjoy the content or the marketing approach, the back button returns them to a world of internet billboards, articles and strategically placed web sites.

Google Adwords utilizes a similar yet more subtle geographic model, advancing the highest bidding attorneys to the top of the search engine’s queue based on price and usually geo-targeted keywords. Rare is the attorney with a national Adwords campaign. Usually bids are placed for search terms that correspond with the attorney’s locale. Sure, there are numerous attorneys with Google Adwords accounts in any given city, however, those who bid most enjoy the best placement. The difference between the highest and lowest bidders is substantial with larger bids resulting in significantly greater traffic. Further, there is only one Google (can Yahoo really be called a competitor these days?) Consumers looking for legal services on the internet can’t help but be aware of the competition among attorneys. Choices abound. However, there is not a meaningful selection of search engines to choose from. The sites that Google advances based on pay “per click” prices are not just shot to the top of the Google rankings, they are essentially shot to the top of THE rankings. This monopolistic pay per click placement is more meaningful, powerful and exclusionary than Total Attorney’s pay per performance model as a result of Google’s dominance. There is no back button to navigate away from Google itself.

the Total Attorneys model does not obligate any consumer to hire any attorney, it simply gives them the opportunity to do so. If after an initial consultation, the potential client isn’t sold on the Total Attorneys customer, they can go down the street to the Yellow Pages customer or the Avvo customer. As the law school ranks continue to swell and the Biglaw crowd continues to wane (err get laid off), attorneys in smaller firms will increasingly rely on advertising to attract business and maintain a livelihood. Practicing law is just too work intensive to effectively manage an active case load AND every aspect of the underlying business. Total Attorneys provides a service that the market deems necessary; potential clients choose to fill out contact forms and attorneys choose to pay for that information. Four states have now found nothing wrong with the model. I believe they have made the right decision.

John O’Connor