Roundup of Criticisms of NY Advertising Rules for the Bar

The NY State Bar is realizing that it doesn't pay to rouse the ire of blawggers.  Law.com posted a New York Law Journal article today, which summarizes the latest round of negative commentary on New York's recent proposed rules for attorney advertising. Attorneys are so incensed by the new rules that they are taking time out of their busy practices to write lengthy critiques. For example, Latham & Watkins partner, Joshua Stein, submitted a 29-page, single-spaced, indexed critique of the proposed rules entitled "Tangling Up the Web for Lawyers."  In his comments, Stein makes it clear that he's not impressed with the NY State Bar's efforts.  He argues that the rules would "interfere with benign and reasonable website and email communications by lawyers" and that "the bloated definition of 'advertisement' in the Rules goes far beyond any intuitively reasonable definition of that term."  If Stein's filing is typical of the comments that the NY State Bar can expect to receive on these proposed rules, it looks like they'll have some lively reading after the November 15 comment deadline.