I walked into my office this morning to find Texas Monthly's latest issue of "Texas Super Lawyers."

I turned to page 128, and sure enough, there's John Martin Bradley listed as one of the state's top criminal prosecutors.

I also noticed, however, that (according to the magazine) John has been demoted to "Assistant" District Attorney.

Congratulations, John, on making the list, but sorry about being demoted.

Also named to the list were Randy Tom Leavitt (Travis Co.), Alan Lee Levy and Joe Shannon (Tarrant Co.), Michael Taylor Shelby (USA-Southern Dist.), Toby Shook (Dallas), and Kelly Siegler (Harris Co.).

Did you also notice that, at the top of the page, is a notice that the entire list is a "Paid Advertisement"? For a few dollars, we all could have had our picture, too.

That explains why there are only 7 prosecutors listed, as opposed to 150+ defense lawyers.

John, what did you have to do to get listed?

Yeah, and how much does it cost for the full Texas Monthly write-up like Jamail and O'Quinn got????

Shannon, I can assure you that no laws were broken. There were some forms and a few favors and formalities. Nothing I wouldn't want my wife to know about.

John, it was a well-deserved honor. Thank you for all you do for this organization.

So long as we are honoring folks for making the super lawyer list, let me congratulate my friend and colleague, Mollee Westfall. A more tenacious prosecutor never practiced. At argument time, she will flay a child sex offender in a hot minute (and the defense lawyer, too, if he wants some).

'Super Lawyers' and 'Best Lawyers' Hire Big Guns to Battle Ad Ban

By Henry Gottlieb
New Jersey Law Journal
08-01-2006
Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America have retained attorneys with gravitas to attempt to reverse an ethics opinion that put them out of business in New Jersey.

Super Lawyers' parent company, Key Professionals Inc. of Minneapolis, hired John Gibbons and Kevin McNulty of Newark's Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione. Gibbons is a former chief judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Best Lawyers in America turned to Stuart Hoberman, immediate past president of the State Bar Association, and Frederick Dennehy, both of Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer in Woodbridge.

The firms were hired last week to reverse or win modification of Opinion 39 of the state Supreme Court's Committee on Attorney Advertising, published July 24 [185 N.J.L.J. 360]. It bars lawyers from advertising they are in the "Best Lawyers" or "Super Lawyers" rankings and participating in the voting for such honors.

"Best" and "super" are manufactured titles that could lead unwary consumers to believe lawyers so described are superior to other lawyers, a violation of rules against misleading ads, the opinion says.

Lawyers at Gibbons Del Deo and Wilentz Goldman are in both surveys and their advertising reflects their inclusion.

Hoberman said on Friday that it was too early to talk about the substance of the appeal, and the Gibbons Del Deo partners could not be reached for comment.

Super Lawyers publisher William White said in an e-mailed letter to the 1,669 New Jersey attorneys in the survey, "not surprisingly, we disagree with every aspect of the Committee's opinion and intend to challenge it with every means at our disposal."

"While we are still weighing those options, they include a request for the Committee's reconsideration in light of facts that we were not before the Committee, a petition for review by the New Jersey Supreme Court, and a civil action in federal court."

White repeated statements of a week earlier that the committee failed to understand that the survey was objective and a valid reflection of lawyers' abilities and neglected to consult Super Lawyers before the ruling, an assertion denied by CAA Chairwoman Cynthia Cappell of Hackensack's Thurber & Cappell.

The opinion, unique among ethics rulings on the issue around the country, caused a stir among lawyers in the survey and prompted a lively discussion among law firm marketers.

In an analysis circulated by White after it was posted on the Legal Marketers Association listserv, Will Hornsby, an American Bar Association staff member whose views on advertising ethics issues are widely respected, finds flaws in Opinion 39.

Hornsby, speaking for himself and not the ABA, says Opinion 39 takes issue with the use of superlatives like "best" and "super" that the committee says create misleading comparisons between lawyers.

He says Martindale-Hubbell also uses peer reviews to make its well-known AV, BV and CV ratings but was spared by Opinion 39 because the public isn't harmed by a rating system with which it is unfamiliar.

"This leads to the conclusion that if you participate in a directory with a rating system that people do not understand, then you do not violate this rule," Hornsby says. "But, if you participate in a directory that uses terms that people do understand, and those terms are superlatives, that is misleading."

OPINION 39 BASED ON 'ARCANE' RULE

Hornsby says the New Jersey opinion cites a violation of the state's Rule of Professional Conduct 7.1, which prohibits ads that create an unjustified expectation about the results the lawyer can achieve and prohibits comparisons unless they are factually substantiated. That was based on ABA Model Rule 7.1 in effect in most states.

But the prohibition was abandoned in a 2002 amendment to the model rules. New Model Rule 7.1 says lawyers can use disclaimers to prevent someone from drawing a conclusion that he or she would obtain the same result as a prior client, Hornsby says.

He says the New Jersey opinion doesn't even meet the intent or spirit of the earlier rule and that some directories are an effective tool to help clients make short lists of potential lawyers and firms.

"I personally believe the real evil here is arcane rules that limit the ability of lawyers to provide potential clients with information that helps them reach a decision about selecting a lawyer," he says.

Elsewhere, the discussion focused less on the ethics than on whether touting a selection by Best Lawyers in America or Super Lawyers is good strategy.

"I've always thought that promoting yourself as a 'super lawyer' or 'best lawyer' was pathetic, self-aggrandizing and meaningless," legal marketing consultant and blogger Larry Bodine said on his Web site last week. "I counsel law firm clients not to hype this designation, because it preys upon lawyer egos to publicly praise themselves, and leads to expensive advertising campaigns. It is also weak, because it meant the only source that said you were any good was a silly directory."

Well John, we've all known the truth about those Super Lawyer issues all along. Despite that fact, all those prosecutors names that were included on the first post of this thread {i.e. Randy Tom Leavitt (Travis Co.), Alan Lee Levy and Joe Shannon (Tarrant Co.), Michael Taylor Shelby (USA-Southern Dist.), Toby Shook (Dallas), and Kelly Siegler (Harris Co.)} are OUTSTANDING prosecutors that are greatly admired by their peers.

The other difference is, prosecutors are not using this "honor" to get more business, as is everyone else on the list. That differentiates the prosecutors named more than anything else. Of course, we knew that already, because that's why they are prosecutors.

We could all add some names to that list. I would add longtime prosecutors Suzy Morton of Fort Bend County (formerly Dallas Co.) based upon her tireless devotion and dedication to abused children, as well as Mike Elliott, also of Fort Bend County, for his incredible trial attorney abilities and his feistiness in the courtroom.

Who would you add?