Law Society’s Gazette, November 1960

United Law Debating Society – Institutional AdvertisingOn October 3 the Society debated the motion: ‘This House believes that it would be desirable if the restriction on advertising by the legal profession were removed.’

Mr. F. N. E. Starkey, in proposing the motion, claimed that advertising had grown greatly in extent since the end of the War (and) that it had become a highly skilled and wholly respectable occupation. Industries and trades had flourished as a result of publicity campaigns and he saw no reason why the legal profession should not do the same. In this highly competitive world there was no justification for solicitors avoiding all publicity other than the publicity they gained from adverse comments about the small minority who misapplied clients’ money; he thought that it was vital that the public’s mistaken ideas should be corrected by a continuous campaign of propaganda. The Bar Council and The Law Society should without delay start joint discussions to this end. He contrasted the high esteem in which lawyers were held by the public in the United States with the unfortunately low opinion which many people in this country had of their British counterparts.

In reply, Mr. R. M. Costain said that he had rarely viewed a motion with such horror as this one, which seemed likely – if it were ever implemented – to degrade a dignified profession to the status of traders. Quite apart from objections on principle, he considered that advertising in the press would be far too expensive. The publicity might be put forward on behalf of solicitors as a whole or on behalf of individual firms. In the former instance it would be unnecessary, and in the latter it would be strongly detrimental both to solicitors and to the public. His imagination ran riot when he considered the kind of advertisements which could appear in the press, on posters at railway stations and on Independent Television. Far from raising the general opinion of lawyers, such publicity could easily bring the profession to ridicule and all kinds of indignities. He concluded by reminding the House that by far the best publicity which lawyers could obtain collectively or individually was that of having satisfied clients whose recommendations were invaluable.

Other speakers in the debate generally supported the motion, in the sense of favouring collective advertising campaigns by the profession as a whole, and, strangely enough, did not object to a ‘mild’ degree of advertising by individual solicitors and firms. When the vote was taken the motion was declared lost by the narrow margin of one vote.

Future ProgrammeNovember 14: Motion: This House considers that travel only teaches that one should stay at home.