Lions and tigers and bears? Oh, my!

February 7, 2008

pantherThe Wall Street Journal has a great story today on offbeat lawyer advertisements and the ulcers they cause in state bar officials. From the piece:

But the Florida bar isn’t buckling. It filed a complaint in 2004 against Fort Lauderdale personal-injury attorney Marc Andrew Chandler over ads that featured a pit bull wearing a spiked collar. The Florida Supreme Court sided with the bar in 2005, ruling that pit bulls conjure up images of viciousness. “Were we to approve,” the court wrote, “images of sharks, wolves, crocodiles, and piranhas could follow.”

Despite these fears, the bar in 2006 approved the use of panthers, the mascot of Miami firm Panter, Panter & Sampedro PA. At least two other Florida firms have images of lions on their Web sites, so far without censure. That panthers and lions have been tolerated bugged the pit bull lawyer, who asked a bar official how the state could favor vicious cats over pit bulls. “I asked him, ‘What would you rather deal with, a pit bull or a lion?’” Mr. Chandler says, recalling a 2006 telephone call. “There was silence on the other end. I could hear the sound of crickets chirping in the background.”

If the folks in Florida find pit bulls inappropriate, how about bulldogs, like the mascot of our former gov.’s firm? (Womble doesn’t seem to have an office in Florida, which I suppose is good news for Winston.)

Not having cable, I rarely see lawyer ads on TV, so someone’s going to have to fill me in on whether any Maryland attorneys are using potentially vicious animals in their ads.

Also, are there any ads, animal-or-alien-containing or otherwise, that you’d like to see yanked?

What would be the least apropos animal mascot for a law firm? A basket of kittens, because lawyers shouldn’t be cuddly? A python, because no one wants a lawyer to squeeze them for all they’ve got? A possum, because a good lawyer shouldn’t play dead?

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

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Posted by Jackie Sauter | Filed Under Wall Street Journal, advertising, law 

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