Ethics Opinions
Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics and Conduct




Date of Opinion: 03/07/2002

Opinion Number: 01-09

Title: ADVERTISING – TRADE NAME – MIDWEST ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES

Opinion: You are proposing to form a non-profit organization called Midwest Environmental Justice Advocates (MEJA) in order to give law students and attorneys the opportunity to participate in “public interest” environmental lawsuits. You state that you receive many calls from persons concerned with environmental problems, many of whom have little money to pay for legal representation even though they may have valid claims, and that there are few attorneys in Iowa who are willing to take this type of work with little prospect of financial return. MEJA would take on some cases itself, with your participation and that of your law students and at least one “cooperating attorney” from the list of those interested in such work. Attorney’s fees for these cases would be reduced or eliminated, depending upon the client’s ability to pay and the prospects of attorney fee recovery under fee-shifting statutes. MEJA would not carry on any litigation on its own behalf.

Your first question is whether using the name, Midwest Environmental Justice Advocates, on pleadings and correspondence, would violate DR 2-102(B) (“a lawyer in private practice shall not practice under a trade name.”) In the Board’s opinion, that rule is inapplicable here because MEJA attorneys would not be engaging “in private practice” in doing this public interest work under the auspices of a non-profit organization. See Formal Opinion 96-21.

Your second question involves the operation of a lawyer referral service by MEJA, whereby those potential clients who are not able to be served by MEJA could be referred by it to someone from its list of “cooperating attorneys” who are interested in and willing to take this sort of work. Your concern is with DR 2-103(C), which states, “a lawyer shall not request a person or organization to recommend or promote the use of the lawyer’s services,” with certain exceptions. The only arguably applicable exception is under DR 2-103(C)(3), which provides:
Examining the rule referred to, the first office or organization enumerated is a legal aid or public defender office. DR 2-103(D)(1). As you indicate in your letter, MEJA will not really be organized as a legal aid office, as that term is generally understood. Nor would MEJA qualify as a military legal assistance office or lawyer referral service operated by a bar association, under DR 2-103(D)(2) or (3). The key question is whether it would qualify under DR 2-103(D)(4):
This is the provision that allows group legal insurance plans. MEJA would not seem to qualify because, as you indicate, it would not be providing legal services to “members” or “beneficiaries,” as those terms are usually understood. Moreover, in those cases which MEJA becomes directly involved rather than referring to cooperating attorneys, profit could be derived by it from the rendition of legal services by lawyers.

Thus, the type of lawyer referral service contemplated to be operated by MEJA would not seem to be permitted under DR 2-103. However, the Board understands that the Lawyer Referral Service operated by The Iowa State Bar Association would accept a list of attorneys who MEJA learns are willing to take such consumer environmental cases and use it in assisting callers seeking such a lawyer. Thus, MEJA could inform interested parties that the Association maintains a list of attorneys willing to consider taking such cases, and furnish the telephone number of the Bar Association’s Lawyer Referral Service.

Your letter also seeks reassurance that MEJA could advertise the availability of its services in general, without mentioning any specific cooperating attorney by name. You are correct that this would be permissible. See Formal Opinion 01-8, March 7, 2002.