LEO 1026

LEO: Law Firm — Advertising LE Op. 1026

Law Firm — Advertising.

February 1, 1988

You advise that your law firm consists of two partners licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, one partner and one associate licensed to practice in Maryland, and one partner licensed to practice in Virginia. Your firm now has an office in the District of Columbia and plans to have the partner who is licensed to practice in Virginia open an office in Virginia.

Your firm intends to send out announcements which do not list all the lawyers of the firm. Your firm also wishes to place the following statement on its letterhead: “A law firm serving the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.” The letterhead will not enumerate the lawyers of the firm. You wish to know whether specification of bar memberships is required when the names of the individual lawyers will not be listed either on the announcements or the letterhead.

Disciplinary Rule 2-102(D) states that “a law firm shall not be formed or continued between or among lawyers licensed in different jurisdictions unless all enumerations of the members and associates of the firm on its letterhead and in other permissible listings make clear the jurisdictional limitations of those members and associates of the firm not licensed to practice in all jurisdictions; however, the same firm name may be used in each jurisdiction.”

The Committee opines that DR:2-102(D) requires that if different states where attorneys are licensed are listed, that the names of the attorneys licensed in those states should be enumerated. While the statement “serving the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia” does not violate DR:2-101(A) per se, the Committee believes that it gives the impression that every lawyer in the firm is licensed in every state listed on the letterhead, a fact which is not true and consequently misleading.

Committee Opinion February 1, 1988

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