As I mentioned in a post last week, New York has adopted several new advertising rules, one of which restricts the ability of lawyers to contact accident victims or their families through the mail within thirty days of an accident. I noted that the rule is being challenged on constitutional grounds and that lawyers will either have to distinguish the New York rule from the one that was upheld in Florida Bar v. Went For It or get the Supreme Court to hear the case and argue that Went For It was wrongly decided.
Despite my criticism of the New York rule and my own view that the rule both reflects bad public policy and should be unconstitutional, the rule is at least arguably constitutional in light of current precedents. The same can't be said for a bill currently pending in New Jersey. Here's a story about a bill there that would make it a crime for lawyers to identify potential clients from public court records and send those potential clients solicitation letters. Violators face up to three years in prison.
You might be wondering: wasn't a nearly identical regulation struck down as unconstitutional in Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Ass'n, 486 U.S. 466 (1988)? Of course it was. In fact, the article points out that the legislature has been advised that the proposed legislation runs counter to existing Supreme Court precedent. So if you went to law school with the dream of winning a First Amendment case, you might soon have your chance in New Jersey!