Association of American Law Schools
2001 Annual Meeting
Wednesday, January 3, 2001 - Saturday, January 6, 2001
San Francisco, California
Saturday, January 6, 2001
10:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Imperial B
Hilton San Francisco and Towers
Ballroom Level


Section on Law and the Humanities
Christine Alice Corcos, Louisiana State University, Chair
Michael M. Epstein, Southwestern University, Program Chair

Equal Justice Under Advertising: Images of Lawyers in 20th Century Consumer Culture

Moderator and Speaker:

Victorian Divorce Anxiety and the Lawyer-Statesman in Fin De Siecle Advertising, Literature and Debate
Michael M. Epstein, Southwestern University

Speakers:
A Profession on Display: Lawyers in the Yellow Pages
Daniel M. Filler, The University of Alabama

Adverstising and the Comodification of Law(yers)
Robin Paul Malloy, Syracuse University

Thoughts on the Significance of Advertising in American Culture
David Marc, Visiting Professor, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University Syracuse, New York

Promoting the Profession through Pupular Fiction: Stories about Lawyers in the Inter-War Saturday Evening Post
David Ray Papke, Indiana University, Indianapolis

Lawyer Ads Past and Pressent as They Complement Other American Stories about "Legal Serve Providers"
Richard H. Weisberg, Yeshiva University


The program will examine the role advertising has played – and continues to play – in constructing representations of lawyers in American popular culture. Drawing upon a variety of disciplinary methodologies, the panel will cover both historical and contemporary understandings of what it means to be provider of legal services" to the general public. How much of what we see and learn about lawyers is a function of advertising strategies? Did the enactment of the ABA's 1908 ban on lawyer advertising have an impact on public perceptions of the profession? How have these perceptions changed in the decades since Bates? Arizona? Papers to be presented include an analysis of legal advertising and its consequent commodification of both law and lawyers, a comparison of pre- 1908 and post-Bates advertisements with representations of lawyers in contemporaneous legal stories and cartoons, and a survey of lawyer images in Los Angeles and New York Yellow Pages. To provide the analytical framework that underscores the significance of advertising in American culture, Professor Marc will be the panel's keynote speaker.

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