Indiana Opinion Warns Lawyers Not to Use Group Coupon Programs as Marketing Tool

Bucking the trend, the Indiana bar’s ethics committee has concluded that lawyers’ use of group coupon or daily deal programs to obtain new clients is “fraught with peril” and probably unethical (Indiana State Bar Association Legal Ethics Committee, Op. 1 of 2012).

The opinion warns that a lawyer’s participation in a program that reaches out to potential clients and takes advance payment of fees, and then remits only a portion of the fees to the lawyer, may violate the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct by:

• delegating the creation of the attorney-client relationship to a nonlawyer, contrary to Rule 2.1 ...