Thursday, May 19, 2011

Michigan adopts waiting period rule

The Michigan Supreme Court has adopted a new version of Rule 7.3 that prohibits solicitation of accident victims within 30 days of the accident or injury. The rule will implement regulation that is permissible in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Florida Bar v. Went For It.  The decision was not unanimous, though.  There are dissents. For more on the story and a good quote from one of the dissenting opinions, go here

Florida Bar v. Went for It is a terrible decision.  It is illogical and inconsistent with prior precedent.  It therefore set a bad precedent and it is not encouraging to see states following it.  But it is what it is.  It is still the law of the land. 

I have not seen the new Michigan rule so I can't comment on it.  The one thing I do hope is that it, at least, applies to both plaintiffs and defendants' lawyers.  This was one of the main problems with the rule in question in Went for it.  Because of its wording, it only applied to plaintiffs' lawyers leaving victims vulnerable to personal visits by defendants' lawyers.  The rule simply did not advance the state interest in protecting the victims from intrusion.  This was a fatal flaw in the rule that the Court chose to ignore.  I hope the Michigan Court has not ignored this point.

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