A web site called mymeso.org, looks like it’s probably run by a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) group devoted to providing dispassionate information about the dreaded, fatal, asbestos-linked cancer known as mesothelioma. Or possibly by a concerned citizen whose close relative has contracted the disease.
It’s neither. It’s an alter ego of Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles, a plaintiffs law firm in Montgomery, Alabama, that brings asbestos suits, among other things. (Somewhat ironically, another Beasley Allen specialty is consumer fraud class-actions.)
Anyone can obtain a “.org” top-level domain name from the Public Interest Registry, which promotes itself as “the registry of choice for organizations dedicated to serving the public interest.” Though its use ordinarily connotes a noncommercial outfit of some kind, the registry does not bar for-profits from using it.
As of this writing, if you closely examine the mymeso.org homepage, and scroll down a ways, eventually in the right-hand margin you’ll detect two light-gray-on-white boxes whose typeface is so faint that they almost look like watermarks.
One box says “POWERED by HOPE and Supporters Like You,” and the other says “PUBLIC AWARENESS web site sponsored by BEASLEY ALLEN.” (When the page is printed out, these messages are invisible, at least using my printer.)
If you click on the “POWERED by HOPE” box, you get to a “mission statement” that finally acknowledges that mymeso.org is not just sponsored by Beasley Allen; it is Beasley Allen, or, as BA puts it, “a community outreach effort” of that firm. The site was set up by BA on January 16, 2008, according to its Whois data.
Most of the posts on the site are signed by Wendi Lewis, who is not further identified. Some of Lewis’s posts refer to verdicts won on behalf of mesothelioma victims, and some of those offer links to Beasley Allen’s main web site for the “full story.” The site also has an email “contact” feature that provides no indication of where it leads.
For comment I called Thomas J. Methvin, a name partner at Beasley Allen, who also happens to be the president-elect designate of the Alabama State Bar.
Methvin acknowledges that Wendi Lewis is a Beasley Allen employee, but says that the identification of the site as “sponsored by” the firm is sufficient to avoid any confusion. He says that those who have written to the site so far have not been seeking legal assistance; it’s just been about “awareness.”
Ethics professor Stephen Gillers, of New York University Law School, says that he did not know whether mymeso.org met the Alabama’s bar regulations, since rules on advertising vary greatly from state to state. “The disguised nature of the web site would not allow it to survive challenge under the New York rules,” he noted, however.
Professor Robert Kuehn of the University of Alabama School of Law said that Alabama’s rules on lawyer advertising are “not very stringent” and that it was not clear to him that what they do require – primarily inclusion of certain disclaimer language – would come into play here, since the site does not outwardly appear to solicit clients. He also noted that the firm might have First Amendment protections that could override whatever regulatory provisions were implicated.
Assistant general counsel Samuel Partridge of the Alabama State Bar said that, under longstanding policy, he was not allowed to give an opinion over the phone as to the permissibility of a specific lawyer’s conduct.
Incidentally, when first asked to look at the site, none of the experts I contacted initially understood what legal ethics question I wanted to ask them, since none realized that the site was run by a law firm until I told them.
Beasley Allen is not the only law firm with a dot-org avatar. The New Haven, Connecticut, plaintiffs law firm of Early, Ludwick, Sweeney & Strauss also uses one, called the Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center, at maacenter.org. The home page uses a popular symbol of medicine as its emblem – the two serpents wrapped around a winged staff – and its “about us” blurb says: “Our organization is staffed entirely by volunteer writers and other contributors who recognize the importance of building awareness.”
But at the bottom of the home page there is also a notice in faint gray typeface stating that the site is sponsored by Early Ludwick. It contains a hyperlinked disclaimer which, when clicked upon, finally does state, with refreshing candor, “Attorney Advertising.”
Jim Early, the New Haven firm’s managing partner, initially said he didn’t think his firm was associated with the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center, and that he’d never heard of that group before. But then he added, “I’ve got people that do my Internet stuff and I’m not sure what they’re doing. I think we make it clear on all our web site stuff that we’re a law firm.”
I then used the “contact” device on the maacenter.org site, identifying myself as a reporter, and asking if the site was affiliated with Early Ludwick. Jim Early emailed me back as follows: “I have received the inquiry you posted on the web site our firm sponsors. As I indicated, I do not believe the web site is ‘deceptive’ as our name appears on the bottom of the home page as a law firm. . . . I am sorry I did not have complete familiarity with the name of the web site as you listed it to me yesterday as i was in the middle of several other projects and had not seen it beforehand. However I have since looked at it and compared it to other web sites and feel that it would be in compliance with appropriate attorney advertising standards. Emails to that web site do reach my office and we do sponsor that site.”
UPDATE: (March 28, 2008): As of this morning the mymeso.org web site had been revised. It now has a legible “Website sponsored by BEASLEY ALLEN” notice at the top, right-hand side of the home page, a second legible message at the bottom, and its “contact” device indicates that Wendi Lewis works at Beasley Allen. These seem like good revisions to me.