Advertising.

I was an FTC lawyer in the Bureau of Consumer Protection in the mid 1970s, when Bates v. Arizona was decided (in which the Supreme Court decided that lawyers could advertise--overturning a state bar prohibition that they could not).

An appeals court decision reaching a similar result for optometrists and opticians was rendered within the same period. As a result, consumers could for the first time openly compare services and prices in both of those areas of commerce. These decisions promoted fairer competition, and, in the eyeglass field in particular, significantly reduced consumer prices without compromising quality.

In the 40 years since, we are going backward by restricting commercial speech, which Bates and its progeny had set free.

The labyrinthine (and often vague) regulations adopted by The Florida Bar don't protect consumers even if well intended; rather, they cause needless use of resources by practitioners in our state as well as needless time and expense by the Bar...