Amid the ashes, lawyers must resist the temptation to chase ambulances

There is a special place for opportunists after a disaster, like we are facing in LA right now. I woke up this morning to an email from a law firm warning me not to sign up with any unscrupulous firms. It was the same firm - one of many - that has been sending me advertising for their own services.

The pitch with many firms is a guarantee of compensation to fire victims. It seems to be a "race to the courthouse" on coordinated claims.

I have also been inundated with correspondence offering to buy my "fire ravaged" home, or for me to join in on lawsuits guaranteeing compensation. Sometimes in the correspondence I can even see brackets of guaranteed compensation levels with precise dollar figures.

If this is a minefield for me - a litigator with decades of experience - imagine what the layman with no legal background is going through right now. They don't know the rules. When receiving ads or solicitations with guaranteed outcomes, they cling on to a false sense of hope. This is not fair to so many who are fighting minute by minute to feel human again because they have lost absolutely everything.

Let's not forget that as officers of the court we are bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct. These Rules should be a baseline for our conduct, not an aspiration.

In California, several rules prohibit the types of solicitations that I am receiving. These include, but are not limited to:

· Lawyers cannot make false or misleading statements about their services, including claims that they can guarantee outcomes. (Rule 7.1) A communication that contains an express guarantee or warranty of the result of a particular representation is by definition false and misleading. See Business and Professions Code section 6157.2(a).

· Lawyers must be competent and provide competent representation. Lawyers cannot intentionally, recklessly, or repeatedly fail to perform legal services with competence. (Rule 1.1)

· Lawyers cannot assert personal knowledge of facts in issue, except when testifying as a witness. (Rule 3.1)

The Rules indicate that, in an emergency, "a lawyer may give advice or assistance in a matter in which the lawyer does not have the skill ordinarily required if referral to, or association or consultation with another lawyer would be impractical." (Emphasis added.) However, a lawyer's assistance in such an instance must be limited to that reasonably necessary in the circumstances. (Rule 1.1d). I think it is safe to say that in this instance, we have a sufficient number of competent attorneys around - making Rule 1.1d inapplicable.

This is a sad state of affairs for our community. While we should be doing all that we can to help our community, the focus should be on safety first. Let's consider the hierarchy of needs, well established in psychology for decades. Our base needs first and foremost are physiological needs: breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, and sleep. After that? Safety and security: health, employment, and property.

Our city is currently at the base needs level. Many are missing the forest for the trees. In order to move forward, we need to first address our base, physiological needs. We need our oxygen masks right now, not unnecessary solicitation from opportunists. Let's not allow the public to perpetuate the caricature of the ambulance chaser. It's not fair to those who are putting their heads down, working to help the base needs of their community and doing the good work.

We can turn the tide by choosing to stay in our respective wheelhouses and ensuring that we can look back and say that we were a help, not a hindrance. 

The Rules are designed to protect the public and maintain the integrity of the legal profession. Let's not forget why we became lawyers in the first place.