Complete Story
08/09/2016
Lawyer, wanting to advertise for clients, sues to gain access to Ohio workers’ compensation rolls
An Akron-area lawyer suing to overturn the ban on soliciting injured workers who file claims with the state faces opposition from some colleagues and, he said, Ohio’s attorney general.
Like firms whose bread and butter are drunken-driving cases or personal-injury lawsuits, Bevan & Associates of Boston Heights does a big business representing injured workers before the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
Thomas W. Bevan wants a federal judge to overturn the state prohibition on lawyers soliciting workers who file claims with the bureau. He said the statute violates his free-speech right and has curtailed his firm’s “legitimate advertising activity,” according to the suit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
“The idea is it’s commercial free speech,” said Ralph E. Breitfeller, the Columbus attorney representing Bevan. “The lawsuit simply says you can’t have an outright total ban on advertising."
State law prohibits lawyers from personally and directly soliciting individuals, except for another lawyer or family member. The statute Bevan is fighting adds prohibitions regarding workers’ compensation claims.
What Bevan does is send “advertisements” to a “pool” of workers who have filed claims, not individuals, Breitfeller said.
“If this is interpreted as a ban on advertising, then we’d argue it is unconstitutional,” he said
