NEW STRATEGIES FOR GETTING CLIENTS - URBAN AND SUBURBAN LAWYERS VIEWS

A survey of a random sample of attorneys in the New York Regional Metr opolitan Area reveals that they have a lukewarm attitude toward newer, more businesslike client-getting strategies-advertising, prepaid lega l plans, nonprofit plans, and closed legal plans; respondents also str ongly agree that these techniques have a negative impact on the public 's image of the profession. Do structural factors of the profession ex plain attitudes toward professional practices? To find out, I examined the effect of three dimensions of the profession: organization of wor k, geographical location of organization, and demographic factors. The findings show both persistent intraprofessional tensions around the i mpact of these new practices on the image of the profession and tensio n between older and younger attorneys over advertising and development of legal plans. Also these analyses document a structural dimension o f the legal profession not identified in earlier research: suburban pr actitioners are much more skeptical about the newer client-getting pra ctices than are their urban colleagues.