Vioxx Scam Shocks the World: Lawyers Are Declared Guilty by Association

The "Get Your Million Dollars" Vioxx scam, which I posted about here, is still causing confusion among people who think that only lawyers could have dreamed it up.  An article about the scam from CNN, for example, features this subhead:  "Lawyers embrace the Internet, test state rules as 'ambulance chasers' rush to sign up victims."

And there's additional confusion in an article from Law.com: "Vioxx Web Site Has Law Firms Outraged."  You would think that Law.com would be able to get it right.  But even though the author of the piece says the the million-dollar ad was a scam, he also includes paragraphs like these:

[E]thics experts say that a case as potentially lucrative as Vioxx can push firms hungry for a quick payout into the ethical nether regions.

The "million dollars" site "is patently sleazy, but the question is whether it violates the ethics rules," said Richard Zitrin, an ethics specialist and partner with Zitrin & Mastromonaco who advises plaintiff firms. "I think it's unethical. And I'm a free-speechist on this."

All together now: Since lawyers didn't do it, they couldn't have violated any ethical rules.  And though the Vioxx hoax does raise interesting questions about where a law firm's Google ads might show up, the articles don't coherently address these questions.

UPDATE 2/14/04. For all of my collected Vioxx posts, look here. If you are (a) someone who was harmed by Vioxx or (b) a lawyer who wants to refer your Vioxx cases to a highly-competent team of mass-tort lawyers, look here.

Comments

[anonymous]

I am a lawyer and hungry for cash. Can someone please give me directions to the "ethical nether regions" where I can make a lot of money fast? Please hurry. I need money for Christmas presents.

[Evan]

Most lawyers in your situation find it necessary to sell either their airplane or their yacht. If your situation is particularly dire, I'd suggest selling them both.

[Andy Sweet]

If you're a marketing law firm and you don't want to show up on such sites through the Google AdWords network, simply opt out when creating your ad campaign.

We do a heavy amount of online marketing and recognized a long time ago that Google's network has been on the steep decline which is why I have opted out for a long time. Sure, I might miss a lead or two, but it keeps me away from this sludge and a lot of click fraud.

It's sites like the Million Dollar Vioxx, sites with questionable and frequently incorrect information and the current flood of non-lawyers sending spam emails doing lead generation and then calling around trying to find someone to buy them that is going to come back to bite the us in the butt. As the web marketing manager at our office, I get calls every day of people trying to sell me leads from their email campaigns.(As a matter of fact, just got another while typing this. A note I received from another person in the office -"I just transferred *** to your voicemail. He says he has about 5,000 vioxx leads and wanted to know if you are interested in buying them.")

You think these non-lawyers care about breaking rules? What are their potential consequences? Slap on the wrist? That's if you can even actually track them down.