# Bates v. State Bar of Arizona

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 27, 1977 · 433 U.S. 350

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6751802

## Case

- **Full name:** Bates and O'Steen v. State Bar of Arizona
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 27, 1977
- **Citations:** 433 U.S. 350; 51 Ohio Misc. 1
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Rehnquist
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Burger, Poweix, Rehnquist, Stewaet, Whom
- **Cited by:** 805 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Constantine John Gekas v. Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and Carl H. Rolewick, Its Administrator, 793 F.2d 846 (1986).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6751802

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing first amendment overbreadth challenges as a “departure from the traditional rule that a person may not challenge a statute on the ground that it might be applied unconstitutionally in circumstances other than those before the court” and noting that this exception i…
- holding that First Amendment protection extended to “truthful” advertising of “routine” legal services by attorneys and, thus, “may not be subjected to blanket suppression”
- recognizing that the “possible harm to society from allowing unprotected speech to go unpunished is outweighed by the possibility that protected speech will be muted.”
- holding that attorneys cannot be subjected to a blanket ban on advertising, as the "belief that lawyers are somehow above 'trade' is an anachronism," and publicly eschewing advertising may actually be detrimental to the legal profession
- noting that the legal sophistication of the audience is a key consideration in determining whether legal advertising is misleading

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
I join Part II of the court’s opinion holding that appellants’ Sherman Act claim is barred by the Parker v. Brown state action exemption. Largely for the reasons set forth in my dissent in Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Consumer Council (1976), 425 U. S. 748, 781 , however, I dissent from Part 331 because I cannot agree that the First Amendment is infringed by Arizona’s regulation of the essentially commercial activity of advertising legal services. Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942), 316 U. S. 52 ; Breard v. Alexandria (1951), 341 U. S. 622 . See Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Commission (1973), 413 U. S. 376 .
*46 I continue to believe that the First Amendment speech provision, long regarded, by this court as. a sanctuary for expressions of public importance or intellectual interest,, is demeaned by invocation to protect advertisements of goods and services. I would hold quite simply that the appellants’ advertisement, however truthful or reasonable it may be, is not the sort of expression that the amendment was adopted to protect.
I think my Brother Powell persuasively demonstrates in his dissenting opinion that. the court’s opinion offers very little guidance as to the extent or nature of permissible state regulation of professions such as law and medicine. I would join his opinion except for my belief that once the court took the first step down the “slippery slope” in Virginia Pharmacy Board, supra, the possibility of understandable and workable differentiations between protected speech and unprotected speech in the field of advertising largely evaporated. Once the exception of commercial speech from the protection of the First Amendment which had been established by Valentine v. Chrestensen, supra, was abandoned, the shift to case-by-case adjudication of First Amendment claims of advertisers was a predictable consequence.
While I agree with my Brother Powell that the effect of today’s opinion on the professions is both unfortunate and not required by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, I cannot join the implication in his opinion that some forms of legal advertising may be constitutionally protected. The Valentine distinction was constitutionally sound and practically workable, and I am still unwilling to take even one step down the slippery slope away from it. .
I therefore join Parts I and II of the court’s opinion, but dissent from Part III and from the judgment.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6751802. Public record. Not legal advice.