Ethics Opinions
Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics and Conduct
Date of Opinion: 06/09/1999
Opinion Number: 98-20
Title: NEWSPAPER: COUNTY ATTORNEY COLUMN
Opinion: You have requested an opinion concerning the propriety of publishing a weekly column in the local newspaper. All topics would touch on or concern law enforcement issues, especially as they relate to the workings of the County Attorney’s office.
In various communications from you the Board is informed that the columns would contain your picture and the words “_____ County Attorney”, at the head of the column. After your first request you added as an option in the lead of the column the words, “Reelect County Attorney first name surname.” You state you will be required to pay for your desired publication of the column.
In your various communications to the Board you have presented arguments in support of an approving opinion, and presented your views concerning the applicability of EC 2-1, 2-5, 2-9, 2-11 and DR 2-101, 2-104(A) (inapplicable) and 2-105(A)(4) of the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers. The Board has given full and careful consideration to your foregoing arguments, as well as your positions on “the relevance of monetary arrangements” and “political messages” as “advertising within the commercial sense of the code.”
The Board does not approve or disapprove copy. It is the responsibility of counsel to make certain that copy complies with the Code.
Previous relevant opinions of this Board have been issued. See Formal Opinions 97-29 (1998), 96-27 (1997) and 91-45 (1992).
The Board believes that those Formal Opinions are correct and applicable in this matter.
It is the opinion of the Board that the proposed publications are advertising and are not purely educational and that their publication without compliance with Canon 2 of the Code, including the necessary disclosures would be improper.
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