Lawyer Advertising and the Philosophical Origins of the Commercial Speech Doctrine

The topic of lawyers advertising for clients seems prosaic enough, but it is really a subset of a much larger, more theoretical question. What Americans think about the Constitutional right of lawyers to advertise and market their services both reflects and molds what we think about the right to be left alone. In 1928, Justice Brandeis, in his famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, wrote that our Constitution "conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." Justice Brandeis did not speak in a vacuum; he was building on the philosophical arguments that originated in the debates between Aristotle and Socrates.