Lawyer enlists police help in acquiring injury cases

Personal injury attorney Ken Nunn, who smiles up at Bloomington residents from the back of every local Ameritech phone book, has enlisted the help of hundreds of Indiana police agencies to target accident victims as prospective clients.\nNunn has requested 500 Indiana law enforcement agencies to fax copies of accident reports directly to his office on a monthly or weekly basis. Nunn will use the reports, which are public record, to mail advertisements to accident victims. At $3 to $5 each, Nunn could spend around $500,000 annually on the endeavor.\nNunn said the practice is nothing new and that Indiana lawyers have used accident reports to contact injury victims since 1988, when the Indiana State Supreme Court deemed it legal for lawyers to solicit clients as long as they don't breach rules of professional conduct.\nEven with target mailings, Nunn said insurance companies -- who are usually financially responsible in personal injury suits -- still have an unfair advantage.\n"The insurance company can come right in immediately," Nunn said. "Insurance companies can go to the emergency room and lawyers can't. It seems to me that they should have ethical standards too, but they don't."\nNunn said his targeted mailing campaign is ethical because of the Supreme Court's ruling. \nAccording to the Court's Rules of Professional Conduct, a lawyer can advertise services through public media. Nunn contends his mailings come to prospective clients' homes in the same manner television does. \nGreenwood Police Chief Albert Hessman said Nunn is more than welcome to come to Greenwood to review or purchase the reports but has refused to comply with Nunn's request to fax the reports directly to his office.\n"I'll not participate in mass faxing accident reports to attorneys' offices that are on a fishing expedition," Hessman said. "Everybody's looking to sue somebody for something. There are those cases that have strong merit, but in the position I'm in, I see cases all the time, and I think these attorneys ought to have their hands chopped off."\nMonroe County Sheriff Stephen Sharp doesn't mind supplying the reports at all and said he has been doing so for a number of years, for a number of attorneys. Sharp said Indianapolis-based personal injury attorney Stanley Kahn -- who for years aired a TV commercial claiming "The name says it all" -- receives monthly reports from the Monroe County Sheriff's department, as do a number of local attorneys and insurance companies, including All State and Farm Bureau.\nSharp uses the extra income generated by selling the reports to purchase training equipment for his department.\n"It's not a problem to us," Sharp said. "It's public record. If agencies don't want to comply, you can force them to go to court and that creates havoc for everybody."\nHowever legal it might be, Nunn's approach has still not been widely adopted by local attorneys. Bloomington injury Lawyer Bill Lloyd sticks to yellow page advertising, billboards and name recognition.\n"I would presume the routine is still the client comes to you versus contacting a prospective client," Lloyd said. "What usually happens is your prospective client calls you and you send your five dollars down to the sheriff for the accident report. You've got to try to gauge what's tasteful. Word of mouth is the very best of advertising. One hopes to have earned a good reputation that will grow a practice."\nRobert Miller, a former Monroe County prosecutor who specializes in criminal defense, periodically runs an ad in local papers instructing people in how to deal with police, should they be stopped. Miller said he doesn't directly target prospective clients, but sees his ad as a public service. He said he relies primarily on his experience and word of mouth to gain clients.\n"The personal injury field is much more competitive," Miller said. "People generally just don't automatically think of who to call. I think (Nunn's) advertising budget for a month is more than I spend for a year."\nIU Law School professor Aviva Orenstein, who teaches professional ethics, said the Supreme Court used to not permit any advertising, or even an enlarged business card. She said the idea of being able to advertise legal services is a good thing but worries about lawyers at a patient's bed side saying "sue, sue, sue."\n"There's something distasteful about getting people to find problems where none exist," Orenstein said. "But there's also something distasteful about insurance companies low-balling people.\n"It looks like hocking justice. But I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking 'oh my god, this is so sleazy.' The insurance companies are very sophisticated actors. What happens is people are severely injured and they have a lot of medical bills and they're under a lot of pressure to take the first offer."\nNunn compared his targeting of injured victims to doctors targeting seriously injured people to advertise treatment. Nunn said people would perceive a doctor as trying to save lives, whereas the lawyer's actions would be construed as unethical because unethical lawyers have created a public bias.\n"There's a rotten apple in every profession," Nunn said.