Matter of Zang

Attorneys Stephen Zang and Peter Whitmer (respondents) ran ads depicting themselves as capable trial lawyers using dramatic courtroom and accident scenes, emphasizing trial-preparation advantages like investigators and medical expertise, even though their firm filed complaints in only 5% of its roughly 1,500 cases and, of the roughly 20 cases referred to outside trial counsel, only about 9 actually went to trial - with the firm's own single attempted trial ending in mistrial after the first witness. Zang, despite a medical degree and consulting experience, had never tried a personal injury case, and Whitmer had only minimal personal-injury trial experience from over a decade earlier; the state bar found the ads false and misleading.