Attorney Glen Lerner is in a dispute with the State Bar of Nevada over whether he can call himself "The Heavy Hitter" or merely "a heavy hitter." Photo by K.M. Cannon.

It's hard to watch television in Las Vegas and not see a commercial for personal injury lawyer Glen "The Heavy Hitter" Lerner.

In one commercial, he cuts checks to clients as a soccer announcer screams "GOAL!" In another, he spins like a human tornado, generating cash for his clients.

The offbeat commercials with the catchy jingles have made Lerner a celebrity in Las Vegas, but in recent years, they have caused him problems with the State Bar of Nevada.

In short, Lerner said, the bar has told him he cannot be "The Heavy Hitter" anymore.

He can merely be "a heavy hitter."

"The bar told me by calling myself "The Heavy Hitter," it was false and misleading because it was stating I'm the only heavy hitter," Lerner said. "It's beyond ridiculous."

Next week, Lerner said, he and his attorney, Dominic Gentile, will sue the State Bar of Nevada in federal court over what he said are unlawful restrictions on his First Amendment rights to advertise as he sees fit.

"As long as my ads are not false or misleading, I can say what I want to say," Lerner said. "I'm selling a product. Me ... I'm like the Ty-D-Bol man."

State Bar officials cannot comment on cases like Lerner's. Such proceedings are confidential by Nevada Supreme Court rules.

But in a state where lawyers inundate the airwaves, the Yellow Pages and the Internet with ads offering low contingency fees and other questionable claims, the legal community has become more concerned about what is acceptable advertising content.

At the request of the bar, the Nevada Supreme Court last year formed a committee to examine lawyer advertising. The committee is to make changes to state rules on lawyer advertising, and the consumer is protected through enforcement by the bar.

Bill Turner, chairman of the committee, said the issue is a difficult one because the state has to weigh protecting the public against constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment rights of free speech.

"It's a balance," Turner said. "There is the right to free speech under the Constitution, there are the rights of a business person, and there are the rights of the public."

The committee, in a public meeting held Wednesday, floated proposals on changing the rules for what is acceptable in lawyer advertisements. The changes have to be adopted by the State Bar's Board of Governors and then adopted by the Nevada Supreme Court.

State Bar attorney Rob Bare said that in the past, the rules governing lawyer advertisements have focused on making sure lawyer advertisements are not tasteless or offensive.

The changes recommended by the committee seek to place a greater focus on enforcement actions for false or misleading advertisements.

Bare said the bar receives about 1,200 complaints annually. About 60 deal with advertising, and about one third of such complaints are filed by members of the public.

The public complaints have centered on advertisements in foreign language newspapers by attorneys who do not speak the foreign language; misleading contingency fee advertisements in which a lawyer boasts a low contingency fee but charges a sliding scale contingency fee rate when the client does not qualify for the lower rate; and attorneys who represent themselves in advertisements as aggressive but instead settle cases without going to court.

Attorneys are responsible for the other two-thirds of the complaints about lawyer advertising. Attorneys generally complain that several lawyer advertisements offer "drama and suspense" scenarios, which are prohibited by state rules. Attorneys also complain that some lawyers have boasted about some of their jury verdicts in advertisements, which can lead to unrealistic expectations from viewers.

Bare said that in March 2005, 30 lawyers who advertise regularly were asked to provide their ads to the bar for the prior six-month period. About 25 percent of those were not in compliance with state rules, he said.

Over the past year, lawyers have asked the bar to pre-approve commercials. Some ads were discontinued voluntarily, including ones that depicted boxing gloves, sharks on a billboard and a "lawyer personified as a magic fairy 'poofing' people from jail."

Bare said the bar corrected potentially false or misleading advertisements.

Among them was the case of a lawyer who aired an ad showing an accident scene, followed by a hospital scene, a law office and a courtroom. The scenes ended with the statement "I'll settle your case."

"This lawyer was also asked to substantiate exactly how many cases go to court," Bare wrote in the report. "When it was admitted the lawyer had not been to court once in the past 12 months, he was required to pull those courtroom scenes and did so voluntarily."

Lerner said he has butted heads with the bar over several commercials, including one in which a giant phone falls on an unsuspecting litigant.

"They said it created anxiety," Lerner said. "Does the average person really believe a giant phone is going to land on them?"

Lerner said for about a year, he had his commercials pre-screened by the bar for approval, but he stopped doing it because he felt the bar was determining what his advertising message would be.

Gentile said the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that if speech such as Lerner's is accurate and not misleading, then it is protected.

Protected commercial speech "allows the consumer to make better choices," Gentile said.

Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, echoed the sentiments.

"I don't think we need to protect the public sensibilities," Lichtenstein said. "We do need to protect the public from false information or false advertising."