Gov. Christie exercises his pocket veto
Gov. Christie vetoed The anti-solicitation measure, S-2316/A-4430, which said:
“no person shall solicit professional employment from, or contact, a person whose name, address or other personal information was obtained from a public record of a motor vehicle accident for a period of 30 days” after an accident. It passed without opposition.
Violations would have constituted a third-degree crime.
The state already has a law banning in-person, telephonic or electronic solicitations of accident and disaster victims for 30 days. The bill would have expanded that to include written solicitations and — more drastically — impose criminal penalties.
Excluded from the bill were solicitations from a professional who already had a relationship with the victim and cases in which the victim initiated the contact.” [via NJ Law Journal]
Commentary
It’s too bad Gov. Christie gave a break to the vermin that contact victims of accidents without an invitation to ply their wares. I am against these “uninvited” intrusions, regardless of when they occur.
There are so many legitimate ways for lawyers to make themselves visible to accident victims. Why permit direct, written, uninvited solicitations?
Uninvited, written, solicitations are just one more bad “lawyer joke” to add to an already overloaded public arsenal.
