Legal Notices Provide Little Notice, Lots of Profit
The newspaper industry is fighting legislative efforts to allow legal notices to be published on the Internet.
So far, the industry has largely succeeded, despite legislation introduced in at least 30 states in 2006 to change the law, Adam Liptak writes in his Sidebar column for the New York Times.
“Even as symbolism, legal notice advertising in newspapers smells of another era, of telegrams and carbon paper,” Liptak writes. But the old-fashioned style of legal notice is a big money-maker for newspapers, which have already lost much of their regular classified advertising to the Internet.
The New York Observer, for example, typically charges about $350 for an ad.
Liptak traded e-mails with the lawyer who placed one ad in the Observer seeking Nicole Johnson, “address unknown.” The ad informed her that her child may be adopted without her consent if she does not show up in court Dec. 17.
The lawyer, John Eyerman, told the Times such notices may be the best alternative when an individual can’t be located. But the ads don’t usually work. “I do not think legal notices published in newspapers are an effective way of providing notice to individuals of certain court proceedings,” Eyerman said.
