Orlando-based law firm Morgan & Morgan has filed a federal lawsuit against The Florida Bar challenging a state ethics rule that prohibits the use of celebrity voices and images in attorney advertisements.
The complaint, filed on August 14, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida’s Tallahassee Division, names The Florida Bar alongside Executive Director Joshua E. Doyle, Chief Ethics Counsel Jonathan Grabb, and Orlando Branch Chief Discipline Counsel Laura N. Gryb in their official capacities.
At the center of the dispute is Florida Rule of Professional Conduct 4-7.15(c), which classifies advertisements containing the voice or image of a celebrity as “unduly manipulative.”
The regulation bans such content across print, broadcast, and digital formats, including websites and social media platforms. The rule includes limited exceptions, such as non-endorsing local radio announcers and testimonials from celebrities who are actual current or former clients.
The lawsuit alleges the restriction violates both the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to the complaint, the rule is unconstitutionally vague because it defines a celebrity as anyone who is “recognizable” to an intended audience on a national, regional, or local level, without providing a clear standard for how that threshold is determined.
“The First Amendment protects a lawyer’s right to advertise. Yet for decades, Florida has stood alone among the states in imposing the most restrictive measures on attorney advertising, banning lawyers from using a celebrity’s voice or image in their ads, even as insurance companies run ads featuring celebrities like Peyton Manning and Jason Bateman every day,” said Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler LLP, counsel for the plaintiffs. “This rule doesn’t protect the public, it protects the industries and interests that already have the upper hand against consumers, while silencing the lawyers who represent them.”
The complaint states that Morgan & Morgan uses celebrity features in other states but cannot do so in Florida due to the threat of professional disciplinary action.
The Bar has previously rejected proposed firm advertisements featuring former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal, actor and driver Frankie Muniz, NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, and professional golfer John Daly. The Bar also rejected a billboard promoting a free youth football camp that featured college football player Malachi Toney because the display included the firm’s branding.
According to the filing, Florida is the only state in the nation that enforces a blanket ban on celebrity voices and likenesses in legal marketing. The complaint also references the Bar’s 2011 public survey, which found that consumers ranked celebrity endorsements as “by far the least important consideration” when choosing legal counsel.
The plaintiffs are asking the federal court to declare Rule 4-7.15(c) unconstitutional both on its face and as applied, and to issue an injunction preventing The Florida Bar from enforcing the prohibition.
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