Super Lawyers and ethics

Here's another good NYTimes piece regarding attorneys. The article discusses a recent New Jersey Supreme Court ethics opinion holding that a Super Lawyers advertising supplement violated professional responsibility rules in NJ. It seems that the problem with this publication was that it was distributed to the mass market rather than through more narrow, lawyer-specific media.

As I think about it, most of the Super Lawyer and Leading Lawyer rankings in IL are in lawyer specific or more public-policy type publications. I think the NJ holding is appropriate and do think that a consumer could be misled by such rankings. What is everyone else's view on these lists?

I think I got the nomination form for the Leading Lawyer Network in IL for the first time this year. My recolection was that you had to nominate like at least five people to them in order for you to be considered. So, it wasn't as bogus as I had previously thought...I thought you could just buy your way onto those lists. However, is my ability to nominate five other people to their list in some way indicative of my ability as a lawyer? No.