104 N.J.L.J. 531
                                        December 20, 1979

OPINION 442

Letterhead - Stating Various Admissions

    An attorney asks whether he may properly show on his letterhead that he is admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court and the United States District Court for Puerto Rico. He states that each court has certain qualifications for admission to practice before it and that he has met these requirements.
    We see no objection to his stating that he is admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court and the United States District Court for Puerto Rico. With the holding in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 53 L. Ed. 2d, 810, (1977), that lawyers may advertise, attorneys are permitted great latitude in placing before the public their specialties.
    Our Supreme Court under R. 1:39-7 has now authorized under certain conditions a lawyer to be certified as "trial attorney." However, it may not be amiss with aspect to the information on lawyers' letterheads to quote from Wise, Legal Ethics, 145 (2d ed.):
            As a safe generals, the more nearly the letterhead conforms to the conventional, the customary, the usual and the ordinary, the safer its use. The usual letterhead, of course, is in quite good taste, with normal modest-sized lettering, giving the name of the individual or firm, the address, the telephone number, and occasionally a cable code number.