Acting on complaints about lawyer solicitation, the State Bar of California is sending letters to victims of the Sept. 12 Metrolink accident to educate them about lawyer behavior that is unethical and, in some cases, criminal.

The letter also is going to victims' families, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and a number of hospitals.

In it, Scott Drexel, the bar's chief trial counsel, states that it is a crime for lawyers to pay individuals known as "runners" or "cappers" to contact victims or their families in person.

The first offense is a misdemeanor, the second a felony. It is also illegal and unethical for lawyers, as well as people acting for them, to make unsolicited phone calls to victims. And its unethical for them to contact people via mail without making it clear they are seeking business.

Russell Weiner, the State Bar's deputy chief trial counsel, was taken aback by how many people, including law enforcement, don't seem to know that it's illegal for a lawyer to try to sign up cases at the scene of an accident. "It's a little surprising how many people don't know that it's improper," he said.

Even the runners and cappers themselves don't seem to know, Weiner said. "We've had runners and cappers contact us to complain about a lawyer who didn't pay them," he said. "When they found out it was improper, they disappeared." It is not clear how many lawyers have been hired to represent victims in the aftermath of the accident, which killed 25 people and injured 135. The commuter train collided with a freight train near Chatsworth.

Metrolink has received one claim and 20 requests for claim paperwork, spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said. "Anecdotally," he said, "we understand that there is quite a bit of activity from the legal profession regarding the Sept. 12 accident."

Calls to reel in lawyers who are legally advertising to represent the Metrolink victims are unlikely to result in changes to lawyers' ethical rules, not without similar prohibitions applying to insurance companies, according to Deborah Rhode, a Stanford Law School legal ethics professor.

Lawyers aren't the only ones in a rush to make contact with accident victims. Insurance companies wanting a quick resolution have an incentive to get to them before they hire a lawyer.

"That's why there's the race to the bedside," Rhode said. With both sides vying for the victims' attention, it's not surprising that lawyers are high-tailing it to advertise after an accident. "Oftentimes insurance companies will make somewhat misleading statements like, Don't get involved with lawyers because they'll take a third of the fee,' " Rhode said, adding that studies show that people who hire lawyers get better representation than those who go it alone with their insurance companies.

The solution might lie in creating prohibitions for both lawyers and companies. "What we really need is good enforcement and time, place and manner prohibitions," Rhode said.

That way, she said, you ensure that people are approached respectably and aren't prevented from getting needed representation