Matthew J. Ruff Criminal Law Blog on Lawyers.com

In California, as in many parts of the country, the law allows companies to buy information from local police departments that contain the names and addresses of persons arrested for criminal offenses.  This information is then sold to attorneys that send letters to the people soliciting legal services.  In my experience, most folks find this to be an incredible invasion of their privacy and is very unnerving to recieve at their home.  The danger exists in the sense that many of these lawyers do not have the experience or the reputation to get clients from other sources and often engage in "puffing" or in some cases outright misrepresentation in an effort to get a client in this manner.  Caution should be exercised when responding to jail mail as the decision that you make when hiring an attorney could be very costly in the end.