An 80-page advertising supplement featuring the New York Super Lawyers recently appeared in the New York Times Magazine. The supplement carried ads by lawyers congratulating and profiling themselves upon their selection as Super Lawyers. Most of the 80 pages are given over to the "platinum profiles" that Law & Politics offers to those selected. A one-page color platinum profile costs $20,000. Some firms chose a two-page color spread like the one for Napoli, Bern & Associates, whose tagline says "aggressive advocates for the injured."

On the cover of the Times magazine was someone who is certainly a "super lawyer": Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens. The 7,500-word article about Justice Stevens on the eve of the court's new term, sure to be read by those who follow the law, was an unexpected boon to William White, the publisher of Super Lawyers.

"People said, ‘My God, who did you pay off?' " said White.

(Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said that Super Lawyers had "no prior knowledge" of the content of the Times magazine. "The Super Lawyers inserts are planned many months in advance in accordance with their own schedule of regional Super Lawyer magazines," she said.)

In the advertising supplement, the most eye-popping profile may be that of William A Brewer III of the commercial litigation firm Bickel & Brewer, who ran the same profile last year. Brewer stares out at the camera, jaw clenched and shoulders drawn, clad in a pin-striped suit and purple silk tie and copping a pose worthy of The Untouchables from his office on Fifth Avenue.

Brewer said the firm gets "zero" business from the ads, but he has noticed an "uptick" in support for the firm's pro bono activities after the ads run. "I think I got a call from an existing client who told me my tie was crooked," he said. "I think he was teasing me."

Not everyone is thrilled to be part of the Super Lawyers crowd.

"It's a tad embarrassing," said Mark S. Edelstein, chair of Morrison & Foerster's real estate financing practice, who made the list of real estate Super Lawyers. When Edelstein opened the Times magazine and saw the advertising insert, he said he cringed.

"I don't know why anyone would spend their money to get their picture or firm in there. It makes you feel like you are selling toilet paper or something." Edelstein, who also made the list last year, did not nominate any Super Lawyers, and threw away the survey from Law & Politics when he got it.

Even some publicists for law firms see the Super Lawyers ad inserts as the worst form of P.R. "It makes you look oily. It's schlocky-the worst kind of vanity on display," said Allan Ripp, who handles media relations for several large law firms.

Buchdahl, the marketing consultant, said Super Lawyers may already be losing its luster. "There is a tremendous amount of pushback from law-firm marketing departments, which feel that they are often forced to buy these ads," he said. "The marketers are finally saying: We are not going to do those ads. It is not advancing anything for us and it kind of makes us look stupid."

At least one state is determined to apply some kryptonite to its Super Lawyers. Last summer, the Committee on Attorney Advertising in New Jersey issued an opinion finding that lawyer advertisements heralding one's Super Lawyer status violate the state's ethics rules governing lawyers, which do not allow a lawyer to advertise by comparing his services to those of another lawyer or to "create an unlikely expectation about the results a lawyer can achieve."

White, the Super Lawyers publisher, doesn't seem fazed by the challenges. As the beef carpaccio and vegetable dumplings were being passed at the Waldorf party, he caught a glimpse of a couple of lawyers who were stamping out a fire in a paper cocktail napkin with their wingtips.

"Now, there are some real Super Lawyers," he said.