The fewer restrictions there are on the advertising of legal services

Dear thangvietnam
I'm happy to help with this.

Much of the above discussion concerns regions of subtle that are not really relevant to GMAT CR. Let's look at the individual question.
The fewer restrictions there are on the advertising of legal services, the more lawyers there are who advertise their services, and the lawyers who advertise a specific service usually charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. Therefore, if the state removes any of its current restrictions, such as the one against advertisements that do not specify fee arrangements, overall consumer legal costs will be lower than if the state retains its current restrictions.

Fundamentally, this is a BAD argument.
1) first, it says, fewer restrictions on ads ---> more ads. OK, that's perfectly understandable.
2) then, lawyers who advertise are cheaper than lawyers who don't --- OK, this is a fact of the situation.
The argument says, remove the restrictions, so there will be more ads --- that part is totally logical --- but then it makes the illogical leap --- if more lawyers are advertising, then more of them will be charging the lower fees, and that will save consumers money.

This is a spectacularly bad argument. Basically, it is confusing correlation with causality. Lawyers who advertise have a high correlation with lawyers who charge the lower fees, but the former does not cause the latter. Here's a post about correlation if you want more info:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-integ ... tterplots/
As it often the case in a GMAT CR "Weaken the Argument" question, the prompt argument is seriously flawed, and it's very helpful to recognize that flaw before venturing into the answer choices. We know the flaw now, so let's explore the answer choices. The flaw has to do with the assumed connection between whether a lawyer advertises and how much that lawyer charges.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument concerning overall consumer legal costs?
A. The state has recently removed some other restrictions that had limited the advertising of legal services.
This has nothing to do with whether a lawyer advertises or how much that lawyer charges. Furthermore, fewer restrictions would mean more ads, which the argument thinks is good, so if anything, this is mild strengthener. This is not correct.

B. The state is unlikely to remove all of the restrictions that apply solely to the advertising of legal services.
This has nothing to do with whether a lawyer advertises or how much that lawyer charges. As long as some restrictions are removed, then there will be more advertising, which the argument thinks is good: this is somewhat irrelevant to the thrust of the argument. This is not correct.

C. Lawyers who do not advertise generally provide legal services of the same quality as those provided by lawyers who do advertise.
A tempting answer. This has to do with advertising, but this brings up the irrelevant issue of the "quality" of the service that the lawyers provide --- this is not an issue mentioned at all in the argument. This is not correct.

D. Most lawyers who now specify fee arrangements in their advertisements would continue to do so even if the specification were not required.
Another tempting answer. In a way, this focuses on the wrong lawyers. We already know the lawyers who now advertise tend to have lower fees. In order for consumers to reap substantial savings, the consumers would need these already-advertising lawyers to stay cheap, and, more importantly, would need the non-advertising lawyers who start advertising to lower their rates. The fact that the already-advertising lawyers stay cheap provides weak support to the argument --- it certainly doesn't weaken it. This is not correct.

E. Most lawyers who advertise specific services do not lower their fees for those services when they begin to advertise.
Aha! This is the big one! When lawyer who currently don't advertise begin to advertise, they don't lower their rates. This is a directly contradiction of what the argument was assuming. They were assuming --- lots of advertising lawyers meant lots of cheap lawyers. This is saying --- that isn't the case. If a lawyer is expensive, then that lawyer stays expensive even when she advertises. More advertising is a not a magic panacea that will reduce legal costs across the board. This argument completely naiils the faulty assumption of the prompt, so this by far the best answer.

Does all this make sense?

Mike