Thanks Travis that did the trick.
The documentation ESRI provides for IDynamicLegendItem fails to list any CoClasses that implement, or methods that return this interface. This leaves it unclear how to access an an instance that provides an implementation of this interface.
After some trial and error I found the following technique works:
Dim doc As IMxDocument = m_application.Document
Dim map As IMap = doc.FocusMap
Dim autoVisibility as Boolean= True
Dim legend As Legend = Nothing
For i As Integer = 0 To map.MapSurroundCount - 1
If map.MapSurround(i).Name() = "Legend" Then
legend = TryCast(map.MapSurround(i), Legend)
End If
Next
If legend IsNot Nothing Then
For i As Integer = 0 To legend.ItemCount - 1
Dim item As IDynamicLegendItem = TryCast(legend.Item(i), IDynamicLegendItem)
If item IsNot Nothing Then
item.AutoVisibility = autoVisibility
End If
Next
End If