Since the above thread hasn’t been moved to say IMHO, putting mine here too.
There are 3 firms which advertise like fuck in town (Jacksonville FL: Farah & Farah, Morgan & Morgan, and Harrell & Harrell), including on billboards everywhere you go. So, why don’t any of the other lawyer firms advertise the way that they do?
These firms often seem to portray themselves as God’s gift to man as well, almost as if they’ll bleed on demand stigmata-style if your tale is tragic enough. Why do they often use such histrionics?
Many people first time arrested for.crime or injured in an accident don’t actually know a lawyer, never needed one. So remembering one from a TV commercial pops into their head and they call the catchy phone number from the ad and ask for advice rather than shop around and ask friends. They know they don’t want a public defender, so they get these guys for what they think is just an initial consulation. The firm helps gets them out on bond and they get reeled in. Then the law firm gets new, potentially long term clients, which equates to huge profits.
There’s one around here that cracks me up. The ad starts off by saying how choosing a lawyer is too big of a decision to base it on a TV ad, then they spend the next 25 seconds explaining why you should pick them.
One of the big advertisers in Toronto (Diamond & Diamond) obfuscates the fact that it isn’t really a law firm per se, more like a referral service that takes a cut of the fees.
There is a law firm around here that went big into billboards. Driving from my house to my favorite bar (pre-pandemic), a 26 minute drive, you see 7 full size billboards advertising the firm, including two identical ones right next to each other.
New York magazine had a great article on Cellino & Barnes, which unfortunately appeared just before Barnes died in a plane crash.
It presents a lengthy description of how and why the firm grew to dominance. The short version is advertising. Gigantic amounts of advertising. But that spawns a vicious feedback loop. A volume business requires hiring huge numbers of attorneys who can handle cases quickly and successfully, so there is always pressure on everyone. Not a fun place to be for anyone not making $10 million a year at the top.
The key is making your brand stand out. Only the top few will do so. Not everybody can be Coke or Pepsi. The barriers to introducing a new accident law firm to challenge the big ones are as daunting as the barriers to challenge Coke and Pepsi.
Correct. Each jurisdiction is a little different. Las Vegas, for example, has the most lawyer advertising I’ve ever seen. There are a few good firms in the mix, but most are high volume, low effort operations that take in many cases and settle them quickly and relatively cheaply.
In the Seattle area, only tacky and unprofessional firms advertise much. The “respectable” firms might sponsor the local NPR station, or a charity event, but you won’t see billboards or big yellow page ads.
These advertising firms are (generally) not evil. There’s a place for firms that handle routine car crash cases efficiently. The good ones are not shy about reaching out to lawyers with more resources if they get a big case and recognize it deserves more attention then they can offer. On the other hand, I’ve seen some disgraceful conduct (malpractice) by some of these firms.
For small PI (personal injury plaintiff) firms with just one or two lawyers they have a problem when they win a big judgement. They have a sudden massive influx of cash & taxable income. Which the taxman will enjoy taking an outsized cut of. If they pour it into advertising that increases their taxable expenses and the taxman doesn’t get as much of the lump.
It’s also a grinding game where your income depends on processing X number of small cases and one or two turn into lottery-like multi-hundred $K payoffs. You just can’t predict which case(s) it will be. So the more come through the door, the better the odds on scoring a big payday more than once every few years.
Advertising is what increases that number X. So when a small firm lands a whale of a settlement, they’ll often be buying saturation advertising. If they’re small enough they can even get away with using cash-basis accounting so they can buy e.g. 5 years’ worth of billboards and expense the whole lot in the same year as the big settlement.
My wife wasn’t in PI, but she was a small-firm lawyer in an advertising heavy town. Lots of her contemporaries & colleagues were playing this game for blood.
For some, it is part of their business model. I am currently employing the services of a large national firm. They advertise, probably on tv, certainly on the radio and on spotify, and I might have seen a billboard here or there, maybe, been a while if I have though.
I like how the company is set up. My attorney has access to a nationwide network of other attorneys she can consult with, she doesn’t have to worry about finding clients, I don’t have to worry about how well, what level of effort she’s going to put into representing me because I haven’t paid the bill yet this month, none of that stuff. She just lawyers because the firm has a system that supports both her and me in many ways(hey I uh, I can’t pay the full bill this month, payments ok? yeah? whew thanks) She just lawyers.
