Lawyer Advertising

Watching local television or driving around central Florida, one cannot help but be struck by the prevalence of advertising by law firms in the area of accident and personal injury litigation. I was curious and did a little research and found various articles online to shed some light on this matter including this page from 2003 on Floridatrends.com as well as this more recent article from the Orlando Sentinel. What follows is not personal opinion but a series of facts gleaned from reading these and other pages on the topic.

It was not so many years ago that it was considered unethical for doctors and lawyers to advertise... and those that did were widely considered to be charlatans. This all began to change dramatically in the mid 80's with the rise of law firms labeled in the media as "ambulance chasers", lawyers who aggressively pursue accident victims to entice them to file a personal injury lawsuit. No one pursued this more aggressively than one central Florida attorney who makes his home in the nearby town of Lake Mary.

According to reports, this prominent law firm spent more than $24 million on television ads alone last year airing more than 500 TV and radio commercials a day, and promotes their services on more than 100 billboards... certainly one major reason, that according to the Florida Bar, plaintiff law firm advertising has exploded since 2008 - up by 68%. The trend has also exploded nationwide, particularly in places like Houston, Texas, and one report found that in 2015 lawyers nationwide were projected to spend close to one billion dollars on television advertising alone.

This central Florida law firm is No. 2 in the nation for spending on advertising, according to the study from the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. The firm is a lightning rod for many Florida doctors and other tort-reform advocates, fueling what they call a gut-level loathing of personal injury lawyers. The Florida Health Care Association lobbies for tort reform on behalf of hospitals and others, while the Florida Medical Association estimates that these personal injury lawyers add 7% to the costs of care.

Certainly negligence by many individuals and corporations leads to many wrongful deaths and injuries every year, and many of the victims are entitled to compensation. In this respect accident and personal injury lawyers perform a valuable service... but as in many things, success often leads to abuse, and tort-reform is much needed in this overly litigious climate we live in, where personal injury has become something akin to a winning lottery ticket. One glimmer of hope... recent tort-reform in worker's compensation cases which limits legal fees to $1500, has led many busy law firms to consider dropping worker's compensation cases altogether. Perhaps this will spread to nationwide tort-reform.

Whatever your opinion on the matter, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the endless stream of lawyer ads in Florida, home of the get-rich-quick scheme.