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Overwhelmed by Ads? Blame Me.

Posted: February 01, 2010

Mea culpa. (A Latin phrase that admits blame and translates into English as “my fault.”

Who would have thought that on June 27, 1977, when the United States Supreme Court (in a reversal of an earlier decision in a lower court) allowed John R. Bates and Van O’Steen to advertise their legal clinic, that such a deluge of lawyer advertising would follow? Surely not I.

On April 1, 1980, I opened my law firm and tested the waters of “attorney advertising.” Today those waters rival Niagara Falls in volume.

I started with a quarter page display ad in the phone book. When the books were first distributed, I could hardly keep up with the calls. Then I did some direct mail. The phone rang off the hook. I expanded to ads in the newspaper, then a few years later, I started running TV advertisements.

Familiarity with the name of my firm grew beyond my wildest dreams, something which did not go unnoticed by local attorneys who had held off on advertising. All of a sudden I wasn’t “one of the few” lawyers who had discovered advertising. I wish someone in 1980 had weighed a phone book. You used to be able to pick them up with one hand. Nowadays you need a fork lift.

I have to give my peers (and their advertising firms) credit for their ingenuity and creativity. Every play you see at the Ralph these days has a legal moniker attached to it. And if you can’t sponsor the catch of the day, you can choose to practice in an area of the law that rhymes with your name. Am I to blame?

Don’t get me wrong, attorney advertising has done a great thing in bringing affordable legal services to everyday, ordinary people who, in a bygone era thought that retaining an attorney was something done only by members of the upper economic strata. Plus there’s no doubt that my peers and I have created our own economic stimulus package. Marketing, backed by our efforts to provide excellent quality legal services in the three areas we handle - bankruptcy, social security disability and personal injury law - have been the keys to my firm’s success and our growth to 13 offices and 50 plus employees.

I guess I’d just like to know: What happened to those discreet quarter page phone book ads? I’d just like to watch a football game or “Dancing with the Stars;” welcome the beginning of motorcycle season; or even get into my car without being reminded, every single time, that there’s a lawyer out there ready and waiting. But - I admit - I was one of the guys who started it. Mea culpa.

Jeffrey Freedman Attorneys at Law has 13 offices throughout western New York, handling bankruptcy, social security disability, and personal injury cases.

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