Ad use grows among personal injury firms
Last Second Media Inc., a Las Vegas direct response TV firm, is helping to popularize ads by personal injury lawyers.
The spots are broad and national in nature, says president Frank Pournelle. “We set up a program where the law firms pay per lead or per call, plus a small consulting fee.”
Most of the firms running the commercials act as national clearinghouses for cases that are later referred to specialists in different states.
“I might work with one law firm, but it could be representing 10 different [types of cases] and working with as many as 25 other law firms,” Pournelle says. “So the face on the TV screen may be the same, but the cases are handled by specialty law firms across the country.”
Calls responding to the spots go to a contact center that takes information and routes it to the proper lawyers. After that, a single law firm contacts the potential client and assesses the case.
Pournelle notes that DRTV in this sector first began to pick up during the economic downturn following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “When 9/11 happened all the advertising disappeared, and TV stations needed to run something on a per-inquiry basis. At the time they turned to mesothelioma [spots], which were paying hundreds of dollars per phone call.”
Law firms were initially permitted to advertise in the late 1970s thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision. But the lawyer DRTV commercials we know today began airing outside Boston in the early 1980s when James Sokolove, a now-retired attorney practicing there at the time, decided to break ranks with much of his profession and hit the airwaves.
About 10 different legal organizations — including the Super Lawyers attorneys' directory — now use Last Second Media's services.
What about legal liability for the DRTV spots?
“We haven't had any bar association inquiries because our clients indemnify us and have their own ethicists maintain proper disclosure,” Pournelle says. “And secondly, we're a national buy — we're just like buying on the History Channel, and aren't even able to do state-by-state customization.”
