99% Invisible - 107- Call Now

Episode Date: March 26, 2014

When it’s three o’clock in the morning and everything is going wrong in your life, there’s a certain kind of ad you might see on basic cable. Lawyers–usually guys–promise to battle the heartless, tight-wad insurance companies on your behalf. There’s … Continue reading →

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. This is Attorney Blah Blah! Brown and Groove. The Littles and Associates. Low old, I hammer Stanley. And I'll get you lots of money for your blah blah injury. Broken bones, burns, paralysis, victims, victims, victims, only call me.

Call me now. Call me right now. 459, ha! Oh my. Our friend, Sean Cole, has always been impressed by lawyer ads. I would say more totally confused by lawyer ads. I mean, I'm just like, like, really like is disaster footage or your cousin wearing a judges robe the best way to represent your practice. But I started looking into them, these lawyer, in particular, the sort of like fly by 90 bottom-feedery seeming ones. And

oh, I fell down the well into the Byzantine crazy subterranean wonderland of lawyer advertising regulation, which has eras to it and factions, and there's this seemingly endless civil war in lawyer nation about whether lawyers should advertise their services at all. But first, let's just enjoy and indulge ourselves in some of the more excessive, nay surreal examples of the genre, mystrow. Here we go. If you've been in an auto accident, here are a few important tips. Don't give a st- So these are the kinds of commercials you see at three in the morning on basic cable when everything is going wrong in your life.

You've got your sort of central casting lawyer in front of a bookshelf for whom every syllable and hand gesture is a perdol. We understand the serious effects that an auto accident can have on your life. But then you have your performers. Permanently injured size matters. The bigger your check, the better. I'm lowl, the hammer Stanley. I love lowl the hammer Stanley. There are images of airborne cars engulfed in flames playing behind him right now I don't stop hammering until the size of your check satisfies you call me and let's talk about size Lowel the hammer stand was actually more than one hammer in this tool bench I'm Jim Amber the Texas hammer I have vingance Justice for the injured, the mistreated, and the ignored. There's even more than one hammer named a Jim.

I'm Jim, the Hammer Chapero. I swear to God, I thought this one was a joke. I cannot rip out the hearts of those who hurt you. I cannot handle their severed hands. But I can hunt them down and settle the store. I'll squeeze them for every time I can. So those are the crusaders. I mean, it's still all about money, but they have a Captain America protector quality

about them. In a few of these things, it's just pure unfettered craftness. I was in pain, and I called Spencer and his associates, and he changed my pain to right. At which point, money falls all over her body. Usually only happens on the strip club. The pain to rain, alchemical process, is fundamental to lawyer television. Your injury is a commodity.

And apparently, caching in is a sin. Call me. It's just that easy. Call me. It's just that easy. Call 1-877. See, Brad. Ha, ha, ha. And look, I granted these things are, they're almost majestically terrible, right?

This is Bob Garfield, co-host of the NPR, WNYC show on the media. For 25 years, he was the ad critic for Advertising Age magazine. There is no attempt for subtlety. It is the hard sell. There have been a few of these lawyers over the years who have tried to be funny. You know, a lot of personal injury lawyers sometimes, in order to cast themselves in their own ads, will do some sort of, you know, nominally comic scenario that they're star of. How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?

When his lips are moving? That is funny and a lawyer jokes are great. But let's get serious. But basically, the key words are, call now. Call the rely on group now. Because obviously the cynical view is like, here are some sharp. Call the goldwater law firm now.

If you or a loved one has had a depue hip replacement, call the Goldwater law firm right now. You know, I have a certain graduate respect. Having looked over and over and over for 25 years at extremely artful executions of fairly obscure creative ideas, I am so delighted to see somebody say, I got something to sell, I think you should buy it, call now. You know, honest, it's honest.

Now, sometimes of dubious legality, because the ads themselves frequently skirt the legality of solicitation. Different jurisdictions have different rules. This is what I was talking about in the beginning. Rules regarding what you can and can't say in an ad, who can appear in your ad and what they're allowed to say about you. All of that is regulated to tighter, elucid degrees

by each individual state bar association and state supreme court. Because as proven by history, lawyers will tout themselves exactly as loudly as they're allowed to. See, back in the 19th century, you'd see ads for attorneys on the front page of newspapers alongside ads for doctors and saddle and harness manufacturers. But in 1908, the American Bar Association put in new rules, saying all instances of self-lawdation,

that's what they called it, self-lawdation, defy the traditions and lower the tone of our high calling and are intolerable. Business guards were okay. That ban lasted about 70 years. And then in 1976, the law clinic of Bates and Osteen ran one little classified in the Arizona Republic, saying, do you need a lawyer? Legal services at very reasonable fees, divorce adoption, bankruptcy, but they did that. And in short, the Arizona bar got mad and suspended the two lawyers.

Bates and Osteen appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, and in the now-imphemous Bates versus State Bar of Arizona, the court ruled that lawyers have the same freedom of speech as everybody else. Gavogavo, lawyers can advertise. Then all hell broke loose. That pretty much opened up the floodgates. This is Elizabeth Tarbert, the ethics counsel for the Florida bar. She runs the department that regulates lawyer advertising there.

There was kind of a wild, wild west situation where lawyers were advertising anyway they wanted because there weren't regulations where there had been just flat out prohibitions. So Florida actually had a couple of different blue ribbon commissions and they adopted the first set of rules and because Barth Leadership was very concerned about what statements lawyers were making in their advertisements to try to get clients. Elizabeth Tarbert wasn't with the bar back then so she doesn't know what those ads

looked like. But in attorney I talked to named Steve Miller does. Look, when I first started practicing, he's a divorce lawyer with offices in Florida and Massachusetts. I worked for a woman in Florida doing personal injury work. And she was one of, I want to say she was one of the first on TV, but she did a lot of TV advertising. And her ad went something like this.

You hear a car crash. You would hear a car crash. You... You would hear a car crash. See, hear the sirens and then they threw a doll, a baby doll, into the picture. Which... I'll never forget it. I won't say her name, but it was just the worst thing that I ever seen. And so I'm sure that had something to do with the bar. Coming in and saying, look, you can't do music,

you can't do dramatization, you can't have your clients come on, you can't do that stuff. It actually goes way beyond that. Florida has some of the strictest guidelines in the country for these ads. For instance, testimonials, if a lawyer writes the testimonial him or herself herself that would be misleading that's not the person's actual experience if it's not the person's

actual experience with a lawyer they're not qualified to judge the lawyer and then those things would be misleading. Now think of how many lawyer commercials you've seen that use testimonials. The insurance company kept asking me to hurry up and sign a release. I was thinking, what's the rush? Of course they wanted Jason to sign quickly. Of course some of them are written by the attorneys or they're advertising consultants. Oftentimes the actual client doesn't even appear in the ad.

I'm Jason Smith. He is not Jason Smith. He's an actor performing a testimonial, which is also prohibited in Florida. Nor are you allowed in Florida to have actors playing authority figures, like cops and judges, saying how great the lawyer is. Nor are you allowed to have actual cops and judges saying how great the lawyer is. People inherently respond to authority figures, whether they're real or not.

So we prohibit their use in advertisements. Does Robert Vaughn fall under that category? I wouldn't consider Robert Vaughn an authority figure he's an actor, but he would fall within the prohibition in the same role about using the voice or image of a celebrity. Again, kind of pervasive in other states. Tell the insurance companies you mean business. Tell them you've hired Jacobian Myers. They go after your rights piece by piece by piece until justice has been served.

They'll be in court. Call Jacobian Myers. One, eight, nine, seven. Elizabeth Tarbott says the rules are meant to protect the public, that people should pick a lawyer based on what she calls objective selection criteria, rather than fancy pants, promises, and sound effects. If you break the rules, the penalties are not really that dramatic. The worst that might happen is that you'll get what's known as a public reprimand.

The bar sends out a press release, so your reputation is kind of marred, but it's not like you're going to be disbarred. So that's Florida. There are a few other states that are strict, Iowa, and Texas, weirdly, given that it's home to one of the hammers. Insurance companies rarely play fair and hand over a fair award. They must be hammered in hammers before they see the light. I'm Jim Ather. Massachusetts and Connecticut are still pretty wild westy. And if you're a national firm,

operating in a bunch of jurisdictions, you have to comply with multiple sets of rules. That's what Lucian Para has to deal with. He's a lawyer with Adams and Reese in Memphis. And among other things, he advises nationwide firms on their advertising. And sometimes he'll be looking over the disclaimer rules, for example. And he'll be like, okay, state A says you gotta say this, but state B, if I say what state A says, state B is gonna say, well well i can't say exactly that so i got

it we've it together somehow it is a morass hmm it does what it's i think in my opinion intended to do which is it deters um... lawyer advertising to some significant extent now Lucian state tenac is pretty loose in fact it's been widely reported of late as the state where you'll see lawyer ads featuring space aliens, giant robots, and both dogs and cars that can talk. And even now, more than 35 years later,

Guchin says there's a cohort of lawyers who will see an ad like that and say, look what baits versus state bar of Arizona have wrought. There are many lawyers today, many lawyers today, who feel that much that is wrong with the profession today, if not all, that is wrong with the profession today, dates from dates, that lawyer advertising turned us from a profession into a business and they just think it's undignified for lawyers to be on television pitching their services generally much less talking to dogs or aliens. They just think that that means the profession.

And you don't have to look too far down the road in Tennessee to find one of those lawyers Namely Matt Harden a personal injury attorney in Nashville with his own practice I'm sorry. I've got a big bunch on this is the first half of it's about the history of history of advertising Last year he and the Tennessee Association for Justice which is a group of plaintiffs lawyers Tennessee Association for Justice, which is a group of plaintiffs lawyers, filed two petitions to the State Supreme Court asking them to change the advertising rules in Tennessee so that they essentially looked more like the ones in Florida. There was a public comment period, so the First Amendment Advocates got involved, and ultimately,

the court said no. But Matt is determined to keep trying, and I asked him, and so do you think Bates was the beginning of the end, like the big bang that created the downfall of the sort of stature of lawyers? I do. I mean, if you look in our history in the 50s and 60s, you have lawyers being seen as a proponents of justice. You know, you have things as far back as like to kill a mockingbird. But those, what I would call the Housy Andeys of positive public perception of attorneys

seem to be long gone. What most people see, unfortunately, is this unsavory advertising and they base their opinions on lawyers on that advertising. But my, you know, my biggest concern about this is how it affects the jury pool and makes people think that you're just out for easy money. That is, if people start thinking plaintiffs and their attorneys are just out for easy money, they might get cynical about the process. And cynical people become cynical jurors and no one gets a fair trial anymore. That's the calculus.

And by the way, Matt's not opposed to advertising writ large. I advertise myself. Though not on TV. I advertise movie theaters. I advertise myself, though not on TV. I advertise movie theaters. You advertise a movie theaters? Other. And online. His ad sound like this.

What to do after an accident? Call Matt Harden Law. Your experienced personal injury law firm, our personal injury attorney. Very different tone. And visually, too, there are just images of gavils and ionic columns and Matt in this ad, which makes you wonder if maybe there's not something more basic about his objections to the dog

and robot commercials. Is it just that you think the ads aren't classy? No, I don't think it's up to me or anyone else to make a judgment over what the class of an ad is. But do you think they're not classy? I don't have an opinion on that one way or another. I mean, that's not really what I'm trying to... Really? Because I think all of us haven't opinion on that one way or the other. I believe some people actually turned off by that type of advertising, but I don't believe,

I don't think they would do it if it didn't work. You think it works? Absolutely it does. They do work yes. They do work for those that they appeal to. This is Lowell the Hammer Stanley. I'm the hammer. They are the nails. Wow. It's just like watching YouTube. I don't think I mentioned. Lowell the Hammer Stanley practices in Norfolk Virginia. He's been a lawyer for more than 30 years. And truthfully, I was a little nervous about asking him what the hell was up with his ads. But he answered the question before I even got to it. I mean the ads are not sophisticated. I'm glad that you know that.

If I saw my ad me personally, I would never call me. Really? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha me who listen to NPR and watch PBS, they are designed to appeal to people who watch shows like Jerry Springer or things like that, who are good and fine and decent people, but they are used to commercials and they bottle always going to fight for uh... that's what those ads are are designed to appeal to it sounds a little like a class distinction well the end it it may be considered class distinction if you are educated person who's a phd or banker or you you don't need to get your lawyer

from a from a from a man you have friends you know somebody you have a family lawyer you go to them this this design for hard work in a blue collar uh... bus driver a little league coach uh... somebody who's who's hurt and doesn't know what a turn doesn't have a lawyer and as a freighter lawyers and want somebody's gonna fight for that that's what what they're designed to appeal to and if that's true there are almost certainly people in florida whom're designed to appeal to. And if that's true, there are almost certainly people in Florida

whom those ads would appeal to. And so, finally, I asked Elizabeth Tarbert at the Florida bar if I called myself the hammer and screamed and had flaming blazing behind me. Would that be okay? There? I think there are aspects of that that are not objectively verifiable, which is required under our rules. That you hammer them. That's a subjective term.

Right. I can't prove that I hammer. Attention, I said Invictive, Victim. If someone, somewhere owes you big, big money, it pays the higher. I have you wait. I have you wait. I'm low. The hammer's deadly.

Four, five, nine. I'm the Avenger for the Injury. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Sean Cole, collectively we are Sam Green span Katie Mingle, Avery, Troubleman, and me Roman Mars. A version of the story originally appeared on the podcast Life of the Law, which I think you'd really like, and it was edited by Superstar Julia Barton. We are a project of 91.7 local public radio KALW in San Francisco and produced in deepened downtown Oakland, California out of the offices of Arxon. A firm of architects who are collaboration junkies and weird enough to on Facebook, I tweet at Roman Mars, Sam tweets at Sam listens, Avery tweets at Truffleman, Katie Mingle could learn a thing or two about tweeting from her mom, Pamela Mingle.

We also have a Tumblr that Avery maintains, but the headquarters of all things 99PI is at 99PI. Radio Tapio. RDO TAPIOT.