Injured? Some Lawyers Say Yes : New Law Toughens Rules on Content of TV and Radio Ads

A California law designed to take the hype out of attorney advertising went into effect this month, and personal injury lawyer Larry H. Parker sure isn’t enjoying it.

Gone are Parker’s ads showing a healthy-looking man in a Hawaiian shirt sipping a cool drink and proclaiming, “Larry Parker won me $2.1 million, and I’m sure enjoying it.”

To comply with the law, the Long Beach attorney has been forced to scrap the trademark TV commercials so familiar to daytime viewers. In Parker’s new spots, actors portraying accident victims talk about frustrations--not money. And a hard-to-read disclaimer on the screen warns, “No actual results are portrayed or implied.”

Parker is perhaps Southern California’s most visible legal professional to be affected by the law, which places tight restrictions on the content of such ads for television or radio. Many other advertisers have been forced to make costly revisions.

Attorneys and legal referral services are no longer allowed to boast of courtroom victories or re-enact auto accidents without giving details of the cases--which is too much information to be crammed into a 30-second spot.

Now Parker worries that his talking-head ads are too dull to drum up business.

“I can’t show an accident. I can’t talk about money anymore, which makes no sense,” he said. “This is what I do for a living.”

The California law is one of several attempts nationwide to limit attorney advertising. A dozen other states have imposed restrictions on testimonials or dramatizations.

In Florida, Mississippi and Texas, lawyers have gone to court seeking to set aside laws limiting their freedom to brag about settlements or depict car crashes in their ads. Those cases are pending.

The debate in each state is similar. “One (view) is that testimonials are not valid--just because one person gets $2 million doesn’t mean another will,” said William E. Hornsby, staff counsel for the American Bar Assn.’s Commission on Advertising. “The other viewpoint is that people want to know what a lawyer has done. A testimonial addresses those questions.”

Underlying the controversy is a long-simmering dispute among lawyers over how advertising affects the profession’s image. Advocates of the law in California, for example, say that free-wheeling advertising has made some lawyers the butt of jokes.

But an American Bar Assn. report issued this week holds that the public’s perception of lawyers is shaped not by their advertising, but by books, media reports and Hollywood.

“Legal advertising has not been shown to do any harm to society or to the bar,” said Ralph. G. Elliot, a Connecticut lawyer involved with the bar’s study of the impact of such ads.

The debate comes amid an explosion in attorney advertising. According to the Television Bureau of Advertising, the category is one of the fastest-growing, with spending at nearly $126 million in 1993, up from about $5.5 million in 1980.

Though specific figures aren’t available for Southern California, some attorney advertisers are big spenders. Parker spends about $1 million a year plugging his services. Legal Rights Defenders, a San Pedro legal referral service, shells out $2 million.

The California Trial Lawyers Assn., a backer of the new limits on the ads, argued that claims about monetary settlements mislead people and cheapen the legal process. Wayne McClain, president of the association, said many of the old ads falsely implied that any injury could be a ticket to instant wealth.

For example, the Parker ad, which was often cited during the legislative debate, did not disclose that the winner of that multimillion-dollar settlement lost part of one leg. Under the new law, advertisers must reveal the extent of injuries.

Parker says the new rules prohibit him from giving details that would set him apart from other personal injury attorneys, and make it more difficult for consumers to comparison-shop.

“I think people want to know whether a lawyer won $10,000 or $1 million,” he said.

Parker says his old ads were not misleading. “When clients came to my office after seeing the commercial, they said, ‘Wow! So that guy must have lost a leg or something.’ They know he certainly didn’t get $2.1 million for whiplash.

“If you accept what (the California Trial Lawyers Assn.) says, you must think the consumer is pretty stupid,” Parker said.

His revised ads are more generic. Actors’ lines include: “My car was wrecked and the insurance company’s attitude was ‘Heh!’ ” or “He came out of nowhere--bang!”

The ads end with Parker proclaiming, “Fighting for you is my job.”

Legal Rights Defenders has also made changes. Spokesman Tim Dupler said the company has dropped two commercials featuring testimonials. But the referral service has managed to keep wrecked cars in the picture. Dupler said one spot showing damaged cars is not a re-enactment, but an aerial view of an auto repair yard.

Advertising by lawyers was prohibited until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ban in 1977. Instead of ending the debate over whether attorney ads should be allowed, the court decision shifted the question to what constitutes false or misleading advertising.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Florida case involving direct-mail solicitations by attorneys. And the Florida bar and bar associations of 20 other states--not including California--have asked the court to clarify the states’ authority over all attorney advertising.

Advocates of California’s new law believe it can withstand a legal challenge. Most states regulate attorney advertising through professional codes of conduct enforced by the bar associations, they say. A law carries more weight in court because it has “more credibility (as to) what the public thinking is,” said Thomas Stolpman, a member of the California bar’s governing board.

The law gives the state bar the authority to review alleged violations. Violators may face civil lawsuits and penalties.

Stolpman said many advertisers, including Legal Rights Defenders and the nationwide firm Jacoby & Meyers, have agreed not to oppose the new limits, but Jacoby & Meyers co-founder Leonard Jacoby said that while he does not oppose the law, he is concerned that it may lead to more onerous regulation.

As for Parker, he says he is weighing his options.

“We’ve all seen ads that are so boring no one bothers to pick up a telephone,” said Parker, who is a former official of the California Trial Lawyers Assn. If calls from potential clients drop off, he said, “we may have to go into court and attack.”

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Court TV

Since the U.S. Supreme Court removed barriers to attorney advertising in 1977, the amount spent on it nationally has grown dramatically. Expenditures by attorneys on TV ads alone increased twenty-fivefold from 1980 to 1993, the last year for which figures are available. Preliminary indications are that spending continued to grow in 1994. Amount spent on TV advertising by attorneys, in millions of dollars:

1980: $5.47

1993: $125.97

Source: Television Bureau of Advertising, CMR / Media Watch