I'm pretty sure every television market is plagued by them, especially during daytime TV.
Here in Utah we have Robert J. DeBry, and the even more annoying Keith "One Call, That's All!" Barton.

Please discuss your "favorite" lawyer commercials here.

Our "One Call, That's All!" attorney is Brian Loncar, a.k.a. the "Strong Arm." I think there's some kind of generic lawyer commercial warehouse.

My all-time favorite lawyer commercial is for Mike Markey. His dialog is pretty boring, but the background features exploding cars. Falling exploding cars.

A surreal listening experience was sitting in the next room and hearing a TV announcer say "If you have been injured or killed in a work-related accident..."

It seems urban-legendish, but I did actually hear this, I swear (hand on my TV Guide).

In New England we have "injury lawyer Harvey Garod", who "will help you get the compensation you need... and deserve." Oh, and "there's never a charge for the initial conference". That's important. That will be on the test.

After years of seeing ol' Harvey in these ads, we almost fell off the couch one night when they showed a news clip of a local trial in progress and Harvey was one of the attorneys. My God, you mean he's REAL? *slaps head in astonishment* I would have been less surprised to see a leprechaun in the courtroom.

That's how I feel about Edgar Snyder - Pittsburgh area. I once saw him on the street by the courthouse and I almost fell over. I start tugging at my boyfriend's arm and hissing "It's HIM! It's HIM! Edgar Snyder and Associates!!"

James - who had just moved from the Altoona area - had no idea what the heck I was talking about. Now, after living in Pittsburgh for four years, every time the commercials come on (every 10 minutes at least), he's all: "Remember when we saw him???" Blech...

"Never any charge for consultation.." is such a misnomer. Of course he's not going to charge you for the consultation. But he'll take 33% of any guaranteed settlement that you get provided that the person who injured you had insurance...

"No money down. That's right. No money down."
(Of course, if we win the case we'll take everything you have and then some...)

I'm from the Pittsburgh area and so I always had a soft spot for Edgar Schneider. Actually I went to school with his daughter.

But Edgar has nothing on Glenn Lerner, The Heavy Hitter, from the Las Vegas area. Lerner is huge, he looks like the transition stage between Bruce Banner and The Hulk. His suits look like they are one flex away from exploding off of his body. And all of his commercials end with him walking toward the carmera in smokey silhoutte.

We used to have a local law firm that advertised the lawyers taking off in a poorly animated spaceship.

The one that currently annoys me is for some bankruptcy lawyer named Orcutt, who will cut your bills. I live in a military town, so the ad features a soldier calling the cadence, "Orcutt, Orcutt my bills! 3-2-3-2-4-4-2! 3-2-3-2-4-4-2!" Stupid yet effective, as I know the number.

This reminds me of a few years ago, when I lived up in Rhode Island, they used to play the commercials for Jim Sokolov (No idea how to spell that, I typically just call him Sock O' Love. Because I'm an idiot.) So there I was, making my usual Sock O' Love joke, when my dad tells me that he and my mom actually USED him when they were thinking about suing a hospital. I was completely flabbergasted. People actually call those guys in lawyer commercials? My own PARENTS did? Shock of my life.

(I told you I'm an idiot.)

Sokolove, with an E. I live in Rhode Island and his commercials still haunt me, like D'Oliveira and Morgan. "Let's settle this one!"

Ah yes, D'Oliveira and Morgan. "Tell your insurance company YOU MEAN BUSINESS." It doesn't matter how long I'm away for, every single time I visit, I see these commercials. It's like they're stalking me, which makes me a bit paranoid that it's some cosmic way of telling me that I'm going to be injured in an auto accident.

There's a guy in either the Vancouver, Victoria, Bellingham, or Seattle area who's a personal injury lawyer, and his spot either starts with or concludes with a stunt double doing a nose-wheelie on a motorcycle to a dead stop, followed by the real lawyer taking off his helmet astride the now safely stopped bike. I'm always fascinated by that ad -- how would anyone think that stunt was a good reason to hire him?

Hee. Where I am the laws discourage lawyer advertisements.

However, please enjoy them for me! :)

You lucky thing!

The Connecticut version of D'Oliveira and Morgan is Mark E. Salmon & Morelli. You either get Robert Vaughn or Captain Kirk hissing how evilllll the insurance companies are.

And let's not forget Alan K. Reisner (cute animated commercials where of course you share fault because you left your house the day of the loss!), the Carter law firm (Get Carter!), The Law Offices of John Haymond...

I live in N.W. Indiana, Chicago's very own parking lot, and Peter Francis Gerasci invites you to listen -- free of charge -- to his info tapes. Chapter 7? No problem. Chapter 13? No problem. Peter's been getting us out of debt since 1977!

Minneapolis, Minnesota checking in. Here, the evil insurance agencies joust with the likes of Woods & Thompson. My partner had an auto accident and not even three days later Woods & Thompson was filling the mailbox with pleas for business. Then there's Will Walker, who sports the world's ugliest bow-ties and doesn't know that it's not polite to point. He always curls his index finger back, so that he's pointing with his knuckle.

However, my favorites are the bankruptcy attorneys. Jack Prescott is the Old Grand-dad of them all, and I swear that's what he's tanked up on when he does the commercials. Over 35000 cases filed, and he was blasted for every one of them. Then there's Curtis Walker, all five feet nothing of him. I saw him getting ready to go in for creditor's meetings once. The man makes Napoleon look like Shaquille O'Neal. Robert Hoaglund likes to show his 'people' in action, meeting with clients and handing pens around, but it seems like they only have one pen, which must make it interesting in the office when there's more than one paper to sign.

And we get the James Sokolove commercials here, too. Have you suffered liver damage or death from taking Celebrex? Call James Sokolove! Yikes.

Metro NYC here. Does anyone remember a law firm commercial from a few years ago: the scene: swanky restaurant. Two men, one younger, the other looking like Mr. Moneybags from the Monopoly game, seated at a table, eating lunch. Younger man is telling Mr. Moneybags that somebody has a major lawsuit against the company and that they have to take it seriously; Mr. Moneybags says something like, "They don't have a case and, by the way, who's their lawyer?" Younger man says the name of the firm. Mr. Moneybags starts choking; then calmly says, "Let's settle this thing."

Does anyone remember the name of the law firm? I want to say Jacoby & Myers, the pioneer in law firm advertising in New York, but they seem too classy to resort to a commercial that suggests the mere mention of their name strikes fear and dread into people.

Do you mean Bankruptcy ((Info)) ((Tapes))? I've never been quite sure about the double parentheses. We have him in Milwaukee, too. I guess he has one office in the area. His commercials are featured during syndicated shows, like Judge Judy. He always stares at the camera and talks very blandly. He has always creeped me out.

"When you're injured in an accident, Kondos Law Office can help" (I might be off by a word or two). Daniel Kondos, with his bad eighties hair and low budget camera work, flooded Milwaukee airwaves in the '90s. His phone number, repeated several times on each commercial, was 444-4444. "Four-four-four, forty-four, forty-four" -- a few times a day. I don't remember James Mentkowski's pitch, but I remember that he really creeped me out. I'm very glad that Mentkowski and Kondos don't advertise anymore, but Geraci is here to stay. Sigh.

Ack!! I see that we, here in the Spokane area, are not the only ones subjected to the "One call...That's all!" deal. Here it's Gregory Swapp. Used to be some other dude, then changed to him. Commercials, billboards, flyers, you name it. Pictures of wrecked cars and people waving checks around insanely. The whole bit.

I have no idea what the double "parens" are for either, but he's opened two ((law)) ((offices)) in N.W. IN too.

Hmm...sounds like Kalfus and Nachman, whose spokesperson was Robert Vaughn, who should be playing evil guys in the movies. I wonder what they have on him to make him work for them?

You're a lot smarter than you think - I had to call a tax attorney ('cause I screwed up, and it's a few years back so a mess to fix) anyway, the two outfits who slather our airways with annoying ads, I Googled along with "Better Business Bureau" - not only did I get their info with the BBB (both very unfavorable reports) but a lot of other feedback, all of it very negative.

I know, not all who advertise are going to suck as badly as their commercials do, but I also don't like the thought of paying for those commercials!


One in the Seattle area, younger insurance guy is telling his boss about someone who got horribly injured by one of their insured. Older guy is smugly advising to give them a piddly settlement, knowingly not nearly enough to pay for their injuries, but that they'd go for the "quick bucks" anyway.
Then, of course, the horribly injured person is represented by Lawyer and Lawyer, so the smug boss pales and says, "this is gonna cost us!"

edited so my quote includes the text that actually applies to what I'm commenting on

Since it's tax time, we've got Roni Deutch's "Settle with the IRS for only $20!!!!!!!!!!" commercials going strong during the daytime hours.

And Baltimore Orioles fans can contemplate that their team's owner, Peter Angelos, apparently needs to run commercials for his asbestos torte practice. Angelos was the lawyer who led one of the most successful mesothelioma (lung cancer caused by asbestos) suits ever in the 90s; that one deal netted him $100M, which he used to buy a baseball team. Every time I see Peter Angelos' commercials on in this area, I watch the sports transactions to see if the O's are getting ready for a big-time trade/new contract for a superstar/etc.

I'm pretty sure that's a generic commercial they air across the States. They just add a voice-over of the lawyer's name. I remember seeing this ad on (I think) a Fox station out of Rochester, NY, (or maybe the former UPN station out of Boston) for Mark E. Salamone, and again on a Detroit station for a different law firm. They also have David Liesure doing similar ads these days, with William Shatner doing a little tag at the end.

So, New Yorkers, what happened to Cellino of Cellino & Barnes. Now it just seems to be ads for 'The Barnes Firm'.

I like to imagine some sort of dramatic scandel.

And, of course, there's 'Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar.' Gotta love TV lawyers that can rhyme.

Anyone in south Alabama see the David J. Maloney commercials, where he's all "If you are a drunk driver, and you want me to defend you, I'm going to say no and then go after you!" Girl, please, I know you're all about the money, you can't fool me.

Central Texas: I don't even know which lawyer it is but it's about the class action Paxil and birth defects thing. The phrasing in this one bugs me severely.

If you or *someone you love* has taken Paxil and your child was born with birth defects, call us at.....

So, if my favorite cousin, whom I love dearly, has taken Paxil, and I have a baby suffering from a birth defect, I can blame Paxil and sue?

I don't get this. So he's a defense atty AND a prosecutor? That must be one small town. ;-)

You are correct, The Mad Maple. Here is Georgia, there are at least two different firms that use that same commercial, depending on the area of the state you're in.

He represents accident victims. I think what he was trying to get at was that he wouldn't represent people who were in accidents but were drinking. But he definitely said he would probably be the one going after the drunk driver. Yeah, okay. I thought it was weird too.

Glenn Lerner drives me insane. He has this thing, too, for dating girls and then buying them new boobs. I swear I know three of them personally. In Las Vegas, if you want a boob job, just find Glen Lerner or a Maloof brother and you've got it covered.

I bet he means that he will represent the injured party and go after the drunk driver for pain and suffering.

I'm in Houston and I'm always seeing a commercial for some law firm that says they are "Christian Trial Lawyers." I just can't reconcile those two in this case.

Edited to simplify.

Maybe they also do "tribulations"?

It was totally Jacoby and Myers. And for the longest time, when I was growing up, I thought it was all one word.

I just recently learned that James Sokolove, of mesothelioma case fame, is national. We had him in NYC, and I just saw an ad for him here in Southern California.

I can't leave this thread without being reminded of the best fake fictional lawyer from the Simpsons, Lionel Hutz, of the firm I Can't Believe It's a Law Firm!™

---------------------------
LIONEL HUTZ

WORKS ON CONTINGENCY
NO MONEY DOWN
---------------------------



(Corrected Ad:)
---------------------------
LIONEL HUTZ

WORKS ON CONTINGENCY?
NO, MONEY DOWN!
---------------------------

I think James Sokolove is making money off of mesothelioma sufferers nationwide. We have his ads here in Ohio as well.

South central Texas too.

As are Weitz and Luxenberg.

This thread reminds me that I haven't seen any commercials for Larry H. Parker ("I'll fight for you!!") in the last year or so. Any other Southern Californians know where Larry has gone?

I swear, if I see one more Binder & Binder ad, I'm going to scream. Yes, we know that people who are trying to get SSDI benefits aren't freeloaders. But they also aren't people who are going to want to give you a ton of their already limited SSDI dollars for your contingency fee, either. Sheesh.

That sounds like something Jim Adler(?) "The Texas Hammer" or, "The tough, smart lawyer" says in his ads.

The only way the firm gets paid for an SSDI claim is if they win, and even then, the government caps what they receive. It's surprisingly low, much less than you'd think.

Aren't the Binder and Binder ads the ones with the guy wearing the odd cowboy hat in them? Why is he wearing that hat?

Is anyone else here subjected to Roni Deutch? "I'll fight the IRS for YOU!" Great. Good to know there are folks out there who refuse to pay taxed for years but they'll have you to get them a deal. Why am I so bitter about Roni?

That's them. He wears it because he likes it. He's a good guy.

Speaking of cowboy hats, you guys are fortunate that you don't have the totally ridiculous Wayne Wright clogging your airways. "You deserve respect and justice, so we demand it"? Uh, yeah. That sounds so credible coming from a crusty old cowboy wannabe carrying around a ludicrously big Stetson hat and sporting an equally comical moustache.

And yeah, we too get the cookie cutter commercials (our William Shatner one is for Malaise [ha, what a name for a lawyer] & Davis) and the ones for the unctuous James Sokolove, who, if things were fair, will be roasting in Dante's 7th circle for all eternity. And speaking of being surprised that TV lawyers are actually used, I am continually surprised whenever I see one of the Maloneys (usually the irritatingly-voiced Marynell) being used in some local trial or another.

But... yeah. You know how Shakespeare wrote, "Kill all the lawyers"? I think he was thinking of these people.

Oh, I despise Marynell Maloney and her breathy, talking to pre-schoolers voice. Gaahh. I wouldn't hire her if my life depended on it.

Oh, anstar? You totally made my evening, saying that! I totally agree, and, you know, one of my high school classmates, whose mother was a higher-up in the police department, professed a total and complete hatred for Marynell Maloney. So there must be something direly wrong with her/her lawyering. And hey, you're local! That is awesome. :)

Here in the NY Capital Region we have Martin, Harding, & Mazzotti. One of their incessant commercials is a pitch for injured motorcyclists to come to them if they've been in an accident. The whole ad is basically saying that any accident a motorcyclist gets in on the road is the fault of the driver of a car or truck. While it's probably true that motorcyclists are more open to a mishap on the road because they're not wearing seatbelts or in a more structurally secure vehicle, I've seen a lot of cyclists acting like total jerks, or driving in a way that's just asking to cause an accident. MH&Z have a lot of similar commercials where they totally give the impression of ambulance-chasers.

Just curious: whatever happened to Corri "Life's short. Get a divorce" Fetman?