We have a lot of fun celebrating and shaking our heads at legal advertising. Often at the same time. Most of the time legal advertising is little more than a hostage video starring old white guys standing in front of federal reporters that no one’s opened in at least 15 years, so any weird and wild stunt to break up the monotony — no matter how bizarre or campy — is appreciated.
Now comes a new wrinkle in the legal advertising landscape: The Legal Attack Ad. Sure, it’s not as stupid biting as something coming out of Team Cruz, but it’s nonetheless an escalation in the battle for legal market share waged over the airwaves — or cable boxes, as the case may be.
A new Bloomberg article frames this development with some recent ads from famed Jack Kevorkian lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, like this one:
What Biglaw Can Learn From Personal Injury Firms
How a former insurance agent built a Houston injury practice around systems, empathy, and disciplined advocacy.
Another Fieger ad shows darkened silhouettes labeled with the names of competitors as a deep voice asks, “You think you know them, or do you?”
Calling out fellow attorneys by name? Now that’s pretty cold. I thought only Biglaw firms did that stuff.
Lest you think this is a one-off phenomenon, the Bloomberg article cites Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group predicting “Money spent on [negative] advertising by law firms could rise 300 percent this year from last year.”
AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice—But Tools Aren’t The Real Differentiator.
Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession.
The article hypothesizes that the driving force behind this spending spree is the decline in legal work, which has had the same impact on local economies as the aftermath of a forest fire as the bigger (national) hunters are snooping for food historically reserved for the smaller (local) scavengers.
Fieger and others “have to sort of delegitimize [the competition] by saying, ‘These guys are just a national firm. They’re just trolling for clients; we’re in your community,’” says Geoffrey Pereira, who monitors legal ads for Kantar.
Maybe. But I call shenanigans on that theory since every single lawyer specifically called out in the Fieger ad is a local Michigan personal injury attorney. Perhaps market distinction is necessary in a world of increased national competition, but this ad suggests it’s not about distinguishing national vs. local as much as getting a leg up on the rest of the local market to stay competitive with the national firms. And because digital cable has rendered ad time ridiculously cheap, local firms have a lot more opportunity to make their pitch.
And to entertain future ATL readers.
And not all negative ads require a specific assault on another lawyer. A firm can get creative and indict the whole profession with ads like this:
I guess they’re not looking to represent people blinded in an accident.
Increased competition leads to more — and nastier — ads [Bloomberg Businessweek]