What Is Goin’ On?

I enjoy lawyer jokes as much as anyone, but I have little patience with people that enjoy bashing lawyers. The latest round of lawyer bashing was sparked by the Sugar Refinery tragedy in Savannah. Within days lawyers from other states placed advertisements in the local papers advising the injured and their families they were ready and willing to help. Of course, everyone interpreted this as “ambulance chasing,” or “trolling for clients.”

If such blatant advertising offends anyone’s sensibilities, then let me point out one thing: THIS WAS NOT DONE BY GEORGIA LAWYERS!! So let’s don’t bash everyone, just because some lawyer did something you don’t like.

But the real question I want to ask is this: Why would anyone be offended by an advertisement like this? Of course, the easy answer is something like this: It doesn’t show respect for the injured and their families. It’s greedy. It’s ….whatever!

I am not sure I buy this logic, but assuming this is true, is this the result of timing or content? What if the same ad were placed a week later, a month later? Would that result in lawyer bashing?

Would it have made any difference if the ad had been placed by a local Georgia lawyer as opposed to someone from Texas?

In this interview Joseph (Joe) Watkins, an Atlanta lawyer and current President of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, Mark Tate, a Savannah attorney and I, discuss the controversy in an effort to explain and offer insight into why lawyers advertise. By the way, Mark’s law firm sponsors a TV show called “Law Call” which airs every Sunday night at 11:30 p.m. on one of the Savannah stations.

And let me make one thing clear: I am not talking about lawyers in general, only those targets of partisan politics, the “personal injury lawyer”, the “trial lawyer,” the “plaintiff’s attorney.” I am proud to be one. Call us what you will, we devote our professional lives trying to obtain justice for people who are wronged by others. That wrong may have caused a minor injury or a catastrophic one. It may have resulted in the wrongful termination of a good employee from a 20-year employment position. The trial lawyer, together with the courts, stands up for people that cannot stand up for themselves. Sometimes those people are rich, but many, many more are just normal, ordinary people who have been hurt. Pray you don’t ever need a lawyer, but pray that if you do, you get a good trial lawyer to stand up for you.

But the issue is lawyer advertising! There are lots of people, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, who mock the Ken Nugent ads. “One Call” my &^%(.!

Lawyers advertise for the same reason that every other business in the nation advertises: to get business. They also happen to have a constitutional right to advertise. If you have a problem with that, then I assume you equally condemn doctors who advertise. After all, don’t they simply want to make money? Don’t they want to charge you thousands of dollars out of your pocket at the very point in time that you can least afford it–when you are sick and dying. Is that any less a tragedy? If your response is that doctors do a lot of good while making money, I will be the first to agree. But, that is exactly what lawyers do–a lot of good while making money.

Of course, the issue is not that lawyers advertise, but that they do it after a catastrophe and they do it in public for all the world to see. It’s kind of like watching TV with your family when the Viagra ad comes on the screen.

As Mark points out, within hours, if not minutes after the incident, the Sugar Refinery had lawyers and insurance adjusters getting out of bed in the middle of the night to start protecting the rights of the people that may have done something wrong, the ones that caused or could have prevented the catastrophe. The injured and dead and their familites need lawyers, too. Sure, you can say they don’t need them that night, but truthfully, that isn’t exactly true. Evidence is being gathered, ignored, contaminated, hidden, lost and stories are being spun within hours of such an incident.

I can tell you that if my best friend was one of the people injured and he called me minutes after the explosion, I would be in the car and at the scene as soon as possible. And, here is the point I want to make: no one would see anything wrong with that because my friend called me. But what about the person that doesn’t know a lawyer? What does he do? How does he go about hiring a lawyer?

A lot of injured people, whether in a car accident or a catastrophe, have never had a lawyer and don’t know a lawyer. There isn’t anyone for them to call. Many times they don’t even know they have legal rights, much less rights that need protecting. Sometimes they even assume their employer is gong to take care of them. Yeah, right?

And this is my point. Advertisements after a catastrophe are not as sinister as some people, the media in particular, might want you to think. Bashing lawyers makes good copy. Some lawyers may run an ad and others may not. If you aren’t the one that needs a lawyer, you probably don’t care. The truth is that any advertisement at any time, before or after a catastrophe, is a poor basis upon which to hire a lawyer. You wouldn’t buy a house or a car based on an ad alone and you certainly shouldn’t hire a lawyer based on an advertisement. Always find out what the reputation of the lawyer is. Does he actually go to court? Does he really try case. Are the insurance companies really scared of him? (NO!)

Don’t know who to call or how to do that? Ask around! Someone always knows a good lawyer. Go to the court house watch a few in action.

But for goodness sakes, don’t act like the world is coming to an end because a lawyer ran an ad in the paper, even if you think it was in poor taste.