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72 A.B.A. J. 19 (1986)
News

handle is hein.journals/abaj72 and id is 1395 raw text is: News LAW FIRMS' TV AD $$ HIKED Jacoby & Meyers, Hyatt still biggest spenders A.. Multi-market law firms spend multimillions on TV advertising, ac- cording to the Television Bureau of Advertising. Figures released by the bureau show that Jacoby & Meyers led in at- torney TV ad dollars for the first six months of 1986, spending $2.4 mil- lion. Not far behind was Hyatt Legal Services, spending $2.2 million, fol- lowed by personal injury attorneys Samuel Spital of San Diego, David Grey of Los Angeles, and Stephen Miles of Baltimore. Overall, law firms spent more than $21.8 million on TV ads during the first half of 1986, an increase of 25 percent over the same period last year, the Television Bureau of Adver- tising said. The biggest law firm advertisers claim that TV advertising enables them to reach out to clients who are traditionally intimidated by lawyers, helping the firms to expand and profit. In fact, TV advertising launched the large-scale expansion of both Jacoby z Meyers and Hyatt Legal Services. The Supreme Court ruling that attorneys have the right to advertise, Bates v. State of Arizona, was de- cided in 1977. That same year, Joel Hyatt established Hyatt Legal Ser- vices in Cleveland, Ohio. Today, Hyatt has 201 offices in 22 states, employing more than 600 lawyers. Jacoby & Meyers, founded in 1972, had only three offices in the Los Angeles area when the Supreme Court decided Bates. Today the firm has close to 200 offices in six states, employing 300 lawyers. Once we started advertising, we spread very quickly, said Evelyn Goldstein, executive director of ad- vertising for Jacoby & Meyers. Maria Turk, public relations coor- dinator for Hyatt, agrees that advertis- ing helped fuel the firm's expansion by getting across the concept that Hyatt lawyers are accessible and af- fordable. Jacoby and Hyatt both advertise that lawyers are affordable. Both firms handle cases such as divorce, wills and bankruptcies. Our clients are typically middle A Jacoby & Meyers' Gail Koff and Joel Hyatt- lawyer ad supersalespeople income families and individuals, and those are often people who have never seen an attorney before, Turk said. They might not know how to choose an attorney, or they might have an in- timidation as to what to expect. So often attorneys are portrayed in lavish offices behind huge desks. We want to convey sincerity that we really are there to take care of the per- son's problem. A Jacoby & Meyers press release asserts that the firm spends more on TV advertising than any other firm in order to demystify the law and reach the average American. Both firms cite a Federal Trade Commission study that concludes TV advertising by law firms tends to lower prices and stimulate competi- tion. Hyatt Legal Services runs its ads, on about 160 TV stations in 31 media markets. Jacoby & Meyers, which op- erates in fewer states, runs ads on about 50 stations in nine markets. The personal injury attorneys who spend the most advertise on far fewer stations. One attorney, Stephen Miles, confines his advertising to only one station. In the first half of the year, Sam- uel Spital spent $455,600; David Grey spent $426,300; and Stephen Miles spent $385,000, according to the Tele- vision Bureau of Advertising. Grey disputes the figure, saying his spend- ing actually topped Spital's, when his advertising on Spanish language sta- tions is taken into account. THE IMAGE Spital, who oversees six offices in southern California, says he tries to portray himself as the people's law- yer while establishing a Wall Street law firm type image with fashionable offices in major buildings. Miles, who has three offices in the Baltimore area, portrays himself in commercials as a working lawyer who tries cases himself - Grey, with offices in four Califor- nia locations, takes a businesslike ap proach to advertising, saturating the market with ads to build the brand name kind of credibility that advertis- ers have known for years. Miles, Grey and Spital agree that TV advertising helps bring clients and a profit to the firm. Since I've advertised, I've dou- ABA JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 1, 1986 19

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