YOUR QUESTIONS:
1) ...some still feel the need to take out Yellow Pages advertising in the six figure range. ...is this the norm for other legal markets?
2) How successful is attorney advertising as far as rate of return on the investment of advertising in dollars?
3) Is this dogged pursuit of the public's attention beneficial or detrimental to the profession?
4) Finally, billboards which question drivers with a single phrase such as "Injured?" and television commercials that are played so often it become natural to know every line of the pitch --do these really play any part of the goals of the tort system?
5) Are lawyers any different from any other advertisers? Should they be?
MY ANSWERS:
1) Advertising for lawyers in the Yellow Pages has been the norm in almost every market for 30 years.
2) The degree of success varies widely depending upon many factors such as the market; the type of media; the creative production; the budget; the type of law being advertised; the ability of the law firm to answer calls quickly; the ability of the law firm to sign up cases quickly and many other factors.
3) I wrote an article about this at
www.lawyer-advertising-blog.com. Advertising is beneficial to the profession and to the public for many reasons. One of the most important is that lawyers who advertise get too many cases to be a general practitioner. If a lawyer advertises for criminal cases, the lawyer will be doing nothing but criminal cases. This makes a more experienced and better criminal lawyer. I believe it is too difficult in modern times to be proficient in a general practice.
4) I don't see what difference it makes whether the advertising is on billboards, TV or somewhere else. Advertising does play an important part of the goals of the tort system. For more about this, you can read Bates v. State Bar of Arizona
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/bates.html. Personally, I believe it is nice that advertising helps the public and the goals of the tort system, but I do not believe that the government should be allowed to prevent any industry or profession from advertising.
5) Why should lawyers be any different from other advertisers? I don't know why they should. In fact, instead of creating complicated ethics rules which are rarely enforced, FTC regulations which apply to all advertisers should be strictly enforced against lawyers.
