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By Bill Altreuter

Shawn Matlock's observation about the effectiveness of billboard advertising is spot on. Mr. Matlock, a Fort Worth criminal defense attorney comments that the billboards in his area that say ?Drink. Drive. Go to jail? are not really intended to be informational-- in fact, the information which they convey is incorrect. The signs are actually intended to "contaminate the jury pool" in his phrase. Maybe "comtaminate" is strong, but I don't think "taint" is quite strong enough. "Educate" doesn't seem right either. We've seen something similar in Western New York.

When I moved to the Queen City of the Lakes civil verdicts here were significantly lower than verdicts in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Staten Island verdicts are different, and the Bronx is completely different, but Buffalo verdicts, although higher than in Onondaga County (Syracuse), or Monroe County (Rochester), were more in line with the sort of numbers you could expect to see in those other upstate cities. Now that is no longer true. What changed?

Quite a few things changed, actually, but one significant thing that happened was that attorney advertising went from the Yellow Pages to the highways and the airwaves. Certainly these ads are intended to heighten name recognition for the lawyers who run them, but that's not all that they have done. Because the ads frequently include references to verdict amounts juries around here are now conditioned to think in terms of verdict amounts that are substantially greater than in years past. I am sure this effect was unintended, but it is certainly real, and now even the plaintiffs' lawyers who don't advertise derive a benefit from it.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).