Personal Injury Law

Personal Injury Leads

I get at least a call a day from some service or another that generates leads for personal injury claims, mostly accident or pharmaceutical drug product liability claims. They all leave the same message, pretending like they are either referring lawyers or victims themselves without actually saying as much, keeping it as vague as possible while trying to generate enough interest for a callback. The giveaway that they are marketers: they always overuse the phrase "personal injury," wielding it like a sword without realizing that neither victims nor referring lawyers use that phrase in the context in which they are using it. "This is Mike, I'm calling you from Atlanta about personal injury cases." Personal injury lawyers just don't talk that way.

Their frequent calling cousin is "I work directly with Google" or the more boldly audacious "I'm with Google." The claim is identical in almost every case: "I'm 'with Google' and I am going to work exclusively with one personal injury lawyer in the Baltimore area. I can get you on the front page of Google in 24 hours." Again, the caller's purpose is to mislead you into thinking you get guaranteed high placement on Google through some magical trick as opposed to what it really is: pay-per-click advertising.

I always respect anyone's job and I remain polite to everyone, including cold callers. Between college and law school, I got my stockbrokers license, Series 7 license, the whole 9 yards. I think I made about three cold calls before my short lived career died. (I did make some decent progress with one guy on Smith Avenue in Baltimore pushing tax free bonds... I still remember that the calls I made were on that street because I probably looked at the list for hours before making my first call.) It was just brutal and I respect anyone strong enough to keep making call after call. Still, I do resent the fact that the messages are almost invariably intended to mislead the gullible.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).