The number of billboards for personal-injury lawyers keeps growing in the Philadelphia area, but their effectiveness still remains unclear, writes Abraham Gutman for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
SEPTA generated just under $400,000 in advertising from law firms in fiscal 2021. In its 2025 budget, the agency projected the same source would generate $1.6 million — a 400 percent increase.
Attorney advertising was banned until the late 1970s, when the Supreme Court lifted the ban, ruling that it violated attorneys’ First Amendment rights. For the next couple of decades, many attorneys were reluctant to advertise on billboards, until the method proved effective in growing a law firm by Florida attorney John Morgan.
In the Philadelphia area, many attorneys became well known thanks to their billboards, including James Helm, who advertises as the Top Dog all over the region.
Still, the effectiveness of billboards remains undetermined, as filings in the four largest categories of personal injury cases in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas have declined in recent years despite the increase in advertising.
“Nowhere is it written in the law or otherwise that every injury or every wrong has to result in a lawsuit,” said Curt Schroder, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Civil Justice Reform.
Read more about the billboards for personal-injury lawyers in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
_____
