Not me, but there must be thousands of people who are home watching these shows who are laid up because of a construction accident, a slip and fall, or a motor vehicle accident of some kind—no matter whose fault it is.
The ads generally run for 30 seconds, sometimes back-to-back. I'm a regular viewer watching Good Day New York, a Fox-5 morning news and talk show with Rosanna Scotto and now Curt Menifee. My favorite one of these ads is the guy who walks the streets of New York City and is greeted by everyone recognizing him as 1-800-Pain-Law. He waves back. He chases an ice cream truck. Ice cream for all? He plays chess with a Black guy in a playground. He'd run for office, but it would mean a vast pay cut.
He tells us he knows New York. Does that also mean he knows the law? His implication is that he knows those he can curry favor with and obtain the outsize settlements his ads imply you can get if only you'll call 1-800-Pain-Law.
Pain-Law is hardly alone in this litigious marketplace. We have JM.com for Jacoby and Myers, a firm that I fully suspect has neither a Jacoby or Myers at the helm. But then again, the white shoe firm of Dewey Ballantine has neither a Dewey or a Ballantine at the head of the boardroom table. It's all in the letterhead.
There are more. Sometimes back-to-back commercials aimed at the possibly maimed. There is Morgan & Morgan at 1-844-645-1030: The Fee is Free Unless We Win.
There is the Barnes firm: 1-800-800-0000. The most golden of all 800 numbers. They trumpet this one with ear worm repetition: 1-800-8 Million. Get it? 8 followed by six zeroes. A million dollars is not what it used to be, but it will be plenty to this daytime audience. Multiple millions is even better.
I don't know which ad I like best, but I do admire Sanford Rubinstein's necktie when the ad for Rubenstein & Rynecki comes on: 1-800-447-HURT. The tie is easily a $300+ necktie from some lofty designer. He wears it well, and I wonder if his survivors will bury him in it. I hope not. It belongs in a personal injury museum.
I love it when the victims of these mishaps appear in the commercials and give testimonials about the law firm they engaged. None of these people seem to have suffered from anything. No one is in a wheelchair, missing a limb, walking with a limp, or look like they were ever incapacitated. They've recovered, and are mucho richer for it because they called 1-800...
Personal injury lawyers are made fun of. They are called ambulance chasers, since accidents are what they gravitate to. They are pejoratively called "shysters," a word I never knew the origin of until Jonny Lee Miller (once married to Angelina Jolie!) in a Sherlock episode in a lawyer's office tells us "shyster" is of German origin and means excrement.
The OED backs the scriptwriters up:
[Origin uncertain: perh. rel. to German Scheisser worthless person, from Scheisse excrement. Cf. SHICER.]
There might be worse things than being called "a sack of shit," but I certainly wouldn't put it on a résumé.
I'm sure all personal injury lawyers are not shysters. I've never needed one. But if I do, I'll just put television on and tune in to the morning news shows.
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