• Here’s what happened: You know you’ve noticed them. Ads for Thomas J. Henry’s law firm are seemingly everywhere… leading the curious to wonder just how much the firm spends on legal advertising every year.
• Ring a bell? TV, radio, billboards, digital ads. From toxic torts to product liability, there is a legal services ad for everything. And while Henry is hardly the only attorney to do it, his ads stand out for their prevalence and flashiness.
• How we got here: Legal advertising was largely unheard of until 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Arizona State Bar’s ban on advertising infringed upon the free speech rights of attorneys. This effectively dismantled legal advertising bans in other states, including Texas, and paved the way for the glut of legal services ads we see today.
• Not without controversy: Henry’s firm has been in the hot seat before for questionable advertising tactics. 
  • In 2002, Henry’s office near a Corpus Christi children’s hospital stirred controversy with a large sign allegedly targeting distraught parents and drawing protests from doctors. Despite the eventual removal of the sign, the controversy garnered significant free publicity for the firm.
  • The Texas Supreme Court had to amend its rule on lawyer advertising in 2022 after a Henry billboard claimed a $1.25 billion “verdict/judgment” in a sexual assault case, but didn’t disclose that the victim didn’t actually receive any money from the judgment. The new rule requires disclosure if a verdict was achieved but no payment was made.
• It’s a numbers game: Robust advertising budgets help support a volume-based business model–more ads generate more cases–ultimately putting the quantity of cases over quality.
• Not to mention: There are growing concerns that prolific personal injury trial lawyer advertising is subconsciously biasing jury pools and contributing to “social inflation,” which leads to inflated settlements that lack factual support or legal basis.
• What about Texas? In 2019, Texas enacted legislation requiring transparency and disclosure requirements in trial lawyer advertising regarding prescription drugs, including a warning not to stop taking a drug without consulting a physician. But other types of personal injury trial lawyer advertising persist.
• TLR Thoughts: Texans deserve to have confidence that their lawyers are acting ethically and transparently. When law firms invest millions in advertising, it prompts questions about how—and who—is ultimately handling those cases, and whether they are supported by facts or simply part of a volume machine.

Read the full article here.