When attorney James Wettermark began his career in 1978, law firms started small. A new attorney would find a client, or two, work hard for them and build a practice through referrals.
"In the good old days, 38 years ago, when I started practicing law, you did it the old-fashioned way," says Wettermark, the senior founding partner of the Birmingham, Alabama, law firm Wettermark Keith.
The old-fashioned way worked well - very well - for Wettermark.
His law firm won multimillion dollar settlements, and it had two turboprop airplanes manned by professional pilots who could whisk attorneys to other states for trials and to meet clients. For example, Wettermark flew to meet a woman in Winchester, Tenn., who was awarded the largest malpractice settlement in the state's history (the amount is sealed by court order) after her husband died during an operation.
But around 2008, Wettermark began to notice that even what he called "blue blood" law firms had begun to advertise. So Wettermark decided to jump in with both feet. Wettermark Keith launched an advertising blitz that now focuses primarily on TV ads along with Internet and radio advertising and billboards.
"If we need to do this, we need to go full speed," Wettermark decided when the campaign began. "The results were spectacular for us."
Wettermark Keith now has 11 attorneys, five of whom work in Tennessee, and a support staff of about 60 employees. Unlike gathering clients through referrals, advertising provided customers with smaller legal cases who didn't personally know any attorneys.
"What [also] inspired us is we knew there was a large percentage of the public that needed lawyers and didn't have access to them," Wettermark says.
Wettermark Keith is just one example of a legal firm that has embraced advertising - something that lawyers didn't do until a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1977 upheld lawyers' right to advertise. And even after it became legal for lawyers to advertise, there was a stigma attached to it that persists to this day, those in the profession say.
But attorneys who advertise heavily tout its benefits, including that getting their message out helps provide legal representation to lower-income people whose social circle doesn't include lawyers. And a number of high-visibility personal injury legal firms use their bully pulpit to promote good causes.
Promoting good causes
Causes embraced by Warren & Griffin, a firm on the top floor of the historic Dome Building in downtown Chattanooga, include a campaign against texting and driving, or as the firm's ads say, NVR TXT & DRV.
Warren & Griffin hands out $10 Wal-Mart gift certificates on the first Tuesday morning of the month to any member of the public that takes their NVR TXT & DRV pledge.
"They raise their right hand, and they promise never to text and drive," C. Mark Warren says.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke even signed a proclamation declaring September 19 of each year NVR TXT & DRV day in Chattanooga.
"We feel it's important to give back to a community that's been good to us," says John Mark Griffin, who co-founded the practice with C. Mark Warren. The two attorneys have been friends for almost 30 years, since they first met in 1989 while they were young lawyers starting out here at another Chattanooga firm.
Wettermark Keith has programs to support first responders and their families.
Phone book ads used to be big
Warren and Griffin remember two Chattanooga attorneys as pioneering advertisers: J. Troy Wolfe, now deceased, and John D. McMahan, who's retired, but serves as an advisor to the McMahan Law firm, which has rebranded itself as The Insiders, led by attorneys G. Brent Burks and James Kennamer.
"Troy Wolfe was the first one," Griffin remembers. "Phone book advertising then was big." It cost $5,000 a month, in those pre-smart phone days, for a two-page phone book ad, he said.
The Insiders still advertise, including with TV ads in which Burks and Kennamer stand atop a semi-trailer truck and tell those who've been injured in accidents with big rigs to "get the money you deserve." They end with their finger-snapping tagline: "Call us, it's just that easy!"
Other firms have memorable tag lines and commercials. Warren and Griffin incorporate crash test dummies in their ads. Their tagline is "cha-ching." Warren remembers being recognized in a Wal-Mart by a customer who walked past and said, "Hey, Cha-Ching."
Wettermark Keith's tagline is "because your case matters." Wettermark was out having dinner with his wife one night when a man stopped by their table and said, "I'm taking my wife out to dinner tonight 'because my wife matters.'"
Wettermark Keith opted for a buttoned-down advertising presence. Billboards show the two partners dressed in business suits. Still, Wettermark has a joke for friends who call him out for appearing on a billboard.
"They say, 'sex sells,'" he'll respond, poking fun at himself.
'Alabama lawyers' vs. locals
"Hurt in wreck? Need a check?" is the tagline for Huntsville, Alabama, attorney Charles Pitman, who advertises heavily in the Chattanooga area.
Warren & Griffin's advertising has taken shots at Pitman and Wettermark Keitch as "Alabama lawyers."
"Charles Pitman is not licensed in Tennessee," says C. Mark Warren.
Pitman's firm has attorneys that work in Tennessee, he said, but they're miles away from Chattanooga. Warren & Griffin's attorneys work right across the street from the historic Hamilton County Courthouse and can easily file lawsuits, Warren said, which gives them leverage when negotiating on behalf of injured clients with insurance companies. Warren & Griffin's attorneys also know the local judges, he said, and how they weigh cases.
Wettermark Keith doesn't have an actual office here, Warren and Griffin say. The firm's attorneys travel here and work out of shared office space in University Tower, a six-story office tower at East Fourth Street near the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus.
Pitman was out of the country on vacation, his staff said, and wasn't available for comment.
But Wettermark dismissed Warren & Griffin's take on Alabama-based attorneys not being able to do as good a job for Chattanoogans as local attorneys can.
"That's so silly," Wettermark says. "I've been practicing law in Tennessee for 26 years."
Wettermark Keith is a paperless office; all of its documents are digitized, he said, so its attorneys can work anywhere by laptop. Wettermark Keith's attorneys have trial presentation software, he said, that helps put on visually compelling, to-the-point presentations in court.
Wettermark Keith is interviewing to hire attorneys to be based in its Chattanooga office, Wettermark said.
"We would like to have one or more lawyers here," he says.