You can’t avoid Morgan & Morgan’s multi-million-dollar ad blitz. It’s shaking up Richmond’s legal scene.

Even though billionaire John Morgan doesn’t live in Richmond, his face is everywhere.

The Florida-based law firm officially planted roots in Virginia’s capital this summer, and they’re hard to ignore. The city is decked out in Morgan & Morgan’s bright blue and yellow advertisements. They’re on buses and billboards, each complete with a clever or coy phrase, as well as social media and TV.

Legal ads are familiar to Richmonders — Joel Bieber and the late doggy mascot Bunky have been city hallmarks for a while. But Morgan & Morgan’s methods are new. 

The firm has made billions by buying up advertising space, attracting thousands of clients nationally, then using those numbers to serve them at an unprecedented scale. (According to its website, it’s the biggest personal injury law firm in the U.S.) The firm’s presence has shaken up the local legal world, and Richmond is just the latest city Morgan & Morgan has added to its catalog.

Welcome to RVA, Morgan & Morgan

Morgan & Morgan was founded in 1988 and, as of 2023, has offices in all 50 states. Besides Richmond, the only other Virginia city where the firm is located is Arlington. According to the firm’s website, the two locations share three lawyers between them. The cheeky advertisements are part of the Morgan & Morgan brand, and a keystone of the firm’s operations.

The firm is the Greater Richmond Transit Company’s biggest advertiser, ranking above Chicken Fiesta and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts — GRTC couldn't provide specifics on how much these parties pay due to confidentiality agreements.

New Jersey-based ethics attorney Micah Buchdahl called Morgan & Morgan “a disruptor” for this reason. The firm spends roughly $350 million on advertising per year for its 1,000 attorneys. With that gigantic budget comes a lot of pressure to get it right.

Lawyers weren’t allowed to advertise their services until 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to prevent attorneys from exercising free speech through advertising. Even then, each state has its own advertising laws — Buchdahl said Morgan & Morgan’s home state, Florida, is one of the strictest, while Virginia is more middle-of-the-road. (Between state lines, the language on Morgan & Morgan billboards will be slightly different to adhere to local regulations.)

“[Morgan & Morgan is] always under a microscope when they enter a new market, and so you've got to dot your i’s and cross your t’s,” Buchdahl said. “They know that when they go into a new market that the state bar and the attorneys that they're competing against are paying attention to exactly what they're doing and looking for any holes that they can poke.”

Since the law firm brings so much attention to itself, there has historically been pushback from lawyers who previously set up shop in the cities they move into.

In 2024, an Arkansas law firm sued Morgan & Morgan for allegedly deceptive advertising, claiming the mega firm used dramatizations of its winnings to draw in clients. Philadelphia has been taken over by legal advertisements (mostly thanks to Morgan & Morgan’s tactics going mainstream). The firm also turned heads in Detroit when it was pointed out that John Morgan had “never set foot” in the city.

Buchdahl said it’s inevitable that local lawyers get uncomfortable when a colossus like Morgan & Morgan moves into town. Not only would potential clients be drawn away from local firms, but advertising inventory can become more expensive with Morgan & Morgan buying up so much space.

“It really changes the advertising landscape for a lot of the firms,” Buchdahl said. 

“That means that other firms that compete in that practice area and compete in that space, their costs might go up. They also often feel a need to try to match.”

The amount of legal advertising in a particular state also depends on how “plaintiff-friendly” it is. Pennsylvania is one of those friendlier states, Buchdahl said, thus why Philadelphia was overrun by lawyer ads. 

The Richmonder contacted a number of Richmond-area lawyers, but all declined to be quoted on the record commenting on a competitor. Morgan & Morgan also did not answer questions posed about its approach.

Out-of-staters ‘helicopter’ in

Buchdahl said that Morgan & Morgan likely decided to set up in Richmond “because they move into any market that they consider to be viable.”

But how is Morgan & Morgan’s Richmond branch handling the caseload that comes with advertising blitzes, given that they list just three lawyers in the state? Its local office is in the Truist Building, tucked into a suite. When The Richmonder requested an interview from a Morgan & Morgan representative, a New York-based communications manager replied.

Buchdahl said the three lawyers listed as representing Morgan & Morgan in both Arlington and Richmond are likely not the only Morgan & Morgan attorneys licensed with the Virginia Bar, so lawyers from other branches can help.

Fairfax County-based commercial litigator Thomas Spahn said some firms (including those that span multiple states) ask out-of-state lawyers for help even if they aren’t licensed in the original state’s bar. That’s when law firms may use a process called “pro hac vice” (or “for this occasion” in Latin). If a firm has a local lawyer acting as a sponsor, an out-of-state attorney can be added to argue a case. This is also called “helicoptering in,” Spahn said.

Helicoptering is a very common practice for many law firms. 

It’s a temporary arrangement that has to be granted by the court. Getting a pro hac vice doesn’t mean the lawyer can permanently practice in the state — it lasts for that case and that case only.

Spahn said this not only helps Morgan & Morgan manage caseload, but also ensures the right person is assigned to a case. For example, if a lawyer is more of a “showman,” Spahn said a law firm would want to assign them to a case that would be argued in front of a jury.

Out-of-state lawyers could also provide consultation, but they couldn’t argue a case without permission to helicopter in.

According to Morgan & Morgan’s Indeed profile, the firm also hires case intake specialists, presuit secretaries, case developers, case managers, legal secretaries, litigation assistants and litigation paralegals. These jobs all involve supporting lawyers throughout the legal process, whether it’s through contacting clients, researching cases, building legal documents and other clerical work. Many of these jobs can be remote, and in total, Morgan & Morgan’s LinkedIn says it has nearly 5,000 employees (including those 1,000 lawyers).

Currently, the Richmond location is looking for a litigation assistant.

To manage the firm’s caseload, Morgan & Morgan also built software called “Litify” in 2016. It works through all the cases a given entity is working through and organizes them into a dashboard. Morgan & Morgan isn’t the only firm using Litify, since it now sells the product to other firms.

The ethics behind the ads

For Buchdahl, Morgan & Morgan can be an appealing option for those who want a larger firm to come to their aid. Different firms will appeal to different people, Buchdahl said. For every client who wants a local firm’s personalized attention, another will seek out the “mega monster to scare the insurance company to death,” and Morgan & Morgan’s ads appeal to that crowd.

When it comes to the ethics behind an advertisement, both Spahn and Buchdahl said deciding whether something is in the wrong comes down to whether it’s false or misleading. In other words, so long as an advertisement doesn’t straight up lie or intentionally give the audience the wrong impression, it’s generally in the clear. 

Recently, Spahn said states have been moving in the direction of letting viewers use common sense to determine whether or not they will get millions of dollars, like the people in the ads. Because of that, Spahn said the ethical focus in law advertising has shifted away from the wording itself.

“The [American Bar Association] started this gradually — going back to what the rules always should have been, not type font and color print, and what pictures you can have, and disclaimers about things,” Spahn said. “It just says, like every other advertisement, you can't be false or misleading.”

To avoid falling into those false or misleading categories, attorney advertisements may include disclaimers using language such as “results may vary.”

“Whether or not something is in good taste isn’t part of the ethics conversation,” Buchdahl said.

What about the little guy?

Morgan & Morgan first specialized in personal injury, and while it has branched out into other areas (such as workers’ compensation), personal injury is still its core focus.

Buchdahl said most local personal injury firms are much, much smaller than Morgan & Morgan — they’re usually one- to five-person operations. Whenever a large firm moves into town and sets up an advertising campaign, a “huge chunk of the market share” will be eaten up.

Buchdahl’s advice to those smaller law firms is simple: one, diversify. Two, change how you market yourself to focus on targeting people who won’t want a corporation to represent them.

“You want to look for ways to tell your story and kind of counter,” Buchdahl said. “Will Morgan & Morgan eat a piece of market share that was there or isn’t there anymore? Yeah, they will, because that’s just the nature of the beast.”

Contact Reporting Intern Eleanor Shaw at eshaw@richmonder.org