Every lawyer wants to let the public know, as well as their clients, that they’re being represented by someone who’s very capable and talented and knows what to do.
That’s gone to an extreme, in my opinion, here in Central Florida.
We now see… billboards, we see televisions ads, that do really nothing but kind of brag about how much money an attorney has gotten for a client.
Personally, I kind of cringe when I see those because it puts us as professionals, as attorneys, in this unfortunate “ambulance-chasing, it’s all about the money, it isn’t necessarily about the real facts, it’s just about how much money can somebody get” [stereotype].
We have never– and won’t– be putting up billboards or having advertisements saying how much money we’ve gotten.
We’ve been very blessed and we’ve had our fair share of these million-dollar cases (we’re just finishing a multi-million-dollar case right now), but we will not advertise that! I think it’s a very personal thing.
We don’t discuss settlements with anybody without certainly the permission of clients. And I expect these billboards do have permission, I’m sure they have permission from clients. But it also says something, maybe… Who wants their mug on a billboard saying, you know, “I’ve just gotten $250,000? Or $2,000,000?”
Our goal, our effort as a law firm, is to represent our client vigorously, effectively, and do everything that we can, legally, [with] the skills that we have honed for 35-40 years, to get the maximum recovery. What they are rightfully entitled to.
We don’t have any problem in getting aggressive and doing everything within the law and what’s morally correct to do that.
But you won’t ever see our firm having billboards or television ads that say, “*I* got you this much money or that much.”
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Our goal, our effort as a law firm, is to represent our client vigorously, effectively, and do everything that we can, legally, [with] the skills that we have honed for 35-40 years, to get the maximum recovery.
Whenever I see these (personally distasteful) ads, I wonder, “What were the facts of this case?” Some of these big verdicts that we see recorded and taking place are because the person at fault wasn’t even represented by a lawyer. They didn’t have a defense… Knowing the facts in each case certainly is a determining factor in how much the individual recovery is, whether it’s by verdict, or by settlement.
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– Ranier Munns is an experienced personal injury attorney and managing shareholder of Bogin, Munns & Munns, a full service law firm with offices in Orlando, Clermont, Kissimmee, Orange City, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Melbourne, Gainesville, and Leesburg. Mr. Munns works out of the Orlando office and welcomes questions and comments regarding the above. He can be reached at ranier@boginmunns.com.
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