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If you were dropped onto this planet and placed in front of a television set in America anywhere between the hours of 11 and five, you would think this entire planet consists of ambulance chasers, schools for medical transcriptionists, and scooter mobility stores.

Tucked between segments about cousins sleeping with each other on the "Jerry Springer Show," paternity test results announced on the "Maury Povich Show," and any number of elaborate death schemes and adultery triangles on soap operas, daytime commercials come in only one of three varieties.

Attorneys have been popular targets of scorn since before Shakespeare broke out at the Globe Theater. In the past I've professed support for tort attorneys, the true entrepreneurs of the legal world. They put up their own money and take risks on a daily basis. But come on. Just how many people are slipping and falling out there? In the course of any given hour, on one channel, approximately 3,127 commercials air for Smith Tripum Crash & Medmal.

Every one of these commercials features attorneys concentrating hard on looking concerned. Some look like they cost quite a bit of money, some look like they were shot in the back of a moving U-Haul. But they all take pains to make it clear: however you got hurt, it's not your fault.

The second type of commercial, at least as equally ubiquitous as attorney commercials, are the ads for private colleges that pass out vocational degrees to anyone who can fog a mirror and pass a credit check. Is there really that big a burning need for people to enter data into computers holding medical information?

These are the most entertaining commercials. They also try the hardest to persuade, practically screaming at you to dump large amounts of money for a degree that can't touch a community college-bestowed A.A. All it takes is a phone call.

The last type of daytime commercial is the senior mobility type commercial. The one that features senior citizens bragging about how all of our payroll taxes enabled them to get a machine that costs several thousands of dollars for free through Medicare, which they could then use to attend rallies protesting government run health care. Social security law firms also tie in to this type of commercial, but to be fair this might be a regional tic. Florida attracts more than its share of people coming down here to die.

Attorneys, schools, and scooters. Daytime television at its finest. Between all the regularly scheduled garbage.

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