I am honestly so fed up with lawyer billboards that I could scream. In fact, I did scream in my car during a recent drive from LA to Wyoming. It felt like 80% of the signs were personal injury lawyers promising a mountain of cash to anyone willing to sue, sue, sue. I’m over it, and I’m betting you are, too.
Remember those annoying internet pop-up ads in the 2000s? They got so bad they drove everyone away from websites before finally dying out. Lawyer billboards are headed down that same path. If we keep cluttering the highway with the physical version of a pop-up, we’re going to lose the audience we’re trying to reach.
These obnoxious ads lack the spark, strategic thinking and creativity that make outdoor advertising work. Because law firms buy them so inexpensively, they create a messy environment where drivers tune out the increasingly empty promises. My clients want their billboards to be fun or interesting; they definitely don’t want to be stuck next to these loud eyesores.
Lawyer billboards are trashing the outdoor ad industry, and it really needs to end now.
Lawyer Ads Blew Up During the Pandemic
In 2025, legal services topped the OOH advertising charts, per the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA). The personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan (motto: “the fee is free unless we win”) was the No. 2 advertiser, trailing only the tech titan Apple.
Ad spending in the legal world has more than tripled since 2019, the final year before Covid hit. This fits right in with the pandemic-era lawsuit boom. As driving dipped and car crashes fell, firms needed a new way to pay the bills. People started suing over family deaths from the virus, nursing home outbreaks, catching Covid at the office and more. For seemingly any pandemic problem, lawyers promised, “you may be entitled to compensation.”
Over 25,000 Covid-related labor suits were filed in the two years after the first lockdown, according to Statista. Another 10,999 claims popped up regarding the Covid vaccine, plus 3,148 claims involving other countermeasures, like treatments that failed to work.
That’s a massive pile of cash for lawyers to go after. They want to find the folks most likely to file these cases. This creates the clusters I find so annoying. Personal injury firms stack a dozen signs in a row at specific hotspots to grab your attention. Common places for these lawyer billboards include:
Hospitals, where people get treated for accidents they can sue over
Courthouses, where people at criminal hearings might consider civil suits
Major commuter routes, where the majority of traffic accidents happen
The Lawyer Billboard Explosion: By the Numbers
It’s not your imagination—lawyer billboards really are taking over. Just look at “Personal Injury Alley,” a 21-mile run of I-95 between Philly’s airport and Jersey. It’s packed with over 60 attorney ads, mostly hunting for personal injury cases.
That averages out to three lawyer signs every single mile, though it feels like way more when you’re flying by at 65 mph. I’m not talking about a local quirk, either. It’s a national trend.
During a recent trip on the 405, I counted 10 legal ads back-to-back. The Major Deegan in NYC is the same story—names like Morgan & Morgan, Jacob Emrani and Pirnia Law blur into one big loop. Every board has the same pitch: were you hurt, and can we get you paid?
The data confirms the chaos. Spending on outdoor ads by lawyers has skyrocketed by a wild 260% since 2017. Last year, legal marketing budgets jumped 21%, according to the OAAA, hitting $650 million for the first time. That’s more than double what the industry spent in 2021.
These days, legal services are indisputably the king of outdoor. The second-place category for 2025 (hospitals and clinics) didn’t even hit $400 million.
Why Are Lawyer Billboards Everywhere?
I bet you’ve noticed these endless law firm ads, too. Here are three big reasons they’re taking over your commute.
- Firms score them for cheap. Even though some spots look pricey, firms aren’t paying top dollar. By skipping the middleman agencies and going straight to vendors, they buy up leftover, “remnant” space at a massive discount. It’s a total win-win: firms save around 75%, and vendors don’t leave boards empty.
- There’s no vibe check. Now, I’m not calling for more red tape. But besides basic size and height rules, nobody is managing the scenery. There’s no one saying, “Maybe five Morgan & Morgan signs in a row is too many; let’s toss a McDonald’s ad in there.” It would definitely help the local aesthetics.
- They skip the pros for creative work. It shows, too. These aren’t exactly high art; they aim for your wallet. I once saw a lawyer’s face pasted onto the Statue of Liberty—talk about terrible. Another used a “size matters” joke like a bored teenager. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. These lazy, low-budget designs save firms cash, but they make the whole industry look tacky.
Could Lawyer Billboards Be Banned One Day?
It’s a real possibility. Believe it or not, advertising by law firms and attorneys was actually illegal until 1977. A Supreme Court case ruled that the ban violated lawyers’ First Amendment free speech rights, even though many in the legal world felt that advertising was tacky and unethical.
Slowly but surely, legal marketing took off. It evolved from simple Yellow Pages listings to ads on buses, subways and, finally, those unavoidable billboards. It’s wild how fast it exploded in only five decades.
I can imagine these ads becoming illegal again someday. Plenty of these billboards walk a very thin ethical line. Every firm claims it can win you more than the next one, often preying on people when they’re most vulnerable. The massive promises they make seem almost impossible to keep.
How long before someone steps in to put an end to it? Personally, I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
