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* * * For Immediate Release - 11/10/98 Lawyers Use Infomercial to Obtain Nursing Home Cases Across the Country Austin-based First Madison Communication's, ("FMC") legal infomercial "Beyond the Golden Years," ("BGY") is currently licensed to air in 28 states. BGY first went on the air in August 1997 in 3 states: Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. With continued success and proven results, all it took was two ads in Trial Magazine, and referrals from our clients to expand the program COUNTRY-WIDE one year later. This form of advertising is the first foray into the advertising arena for most of the BGY clients. The once reticent law-firms are not embarrassed to be associated with this production. BGY educates viewers on how to take care of their loved one, and urges them to take action against nursing home abuse. Many of the cases generated from the infomercial are referred to state or local agencies that can help them. However, the law-firms do obtain credible cases through this advertisement. Unfortunately, the abuse and mistreatment of elderly people does occur and litigation cases for this civil and criminal wrong are on the rise. These types of cases are amounting to million dollar awards in our court system. The success of the show could be contributed to many factors. "Beyond the Golden Years combines all the important elements to fight nursing home abuse," saaid Jim Warren, executive producer and president of FMC. "By using the different elements of testimonials, experts, actors, and attorney's to take action, we were able to produce a program that addresses the nursing home issue from all angles." First Madison is getting inquiries every week about the show. "We haven't needed to put much effort into selling the program," says Jennifer Stilley, FMC marketing manager, "the show has sold itself by word of mouth." For more information about "Beyond the Golden Years", please contact Amanda Jones-Rierson at 512-479-8300. ^ Excerpt from ResponseTV, May 1998 DRTV Show Leads to Investigations into Nursing Home Abuse Social awareness-and an opportunity-have spawned a new application for DRTV formats. As the plight of the elderly resigned to nursing home care is becoming more publicized, opportunity arises for commerce. Last November, an article in Time Magazine detailed cases of nursing home neglect. Settlements for such lawsuits have been staggering. For instance, the Geratric and Medical Companies Inc., Philadelphia, settled a case for $600,000 last year. DRTV has been used to promote legal services in the past (think Larry H. Parker), but it has taken on a tone of sincerity with a new show, Beyond the Golden Years. The 30-minute show began appearing on broadcast and local access cable stations in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama last July. Using a public-service announcement format, the objective was lead generation. The show features a roundtable of experts with the State Departments of Aging and Health Investigators, as well as family practioners and nurses, who discuss signs of nursing home care neglect. The human interest angle is personified by a man talking about his expericne with nursing facitlities-the setting is a family barbecue with his elderly mother in the background. Produced by Austin-based First Madison Communications, the cookie-cutter format allows different attorneys to deliver the call to action, promoting legal services to their market. Instead of being answered by an inbound firm, inquiries to the 800 number are directly routed to an attorney's office. Dallas plaintiff practice Dippel & MacArthur was among the first featured in the show. William Dippel, partner with the firm, says between 30 and 40 calls were generated during a run on the ABC affiliate station in Dallas WFAA Channel 8. His segment also ran on regional cable stations during the summer and fall. "This was the first foray into the advertising arena" says Dippel. "I found it to be very tasteful, as well as a helpful vehicle to steer families toward council or just provide information. First Madison places all media, spending between $10,000 and $20,000 on media buys-per market-each month. The show may air between 20 and 40 times weekly in each market. "Our intent was to make it look like a long-form PSA," explains Jim Warren, president of First Madison. "First Madison is trying to expand infomercials...into the service industry." Reference: ^ Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal, 3/25/98 Give Texas Lawyers 28 Minutes and They Will
Plead Their Case; State’s Lawyers Use Infomercials to Sell Themselves "I expect we’ll see more," says Mitch Winick, a Dallas lawyer who is chairman of the bar committee. The opportunity to develop a specific niche can be highly profitable. In this case, the niche is nursing homes. Titled "Beyond the Golden Years," the First Madison production features actors, real-life geriatric experts and people who have sued nursing homes for the alleged mistreatment of elderly relatives. The production has gotten some good reviews. Beth Ferris, president of Texas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents in Austin, says the on-air experts in the show "told it like it is" during the panel-discussion segment. "Of course, the attorneys are looking for clients," she adds. "That’s fine with us. We don’t recommend one attorney over another, but we know that suing is one way to get the nursing-home industry to respond. The lawyers sponsoring the segments say they worried most about the stigma of selling their services in the same fashion favored by marketers of skin creams and food dehydrators. But, the lawyers say, they were so impressed with the high quality of and educational bent to the show that they’re proud to be part of it. Beaumont lawyer Mitch Toups says the infomercial is worth the cost, which he won’t divulge, and might even better the image of plaintiffs’ attorneys. "Obviously, lawyers are in the business of representing people, and if we’re successful, we make money," Mr .Toups says. "But we also address an epidemic here that’s occurring with the graying of America. The nursing homes refuse to face facts. Their profits go up if staffing costs are kept down (but then the chances for neglect increase) and people are maimed and injured. Air time of 28 minutes runs from $75 on community-access cable stations to $10,000 for a weekend afternoon slot on a major network affiliate in a big city. The lawyers are currently spending as little as $2,000 a month and as much as $20,000. Lawyers who care about quality will see this as an effective venue. Reference: ^ Excerpt from Newsweek, 7/27/98 Nursing-Home Verdicts: There’s Guilt All Round;
Boomers sue on their parents’ behalf, and win big Last month a judge sliced the award to $3 million. Beverly has appealed. But the verdict was just the latest from juries across the country punishing nursing homes for alleged abuse and neglect ot their residents. With suits proliferating, the number of nursing-home verdicts last year doubled, to 31, and seven-figure awards are no longer rare. A Texas jury last year awarded $83 million, later reduced to $55 million, to the family of an 84-year-old woman who claimed she died because of an untreated bedsore. Now juries are going further than just compensating victims for damages. They are handing out big punitive awards. The legal strategy; plaintiff lawyers try to show that injuries such as bedsores and falls resulted from systemic problems-like repeated understaffing or poor supervision. The goal is to convince a jury that a nursing home acted with "conscious indifference" toward a resident. That strategy was used in Florida’s biggest nursing –home verdict. Two years ago Charles Barnes,68, wandered away from a Boca Raton facility and drowned in a pond. The family sued. "I was angry," recalled Charlotte Hamilton, Barnes’s stepdaughter. "I felt like somebody needs to know what’s going on, and the lawsuit was the only way to do that." At the trial earlier this year lawyer Richard Schuler argued that the home was understaffed and that it hadn’t placed a monitoring device on Barnes. The verdict: $6.3 million, including $4.5 million in punitive damages. The jury forewoman told reporters the large award was meant to "send a message" to the home’s owner, Vencor, the nation’s second biggest change. Vencor is appealing. The industry insist that nursing-home care is fine, and says the real issue is low Medicaid and Medicare payments to nursing homes. Nurses aides are paid poorly-which drives out "quality people," says Paul Willging of the American Health Care Association. Many experts predict the litigation boom has years to run. Jim Wilkes’s Tampa firm has 18 lawyers handling 300 nursing-home suits. And a handful of states, like Illinois and Florida, have even encouraged private suits against nursing homes by, for instance, making it easier for lawyers to recover their fees. Their purpose is to help police an industry that is projected to grow by 400 percent in the next 30 years. That could mean a lot of guilt-and a lot of lawsuits. Reference: ^ Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal, 7/1/98 Nursing Homes Are Hit by Rise In Big Verdicts In the past nine monthys alone, five nursing homes around the state were found negligent in caring for patients who died, and the homes were hit with jury awards of at least $3 million each. Among them was a $92.3 million award in a Tarrant County lawsuit over the death of a woman in her early 70s who was malnourished and had several serious bedsores. Such verdicts, which are unusually high in today’s anti-lawsuit environment, worry the nursing-home industry. But the awards delight groups that are pushing for better nursing-home card, and cheer plaintiffs lawyers who in recent years have faced a decline in big-dollar litigation. Attorneys and industry officials say the explanation for such high awards, often from otherwise tightfisted juries, can be found partly in the tangle of emotions over how we treat our sick and elderly. But the reason also may involve the use of state records from nursing-home inspections in private lawsuits. Nursing-home litigation is a relatively new phenomenon in Texas. According to Mr. Boehme, a Fort Worth lawyer, a small group of plaintiffs lawyers began four years ago to pursue the cases. Before that, he says, attorneys considered the cases unpromising and unprofitable; juries, they figured, were unlikely to hand down large verdicts because the victims were already sick or dying and unlikely to have any potential lost earnings. But in 1995, several large verdicts spurred a race to the courthouse with nursing-home lawsuits. Yellow Pages ads now feature many nursing-home lawsuits. Yellow Pages ads now feature many nursing-home "specialists" under the listings for attorneys. Several lawyers around the state are buying time on television stations for a 30-minute informercial called "Beyond the Golden Years," a program that describes abusive nursing-home practices and urges family members to consult with a lawyer if they believe abuse is occurring. As a result, both the number and size of jury awards in these cases are climbing. An analysis of cases conducted by the Blue Sheet, a Houston-bases company that reports on trials and settled cases throughout the state, shows a steady increase in both average verdicts and the number of nursing-home-neglect trials. Blue Sheet records show three nursing-home trials in 1995 with an average jury award of $100,772, nine cases in 1996 with an average award of $264,821, and 18 cases in 1997 with an average award of $10.5 million. The three biggest award that year were for $10.7 million, $83 million and $92.3 million. Reference: ^ Excerpt from the Texas Bar Journal, 7/98 Lawyers Use Infomercial to Sell Services Mitchell Toups of Weller, Green, McGown & Toups in Beaumont said he has run the ad across the state and sees it as an excellent vehicle for education as well as promotion. According to Toups, most of the callers responding to the ad do not need legal representation and are referred to state or local agencies that can help. "We do get cases, though, incredible cases," said Toups."Ninety-five percent of the callers tell us that until they saw the infomercial, they would have never thought that there was some kind of legal action they could file. They’ve been told by nursing homes that problems like bedsores, amputated legs, malnutrition, and serious falls leading to death are to be expected with old age." The infomercial had little trouble passing the State Bar Advertising Review committee, according to Robin Sicco, head of the State Bar Advertising Review Department. Reference: ^ |
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