Many people will not be shocked by the title of this post. However, a new report issued by an advocacy group for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was recently released that was entitled, “The Plaintiffs’ Bar Goes Digital, an Analysis of the Digital Marketing Efforts of Plaintiffs’ Attorneys and Litigation Firms.” The report found that marketing efforts were being camouflaged as forums or support group sites. The report estimated that law firms had spent more than $50,000,000 on Google advertising in 2011. The overwhelming majority of that was spent by Plaintiff’s firms. However, despite the fact that the amount of spending does not rank with large corporations, it is disproportionate for the size of the industry. The report is critical of the Plaintiffs’ Bar because of a lack of transparency that many of their sites were actually marketing for law firms.
