Legal professional Frank Azar has flooded Colorado’s airways, byways and highways with ads for his private harm legislation agency for 3 a long time — however now the self-proclaimed “Sturdy Arm” alleges an out-of-state competitor is leveraging that prolific promoting to poach his shoppers.
In a lawsuit filed in Pueblo District Court docket final month, Azar claims the Alabama-based Slocumb Regulation Agency is creating misleading ads on Google that make prospects consider they’re calling Franklin D. Azar & Associates when they’re, in reality, calling the out-of-state agency, which is headed by Alabama lawyer Michael Slocumb and has only one lawyer in Colorado.
Slocumb’s agency buys Google advert key phrases and makes use of metadata to make sure its advertisements pop up when customers seek for Frank Azar or his ubiquitous slogan, “The Sturdy Arm,” the lawsuit alleges. Slocumb’s advertisements then direct customers to a name heart the place operators fail to right callers’ false impression that they’ve reached Azar’s Aurora-based agency, the lawsuit says.
Slocumb has been accused of utilizing related ways to focus on high-profile private harm attorneys in a number of states, courtroom information present. Within the final 4 years, he’s been sued by private harm lawyer Jim Adler, often known as “The Texas Hammer,” Alabama lawyer Matt Abbot, often known as “The Outlawyer,” and Louisiana lawyer Morris Bart, who makes use of the tagline “One name, that’s all,” for related complaints.
“The cash at stake right here is totally unbelievable,” Azar stated in an interview. “They’re entering into the core enterprise, utilizing my repute with the group, my capacity to do promoting and preying on the general public.”
Slocumb denied wrongdoing in an interview Wednesday and stated his legislation agency has stopped utilizing Azar’s key phrases in its ads.
“Frank goes to lose the case,” he stated. “…There’s nothing improper concerning the observe of bidding on a reputation by Google AdWords, nothing improper about it.”
In a movement to dismiss Azar’s lawsuit filed Tuesday, Slocumb’s attorneys argued that the ways the agency makes use of — paying for its ads to indicate up when customers Google different attorneys’ names or slogans — have been upheld by courts throughout the nation.
“Merely buying key phrases — whether or not these key phrases are trademarked, patented or shielded from industrial use by one other — to show a separate and distinct commercial from the searched time period on Google is, merely, not violative of any Colorado (or federal) legislation or unlawful in any approach,” lawyer Miranda Yancey wrote, repeating almost word-for-word arguments made by one other lawyer for Slocumb within the Louisiana lawsuit.
The observe of utilizing a competitor’s key phrases to deliver up one other firm’s commercial on-line is “actually widespread,” and is usually not thought of to be copyright infringement, stated Denver mental and industrial litigation lawyer Thomas Howard, who will not be concerned with any of the lawsuits in opposition to Slocumb.
However it’s unlawful to purposely confuse and mislead shoppers, he stated, which Azar additionally alleges in his lawsuit. Azar claims that Slocumb’s advertisements direct customers to a name heart run by The Harm Answer LLC, which then directs shoppers to Slocumb’s agency.
When an investigator for Azar known as the quantity in Slocumb’s advert, operators on the name heart repeatedly failed to elucidate that the decision heart was not Azar’s legislation agency, the grievance states.
“The investigator inquired, ‘Is that this the Azar agency?’ The query was ignored, and the phone operator proceeded to ask questions concerning the accident,” the grievance reads. “Once more, the investigator requested in the event that they had been talking with the Azar agency. In some cases, this second request for clarification was ignored. In different cases, The Harm Answer stated Mr. Azar is ‘not out there.’”
Azar stated his agency found the practices when a lady who believed she’d employed Azar’s agency a number of weeks earlier known as for an replace on her case solely to find she’d really employed Slocumb’s agency.
“They know these individuals misclicked,” Azar stated.
When requested about these practices, Slocumb denied intentionally deceptive shoppers and stated his workers clearly determine the legislation agency once they reply the telephone.
“I’m not The Harm Answer, you notice that proper?” he stated, then proceeded to reply follow-up questions by repeating “I’m not The Harm Answer” a number of instances.
Slocumb declined to say what his enterprise relationship is with The Harm Answer, which has two telephone numbers on its web site that on Wednesday had been answered by operators who stated, “Slocumb Regulation Agency.”
The Harm Answer is registered as a restricted legal responsibility firm in Florida to Jason Berger, enterprise information present. In 2012, Slocumb and a person by the identical title had been each members of the identical Alabama restricted legal responsibility firm, Casa Fuega 1 LLC, and the enterprise was registered to Slocumb’s Auburn legislation workplaces, Alabama enterprise information present.
Azar’s lawsuit says Berger is the Slocumb Regulation Agency’s chief working officer. A message left for Berger on Wednesday was not returned.
Howard known as promoting on Google with one other firm’s key phrases “sleazy” and “underhanded,” however stated Azar faces an uphill battle within the courtroom case, as a result of it will likely be tough to show his agency suffered precise damages.
“It’s a very robust argument,” Howard stated. “It’s not a simple one. It seems like it will be, however it’s not, as a result of (Slocumb) will argue that they barely made any cash off of it, the advertisements infrequently run, searches for him are infrequently carried out, they run hundreds of various advertisements, they’ve hundreds of various AdWords and his is only one of them and his infrequently come up.”
Azar estimated he misplaced between 50 and 80 potential shoppers a month to Slocumb’s promoting scheme, which might be thousands and thousands of {dollars} in settlements; Slocumb stated the strategy was “by no means efficient” and declined to elaborate.
Slocumb final yr settled the lawsuit filed in opposition to him by Adler, “The Texas Hammer,” courtroom information present. Abbot, “The Outlawyer,” who accused Slocumb of ripping him off by dressing like a cowboy in a TV advert, voluntarily dismissed his lawsuit in 2019. The Louisiana case with Bart is ongoing.