Firms hope ads will click

By BARRY SHLACHTER

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Motivated by news reports about a popular brand of peanut butter being contaminated, he instructed two employees of his law firm to start bidding on key words on the Google search engine that were likely to connect with sickened people: Peter Pan, peanut butter and salmonella.

The bids secured well-placed ads that led thousands to the Web site of Noteboom the Law Firm and, the firm hopes, will lead to clients. Through Tuesday afternoon, the firm had received 1,100 inquiries from 26,000 visitors to www.noteboom.com. More than 200 contracts have gone out, the firm said.

In trolling the Internet for plaintiffs, Noteboom is venturing into the new world of digital marketing.

At times, Noteboom had to raise its ante on Google, bidding up to $7 per click to maintain its high ranking among search-page ads, also known as sponsored links, that materialized when surfers conducted salmonella-related searches.

"I'm scared to death," Noteboom said of the charges he has run up so far. He said MasterCard briefly declined his Google charges because of the unusual spending activity, which coincided with his purchase of Texas Rangers baseball season tickets. So far, Noteboom, has spent more than $10,000 on Google ads.

But Noteboom's first-ever Google ad campaign has netted an Illinois family whose members say their elderly mother's death may be linked to ConAgra-made peanut butter.

Then there's the Tennessee couple who sent a jar of Peter Pan to their soldier son in Iraq. He reported getting sick -- "so it's now international," Noteboom said.

In nearby Bedford, the Bailey & Galyen law firm claimed similar success.

"We have about 100 to 150 contracts out right now," said Paul Crouch, executive vice president of the firm's personal injury department.

The firm began indexing ads on Feb. 14, shortly after word of the salmonella poisoning became public, Crouch said. "As opposed to the Yellow Pages and television, the Internet is far more cost-effective," he said.

Crouch said inquiries have "run the spectrum from people whose children ate tainted peanut butter and were hospitalized, to people with diabetes and lupus whose compromised immune systems were dramatically affected."

ConAgra said a week ago that it was recalling Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter, which it produces for Wal-Mart. Federal officials say more than 300 people had fallen ill since August from the two brands produced at ConAgra's Sylvester, Ga., plant.

The company asked consumers to return jar lids that have a product code beginning with "2111" for a refund.

Crouch and Noteboom say that doing so would hurt any lawsuit against ConAgra by a salmonella victim.

"We feel that mailing in the lid compromises the claim," Crouch said. The lid "is evidence of wrongdoing."

Despite the expense, the Internet gamble was worth it, said Noteboom, an aggressive advocate of law firm promotion who majored in advertising as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois.

Calls and e-mails to Noteboom's firm are fielded by two investigators, including Bob Washington, who poked his head into Noteboom's conference room Monday to report a suspected peanut butter-related death of a pet poodle in Jacksonville, Fla. Then he said the dog's owner, a vegetarian who eats a tablespoon of peanut butter every day, was on the way to the hospital herself for possible salmonella poisoning.

"She thinks she's going to die, so she wants the contract today," Washington said.

The brains behind the Internet operation is Steven Samples, 45, a Baylor Law School-trained assistant to Noteboom. Samples works the Google site until 10 p.m. at the office, then until midnight at home, where he resumes the effort at 5:30 a.m. He won't bid higher than $7 per click but has seen the price hit $57.

Noteboom smiled and shook his head no when asked whether the Internet advertising was the cyberspace version of chasing ambulances. Crouch took issue with the characterization.

"I think ambulance-chasing is something personal injury firms shouldn't do," he said. "And anyone who can construe putting information out on the Internet to help the public as ambulance-chasing is completely off-base. I think advertising for the legal profession has evolved and has gained widespread acceptance."

Advertising by attorneys was long considered unprofessional or worse. But a Supreme Court decision in a 1977 case opened the door. In that case, Bates v. the State Bar of Arizona, a lawyer sued for the right to publicize his cut-rate divorce fees on billboards.

Ads, from print to radio and TV, are permitted as long as an actual lawyer -- not a photogenic actor -- is depicted and the message does not mislead potential clients, said Kathy Kelly, a Fort Worth lawyer who is chairwoman of the advertising review committee of the State Bar of Texas.

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