Local billboards and TV ads are plastered with adds for Morgan and Morgan. If they have all those ads flooding the market, they must be really good lawyers, right? Well guess what? Their lawyers are mostly out of state and not even licensed to practice in PA. Morgan and Morgan started advertising in the Philadelphia area in 2016 and operates like a humoungous referral machine, using their huge advertising bucks to reel in cases from Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Bucks County and the surrounding areas to then REFER THE CASES back to PA lawyers. Why would they bother to do that? It's simple: MONEY. They get a referral fee on every case they refer to PA lawyers. How can they do that? Is it legal? Well, there is some pretty noteworthy litigation by a local lawyer against them for masquerading as a PA law firm when they, as of 2016, only had one attorney in Philadelphia who was actually licensed in PA to practice law. This PA lawyer was not a personal injury lawyer but got Morgan's foot in the door to create a huge referral business. How does this work? Morgan reels in calls from injured people, barely screening a prospective client's situation then sending the person out to another firm, presumably experienced in handling PA personal injury cases and collecting a sometimes big referral fee for doing nothing except hooking up an injured person to a local PA firm that may or may not be high quality. Yet Morgan is getting paid a LOT of money doing this. This is a volume business and if it didn't pay off in a big way, they wouldn't bother with it.
How does this affect prospective clients? Well, in essence, they have been misled into believing that a monstrous, apparently successful PA law firm is representing them or that the lawyer they end up with is actually part of Morgan and Morgan. It has taken a few years for people to figure out that "Jawn Morgan" isn't really representing them at all because his office is in Orlando, Florida. However, his firm is buried in the cash from referral fees to local lawyers from all over the U.S.
It seems that folks in other states where Morgan has infiltrated with their referral scheme have not all been happy with the results. A billboard in Florida was vandalized with graffiti blocking out John Morgan's eyes with green paint, and changing the wording of the ad from "America's largest injury law firm for the People" to read "America's largest injury law firm for the MONEY". The graffiti artist painted a large green money bag on the ad. You can Google the firm and its reviews and find countless examples of this type of graffiti in many geographic areas. Why? People get frustrated and angry with poor results in their cases, some of which are being handled by poor quality, inexperienced or uncaring referral partner-lawyers who are sharing fees with Morgan and Morgan.
Philadelphia and the surrounding counties have wonderful lawyers and bar associations with high quality referral services which are legitimate. There are also helpful services like Avvo.com and Justia.com, which do charge lawyers who advertise on them but offer a wonderful free service to assist a person in finding the right lawyer for them. On these sites an injured person can read prior client reviews and attorney endorsements to help them choose a lawyer they feel will best represent them. Why would you choose Morgan and Morgan over PA's best? There is no good reason unless you want to fill Morgan and Morgan's coffers for doing little or nothing on your case.
