Grand Rapids, Michigan, was becoming
increasingly concerned about the future of
his profession.
Standards of professionalism among
some lawyers declined, prompting distrust
from the public. Lawyer jokes were
rampant on late night television and in
most social settings. Law firm advertising
became more common, causing the law
firms with the biggest ad campaigns
to attract clients, regardless of their
reputation and quality.
This lawyer decided he needed to do
something. So he set out to use advertising
of a different kind ads which reminded
the public about the nobility of the justice
system and educated them about the
importance of lawyers. He wanted to teach
people what makes a quality lawyer and
how to find one.
filled with these high-quality lawyers
from small to medium-sized firms around
the world and hold them to the highest
standards of professionalism in the industry
so clients could know where to find the
best lawyers, wherever and whenever they
needed one.
The lawyer is John C. "Jack" Buchanan
and the society he founded in 1992 is
Primerus.
Twenty-five years later, Primerus has
grown to include 180 small to medium-sized
law firms in nearly 50 countries. Clients
around the world turn to Primerus when they
need a quality lawyer for reasonable fees.
more and more law firms ran ads. They
were emboldened by the 1977 case Bates
v. State Bar of Arizona, in which the United
lawyers to advertise their services. But
Buchanan wondered if there was a way for
law firms to embrace advertising in a way
that helped the reputation of the firm and
the legal industry, rather than hurting it.
"I wanted to do an ad that did nothing
but tell the public about our great legal
system," Buchanan said. "The public
was hearing nothing but bad things, so I
wanted to do something educational."
In 1990, he did just that. Buchanan's
small litigation firm began running
a 30-second television commercial
and accompanying print ads in local
newspapers and magazines designed to
defend the American legal system. The
ad featured photos of tyrannical leaders
Hitler, Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini,
along with the headline "Three leaders
who really knew how to streamline a