Innovative billboards drove Cellino & Barnes' 'meteoric growth'

Oct. 3--It's hard to remember a time when the Cellino & Barnes name and phone number weren't seemingly everywhere, from billboards to TV ads to jingles.

But it was the power of advertising that vaulted the personal injury law firm from its low-profile origins into attention and fame in Buffalo and beyond. And Cellino & Barnes backed up its widespread name recognition with results, in the form of settlements for clients that sometimes reached millions of dollars.

Stephen Barnes, who died in a plane crash on Friday at age 61, cultivated the ambitious, expensive marketing strategy with his longtime legal partner, Ross Cellino Jr. While the firm is completing a highly publicized breakup, the way Barnes and Cellino built their business has had a lasting effect on how other lawyers promote themselves.

"These guys were the trailblazers," said Paul Cambria, a Buffalo-based criminal defense attorney.

Advertising was instrumental to Cellino & Barnes' growth and identity. Barnes, in a court document filed last year, said the firm over its history had spent more than $150 million in marketing and advertising to build the Cellino & Barnes brand.

Barnes in the same court filing described in direct fashion: "(Cellino & Barnes) is one of the most successful and profitable personal injury law firms in the history of the United States. Since 1992, Stephen Barnes and Ross Cellino built (Cellino & Barnes) into a national, multimillion-dollar personal injury law firm that has experienced meteoric growth across every metric of its business and experienced unparalleled success for both itself and its clients."

But the firm wasn't always so high-profile.

Cellino & Barnes traces its roots to a firm founded by Ross Cellino Sr. in 1958. The firm handled some personal injury cases, but focused on real estate, criminal clients and trusts and estates. Under Ross Cellino Jr. and Barnes, who had retired from the Marines and joined in 1992, the firm took a new direction.

Advertising fueled the growth, starting with an ad in the Yellow Pages but expanding into so much more.

The firm started using billboards in 1994 and kept building its presence. By 2000, Barnes said the firm had more than 60 billboards. "We've got them from Buffalo to Olean, Jamestown, Fredonia and Dunkirk," he said in a Buffalo News story that year. "Obviously, we think they work."

"They were not the first advertising lawyers, but I think they changed the face of lawyer advertising," said Steve Boyd, a personal injury attorney. "I think when they went to billboards, things took off."

There was also that jingle, heard constantly on radio and TV, that wove in Cellino & Barnes' phone number. Boyd recalled when his daughter was just 3 or 4 years old, she would sing it.

Cambria said Cellino & Barnes became masters of advertising legal services back when that was a relatively new concept for lawyers. "It was dignified," he said. "It was sophisticated. It didn't demean the legal profession, which was a very important thing at the time because lawyers for the most part wouldn't even dream of advertising."

As the firm grew, it added offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Cambria has an office in Los Angeles and spotted the familiar faces out there. "I remember the first time I was driving down Fairfax [Avenue] and all of a sudden what do I see on the back of a bus but Cellino and Barnes."

Cambria said Cellino & Barnes "took a big chance" on using widespread advertising to raise its profile. "They had to spend a lot of money, make a big investment and then hope that the community wouldn't think, 'Who are these clowns on the billboard?' rather than, 'Gee, I think I'd like to have them as my lawyers," he said. "And they successfully did it."

Cambria was Barnes' standby litigation counsel in the event the breakup with Cellino went to trial. "At that time, I was amazed at the sophistication of the advertising model that they had developed within their firm, with people who specialized just in the advertising products," he said. "It was very impressive."

Before attorney advertising became commonplace, people might have found out about lawyers from reading about them in the paper, seeing them on TV, hearing them on radio or a referral from a friend, Cambria said. Cellino & Barnes' approach paved the way for other local attorneys to create catchy jingles and slogans of their own.

"Once these guys basically invented themselves out of thin air as personal injury lawyers, then you saw a number of other people who you see now," Cambria said.

Boyd said advertising helps explain how Cellino & Barnes gained name recognition, but isn't the whole story.

"You can spend millions and millions of dollars in advertising and brand yourself, but none of that works as a lawyer unless you have success in the courtroom too," Boyd said. "And Steve had success in the courtroom, too.

"It was a combination of the innovative way they marketed themselves and the fierce way that they competed in the litigation ring and the way they handled themselves as lawyers in the courtroom and with the employees they've employed," he said.

Cambria agreed with that point.

"You have to have competent people to do the work," he said. "And clearly they were able to attract a number of competent people."

The ubiquitous advertising kept bringing in clients and thrust Cellino and Barnes into pop culture. They were spoofed on "Saturday Night Live," and in a play. Radio hosts Shredd & Ragan created a parody billboard. In 2002, Barnes and Cellino appeared onstage -- to thunderous applause -- at the University at Buffalo for a comedy skit with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a puppet voiced by writer Robert Smigel.

"I saw your ad, and I want to sue you for 30 seconds of my lifetime," Smigel cracked.

Both Boyd and Cambria said there was another side to Barnes that wasn't evident through the ads.

Boyd was diagnosed with leukemia in 2015. After he was in remission and returned to work, he reached out to Cellino & Barnes about resolving the fee for a "very significant" personal injury case that had started with Cellino & Barnes but had moved to his own firm before being settled.

Boyd anticipated a tough fight over how to split up the one-third fee for the settled case, as often happens in these situations. He spoke to the firm's contact for fee disputes, who told Boyd, "Yeah, I talked to Ross and Steve, forget about it." The firm wasn't claiming any of the fee. Boyd was floored.

"Steve was a very tough litigator, a hard lawyer, but he's also a good person," Boyd said. "He wasn't just a good fighter, he had a heart. He was a good human."

Cambria remembered calling Barnes for the first time to ask him to be a major contributor for the Variety Club's telethon. "The conversation lasted about 30 seconds," Cambria said. "It was just, 'Yeah, sure, of course, I would love to, thanks for calling me.' It wasn't like there was any hard sell there. He was always there for us, as was Ross."

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