If you’ve turned on a television, scrolled through social media, or streamed a podcast lately, chances are you’ve encountered a familiar pitch: a solemn voice intones that a drug you’ve been prescribed could cause “serious bleeding, stroke, or death.” These ads look as nearly official or authoritative as possible, with medical symbols and sometimes even references to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But they’re not public health advisories. They’re legal solicitations, paid for by trial lawyers hoping to recruit as many plaintiffs as possible for lawsuits against medical drug and device companies.
From 2012 to 2015 approximately $575 million was spent on 2.2 million TV ads targeting pharmaceuticals and medical device products. The volume of such ads shows this is big business, but the problem is more fundamental. These ads don’t aim to educate; they’re designed to cause panic and alarm. And in doing so, they can mislead consumers into refusing to continue with their doctor-prescribed medications.
President Trump’s recent memorandum taking aim at misleading pharmaceutical advertising offers an important opening. If we’re to make America healthy again, that initiative should include making sure trial lawyers advertise with the same integrity as medical manufacturers.
Unlike drug companies, which are subject to FDA guidelines requiring balance, substantiation, and fair presentation of risks and benefits in their ads, trial lawyers operate under a looser set of rules. Their ads typically focus almost entirely on danger. They omit critical context, downplay or ignore the benefits of treatment, and often include visual elements designed to imply authority or urgency. Too often they succeed in scaring patients into making medical decisions based on fear rather than fact.
The consequences aren’t theoretical. Several years ago, a 45‑year‑old man suffering from a deep vein thrombosis—a blood clot—saw a television commercial advertising lawsuits over the blood‑thinner Xarelto, which he was taking to dissolve the clot. He was so worried by the advertisement that he stopped taking the medication his doctor had prescribed; he later died from a pulmonary embolism.
His story is sadly not unique. In fact, In 2019, the FDA documented 66 adverse-event reports—including seven deaths—linked to patients who stopped taking anticoagulants like Pradaxa and Xarelto after seeing lawsuit ads. And this is just one of many medications that physicians have seen patients stop taking due to lawsuit ads.
The problem persists because legal advertising exists in a regulatory blind spot. The FDA regulates drug marketing, as President Trump emphasized with his recent order, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) polices consumer deception in most industries. But trial lawyer ads have largely flown under the regulatory radar.
This is where policymakers can step in. The FTC can pick up where it left off at the end of the last Trump Administration and continue its investigation into whether some television advertisements soliciting clients for personal injury lawsuits against drug manufacturers “may be deceptive or unfair under the FTC Act.” It should coordinate efforts with the FDA to establish basic disclosure and truth-in-advertising rules for lawyer solicitations involving health decisions. At a minimum, these ads should clearly state who is paying for them, clarify that they are legal solicitations—not medical advisories—and include a disclaimer: “Do not stop taking any medication without consulting your physician.”
States also have a role to play. In 2019, Texas passed a deceptive advertising act that regulated attorney solicitations for medical-related cases. Florida and Louisiana have similar laws on the books. Attorneys general can enforce consumer protection standards. And state bar authorities—which have long been in the pocket of the plaintiffs’ bar—must recognize that their inaction contributes to public harm and erodes trust in the profession. State supreme courts often regulate attorney solicitations through their attorney code of conduct; these codes can be amended to ensure transparency, medical accuracy, and public safety.
As an attorney, I’ve used advertising in my own practice to alert potential clients to violations of their legal and constitutional rights. Legal advertising is an important tool for lawyers to operate as a business and to educate people about their rights. But lawyers also occupy a special position of trust and professional authority, which brings with it a responsibility to speak carefully and accurately about the law and the facts.
Legal solicitations cross that line when they interfere with another profession and its ethical obligations, namely doctors and their relationships to their patients. And lawyers betray our own ethical duties when we fail to act with awareness of the impact of our advice on vulnerable individuals. When someone stops taking a life-saving medication because of a misleading legal ad, and suffers the consequences of that mistaken choice, we should all agree that something has gone seriously wrong.
President Trump’s executive order has drawn the country’s attention toward a needed national conversation around medical advertising and health risks. But we should not artificially limit that conversation to only target the excesses of drug companies. Protecting the public from misleading medical advertising must include legal solicitations as well.
Daniel Suhr is a partner in Hughes & Suhr LLC and president of the Center for American Rights.
