Five firms in St. Louis spend nearly half of every legal ad dollar. None of them are willing to give an inch. That standoff defines DMA #24, a market pushing $3.3 million monthly through legal advertising with 5.3% annual growth. Not explosive. Not stagnant. Just enough heat to keep everyone investing.
Morgan & Morgan commands the top position at $631K monthly (19.4% share). But this isn’t a Morgan monopoly. Brown & Crouppen, Goldblatt & Singer, DM Injury Law, and Onder Law collectively outspend Morgan by a wide margin. Regional firms built their brands on St. Louis broadcast television over decades. They don’t plan to give that up.
Broadcast captures 66% of the market. Cable at 14%. CTV at 20%. Five firms fighting over the same broadcast inventory, the same dayparts, the same audience. It’s a war of attrition on traditional channels.
The Regional Powers
St. Louis is one of the rare markets where local firms genuinely compete with Morgan & Morgan’s national machine. Brown & Crouppen runs $296K monthly (9.1%). They’ve been a fixture on St. Louis television for years. Goldblatt & Singer at $250K (7.7%) and DM Injury Law at $231K (7.1%) round out a group of firms that all spend enough to maintain real presence.
Onder Law sits at $171K (5.3%), making the top five remarkably balanced. The gap between Morgan at 19.4% and Onder at 5.3% is meaningful, but it’s not the kind of blowout you see in markets like Jackson or Little Rock where Morgan captures 30% or more.
That balance creates a specific dynamic. No single firm can afford to scale back. Pull advertising dollars and a competitor immediately fills the gap. Increase spend and you’re bidding against four other well-funded operations for the same inventory. Stalemate.
Missouri’s Accident Corridor
The Missouri Department of Transportation documented over 150,000 crashes in 2024 statewide. St. Louis and Kansas City account for the bulk. The I-70 corridor connecting the two cities runs through some of the most dangerous stretches of highway in the Midwest.
That crash volume sustains PI demand. And PI demand sustains the advertising machine. Unlike markets where mass tort or workers’ comp drives significant ad spend, St. Louis leans heavily toward motor vehicle PI. The content of the ads reflects it: accident reconstructions, testimonial-style spots, 30-second broadcast formats built for the same audience segments decade after decade.
Broadcast Gridlock
At 66%, St. Louis runs one of the highest broadcast concentrations among major markets. Cable adds another 14%. That means 80% of every legal ad dollar goes to traditional television.
The implication is straightforward. Five firms compete for the same broadcast slots on KMOV, KSDK, KTVI, and KDNL. During high-value dayparts, inventory gets expensive. During primetime, it gets scarce. The cost-per-impression rises while the audience fragments. More money, less reach per dollar.
ATRA’s national data tells the same story at scale: $2.5 billion in legal advertising annually, with broadcast taking the largest share despite streaming’s 47.5% audience capture. St. Louis is a perfect microcosm.
The 20% CTV Gap
St. Louis allocates 20% to CTV. That’s $660K monthly across the entire market. For context, Morgan alone spends nearly that amount on broadcast.
Nielsen documented streaming’s 47.5% share of all TV viewing in December 2025. St. Louis viewers stream at roughly the national rate. They watch the same platforms. They consume the same content. But they see almost no legal advertising while they do it.
Here’s where the standoff becomes an opportunity. All five top firms are locked in broadcast gridlock. They’re all spending more to reach fewer viewers. A firm that redirects even 15% of its budget to law firm CTV breaks the pattern. They reach the audience their competitors can’t. They target by demo, by geography, by behavior. They measure at the household level.
In a market defined by stalemate, CTV is the flanking move.
Breaking the Standoff
The firm that moves first in St. Louis doesn’t need the biggest budget. They need the right channel. A $150K to $200K monthly CTV deployment would represent 20% to 25% of what the leading broadcast spenders invest. But it would make that firm the dominant voice on streaming platforms in the entire DMA.
Brown & Crouppen and Goldblatt & Singer have the budgets to make this move without abandoning broadcast. They could maintain traditional presence while building CTV share. DM Injury Law and Onder Law could go streaming-forward at their current spend levels and own the channel.
Five firms in a standoff. Same channels, same audience, same playbook. Someone’s going to break the pattern. The question is who does it first.
References
- Nielsen. "2024-2025 Local Television Market Universe Estimates." 2024.
- Nielsen. "Streaming Shatters Multiple Records in December 2025 with 47.5% of TV Viewing." 2026.
- ATRA. "Legal Services Advertising in the United States, 2020-2024." 2025.
- Missouri Department of Transportation. "Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium, 2024." 2025.
