Tampa Bay didn’t become the second-largest market for lawyer TV ads by accident. Florida invented the personal injury advertising arms race, and Tampa sits at the center of it. The market hit $5.5 million in monthly legal ad spend as of late 2025, up 8.8% year-over-year.
One firm owns nearly a quarter of that. Morgan and Morgan spends $1.33 million monthly in Tampa alone, outpacing every competitor by a factor of two. Their Orlando headquarters sits 80 miles east. Tampa is a home game.
The result is a market defined by concentration at the top and broadcast dependence throughout. CTV captures 22% of spend. That’s above average nationally. But given Florida’s cord-cutting trajectory, it’s still far below where the audience actually watches. For CTV budget planning by DMA tier, see the CTV budget by market size guide.
Ground Zero for the PI Ad Arms Race
Florida holds a unique position in legal advertising history. Four Florida DMAs rank in the national top 10 for legal ad spending: Orlando at number four, Miami at five, Tampa at seven, and Fort Myers rounding out the list (American Tort Reform Association, 2025).
Tampa ranked number one nationally for sheer volume of lawyer TV ads in 2015. During the first eight months of that year, Tampa Bay stations aired 164,781 lawyer spots (Tampa Bay Times, 2015). That’s roughly 685 ads per day. Every day.
By 2024, Tampa dropped to number two. Orlando took the top spot. But Tampa still aired 310,619 lawyer ad spots across the year, more than New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago (American Tort Reform Association, 2025).
This isn’t a market where legal advertising is growing. It’s a market where legal TV advertising spending has been saturated for over a decade. The question isn’t whether to advertise in Tampa. It’s whether you can afford the cost of being invisible.
Morgan and Morgan Owns the Room
Morgan and Morgan’s dominance in Tampa reflects a broader national broadcast strategy. The firm spent $218 million on television advertising nationally in 2024, part of a reported $350 million total marketing budget (Institute for Legal Reform, 2024). That creates a spending gap of roughly 1,200 to 1 compared to the average personal injury firm.
In Tampa specifically, Morgan controls 24% of the legal ad market at $1.33 million monthly. The next closest competitor, Farah and Farah, spends half that.
Tampa Bay’s Top Legal Advertisers
- Morgan and Morgan: $1.33M (24%)
- Farah and Farah: $668K (12%)
- Dimopoulos Injury Law: $202K (3.6%)
- Dan Newlin and Partners: $198K (3.6%)
- Winters and Yonkers: $165K (3%)
The concentration is stark. Morgan and Farah combined control 36% of market spend. The remaining 64% splits across dozens of smaller firms, none exceeding 4%.
Morgan’s scale advantage compounds across Florida DMAs. They don’t just buy Tampa inventory. They buy Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, and Fort Myers simultaneously. That multi-market presence creates brand recognition that no single-market firm can match through spending alone.
Broadcast Dominance at 60%
Tampa allocates 60% of its legal ad spend to broadcast television, totaling $3.3 million monthly across four major stations: WFLA (NBC), WTSP (CBS), WTVT (Fox), and WFTS (ABC).
Cable accounts for 18% at $990K monthly. CTV takes 22% at $1.21 million.
That 60% broadcast allocation exceeds most comparable markets. Chicago runs 59%. Houston sits at 47%. Los Angeles comes in at 44%. Tampa’s broadcast dependence reflects both the market’s history and Morgan’s preferences. When the dominant advertiser runs heavy broadcast, the entire market tilts that direction.
The four broadcast stations compete for legal advertising dollars with limited inventory. Prime-time and daytime slots fill quickly during peak seasons. This drives CPMs higher and forces smaller firms into less desirable dayparts.
Florida’s Regulatory Gauntlet
Florida imposes the strictest lawyer advertising rules in the country. Every ad must be filed with the Florida Bar at least 20 days before first use. Each filing carries a $150 fee. The Bar reviews ads for compliance with ethical guidelines, and rejection means starting over.
This regulatory friction creates a natural barrier to entry. Firms can’t rapidly test and iterate creative. They can’t respond quickly to competitor messaging. Every campaign requires advance planning that other states don’t demand.
The 2023 tort reform legislation added further pressure. Florida eliminated one-way attorney fees and fee multipliers for personal injury cases. These changes reduced the expected value of certain case types, squeezing margins for firms that depend on volume.
Despite these headwinds, Tampa’s legal ad spend grew 8.8% year-over-year. The math still works. Cost per signed personal injury case runs $2,500 to $3,000 in Tampa. For firms with strong intake processes, advertising remains profitable even in a post-reform environment.
The 1,200-to-1 Problem
Morgan and Morgan’s scale creates a structural challenge for competitors. At $18 million in estimated monthly national TV spend, Morgan outspends the average personal injury firm’s entire marketing budget by a factor of 1,200 (Institute for Legal Reform, 2024).
You can’t outspend them. That’s settled.
The firms that compete successfully in Tampa do it through other means. Farah and Farah built recognition across North Florida before pushing into Tampa. Dan Newlin operates out of Orlando with name recognition that crosses DMA boundaries. Dimopoulos Injury Law carved out Tampa-specific positioning.
What none of them have done effectively is differentiate through channel strategy. All five top advertisers lean heavily on broadcast. All five compete for the same inventory on the same four stations during the same dayparts.
This sameness creates a crowded battlefield where the firm with the biggest budget wins by default. Morgan has the biggest budget. They win by default.
CTV at 22%: Above Average, Below Opportunity
Tampa’s 22% CTV allocation looks respectable. It exceeds New York’s 11%, Chicago’s 20%, and Houston’s 18%. Only Los Angeles at 33% significantly outpaces Tampa among major markets.
But context matters. Florida leads the nation in cord-cutting adoption. Streaming penetration across Tampa Bay households exceeds 85%. The audience has moved to streaming faster than the advertising dollars have followed.
That gap between audience location and ad dollar allocation represents the clearest opportunity in Tampa’s legal advertising market. A firm that shifts meaningful budget from broadcast to CTV, following the playbook outlined in streaming TV advertising for law firms, gains access to audiences that the top five advertisers largely ignore on streaming platforms.
The economics favor the move. Understanding CTV advertising costs for law firms shows that Tampa CPMs run below broadcast rates for comparable demographics. Targeting precision exceeds anything broadcast offers. And measurement capabilities let firms connect ad exposure to phone calls, form fills, and signed cases.
The Multi-Market Florida Play
Tampa doesn’t exist in isolation. Morgan, Farah, and Newlin all advertise across multiple Florida DMAs simultaneously. This multi-market approach creates compounding brand effects that single-market firms can’t replicate through traditional media.
CTV changes that equation. Streaming platforms don’t respect DMA boundaries the way broadcast does. A firm running CTV across Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville can target specific zip codes, demographics, and behavioral segments without buying three separate broadcast markets.
This means a mid-sized firm with $400K in monthly CTV spend could achieve multi-market reach that previously required millions in broadcast commitments. The technology advantage works against scale incumbents, not for them.
Morgan’s 1,200-to-1 spending gap narrows considerably when the challenger fights on streaming instead of broadcast. You still can’t match their total spend. But you can match their reach in specific audience segments at a fraction of the cost.
What Comes Next
Tampa’s legal ad market won’t stop growing. Florida’s population trends, tort environment, and competitive dynamics all push spending higher. The firms that succeed over the next two years won’t be the ones who spend the most on broadcast.
They’ll be the ones who recognized the channel shift first.
Morgan and Morgan built their empire on broadcast television. It worked brilliantly for two decades. But the audience is migrating to streaming, and the advertising infrastructure hasn’t caught up. Tampa’s 22% CTV allocation will look quaint within 18 months as national averages push past 30%.
The opportunity window is open. It won’t stay open forever. When Morgan eventually redirects meaningful budget to CTV, the pricing and inventory advantages that exist today will disappear.
First movers win in Tampa. They always have.
References
- American Tort Reform Association. "Legal Services Advertising in the United States, 2020-2024." 2025.
- Tampa Bay Times. "Tampa Bay Leads the Nation in Number of Lawyer Ads on TV." 2015.
- Reuters. "Law Firm Morgan and Morgan Sues Rival in Turf Battle Over Google Ads." 2024.
- Institute for Legal Reform. "Lawyers Near Me: The Scoop Behind Trial Lawyer Advertising." 2024.