Personal Injury Mastermind Podcast: Episode 364

Ross Cellino, The Godfather of Legal Marketing – PIMCON Keynote

Host: Chris Dreyer, Rankings.io
Guest: Ross Cellino, Founder, Cellino Law
Air Date: November 13, 2025
Episode Theme:
A masterclass in law firm branding, client acquisition, and growth, as Ross Cellino—the iconic legal marketer known for his memorable jingles and billboards—shares the untold stories, strategies, and hard-won lessons behind transforming a local personal injury firm into a market-dominant legal brand.

Main Theme & Purpose

Chris Dreyer sits with Ross Cellino live at PIMCON to dig into the history and future of law firm marketing. From humble beginnings and bootstrapped yellow-page ads to $100M+ branding campaigns and iconic phone numbers, Ross lays out the step-by-step evolution of personal injury marketing, explaining what works, what doesn’t, and how to build a firm that survives generations—even in the era of Google, AI, and programmatic advertising.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin Story: Taking the Leap and Entrepreneurial Drive

[01:10]

• Ross’s career started with a choice: A low-paying job offer after law school ($12,000/year) inspired him to “give it a shot” and start his own firm, motivated by a life-long drive to innovate and achieve financial independence.
• Entrepreneurial roots: “Even as a little kid, I was sort of always thinking about what I can do to make money.”
  — Ross Cellino [01:23]
• Early marketing efforts: Initial ad in the yellow pages brought results, leading to full-page ads against traditional advice, proving the financial risk was justified.

2. Risk-Taking & the Evolution of Law Firm Marketing

[03:50]

• Advertising was “taboo” in the legal industry, with lawyers fearing it would damage their reputation or cut off referrals.
• Ross’s success with small ads led him to embrace bigger risks: “The little ad… worked. Then when we did put the full page ad, that worked.”
  — Ross Cellino [04:05]

3. Strategic Partnerships & Scaling

[05:04]

• Ross and his partner, Steve, visit Morris Bart for TV advertising inspiration. Key lessons:
  • Make partners in the file, not the firm, to motivate lawyers.
  • “Figure out a way to double the spend of anybody else that’s on TV.”
• “Any extra money we poured into marketing.”
  — Ross Cellino [07:18]
• Relentless reinvestment over personal profit fueled rapid, sustainable growth from a local shop to 54 lawyers.

4. Brand Building: From TV to Billboards and the Power of Repetition

[09:13]

• Shift from using actors to putting their own faces on ads, fueled by branding advice:
  • “You got to put your puss on the TV screen”—Harlan Schillinger
  • Billboard innovation: “If you drive on the right-hand ready, it looks like you’re going to drive into it unless you made the turn. Gotta grab that billboard.”
    — Ross Cellino [12:28]
• Emphasis on memorable, clean design—three messages max, not seven.

5. The Jingle & Earned Media

[09:47], [22:56]

• The legendary Cellino jingle was born for $500, inspired by classic ad earworms.
• Its impact lasted decades and even landed on Saturday Night Live:
  • "Our jingle...becomes an earworm and you want them to actually always have that in your head.”
    — Ross Cellino [23:59]
• Found the value of repeater phone numbers (“88…8”): “If you don’t have a single digit repeating number, I wouldn’t put a phone number on your board.”

6. Stand-Out Advice on Trade Names

[15:27]

• Modern advice departs from ego-based branding:
  • “Frankly, I’m gonna tell you, I wouldn’t even use my name. I would go with a trade name, something like Top Dog Law… You wouldn’t have to spend $100 million to advertise Kick Ass Lawyers.”
    — Ross Cellino [15:27]

7. Niching Down—And How Far to Go

[17:17]

• PI as a niche used to be enough; now, micro-niching (e.g., only car crash) can win business:
  • “People said, oh, that guy does matrimonial work and Social Security, but Cellino only does PI.”
• Top-of-mind awareness beats niche in the long run; credibility is layered post-awareness.

8. Modern Marketing Mix: Data, Experiments, and Shifting Budgets

[26:48]

• Breakdown of Cellino Law's media allocation:
  • TV: 37% (too high, plans to reduce)
  • Cable: 9%
  • Radio: 11.4%
  • Outdoor (Billboards): 17%
  • OTT: 10%
  • YouTube: 0.4%
  • Audio streaming: 1%
  • PPC: 4%
  • SEO: 2%
  • Social Paid: 5%
  • LSA: 4%
  • Total Digital: 25%, Traditional: 75%
• “Listen to some of the younger guys...you gotta be stronger in that regard. But I still feel strongly about billboard and radio to support the top-of-mind awareness.”
  — Ross Cellino [27:24]

9. The Real Value of Brand for Big Case Acquisition

[28:15]

• Brand brings in the highest-value cases, not just ads or referrals.
• “When you have a brand, you’re in the game… Now, the key, though, is to go beyond top-of-mind awareness. You got to show credibility, that you’re trustworthy, that you’re good at what you do.”
• Largest verdict ever in Western NY ($47M) came through brand, which then compounds credibility.

10. Community Engagement & Trust Building

[30:31]

• Billboards, sports partnerships (e.g., with Buffalo Bills, using house's history as content), and public service campaigns build trust and connection beyond hard sales.
  • “People really appreciate that… you can’t always just say, ‘Hey, we get you millions.’ You gotta be able to do things for the public, and it pays in spades.”
    — Ross Cellino [31:55]

11. Team Compensation & Culture for Growth

[34:28]

• Grew by giving lawyers skin in the game (“partners in files”), not the equity — drives quality, retention, and delegation.
• “They feel like they're running their own business, which I think is a good feeling.”
  — Ross Cellino [38:12]

12. TV, High Impact Events, and the Future

[21:20], [22:17]

• Observation: TV less vital early due to cost, but intake dipped 30% when they stopped. Now, focus more on high-impact sports buys (“everybody watches it live”) and less on cable.
• “When you have an ad on TV or streaming for a football game, everybody watches it live… our clients are people that watch football games.”
  — Ross Cellino [22:17]

13. Changing Tides: Referrals and Attorney Retention

[36:55], [38:12]

• Business development from trying cases ("walk the walk") and getting big verdicts.
• Referral business can dry up with brand dominance—success sometimes breeds isolation.
• Staff retention built on fair compensation, entrepreneurial environment, and loyalty — “We haven’t had much turnover at all. Staff have been with me for 20 some years.”

14. Brand vs. Performance: Scaling Past 7-Figures

[39:49]

• Advice for rapidly-scaling firms (“seven to eight figures”):
  • “I still think brand should be a big, significant part of it. Because when you have a strong brand, you’re in the game for those cases that come in.”
  • You need to “pay the Google tax” to protect your name.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Attention is the new currency.”
  — Chris Dreyer [00:27]

• “We poured everything back into marketing. As our income went up, our revenue went up, we poured it back into the market. We never really increased our own personal take for a long, long time.”
  — Ross Cellino [07:59]

• On the jingle’s cultural impact:
  “To the point where it's so stuck in everyone's brain that Saturday Night Live picks it up.”
  — Chris Dreyer [22:56]

• “I wouldn’t even use my name… If I were starting today, I’d call my firm Kick Ass Lawyers, Badass Lawyers—something like that—because people want a lawyer that’s tough and gritty.”
  — Ross Cellino [15:27]

• “You get what you ask for. …We handle the big cases, and we’re the lawyer that you want for your big cases. Guess what? The big cases would come in, you get what you asked for.”
  — Ross Cellino [33:51]

• On the impact of being recognized locally:
  “Is that your dad on the billboard? ‘No, that's my uncle.”’
  — Ross’s daughter [11:04], as recounted by Ross

• On loss and learning:
  “If I could redo that case, I’m pretty confident I can win that case… I’d like to redo that one if I could.”
  — Ross Cellino [42:51] (Reflection on an early trial loss)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 01:10 | Ross’s origin story, early marketing | | 03:50 | Overcoming the legal marketing taboo | | 05:04 | Visiting Morris Bart, TV advertising lessons | | 09:13 | Building a brand by using your own image | | 09:47 | Creating and launching the iconic jingle | | 12:28 | Billboards: best practices, design, locations | | 15:27 | The power of trade names & making branding memorable| | 17:17 | Niching: past vs. present | | 21:20 | TV’s role, intakes drop without it | | 22:17 | Why focus major TV buys on live sports events | | 23:15 | The role of repeater numbers in recall | | 26:48 | Current marketing budget breakdown & data | | 28:15 | Brand’s role in attracting big/important cases | | 30:31 | Community & sports partnerships in branding | | 34:28 | Attorney incentive structures, team culture | | 39:49 | Brand’s role in firm scaling | | 41:17 | Ross’s year to relive & the lesson from a loss |

Takeaway Action Steps

• Invest heavily (and early) in brand, especially with outdoor and radio support—don’t just chase leads.
• Embrace trade names or memorable concepts—modern consumers respond to clarity and repetition over tradition.
• Be willing to reinvest profits, take calculated risks, and “put your face out there”—brand is built, not bought.
• Recruit and retain talent by letting lawyers be partners in their own success, fueling sustainable growth.
• Evolve the media mix as the market changes, never shy away from testing new formats, but never abandon the core principle: top-of-mind awareness wins the game.

This episode is essential for any attorney, marketer, or entrepreneur aiming to elevate their client acquisition and brand strategy from average to iconic. Ross Cellino’s stories and data deliver a blueprint for smart risk—and smarter marketing.