Edward and Alex Shenderovich are living the American dream, squared -- a dream fueled by television commercials identifying the identical twin personal injury lawyers as "The Double Team."
They are waiting for your call. At (888) 98-TWINS, of course.
Since Shenderovich & Shenderovich began advertising on local television six years ago, their Pittsburgh-area law practice has grown by about 500 percent, they said.
"As soon as we put an ad on, the phone started ringing," said Edward Shenderovich, who was born first and speaks for the duo.
Ads like the brothers run today were unheard of when they came to the United States in 1977 as 12-year-old Russian immigrants. Since a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that year allowed lawyers to advertise, the practice has grown into a multimillion-dollar business that still prompts debate in the legal community.
Lawyers spent more than $384 million on local TV, radio and print ads last year -- not counting Yellow Pages ads. Most of that -- $293 million -- paid for local TV ads, said Gary Belis, spokesman for the Television Bureau of Advertising, a New York City trade association that tracks advertising and other local television trends.
To put things in perspective, car dealers remain the kings of local advertising -- outspending the lawyers 10-to-1, Belis said.
Lawyers rarely advertise on national network TV. A few, like Massachusetts personal injury attorney James Sokolove and his national network of affiliated attorneys, spend millions on national cable or syndicated TV ads, Belis said. But most attorneys on TV are like Shenderovich & Shenderovich, smaller firms looking for a leg up in their local market.
The twins spend about $7,500 for 30 or so television ads each month, mostly sprinkled among Pittsburgh's daytime TV menu.
"We had a Web site but we didn't get any response," Edward Shenderovich said. "If somebody gets hurt and they're laying in the hospital, they don't have any access to a computer. But if they're laying in bed, they can reach for the Yellow Pages or see us on TV."
But that's one reason why state court officials and bar associations prohibited ads for decades: They didn't want desperate people turning to the first or best pitchman they saw.
The Iowa Supreme Court has developed some of the strictest ad regulations in the country, said incoming Iowa Bar Association President Nick Critelli. Iowa attorneys cannot appear in their ads, and tight scrutiny keeps them from making many claims about what they can do.
"There's always the line between lawyers that recognize this is a profession ... and lawyers who look at it as a business and only apply the rules for the marketplace," Critelli said. "And to some extent, there is a blend of both. But what you're marketing to the public is professional services, not commercial services -- and there's a world of difference between the two."
Others argue that ads are the best -- and perhaps only -- way to compete in a modern, transient society where referrals and word of mouth just don't cut it anymore.
"The art of advertising, I think, is to give people familiarity. The twins are creating a brand that they hope will be recognizable," said Arnie Malham, president and owner of Nashville-based cj Advertising, a firm that specializes in attorney ads.
Malham represents firms in more than 30 U.S. markets, though not Pittsburgh, and thinks the Shenderoviches are on the right track.
One of Malham's clients is E Eric Guirard, who spends in the seven figures annually to promote a firm with 10 attorneys and some 50 support staff in Baton Rouge, La., and New Orleans.
Guirard, 45, a former standup comic who majored in broadcast journalism before law school, worked in other firms for seven years before building his own, E Eric Guirard Injury Lawyers, on a cornerstone of TV advertising 10 years ago.
Guirard has used a rap-music theme, comical commercials (an old lady driver crashes through his office wall and asks, "Where'd you get a license to drive that desk?"), and self-promotion all built around his faux first initial.
"'E' doesn't stand for anything -- that's my nickname. But if you want to be successful, you have to have that letter out in front of your name," Guirard said. "With me, you don't have to remember a name, you don't have to remember a slogan -- just remember a letter: E."
The Shenderovich brothers maintain a sense of humor about their twindom, but are all business when it comes to their commercials.
Asked how a stranger can tell them apart, Edward points to the back of his head and says, "I'm about 15 minutes balder than he is."
But Edward Shenderovich stops short of calling the twins' ads a gimmick. "If somebody was not a twin and had two pictures of himself on a commercial and he wasn't a twin -- I'd consider that a gimmick."
"With us, people get the idea that they get two for the price of one," Edward said. "We don't have to run that many ads to be remembered."
