A White Plains law firm and its New York ad agency were a recent hot topic in the metropolitan news cycle over an ad for the personal-injury firm”™s work on behalf of clients suffering from illnesses related to the 9/11 site.
The ad, which briefly ran in the New York Post and first was shown at a fundraiser for the World Police Fire Games, depicted a begrimed firefighter holding up a photo of the skeletal remains of a fallen World Trade Center tower. It advertised the services of Worby Groner Edelman L.L.P. and Napoli Bern Ripka L.L.P., firms representing Ground Zero responders in a federal class-action lawsuit seeking medical expense coverage and damages awards for their exposures to toxins from the disaster.
It included a small disclaimer that the firefighter in the photo was an actor. But it sparked a controversy, first reported in the Post, when the model, Robert Keiley, turned out to be a city firefighter hired in 2004. Keiley also works as a part-time model and actor.
Quoted by the Post, an angry Keiley said the ad insulted the fire department and families of 9/11 victims and made him appear a “scumbag” who was “cashing in” as a sick and suing responder.
Keiley, who had posed with a helmet in his hands for a promotional fire department photo, was upset that the image had been digitally doctored.
The agency, Barker/DZP, pulled the ad in the firestorm of negative publicity.
David E. Worby, founding partner of Worby Groner Edelman in White Plains, said his firm was unjustly a target of “lawyer-bashing.” “This was the most unbelievable non-story I”™ve ever seen,” he said.
Worby said the ad agency “had no idea that he was a fireman. He didn”™t present himself as a fireman” when taking the modeling assignment from another agency.
Worby said his firm agreed to represent ailing 9/11 responders in the class-action suit when numerous other firms would not.
“It”™s a little aggravating after eight years and after defending 10,000 people without making a nickel, that a stupid mistake by an ad agency and a modeling agency in any way, shape or form puts a black mark on our law firm,” he said.
Worby said he”™ll discuss with his law partners whether to retain the ad agency. The agency”™s head called the snafu “entirely inadvertent” in a public apology to Keiley and fallen 9/11 firefighters.
Personally, “I don”™t want anything to do with them again,” Worby said.
I think this is a complete non issue. Who cares stuff like this happens all of the time. Let’s chill out everyone there are a lot more things to be worrying about.
Jack Peterson,
Vidor, TX