A BIG HIT

Mark Coomes - The Courier-Journal

Steve Higdon and his four kids were driving through town last fall when they saw a familiar face plastered on a billboard.
"Dad! Hey, Dad!" the kids yelled. "There's your friend!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Higdon told them. "I've never seen the guy before in my life.
Sure, dad.

Like there's anyone in Louisville who hasn't seen the broad, beaming face of Darryl Isaacs.
It's on billboards. It's on the back of the phone book. It's on TV up to 50 times a month.

It's proof of the power of advertising.

The price of fame

You'd think that in the hometown of Pee Wee Reese and the Louisville Slugger, the phrase "The Heavy Hitter" would make folks think of a baseball star. Thanks to a nine-year multimedia ad campaign, they probably think of a 41-year-old personal injury lawyer instead.

"Crazy, isn't it?" Isaacs said. "I never dreamed it would work so well. Sometimes I almost wish it didn't."

For Isaacs, the price of fame is nearly $1million a year. That's what he spends to familiarize the public with his name and game - extracting monetary justice for the victims of auto accidents.

The cost of fame is his anonymity. The guy can't walk into a store or restaurant without people shouting his name, shaking his hand and even asking for his autograph.

"Sometimes when you're with Darryl, it takes five minutes to go 20 feet," said Tim Culver, one of Isaacs' friends and executive director of the Trinity High School Foundation. "Everybody knows The Heavy Hitter."

That includes Higdon, who would know Isaacs' distinctively swarthy mug even if it didn't belong to his good friend and former college roommate.

As president of Greater Louisville Inc., Higdon is for anything that pumps money into the local economy. Isaacs is a big spender for publicity and charity alike.

'He quietly gives back'

Lucy Ricketts, president and founder of All I Want for Christmas, first met Isaacs at the Louisville charity's 1998 holiday party in Portland, where 1,000 hand-wrapped gifts were distributed to children.

Isaacs, a Louisville native, is married with three young children. He had heard good things about All I Want for Christmas and had accepted Ricketts' invitation to attend the party - for a little while. He'd promised to take his wife to a University of Kentucky basketball game in Lexington that afternoon.

"He wound up staying for about four hours," Ricketts said. "He was so moved by the whole thing that he openly wept. Next thing you know, I got a $10,000 check from him, which at that point was the largest single donation we'd ever received."

"That's what is really special about Darryl," Culver said. "He quietly gives back to the community in ways he doesn't boast of. Some people who are successful in life don't necessarily walk the path Darryl does in helping others. As a fund-raiser, I've witnessed that firsthand."

The paradox of fame is that everybody knows you without really knowing you at all. Isaacs is such an aggressive advertiser - in a field where self-promotion is still considered somewhat undignified - that it's tempting to dismiss him as a stereotypical money-grubbing lawyer.

"Unfortunately, because of his advertising, sometimes people think he is, you know, it's the whole ambulance-chaser thing," said Ricketts, whose day job is director of public affairs for Passport Health Plan. "People will say, 'What's he like? I see him on the back of the phone book and on these ads on daytime television, and he just seems a little cheesy.'

"All I can say is that Darryl is the most kind-hearted, big-hearted man I think I've ever known. And whatever he's doing in terms of advertising is clearly working for him, business-wise."

Booming Business

Isaacs' practice is indeed thriving. He won't discuss financial figures, but he employs eight lawyers and 20 support staff and acknowledges that advertising has dramatically increased his business volume since he and his semiretired father, Sheldon, started Isaacs & Isaacs 12 years ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that lawyers are legally entitled to advertise; 28 years hence, the Florida Bar Association estimates that fewer than 4 percent of lawyers nationwide exercise that right on TV.

The few who do are making a sizable investment. Lawyers spent some $293 million on TV advertising in 2003, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising.

Isaacs' ads are like the man himself: direct, good-natured and self-effacing. He used to call himself The Kentucky Hammer but said he decided, "That was too mean. That's not me. The Heavy Hitter is a better fit. I'm not afraid to poke a little fun at myself."

The round mound of litigious renown stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs more than 200 pounds. In dark suits softened by pastel button-downs, his heft is not unappealing.

"There's a big ol' teddy bear quality to Darryl," Higdon said. "He's a very fun, easygoing, open guy."

Most of Isaacs' ads feature a dash of humor and hyperbole. Take, for example, the one that ran during the Super Bowl last month.

It depicted a small group of Chinese peasants watching the Super Bowl on a storefront TV. They were bewildered by the strange game, but when Isaacs' mug popped on the screen, they experienced an epiphany of recognition.
"The Heavy Hitter!" the group rejoiced. Listeners of a Lexington radio station voted it their favorite Super Bowl ad.

Bleeding Blue

Isaacs is also a sizable presence in horse country. The UK graduate has an office in Lexington and advertises aggressively there. He's also "a die-hard, bleed-blue Kentucky fan," Higdon said, with enough clout in the program to rate a ride on the team plane for the Wildcats' Feb. 15 game at South Carolina.

"In some ways I think Darryl is living out a childhood dream," Higdon said. "Hanging around a team like UK's is a lot of fun because, like most people, he wasn't tall enough or good enough to play basketball competitively."

Isaacs is used to coming up short. And he's used to succeeding anyway.

The first time Isaacs took the American College Test, as a junior at Trinity High School, he scored 14 out of a possible 36. The second time he scored a 10.

"The test was at Assumption," Isaacs said, grinning. "Seeing all the girls, I couldn't really focus."

Isaacs entered UK on academic probation, but he left with a degree in business administration, a 3.2 grade-point average and a desire to attend law school.

"You're barking up the wrong tree," an instructor told Isaacs after he struggled through a preparatory course for the Law School Admission Test.

Down But Never Out

Isaacs needed three cracks at the LSAT before scoring high enough to enter the University of Louisville law school. After graduating, he needed three more cracks to pass the bar exam.

It takes more than three strikes to put out The Heavy Hitter.

"I'm not a great test-taker," Isaacs said. "But, you know, sometimes setbacks can be a good thing. Everything I do, I have to work hard. But I get it done."

Isaacs figured that persistent advertising would build his business. He never dreamed it would make him famous. Or infamous.

The public has a notoriously dim view of lawyers in general and, according to the Florida Bar Association's research, an even dimmer view of lawyers who advertise. Some folks like to share their low opinion. Isaacs is fine with that.

"You learn to get a thick skin," Isaacs said. "But most people are very nice, though I still can't believe it when they ask for my autograph. I'm nobody. I'm just a lawyer who pays to put his face on TV."