"As soon as we put an ad on, the phone started ringing," Edward Shenderovich said.

Advertising by lawyers has become a multimillion-dollar business, but one that still prompts debate in the legal community 27 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that attorneys can use ads to bring in new clients.

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-based trade association that tracks advertising and other local television trends.

To put things in perspective, car dealers remain the kings of local advertising, outspending lawyers 10-to-1, Belis said.

Lawyers rarely advertise on national TV. A few, like Massachusetts personal injury attorney James Sokolove and his national network of affiliated attorneys, will spend millions on national cable or syndicated TV ads, Belis said. But most attorneys on TV are like Shenderovich & Shenderovich, smaller firms looking to build their practice in a 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 before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling: 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 state 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 aren't enough anymore.