Is Frank Azar Colorado’s Greatest Lawyer?

Frank Azar loves two issues on this world: lawyering and successful. These two issues feed off one another, as each movement, jury choice, and verdict is a chance for victory. However in line with Azar, 65, one metric of success stands above the remainder: “My brother mentioned, ‘What’s the take a look at of who’s the very best lawyer of all of them?’ ” Azar says. “You recognize, like, Mirror, mirror, on the wall, proper? And he mentioned, ‘Effectively, it’s the richest of all of them.’ After which I’m going, ‘That’s proper.’ ”

“Are you the richest of all of them?” I ask.

“No, I want,” Azar responds, rolling an unlit cigar between his thumb and fingers.

“Fairly shut, although?”

“In Colorado? In all probability. However, see, all of them suppose I’m simply this schlock man. However I do numerous different stuff.”

“Schlock, like…?”

“You recognize. Automobile wreck man. We do much more stuff than that. I don’t promote it,” he says.

The admission is maybe somewhat shocking. In any case, this is similar man who made his title flooding airwaves and plastering roadsides with commercials and billboards. That title? “The Robust Arm.” “Earlier than I used to be ever excited about doing plaintiffs’ work, I considered Frank Azar as a Colorado establishment, much like Jake Jabs, much like Dealin’ Doug, much like the man hawking jewellery at Shane Co.,” says Joshua Hotchkiss, an lawyer at Franklin D. Azar & Associates (FDA). “For those who grew up in Colorado, in case you hear these voices or these names, it looks like a Sunday morning at your own home, as a result of that’s the place you at all times heard them.”

Azar idolizes larger-than-life characters: Portraits of John Wayne and the Rat Pack grasp on his partitions. The door to his workplace—a large picket entryway lined with brown-buttoned leather-based and that includes a gold nameplate that asserts an impending viewers with “Franklin D. Azar”—was made to resemble the one MI6 boss M makes use of within the early James Bond movies. However even Azar has grown uninterested in the Robust Arm persona. “I want I’d by no means considered that,” he says, leaning again in his desk chair. Sporting a white polo shirt open almost to his sternum, his close-cropped hair grayer than it appears to be like in his advertisements, Azar seems extra ready for a golf course than for the courtroom, and for good purpose: He’s received a tee time later this afternoon.

Even when Azar is among the richest attorneys of all of them, the infamy his alter ego has engendered is a burden. Azar remembers being in Denver District Courtroom and inquiring if members of the jury knew him. “No, Mr. Azar,” the choose interjected. “That’s not the query to ask. Has anybody seen him on TV?” Each hand shot up. He hardly ever takes circumstances to trial anymore as a result of his very presence may be thought-about prejudicial. His attorneys routinely file motions asking judges to preclude dialogue of FDA and its promoting in entrance of the jury.

Subsequent month, nevertheless, the Robust Arm will get a chance to defend himself. In State Farm v. Claudio E. De La Cruz-Arellano, attorneys for the insurer are anticipated to forged Azar, whose agency is representing the defendants, as a money-hungry ambulance chaser who video games the system for his personal profit. With a view to thwart what he says is a mischaracterization, Azar plans to make a uncommon look within the courtroom. Says DezaRae LaCrue, an FDA lawyer, “We’re hoping Frank’s presence will mitigate any dangerous emotions folks have about Frank Azar.”

As a result of, the considering goes, if folks simply received to know Azar, even somewhat bit, they’d see the man his mates again dwelling in Trinidad see. The man who saved the native golf course, who funds an after-school program on the town, who’s at all times prepared to jot down a test for the personal college. Azar would possibly stay in ritzy Cherry Hills right this moment, however he says he’s not all that completely different from the child who grew up in Las Animas County within the Sixties. “Like my buddy Mark Wahlberg,” Azar says. “Everyone’s received this notion of him, and he’s actually a small-town man like I’m. That’s why we get alongside.”

For many of the twentieth century, attorneys thought-about themselves above promoting. However in 1977, two attorneys in Phoenix took out a easy commercial in an area paper to market their new authorized clinic: A divorce value $175, an adoption $225. The promotion violated an Arizona ban on promoting for attorneys, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, which dominated 5-4 in favor of the clinic, citing free speech.

After getting his bachelor’s diploma on the College of Colorado Boulder, Azar graduated from the College of Denver’s legislation college in 1982, when attorneys have been nonetheless determining how far they may push the bounds of business decorum. Within the years after he received his J.D., he lived in Alaska and Denver earlier than returning in 1984 to Trinidad, the place he labored as an assistant district lawyer for 3 years. He moved again to the Denver space in 1987 to open Franklin D. Azar & Associates. He says he most popular serving to folks to placing them behind bars.

At first, the one “associates” have been Azar’s sister (who was in legislation college on the time), an adjuster, and a school fraternity buddy who had failed the bar examination 5 instances. Azar constructed a profitable agency over the following three years however needed to spend a lot of his 16-hour days searching for folks to characterize by networking at golf equipment, eating places, and golf programs. “I knew the way to do the circumstances,” Azar says. “It was simply getting the enterprise.” His first makes an attempt at promoting on TV—wanting grave in entrance of a shelf of legislation books—failed to draw purchasers.

Then, in 1990, Azar attended a seminar in Dallas the place he met Brian Loncar. Loncar constructed a thriving private harm agency on the again of advertisements that promised a uniquely Texan model of robust justice, together with one spot through which he drove a tank by an intersection. He related Azar with a New Orleans advert company owned by Richard D. Sackett that specialised in producing commercials for attorneys. (Sackett’s “One Name, That’s All” for New Orleans lawyer Morris Bart stays the “Simply Do It” of private harm legislation.) The company didn’t imagine in subtlety in promoting: As a substitute of legislation books, Sackett’s first advert for Azar featured a automobile smashing right into a desk.

Loncar and Azar grew to become greatest mates, sharing a love of golf and, as soon as the cash began rolling in, costly vehicles: Bentley for Azar, Rolls Royce for Loncar. They shot equivalent commercials in a Dallas warehouse Loncar owned, with the one distinction being the star of the advert. When Loncar felt he wanted a catchy phrase to counter a competitor named Jim Adler, “the Texas Hammer,” the pair got here up with “the Robust Arm” title collectively. Each males used it of their advertisements, although Azar was the one who trademarked the time period.

The commercials modified the whole lot. Azar, typically talking, doesn’t suppose a lot of attorneys who promote. “Most of those guys on TV—most of them—they’re a joke,” he says. However clearly, the follow has labored for him. At the moment, FDA has about 300 workers in eight workplaces round Colorado, and the agency handles 4,000 to six,000 car-related harm circumstances every year, a lot of them undoubtedly introduced in by FDA’s promoting. After I inform Azar that it’s rumored he spends $12 million a yr on advertising, he laughs. “Allow them to suppose that,” he says. “It’s much more than that.”

Azar has profited tremendously from practising his specific model of legislation, and his fortune buys him entry to elite circles. His workplace is full of images of a smiling Azar, often in a golf shirt, standing with celebrities resembling Dick Butkus, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry, Dianne Feinstein, and, sure, Mark Wahlberg.

Azar met the Boogie Nights actor on the Riviera Nation Membership in Los Angeles, the place each are members, together with A-listers resembling Adam Sandler, Tom Brady, and Larry David. Azar says of Wahlberg, “He’s at all times pushing me. ‘Frank, you bought to drop a few pounds. You set to work out.’ He’s an excellent buddy. He actually likes to see folks higher themselves.” Subsequent to the Wahlberg picture on Azar’s desk is one with Tiger Woods, whose tournaments and charities Azar usually helps. “He’s a visit,” Azar says. “You recognize what he’s saying in that image? ‘Gunga dunga.’ I’m not shitting you. ” (Neither Woods nor Wahlberg responded to requests for remark.)

Together with wealth comes consideration—and in Azar’s case, that has manifested as rumors of plaintiff (or settlement) milling, which is the follow of luring massive numbers of purchasers to a agency solely to push them towards quick settlements. It’s about quantity. “Given the large quantity of promoting expenditures,” Loncar’s former workplace supervisor as soon as defined in a lawsuit, “the success of the enterprise required fast turnover of purchasers and fast settlements.” A former Loncar lawyer informed the Dallas Observer in 1997 that lots of the agency’s purchasers have been represented by individuals who didn’t even have faculty levels.

Azar downplays the influence that promoting has on his enterprise and as a substitute factors to the cash he’s obtained for purchasers over time. Not everybody, although, has been happy with Azar’s outcomes. In the course of the 2000s, a development employee sued FDA, claiming the agency practiced misleading promoting and that his lawyer had pressured him to take a $4,000 settlement regardless of $25,000 in medical payments. FDA beat the case and received a $300,000 countersuit in 2008. The identical yr, a jury awarded one other former shopper, Shawna Jimenez, $145,000 after she, too, mentioned her lawyer satisfied her to take a lowball settlement. Azar appealed, and the perimeters settled out of court docket.

Lately, Azar has employed numerous expert trial attorneys, together with Natalie Brown (whom Colorado Legislation Weekly has named as the very best litigator within the state) and LaCrue (who, alongside along with her mentor Brown, has earned a spot on this journal’s checklist of Denver’s High Legal professionals, which begins on web page 58, three years working). “The entire level of [hiring talented attorneys who could go to court] was to vary his status and to be a extra critical litigation agency,” LaCrue says. “And I believe we’ve executed that, since you used to listen to from attorneys, you already know, ‘Frank settles the whole lot.’ And now what I hear from folks is, ‘Frank litigates the whole lot.’ ”

Sooner or later this previous November, I received a textual content from Azar: “Give me a name.” A lawyer in his agency had simply received a $2.5 million verdict for his shopper, a bike driver with almost $940,000 in medical bills after a automobile turned left in entrance of him, clipping his automobile. Azar was elated. “I knew the damages have been large, however I didn’t suppose they’d be that large,” he mentioned between sips of Coors Banquet. Victory will need to have tasted notably candy as a result of the insurer was State Farm, which Azar views as considered one of his chief nemeses. “They should respect us,” Azar says of insurance coverage firms, “as a result of we are going to go in there and get these large verdicts on them in the event that they don’t pay on time.”

One other profit of getting a big battle chest is that you may subsidize circumstances when vital. As a boss, FDA lawyer Hotchkiss compares Azar to Invoice Belichick—he doesn’t deploy wild motivational techniques. He’s clear concerning the route he expects his attorneys to take a case. “However on a private facet, he’s exceedingly giving,” Hotchkiss says. Not less than thrice up to now yr, Hotchkiss requested if the agency might waive its charge in order that purchasers might take dwelling somewhat bit additional towards their medical payments. Azar agreed each time.

Loads of Azar’s fortune additionally finds its manner again to Trinidad. For greater than three many years (earlier than the pandemic interrupted the occasion), he hosted a charity golf match to assist the municipal golf course, which now resides on Franklin D. Azar Drive. He financed a $250,000 scholarship fund at Trinidad State School and donated greater than $100,000 for an after-school program for the city. Andrea Jimenez, who married considered one of Azar’s shut childhood mates, writes him a letter each time her beloved Holy Trinity Academy wants cash. He toured the Ok-12 personal college as soon as: “I don’t know who was extra excited,” Jimenez says, “Frank or the youngsters.”

The Azars have an extended historical past in Las Animas County, and maybe no member of the family was extra distinguished than Franklin W. Azar, who had a distinguished legislation profession. A photograph in FDA’s convention room captures Azar’s bookish father in a darkish swimsuit with a horseshoe of hair, studious browline glasses, and a tight-lipped expression. Born in 1912, Franklin left the household ranch close to Trinidad for the College of Colorado Boulder, then obtained a scholarship to Harvard Legislation College, the place he graduated magna cum laude. The elder Azar taught at what’s now known as Carnegie Mellon College in Pittsburgh till his spouse persuaded him to maneuver his younger household dwelling to Trinidad within the Forties.

Franklin grew to become the city’s district lawyer in 1967, and though Azar remembers Trinidad as a quiet, insular place when he was rising up, it did have moments of Wild West drama—like when somebody stormed the DA’s workplace, held a gun to Franklin’s head, and pulled the set off. Thankfully, the gun misfired.

It was a coronary heart assault, not a gunshot, that ended Franklin’s life in 1971. His namesake, the youngest of Franklin’s three youngsters, was in eighth grade on the time, however Azar’s favourite story about life in Trinidad didn’t happen till years after his father’s dying. When Azar returned to city and was working as an assistant district lawyer, a person approached him on the road and, apropos of nothing, mentioned, “ ‘For those who may be an sincere, hardworking lawyer like your dad, you’ll be successful,’ and walked off,” Azar says. “By no means seen him since. Didn’t even know who he was. And I do know just about all people in Trinidad.”

It was a kind of connections to his hometown that led to the largest case of Azar’s profession. Within the Nineties, Azar discovered by an outdated buddy from the Trinidad district lawyer’s workplace that the Walmart on the town had been claiming to pay its pharmacists on wage when it was actually compensating them hourly—a violation of the U.S. Truthful Labor Requirements Act. Azar filed swimsuit on behalf of the pharmacists, then received to considering: If Walmart was benefiting from its white-collar workers, what was the corporate doing to its minimum-wage employees?

Azar’s instinct was right: Walmart had been forcing workers to work off the clock, altering timecards, and refusing to let folks take breaks. Azar says some workers on the Trinidad Walmart introduced unpaid family to the job to assist them end their work as a result of they have been afraid of being fired. However the misconduct wasn’t restricted to Trinidad. Azar found that Walmart, then the most important personal employer within the nation, was dishonest its workers in shops all throughout the USA.

Azar was one of many first attorneys to acknowledge the malfeasance—and its potential rewards. Working with a community of attorneys, he filed class-action lawsuits towards the corporate in 26 states. Walmart settled many of the circumstances, however the firm pressured Azar and his companions to trial in three jurisdictions: California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. FDA first filed swimsuit towards Walmart in 1995 however didn’t see a courtroom till 2005. “It requires confidence in your case and some huge cash to stay it out [that long],” says Michael Christian, a San Francisco lawyer who represented Walmart plaintiffs in California. “Frank had these issues.”

Nonetheless, in an try and unfold FDA’s sources skinny, Walmart named about 400 witnesses it might’ve known as on the Philadelphia-based trial. Azar moved a handful of attorneys to Pennsylvania full time to make sure they have been ready. “That, I believe, is his strongest attribute,” says Nate Axvig, a former FDA lawyer who labored on the Walmart circumstances. “If he sees one thing, he’ll keep it up. Different attorneys would have stopped. They might have given up.” Ultimately, solely 4 of Walmart’s potential witnesses ended up testifying.

Azar’s persistence (and the danger FDA took by spending tens of millions to cowl the bills of the yearslong litigation) paid off—actually. In California, the jury awarded a $172 million verdict to plaintiffs; in Pennsylvania, $188 million. A choose in Minnesota decided Walmart was chargeable for as much as $2 billion in damages, so the corporate settled earlier than a jury might put an actual determine to its legal responsibility. The judgments, together with the opposite Walmart settlements Azar was concerned in, made the Robust Arm a wealthy man. Proponents of tort reform would in all probability say too wealthy: In keeping with an April 2020 examine from Jones Day, a multinational legislation agency that usually advocates for tort reform, plaintiffs in U.S. federal courts obtain lower than 40 p.c of all class-action settlements, with many of the cash going to attorneys. Individually, in the meantime, workers concerned within the Walmart class-action circumstances obtained from $1,500 to $3,000 for every year they’d labored on the firm.

When Congress was wanting into class-action reform, Azar says he met with Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Azar remembers Dodd remarking that a person Walmart settlement didn’t quantity to a lot cash, to which Azar responded, “It’s, Senator, in case you’re making $17,000 a yr.” However an important factor, which Azar says he considers “the crown jewel” in his legacy, is that he and the opposite attorneys pressured Walmart to deal with its workers higher. “I don’t know if [Azar is] a superb authorized thoughts,” FDA’s Hotchkiss says. “However he’s tenacious, and he works onerous to see the angles that different folks don’t see.”

Over the many years—by the assorted lawsuits and accusations, the burned bridges and dangerous press—Azar remained greatest mates with Loncar, the Dallas lawyer who helped him turn into the Robust Arm. However Loncar had lengthy struggled with substance misuse, and in 2015, he suffered a relapse. Azar received him into rehab in January 2016, however it didn’t take. Loncar’s teenage daughter died by suicide later that yr. Azar met with Loncar after the funeral and introduced up Len Bias, the faculty basketball star who died from a cocaine overdose in 1986. “Don’t do something silly,” Azar implored his buddy.

Just a few weeks later, Loncar was discovered useless in his brand-new Rolls Royce convertible at 8:30 within the morning, Azar says: “He’d OD’d on cocaine.” It felt like Azar had misplaced a brother. “I belong to Dallas Nationwide Golf Membership, which might be one of many best golf golf equipment within the nation,” Azar says. “I went right down to Dallas twice, and I simply felt so dangerous. I haven’t been down there since.”

However the Robust Arm doesn’t dwell. Slightly than utilizing Loncar’s dying as an excuse to retreat right into a extra relaxed existence, Azar appears extra impressed than ever to defend—and prolong—his empire. This yr, FDA filed swimsuit towards Slocumb Legislation Agency, which used Google advert phrases and metadata so commercials for the Alabama-based agency appeared when folks looked for Azar. Azar can be concerned in a suit-countersuit with the previous head of his class-action division. He says she tried to steal purchasers; she says he defamed her.

After which there’s the case of Choose Edward Moss. As a choose in Colorado’s seventeenth Judicial District, Moss presided over Adams and Broomfield county courts for almost twenty years, which suggests he got here into frequent contact with FDA attorneys. “He didn’t like Frank,” says FDA’s LaCrue, “and he would usually make it very well-known.”

Due to Azar’s commercials, juries regularly enter trials carrying preconceived notions about FDA attorneys. “As a rule,” LaCrue says, “it’s detrimental.” In an try and sidestep that prejudicial land mine, many FDA attorneys—although not LaCrue, she says—ask judges to forbid the protection from mentioning that they’re within the make use of of Franklin D. Azar & Associates. When Azar attorneys filed one such movement in Moss’ courtroom, the choose replied, “For those who suppose your promoting prejudices your shopper’s means to get a good trial, and rule 1.7 says you shouldn’t do issues as a result of there’s a private curiosity of the lawyer, why don’t you simply cease promoting?” Moss says he held no particular animus towards Azar and meant no hurt by the remark. “Mr. Azar by no means appeared in entrance of me in 16 years, so I’ve by no means met him,” Moss says. “I’ve by no means seen him, apart from on TV.”

Colorado state judges are appointed to their seats for an preliminary time period of two years however are up for normal election after that (each 4 years for the county court docket, six years for district court docket, eight for appeals court docket, and 10 for the state Supreme Courtroom). The state organizes our bodies known as Judicial Efficiency Commissions to judge candidates and to advocate to voters whether or not judges must be retained or not—they usually nearly at all times are. In keeping with a 2016 story by 9News, solely three state judges had been voted off their benches throughout the earlier twenty years, a statistic that explains why hardly anybody ever wastes cash contributing to judicial races. However in 2018, Azar stunned many, together with the choose, by spending greater than $300,000 in an effort to take away Moss from the bench.

Azar claims he didn’t act alone and {that a} group of fifty to 60 space attorneys wished to oust Moss, though he declines to call names. And, he says, his campaign wasn’t simply towards Moss: It was additionally towards the system that allowed Moss to maintain his seat. “You inform me there’s solely been three dangerous judges [in 20 years]?” Azar says. “You need to mainly assassinate someone on the steps of the courthouse as a choose earlier than they’ll do something about it.”

Voters retained Moss, who labored for 2 extra years after which vacated the bench when he hit the obligatory retirement age of 72. Moss says he bears no in poor health will towards FDA attorneys: “They’re in court docket loads, they know what they’re doing, they specialize on this one space of legislation, they usually’re good attorneys.” On the day Moss retired, LaCrue says the choose mentioned to her, “At the moment is my final day. I’m certain there’s an enormous social gathering at Frank Azar.” (Moss denies the change.) If there have been a celebration—and Azar says there wasn’t—it might’ve been as a result of there’d now be no probability Moss might preside over State Farm v. Claudio E. De La Cruz-Arellano.

The case dates to 2015, when a young person misplaced management of his automobile whereas drag-racing and crashed into one other automobile. The sufferer, De La Cruz-Arellano, accrued medical payments of better than $600,000 and later that yr sued events concerned within the accident who have been insured by State Farm. However the defendants entered into an settlement with De La Cruz-Arellano, who was represented by FDA, that shielded them from private monetary legal responsibility better than the insurance coverage coverage’s limits (on this case, $25,000). In return, the defendants agreed to not dispute the damages sought by the plaintiff, which a choose later decided to be $1.38 million. The association paved the best way for De La Cruz-Arellano to try to gather that cash instantly from State Farm, versus the defendants.

Not surprisingly, the corporate wasn’t happy with the newfound alliance between plaintiff and defendants. In 2016, it sued all three, and Moss, then the choose on the case, dominated in favor of State Farm, figuring out De La Cruz-Arellano had no declare towards the insurance coverage firm. (Moss’ ruling got here down in 2018. Azar began funneling cash right into a marketing campaign towards the choose later that yr.) FDA appealed to the Colorado Courtroom of Appeals, which sided with Azar. The case will lastly go to trial subsequent month—however this time with a brand new choose on the bench.

In a twist worthy of a courtroom drama, the FDA crew believes it wants the Robust Arm’s assist to win this swimsuit. LaCrue and Brown tried an identical case towards State Farm in 2016 and imagine they misplaced the trial as a result of the insurer’s attorneys, the identical ones they’ll face subsequent month, attacked Azar by characterizing him as a grasping ambulance chaser. LaCrue, who will strive the case for FDA, has requested her boss to return to the courtroom for the primary time in a very long time. Azar will deal with jury choice. He’ll doubtless ask about backgrounds and beliefs. Biases. Are you aware who I’m? Then, the considering goes, the jury will see that Azar is a human being—not only a billboard. If they simply get to know him somewhat, possibly he can win them over.