LOS ANGELES, CA — Famed accident attorney Larry H. Parker, a Southern California billboard mainstay, has died, it was reported Friday. He was 75.
In the Southland so steeped in car culture, accident lawyers have a certain celebrity, and Parker was the original accident lawyer to dominate the airwaves with his commercials. His line, “We’ll fight for you!” earned him national recognition.
TMZ reported Parker’s death, citing his law partner Ron Beck and Parker’s daughter-in-law. No details about the circumstances or timing of his death were immediately available.
Parker opened his law firm in Long Beach in the 1970s and aired his first commercial in 1980. Since then, he has starred in countless commercials and graced billboards along Southland freeways with his trademark mustache and curls. The Law Offices of Larry H. Parker boasts more than 125 attorneys, primarily handling accident and personal injury cases. The firm’s television ads, which are almost unavoidable for Southern California viewers, boast that its attorneys are “successful in 95% of our cases.”
Parker graduated from Southwestern Law School and became rich handling accident cases.
“The reason I became a personal injury lawyer is because I saw how people were being abused in the legal system by the insurers, the employers, the corporations with endless resources,” Parker told the Press-Telegram in 2011. “We could see the average man or woman needed someone on their side who understood the system and knew how to fight back, and that’s been our mission since day one. We like to think we’ve helped level the playing field.”
According to the Press-Telegram, Parker donated four apartment buildings to Long Beach City College for classrooms and started a scholarship program for local youths.
“God’s been good to us, so we don’t mind giving back some of that blessing,” Parker told The Press-Telegram. “It’s not something we publicize much, but we really enjoy it, and we’ve even had some of those students come work for us. We have a summer internship program at headquarters and stay involved wherever we can with the schools.”
City News Service contributed to this report.