Morgan & Morgan was spending about $300,000 a day on advertising, according to The Wall Street Journal.
ORLANDO — Personal-injury giant Morgan & Morgan is mulling a possible partial sale that could lead to a $1 billion initial public offering and a potentially big infusion of cash from non-lawyer investors.
According to a report first published by Reuters, sources have indicated the law firm is in talks with JPMorgan.
While it is currently illegal in most states for non-lawyers to own a stake in law firms, Arizona loosened the rules in 2021 and other states including Washington, California and Texas are considering similar moves. In the meantime, Morgan & Morgan may be considering a sale of some of its vast document and case management operations, which can be owned by non-lawyer investment firms, Reuters reported.
Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan sold a stake in Litify, a “legal operating platform” for managing claims and documents, to Bessemer Venture Partners in 2023. The law firm also capitalized on the Covid pandemic by receiving more than $30 million in Paycheck Protection Loans that were later forgiven. Some of that money flowed into the firm’s estimated $350 million annual advertising budget.
With 1,000 lawyers and 140 offices across the country, Morgan & Morgan handles thousands of cases a year. The firm was founded by husband and wife John and Ultima Morgan. The firm has been a heavy political contributor, giving $1.4 million to Democratic candidates in the 2024 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, and $2.6 million in 2020.
Personal injury law firms are in the forefront of groups opposing tort reform measures such as the wide-ranging law Georgia passed last year reducing “phantom damages” based on inflated medical bills and prohibiting foreign investors from participating in third-party litigation funding. Miracle Rankin, a former Morgan & Morgan lawyer, lost a bid to join the Georgia Supreme Court in May and erode the court’s 8-1 conservative majority.
Morgan & Morgan is also among the law firms featured in a recent Legal Newsline series on how doctors, lawyers and outside funders work together to inflate verdicts and settlements in car-accident lawsuits.
In a response to Reuters, John Morgan said the discussions were early and the outcome uncertain.
"We are fortunate that we are a highly profitable firm that really doesn’t need money to invest in growth," Morgan told Reuters.
