By Los Angeles County Politics (LACP)
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has launched a $180,000 countywide campaign warning that workers’ compensation fraud is a felony — plastering the message across 150 Metro buses that already serve as rolling billboards for the personal injury attorneys his office is now targeting for prosecution.
The campaign, fully funded by a grant from the California Department of Insurance, will run for eight months across LA County’s Metro system. The DA’s office confirmed to LACP that prosecutions will include “capping” — the illegal practice in which attorneys or medical providers pay non-lawyer intermediaries to recruit clients in exchange for referral fees — details not included in the office’s official press release.
But when LACP asked whether the attorney billboard and bus advertising culture in Los Angeles contributes to the fraud environment his office is fighting, the DA drew a firm line.
“We don’t take a position on attorney advertising,” the DA’s office said in a statement attributed to the office. “Our focus is on enforcing the law when individuals commit workers’ compensation fraud.”
The deflection lands against a striking backdrop. Attorney advertising dominates the same Metro buses that will now carry Hochman’s fraud warning. According to the American Tort Reform Association, attorneys nationwide spent more than $541 million on outdoor and transit advertising in 2024 — up nearly $200 million from 2022.
Los Angeles ranks second in the nation for legal services ad volume, and the legal services industry has become the biggest billboard and transit spender in the LA market outside the entertainment industry, according to data from the consulting firm Kantar.
One personal injury attorney told a trade publication that her firm alone spent close to $3 million on billboard space in 2024, out of a total $5 million advertising budget. Individual billboard costs in Los Angeles range from $5,000 to $10,000 per four-week period — with premium locations on the Sunset Strip running as high as $100,000 a month.
Workers’ comp attorneys are a significant part of that spending culture. The DA’s press release announcing the campaign specifically names attorneys as targets, warning that capping schemes — in which lawyers pay runners to steer injured workers their way — “are unlawful and will be prosecuted.”
“Knowingly making a false statement to collect workers’ compensation benefits is textbook fraud, and we are filing charges against anyone who engages in it — employees, medical providers, attorneys or any other participants in the schemes,” Hochman said at the announcement.
The campaign arrives as California has moved legislatively on the same front. SB 37, authored by State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange County) and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2025, took effect January 1 and specifically targets capping, misleading attorney advertising, and third-party lead generators. The bill was sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California — an acknowledgment by the plaintiffs’ bar itself that the advertising and referral ecosystem had grown difficult to defend.
Los Angeles is one of the top three cities in the nation for workers’ compensation fraud, behind only Las Vegas and Jacksonville, Florida, according to Hochman.
The Healthcare Fraud Division developed the campaign, with Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney Natalie Adomian credited with leading the initiative.
Active prosecutions announced alongside the campaign include a Metro bus driver charged with staging a fake workplace fall while on duty — making the buses carrying the fraud warning directly connected to one of the cases behind it.
