Too often, people adopt a cavalier approach to their driving. After years of driving without being involved in an accident, some people become disengaged and fail to take appropriate steps when driving. Often, people are more alert when the road is snowy, but fall driving is similarly dangerous. Here are a few tips on safe driving in the fall.
The Law Office of Stephen A. Burroughs supports local hospital, the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. This Knoxville charity is a non-profit hospital that is the only comprehensive regional pediatric center located in the eastern part of the state. Since 1937, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital has been providing comprehensive care to children, and caring and compassionate support to the family members who care for them.
Here is some helpful advice from a Tennessee Auto Accident Attorney…
Even if you are a very defensive driver, there is still a chance that you may be involved in a serious automobile accident. There could be another person on the road that suddenly runs into the back of your car because he is driving recklessly. The physical and emotional pain of a car accident is something that will never be forgotten. That is why you should call Stephen A. Burroughs, a Tennessee auto accident attorney. Mr. Burroughs is a qualified and experienced personal injury lawyer. If you have been injured in a car accident, please look at our Knoxville Tennessee auto accident attorney’s guide to exactly what you should do.
The process of getting compensated for your pain and suffering can be quite tedious. However, when you have a reputable Knoxville TN attorney like Stephen A. Burroughs, this process is a lot easier. He has represented hundreds of clients. He puts his all into fighting for the rights of victims. He is even willing to put in extra hours to make sure that each one of his clients gets a fair case. Choose Stephen Burroughs as your Tennessee auto accident attorney, and you will be choosing the best personal injury lawyer for the job.
There are steps you should take to make your home safer, not only for your family but also for visitors. The fact is that you can be held liable if someone outside the family is hurt while on your property, but you can avoid this dilemma by making the home safer from the front curb to the last blade of grass on your property line.
Knoxville lawyer Stephen A. Burroughs — known as The Chuck Norris of the lawyer world because of his unflappable hair and thick facial hair featured on local bus ads — will be host a comedy event to raise money to fight Chiari Malformation, a serious neurological disorder that requires invasive surgery to correct. Post surgery scarring resembles a zipper, affectionately nicknaming those with the scars “Zipperheads.” The show is at 7 p.m. Sunday at Sidesplitters.
Cocktails are at 5 p.m. Admission is $12.
Conquer Chiari is behind the event. It is a foundation near and dear to event organizer Octvaius (JD Howard) as his daughter was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation. This diagnosis lead to an invasive surgery for his daughter from which she has since recovered.
The bill includes M.L.C Comics Sandy Goddrda, Alex Stokes, and Jay Pinkerton. Coley O’Dell, Erin Donovan of WBIR, Octavius of WIMZ, Scott Bohannon, Oz, Taz Cable of SMOMOTV, and 2011’s Host with the Most, Mike Howard of WNOX, will also be bringing some funny to the stage. has agreed to lend his time to the event and will be hosting the show.
A silent auction prior to the show and post show entertainment will be provided by DJ Hal Kinney from Good Sounds Entertainment.
More information regarding Chiari Conquers can be found at ConquerChiari.org.
KNOXVILLE (WATE) – Local non-profit the Joy of Music School hosted an event called “The Pick and Grin 2012” to raise money for musical instruments and lessons for disadvantaged and at-risk youth in the Knoxville area.
The event included performances by local artists and students, as well as comedy routines and a roast of local attorney Stephen A. Burroughs.
While money is needed, the school’s executive director needs volunteers, too.
“We’ve got 80 kids on the waiting list,” said Executive Director Francis Graffeo. “We provide the music, we have the school. We need teachers.”
If you are interested in volunteering for the group, you can visit their website here.
“When Stephen A. Burroughs was in the womb his mother could feel his beard kicking.”
The Knoxville chapter of the American Marketing Association hosted viral Internet sensation and local personal injury attorney, Stephen A. Burroughs at its October luncheon at The Orangery. KAMA’s theme this year is “Shift Happens,” because it’s not business as usual any more, due to changes in demographics, economics and technology. Burroughs was speaking to the change in his marketing strategy and the impact the recently launched Facebook memes page has had on his business.
The story about the University of Tennessee freshman who created the tongue-in-cheek Facebook page has been well documented by Carly Harrington in the Knoxville News Sentinel. The Stephen A. Burroughs Memes page gained 21,000 fans virtually overnight and led to Swagfest, a party at the Sunsphere attended by 14,000 members of Burroughs’ “swag posse.” Talk about a branding bonanza – you can’t buy that kind of awareness and exposure. Not to say Burroughs hasn’t been spending heavily on outdoor advertising and bus wraps over the past several years. He said he took advantage of a downturn in the economy that left billboards vacant to negotiate a sweet deal with Lamar Advertising.
This deal has made Burroughs omnipresent, or “top-of-mind” as we say in the biz, plastering his face on 31 outdoor boards and more than a dozen KAT buses. Burroughs had perfected his “Blue Steel” gaze and had become something of a Knoxville celebrity even before the memes page took off, catapulting him to viral marketing legend status. Now he’s Knoxville’s own “Old Spice Guy,” if you will. Or perhaps “The Most Interesting Lawyer in the World,” in a nod to the famous Dos Equis campaign.
Burroughs delighted KAMA’s audience of marketing professionals with anecdotes about Swagfest, like the one about the girl who tattooed “SAB” on her forearm. “The whole thing was pretty surreal,” he said. Burroughs is already planning Swagfest 2, but he’s eyeing corporate sponsors and considering a charitable slant for the event.
“Right now, I’m in the hole,” said Burroughs, when asked about the return on his six-figure investment in Swagfest. However, he believes he’s building brand recognition with future clients. After all, his business model is driven by car wrecks; he’s ready to help “when the need arises.”
“It’s not like someone’s going to say ‘Stephen seems really cool. I think I’ll go get an injury,’” quipped Burroughs.
Burroughs described his evolution from radio to TV to outdoor advertising, which he thinks is the ideal channel for him. On TV you have to be outrageous – the guy in the giant monkey suit, according to Burroughs. He aspires to a more professional image.
“The message has to fit the medium,” he said.
Who says this guy doesn’t know marketing?
Patrick Harrell of New Market had to decide between going to a high school football game or to Swagfest presented by Stephen A. Burroughs, but for the 14-year-old, the choice was obvious.
The freshman at Christian Academy of Knoxville was among several thousand people who attended the free party held by the Knoxville lawyer at the Sunsphere and Convention Center on Friday night.
“It’s the place to be in Knoxville,” said Harrell’s father, John. “It’s really cool of him to do this.”
Burroughs, who advertises his law practice on more than 40 billboards and buses, promised to host a party if a Facebook page that allows users to alter his image to create humorous memes reached 10,000 “likes.”
An estimated 12,000 people RSVP’d to the event. Within 48 hours, 3,000 people had preregistered at various sites and another 3,400 had registered by 8:30 p.m. Friday.
As Burroughs, dressed in a tuxedo, arrived in a black Hummer stretch limousine, a line of people waiting to enter the Sunsphere began cheering and chanting “swag.”
“I really appreciate all the love you’ve given me,” Burroughs later told the crowd in the Convention Center.
The party attracted people of all ages whose definition of swag was broad. People were dressed in everything from T-shirts and shorts to leopard prints and cocktail dresses.
Lt. Commander John Houser, who retired from the Navy after 27 years on July 4, arrived in his dress white uniform.
“(Burroughs) said to dress swag and we did,” Houser’s wife, Tracy, said. The couple were on a date night with their son and his girlfriend.
“I recognized him from the billboards, but I didn’t know who he was. Now, I can’t forget,” said Joshua Houser, a freshman at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
Ryan Clarke, who created the Facebook page that now has more than 20,155 likes, admitted he was overwhelmed by the experience.
“It’s inspiring to see how much a little Facebook page can do,” said the 18-year-old University of Tennessee freshman, who arrived with his girlfriend, Lindsey Morrell.
The event gave Clarke the opportunity to wear his first tuxedo and take his first limousine ride.
For UT freshman Matthew Johnson, it was his first visit to the Sunsphere.
The 19-year-old Oak Ridge native decided to come after discovering the Facebook page. He was impressed by Burrough’s own comments.
“It was the most ridiculous thing, and I wanted to be a part of it,” Johnson said. “He seems like a funny guy.”
Jimi Groce and Bonnie Mellott, who arrived wearing their own custom Stephen Burroughs T-shirts, were fans before the Facebook page, playfully punching each other in the arm every time they saw one of his ads.
“We were already fans. Then we saw him on Facebook and realized it’s not just us,” Groce said.
Burroughs said he initially expected to rent the Sunsphere for 300 to 400 people but that quickly grew to include the amphitheater.
As the number of people who said they were coming reached upward into the thousands, Burroughs decided to rent the adjacent Convention Center. He upgraded the space twice and ended up renting a room that held 9,000 people. He also hired three bands and a DJ.
During the party, Burroughs gave away T-shirts and $17,000 in free vacations.
He encouraged those who had a good time to donate $5 or more to United Way, which had set up a booth.
Kasey Bolt brought her 3-year-old son, Ethan Ferguson, who she had taught to say “Burroughs.”
“(Ethan) asked for him. He knows who he is,” Bolt said. “Most lawyers are not this cool. To do this for the community is awesome. He’s awesome.”
Travel along any major roadway in Knoxville and drivers will likely run into Stephen A. Burroughs.
Whether it’s an ad on one of the many billboards his face is on or a Knoxville Area Transit bus, the personal injury attorney has become one of the most recognizable people in the city. His advertising strategy has cost him more than $1 million over the last five years but has rewarded him with more than half his client base and a cult-like following among locals.
And in less than two weeks, a Facebook memes page dedicated to Burroughs has garnered more than 4,300 likes and growing. A meme is a catchphrase or concept that spreads widely on the Internet.
“I think it’s both flattering and amusing. It makes me laugh,” Burroughs said of the Facebook page. “I appreciate somebody recognizing my marketing efforts and acknowledging that I’m making some headway in what I plan to do in developing a name and image for myself in the community.”
His larger-than-life persona has been likened to the notoriety of martial artist and actor Chuck Norris and he’s been referenced as Knoxville’s own Old Spice Guy, but Burroughs said he’s always just wanted to create a successful business.
“I wanted to get clients, and I wanted to render good services for my clients. The combination between effective advertising and winning my cases and making my clients happy is exactly what happened,” he said.
David Jacobs, director of digital innovation and strategy for The Tombras Group, a Knoxville advertising and public relations firm, said Burroughs’s spreading popularity from traditional into social media is a prime example of how “offline feeds online.”
“It’s a very good example of something going viral, and it’s just a portrait photo,” Jacobs said.
Burroughs didn’t start out making a big splash on billboards and buses until three or four years ago.
When he first began his practice in 1999, Burroughs relied heavily on word of mouth, referrals from other lawyers and clients and the phone book.
About six years ago, he decided to get more aggressive in his marketing and began to dabble with traditional media.
“It was just little things,” he said. “It was a matter of experimentation. I would try a little bit of this and see if I would get a response. If I didn’t, I would change the content, change the times it was appearing. If I kept toying with it and nothing seemed to work, then I would say, ‘Well, that must not really be for me even if other people may have success with it,’ and I would just go to something else.”
Eventually, Burroughs decided to give outdoor advertising a try and he appeared to find his niche.
“The outdoor market proved to be really responsive to my message and my image,” he said. “So after buying a couple of them and getting some response, I thought, ‘Oh, this must be it. I’ve hit on what works for me.'”
Burroughs quickly went from two billboards to 31 in a year and a half. Then he began to appear on buses.
“There’s some areas in town you can’t have billboards and some areas where they’re not seen. I thought it would be cool to have some other type of outdoor advertising to tie it all in,” he said.
He currently has about a dozen bus wraps but plans to increase that number soon. He’s also begun to air a few television and radio spots.
“You just see him everywhere. It’s a classic example of when people get behind a brand. He’s made an icon of himself,” Jacobs said.
“He’s making some smart decisions. While he might be somewhat overexposed, it’s obviously working for him,” Jacobs added.
Burroughs said he’s not too worried about overexposure yet. His Facebook fans are “encouraging me to keep on going.”
Ryan Clark, a freshman at the University of Tennessee majoring in piano performance, created the Facebook memes page nine days ago. He said he thought it would be something funny shared among friends and has been surprised at how popular it has become.
“Driving to and from campus, I always saw his ad and found his facial hair magnificent. It just seemed like a perfect picture for a meme,” Clark said. “I can’t grow facial hair. It demands my respect.”
Clark admitted he was initially concerned he would receive a cease-and-desist letter, but within a few days, Burroughs was posting on the page himself.
“When I realized it was actually him, I danced around my dorm room,” Clark said.
It’s that participation that sets Burroughs apart, according to Jacobs.
“It’s true involvement not just exposure. He’s just kind of letting it live,” Jacobs said.
Almost every day when he’s out, people will either say something in passing or they’ll stop and talk with him.
On this particular day at the KAT center, a man waiting for the bus asked Burroughs if he was the lawyer on all the ads. Indeed, Burroughs acknowledged. Burroughs writes the content for his ads.
“I know my clients better than anybody,” he said. “As a trial lawyer, in order to do a good job, I have to be able to understand people and what people want and what people listen to and try to relay that.”
His peers, however, aren’t always so supportive. Personal injury can be very lucrative. The first step is getting the clients.
“There are other attorneys who wished they had as many cases as I do and wished they made as much money as I do who are as a result not happy about me advertising. Either directly or indirectly through other people, they have made that known,” Burroughs said.The head of the Knoxville Bar Association did not respond to requests for comment.
Regardless, don’t expect Burroughs to slow down any time soon.
“I had always planned to take some of the money I make and enjoy it and then take a ton of it and reinvest it,” he said. “That’s what I continue to do right now.”