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Susan Gray-Frank shows a photo of the wreck that totaled her husband Barry Marshall\u2019s truck last year, Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in Stephenville. Marshall is suing Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins’ law firm for illegal solicitation, or barratry, which the firm denies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shafkat Anowar\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
A Stephenville man said he never asked anybody to call and refer him to an attorney after the crash that totaled his pickup truck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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But Barry Marshall\u2019s phone wouldn\u2019t stop ringing two days after the April 2024 accident. After finally picking up the call from a now disconnected number, he was transferred to a law firm owned by Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins and former state Sen. Ted Lyon.<\/p>\n
Who exactly called Marshall and whether he clicked any link to invite the referral was debated in front of an Erath County jury this week in a civil trial where the crash victim accused\u00a0Loncar Lyon Jenkins and its lead generator of illegally soliciting him. The case \u2013 like many barratry allegations across Texas \u2013 will likely come down to proving whether Marshall asked to be called and if the law firm can be linked to the contact.<\/p>\n
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Attorneys for the law firm and its lead generator said neither called the crash victim. In previous court filings they accuse Marshall\u2019s attorney, Tom Carse, of filing frivolous barratry cases as \u201can extortive money grab,\u201d which he denies. On Wednesday they grilled Carse on the fees he is requesting if he wins, alleging he used depositions in the Marshall case to interrogate witnesses about other barratry allegations involving the law firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Erath County District Court Judge Jason Cashon dismissed the barratry claim against the law firm\u2019s lead generator, Robert Paschall, for a lack of evidence. The barratry claims against the law firm and Paschall\u2019s business remained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paschall told the jury on Tuesday Marshall ended up on the phone with his lead generation business this way: Marshall, he said, clicked a link and provided his number to a now-defunct website\u00a0Paschall said he was never affiliated with called liftyouup.org. A man from the website, which listed a litany of legal and emergency resources, called Marshall and then passed him to Paschall\u2019s screener Elle Hart, who then transferred the crash victim to the law firm.<\/p>\n
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Barry Marshall, who is suing Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins’ law firm for illegal solicitation, poses for a portrait with his wife Susan Gray-Frank, on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in Stephenville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shafkat Anowar\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
Paschall\u2019s\u00a0theory isn\u2019t supported by any solid evidence, said Carse. The alleged liftyouup.org intake form showing Marshall\u2019s phone number, email address and IP address has no metadata, no authentication confirming who created it and is just \u201cink on paper,\u201d Carse said.<\/p>\n
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There is also no recording of liftyouup.org\u2019s alleged conversation with Marshall in the court record. The only recording defendants provided begins with Hart telling Marshall \u201cthank you so much for holding. I have Ms. Elizabeth here on the line from Loncar, Lyon & Jenkins.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is illegal in Texas for law firms or their intermediaries to contact crash victims within 31 days of an accident to solicit their business. But the law and state ethics rules allow attorneys to use lead generation services to refer potential clients seeking legal help.<\/p>\n
Social media has fueled a new climate where lead generators use tactics that can be indistinguishable from barratry but difficult to prove, attorneys raising the alarm on illegal solicitation say.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me this has never been about the money, it\u2019s been about a group of people who know the law and break it anyway,\u201d said Susan Gray-Frank, Marshall\u2019s wife, who was not in the crash but testified she also received a call from someone saying he could help her get a higher insurance payout.<\/p>\n
Ryan Taylor, an attorney representing Loncar Lyon Jenkins, questioned why Marshall stayed on the call for 22 minutes if he wasn\u2019t looking for legal help. And though Marshall said he was trying to find out what they wanted, Paschall\u2019s attorney Mark Torian noted the 77-year-old was on pain medication that day and questioned his recall of events.<\/p>\n
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After Marshall sued in 2024, Paschall said he filled out an intake form on liftyouup.org and asked the website for information on the call that was allegedly transferred to Hart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paschall said a man named Michael with an iCloud email address then emailed him Marshall\u2019s liftyouup.org intake form.<\/p>\n
When asked during a 2024 deposition why a group to which he had no connection would send his company a free lead, Paschall said, “I have no idea.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Tuesday Paschall told the jury he believes a man named Sean with liftyouup.org already had Hart\u2019s phone number to send her Marshall\u2019s call because the two had known each other for years. He said Hart told him about the connection last Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five minutes into the call, Hart emailed Marshall his crash report from the Texas Department of Transportation, Paschall confirmed.<\/p>\n
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Marshall testified he didn\u2019t know he had gotten the report until after the call. Paschall said Hart would not have paid $6.39 for the report if Marshall had not asked for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paschall, a Hollywood producer who has worked for Loncar Lyon Jenkins for six years, explained to the jury how he runs social media and Google ads for law firms through encrypted codes assigned to users\u2019 devices that help push targeted ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can send an ad \u2013 within 5 minutes of somebody saying \u2018cheeseburger\u2019 next to their phone \u2013 a cheeseburger ad on any of the social media, Google or anything that they’re using,\u201d Paschall said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paschall said his lead generation business does not have proof of Marshall clicking on one of his ads because he clicked on another company\u2019s link.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Robert Hinton, a legal ethics expert, testified for the defense that he worked with Loncar Lyon Jenkins six years ago to scrutinize Paschall\u2019s lead generation practices and \u201cconcluded everything was completely legitimate.\u201d But Hinton said he did not talk to Paschall about how the Marshall call came about and could not confirm the authenticity of the alleged liftyouup.org intake form.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Before Hart transferred Marshall to Loncar Lyon Jenkins, she asked him three questions that were captured by the recording: Was it true the law firm did not contact him and that she was making the referral? Was it true he was hurt? And did he want to be transferred to Loncar Lyon Jenkins to handle his case? Marshall answered yes to all three.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The law around barratry centers on who made the initial contact.<\/p>\n
A Loncar Lyon Jenkins employee emailed Marshall a contract minutes later, records show, but he never signed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gray-Frank testified a colleague at work suggested the couple talk to an attorney he trusted. After hearing about their experience, an attorney with Frenkel & Frenkel referred the couple to Carse to handle a potential barratry case, Gray-Frank said.<\/p>\n
The barratry statute in place when Marshall filed his lawsuit provides for $10,000 per defendant found guilty of illegal solicitation, even if the client did not sign a contract. It also allows for attorney\u2019s fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Carse told the jury his two years of work on the case amounted to $102,000 in fees. Defense attorneys said he failed to itemize tasks and apparently billed for time related to defendants who have since been dismissed from the case. Carse said his calculations were sound and the judge rejected the defense\u2019s motion to toss out the request for fees.<\/p>\n
Closing statements are expected to begin Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susan Gray-Frank shows a photo of the wreck that totaled her husband Barry Marshall\u2019s truck last year, Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,99553,92331,89138],"class_list":["post-417656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-clay-jenkins","tag-tp-courts","tag-tp-dallas-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}