Cellino and Barnes

I knew that these two lawyers were not getting along for years, but I never grasped how far it had gone wrong until last year. Until then, the Buffalo TV channels were still running their joint advertisements.

December 2017: Barnes Still Loves Cellino

Barnes spends $900,000 on a new phone number: 800-800-0000. Eh, we’ve heard better.

And despite all this fighting — Cellino allegedly threatening to burn the firm down, Cellino allegedly insulting Barnes’s name — Barnes still wants to find a way to keep the band together. “Ross has been my friend for over 25 years. I know we could still work together for the benefit of our clients,” he told the Buffalo News. “We’ve built something amazing together … It would be wrong to break that up.”

We’re not crying, you’re crying.

The Dramatic Feud Between Two New York Lawyers, Explained

So, imagine my surprise when this ad starts showing up on TV in December 2020.

The Barnes Firm? But where is Steve? This one is headed by Rich Barnes…

Oh, Steve Barnes died in a plane accident in the autumn of 2020? That changes everything.

Now there is a new jingle for Cellino Law, which has the phone number 888-2020, and the jingle sounds just like the old Cellino & Barnes one. Unfortunately, the video quality is so poor, I won’t be showing you any. But, instead of (800) 555-5555, as shown in some 2020 TV ads, two weeks after Steve’s death, Ross Cellino changed his phone number to the Cellino & Cellino one. So, now the jingle lives on.