Drivers around Louisville have spent the better part of two years spotting billboards that have nothing to do with lawsuits, injuries or 1-800 numbers. Instead they read things like “Believe in yourself,” “Good vibes only today” and “Stay strong.” Behind all of them is Sam Aguiar, a personal injury attorney who has quietly spent more than $500,000 putting up roughly 60 of the signs across the city since December 2024.
Billboards in Louisville operate under local sign rules, too. Metro’s sign regulations place permanent signs under Chapters 1 and 8 of the Land Development Code and say billboards may need registration with the Department of Codes & Regulations. The city also maintains a separate billboard licensing page. The rules provide a regulatory backdrop for a campaign built around messages that depart from the usual commercial pitch.
Aguiar has worked as a personal injury lawyer since 2008, but as reported by WTHI-TV, he decided two years ago to go beyond the courtroom and spend money on something that had nothing to do with legal advertising. He says he designed the billboards himself, aiming for messages simple enough to stick with someone glancing up from behind the wheel. “I designed them myself,” Aguiar said, adding that the goal was to make the wording plain enough to resonate with whoever happened to be driving past.
Aguiar’s career has included work beyond personal-injury cases. He earned his law degree from the University of Louisville in 2007 and founded his firm in 2010. His firm’s biography says he spent a year early in his career meeting clients in roughly 1,200 homes, an experience that shaped his approach to client service. It also identifies him as part of the legal team for Breonna Taylor’s family that negotiated a $12 million settlement with Louisville in 2020. His professional biography describes that work alongside his injury practice.
Thousands of People Started Reaching Out
The response was immediate. More than 2,000 people have contacted him through phone calls, emails, texts and social media since the billboards went up, according to the station's report. The callers and messages have come from a wide cross-section of Louisville: “We had EMTs reach out. We had some teachers reach out. We had single moms reach out,” Aguiar said. Trauma nurses have told him the signs helped prepare them for difficult shifts, per the same account.
A cancer patient who drove from E-town several days a week for chemotherapy told Aguiar that catching sight of the billboards along her route gave her a lift during an otherwise grueling routine. “She said that when those messages popped up, it gave her a little bit of a boost,” Aguiar said. He called it a great message.
Not a Marketing Play, Aguiar Insists
Aguiar has been clear that generating new clients was never the point of the project, even though the attention has sent some business his way. The article notes that the campaign was never pitched as a lead-generation tool, though new clients have come his way regardless. He has described the field of personal injury law as tough but rewarding, a line that frames why he wanted to put something uplifting into the world beyond his casework.
The billboard project also sits alongside other community work by Aguiar’s firm. Its Sam Cares program says it has contributed more than $6 million to Kentucky families, schools, nonprofits and community programs, and lists a separate statewide mental-health billboard campaign among its efforts. That campaign drew more than 1,000 thank-you messages, the firm says. The broader giving effort suggests the Louisville signs are part of a wider community-facing portfolio, even as Aguiar says this campaign was not designed to generate clients. The firm’s account of Sam Cares describes those initiatives.
Not every billboard is purely earnest. One sign near the fairgrounds in Louisville nods to a social media trend that Aguiar said his 13-year-old would instantly recognize. It is a small wink built into a campaign otherwise made up of straightforward encouragement.
More Billboards Still to Come
With more than half a million dollars already spent and more than 2,000 people having reached out, Aguiar says he intends to keep the billboards going. He has given no indication of scaling back, framing the project as something he plans to continue regardless of whether it keeps bringing in clients. About 60 signs have been put up in high-traffic areas, still telling commuters to believe in themselves and stay strong.
