Fourteen stories above Congress Street, an electronic sign lights up the Portland skyline with a mysterious two-word directive: “CALL JOE.”

More than a few times the message on the Time & Temperature Building has caused visitors and new residents to ask: “Who is Joe and why should I call him?”

Joe is Joe Bornstein, whose dramatic TV commercials and sky-high advertising sign made him Maine’s best-known personal injury lawyer. The law firm he started in 1974 still bears his name, though Bornstein died in 2020 at the age of 74.

Bornstein grew up in Portland and went to Portland schools. He gave swimming lessons at the former East End Pool and worked at the pier in Old Orchard Beach. He studied electrical engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. While working in the computer software and development field, he studied law at night at Suffolk Law School.

After 10 years in Boston, he returned to Maine and started his own law office in Portland’s Old Port. He lived and worked in that one-room office, along with his cat. According to his obituary, Bornstein’s father had worked as an electrician to support his family, which inspired Bornstein’s desire to represent working-class Mainers who have been injured. Today the Law Offices of Joe Bornstein is a statewide practice with seven offices.

In the late 1990s, Bornstein’s firm began running TV commercials that featured veteran actor Robert Vaughn, who had starred in the hit NBC spy show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” in the 1960s.

Some of the early ads featured insurance company lawyers talking about how to handle a claim. When someone asks who is representing the victim, the answer is “Joe Bornstein,” followed by the sound of a booming gong. The lawyers look scared and decide they should probably settle. Vaughn is then seen on screen, delivering the line “Tell them you mean business,” with Bornstein’s name and the number 1-800-CALL-JOE stretched out below him.

In a 1999 Press Herald story about the ads, Bornstein said he was surprised at how well-known they had become in a short time. And that so many people knew his name.

“I guess I haven’t quite gotten used to the notoriety yet,” Bornstein said. “I didn’t think the name Joe Bornstein would become so well-known as quickly as it has.”

Commercials telling people to “CALL JOE” are still seen often on Maine TV, though with other actors and other themes.

In 2010, Bornstein’s firm starting leasing the sign atop the 1924 Time & Temperature Building, in the heart of downtown Portland. The 9-foot electronic sign has 546 bulbs and is used to let people know the current time and temperature. But it also displays, one word at a time “CALL” and “JOE.”

Over the past 16 years, the Law Offices of Joe Bornstein has donated time on the sign to more than 400 nonprofits and community organizations, according to the firm.

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