Are personal injury lawyers frauds and scammers?

Summary

NO SUCH THING

Episode Title: Are personal injury lawyers frauds and scammers?
Air Date: June 10, 2026
Hosts: Noah Friedman, Devin Joseph, Mangesh Hatakedur
Guests: Jose Martinez (Reporter, The City NYC), Professor Nora Freeman Angstrom (Stanford Law), John Morgan (Morgan & Morgan founder)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the controversial world of personal injury law. It starts with a listener questioning whether PI (personal injury) law firms are scams, prompted by the omnipresent, often wild ads from these attorneys. The hosts, three friends and journalists, set out to investigate:

• Why do these lawyers advertise so much?
• How do they make so much money?
• Are their business models predatory, legitimate, or somewhere in between?

They break down genuine concerns about fraud, speak with reporters, a top expert in tort law, and grill America's “billboard lawyer” John Morgan. The goal: Separate fact from stereotype and determine whether PI lawyers are helping the little guy or scamming the system.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: The Listener’s Question

Timestamps: [03:12]–[04:17]

• Listener voicemail wonders: What is going on with PI firms—are they scams, how do they make so much money, why so many ads, and are they preying on poor people?

“It's giving scam... Not a trustworthy business model... How are they making so much money for so many billboards?” —Listener [03:16]

• The hosts share their own skepticism and confusion: Why all the ads, and what’s with the “I don’t get paid until you get paid” pitch?
• Quick poll: Everyone in NYC has seen highly specific and sometimes absurd local PI firm ads.

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Why Are PI Ads Everywhere?

Timestamps: [04:17]–[06:43]

• Local examples of hyper-specific, memorable law firm ads (“I got hurt in jersey.com”).
• The “no win, no fee” contingency model feels risky or possibly misleading to some.
• Pop culture reference: "Better Call Saul" as the archetype of the sleazy PI lawyer.
• Early suspicions: PI lawyers take a higher percentage if you can’t pay upfront, which seems predatory but may be the only option for people without cash.
• Hosts admit to mixed feelings—better than nothing, but a system ripe for corner-cutting.

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Insurance Fraud — Is It Real?

Timestamps: [07:56]–[09:48]

• Debate about fraudulent claims, like “break-checks” purposely causing accidents for a payout.
• Anecdotes about people exaggerating injuries (e.g., ambulance chasing after a minor incident).
• Hosts joke about “embellishing the foul” vs. outright flopping—insinuating PI law often deals in gray ethical areas.

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The Subway Billboard Lawyer Wars

Guest Segment: Jose Martinez, Reporter
Timestamps: [13:21]–[17:51]

• Martinez reports on a “toxic relationship” between NYC’s transit authority (MTA) and billboard lawyers.
• Lawsuits against the MTA cost nearly $561 million in 2025, up from $454 million the previous year.
• Irony: Lawyers suing the MTA also buy ad space from them.

“The MTA is actually spelled ATM.” —Jose Martinez [14:19]

• Morgan & Morgan reportedly spent $218 million on ads in 2024, four times more than any competitor.

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History & Structure of Personal Injury Law

Guest Segment: Professor Nora Freeman Angstrom, Stanford Law
Timestamps: [18:08]–[24:04], [28:42]–[49:56]

• The US tort system is unique: We use lawsuits for regulation that most countries handle through bureaucracy (front-end regulation).

“We don’t like big bureaucracies. And so we do a lot of our regulation actually through backend tort law.” —Prof. Angstrom [18:26]

• Tort law empowers individuals—“private attorneys general”—to seek direct accountability, e.g., a shrimper suing BP after Deepwater Horizon.
• Lawyers don’t need to specialize as doctors do; it’s hard to track how many are in PI law.

The “Settlement Mill”

• Some high-volume PI firms are “settlement mills” (“stack em deep, settle them cheap”):
  • Prioritize quick settlements at the expense of investigation or trial.
  • May provide value for those seeking an easy payout, but little individualized advocacy.

“Settlement mills are providing a service. It’s not a service without controversy.” —Prof. Angstrom [24:04]

• Others (even big advertisers) run traditional practices with real litigation and careful screening.

How Contingency Fees Really Work

• Contingency = lawyer gets ~⅓ of the winnings IF you win.
• Lawyers front the costs of litigation—banking, professional services, insurance all-in-one.

“In some ways... you’re actually getting professional services, banking services, and insurance services—a three for one deal.” —Prof. Angstrom [28:42]

• The system incentivizes both fast settlements (for small cases) and big battles (for big wins).
• Most PI law is funded this way—fees only if you win.
• Some fear this model rushes cases, but profit for bigger ones means “going the distance” can pay.

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Are PI Lawyers Scammers?

Timestamps: [24:04]–[26:30]

• Only some firms can be dubbed “scammy”; the business model depends on their approach (mill vs. bespoke).
• Key filtering question: “Tell me about your last five trials.” If they never try cases, beware—they’re mills.

“The question you should ask is: tell me about your last five trials.” —Hosts [33:03]

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Why Do PI Lawyers Advertise So Heavily?

Timestamps: [33:56]–[36:11]

• PI law relies on a never-ending hunt for new clients (“One and done” cases, unlike corporate law with repeat clients).

“Very few people are unlucky enough to be repeatedly tortiously injured...They need to constantly find new individuals.” —Prof. Angstrom [33:56]

• PI ads were actually banned until 1977, largely due to corporate and racial/ethnic bias; Supreme Court reversed that in Bates v. Arizona.

“Those were the ways that...regular folks were able to get representation.” —Prof. Angstrom [36:11]

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Reputation, Fraud & Reality Check

Timestamps: [40:57]–[44:52]

• The sleazy/litigious stereotype was stoked by corporate interests (and a degree of bias).
• Fraud/fakery happens—mainly via “medical buildup” (inflating damages by unnecessary treatments).

“We particularly worry about bogus claims...plaintiff is injured, but instead of going to the chiropractor four times, maybe they go 20.” —Prof. Angstrom [41:08]

• Such embellishment is common, but outright scams are rare—and hardly unique compared to billing fraud elsewhere.
• Attempts to cap contingency fees would mostly harm people who need representation for smaller claims.

Real Solution: Transparency

• There’s almost no way for consumers to check PI lawyer quality ratings (“You can find out your restaurant's safety score...but not your lawyer’s record.”)
• Better data on track records would help match clients to the right firm and reduce abuse.

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The “David vs Goliath” Role

• PI lawyers exist to fight corporations and insurance giants who would rather avoid liability.

“Big corporations would prefer that there be no personal injury law. They would prefer that they don’t have accountability.” —Prof. Angstrom [49:56]

• The field’s bad actors taint the whole, but for most people, access to representation is a net positive.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Some people come to a gunfight with a knife and some people come to a gunfight with a gun. We come to a gunfight with an Uzi.” —John Morgan [00:51] / [62:19]

“If you want a quick check, [a settlement mill] can be a great thing. If you want real individualized legal services, you’ll walk away feeling let down.” —Prof. Angstrom [49:56]

“It’s called the First Amendment, baby. It’s called the First Amendment.” —John Morgan, defending intense advertising [68:42]

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John Morgan Interview: America's Big Billboard Lawyer

Timestamps: [58:25]–[68:55]

• Origin story: Became a PI lawyer after his brother’s life-altering injury and feeling powerless against Walt Disney World and their legal machine.
• Size: 7,000 employees, 1,100+ lawyers, handles 4 million inquiries a year, takes on 6–8% of cases, refers the rest out (with referral fees).

“Our trial teams have been our secret sauce...We try more PI cases than any other firm.” —John Morgan [61:09]

• Business model: 100% contingency fee, never by-the-hour; positions themselves as “real trial lawyers” who go to court, not just settle.
• Frivolous lawsuits?:

“It’s frivolous until it’s you. Until you have been the victim, and then it’s not so frivolous.” [63:16]

• On advertising accusations: PI firms advertise because insurance and big business do as well, and, “I want the public to know that I’m always going to be there for them. I like the role of David vs. Goliath.” [64:38]
• On fighting stereotypes: Acknowledges cheesy ads, but insists on a righteous mission—PI lawyers give power to powerless people.

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Final Takeaways & Conclusions

• Are PI lawyers scammers? Sometimes, but not most—many help real people get justice against powerful interests.
• Why so many ads? The business demands relentless new-client generation; contingency fees have democratized access.
• Is the system perfect? No—“settlement mills” and medical “buildup” are real concerns.
• Could we do better? Yes. More transparency on lawyer track records and outcomes could help clients avoid mills and get the help they want.
• Why keep personal injury law? Without it, only the rich or the connected could afford justice. PI law levels a very uneven playing field.

“The honest personal injury lawyer is a force for good. Because we do need some more laws, probably...but this is our best path.” —Noah Friedman [55:32]

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Segment Time Stamps

Listener Question & Hosts’ Skepticism: [03:12]–[06:43]
Insurance Fraud/Ads Anecdotes: [06:43]–[09:48]
MTA vs. Billboard Lawyers (Jose Martinez): [13:21]–[17:51]
PI Law History & Business Model (Prof. Angstrom): [18:08]–[49:56]
John Morgan, America’s Billboard Lawyer: [58:25]–[68:55]
Hosts’ Final Reactions & Debrief: [53:35]–[55:48]

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In the Hosts’ Words

“Their perception is like, I always thought, yeah, they're sleazy people...But learning so much more about the context of, you know, the traject trajectory...I have a little bit more respect for the practice.” —Devin Joseph [53:45]

“It’s basically an aesthetic issue where, like, these ads are corny. But they are ads. So, like, I could name a handful of these people. So they work in that sense.” —Noah Friedman [54:24]

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For More Information

Visit www.nosuchthing.show or email questions to [e-mail].

Transcript

[Noah Friedman]

Hey, Noah here with a quick call out. We're doing an episode on money etiquette. Stuff like fulfilling old Venmo requests, splitting checks, and so on. Do you have a question or a horror story to share? Leave us a voicemail at 860-325-0286 or email [e-mail] now on with the episode.

[Devin Joseph]

Kaleidoscope Foreign.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm Noah, this is Devin, and welcome to no Such Thing, the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research this week. Have you experienced injury or distress from hearing a stupid podcast? Dial 1-800-NSD to get the answers you deserve.

[John Morgan]

Some people come to a gunfight with a knife and some people come to a gunfight with a gun. We come to a gunfight with an Uzi.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

There's no. No such thing.

[Kal Penn]

No such thing.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

This is an Iheart podcast. Guaranteed human.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Hi, I'm PJ Vogt.

[Noah Friedman]

My podcast, Search Engine, has a new

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

two part series for you. Of all the new technologies coming out of AI, the most transformative one might be driverless cars.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

They're already on the road in 10American

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

cities, and they're quickly coming to more. We tell the story of how we got here. A secret team at Google that spent 15 years building what might be the safest vehicle on the road. And we cover the fights brewing in blue cities where unions and politicians are working to keep those cars off the streets. Listen to Search Engine wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jose Martinez]

What's up, y'?

[John Morgan]

All?

[Jose Martinez]

Summer's got a different tempo.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plant turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments.

[Jose Martinez]

That's where the ideas hit.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Conversations stretch out.

[Jose Martinez]

Little memories sneak up on you.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color, that chill. The new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango, mango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it.

[Jose Martinez]

Funny how one small stop becomes the

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

best part of the day.

[Jose Martinez]

Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks.

[Kal Penn]

Hey, everyone, it's Kalpen. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah Friedman]

A few weeks ago, we received a voicemail from a listener.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Hello. I have a question that I would love to hear y' all tackle on the pod. What is going on at personal injury law firm? Like, it's giving scam. It's giving. Not a, you know, trustworthy business model. But I don't quite understand what the business model is and how they're making money and have so much money for so many billboards. So, yeah, I'm just curious about how they make so much money. How they're scamming or if they're scamming, because I'm pretty sure they're preying on poor people. But I don't exactly know how it works. And I'm curious. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks for making your show. I really enjoy it.

[Noah Friedman]

So the short question is, what's going on with personal injury law firms? Are they scams? Why do they advertise so much? How.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

How do they make all this money? We're here in New York.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

You guys see these ads?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Some of the New York ones are, like, really specific. It's like, I saw someone, someone that was like, did you get. Did you get beat up by, like, a homeless guy? It's like when they get so granular with the thing that the question that they're asking, I always find that fascinating.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Your name? John. Were you punched in the face on the subway?

[Noah Friedman]

You say, I always, like, in New Jersey, there's. It's black and then it has white text, like, kind of drawn, like chalk style text says, I got hur in jersey.com. i'm always like, wow. I've never gone to that website, but I'm like, that's a powerful ad.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

It's stuck in your head.

[Noah Friedman]

You remember, if it happens to me, I haven't been hurt there yet, but I know where I'm going.

[Devin Joseph]

I've also wondered. Yeah. About how the money works. Because the most famous, like, personal injury lawyer in Ohio will always say at the end of his ad, I don't get paid until you get paid.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

So like, like, they won't charge you unless they win a case, I guess. But I don't know how true that actually is.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah, that's. I watch, you know, a lot of local sports, so that's where I see the most. Yeah. During, like, a Mets game. My God. Every commercial break is like two to three of those.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Injury attorney. If you're tired of your attorney ducking

[Jose Martinez]

and dodging you, let the bull take

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

a fresh look at your case.

[John Morgan]

I was born a fighter, and I love to win. I'll get you the award you deserve.

[Jose Martinez]

Your fight is his fight.

[John Morgan]

And remember, if you mess with a bull, you get the hordes. I despise bullies. Insurance companies, manufacturers of unsafe products and drugs, corporate crooks, and business owners who try to be good people out of money owed. It makes my blood boil.

[Jose Martinez]

So do you know who I am?

[John Morgan]

I'm the bully's bully. Call me if you need me. I'm John Morgan, the people's lawyer.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

But, yeah, I see them all the time. It does, to Mandy's point, feel a little bit like a scam to our listener question. It does feel a little bit like they're taking advantage of people who are in circumstances where they can't pay for a lawyer out of pocket.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Right. So it seems like whatever they win, like, in my mind, here's how it works.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

These people will come in, they say, hey, we're not going to charge you up front. If they think your case is legitimate, they'll take you on. But then they'll take a larger percentage of your case than if you were just paying a lawyer out of pocket.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Oh.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You know, so like, if you're paying a lawyer out of pocket, you're maybe you're paying hourly, whatever it may be. And whatever final cost that is will be less than Barnes is saying, hey, we're going to take 30% of your actual winnings and you win a million dollars.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That's probably more than you'd have to pay them out of pocket. Just hourly. Which is my guess.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Which is. It seems unfair, and I think it is. But also if you are, like, if you have no money, that's the obvious only route, because you can't really.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

That's better than nothing. Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You represent yourself or you don't see it all.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, yeah. There's. There's the. The big pop culture example of this, of a better Call Saul. And I don't like the show. Doesn't really tackle this industry at large, but does show you a lot of the ways, like, small time lawyers do kind of get one over on their clients.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah. Cut corners.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. So I'm interested to see what we learned today.

[Noah Friedman]

There's also a lot of allegations about fraud here. Fraud in terms of, you know, auto insurance fraud.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Oh, yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

An idea that, you know, people are kind of Playing up accidents to then get higher settlements. And that's. It's basically insurance payout. So then that makes everyone's insurance higher.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That's.

[Devin Joseph]

A big lawyer is helping you do this.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. The victim in this case isn't you. The, you know, plaintiff.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Society.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. I mean, it's insurance companies. And then. But then. Because the rates would go up. Yeah, it's society.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Well, I can tell you because my. I have a car in New York and the insurance is crazy astronomical. I have seen, you know, not a dash cams are becoming more of a thing.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I have seen people do that. Like, in my mind, like someone get, you know, on a highway break, checking someone to get into an accident. I'm like, that's ridiculous. People aren't really doing that. I don't know. It's just because I watch these videos. But I've been fed a couple videos on, like, roads that I drive.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

A lot. Where people are intentionally slamming on their brakes, getting hit, and then coming out and pretending, oh, I'm hurt.

[Devin Joseph]

My back.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

What's that sponge on my legs.

[Noah Friedman]

My legs, my leg.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

So it does seem like there is something going on there. I at first would think, yeah, sure. If you get in an accident, you know, milk it a little bit. Make sure I get a little checked out. Sure.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Yeah, sure.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You know, I think about if I'm at a sports game and an athlete throws something into the stands and it

[Noah Friedman]

hits me, that'd be my dream come true.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I'm going out with an ambulance. You know, like, my dream come true.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

There's this old basketball clip of, I don't know, some guy got mad and threw a ball into the stands. And then the guy. They literally pulled the guy out who got hit with the ball on a stretcher.

[Noah Friedman]

Hey, these guys are strong.

[Devin Joseph]

He's ready to get.

[Noah Friedman]

I was like this.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That would be me.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Like, if a celebrity hits me, you know, oh, yeah, I'm dead. Basically, I'm dead. You got to bring me back to life. That's how much money I need.

[Devin Joseph]

I imagine this is like when the personal injury lawyer gets involved. It's more of an embellishing the foul versus flopping, if that makes sense. If I have to make it.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, you're not making it totally out of nothing.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah, there was. It was a legitimate accident.

[Devin Joseph]

And then lawyers now being like, well, do you have any aches in your body at all?

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That back pain that you had two months ago? We're actually going to tie it now to this car accident.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. Versus that video. The video that you saw, which I think I've seen too, is more like the. That's a scam that's happening from the, you know, driver level.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yes.

[Noah Friedman]

We're going to hear from a few people this week. One, a reporter here in New York City who covered a interesting beef going on between so called billboard lawyers and the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Two, a legal scholar to give us a history of personal injury law and get into what she calls settlement mills. And three, a very famous personal injury lawyer you might recognize from a few billboards yourself. What all that after the break.

[Kal Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary, Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections and it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that that deeply emotionally affected me and I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to hearsay. The Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Noah Friedman]

So as I set out on researching this episode, a local story came across my desk. So I called up the writer to hear more about it.

[Jose Martinez]

Hi, I am Jose Martinez. I'm a reporter with TheCityReporter NYC.

[Noah Friedman]

Why don't you just lay out the story here between the MTA versus so called billboard lawyers. Give us the brief rundown.

[Jose Martinez]

This stems from the State of New York's efforts to make some reforms to auto insurance to lower cost. And that is an outgrowth of what the MTA says is injury lawyers constantly targeting the transportation authority anytime its buses are anywhere near, or sometimes not even near the site of a crash. There are all types of claims. If you look at the numbers, the MTA last year got hit with $561 million in claims. That's what it paid in 2025. And that was an increase from one year earlier when it paid 20 for 154 million. So that extends across the system whether you're talking about the subways or collisions involving its buses. You don't need to be getting crushed by huge car insurance payments to want the reforms that the governor has set out. You don't even need to own a car. You just need to be frustrated like I am. That money that we should be spending on great service is going for payoffs to welcome connected billboard lawyers instead. Guys who seem to think that the MTA is actually spelled atm.

[Noah Friedman]

So the interesting thing is though, as anyone who's ridden the subway would notice, is there are tons of advertisements for these firms. Yeah, on the subways and buses.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Exactly. That bus that's quote, unquote hitting you.

[Noah Friedman]

So also has the advertising. It's an Ouroboros sort of thing. So while they're going after them legally, the MTA also partially relies on ad revenue from those same firms.

[Jose Martinez]

When Jan O. Lieber, the head of the mta, said billboard lawyers, I said, ah, now there's Corey, because I ride the train every day and you'll be in a single car. And it seems like the the entire car is coded in advertising for these lawyers who are at the same time, while spending a lot of money, also going hard after the mta.

[Noah Friedman]

Can you lay out how much money the MTA brings in from advertising?

[Jose Martinez]

Yeah. The MTA brings in about $183 million. That was last year in advertising. That's according to the Office of the State Comptroller, which does not break it down to the level. So I can't get a figure on just how much the law firm of Morgan and Morgan spent in the subway system, but I can tell you it's not a small amount.

[Noah Friedman]

What do you think might happen as far as the process of these reforms? Is there any likelihood of getting any traction on that from the MTA side, or what do you think?

[Jose Martinez]

That's something that the governor has been pushing, so we'll see where that ends up. But the mta, as an institution that is looking to save money, has gotten on board with this. Others have supported the governor's push, so it's in their interest to do this. But you know, the lawyers, they're going to spend money.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Jose Martinez]

I want to read you one fact here from Morgan and Morgan. There was a report a few years back that said Morgan and Morgan spent more than $218 million on ads in 2024, and that was outspending its closest competitor by more than a 4 to 1 ratio. And the founder of Morgan and Morgan, who I spoke to, was all too happy to tell me about how he views advertising as a part of a meal and that this is the guy who. You see his face superimposed on the Statue of Liberty. You will see him lying on a pigeon high above the Empire State Building, and you'll see that on subway cars. You'll see it on the walls of subway stations. They are not shy about spending a lot of money to then file claims, which the MTA will sometimes call frivolous money grabs.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

The.

[Jose Martinez]

The statement they actually gave me described these lawyers as ambulance chasers. So it's. It's a. It's a battle between two sides, but they do kind of need each other.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Jose Martinez]

In terms of advertising revenue, it's like

[Devin Joseph]

Batman and the Joker.

[Noah Friedman]

It's kind of beautiful, you know, or like. It's like Heat. But I thought that was a pretty interesting story about this kind of toxic relationship.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Up next, we'll learn about the history of personal injury law, especially why they advertise so heavily and so much more than other lawyers where you don't see as much for this. I went to my friends at Stanford.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

My name is Nora Freeman Angstrom. I'm a professor at Stanford Law School, and I research how the tort system works in practice.

[Noah Friedman]

Here's a bit of background on personal Injury law as we know it and why the US was so perfectly ripe for an explosion of these types of firms.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

We love the Sue.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

So personal injury law has been around for a very long time. Certainly there was some personal injury law before the United States became the United States. And in the United States we are different though in that we actually do a lot of our regulations through personal injury law and through tort law. So other well developed countries have a much bigger bureaucracy. They do much more front end regulation when it comes to health and safety. In the United States we do things a little differently. We don't like big bureaucracies. And so we do a lot of our regulation actually through backend tort law. So we have a more developed tort system than other countries. And again, it's not because there's more regulation. And in general, actually I think there's probably, my own view, is there probably less, but we just allocate more of our regulation through civil litigation than through top down regulation.

[Noah Friedman]

So personal injury law is a branch of tort law.

[Kal Penn]

Tort.

[Noah Friedman]

So here's a quick aside of what tort means. It's one of those terms I'd heard all the time, but I was like, okay, seems like we should, that's a word there. But yeah, now you'll know what it is.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

So tort is a word. It comes from the Latin word for twisted. And so when we think about tort law, what we're thinking is kind of twisted situations. And so the law's aim is to untwist those situations. You know, law has certain limitations. And one of those things is we can't, if your arm is amputated, we can't bring your arm back, or if your child is killed, we can't bring your, your kid back. But what we do is this kind of bizarre, not entirely satisfactory translation of injury to money damages. And it's thought that through that translation, good things happen, compensation for injuries and also deterrence to try to get folks to, let's say, drive more carefully going forward.

[Noah Friedman]

I guess as far as why America is set up so differently than other systems, did that stem from just like a personal freedom angle and then we're kind of reverse engineering laws?

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Yeah, it is thought that there's kind of this rugged individualism streak and tort law is the most kind of individualistic of laws. Right. So criminal law, you can really want someone to be prosecuted and you can't make that happen unless you're in the prosecutor's office. The government decides who to prosecute a Private individual, even if they've been terribly wronged, can't get that machinery in motion. Tort law empowers each one of us essentially to become private attorneys general and to vindicate our own interests. So there is this like deep individualist streak to tort law. Also kind of distinctly egalitarian. Think about the BP oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon accident.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Federal judge granted final approval Monday to an estimated $20 billion settlement in the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement is the largest with a single entity in Justice Department history and will be paid out over a 16 year period.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

A shrimper can hold the CEO of BP accountable for that oil spill and actually cause the CEO to be deposed and perhaps to testify in a trial. So some folks think about the torrent system as this distinctive eye to eye justice where you can force through the law someone to answer for what they've done to you directly. And so it empowers individuals in kind of a distinctly American way.

[Noah Friedman]

I think of so many of these sorts of cases just like very small stakes, like, oh, like that door hit me in the shoulder. Let me see if I can get a few hundred bucks out of you. Yeah, but, but you know, there are examples where, okay, you might be a individual person suing a giant massive corporation and now are you going to get anywhere with that? I don't know, but it seems like something that should be on the table, you know?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Where like the, the consequence of that pursuit, however trivial it may seem, could help people afterwards. They might have a, a slower revolving door after that case to make sure that like more people don't get hurt by, by the door.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I guess the whole point is Torlo or whatever, it's like, yeah. In the US the only way that people are held accountable is through lawsuits.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. Yeah. Professor Angstrom also noted that lawyers don't need to specialize to practice certain types of law the way doctors do. Once you're licensed by the bar, it's an all purpose license. Yeah. All to say that makes it hard to know precisely how many personal injury lawyers and firms there are because you could, you could switch around because I

[Devin Joseph]

think when you pass the bar, it's, you learn about.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

All kinds of.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Law and then you specialize.

[Noah Friedman]

Then you just go up just to get hired, basically.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Well, it is funny, I feel like I've been in situations where I have like lawyer friends and I'll be like, can you look at this thing? And I'm like, yeah, I can look at it, but you should really talk to.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, you know, whatever.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I was like, you could represent me.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, you could.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You could.

[Noah Friedman]

I know. Yeah. I think about that all the time.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You could do it.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm sure. It's like on.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You're just a good person and you're like, actually, I don't actually know that much about.

[Devin Joseph]

You're better off. Yeah. Talking to someone else.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

All right, so now we're going to get to our main question. Are personal injury firms a scam? Professor Angstrom has called out what she refers to as settlement mills.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

So some personal injury firms are what I call settlement mills, and these are some of the firms that are the big billboard firms that maybe are driving as you're listening to this podcast, and you might be seeing a billboard right now for a lawyer. And that lawyer may or may not be a settlement mill. So the settlement mill business model is a distinctive kind of model where there are some lawyers that really specialize in auto accident claims. And these lawyers, you know, one lawyer explained it to me that their mentality is in some ways a stack em deep and settle them cheap mentality, which is they're gonna have a big volume of claims, they're gonna prioritize getting compensation quickly with little fuss, little process. And, you know, maybe they're not getting absolute top dollar, but they're getting something. Whereas without any lawyer, it could be that the insurance company would deny the claim or delay payment on the claim. So settlement bills are providing a service. It's not a service without controversy. It's actually quite a controversial service. But I keep using the word some because I think it's important to note that some advertisers, even very heavy advertisers, don't have that model and actually have much more of a kind of a bespoke model where they are actually investigating claims and engaging in litigation the way you would kind of see on tv. So just because a law firm advertises doesn't mean you should draw any conclusion about what kind of practice is going on at the law firm.

[Noah Friedman]

The short answer is yes, some.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Are kind of scammy or just, you

[Devin Joseph]

know, or that their strategy.

[Noah Friedman]

Quick solution.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

But not all of them. Even if they're advertising heavily, which is

[Devin Joseph]

more in line with the Better Call Saul kind of thing, where it's like, okay, if you take. If you get a personal injury lawyer and you sit down across the table with your client across the table from the MTA, you can just be like, look, 500. Like, you rather go through all this litigation, see you in court or cut a little check, we could settle this really easily. And so that makes sense actually, that it's, yeah, a really quick and easy strategy for them.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

And then.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. So not all personal injury law firms are settlement mills, the more scammy type. And here's how you can help distinguish for yourself between the two.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

The big distinction in my mind is whether a firm is set up to provide traditional legal services, which is to say, you know, is the firm set up to investigate the claim, kind of. Or not. Is the firm set up that if the insurance company isn't offering a fair settlement that they really will take the case to trial? Some firms that I've studied have gone years and years without ever taking a case to trial. To me that's a sign that they're not really set up to try cases. And they are, are again kind of having this volume mentality. Another kind of clue that a firm might be a settlement mill is that they don't carefully screen cases. So traditional law firms are actually taking on significant risk when they agree to represent you because if the representation doesn't end in money under the contingency fee, they won't recover a dollar. And so recognizing that there's this significant risk, traditional law firms actually vet cases and vet clients pretty carefully because they're going to be essentially co venturer with the client and investing in the client. And a firm that is not really investing isn't really going to be investigating, doesn't have to screen. So that's another kind of clue that the firm might have more of a settlement mill business model as opposed to a traditional business model.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. And in the settlement mill version of this law firm, you could see how from the client perspective it feels so much more transactional. Whereas let's say you actually did get injured and you really want someone to care about what happened to you. You want that your representation to have compassion and try and get the best deal possible. That's probably not going to happen at a settlement mill.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, this typical business model is the contingency fee, which to be fair, doesn't mean everyone has skin in the game, meaning they're getting money from the settlement. So they, they need to get money or else no one gets money. So here's a little bit more on that because I wasn't sure exactly if it was as clear, as simple as it seemed.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Another reason actually why the United States has such a robust court system is we allow and have always allowed the contingency fee. That's not like other countries, other countries Actually now, or some countries are starting to permit contingency fees. But it's really been a deeply embedded part of America's legal system since the beginning. So how does it work? The lawyer is going to charge a portion of the ultimate winnings on the case. And that means if there's no recovery, the lawyer gets nothing. So the lawyer really is kind of, you know, this makes it seem a little crass, but is taking a bet on you and is in it with you. It's this really nice actually relationship in a way, because you can rest assured they're going to work hard on your behalf because you know, if they don't get top dollar, they're going to not see much money either. If they lose the case, they're going to get nothing at all. Also typically embedded within the contingency fee is that the lawyer is going to front the costs and expenses of litigation. And that's a big deal because cost and expenses of litigation, this is separate from the attorney's fees. This is things like, like court costs, stenographer costs, if there's going to be depositions, videographer costs, if they're going to be video depositions, travel if there's travel, the cost to download documents and store documents if it's a big document intensive case, that stuff can add up. It can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars even or sometimes millions of dollars in big cases. Lawyers also embedded within the contingency fee tend to cover those costs. And so in some ways, when you're hiring a contingency fee lawyer, I think it's important to think that you're actually getting professional services, that the lawyer is going to work for you for free, you're getting banking services, that the lawyer is going to front all these costs and expenses on your behalf. So you don't need a bank loan to do that. And the lawyer is providing insurance services because if you lose your case, you don't have to pay the lawyer back in most states in terms of the cost of expenses of litigation. So it's kind of a three for one deal.

[Noah Friedman]

So hearing that, you can kind of start to imagine how it would then behoove everyone to maybe inflate the money being asked for through these sorts of things. If it's all about a percentage of the contingency fee.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Where then it's like, okay, well maybe we spent this much on this. Or you know, it's like when you're doing your taxes and throwing some.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Noah Friedman]

Some expenses in there, you know.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. And I'll not be giving any examples.

[Jose Martinez]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

I don't know what that could be.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I don't know what that would look like.

[Devin Joseph]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

How common is it that someone is paying a lawyer or a lawyer is getting paid via a contingency fee versus an hourly rate in terms of personal injury in these. Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

From what I understand, it seems like overwhelmingly contingency. It's like them working on it. That's not a bad thing. And like. No, no.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Because they have skin in the game, like she said.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

So I'm going to say all that to retract an earlier made earlier where I was thinking the contingency fee was more like a scammy sort of thing. Right. Where we're saying, okay, yeah, they're going to do the contingency fee because the people don't have the money to pay out of pocket for these costs. And it may be lower cost if you had the money up front.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

But you know, if they're, they're getting paid on the back half, it's going to be even higher. It seems like you could go to a legitimate place. Yeah. And still be, you know, using the contingency fee. I guess to her point, like, you just got to make sure that place is actually legitimate and not just going to settle quickly no matter what.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You get into these mills, right. If they don't want to spend a lot of money out of pocket, they're not going to want to go to trial, they're not going to want to do these things because that costs money. Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

I think that's more the distinction in on that side of things, not the. Are they working on a contingency fee?

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

You know, it's like are they willing to go the distance with this or are they going to take the first decent looking number?

[Devin Joseph]

Could you argue that because they're working on a contingency fee, they are incentivized to, to wrap the case up as soon as possible.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

If they don't. If you don't, then if you're not going to get a big payout.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

If you're going to get a big payout, then they'll hold on. Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Then why not take it to court

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

if you're paying even 200, 300k? Because you could get $5 million.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Versus settling for a million.

[Devin Joseph]

Right.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

So I guess if you're, if you're getting one of these personal injury lawyers, the question you should ask is tell me about your last five trials.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, you should try to see how, how, how often they actually go through to litigation versus purely like.

[Devin Joseph]

Or maybe it might be neutral. Like I might be going into the personal injuries law firm being like, like, well, I didn't really get hurt, but like, let's see what we can get out of this.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

So you're a bad guy.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

So you're a bad guy is what you're saying.

[Devin Joseph]

I'm just saying the system allows for something like that.

[Noah Friedman]

So I'm going to pay it more on my insurance. Yeah, because, because of you.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Because of this phone. Wow. Over here.

[Devin Joseph]

Hey, man, I've been hurt before. I've never gone into one of these

[Noah Friedman]

law firms, but no, I broke my wrist. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You should call one of these guys up.

[Noah Friedman]

I know. I need, I need to get my boy back on the. Yeah. So then the next, next part of the listener question was, why are there so many damn ads? Yeah, great question, but there's an answer.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

The prime advertisers are personal injury lawyers. And that kind of makes sense that some areas of law, you don't really need to advertise because you're going to have a repeat clientele. Right. Like if you represent Coca Cola, Coca Cola is going to be a good client to you your whole career. You don't need any other clients. Like, you're good. You just keep them happy and you just keep working for them and you don't need to worry about business generation. Personal injury law is really different than that because very few people are unlucky enough to be repeatedly tortiously injured. Like, you have to be really unlucky to keep on suffering serious injuries at the hands of other people when those other people are behaving unreasonably. And so the vast, vast, vast majority of personal injury clients or personal injury clients only once. Once. And so that means a personal injury lawyer needs to constantly find new clients. You need to constantly find new individuals that you can represent, particularly if you're going to be representing people on small claims where maybe every claim you're just going to earn $1,000. Well, you need a lot of clients that you're earning just $1,000 for to earn a living and to pay rent and your law office and to pay your support staff and things like that. So that kind of explains that personal injury lawyers have kind of more clients coming in the door. They need to have more clients coming in the door. And so they naturally gravitate towards advertising.

[Noah Friedman]

But it turns out it hasn't always been this way. As far as all these ads, lawyer advertising was actually banned for a while last century.

[Devin Joseph]

Did not know that.

[Noah Friedman]

Don't worry. Nora will explain.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

If you really roll back the clock, attorney advertising was pretty common, and it was not particularly controversial. So I always show my students when I teach this at Stanford, a slide that was Abraham Lincoln's advertisement as a lawyer. So he advertised that he was a lawyer with fidelity and trust. So Abe Lincoln, honest Abe, was an advertising lawyer then. For a while, advertising was banned by the ABA and by the rules that govern the profession.

[Noah Friedman]

So here's why it was banned for a time.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Who was controlling the bar in the early years of the last century? Well, it tended to be rich folks, and it tended to be the lawyers who were kind of the leaders in the profession. Again, these are wealthy folks. Who are the wealthy folks in the profession. They're the folks who represent the corporate interests. And so if I'm, let's say, a corporation and I've got my corporate lawyer on speed dial, one of the things I don't want is to be sued. Right, you don't want to be sued. And so maybe what you do is you figure out what it is that those personal injury lawyers are doing. And at the time, in the early years of the last century, the personal injury lawyers were seen as kind of on the fringes of the profession. They were recent immigrants. They weren't allowed into the big firms. They tended to be Jewish individuals. And there's some historical support for them, this idea that essentially the bar, which again, was very much in league with the corporate clients, figure out what it is that those folks who keep suing us are doing, and let's make that illegal. And so at that time, they made it illegal to engage what was called solicitation, which is to go up to someone and say, hey, it looks like you're injured. Here's my car. Made it illegal to advertise, did a lot of other things to essentially think about what are the things you need to have this volume kind of business to represent individuals who have been hurt in accidents. And let's make that illegal. And that is going to buy us a certain amount of protection. And the fact that all this was kind of bound up as well with ethnic and racial bias, I think fortified the move of, you know, well, solicitation is bad, let's ban it. Advertising is bad, let's ban it. But of course, those were the ways that folks at the time, you know, you know, regular folks were able to

[Noah Friedman]

get representation so you mentioned Better Call Saul. There's obviously long, long been this caricature of like a sleazy lawyer type. And in some ways that can just be traced back to these corporate interests trying to keep people out from, from, from practicing and keeping the public from finding representation.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So it was kind of shocking when I heard this. I was like, wow. Yeah, there goes all the way back

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

for a little man.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah,

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

I'm sure everybody listening to this has this kind of sleazy, you know. Oh, but it, it. And certainly my students don't think of personal injury lawyers as what, you know, we think of public interest lawyers. Like, public interest lawyers are the good guys. Right. And personal injury lawyers are easily caricatured as, like, oh, those are the sleazy guys. And you think about it and you just. I encourage everybody to kind of interrogate that conception because, you know, let's say I'm wrongfully deprived of overtime pay. If you vindicate my right to overtime pay, you're definitely a public interest lawyer. Right? I'm wrongfully deprived of asylum. If you vindicate my right to asylum, you're definitely a public interest lawyer. I'm wrongfully accused of a crime. If you vindicate my liberty interests as my criminal defense lawyer, you're definitely a public interest lawyer. I'm wrong, wrongfully deprived of my child because of a corporation's negligence, and you vindicate my. Kind of my claim in a wrongful death capacity. You're not a public interest lawyer. Like, to me, that just. It doesn't quite work. I start to wonder about, again, this kind of motivation to paint individuals who are vindicating this interest others, particularly since historically we know all this was so bound up with racial and ethnic prejudice. And then there was a case in 1977 before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court case Bates versus State Bar of Arizona, where lawyers who wanted to advertise challenged the ban on attorney advertising. They said that the restrictions on attorney advertising violated their first and foremost amendment rights to speech. And the Supreme Court sided with the lawyers. So the lawyers won in Bates, and that made it so that attorney advertising was permitted starting in 1977.

[Noah Friedman]

So far, this already helped me look at personal injury lawyers in a much better light. But there are some bad actors as we've touched on before, as to the charges of fraud, here's what Professor Angstrom had to say.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

There is some sleaze in corners of this, just like their sleaze, and just basically every other area. So in the auto sphere, we particularly worry about bogus claims when it comes again to very small claims, Nora highlighted

[Noah Friedman]

what's referred to as built claims. This is the sort of thing that happens when a plaintiff is injured, but instead of going to the chiropractor four times, maybe they go, say, 20 times.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

And the idea there is, for every time you go to the chiropractor, your damages are going up a little bit. If we multiply, ultimately the end of the day, your economic loss by some number in order to get your total loss, then we kind of are building everything. It's good because the lawyer is going to be taking roughly a third. And so, you know, every time, let's say the chiropractor is $100. From the lawyer's perspective, every time you go to the chiropractor and pay $100, I get a third of that, which is $33, and that's pretty great for me. So we do worry about what's called medical buildup. We see this particularly in soft tissue injury cases. These are sprains, strains, contusions, and whiplash, and they don't show up on X rays, and so they can be really hard to verify.

[Noah Friedman]

So that's how you would do fraud

[Devin Joseph]

this way, the embellishment stuff. Yeah, yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That's kind of what you were talking about earlier, Manning, when you're saying, like, hey, you know, the. The. It starts with a legitimate claim, and then you just milk it a little bit more.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You know, may need to go to a chiropractor twice and you end up going 20 times.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, let's make sure. Yeah, let's make sure all the kids.

[Devin Joseph]

Which, you know, just to tie it back to sports, the embellishing of a foul is seen as a lot more noble and honorable than just flopping and creating the foul.

[Noah Friedman]

True. Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

You.

[Noah Friedman]

You know, if you're getting a personal injury lawyer, you don't to want. Want sga.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, exactly.

[Noah Friedman]

So that explains more. The more common, you know, fraud, as it were, versus the more extreme ones where it's like I'm driving into the highway and stopping my car and hoping there's an accident. There was. Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

Which I will say seems like, you know, pretty normal in the sense that, like, every industry has their version of that, you know, when people bill people for their invoices or whatever.

[Noah Friedman]

Like.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, every industry has the kind of thing where you stretch a little bit, as we learned with dentists, dentistry. So, you know, it doesn't seem like outright scamming is happening.

[Noah Friedman]

Well, yeah. And in the case, like, in those cases, again, like, it's not the plaintiff.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Right, exactly.

[Noah Friedman]

Because they would stand to make more money. It's, you know, it's an ethical dilemma. No doubt. But, you know, it's not like, okay, I'm someone who's injured and now I'm losing out necessarily.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah. Basically what I mean is I'm not losing sleep over the. The existence of some embellishment happening at the personal injury law firms. Seems like it's mostly fine.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah. Until you have to insure your car in New York City.

[Noah Friedman]

What car? Boom.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Okay.

[Noah Friedman]

So I wondered, though, what are the fixes for this? Some people in corporations, like Uber, for example, are pushing for a cap on contingency fees. Professor Angstrom doesn't think this works economically and would end up just hurting people who actually do need representation. So that would mean. Yeah, there's a limit to how much you could possibly get or, like, how

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

much the lawyers can get.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. So then they're less incentivized to work necessarily.

[Devin Joseph]

I see.

[Noah Friedman]

To the full extent, like, there's a cap if you went above that. Yeah, yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

10. They can only get 10. No matter how much you want, you'd have to make, you know, a lot of money.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. They probably would take less cases, which would help fix the settlement firm thing, but would hurt people who need it.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, exactly.

[Noah Friedman]

There, no doubt, are a lot of. Especially, let's talk about just automobiles. There's obviously tons of accidents.

[Devin Joseph]

Yes.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

And it also makes it seem like in that case, the lawyers would only take on bigger cases.

[Noah Friedman]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Because you're not going to. If you're going to be settling for $50,000, then, you know, it doesn't really make sense for me to keep taking on. If you're capping it at 10% or

[Noah Friedman]

whatever, you don't want to focus on a few big cases. So that way, you know, you're getting a few thousand dollars for each one instead of like, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. So then meanwhile, rich people who don't need to hire on a contingency would be fine. It wouldn't affect them at all.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

They're just like, I'm good. Let's. Let's do this.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So here's her idea for what could work.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

One of the reasons why you're asking me these questions about, you know, what are these lawyers like and what are those lawyers like is there's nowhere for a consumer of legal services to find this stuff out. You know, is this billboard lawyer, equality advertiser. There are definitely quality billboard lawyers out there. Some billboard lawyers are not providing High quality legal services. How are you supposed to know? I send my kids to a public school. I can look and see what the test scores are and other metrics of quality. If I'm going out to eat, I can look and see. Is this restaurant recently been cited for health safety violations? How come when I need a lawyer, there is no information? I mean none. I'm here at Stanford Law School and I can't tell you very often, like, is this lawyer a good lawyer or a really bad lawyer? There's no publicly objective, verifiable information, period. And there should be. That's just a glaring gap in the market for legal services. And there are ways where a little bit of information could create a real competition. We'd actually have more competition over contingency fees. Right now, lawyers basically all turned the same percentage, which doesn't make sense. Some lawyers should probably be charging more than they are, and some lawyers should be charging much less than they do. If you want, let's say, a lawyer who is going to take my case to trial, I really want to go to trial. You should find a lawyer who takes cases to trial and who would fit your desires and needs. If you're saying, God, I just want to check, I want to check quickly. I do not want to get caught up in all this law stuff. I don't want to be deposed, God help me. You should find a lawyer who has a record for quickly and easily getting some monetary compensation with very little trouble. It's just nuts that we can figure out basically information on every other component in our lives, but have no information when it comes to something so important. The other thing too, when we think about fraud, is a question in there could get it medical buildup because it could reward lawyers for having relatively low claimed economic loss and relatively high recovery. So if you wanted to create natural competition to say, hey, lawyers, don't send your clients to extra medical care, that would actually look bad for you because what you want is a high risk ratio of total recovery to claims loss. It would actually create a natural incentive to be really judicious about getting your client medical care. So it would actually address the problem that folks seem intent on addressing, but in a way with very few negative collateral consequences.

[Noah Friedman]

I think to her point, it's like some people just want a quick payout and that's fine. And then other people will will be like, okay, I want to see this through to the full extent. Whether that's because you want more money or you just want want it to go through the system properly.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, yeah. To her point, it would be really helpful if you did need a personal injury lawyer. But you could read like, yeah, here's

[Noah Friedman]

I need like lawyer reference.com. yeah, yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Tinder for lawyers, you know.

[Devin Joseph]

Oh, there you go.

[Noah Friedman]

Wow.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I want a lawyer.

[Noah Friedman]

I'm cutting that out because we need to build that.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

You're like, all right, here's the type of lawyer that I want. You know, I only want lawyers with, you know, she's talking about like, you know, ratings ratios. Like you could have like. Yeah, you know, only four stars or higher. Here's the price range or contingency range that I want.

[Devin Joseph]

Yep.

[Noah Friedman]

It makes sense. Yeah, there's just.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah, it's hard to get that information. And to her point, I like that. The ratio idea. Right. Because it's like.

[Noah Friedman]

Right.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah. You can rack up a whole bunch of costs and your payout could be high, but your costs are also high.

[Noah Friedman]

Right? Yeah, yeah. Someone needs to pay that. You know, things have to be paid whether upfront or afterwards. Yeah, yeah. And. And time also.

[Devin Joseph]

Yep.

[Noah Friedman]

It's like, well, if you're going to the chiropractor 30 times and you don't need to go zero times, that's also time your race a lot of days.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Even if you're going 2A days to the.

[Devin Joseph]

Otherwise it would be actual fraud if you lied about how many times you were going to the.

[Noah Friedman]

Well, yeah, yeah, let's not even go. Think about that. Don't even say that. Lying about chiropracty. And then this is kind of her last defense of the personal injuries lawyer.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Big corporations would prefer that there be no personal injury law. Right. They would prefer that they don't have accountability. I know it sounds kind of lame or like I'm naive or something, but I really do think that we are all better off. We are all safer because we have the regulation that tort law supplies. And again, this goes back to the idea that in the United States we have very little top down regulation. And so we count on our courts to supply that missing piece to make sure that the roads we drive on are somewhat safe and the water we drink is somewhat safe and the pills that we ingest are somewhat safe. Now, just like everything else, are there some bad actors out there? Absolutely. Do those bad actors give other people a bad name? Absolutely. Should we have more information to be able to distinguish between the folks, folks who are really out there and who are, you know, have a business model that maybe doesn't align with someone's interests? There's no doubt that if you want really individualized kind of one on one legal services and you end up at a settlement mill, you'll be really frustrated. You will walk away feeling really, really like the legal system let you down. On the other hand, if you want a quick check and you go to a settlement mill and they get you one, that's kind of a great, great thing. So I think it's, it's generally what we need is way more matching so that people get the legal representation of kind of the style that, that suits their needs and interests. And if along the way that transparency makes it so those folks who really are kind of taking advantage of the rest of us kind of it all gets, you know, revealed, that would be a really good thing too.

[Noah Friedman]

So Devin is right. Tinder for lawyers.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

It is this weird thing in America too where we have this like, it's like our love for billionaires. We love a corporation. Like if we, you know, if someone, I think I was thinking about the people who like sued McDonald's over like the hot coffee, you know, that's.

[Kal Penn]

The jury in Albuquerque has awarded almost $2.9 million to a woman scalded by a cup of tea. McDonald's coffee.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

And it's like, and they get, you know, these, what we think are like exorbitant amounts of money. Like, okay, you got $2 million because you don't know that coffee's hot. Like, idiot. But it's like it's McDonald's. You know, it's like, who cares?

[Noah Friedman]

They'll be okay.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Who cares if McDonald's has to pay $2 million because someone spilled a hot coffee on themselves?

[Noah Friedman]

You know, it's like, yeah, that, the instant reflex when you hear that is like, oh, it's this person's fault and they're stupid.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Exactly.

[Noah Friedman]

They're not like, oh, maybe there's more to this than I'm, I'm seeing.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

And you're taking advantage of this corporate like, you little old person in a drive through is taking advantage of McDonald's.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Who cares if you are, you know,

[Devin Joseph]

maybe spilling coffee on yourself shouldn't send you to the hospital?

[Noah Friedman]

Like, it's just.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah. I don't know why we feel bad for corporations in this country. Even if people are lying, even if they're frauds, you know, even if the whole thing's a scam. It's McDonald's. Like them losing $3 million changes absolutely nothing for anyone.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Besides the person whose life is going to change because they get 3 million

[Devin Joseph]

more dollars and you know, to underscore your point even further. Usually those are settlements.

[Noah Friedman]

Yes.

[Devin Joseph]

McDonald's, like 3 million. That's fucking nothing. Get your ass out of my office.

[Noah Friedman]

So hearing all that, the history and then kind of how they actually work, how do you guys feel about. Has this changed how you perceive personal injury lawyers?

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah, because I was under the impression, I mean, I, I've. I've always felt like they have, you know, legitimacy, but that.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah, the.

[Devin Joseph]

It's more about. What's changing is the. Their perception is like, I always thought, yeah, they're sleazy people who are trying to make a quick buck and they probably sometimes take advantage of, you know, people who have been hurt in real circumstances in order to make money. But learning so much more about the context of, you know, the traject trajectory of the personal injury lawyer across history, I have a little bit more respect for the, for the practice.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. I think, to me it's. It definitely changed how I perceive the whole field in its way. And I think a lot of it is the kind of sleaziness thing. It's basically an aesthetic issue where, like, these ads are.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

Corny. And it's more. It's like more silly than.

[Devin Joseph]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So it's like. But they're. They are ads. So, like, I could name a handful of these people people. So they work in that sense.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

It's kind of like this David versus Goliath thing. All right. Where. Yeah. We have this, you know, sleazy personal injury lawyer perception. And it's like.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Yeah.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Because the corporations want us to think that.

[Noah Friedman]

Sure.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

The advertising, like we said, is. Cannot really help themselves, but it's advertising.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. Like, what do you.

[Devin Joseph]

Because, like.

[Noah Friedman]

All right, if you, if there was a tasteful ad that was like a lot of text about this stuff, injury, you would not even. You wouldn't even notice it. You'd be like, oh, this must legally have to be here for some reason.

[Devin Joseph]

They have to become increasingly silly.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah.

[Devin Joseph]

To get your attention. Because they're competing with each other.

[Noah Friedman]

Yeah. And I, you know, maybe if. If we went through enough of them. I bet there's some that try to look a little classier or. There are. I know there are. I'm. I support them, all of them.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

I stand with them.

[Noah Friedman]

And the frauds, too.

[Devin Joseph]

Now, there's some downstream effects that affect, you know, someone like Devin, whose car insurance is being affected by this. Yeah. But just, you know, the, the original goal of the personal injury lawyer, I

[Noah Friedman]

think we, we like the honesty. The honest personal injury lawyer is a force for good. Yeah, because we do. There should be some more laws probably

[Devin Joseph]

about things, some more guardrails for sure.

[Noah Friedman]

But we don't. We don't do that here. Yeah, this is our best path.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Yeah.

[Noah Friedman]

So to wrap things up, I thought it was only right that I speak to a billboard lawyer myself.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Oh.

[Noah Friedman]

So after the break, I hop on the phone with John Morgan from Morgan and Morgan to hear about how he got his face to be literally everywhere and how he feels about being accused of fraud.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Foreign.

[Kal Penn]

It's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply, emotionally affected me, and I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to Irsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Noah Friedman]

So first, mind just introducing yourself and what you do.

[John Morgan]

I'm John Morgan, and I'm the founder of Morgan and Morgan, America's largest personal injury firm.

[Noah Friedman]

How did you get into personal injury law?

[John Morgan]

When I was a sophomore in college, my dad called me. He said, your brother Tim has been in an accident at Walt Disney World. He dove into the. The Polynesian Lagoon, and he is a quadriplegic. He can move nothing. It was and still is the single worst day in my family's life. And there began that part of our life. And it was a case that was against Walt Disney World, and he was trying to save a little girl's life. And in the process of litigation, Disney fought him from having any kind of good life, even though he was on the job. It turned out to be only a workers comp case. But in my mind, we hired the wrong lawyer who didn't do a lot of things that I learned later. We were getting this Disney who was punished until I felt. And we were poor people. And when you're powerless, hopeless, and helpless, it's a terrible feeling. I didn't know what a personal injury lawyer was, but through that whole process, I saw what a personal injury lawyer should be. And Tim's bad luck that day turned out to be my future.

[Noah Friedman]

So then, how big today? How big is the firm as we sit here today?

[John Morgan]

The firm has 7000 employees, and we have over 1100 lawyers.

[Noah Friedman]

How many cases a year does Morgan to Morgan handle? And then what's the vetting process like for cases?

[John Morgan]

We have over 4 million people try to hire us every year. For some something of the people who try to hire us, we probably initially only take 8% of the cases because for all sorts of reasons, that's the ones that qualify. Then we get that 8%, and then we even cull that down based on a lot of factors. So we probably keep about 6, 7% of all the intakes that come in. Last year, we referred out almost 30,000 cases to other law firms throughout America. And so. And those cases are our most profitable because our margins are like 85% on the cases we refer out.

[Noah Friedman]

Explain how that works then.

[John Morgan]

So you.

[Noah Friedman]

What's that. What's that model like?

[John Morgan]

The model's like this. Okay, we're not doing employment law in Illinois, but you are. Case comes in, sexual harassment. Case comes into Illinois. We don't do it.

[Noah Friedman]

But you do.

[John Morgan]

We refer to you. You pay us a referral fee for

[Noah Friedman]

the cases you do take on. What's the business model like there? It's contingency, right?

[John Morgan]

Or we've never charged anybody by the hour. It's, you know, if you don't win, you don't pay. And that business model is we get a case in, and we treat every case that we get in as if it's going to be litigated. We don't treat any case like we're going to settle this someday. We are assuming we're going to trial, and we try more personal injury cases than any other law firm in the country by a zillion miles. We are on 100 to 150 dockets a week trying cases. Three weeks ago over here, we got a $600 million verdict on one, and our trial teams have been our secret sauce. And when you have big results at trial, it protects all the cases behind it because they know, you know, some people come to a gunfight with a knife, and some people come to a gunfight with a gun. We come to a gunfight with an Uzi. And so that's how we fight back. If I look at why we're successful, because we're real trial lawyers. We're not lawyers who just. Just take the last best offer, which 95% of most PI lawyers in the country do. We're built differently.

[Noah Friedman]

What's your overall success rate?

[John Morgan]

Yeah, I mean, look, we lose K. We lose trials. And, you know, like Wayne Gretzky said it, if you never take a shot on goal, you're never going to make a goal. I would say we win in our litigation at some point. 85, 90% of our cases now, some of them, we settle along the way, but our success rate's very high. But we do lose. If you're not losing cases, you're not trying cases. If somebody tells you they're not losing, they're lying or they're not trying cases.

[Noah Friedman]

What do you think is the biggest misconception about personal injury loss?

[John Morgan]

First misconception is that, you know, we have all this money to take on cases that are frivolous. They use the word frivolous. I'll say two things about frivolous. First of all, it's frivolous until it's you, until you have been the victim, and then it's not so frivolous anymore. And the other thing that I will say about frivolous is this. I don't have the money or the resources to Be horsing around with bullshit frivolous cases. Go to for the people dot com, look at verdicts and settlements. Click it. Look at the offer before trial, look at the offer after trial, hundreds of those verdicts. And guess what? Those juries agree that I was right. And so these same juries, these same jurors, we trust to send people to the death, to prison, for life. We have the civil justice system, the criminal justice system, the best civil and criminal justice system in the world. And I trust juries. I don't trust insurance companies.

[Noah Friedman]

What's your overall kind of guiding principle or approach to marketing?

[John Morgan]

My overall approach is I want the public to know that I'm always going to be there for them, protecting America. I like my role and I like the role of David versus Goliath because my battles are against the Giants. But. But I have something else that they don't have. I usually have in my cases the truth. And the truth is this. Many, many people in America are injured or hurt through no fault of their own. And by the way, it's not intentionally, usually by the other party who did it. But what happened is something was taken from the them. Their health, their money, their job, their enjoyment of life, consortium with their spouse. I get to take that case and those people and try to give back to them as much as I can. I can't give it everything back. I can't make a quadriplegic unquadriplegic like my brother, but I can try to make their life as whole as I can by giving them back what was taken from them. And I love that job. It's righteous. They didn't do anything wrong. They went through an intersection and a truck hit them.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

They didn't do anything wrong.

[John Morgan]

And now they, now they're ruined. Why would anybody be opposed to somebody being represented for that?

[Noah Friedman]

In learning about kind of the history of tort law, tort is, I believe it's the Latin word for twisted or untwisting. So it's. You basically just said the same thing right here.

[John Morgan]

Exactly, exactly.

[Noah Friedman]

So how did you decide what your advertisements would look like? And then I want to see that. What's that? How's that evolved as you've expanded and now you're doing well?

[John Morgan]

In the early days, I don't even know why anybody was calling me. I look young. I'd go down.

[Noah Friedman]

Were you in the, Were you in the advertisements then or no?

[John Morgan]

Yeah, unfortunately, in the beginning I had somebody doing it for me because I never, I've never liked my face cuz I always feel like I got a fat face and I looked like Beaver Cleaver growing up and I never liked the way Beaver Cleaver looked either. And but I'd go do these ads with like a five o' clock shadow and no makeup and when I look back at those ads I'm like I can't believe anybody called this kid. And I started with a hundred thousand dollar budget and if it didn't work, I didn't have a I didn't have a plan B if it didn't work. But I was also out there. I lived and breathed in union halls. I'd go and drink with plumbers and pipe fitters and bricklayers and AFL CIO cwa. So I was doing that. But I was also advertising. So I was parallel paths, I was hustling, but I was advertising at the same time. And so I started started that first year with $100,000 budget and the budget this year will be 550 million.

[Noah Friedman]

You were quoting the story too about the MTA and billboard lawyers. What's your response to that sort of framing as far as billboard lawyers or ambulance chasers or this sort of thing?

[John Morgan]

Well, my response to that is this. When state farm, all state progressive farmers, every drug manufacturer in the world, every maker of every unsafe corporation car, when they stop advertising, I'll stop advertising. I find it interesting that these people who are in the business of deny, delay, defend, criticize me for advertising when they spend way more money. Geico spends a fortune. So it's interesting they want to talk about billboard Take their billboards down. Take your billboards down. Take your commercials down. Why do you want me not to tell the public the dangers that you are putting on the public? I know why you want me to take my billboards down. I know why you want me to take my commercials down. Because I'm telling the people the truth. You're telling the people a bunch of lies. It's called the First Amendment, baby. It's called the First Amendment.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

No no no no.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

No Such Thing.

[Noah Friedman]

No Such Thing is a production of Kaleidoscope Contest. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hatakedur. The show is created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman and Devin Joseph. Theme and credits Song by Manny Mixing by Pran Bandy Our guests this week are Jose Martinez, Nora Freeman Angstrom and John Morgan. You can buy John Morgan's memoir Life Is Luck wherever you get your books. Visit nosuchthing show to subscribe to our newsletter if you have feedback for us or a question. Our email is mannynoadevonmail.com or you can leave us a voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. Thanks and we'll be back next week. Bye.

[John Morgan]

I'm U.S. transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

[Devin Joseph]

We all get distracted when we drive,

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

whether it's from our phones or kids

[Devin Joseph]

in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of fact life or death.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your

[John Morgan]

phones on silent and take a mental

[Devin Joseph]

note to focus on driving.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Paid for by NHTSA

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[Kal Penn]

T Mobile has the best plan on the best network.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

Just ask Kevin Bacon.

[Noah Friedman]

Today, business happens virtually everywhere.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

That's why you need Super Mobile from T Mobile.

[Noah Friedman]

The Best plan on the Best Network Letting you run your business from your

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

phone like never before.

[Mangesh Hatakedur]

In moments of high demand, T Mobile's

[John Morgan]

network adapts to put your business connection first.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

Discover [e-mail] best business plan based on

[Noah Friedman]

combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features.

[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

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[Mangesh Hatakedur]

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[Nora Freeman Angstrom]

trademarks user license and reprinted with permission.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.