← Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
309. Joe Fried Reveals: The Truth About B2B vs B2C in Trucking Law (Replay)
00:22:19
The father of trucking litigation shares how total commitment to mastery built an entirely new field of law.
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- [00:03]
Chris Dreyer
In the competitive world of personal injury law, standing out from the crowd is everything. But how do you separate yourself from the path and become the expert in your field? Joe Fried has the answers. As one of the original pioneers of trucking litigation, Joe hardly needs an introduction. He co founded the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys and was a driving force behind establishing the board certification and truck accident law approved by the American Bar Association. But trucking didn't always have a commanding presence in personal injury law. In the early days, haters were everywhere with grit and determination. Joe stuck with it. His journey reveals how attorneys can tap into emerging areas through total commitment by mastering every facet and building a dedicated community of warriors. Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings IO, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want the rankings, trafficking cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. This is the story of how niching down and becoming the authority can lead to unprecedented success.
- [01:05]
Joe Fried
When I first started focusing on it, there wasn't a single billboard out there, there wasn't a single advertisement, There wasn't a single Google campaign that was focused on trucking. And when I would tell people I'm going to be a truck crash lawyer, they would laugh at me and say, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard of. Yeah, that's not going to work. But it has worked out and now it's of course it's probably one of the most sought after areas and it's like a very robust community of people who not only are looking for those cases, but who are truly becoming and have become subject matter experts in this area, which I'm so happy and proud to see. It's what is what my real goal was.
- [01:46]
Chris Dreyer
I kind of want to start with just getting the cases. I mean, I think of a few people, honestly when I think of trucking. And your name is always mentioned right in, in that from a peer referral, if an individual was going to try to originate their own cases. You know, you got weather right with 1-800-truck rack. You got Shannara with tons of billboards. You know, Mungee, I saw him on I24 all the way to I75 south, all the way to Miami from Illinois. You know, what do you think the best tactic you've seen for acquiring these cases? I mean, just big picture, like, what do you see that's working to get these commercial policies all Those people you.
- [02:23]
Joe Fried
Mentioned are all friends of mine who I personally helped try to build their trucking practices. So the way I break it down is where you got your catastrophic truck cases and then you've got your, what I'm going to call more run of the mill truck cases. We are dealing with, we're dealing with different, different worlds from a marketing perspective. In my view, if you are looking to get a volume of trucking cases so that you can have lots of broken bone cases, so lots of various levels of TBI cases, you're going to have lots of those kinds of things versus your death cases and your amputation cases and your very serious orthopedic, sort of life changing kind of, those kinds of, those kinds of injuries or very, very serious brain injury, you know, cases. From, from my perspective, I chose a long time ago to be a lawyer to lawyer marketer. And I, and I, I really view that as one path. The witherites and the munchies and Shannara and I've done cases with all of those types of firms, not all, but lots of those types of firms who spend that kind of money on that sort of consumer marketing. I don't do that. You have to first choose are you going to be a B2B kind of a marketing person? So are you going to market to the lawyers who are marketing or are you going to be a B2C? And if you're going to be a B2C, I would study those names that you brought up.
- [03:53]
Chris Dreyer
I think David Craig does a good job of that with his positioning in Miami. You got Amanda demanded, who's stopping a truck with the heel. You got Gordon.
- [04:03]
Joe Fried
I met her for the first time at NTL this, this year. She didn't know who I was and I didn't know who she was. But we now know each other.
- [04:09]
Chris Dreyer
You got Gordon McKernan, an individual standing on trucks. You got, you know, Adler yelling at trucks. You got Darrell Isaacs talking about trucking. And then you're on my podcast, we're here talking, you know, B2B. You got the peers listening. We're talking about trucking. I'm coming to you with your expertise. Is that what you see on the difference between the B2B to the B2C?
- [04:28]
Joe Fried
Yeah, it is. People say it takes so much money to do, you know, business to consumer lawyer to consumer marketing. You can, you're going to be competing with all these names that you've thrown out there and hundreds more, thousands more. And the amount of money that pours in is overwhelming. But then you look at me, I spent eight figures last year easily on referral checks. You know, to a lot of those kind of people who are spending their money marketing, I think that's the division point. I think you're either the kind of lawyer who is trying to get business indirectly, or you're the kind of lawyer who is trying to attract referrals from other lawyers. And then there's a lot of people who are hybrid who are trying to do some of both with, with, with varying degrees of success. Because I think one of the things that we need to recognize is the world's not really truly homogeneous here, right? I mean, I'm a national player and I've done cases in 40 some odd states and that's my life. Most lawyers don't do that. Most lawyers have a community that, that is sort of their local area that they're trying to stay within. That's where they live, that's where they do their business. That's what they want to attract business from. And by the way, we talked last time about when you niche down, one of the things that happens as you niche your practice down in terms of, in terms of practice area is you tend to have to let the geography grow because there's not as many of those kinds of cases. So that's a tendency. It's not always true, but that's a tendency. I'd still try to look for some edge that makes me different. Right. And also, if I'm really going to be a truck crash expert, I also, I want to do things regularly to demonstrate to the world that that's not just a marketing ploy, that that's, that's the real deal. Whether you're a lawyer to consumer or lawyer to lawyer. I still believe the, one of the best marketing things is go try a couple of cases because there's just no substitute for that. If you have a catastrophic case, give me a chance. It's a zero loss proposition to the, to the lawyer. There have been times when I found another million, there's been times when I found 150 million. I mean, I remember one time finding that, that the chassis, not even a trailer, but a chassis, just the frame that a container would get clipped onto to be taken down the road, that that chassis was part of an interchange agreement that had $150 million in additional coverage on. So a case that was catastrophic, that involved multiple fatalities and injuries, that was worth a lot, a lot of money in other hands. It would have been resolved for the $1 million policy and that would have been it.
- [07:14]
Chris Dreyer
So many people, when you hear trucking, they immediately think, you know, 18 Wheeler, you know, but now we have commercial vans with all the Amazon deliveries. We've got garbage trucks, RVs. Do you think there is an opportunity to drill down even further?
- [07:31]
Joe Fried
Of course the answer is yes. And you know, you're, you're, I'm smiling because I love the question. We used to draw PI as the world and say, well, we've niched down. We're PI lawyers, we're not generalists, we're just PI lawyers. And we would say we're specialists. And then you say, okay, well now I'm not just a PI lawyer, I'm a med mal. Well, now I'm not just a med mal lawyer, I'm actually just a birth trauma lawyer. And we get more and more and more specific. So of course the answer to that is true. In trucks you could become. And there are people right now, for instance, who have really spent a tremendous amount of time focusing on brokers. Okay, I believe that right now as you have what I'm calling the Amazonization of the world. Amazon is changing the trucking world. And not only the 18 wheeler trucking world, but those smaller commercial motor vehicles that were talked about, the vans, the delivery services and all of the logistics and how it all works. As we have new technologies emerge, you know, sort of specialty technologies having to do with monitoring drivers, with stopping vehicles from getting into collisions. As we have specialty electronic logging devices, as we have all of these new systems, new logistics systems, new ways of doing business, new relationships. Knew you could pick any one of those and you could become the authority on telematics, the authority on Amazon. And I promise you, if you were willing to have your geography be big enough, you could develop an amazingly successful practice. When I committed to be being a truck lawyer, I committed to knowing more about this industry than any other PI lawyer. You know, that that involved truck driving school. It involved really studying the regulations at a level that was very significant. I mean, 20, I'm 20 years into this and I still study every day everything that's coming out.
- [09:30]
Chris Dreyer
Let's face it, being a great lawyer isn't enough to succeed. You need to generate consistent leads. Personal injury is the most saturated niche, competition is fierce and differentiation is everything. When the deck is stacked against you, you need a comprehensive resource to beat the competition. My latest book, Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing is your roadmap to consistent leads and exponential growth. It is a masterclass on marketing for personal injury firms. It's packed with actionable strategies on where to invest your marketing dollars for maximum impact. No more guesswork, no more wasted ad spend. Just clear, proven methods to transform your firm from good to go. Grab your copy of Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing on Amazon. Link is in the show notes. And you know this, that piece there, it made me think of Naval Ravikant. He gives this example of like these individuals that spend tons of money to find this treasure in the ocean. But then once that those individuals identify, well, they have to get the expert scuba diver, right? The, the, the person that. This is the only person that can salvage that gold, right? So it's, it's a different type of luck and it's positioning yourself. There's just briefly before we turn over to some other litigation questions. You know, certain states, when I look at statistics, right on your website, you've got a accident statistics page and you've got incredible resources there. You see states like Texas, California and Florida, of course, right. I mean the population is significantly larger. What if you're in one of those low population states and you want to be the trucking? I guess your, your advice is like you just, you gotta widen out the, your, your geography and, and maybe it's just a component of your business and maybe not a specialty.
- [11:18]
Joe Fried
When I decided to become a truck crash lawyer, I never thought, and it never has been part of my goal to be a volume trucking lawyer. You can do really, really well for yourself with just a few of the right truck crash cases. So the reality of the world is there's very few places that don't have at least some truck crash cases that are serious every year. I wish it wasn't true, but it's true. So I think one of the things is to set a mentality of what does it mean to me? How am I going to define what it is that I'm going to be. Because if I live in Timbuk 3 and Timbuk Threes are relatively isolated community, but everybody knows me in Timbuk 3 and I already have credibility in Timbuk 3 and I still think it's a very worthwhile cause. If I go through the process of becoming an expert in truck crashes and be a part of the community of other lawyers around the country who are so that they know if they ever get a truck crash case. Here's the thing that happens. A truck crash case can happen in Timbuk 1 and the better venue for that might be Timbuk 3. So the other lawyers who handle truck crash cases still need to know about you in Timbuk3 so I think you do have to make a decision on what kind of lawyer you're going to be and when you're marketing. I know you talk a lot about brand and you talk a lot about planning and all these kind of things. One of the key things that has to happen, I believe, and I think you do too, that the more clarity you define yourself as, the more time you spend and really say, this is what I want my, my life to look like in terms of my practice mix and this is the environment that I'm going to work in. These are the kind of people I'm going to be around. The more time you spend really defining that with specificity, the more likely it is going to come through. I'm a huge believer in that. People think I'm weird when I say, but I've seen it over and over again, shut your eyes and say, I'm going to be. One year from now or six months from now, I'm going to have four truck crash cases, largely in my community, you know, da, da, da, da, da. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I think it happens. And I know that's weird for me to say it, but I've seen it happen over and over again to myself and to other people.
- [13:43]
Chris Dreyer
When we're talking trucking cases, let's start with like the evidence, you know, how do you approach like the investigation, preserving the evidence and just kind of those challenges that go into the case as compared to just your. Maybe you're in, you know, an auto.
- [13:59]
Joe Fried
You're saying, if I'm an auto wreck lawyer and a truck wreck comes in, what do I do?
- [14:04]
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the question. Simplified. Yeah.
- [14:07]
Joe Fried
Let's not pretend that all trucking cases are homogeneous. Right. Let's say there are some cases where my hope is you would look at it and say this is a catastrophic multi gazillion dollar case in the right hands. If there's coverage, if there's all these other things, if all the, if everything lines up, this is one I probably ought not do on my own. And I don't say that lightly. I'm not saying call me, but there's lots of great lawyers out there. I do think we should know where our limitations are. And if you're going to do that, then you don't want to be pennywise and pound foolish and wait too long to make that decision. Because people who know this area and who have the resources to spend, they're going to start spending a lot of money and utilizing resources right away to start to secure the evidence. And at a very sophisticated level. Okay, but let's say it's a case that you may be holding onto in house and you're not going to go and employ somebody else. Then I think that the key things in these cases, the first thing that's most important to do is get a spoliation letter out or a preservation of evidence letter out. You go my, my lawyer portal, if you could download one from there. The idea is to put everybody on notice, the trucking company or companies on notice, to preserve everything that can be preserved so that if they start playing games with the evidence, you at least have a letter saying I put you on notice not to destroy anything and you'll get it anyway. And in many states that gives rise to various kinds of sanctions. Right? Either a presumption or something along those lines. It also very quickly sends a message to the other side that you're not just the average bear, you kind of know what you're looking at. So then beyond that, you really want to have a plan. And actually we have, we have a couple of checklists on our portal for this purpose of things that you want to do and what, so you, you send the spoliation letter out and then you do start the investigative process. Because you got to understand that the trucking companies by default, they, they, they get notification of the wreck from the truck itself. Even if the driver doesn't call in, they know their truck's been in a wreck. And if it's a significant wreck where there's serious injuries, that starts a very well oiled machine at that point. Because they're in the, they're in the asset preservation business at that point. Right. And it's not necessarily about discovering the truth, it's about discovering how can they best protect themselves. So you have to counter that with your own plan that involves dealing with the vehicles, the scene and witnesses, and preserving and getting that evidence quickly. That's the biggest thing that needs to be done right away. And then of course, we could break that down and say in what ways and what things are you after looking for? At a case very recently, a year ago where a gentleman was hit in a crosswalk at 5 o'clock in the morning by a truck, run over, left for dead, basically the truck drives off and three law firms turn the case down because they can't figure out who the trucking company is and what happens. They just get a call saying this guy has catastrophic injuries. We got that case done by literally going Old school. We went down to the area, we drove the area. We found a business that looked like it had a camera that might be pointing in that general direction. It was about a third of a mile away from where it happened. But we figured, well maybe it picked up. It was 5:00 in the morning. There shouldn't be that much truck traffic. We begged, borrowed and pled. Got the video and sure enough there were only two trucks that went by. I sat there with another one of my guys and we literally hunted through logos of trucking companies and found a closest match that we could. Contacted the trucking company, confirmed that there had been a truck in that general area. This is now a week after the incident. We got them to stop that truck. Law enforcement six or seven states away went and met with that truck driver and found blood splatter on the wheel well. That case went from being one that could not be brought to one that was obviously they paid everything they had at the multimillion dollar twenty something million dollar result only because that's what the coverage was. But that's old school and sometimes that's what it takes. Takes a tenacity to just go after what you need to go after.
- [18:34]
Chris Dreyer
It sounds like you're countering a different level of speed. You said quickly, but they get notified immediately if it's a certain amount of collision. Right. The truck automatically gets notified before you may even get the case or the call is speed. Their main defense mechanism, like hey, let's get out in front of this. What's the common defense for a trucking case? They, they know they're at fault. They're, you know, what's, what's the common thing that you run up against that they try to use for defense because these are so large that they, they got the processes in playbook of here's how to limit our damages.
- [19:11]
Joe Fried
Some companies, the way they, they do it, what I think is the right way, they know they've got a problem, they try to reach out to the family early and they try to come in and, and, and do something that quote is the right thing to try to take care of the, the family members. You can say they're doing that altruistically or you can say they're doing that to save money. And depending on who it is, I tell you what my thought is on it. But then there are the companies that do start to play games. They'll start to digest themselves of, you know, the truck gets fixed very quickly. The truck, the truck is moved from the scene even though the company knows that it has telematics and that it has a black box. The way the black boxes on trucks work is there's. There's something called the last stop record. So when the truck stops, it takes us that the system takes a snapshot over, depending on what make, model, year the truck is. But let's just say for the last minute or so or two minutes or whatever, depending again on the truck manufacturer, it takes a snapshot of what the speeds were, what the braking was, and other information about the truck, and it's just a snapshot. But as soon as that truck starts to move and gets to, again, depending on who the company is, let's say by five miles an hour, moves five miles an hour, that last stop record disappears. It can never be retrieved. And then when it stops again, a new stop record happens. Okay, so. So imagine the gamesmanship that might be played even with somebody coming to the scene and telling an unsophisticated police officer, hey, would you like for me to move the truck off of the roadway here over onto the side?
- [20:54]
Chris Dreyer
Okay.
- [20:54]
Joe Fried
As soon as it moves, the last stop record's gone. And the police officer think police officers are trained. And, you know, I'm a former police officer. We're trained. We're not. We're not experts in trucks, and we're trained to clear the roadway as quickly as we can. So, yes, thank you for sending somebody who could move this vehicle off the. Off of here. I knew early on that if I truly wanted to affect highway safety, I wasn't going to be able to do it alone. There's just not enough of me to do that. So I needed to build an army of lawyers who knew how to handle these cases and who could bring the industry to a point where they could change their belief from safety is something we have to do because we're required to comply with rules to safety is truly good business. And we have to do that, unfortunately, one case at a time. But we've made a difference, and I'm joined by a lot of other people who are warriors in that movement.
- [21:52]
Chris Dreyer
For more information about Joe, check out the show notes before you go. Do me a solid and smash that follow button to subscribe. I'd sincerely appreciate it. And you won't want to miss out on the next episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings IO. All right, everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time I'm out.