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Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
311. Auto Product Liability: The Blue Ocean of Personal Injury w/ Julian Gomez
00:19:51
How Spotting Hidden Product Defects Can Transform Your Catastrophic Injury Practice
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- [00:04]
A
In almost every catastrophic accident, there's a product liability case hiding in plain sight. Julian Gobez built a national practice by seeing what other PI firms miss. I'm Chris Schreier, founder and CEO of Rankings IO, the SEO agency of choice for personal injury law firms. Julian learned that spotting opportunity is only half the equation. The other half is knowing exactly which opportunities to pursue. In this episode of Personal Injury Mastermind, Julian Julian reveals how he dominates auto product liability nationwide and why mastering a niche can be more valuable than casting a wide net.
- [00:36]
B
Case selection is beyond important. 45,000 people, give or take, die in cars a year. Another four point some odd million are seriously injured. There's not that many lawsuits out there. Right. And so I know cases are falling through the cracks and they are, but there's also probably a lot of cases that we're filing or we're litigating and we're not able to get top dollar for because we didn't do as good a job in case selection. If we had put those aside, then we probably would be doing a better job for the ones that we're taking.
- [01:12]
A
Yeah. So let me lean into that because, you know, even though I look, I'm the SEO nerd, we work with over a hundred PI attorneys, but like this, this is a unique area, but most of the time it's just straight car accident lawyer, truck accident lawyer. You run a catastrophic injury practice. Tell me about this area law.
- [01:32]
B
We do a very tiny amount of personal injury law like everybody else, car wrecks, that type of stuff. And then we've got two areas of the law that, that I work on, which would be commercial motor vehicle stuff. And then we've got like all others, which is medical malpractice that comes in and that all just gets referred out to somebody that's better at it than I am. But the bulk of what we do is auto products. And that would be like a tire that the tread comes off a roof that crushes in on a vehicle. That's a crashworthiness, that's a seatbelt that doesn't work. The seat backs in cars fail all the time. This morning, Right. A firm out of Ohio gave me a call that they had a flat front garbage truck that was in a head on collision. And because of the design, there's no space for crush. That's a defect. The new defects right now are what I call automatic crash mitigation failures. That's a car that has automatic emergency braking that doesn't work and it smacks into something in front of It. It leaves its lane of travel. There's no way to quantify it for certain, but I bet I've looked at probably over 2,000 police reports in my kind of my career that are catastrophically involved. Rarely, if ever, can I think of a case where a product defect did not in some way contribute to either the injury or the wreck or both.
- [02:58]
A
It's kind of blue ocean, Right. You got this unique expertise versus, you know, the car. Everybody wants the 18 wheeler, you know, catastrophic. Secure the vehicle, you know, get the, you know, get the big case. But this is kind of unique. It keeps you on your toes, like in terms of your expertise. And this is the consumer here talking. Right. So driving a, you know, a new car and you get those. Those recalls. Right. Is that the consumer's responsibility? The manufacturers, a lot of times, they know they have these issues. And that's what you're leaning into.
- [03:29]
B
Sure. So you do not have to have a recall for there to be a defect. And sometimes we use the same word to mean different things. So in the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, Right. There is. Or at nhtsa, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they use the term defect, but that's not the same as defect in the law. So we've got design defects. That's the actual design of the product is defective. You have a manufacturing defect that. That's the product is not manufactured to spec, which creates a problem. And then you have, like a marketing defect where the design is made, the product is manufactured to spec, but it doesn't warn of the dangers. Right. So like a tire. Right. This is one of the ones, tires essentially, that are six years old or older, regardless of the amount of tread should be taken off of a vehicle. Right. Like a spare. Right. I've had cases. They take a spare, it's full of tread, they put it on the vehicle, and a day or two later the tread comes off and something happens. But you look at your tire, it's not on there. That warning isn't there. And so whatever that defect is, that's what you're looking for, doesn't require the government telling you that there's a defect.
- [04:51]
A
How do you get access to some of these cases? Are they coming from peer referrals that just don't try these types of cases? Like, talk to me about how you're doing business development.
- [05:01]
B
Absolutely. Today I had a phone call from a guy who used to work with my dad in surgery that was in a car wreck. Right. So I pick up the telephone and I speak to him. I have I don't know, 10, maybe 15 of those cases a year. And those self generate from people who know me. I'm on Google Maps. I cannot figure out how to get the LSAs to work for me. I've tried pay per click. I haven't given up, have not given up. But the direct to consumer work for me, like I haven't been able to master it. I would love to. Right. It would almost be like passive income, like having apartments or having a commercial real estate that pays you monthly. Like I would love to figure out how to do that. What I do know how to do well is what I call relationship marketing. I am a good friend and I have, I think a lot of friends and I, and I don't throw that word around lightly. My friends are old and I'm, I'm very proud of that. And so through my friends I get a lot of stuff and then I give away probably an hour a day speaking to somebody who has a question about how to do something. And so if you call me, I mean I get to you that day, but I will get to you within a day or two and I will give you the time with no expectation of you sending the case to me. And I'll brainstorm with you, I'll talk with you about your case. What I see is the problem or the potential of your case. And then I guess how do people then know to give me a call? 1. Very early on they wrote an ABA article about that first case that I did because I created a circuit split that went that they thought was going to go to the US Supreme Court, which didn't. But in speaking, you know who Ben Glass is?
- [07:00]
A
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [07:01]
B
Okay. So just like probably a bunch of folks. I did Ben Glass's deal. Very good friend of mine named Brian Beckham in Houston. He's one of my college buddies. He's a great maritime lawyer. Brian is like, you got to do Ben Glass. So I go do Ben Glass. And Ben's like, you got to figure out what's your deal. So I was like, you know what, I can make this kind of simplified. And I created that catastrophic car wreck decision tree. And so if I speak right, you get that decision tree. And so it's big. It's eight and a half by 11. It's laminated. So you just can't like fold it up and put it in your thing. It sits on somebody's desk and it just works. I don't know how else to explain it. Like I've got an abundance mentality and there's enough for me. I help my friends out, my friends help out me. There's plenty of work for everybody. Unfortunately, you know, like, I'm, like, I would wish there was nobody got hurt, but there's plenty of work and I'll just help.
- [08:06]
A
Yeah, that, that's the, the perfect go giver mentality. The, the artifact, the laminates. I think you're doing it right. I think the networking's amazing. You share an unexpected similarity with Jeff Bezos. You both grew up in South Texas ranches and you both got at that time with, you know, was sitting on a rock solid path, you know, so, so what lessons did you learn in life about business while on the ranch?
- [08:30]
B
One for sure is you gotta learn how to fail or fall and get back up, right? I don't care how good a cowboy you are, you are going to fall. And you gotta teach yourself, condition yourself to get back up. You've gotta be able to do everything yourself. And from filing documents to drafting documents, arguing in court, the sales, the marketing, you gotta be able to do it all. My most prized possession is I have an audio recording of my paternal grandparents talking about their life. And my grandmother is on there saying that if you just work hard, everything will take care of itself. And I think she's right.
- [09:08]
A
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 before law. You're on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. So what made you pivot? What made you choose a career in law?
- [09:58]
B
I lost a bet to my father. My great grandfather was a big wheel in South Texas. He ran the Alice national bank, which was the banker for Mifflin Kennedy. When the depression hit, my great grandfather had to bring my grandfather back from the University of Texas. He was going to be a doctor. And because of that, my grandfather, my dad wouldn't admit it, but my grandfather probably had some influence on my dad becoming a surgeon. And my dad, I'M trading cattle up in Chicago. Never gave up on me. And he says, I will make you a bet. If you go to your boss, they will give you a sabbatical to go to law school. And I said, if you will leave me alone, I will go ask my boss if I can have a three year sabbatical to go to law school. I was like, hey, Tom, I want to know if I could have a three year sabbatical to go to law school. And he was like, yeah. I was like, whoa, whoa. I don't think you understood what I said. I'm going to be gone for three years. There's no way you will survive without me, you know? And he was like, no go. We'd love to have you. Your job is safe here. And I was like, I got some bad news. I gave my dad my word, so I'm going to law school. And I never went back.
- [11:15]
A
Even how you started your firm is different. And so we got to talk about this story. I mean, you started out of the gate, you had a double fatality auto product case. You know, it's a massive undertaking for a new firm. Tell me the story of that and how it impacted the firm.
- [11:30]
B
So in law school, and this bounces around. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. So in law school, I worked with this guy, and right after my first clerkship, I'm working for Fred Barron and Lisa Blue in Dallas. He calls me up and he's like, hey, I have this rollover in D tread. Do you think you can do it? And I was like, hold that case for a year. I'm gonna work for the federal judge that is trying the first Ford Explorer Firestone case in the country. And I taught myself how to do auto products by taking that case apart, and then hung a shingle with that first case. As soon as that finished, I went to Jerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College. You're supposed to not be accepted until you've tried a couple of cases. I write him this letter. I have this case. Please let me come. He lets me come. And I just didn't know any better. I didn't know that I couldn't do it. So we did.
- [12:30]
A
You took this case and you basically turned it into a national practice. You know, was. Was that the vision for a national practice? Always there. Tell me how this case kind of created what's turned to the practice today.
- [12:44]
B
So I had a job with Fred Barron, and I don't know if you know who Fred Barron is. Baron Bunn was the name of the Law firm. He was president of atla, which is now aaj. Back then his wife was Lisa Blue, who's a ninja. But Fred really developed asbestos litigation. And I did fairly well in mock trial in law school. And Fred kind of plucked me out, gave me a job. At that time, another friend talked to me and he's like, what are your long term plans? I was like, well, I'm going to work for this guy, I'm going to put some money away and then I'm going to start my shop. And my friend very astutely said, don't do that. You're going to start making money, you're going to spend more money. You're never going to be able to leave that shop. You're used to living right now on little to no money. Continue doing that and then it'll work. And so I didn't have an office. I worked out of my apartment. I found a guy to finance the case for me. And I didn't know better. Like I ended up, the case was dismissed. I had to go to the 5th Circuit and get it reversed. But thankfully I had clerked at the fifth Circuit. And so I was very comfortable going and doing the appellate argument. And by grace, it worked out.
- [13:59]
A
You've also had some challenges with some practice area closures. You know, so was there a particular practice area that you were leaning into? And it closed and you had to change. What was that? Did the product, did they actually improve the safety? Was it related around that area or a different area?
- [14:14]
B
So that first Firestone Ford Explorer case, what very few people know, is that that rollover happened in Mexico. And so the form non convenes and choice of law at the time allowed you to litigate that case in the United States because the conduct you complained of, the manufacturing, the design of that product occurred in the United States. Ten, 12 years into my practice, from let's say zero to that time, I almost had a monopoly on these cases. And I was litigating them in Delaware, a case that I had rejected. Another law firm took it and made some bad law out there. And it just completely shut what I would call foreign sitis litigation down. There's still a few cases that'll snake through it, like aviation law, but it just closed and I had to pivot from foreign situs auto products to U.S. citus Auto Products. And that's the vast majority of what we do now.
- [15:18]
A
Have you ever thought about, you know, you know, getting on the product side on maybe like not the auto unlike, maybe the burn side, like you Know the fire alarms and stuff like that. At least that's what comes to mind. I think of these big subrogation cases.
- [15:31]
B
Like I've got pressure cooker cases, I've got a blender, I've had gas heaters that have exploded. Those are ones that are like the last year that I'm thinking of. So we absolutely have non auto product cases. I've had a scaffolding case basically for products. We are called when negligence lawyers either have limited funds or no funds, right? So it's a single person that is injured. Workman's cop is involved, right? And they're like, how do we get this family full justice? Right? You leave negligence and you come to product liability.
- [16:15]
A
Not only have you built this catastrophic practice, you're also doing it never missing a family event. Still getting out on the slopes, I think 20 plus days a year. What systems do you have that make this possible? How can you help the attorneys listening improve? Better work life integration.
- [16:34]
B
So I think work life balance, it's complete and utter. I don't know how real I can be, but it's bullshit, right? So you have work life when you choose to do it. And so something has to give in each moment. And I was fortunate enough that this type of law had a lot of risk, it had a lot of time involved, but it also had downtime. I could take my kid to school, right? I never missed a doctor's appointment. The laptop. And this is probably the most valuable thing I've got. I could work in the car, I could work while my daughter was at dance. I was allowed to coach soccer because I could schedule being an entrepreneur for myself. Okay, I'm gonna work till 1:00 tonight so that I can be off from 2:30 to 5:30. And that was just kind of a choice that I made, right? There's no hacks really in life. You parse down as like, you know, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. One of the things that I think I changed as I've gotten older. I used to want it all. And I've learned that I don't need to have it all, I just need to have enough. I'm 51. I probably didn't learn that until I was like 45. I don't have a jet, but I'm really rich. Because what I mean by that is that I love my parents. I'm coming over to the house for dinner tonight. I love my kids, my kids love me, I get to vacation with them. I got a great wife, I'm healthy. And in that way, I've been very, very, very fortunate in doing that. I only look at email once a day or I try to you become Pavlonian's dog. Just ding and you stop what you're doing. I calendar everything. Time is our most precious commodity. And so if you get my time, I really care about you. I limit the stuff I work on. And so there's a saying in Spanish, mucha abarcapo quaprieta, which is if you put your arms around too much, you can't tighten down on anything. Like imagine a bunch of logs, right? You can't hold on to them because there's too much and they'll fall out. But if you just have enough, you can bring them home and have a fire at the house.
- [19:00]
A
Julian's story is the perfect example of what happens when you become the goat of your niche. He transformed from a ranch kid making a bet with his father to one of the nation's leading experts in the field, not by chasing every case, but by deeply understanding which ones matter. His method is surprisingly simple. Be the best at one thing, really share your knowledge and let your expertise create opportunities. In a world where most PI firms are fighting over the same cases, Julian found his blue ocean. The question is, what's yours? For more strategies on owning your niche on the national level, visit Rankings IO or grab a copy of my book, Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing From Good to Goat. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris dreier, founder and CEO of Rankings IO.