← Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
335. 10K Clients in 10 Years: How to Align Legal Marketing, Tech, and Vision w/ Josh Schmerling
00:30:59
How Josh Schmerling Turned a Bottleneck into an AI Breakthrough—and Built a Blueprint for Growth
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- [00:00]
Kinsey
Hey there, future VIP. I'm Kinsey, your on site concierge for PEMCON. The Personal Injury Master Rhyme Conference, October 5th through the 8th. When you go VIP at PEMCON, you're getting the full experience. Luxury accommodations included at the five star Phoenician resort. $250 in resort credit for the spa, golf course, or wherever your mood takes you, a private VIP dinner and exclusive access to the biggest names in personal injury. Grab your VIP tickets while you still can at pemcon. That's P I M C O n dot O r G. See you this fall in Scottsdale.
- [00:39]
Josh Smerling
One day I woke up and I just said this. This isn't enough. This is one life I have. Are there more people that we can help and be a greater influence in our community? And our vision now is to help 10,000 injured people over the next 10 years.
- [00:49]
Chris Dreyer
Josh Smerling, partner at Zirkin and Smearling Law, is the kind of leader that can make big dreams a reality. Resourceful, proactive, innovative. This is Personal Injury Mastermind. Let's get into it.
- [01:01]
Josh Smerling
The biggest issue for my office in terms of growth was how to deal with all the medical records.
- [01:06]
Chris Dreyer
Josh took control. He identified the choke point and built a custom solution.
- [01:10]
Josh Smerling
Law firm has helped with that a ton in terms of just dealing with the medical records, writing demand letters about medical treatment, which is why I created in this episode.
- [01:18]
Chris Dreyer
You'll learn how to spot bottlenecks that can hold your firm back and how to think bigger and build smarter so you can scale your practice without sacrificing quality. This is Personal Injury Mastermind. Let's get into. Josh, welcome to the show.
- [01:32]
Josh Smerling
Thanks for having me, Chris. Really appreciate it.
- [01:34]
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I'm excited to dig in. I love starting out with the good stuff. You've been a partner for over a decade. You know, give me some of the wins, some of the past highlights.
- [01:41]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, so it's two things that I do really. I have the law firms are controlling law. We're based in Baltimore, handle exclusively personal injury and workers comp. And then also I Co founded LawPro AI, which is a tech startup in the AI space where we take medical records, create case chronologies, summaries, demand letters. Anything you want to know about the medical records is really what we focus on. So. So I'm handling both right now. Mostly focused on Law Pro AI, which is the AI startup. But we're having huge wins in both from the law firm perspective. We're signing up more clients every month right now than we ever have before. And the law firm is growing faster than ever has before. We have a great team of people and we, as we have grown, we've been able to increase our team and have people that have been with us for a long time move up. And then with Law Pro I, we are in most states throughout the country at this point, working with some of the biggest personal injury law firms in the country. And then of course, work with some, you know, smaller mom and pop shops, you know, one, two, three person firms, and just having great experience with all of our customers and, and continue to grow there. So two really great things happening at the same time, which is taking up a lot of my time nowadays.
- [02:43]
Chris Dreyer
That's amazing. Yeah. And I want to dig into both. So, you know, let's start with the firm. I mean, you said more cases than ever. You got a huge docket. I think you got, I think in our, our research, at least 1300 plus cases. Give me like a picture of the firm, team size, touch more on the caseload, just whatever you feel comfortable sharing.
- [03:03]
Josh Smerling
We've been around since about 2007, 2008, and about three years ago, I made the decision that I really want us to grow faster. Things have been going great and I was happy, but it was time to just really take off. And we put a lot more resources into marketing, into sales, into hiring, and it's just been like a wildfire since that. Our biggest problem right now is we're out of space. So I moved into an office space that I thought was me. Plenty enough space for us, and we're out. We have about 35 team members, roughly. We're trying to hire five more right now and just continue to grow, grow the business. We're bringing in about three times as many cases now than we were last year at this time. And so it's running on all cylinders. But when you're running that fast, you know, small things come up, fires you got to put out. But it's a fun challenge every day and it's been really exciting. So that's just from the law firm perspective.
- [03:50]
Chris Dreyer
So what was that mindset? What was the shift that you're like, hey, I really want to grow now? Like, was it you felt the confidence you had, like, the infrastructure, like, like, what was that trigger?
- [03:59]
Josh Smerling
I think beforehand I was just, I was just happy with where we were. And I was like, yeah, this is, this is what my law firm is going to be, and it's all good and we're doing well, we're helping people, but, you know, really came down to can we help a lot more people? And I woke up one day and I said, you know, this is one life I have, and, and I'm doing well right now, and I'm happy. But are there more people that we can help and be a greater influence in our community? And we actually changed our vision just recently, and our vision now is to help 10,000 injured people, whether workers or people injured through negligence over the next 10 years in our community. And so that's our vision. Right now we're on pace to hit that and exceed it, and then we'll increase our vision from there. But, you know, one day I woke up and I just said, this isn't enough. We need to be bigger presence in our community. We need to be helping more people.
- [04:42]
Chris Dreyer
That's incredible. And that's, you know, you help more people, you provide more value, you're going to sign more cases, and on and on and on. Reputation. When you say community, are you referring to the state of Maryland? Like. Like, how do you define community?
- [04:53]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, the whole state of Maryland. We're present the whole state of Maryland, but we also focus in, specifically in the Baltimore, Baltimore County, Baltimore City region. My law partner is a former state senator from Baltimore County. So we've been very active in the community for over 20 years at this point, going to rallies, going to parades, giving out shirts, July 4th parades, all. We've been all over the place for years at this point. And just now being able to help in another way besides just passing legislation and public policy, be able to help people that have been injured in some way is. Has been really gratifying.
- [05:22]
Chris Dreyer
That's incredible. So, you know, with that vision and you start putting the foot on the gas, like, what were some of the things you did to grow your caseload grew? I mean, what marketing strategies, how you approach a community. Let's dig into that a little bit.
- [05:33]
Josh Smerling
Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things that helped us grow a ton, which is one of the reasons I co founded Law Pro, was Law Pro. You know, LawPro has the biggest issue for my office in terms of growth, was how to deal with all the medical records. So as we continue to grow, we had more and more medical records coming in because we had more and more cases coming in. And it would always be an issue in terms of how fast can we read the records to understand what the positive and negative value drivers are, and then how long is it going to take us to do that and then write the demand. And it was just slowing down the whole process. And I had My best people in my office, my top, top paralegals reading medical records all day. And I knew that there was a better way for them to handle our office, to help with our office than just sitting and reading medical records. So we created, I co founded Law Pro I about two years ago, a little bit less than two years ago. We went to market about a year ago and that has taken my top people, my top staff and instead of them having to read medical records all day long, they're now able to. One of them is my director of operations now and she's helping move the whole office. So instead of her reading medical records, she's hiring, she's making sure company culture is going well. She's taking on some of my biggest cases as a paralegal. She's doing a whole, whole plethora of things that. So LawPress helped with that a ton in terms of just dealing with the medical records, writing demand follow up letters about medical treatment. Which is why I create it where I think we're one, if not the only one in this category of AI that really is shaped and co founded by a practicing lawyer who has a practicing personal injury law firm. And that has been really, really helpful in terms of helping our growth. And then it's just been, you know, marketing, sales intake team, just making sure that we understand all the different steps we need to take. Having more processes and procedures. You know, when you start as a law firm, you're just trying to get as many cases you can and make sure to keep on the lights. And then as you get bigger, it's really more about process, procedure. The cases are going to come in and they start coming in easier and easier as you grow. That's what I found. But then you got to find a way to deal with them and to help your clients and make sure you're not missing things you can't. From my perspective, you can't have the work go down the level of work. Your clients have been in a really horrible, whether it's a car accident, we're the leaders in Maryland on dog bite cases. I have affected and pushed out law through appeal that have helped victims of dog bites twice now. You can't let your level of work slip because you're taking on more cases. And so LawPro AI is helpful with that and everything we're doing internally as a law firm is helpful with that.
- [07:49]
Chris Dreyer
That's fantastic. Before I move to Law Pro AI and cause I want a whole, I want to really go into the details on there. I want a few Things you said. So you moved intake, I think in house, some of the marketing and the dog bite practice area. So I guess let's start with the, the dog bite practice area. I'm not a lawyer, so forgive my ignorance on here, but like some states have, I believe this one bite law, where it's kind of like, oh, you know, no big deal, your dog bit somebody, you know, like, I don't know how the law exactly works, but, you know, how did you find it kind of drive into this niche of PI for dog bites? Speak to me a little bit about it.
- [08:27]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, sure. So when we first started our law firm, out of the first 10 cases I had randomly, two of them were dog bites. And usually victims of a dog bite a lot of times can be a child, which is a sensitive topic for me just because I have three young boys myself. And you know, seeing a young boy or young girl viciously attacked by a dog, it's heart wrenching. And two of my first 10 cases I ever handled were dog bite cases. And I realized at that point that was an area I really wanted to focus on. And I did. And then it happened to be at the same time the dog bite law in Maryland was changing and getting very complex. It used to be the one free bite rule, which is what you were referencing, and that's what I learned in law school. But then it changed. There was an appellate case in Maryland that changed the law. Then the legislature came in, changed the law again. And that law didn't have a lot of definitions, it wasn't fully defined. And so then, since then, I've taken some cases on appeal and helped further expand the law for victims. And so it's an area that we have really worked up very hard to become the dog bite people in Maryland now. And we get cases referred to us by a lot of our competition because they know that we really understand the law the best and we handle it the best. And to me, those cases, that's mostly what I handle nowadays, personally, those cases are extremely gratifying, you know, helping to make sure that, you know, I just finished a six year old's case recently and now they're going to be putting that money into an annuity that's going to pay for her college and she'll have money left over as well, so her college is taken care of now. She went through a horrific incident, but she's fine now and she'll get through college and she'll have some money on top of that.
- [09:55]
Chris Dreyer
So you get these scenarios where maybe you have A landlord, you know, and the tenant has a dog, maybe the landlord doesn't even know that the tenant. Maybe technically they're not supposed to have a pet and it bites, you know, someone, an individual. I hear about those types of cases a lot. I don't know what percentage that makes up, but like in that type of scenario, which from my understanding is a common scenario, like how do you approach something like that? And maybe this is, you know, basic from a. If the lawyer's listening, like, okay, come on, Chris. But, but I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
- [10:29]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, no, those are complicated. I think those are complicated cases. We deal with them every day. And because a lot of times the renter doesn't have renters insurance.
- [10:36]
Chris Dreyer
Right.
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Josh Smerling
And usually they don't have access to grafter. So you have to figure out a way. Is there a way for me to get after the landlord, whether it's an apartment complex or just an individual landlord? Because they do usually have insurance. And there are lots of ways that we do that to try to prove that they knew or should have known about the dog's existence. Also that the dog had a vicious propensity, also that they could do something to have the, to force the tenant out. So in Maryland, those are the different things we need to prove. And there are different ways we go about that. You know, whether there's. We have pictures of a doghouse outside or a sign that says no trespassing dog. I have experts that will come in and testify about how a landlord should be going to the property every quarter to be checking on the property. And if they're not, they're not following the standard of care as a landlord. And so there's different ways to go after that argument. That's just one of them. But there's a lot of other ways we go after that depending on the facts that we have.
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Chris Dreyer
Got it, got it.
- [11:24]
Kinsey
Perfect.
- [11:25]
Chris Dreyer
Thank you for that explanation. And then let's talk about marketing and sales first. Marketing. Look, it's fragmented. There's TV, there's streaming, there's search, there's AI, there's, you know, Meta and TikTok. And like it's so fragmented. It's more fragmented to me than ever. How are you approaching advertising?
- [11:43]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, so the way I'm looking at it is I don't want to get into the radio or tv. Everyone's getting into radio and TV right now. It's a huge amount of ad spend. So that's not an area that we wanted to get into right now. But what we did Want to focus in on was, was how we could, you know, really increase our volume and make sure people are aware of us without getting into that. And so that leaves us with really, you know, social. It leaves us with online SEO, pay per click, lsa, all those things. So we have really taken a deep dive into all those areas and those are areas that we'll continue trying to dive into. Because I think for us, that's a good spot for us.
- [12:17]
Chris Dreyer
Perfect, Perfect. I love that. Yeah. And pretty much across the board, you know, the cost of acquired cases going up, I, I think, you know, PE is kind of circled. They were on the torch, now they're moving more in a single event space and it's coming in different directions. Consolidation. Some firms are doing some rollups and it's just driving the case costs up, not to mention channel movement. And that just, that's just part of the game. So on the sales side, you brought intake in house.
- [12:41]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, so we've intake in house. I actually just made a hire from somebody that she's starting with us in July. I'm really excited about it. She was at a publicly traded company and helped run sales for them. And she has a ton of training. She was there 15 years. No legal background. But I'm going to have her help kind of run and lead our intake team just from a sales and she's going to help some marketing as well and client journey stuff. But really excited to have her on board because that's the first touch point really for a potential client. And if you're not doing well there, you're missing out. So that's a big thing for us. I think the other big thing you mentioned PE and I think that's a great point. I think at this point law firms either have to make a decision, you're gonna grow and grow with the technology and use the technology to help you grow, or you're not gonna be around at some point. These PE groups have endless money and endless resources and if you stay stagnant, you might not be here.
- [13:29]
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I love that, you know, part of your growth, you touched on the incremental gains like, hey, we're doing more marketing. We do, we're now we're doing the sales. So you're, you know, maybe your wanted case conversions were, you know, below 90s and now you're gonna push em to the 90s plus and have the data to make those decisions. And then hey now from a capacities perspective and getting more utilization on our profit margin side to be able to facilitate more marketing. Hey, I've got Law Pro AI, right? So your guys can do a lot more work, you guys and gals. So let's jump over to that. So Law Pro, I tell me about the company, give me the big picture, then we'll get granular on a lot of it.
- [14:07]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, sure. So my co founder and the CEO of the company is my brother. My brother worked at Salesforce for a while doing sales and he called me one day and there was a legal tech company trying to bring him over to be head of sales for them. And I told him I thought it was not a particularly good idea. It turns out that company went out of business a couple months later. So I made the right call for my brother on that one. But I said, hey, right now my law firm's trying to grow, but these medical records are just crushing us. I'd love to have something in here that could help us with that. And so he said, let me think about it. Called me back, said, hey, I'm quitting my job, let's do it. So we raised some money, we hired some people, we have a great team there and we've just been building since then. So basically, you know, a law firm like myself, you can take all of your medical records, upload it to our system and we're fully AI and engineering based, no humans on the back end. So if you upload a thousand pages, you'll have, you know the case summary, you'll have the medical chronology, we structure the data so you have all the different event types, you know, whether it's a red flag or pre existing condition or a diagnosis or surgery and imaging. We pull out all this stuff automatically using AI.
- [15:05]
Scott
EvenUp is excited to announce AI Drafts, the only drafting suite on the market with AI built on the industry's largest and fastest growing personal injury data set, giving you unmatched accuracy and speed when drafting any high quality document. Built on hundreds of thousands of personal injury cases, AI Drafts aligns with real world outcomes, not just templated legal language. It learns from your reviews and firm wide preferences. Every document reflects your tone, structure and legal strategy no matter who's drafting. With even up, you're drafting to win. Learn more today@evenuplaw.com that's even uplaw.com you can have the best marketing, the best case results, but if your revenue engine is broken, your firm won't scale. That's the gap most law firm owners miss under oath. Powered by Rankings IO is the podcast.
- [15:52]
Chris Dreyer
To bridge the gap Zach Cole and.
- [15:54]
Scott
Scott, go deep into how high performing revenue teams win big. Quarter over quarter, week over week, and sale over sale. From intake to hiring leadership to tech.
- [16:04]
Chris Dreyer
It'S sharp, practical, and built for people.
- [16:07]
Scott
Who want to grow on purpose. Search under oath, revenue and practice and hit subscribe.
- [16:12]
Josh Smerling
And we're doing it within a thousand pages, 30 to 45 minutes. And so you can really understand your case very fast and then use that information to help negotiate with it with an adjuster insurance company. A lot of the times, whether you're in trial or negotiations, the person that knows the case better usually has the better result. And so that can be true at negotiations. It can also be true with trial. And so it's just been super helpful for us as a law firm and we've been helping a lot of other law firms throughout the country.
- [16:36]
Chris Dreyer
I was listening when I heard the value prop earlier. So you said, hey, we're one of the only tools that have. This is built and designed by a personal injury attorney. Like I practice. So, you know, I'm actually able to implement and see the adjustments because I practice law. So from that purview, there's other, obviously you have competitors in the space. There's, there's a lot of emerging competitors. Like, where does that advantage come in? Like, can you give me some examples on the, on the design of the, of the tool?
- [17:01]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, of course. So where our advantage comes in, we have a number of different advantages, but one of them is that we can really understand the nitty gritty of a personal injury case. Right? Like everyone. Now, everyone, a buzzword is demand letters, right? I think, I think three, four years ago, nobody outside the legal industry knew what a demand letter was. And everybody is pushing demand letters. And demand letters is just one small aspect. And frankly, some law firms care about their demand letters and some don't. You know, if you're a litigation firm, my firm does a lot of litigation. We don't care about the demand letter. It doesn't matter for us. The insurance company is going to give us fair value or they're not. And if they don't, we file a lawsuit the next day. It doesn't matter to us what they think the case is worth. We know what the case is worth and we're going to get it for our clients. But some law firms don't like being in court, don't like being litigation heavy. They put a lot of work into the mail letters. So if you do okay, you can use Law Pro. There's other, there's other systems out there also, obviously but one of the things that we do better than everybody else is being able to really pull out the important data and do it quickly and efficiently without having to wait a week or three days to get that back. And the way that we structure it so that way you don't have to be reliant on prompting to find the information you're looking for. You can easily take the structured data and just click different buttons to pull out exactly what it is that you're looking for. So you can see any format that you want. So for example, if you want to see everything in chronological order based on the medical provider, you can do that with one click of a button. If you want to see everything in chronological order based on event type. So you have all your surgeries right next to each other, you have all your imaging right next to each other, you can do that with one click of a button. So we've really made this very structured data, which also allows us, you know, for the bigger firms or firms that want to sign longer term contracts, we can actually specifically for that firm, pull out things that they're looking for. So if there's something that a firm specifically wants to see in every single case, we can tailor that specifically to that firm because of how we've structured.
- [18:45]
Chris Dreyer
The definitions in the AI space are, you know, you've got all the different LLMs, you know, OpenAI and ChatGPT and Claude and Deep SEQ and on and on and on, Gemini, et cetera. And then you got your agents, your main us and stuff like that. So is it an overlay powered primarily through a chatgpt or an anthropic, you know, like what gives it its power that you've kind of here's the power and then we've taken it. Maybe it's multiple sources, I have no idea. Talk to me about that.
- [19:16]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, so we work with a lot of different LLMs, all in the backend that the clients never see. And we have actually patent pendant technology right now that basically uses lots of different LLMs at one time for specific purposes and automatically looks at what is the best for this purpose for us and then goes through that LLM to pull out whatever data we're looking for. So when a law firm puts in their medical records, we're not just an overlay over a ChatGPT or a Claude or any of the ones you mentioned. We're using lots of different sources and with our patent pending technology, we're able to try to figure out what is the best source for us to be using what's the best language model for us to be using for the data we're looking to extract?
- [19:53]
Chris Dreyer
Excellent. And they this and all of them continue to get better. And then with your. So that's, I like the pull from multiple sources also, you know, just for me on the personal side, and I'm not using anything near as advanced is I'll, I'll do my prompt, you know, my long prompt or I'll have it suggested a prompt and then I'll have them clash and fight, which, which is a fun thing to do to, to optimize your results. Talk to me about the hallucinations though. You know, I think that's everyone's fear. I've heard it from some big firms, I won't name their firms that had some recent issues with it where maybe they have an associate attorney or use it and then they didn't pull the correct sources and case law and things like that. Talk to me about preventing the hallucinations.
- [20:35]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, so hallucinations obviously are a real thing in AI right now with where the technology is right now. And for a law firm though, you can't afford to have hallucinations. Right. We've seen people get disbarred because of them. We've seen people get in legal trouble. So we also have patent pending technology that actually reviews our end result before it goes to the law firm to look and change to make sure if there's a hallucination it picks up on it can change it automatically. So it does that. We do that for every client before the final information goes to the client. So that's really, really key and important. The other thing that we do is we cite all of our sources. So if you ask for a demand letter, it's going to have citations next to it where you can literally click those citations. It's going to take you exactly where we got that information and you can see the record yourself to make sure it's accurate. So it's important when you're using AI from my perspective, that you verify things as well. If something doesn't look right, it might not be right. And you need to check the source, which is the medical record in this circumstance, to make sure it's accurate. And so we provide that to all of our customers on everything we do. If you want a specific letter written, regardless of what that letter is, if you want summaries of the medical records or the medical treatment or the soap notes, whatever it is, we provide sources automatically so you can check to make sure it's accurate and not hallucinating.
- [21:44]
Chris Dreyer
Fantastic, fantastic. I think that's addressing a lot. So it has more. More of the perplexity or where they're citing things a lot. You know, I know. I mean, Google's the worst. The Google AI overviews, they're all over the place and they're frequently wrong. Hopefully they get a lot better, but. And I think all of them.
- [22:00]
Josh Smerling
Yeah. It's funny that you. So I had somebody that a law firm signed up with us recently, and they were with a competitor of ours beforehand. Why'd you guys decide to make the switch? And they said, well, our demand letter that the other company put together said our client could no longer shovel snow. But we live in Arizona. My client lives in Arizona. And it's like, yeah, that's a problem. And so that's really why it's really important. First of all, you should read the material before you ever send it out, obviously, no matter who you're getting it from, whether it's Law Pro or somebody else, but also to be able to have the sources cited for you so that you can make sure it's accurate.
- [22:30]
Chris Dreyer
You're an expert in personal injury law. You've leveraged tools. Your tool, LawPro AI. We're making guesses where we're trying to predict the future. How do you see AI shaping the personal injury landscape for the next five to 10 years?
- [22:41]
Josh Smerling
This legal space to me is so exciting because for so long the legal space was just so cut and dry and boring and the same way things have been done for the last hundred years. And now it's changing. Lawyers used to say to me, well, I'm not into AI. I'm not going to use technology, I'm not going to use AI. And I would say to them, you're not going to be in business eventually. I mean, it's the same thing as going from a typewriter to a computer, from my perspective, and anyone that's stuck with a typewriter, they were not going to stay in business. So I'm looking at it from that perspective and where we're going to go in the future is I think we're going to be able to help our clients with a lot of their pain points faster, quicker, and get them resolution faster. There's a lot of different factors in a case, but we do enough of them that we should be able to know from almost day one what's the value of this case going to be. And if we know that and if the insurance company can agree to a reasonable amount somewhere in that ballpark, that Helps our client a ton so they can get resolution on their case. And so is that going to be on day one or day 10 or, you know, maybe it's a month into the case. But I think being able to move quicker and faster really would help our clients a lot because this, this drags and this holds over them. And God forbid you have to go to court, it could take 1, 2, 3, 4 years to get to trial. And meanwhile, this is just hanging over your client's head. So I think speed will be really helpful. I'm hoping that there might be less litigation because maybe both sides can say, all right, this is what our AI model is pulling out. This is what your AI model is pulling out. We're somewhere in this ballpark. I don't think anyone right now is doing a great job of trying to figure out values of cases. I think the technology is not quite there yet, and I think there needs to be a lot more done in that, which is one thing that we hope to get to at some point soon from a law pro perspective, but also human capital needs. You know, if you have a person that can do a lot more that they don't have to waste time on with an adjuster for 30 minutes setting up a claim, they don't have to request medical records the same old way that they've been doing forever, all these things are going to get better. The medical records one is a really hard one to figure out because it's just so broken up, that whole game of getting records. But I think we'll be able to resolve cases faster for fair values for our clients, which is. Which to me, is the most important thing. Yeah.
- [24:43]
Chris Dreyer
And the cash flow is going to help them stick around. Right. When I think that's the issue that the tort companies have ran into. It's like, you know, back in the day, you could start getting paid out maybe in three years. And now it's like, oh, look, it's seven or eight years. Like they, they've even pushed that into a strategy of itself, so. Because it just bleeds the firms out.
- [25:02]
Scott
Yeah.
- [25:03]
Chris Dreyer
So I think the, the time on desk will shorten and, and all those things. And I also just think. Do, do you think that, you know, big picture, you know, in three years, do you think pre. Let's done, like, just people that won't go to trial. Like, like those firms existed. There's, I've worked with several that they won't try a case. Right. I don't. First of all, like, how do you get any value Your value's got to be terrible. But you know what. What's going to happen to those types of firms?
- [25:28]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, I mean, to your point, right. Insurance companies have books on all. All law firms, right. They all know us. They all have our tax ID numbers, and they track us, and they know who's willing to follow suit and who's not. And of course, that. That'll change values for law firms and for clients and so on. You know, I think right now, a lot of those firms have a lot of money for marketing. Typically. Typically, those firms are huge in the TV and the radio and so on. So I don't see them going anywhere in the next couple of years. I think some of those firms are starting to make this transition right now of actually hiring attorneys to try cases, because I think that they see that the writing is on the wall for down the road where they might not be needed. So some of the firms that I know personally, some have started hiring lawyers now when they would not have kept stuff in house before. But I think in the next three years, they're fine. In the next five to 10 years, I don't know. I don't know what happens with them, but they have a lot of money, so if they need to hire lawyers, they can do so pretty easily.
- [26:19]
Chris Dreyer
That's fair. And I've seen that, too. And in fact, I circulated a text to Steve Gersten and Mike Rose and Anthony Russo and a handful of other attorneys. I'm like, hey, how you paying your trial attorneys? Like, what's their compensation package look like? And I'm not. I won't share theirs, but because I kind of see the writing on the wall, and it's like, these trial attorneys are valuable commodity. And it's like, so how do you. How do you golden handcuff with, you know, not only your values, emissions and things like that, but also those dollar signs when they're motivated by, you know. By the money.
- [26:50]
Josh Smerling
Yeah, absolutely. To find lawyers. Right. It's funny. I graduated law School in 2008, and the Economy was in the tank, and, you know, Lehman Brothers had gone out, Bear Stearns was down. And I graduated law school, and I was offered $35,000, my first job at a law school. I was trying to get a job as a state's attorney, and the people getting those jobs were graduating from Harvard Law School, and I didn't graduate from Harvard, so I wasn't getting that job. So instead of taking that job of 35,000, I started my own law firm. Good decision, I think, because the Law field is so strong for lawyers. The employees can really. A trial lawyer can get what they want, basically. So I think you have less law firms starting off brand new at this point because a good lawyer who wants to be a trial lawyer, they can get a good salary right out of law school nowadays and they're desperately, desperately in need. And so yeah, they're hard to find. I'm always, even if I'm not hiring for a lawyer, I'm looking for a lawyer and if I find everyone in my office has to try cases. There's no such thing as being a pre lit lawyer versus a litigation lawyer. Everyone tries cases and if I find someone that I think's gonna be good in front of a judge or jury, I'm hiring them even if I'm not looking right now. Just because they're hard to find.
- [27:50]
Chris Dreyer
To be honest, I haven't thought about that and I think that's the perfect explanation of. Yeah, like maybe there won't be as many new startups because you can go to an established firm who has the ability to attract cases and still make a lot of money, right?
- [28:07]
Josh Smerling
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. It's crazy that, you know, I go to a lot of different events now. I was at your event pimcon, which was amazing last year and you guys are having it again this year, which we're excited to be at. And I speak to lawyers all over the country and the amount that associate attorneys, we're not even talking partners are paid, if they're good trial lawyers, it's really, it's through the roof nowadays, but good for them. That's what the market says that they should be paid and. And that's what they get paid.
- [28:30]
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, Merit. I love it. Josh has been amazing. I got one, one final question, you know, for our audience that want to connect the EU with weather talk shop about law or to learn more about Law Pro AI, you know, how can I get in touch?
- [28:43]
Josh Smerling
Yeah. So easiest way to get in touch with me is through my Law Pro. Email Josh at LawPro AI L A W P R O A I Whether it's legal or law Pro related or tech related, feel free to email me anytime and that'd be a chat.
- [28:57]
Chris Dreyer
Thanks for joining us for Personal Injury Mastermind. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. I'm Chris Dreyer, founder of Rankings. Until next time, keep innovating, keep growing and keep building the practice of your dreams.