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Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
Built to Compete: Morris Bart on Endurance in PI [379]
00:45:20
Morris Bart explains how endurance in PI helps firms stay visible in saturated markets, improve intake results, and plan ahead.
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- [00:00]
A
Most agencies sell promises. Rankings delivers proof. We've taken firms from invisible to number one in the toughest PI markets in the country. And while others are still scrambling to figure out ChatGPT, we're already optimizing for AI search. So your firm is the first answer clients see. Lead the pack, don't get left behind. Visit Rankings IO for aio, also known as AI Search, and start dominating Search today. Hey, everyone. Chris Schreider here. This is a very special episode of Personal Injury Mastermind. Now, look, I know it's the holiday season. Things slow down, offices are quieter, schools are closed. But if you're listening right now, you and I have some things in common. We love the game, and we've got that drive, the switch that doesn't turn off. In fact, the new year has literally just begun, so no better time to get it than right now. As a holiday treat, I'm bringing you an extended conversation with someone who has been in personal injury marketing longer than just about anyone alive. The true legend, Morris Barton, a man so infamous, his billboards only say iykyk. Or if you know, you know. He's one of the first lawyers to ever advertise, period. And he never took his foot off the gas. Happy holidays. From one lifelong competitor to another. Let's go. Before we dive into the history, the marketing machine that you've built, the firm, I'd like to start off with a win. What's something going on? It could be in the courtroom. It could be business. In your life, what's a win that comes to mind?
- [01:26]
B
So what I'm very excited about right now, this is the end of September, 30 days from now, we have our opening game of the Pelicans, our NBA franchise, here in New Orleans. And I am all in on that. I'm one of their major sponsors. I have what they call the Jack Nicholson seats, where I sit front row courtside, right next to the players who sit inches away from me. I've actually been given a live segment on the pregame show, which is very unusual because the NBA has a strict rule that only professional sportscasters can deliver game content on tv, which they consider the pregame game and post game show. I wanted to do this several years ago with something I created called the injury report. And they said, absolutely not. He's a lawyer. He's not a professional sportscaster. The team went to bat for me, and the NBA said, okay, fine, he can do two of them. So send us the tapes, and if he does, all right, then we'll approve him to Deliver game content. Well, we did that. They approved me. And so I'm proud to say I'm the only non professional sportscaster in America that's allowed to go on TV and deliver game content. So for all those reasons, I am psyched. I'm very excited about the start of the NBA season.
- [02:43]
A
That's amazing. I can't wait to see the clip. You know, those would be TikTok worthy. I saw on your website you got above the fold. I clicked in that grassroots button for the tickets. I think you're giving away some tickets. You're building the hype. So I'm seeing it in action.
- [02:57]
B
Yeah. There's so much we do. I sponsor certain nights. I give away hats, I give away T shirts. The seats I have, I'm on camera throughout the entire game. So you and all the listeners immediately know the value of that. And it just goes on and on what I do. So, yeah, 30 days from now, that starts. And actually I'm very, very excited about that.
- [03:19]
A
That's incredible. I want to take it back. Just briefly. You're one of the first PI attorneys to advertise on television in Louisiana, actually.
- [03:26]
B
In America.
- [03:27]
A
In America. So what gave you the conviction to step in and advertise when no one else was doing it at that moment?
- [03:34]
B
All right, so let me give you a quick history and this will be very interesting. Let me get this. I got this in preparation for this podcast. So let's go back. 1977, the Supreme Court, in a consumer based First Amendment decision, decides that it's important for the public to know about the availability of legal services because a large segment of the population is underserved. And therefore they allowed these two legal aid lawyers in Arizona to advertise their services to provide. That was. Who was that? That was Bates and Osteen. To provide low cost, uncontested legal services to the public and advertise them. They were doing separations and divorce. That was the decision. And of course, lawyers who are very concerned about precedent, particularly on something so controversial as advertising, that was all that everybody thought you could do was advertise for family law cases. Low cost, uncontested separations and divorces. So here I come out of law school, which seems like an eternity ago now, 1978, and I was working for a small business litigation firm. Back then, just like today, the hardest damn part of being a lawyer is getting business. And I was young, I was ambitious, I was willing to work hard, but I had to get cases. And I just saw that as the future that If I could get cases, if it would work, because nobody knew back then if it would work. If it would work, then I could get the cases and I could achieve my dream of having my own firm. So I quit the law firm I was working for, went on my own, and started advertising for these simple, uncontested separations and divorces. So now let me show you something interesting, which, for everyone who advertises this is, as far as I know, I'm the only one in America that has this. When I was in law school, there was a urban legend going around that Abraham Lincoln used to advertise. Did you know that, Chris?
- [05:48]
A
I have heard this story. Yes, sir. I think I heard it from you, probably. So I think it was a small reference, but please tell our audience I love this.
- [05:57]
B
Yeah, so I had heard that. I didn't know if it was true, but I had a friend of mine who had a sports memorabilia and historical document business in Aspen. And so I told him, I said, look, Mark, when you go around to these different conferences, if you ever come across Abraham Lincoln's legal ad, let me know. Well, about a year later, he calls me, says, look, I'm in Chicago, and there's someone here, believe it or not, that has the Springfield newspaper from 1857, April 1857, an original copy, and on the front page is Abraham Lincoln's ad. So I bought it, and I put it in a hermetically sealed frame. Let's see, I'll try and I'll give you an idea. That's the Daily Illinois State Journal from April 1857. And in there, on the front page, here you go. If you look down, you'll see Lincoln and Herndon, which is good old Honest Abe running an ad for services as a lawyer in 1857, three years before he got elected to the White House in 1860. So we have a very noteworthy and significant background for us advertising lawyers.
- [07:13]
A
That's incredible. And so then anybody give you a little pushback and be like, well, hey, Honest Abe is. He was advertising.
- [07:20]
B
Whenever I've done media interviews over the years and the reporters come to my office, I always make a point of showing them that ad. So that when they talk about me, not so much now, but it used to be in the very early years, because, you know, I was one of the first advertisers in America, and I think the second or third lawyer in America to go on TV and advertise personal injury, which was very unusual. Again, nobody knew if it would work. So when they would come in, in A very cynical way to interview me. I'd always make sure I showed them Honest Abe's ad.
- [07:54]
A
That's great. You know, I had a conversation with Mr. Ross Celino, I think he attributed to getting on TV, formerly with Seleno and Barnes, now Salino Law. You know, had a conversation with you. You showed him how to do it and was quite successful, of course, in New York.
- [08:09]
B
Well, they took whatever advice I gave him and multiplied it many times and did extremely well. I'm very proud of them.
- [08:16]
A
You know, I gotta ask you, I gotta lean in, into this, you know. So you had that conviction to do the TV advertising.
- [08:21]
B
Right.
- [08:22]
A
Do you see anything that you're like, that gives you the same feelings? OTT programmatic podcasting, AI influencer marketing. Is there anything, or was that just a unique beast of its own? TV because it hadn't been done?
- [08:38]
B
Yeah, it's a unique moment in time. And I think the lesson to be learned from that which I would throw out to everyone watching this is that sometimes you have to just follow your gut. Everybody said I was wrong. Several lawyers in New Orleans, who I greatly respected said, you better hope this advertising works because you'll never get a job in New Orleans again. You'll have to move out of town, which is okay. I was looking around, okay, maybe I'll go to Atlanta, maybe I'll move to Memphis. Because I didn't know if it would work. And I took their, their words to heart that I would never be able to get a job in New Orleans again. Fortunately, of course, it did work beyond my wildest dreams. So I think you have to follow your intuition. And that's what I did. I guess what shocks me today is I never imagined there would be such competition in the marketplace. You know, I thought, yeah, a few lawyers might follow what I do. And I remember thinking, oh, you know, man, we might have five lawyers on television one day. I never expected to have 40 different lawyers on television in New Orleans and pretty much in every city in America. You know, television, buses, billboards, pr, the digital space. I mean, whoever thought there'd be so much competition? So apparently there's a lot of business out there because everybody's advertising and everybody's spending hundreds of millions of dollars collectively advertising. And so I didn't realize. I didn't realize there was that much business that would support that many lawyers and that the marketplace would be so hyper competitive.
- [10:14]
A
Yeah, and you got everybody, you know, trying to do what you're doing down to, you know, and I know you had some fun with it. With the. If, you know, you know, and I got on the TikTok rabbit hole and went down that rabbit hole on what that was about. And. And so I liked it. And you got some attention. Some. Some, you know, earned media and some viral people talking about it on social.
- [10:33]
B
Right.
- [10:34]
A
So that was. That was quite fun. You know, I heard and I believe this is in Michael Mogul's podcast, which is a great episode that you guys did. You said something along the lines of, you know, if you're not a top spender, it's tough to win nowadays. You know, is that because you need to get the economies from a buying power? Is it the saturation? Like, how do you think. How do you break that down?
- [10:58]
B
Well, it really is just saturation. It's just getting out there. I mean, you're. You're fighting for that front of mind awareness in the consumer and in a marketplace that's so glutted. And most consumers aren't even interested because you don't pay attention to lawyers until you actually need their services. But yet everywhere they look, they're inundated with lawyer ads. So it's. It's a total saturation. What I want to do is I want to establish myself in the front of their mind. So it's not just saying injured, I fight, I get you the most money, Call me. Which has gotten to be so pedestrian. I mean, everybody says that. We've heard it a million times. There's nothing special about it. But it still amazes me that all these advertising agencies in America, that's all they can come up with. They're not any more creative than that. But you have to be more creative. You have to do things to break through the clutter. Going back to what I just said about my association with the Pelicans, I'm all in on that. I don't just put, you know, sponsored by Morris Bart, or Morris Bart is a sponsor of the Pelicans. I mean, I'm there. I'm there at every game. That's a huge commitment. There's 41 home games. Those of you that have an NBA franchise know this. You have 41 home games, 41 games on the road. I go to every game. I invite lawyers. We deal with doctors, we deal with politicians and lawyers in the office, lawyers who have done a good job on the case. So everyone sees me. I'm all in on that. It is something that personally, myself and my family enjoy greatly. But on top of that, professionally, it's very important because it gives a personality and A Persona to me, over and above just being, you know, Morris Bart, the injury lawyer, which they see me and they've seen me for decades. So of course I have branding. But there's gotta be some unique aspect to your personality and what you do. And so that's what I have kind of latched onto. I'm also very philanthropic. I give big dollars, big dollars, not just for marketing. A lot of it's done quietly just because I want to help my community. A couple of years ago, I gave a million dollars to the Second Harvest Food bank here in New Orleans, which money is to be used to feed hungry children in the New Orleans area. If you've been successful, I think you have to give back. Not only is the right thing to do, but it makes you feel good about who you are. So you start putting all those together. And there's so many things I do like that, but it doesn't flow where I look at it and say, okay, I'm going to do this just because it's good for business. I do it because it's a cause that interests me, whether it's philanthropic, whether it's sports. It's something I really care about doing, and that provides different shades on your personality so that when people look at you, they think of you as a local person, someone that I've been fortunate. Everybody tells me, oh, you're the biggest celebrity in New Orleans. And it's good to know that, because it's hard to achieve a Persona like that, but it comes from not just being a lawyer and doing a good job, which, you know, I'm going to shock everybody and tell you right now. I come to my office five days a week, and, you know, that's, I think, a very important component of being successful. But I love what I do. I love people. And so as you put that together, I think every one of your listeners should think, what can I do to establish a Persona for myself in a positive way in my community? And it's not just by giving money. It's not just by throwing your name up on television. You know. This segment brought to you by Blank Blank Law Firm. You got to be all in. You got to be all in.
- [14:44]
A
Well said. I think the. The go giver mentality that you have. You don't expect anything in return, and you receive in return. You don't expect it. You're doing it because you. You love the people. You're part of the community. I also like, you know, a couple of things you mentioned that just made me think, you know, the other side, you know, you can't stick the gecko in a courtside chair. Right. I think maybe the Jake from State Farm, you know, that he kind of has that celebrity. But. But you. You're at the game, you're. And people feel that you're part of the community. Right. Before I watched it, you know, I was prepping, doing my research for the questions I wanted to ask that weren't repeated, you know, a bunch.
- [15:17]
B
Right.
- [15:17]
A
I got on TikTok and they said, well, you know, you're from New Orleans if you know this. And they put your picture up.
- [15:23]
B
Yeah.
- [15:23]
A
And they said. They asked what the tagline was. And of course, you know, one call, that's all. And I just. It was awesome because, you know, they had. They were going back and forth and they feel you're a part of the community. Like you're part of community if you know this.
- [15:36]
B
Well, you know, in a way, I guess my role model for that is Coca Cola, which I don't think they do it as much. But when I was growing up, every year, Coca Cola in the summertime would come out with some killer song or slogan and change what they would do. And everybody would anticipate that it would be like, okay, this summer, what's Coca Cola gonna do on their commercials? And I'd read they did that because even though at that time they were the number one soft drink in America, they had to keep it fresh. They had to keep it front of mind. And so I change mine not every year, but I used to say, I'm on your side. I'm on your side. And I used to do that for years and years and years. And occasionally I do a throwback ad where I'll do the I'm on your side. And occasionally I have people come up to me when they see me and they go, yeah, Morris Bart, I'm on your side. And I always tease them and go, wow, you've been watching TV a long time. And then I transition from that to one call. That's all. That one really got legs and used by lawyers all over America. But when I created that, I had no idea it would stick. You know, it was going to kind of be the slogan du jour. I would use it for maybe a year or two years. I never would have dreamed in the year 2025, I would still use one call, that's all. And then I've kind of segued. I wanted to do something more digital related and came up with the iykyk, which also got legs and has Been very powerful. Use that now for a couple of years. So I'm starting to think, what's going to be the next one? And I'll move on to something else. I think it's important to keep it fresh, particularly as long as I've been doing it. I don't want to get stale. I want to keep the ads fresh and new. And I'm the spokesperson, which they've seen me on TV for God knows, 40 plus years. So I've got to come up with interesting things to keep it fresh.
- [17:33]
A
I think that's fantastic. And you have multiple of these assets that you can use and deploy in different scenarios. T shirts, wearables, you know. You know, I heard recently I heard an interview with Elon Musk and he was talking about the automobile injury and how it's tough to break in because most of the auto manufacturers make all the revenue from repairs from their existing fleet. And I started thinking about the PI attorneys and their systemic marketing and their referrals and how they get a lot of business if they treat the clients right and deliver good value. How do you think a new attorney breaks into the PI space with the market as saturated as it is? I mean, you've got six figures in the top 10 of your TV on your monthly buys. And you go to radio and you've got, you said 40 on TV. You got 10 on your urban radios and different radio stations. Like, what's kind of the recipe to break in if you're a PI attorney? Kind of starting off.
- [18:35]
B
So I think you have to question, do I want to be a PI attorney? Because the issue is if you're going into a hyper competitive, totally saturated space, which is personal injury, unless you have family money or source to borrow millions of dollars, I don't see how you're going to do it. I don't have an answer for that. I don't see how you can do that. However, there's other areas of law. Maybe you'd look at Social Security, maybe you'd look at workers comp. Maybe you'd look at premise liability. You know, cases where it's not, as a young lawyer, you don't want to get involved with, say, medical malpractice, which is going to take years for a case to come to fruition. You going to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on experts. No, you don't want to do that. Everybody likes PI because it can be quick and easy. It's got a short shelf life, you know, six months, nine months, and you can turn it you're dealing with insurance adjusters. Probably the only area of law geared towards settlement versus other areas of law geared towards litigation. But that's why that space is glutted. So if you pick a niche area, whatever that area is, and try to develop that, then you can go on digital, whether it's a paid or non paid presence. You know, you have your SEO, you do your PPC campaign, maybe social media. I'm a little iffy about social media. I think there's, you know, it's not as great as it is professed to be. That's just me. You know, other people might have it, but I got to say, I have not seen anyone in the space of personal injury that says, oh yeah, because of my social media campaign, I generate a lot of cases. Sure, you could do it if you're going to do workers comp, or if you're going to do mass tort, or if you're going to do hurricane or some specialty tort, sure, it works for that. I got it. But if you think you're going to do that on just general personal injury, particularly automobile personal injury, when in your city you got lawyers spending millions and millions of dollars on TV and billboards to brand themselves, I don't see it working. So I guess getting back to your question, how do you break in as a personal injury lawyer? I have two answers. Number one, if you have millions of dollars at your disposal, you can break in. If you don't have that, I would encourage you to seek some sort of specialty area, build yourself up, start making money, start getting your name out with that specialty, and then you could branch off. I mean, an area that fascinates me, I haven't looked at it yet, is immigration, for obvious reasons. I mean, that's a hot button issue. There's in every community, particularly in the southern U.S. there's got to be thousands and thousands of people that need the services of an immigration lawyer, that maybe you establish yourself. That way they get hurt in car wrecks, they come to you, you start slowly and methodically building up from there and then you establish yourself. Or maybe you love immigration law so much, you decide, I don't want to be a personal injury lawyer, I want to do immigration. So there's opportunities, but you got to be creative, you got to follow your gut and see where it leads you.
- [21:54]
A
I love that answer. And yeah, the niching, laser pointing, all that capital you can deploy that intentionality, I'm gonna flip it on the other side for the big dogs listening. You know, we were joking about Mr. Frank Azar from Colorado. You know, I've got some other big, big firms listening, you know, that maybe they are one of those top three big TV spenders. You know, do they start deploying 10%, 20% over to programmatic streaming TV, CTV? You know, how do you think about kind of the shift of attention? Like, how are you thinking about it?
- [22:29]
B
So you got several things here. If you're a major advertiser, if you're the number one advertiser in your market, number one, you have to keep spending to dominate the market. Your foundation is TV and billboards. Once you have dominated that, not as an alternative, but first you need to continue dominating TV and billboards, then you can look at other media. I mean, media is so diffused now. You know, I grew up at a time when you turned on television, you had three channels, CBS, NBC and ABC. There wasn't even Fox, there was just three of them. And that's it. And now you've got 900 channels. And those 900 channels are in second place behind streaming, which is taken over. So major advertisers, they need to just preserve what they have by dominating the traditional media in their marketplace. And then you just grind it out. It's not pretty. It's a glutted marketplace. You just grind it out until the smaller players, the under capitalized, the over borrowed players, you know, the money catches up to them, you got to pay the piper and then they end up dropping out. Business reconsolidates in the major players and you go from there.
- [23:44]
A
Let's switch over, you know, we'll kind of move, move over to intake next. A lot of times it's, you know, the people are deploying all this money, but they got a hole in the boat, right? They're not capturing. So what's the tech stack look like? Are you a salesforce? You know, a lead docket, a clio? Like, how do you think about intake as a whole?
- [24:03]
B
I think of it as a fishing net with big holes in it. That is the critical component of the operation. If you look at it like let's say a line, a continuum with three blips in it. The first blip is marketing. You got to do your marketing, right, to make the phone ring. The third blip is lawyers that are handling the cases. You got to make sure you have good lawyers, but the critical juncture is your call center. Or another way to look at it would be like a fast food place. You know, McDonald's can advertise all they want, but if you Go to the counter and you get bad service and they don't care, then it's not going to convert to a sale of injury calls. You want, you should convert no less than 90%. You know, we're around 92, 95% of all injury calls we get, we convert to actual signups. It's a person to person business. So when you say salesforce lead docket, I think we use lead docket. I'm not sure. And you know what? Doesn't matter to me because what I'm more interested in is who are we hiring, how do I motivate them, who do I have supervising them? And do we listen to calls afterwards? Either live calls or afterwards, do we listen to calls to make sure they're empathetic, to make sure they're compassionate, to make sure that they know how to close the deal? It's still a person to person visit. Can't be done by computer. It can't be done by computer. Synthesized voices, you know, you have to have a live person get on the phone and talk in a compassionate way. Take charge of the conversation, Do a good job for the call, do good PR on the call so that they instill in that caller that they've called the right place because they could easily hang up and call somebody else. You instill in that caller, this is the right firm. My screener should say, we're going to do a great job for you. My firm handles this. Within 24 hours, we, we'll have your file in the hands of the attorney that's going to call you and do an in depth interview with you, which we require. And then we get to sign up and go. So I focus on the people now. I have an IT department and an administrator and yeah, they focus on the software and the metrics that we're going to use to track everybody and what we do. I'm not that concerned about it, although I think it's necessary to have that. And they show me the metrics, which are important. But I would encourage everybody to listen. That is maybe the most critical aspect of your entire operation is having a call center staffed by really good people that understand the mission, that are properly motivated and so they will sell your firm. Think again, McDonald's. And people are coming up to the counter. You gotta have people at the counter that are gonna make the customer feel welcome.
- [26:57]
A
You're one of the few firms of your size that, you know, you got 100 plus attorneys, right? So you're not running the pre lit, you know, high volume, not trying to cases. I mean, you're trying cases, you got 100 plus attorneys.
- [27:12]
B
Yeah, we're doing both actually.
- [27:14]
A
This is kind of what I see in the space right now. You got the, the MSOs and referral firms are kind of just sending out everything and they, they miss out on referrals because they're not working up the cases. You got the pre lit only that maybe just very few, you know, litigation cases. And then he got some that, you know, just you try cases, but you're kind of the hybrid. You do the pre lit and the lit. So tell me about the model, why it works for you, why you've kind of leaned in this direction over the years.
- [27:44]
B
Well, I guess it starts with me that in my early days of advertising, I did everything, I've done every job in the firm. And I used to get the cases, I used to answer the phone, I used to handle all of it pre suit. I was the litigator in the firm. And it used to be that lawyers, I mean, when I was a young lawyer, lawyers try cases. It's not like you pound your chest and go, oh, I'm a trial attorney, I'm this and that. It's like, no, I'm a lawyer. And that's what lawyers do. So I tried dozens of cases and had lots and lots of jury trials I did. So that was my background as I developed. And so I really knew no other way. I mean, that's what I did. And as I got more and more cases, I hired lawyers that were going to emulate what I did, which is to work it up pre suit. And if it didn't settle, file suit and take that sucker to trial. And that's how I was raised professionally. And that's what they did. And pretty much that's the model today with the number of lawyers I have there. It's, it's on a continuum. I have some lawyers, let's say, at one end of the continuum that never want to go to court. They're very happy to come to the office every day, handle pre suit cases. They're extremely valuable to the firm. They do a great job, they make a great salary for themselves and they're happy. I have lawyers at the other end of the continuum that never want to see a pre suit case. They only want to see cases that go into litigation. Most of the lawyers, at your typical bell shaped curve, most of the lawyers fall in the middle where they have a mixed caseload of pre suit and litigated cases. And they have qualified, meaning we watch them very Carefully to make sure we're not going to let everybody litigate. But if they have the wherewithal and the abilities to litigate, then yeah, they can do both. And of course each lawyer is very valuable as long as they're willing to work hard and do their job well. Then there's lots of cases and plenty of success everybody can achieve.
- [29:52]
A
Talk to me about like the future, right? We're playing the guessing game, right? Right now it's you've got the robo taxis, you got the Waymos over in Arizona, you've got the collision detection in the past, you know, and I've been in the space for over a decade, so I've been in the PI space. I'm not an attorney by myself but you know, I've heard people talk about it. But now it's coming a little bit more real. You know, you get in a Tesla, the Tesla can drive itself. Not to say they won't have issues like what do you think about the future of auto?
- [30:22]
B
So what I would tell everybody is very simply, don't worry about that, that's ridiculous. You know, if you. When I was in law school, I was working for a personal injury lawyer and he was handling just simple car wreck cases pre suit. That's all he did. He was a former insurance adjuster and the guy had a great personality. I loved working for him and I was a senior in law school and I asked him if he would hire me when I graduate. I said, you need an associate, I'm helping with all these cases. And I'll never forget, he told me, he goes, listen, he goes, don't do what I do. He said, right now in Canada they're talking about two no fault plans they've implemented in Canada and one of those two plans are going to get adopted in America. We're going to have no fault insurance in America in the next year or two and that will be the end of the personal injury world. And it was so real that in law school they taught us both plans. I still remember one was a Saskatchewan plan. I forgot the name of the other one. But they were so convinced that the law schools were all teaching these two no fault plans because they were going to come in and that would be the end of it. Okay, here we are, God knows, over 40 years later, thank God I didn't listen to that. Everybody thought for sure that's the end of it. And there's been so many times I remember, oh, my good friend Sam Bernstein in Detroit, Michigan and Sam used to tell me, you know, it's over. It's over. In Michigan, we're adopting. No fault. And they did adopt something. But believe me, his firm and his son Mark is taking it over. They're doing just fine. They got nothing to worry about. But this is decades ago. He told me this was over. I remember my friend Jim Sokolov in Boston. This is way. You know, when Jim was doing way before, you know, he. He sold out and retired and moved to California. But he used to tell me in his Bostonian accent, you know, it's time to harvest. You gotta harvest now because this business is going away. So here I am. My firm's bigger than it's ever been. We're doing great in the face of all these challenges and competition and everything else. So because of all those reasons, what I've learned and what I tell the lawyers here, it's going to be fine. Don't you worry about it. It's going to be plenty of business. You might have to pivot a little bit sometimes and do things a little different, but ultimately, you'll be fine. This past year, we have a very conservative governor, Republican Governor Jeff Landry, here in Louisian. And his desire this past legislative session was to get the lawyers. He called me out by name. I became the poster child of tort reform in Louisiana, and I had many of the lawyers in the firm. Oh, my God, what's going to happen? Are we going to lose our job? And I said, don't worry about it. It's going to be fine. And sure enough, the political process is such that by the time they get finished with it, it's molded into something that's not nearly as catastrophic as everybody thought. And certainly what came out of the legislative session was some changes, but nothing that affects anything. We really do.
- [33:41]
A
Yeah. And I think I saw your post on Instagram. You had a little fun with that, too.
- [33:46]
B
I did have fun with. Yeah.
- [33:47]
A
I love the optimism, the half glass full, the optimist. And look, that's me, too. I want to ask you, just another one that's. That's on everybody's mind. You know, I had. I've had different attorneys. I've had the pros and cons. You know, Arizona's got their abs, Utah's got their abs. Testing ground. You got D.C. got Puerto Rico.
- [34:08]
B
Right.
- [34:08]
A
You know, what do you think about that side of the, of the business? You got the PE Fund. And I guess they came in through the torts, and now they're kind of swinging over to the, the auto and single event. What's your thoughts on that?
- [34:21]
B
So right now it's not nearly as pervasive as everybody thinks in Arizona. I know. Cause I went to a presentation about it from the top lawyer that does these hybrid firms in Arizona and she said that this is in the last year there's like 132 firms that have been approved to do a hybrid model and it's very strict. They have to have a physical location, they have to have Arizona licensed lawyers working that location. They have to be handling Arizona cases. They're not putting up with what everybody believes is happening. That there's some private equity firm that does a wink, wink law firm in Arizona and that sets it up. That's really not happening now. Yes, I know there's other hybrid models where they're setting up a kind of a shadow corporation that does the marketing and the management. And so they don't really own the law firm. The law firm owns the law firm and they own the marketing company and they can split it that way. Those, I think are all going to go pop. I don't see those working at all. But it's out there. It could spread. You know, we'll have to deal with that. When we do, I guess my biggest concern, and again, when I say concerns, remember I think about it, but I'm not worried about it. Because when it comes around you then look at it. You bob and weave and pivot and you'll be just fine. What's concerned me is the dominance of Google in the marketplace. Imagine if Google comes up with their own list of preferred lawyers in every city in America and charges us a fortune to be on that list. And so when someone Googles, you know, best injury lawyer in Phoenix or Atlanta or Chicago, up comes the Google list. That would be something that we'd have to pay out the wazoo to be on that list. And who knows when that's going to go. They've got something similar, of course, you know, with now what they're doing, you know, on the Google Maps and things like that. But who knows? Again, don't worry about it now. Deal with the marketplace like it is and when and if changes come, we'll deal with it at that time.
- [36:38]
A
You know, one of the things I was on the Google side, you know, everyone's talking about ChatGPT and the LLM. I think it has like 600 million weekly users to some degree. But I don't think people understand the ecosystem that Google has. So if Google went entirely AI mode, we're not talking about 600 million, we're talking about 15 billion between Waymo, Gmail, Google, Gemini, they just put AI on Chrome. So in terms of distribution, I mean they have it once they activate it all. Yes. Very, very interesting times. I heard an interview, you said, you know, hey, the money stopped motivating you now. Now competition and responsibility to the people are kind of your main motivators. Talk to me about through that and like about the purpose of this for you.
- [37:32]
B
Yeah, well, it was an interesting personal journey, personal development for me because I think like most young lawyers, yeah, I came from a middle class family and I was the first lawyer. I wanted to make money, I wanted to be successful and I was willing to work my ass off to do it. Which is really a very important point I'd like to make. And that is, I wish I could say there's some easy way to success, but every single person I know that's successful, doctor, lawyer, cpa, politicians, professional athletes, NBA players, everyone that's been successful in their field of endeavor has worked their ass off. And when I look back over, my career is the same thing, you know, you, there's no easy way out. You have to work your ass off. So that's what I did. And I always had this kind of naive goal in my head that, man, if I'm going to make a lot of money, I used to think I'm going to get a big freaking cruiser, you know, some big boat and I'm just going to cruise the Greek islands. And that's, you know, how I'm going to live. So I was blessed, I was successful, I ended up making a lot of money. And then all of a sudden I said, okay, well, I guess I could do that now. But I like dealing with people. I like the celebrity status that I've been able to attain in New Orleans and helping people. I liked all of that. It almost sounds cliche, like an ad. But you know, I realize that's part and parcel of who I am. So yeah, so now I do it for number one. I like the competition. So the more competition I get, the more it gets those creative juices flowing and the more I want to just stay in the game. Just stay in the game. I think that's what it boils down to. And at a certain age, there's no right or wrong. You know, we all go through a predictable path in life. The first stage of life, we're kind, we're in school, we're learning what we want to do, who we are, how we're going to make money. The second stage of life. And I know there's exceptions, but generally the second stage of life, then you're doing that, you're making money, you have a companion, perhaps you're starting a family, and that takes you through the second stage of life. The third stage of life isn't as clear. I have a lot of friends of mine that have retired and they're very happy with their choice. They're leading a wonderful life. You have some that retire from what they did and then they do something else, maybe another career, maybe something philanthropic, God bless him, you know, that's great. And then you have some like me that say, no, I don't want to leave, I don't want to put myself out to pasture. I want to stay in the game. And that's the category I feel, and that's what makes me happy. Nobody's wrong. You have the choice at this later stage of life, of what you want to do and what you think you might want to do at your age, Chris, is not necessarily how you're going to feel when you get to be my age.
- [40:27]
A
Fair point. Fair point. I love the game. I love the game. You know, a lot of my competitors have sold. They've sold the pe, They've kind of. And I'm still in. I'm still in founder led, so I enjoy the game as well.
- [40:38]
B
And what are your friends doing now?
- [40:40]
A
So a few of them, they're working for the pe, trying to hit that earn out for the next couple years and. And we'll see what happens. See where they go. Very talented. These individuals are very talented, but who knows? I tried to do that advanced retrospective and thank you. Well, what would I do after? And for me, Morris, I couldn't figure the hell out, so I couldn't figure it out. So I love what I do.
- [41:01]
B
And ultimately that's the goal in life. I mean, you know, it's to do something you enjoy. Some people are great musicians, but they put that on the side their whole life and they practice law and they raised a family. You know, I have a friend of mine that retired from law and now he leads one of the main Jewish philanthropic organizations here in New Orleans. Very happy with that. So, you know, you can do things like that, but I'm not a musician and, you know, I play a little golf, but mainly I'm a runner. I've loved to run my whole life, so I just get out and run and that's fine. That's all I need to do. It just becomes who you are and what you are. Once you get past the necessity of, hey, I got to make a living, I got to provide for myself and my family. If you do what you enjoy, whether you make a lot of money or medium amount, you got to make money. But if you do what you enjoy, then you're going to lead a happy and fulfilled life. It's as easy as that. It doesn't matter, you know, what stage of life you're in. It's all a matter of doing what you enjoy.
- [42:02]
A
Well said. I love that. Morris, for our audience listening that maybe has some questions, maybe they want to connect with you, you know, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
- [42:11]
B
Well, I'll give you my email, and I'm usually pretty good about getting responses out. I'm getting a few hundred email a day now, and, you know, it's hard to get through all of that. Sometimes when people ask me, what do you do for a living? I say, I'm a reader, because I feel like that's all I do. You know, I read email, I read text. You know, I read memos that come across my desk. But my email address is morris bartorisbart.com so it's very easy. And yeah, sure, someone has a question, I enjoy getting that. As long as I don't get inundated with questions, I'll be happy to reply.
- [42:48]
A
Love it. Morris, thank you for coming on the show. I really enjoyed it.
- [42:51]
B
Sure. Thanks, Chris. I enjoyed it. This was a lot of fun.
- [42:55]
A
If you're looking for a performance marketing partner who thinks the same way you do, someone who wakes up every day focused on getting better, pushing harder, and leveling up, we should talk. You can find us@ Rankings IO.