[00:00:00] David Laborde:
I’m not, I’m not gonna mention any names. There’s one vendor that we, we spent a lot of money with, and we’re going to have this product turned around in about six weeks, well, five years later, and about a couple hundred thousand dollars later, we still don’t have a project. And now that they’re going by the wayside, they’re going out of business.
[00:00:16] David Laborde:
So, you know, we’ll never see that money come back. And more importantly, we’ll never see. The resources and time that was put into this product by a, a team of our employees, it’s very frustrating.
[00:00:27] Bobby Steinbach:
Welcome to Hot Docket, the show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.
[00:00:32] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm. Welcome to the Hot Docket. Today we’ve got David Lor, Earl’s injury Attorneys,
[00:00:48] Andrew Nasrinpay:
and. Uh, we’re gonna have a very exciting episode today.
[00:00:52] Bobby Steinbach:
I always like talking to, uh, guys like David because, you know, we come from that Morgan background figuring out how to solve big problems at scale and nobody’s really solved it the way the fig the folks who are bigger in their markets ha, have kind of figured it out.
[00:01:07] Bobby Steinbach:
So it’d be great to pick everyone’s brain and talk through things.
[00:01:11] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah. David, do you wanna just. Give a quick background on why you became an attorney, this, the whole journey of your firm and how you got to, uh, how you’ve gotten to the size that y’all are today.
[00:01:24] David Laborde:
Sure. Um, I, well, I come from a, my dad was a, an attorney, uh, and, and ultimately a judge.
[00:01:31] David Laborde:
And so was, I hate to say it was in my DNA somewhat, but it was, and I grew up in a household with, with lawyers. Spent a lot of time in his law firm and spent a whole lot of time in his, uh, his courtroom. He was an appellate court judge and so I, I chose to go to law school, finished in 1991, um, clerked for the US First Circuit Court of Appeal for a year in Puerto Rico, but for a federal judge in Puerto Rico, and then came back to Lafayette, Louisiana, which is home.
[00:02:01] David Laborde:
And, um, opened my own practice from day one. And by the grace of God and a lot of good luck, I managed to keep the doors open. Um, my dad ultimately retired from being a judge and joined me as my law partner, and he and I practiced law together for 20 years after he retired from being a judge. And our firm started growing during that time.
[00:02:23] David Laborde:
Had some momentum. Uh, he retired. And then Digger Earls, my current partner, uh, he and I had been working on a couple of projects together and enjoyed working with one another and, and decided to form a partnership. Uh, again, by a lot of luck and a lot of hard work, we’ve, we’ve managed to explode the practice and it’s grown far beyond my expectations.
[00:02:46] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Alright. Can you tell us if there were any things that were like pivotable pivotal points in your history that made you, where there, like a couple of big trials that really set y’all apart or. HH what on that progression, really launched you to be viewed in the light that y’all are today?
[00:03:04] David Laborde:
Sure. A couple of things that come to mind immediately, one of which was here in the Gulf South.
[00:03:09] David Laborde:
Um, in 2010, if remember served me correctly, we had the BP oil spiel and, uh, digger and I both got involved early on with the BP oil spill and, um, became, uh. Uh, pretty much put everything down else, everything else down that we were doing and, and worked exclusively on that litigation. And it proved to be a wise choice.
[00:03:35] David Laborde:
It, it, uh, provided a lot of relief for business owners throughout the Gulf South that were affected by the oil spill. And so that was kind of the catalyst that, that brought us together. Um, and then we realized that even though we were good lawyers in trying cases, we weren’t getting. All the cases that the advertisers were getting up until that time, we, neither of us were really advertising, so we made a, a decision to start advertising.
[00:04:02] David Laborde:
And, uh, unlike most advertising firms, we still try cases. And so Digger and I to this day, still try several cases a year. And we have a team of lawyers that, that actually try cases. And I think that’s one of the things that. That set us apart. So while we were being more prevalent in the public eye and people were seeing our faces where they never saw us before, uh, you know, historically our cases came from referrals and friends and family.
[00:04:30] David Laborde:
Uh, but through advertising and through also marketing the results we were getting at trial, I think it set us apart and, and helped our, our practice really grow.
[00:04:39] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yep. I think when, uh, insurance companies and defense firms see trial lawyers on the other side. Typically the inventory will resolve quicker for larger amounts.
[00:04:50] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And you know, there, there’s actually something behind, uh, that lawsuit. So I, I love when I see trial lawyers vertically integrate like that because you really are providing a better service to more people. And it’s great to see
[00:05:05] David Laborde:
that that is our mission. Our mission was to, um, still provide that great service and good results or great results for our clients.
[00:05:12] David Laborde:
But. Fortunately or unfort, unfortunately, the need to advertise, uh, came about just because there are so many marketers in our market, you know, that, I mean, some of the larger marketers in the country are in, in Louisiana, and so if we want to continue our practice at trial lawyers, we had to join, uh, join the race and, and started advertising.
[00:05:34] Bobby Steinbach:
What are some of the guardrails y’all have put in place to ensure that the quality of. You know, your cases, not, not the quality of like making, not, not ensuring injury is there and liability is there, but ensuring that like the quality of your workup on the cases has continued even as you’ve scaled the firm.
[00:05:52] David Laborde:
No, we have, that’s a great question. We have a lot of guardrails in place. You know, first and foremost, we’re, we’re selected with the cases that we do take. And when we do take those cases, we make sure that they’re placed with attorneys that, that should be handling them, whether it’s digger or myself or one of the 20 plus attorneys that we have in the law firm with, with varying, uh, skill sets and varying, uh, experiences.
[00:06:14] David Laborde:
And so, um, we meet every week. Every lawyer in the firm gets together Every Tuesday morning. We have a, a meeting that typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour reviewing the inventory of all the cases that we have. We talk about any issues with any of the cases, and, um, we’re, we’re very cognizant of the fact that no one can resolve a case unless it’s for maximum value.
[00:06:38] David Laborde:
Of course with the client’s consent, but we’re we’re diligent about maintaining the, the results that we, we’ve always gotten when we’re much smaller. And we’ve instilled that in our lawyers and, and they’ve embraced it. It’s, and the results have been, um, very, very rewarding
[00:06:54] Andrew Nasrinpay:
for, for any of the attorneys that are listening that are outside of Louisiana and might need like a.
[00:07:03] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Might need a firm to refer folks to, especially because you’re the one state that’s gonna be very different, uh, in terms of the actual laws. Can you explain a little bit how Louisiana’s different,
[00:07:13] David Laborde:
I, I, I missed the last part of the question, but what was that? Can,
[00:07:15] Andrew Nasrinpay:
can you explain how the laws are a little bit different there and how and why folks might wanna refer, uh, big cases, uh, in to you guys if they’re outside of the market?
[00:07:25] David Laborde:
Yeah. You know, at, at this very. Basis. Most of the states in the United States are, are common law states, meaning that, uh, the, the laws are based on jurisprudence and, and, and practice throughout the years. Louisiana is a civil code based state, and most of our laws emanate. At, at their very basic level from the Louisiana Civil Code, which is based on the Napoleon code.
[00:07:51] David Laborde:
And so Louisiana’s laws, you know, originated from way back in French Times when we were a territory of France. In truth and in practice though, you know, we, we practice in Texas, we practice in Louisiana. We practiced some in, in Mississippi, not a whole lot. And, and truth in practice courts are courts and trials or trials.
[00:08:11] David Laborde:
Uh, we we’re just, we consider ourselves experts in, in preparing our cases and litigating our cases. And so of course, we welcome referrals. Our best cases come from referrals and, uh, we, we are very familiar with the intricacies of Louisiana law and, and at its core, the Napoleon Code or the Louisiana Civil Code.
[00:08:32] David Laborde:
But when it’s time for trial, we’re, we’re prepared no matter where the case is.
[00:08:37] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Can you give examples, um, of some cases that either you or other attorneys in your firm have done that you’re like particularly proud of?
[00:08:46] David Laborde:
Uh, you know, I can tell you in the last year there are several that we’re, we’re very proud of.
[00:08:50] David Laborde:
Um, Louisiana, unfortunately is on the, the Gulf Coast and so we’re we’re susceptible of having, having hurricanes every couple of years about. I forget the exact year, maybe 2021. 2020 and 2021. We had two category five hurricanes that struck the Louisiana Gulf Gulf Coast, hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta, and did an enormous damage, um, in southwestern Louisiana, primarily in the, uh, the city of Lake Charles.
[00:09:22] David Laborde:
So much so that the, the federal judge. Overseeing the ma, the great majority of those claims created a, a case management order to try to expedite the trial process and, and claims that were coming through the court. Um, most of those cases, um, the great majority of those cases settled through that process, but a couple of them did not.
[00:09:44] David Laborde:
And one of the bigger cases we were fortunate enough to have as a client and involved a large church and school. Southwest Louisiana that suffered immense damage from those storms. And we tried that case, um, and got the largest hurricane verdict, um, to date that I’m aware of in the state of Louisiana.
[00:10:05] David Laborde:
The court of appeals, the US Fifth Circuit, just recently affirmed the verdict and then denied a rehearing. And so the case is essentially final and, uh, we’re very proud of that case On a personal injury case, something a little different just in December of this past year. We had a, a client who a couple of clients with the insurance, insurance company just refused to negotiate with and refused to offer any money to.
[00:10:31] David Laborde:
Um, I didn’t try it, but Digger and another lawyer in the, in the firm tried it, got a $12 million verdict. Um. The best offer that I’m aware of was about $75,000 during trial. And so the jury, and, and we saw it quite differently from the way the defense saw it again, the clients are ecstatic and we got a great result for them.
[00:10:52] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Alright, see, I, I didn’t even know that y’all did first party insurance dispute claims, so that, that is pretty interesting. How long have you guys been doing those?
[00:11:03] David Laborde:
Yeah, we have a whole division within the firm that, that does first party claims. We’ve been doing that probably for about five or six years, um, from smaller storms that predated Hurricane Laura and Delta.
[00:11:14] David Laborde:
But when Hurricane Laura and Delta came, uh, we certainly ramped things up and, and handled a lot of those claims.
[00:11:20] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Alright. Are there any. Other types of cases that are like new or on the horizon that you’d want us to know about? Like, I don’t know, a new mass tort or a new or very niche type of case where you, you guys think you’re the best or you’re positioned in a way that it makes sense for everybody to refer you?
[00:11:42] David Laborde:
Those style of cases we do. Um. Dabble in some mass court cases and our, and our own leadership in some mass court cases, for instance, in opioids. Uh, we represent and, and we’re the first to file the first opioid suit in the state of Louisiana on behalf of political subdivisions on behalf of the parishes over here instead of counties and a bunch of the, the law enforcement districts, primarily sheriffs throughout the state.
[00:12:06] David Laborde:
We partnered with, um, a large national firm and, and we’re successful in reaching a settlement. Those cases are settled and are being paid over the next seven to 15 years depending on who the entity is. Um, we’re also involved in some other class actions that a nationwide, but as far as something that’s a niche, I think that we’ve, we’ve developed.
[00:12:30] David Laborde:
A niche of litigating cases where insurance companies just refuse to reasonably negotiate or settle with defendants. And, uh, we just, we, we’ve held them, uh, to task and, and require that they pay. And, and those cases usually result in trials and usually result in an excess judgment, meaning a judgment in excess of the, the available insurance.
[00:12:51] David Laborde:
And when that happens. You know, that resulted in a whole new trial and a whole new litigation to try to recoup those monies for the excess in, uh, the excess judgment that was obtained in excess of the insurance limits.
[00:13:04] Bobby Steinbach:
Uh, I wanna pivot a little bit and, um, revisit something we talked about earlier in the conversation, which is like, you being a major player and kind of having built this powerhouse firm.
[00:13:16] Bobby Steinbach:
I think it’d be really helpful for some of the folks listening who maybe are at that like mid-size stage, or maybe they’re even smaller and they’re a small firm. What are, if you could like turn back the hands of time and change one thing, like you made one mistake that cost you either money or time or whatever, what would that one thing be?
[00:13:34] David Laborde:
Well, there’s so many, it’s, it’s kind of hard to pick one because we’ve made a lot of mistakes. But the one mistake I think that, or the one lesson that I’ve learned personally over the years is. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there, and the more you become prominent and the more that your firm, uh, succeeds, the more that you’ll be approached with, you know, the latest.
[00:13:58] David Laborde:
Get, uh, gizmo of the day and we were suckers and, and failed victim to, to quite a few of those that cost us tons and tons of money. Uh, we’ve learned to be much more discerning and the vendors that we deal with, we’ve learned to research the vendors and the products that are being pitched to us. And we, we certainly make sure to, to check recommendations before committing to anything because, uh, you know, any shiny object that we saw for a while.
[00:14:26] David Laborde:
Look good to us and us, we’ll sign the dotted line and and write a check. And we’ve learned that, that that’s not the best course of action. For sure.
[00:14:33] Bobby Steinbach:
I think that’s a great point because there’s a lot of hidden costs in those decisions too, where it’s, the money sucks to, it sucks to lose the money, but it sucks kind of even more to lose the time.
[00:14:44] David Laborde:
A great point. I’m not, I’m not gonna mention any names, but there’s one vendor that, um. We, we spent a lot of money with, and we’re going to have this product turned around in about six weeks, well, five years later, and about a couple hundred thousand dollars later, we still don’t have a product. And now they’re, they’re going by the wayside.
[00:15:02] David Laborde:
They’re going out of business. So, you know, we’ll never see that money come back. And more importantly, we’ll never see the resources and time that was put into this product. Um, by a, a team of our employees is, is very frustrating.
[00:15:14] Bobby Steinbach:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s understandable. I’ve never seen it at that scale, what you’re describing, but it’s a really common problem on like the CRM side, either like committing to A CRM because of a timeline that you’ve been promised, which is unattainable or always, yeah.
[00:15:34] Bobby Steinbach:
Uh, or you see it pretty commonly, honestly, on the marketing side where there’s like. Expectations set either, most commonly on the SEO side that are just not attainable for time and cost. So I agree, snake oil is, uh,
[00:15:53] David Laborde:
and, and look, in our experience, it’s, it’s typically on the marketing side. Um, the more you market, the more people approach you with, with their product and the more skeptical you should be is, would be my best advice.
[00:16:06] Bobby Steinbach:
I agree, and you, you, you mentioned checking references 100% references, pedigree, like case studies. Those are the things that are harder to fake. So we’d always recommend, like, uh, anybody that, you know, a lawyer might choose, they go through proper vetting and ask the right, right. Questions a hundred percent.
[00:16:25] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That said, have you seen the same thing happening with AI right now? Like, are you getting pitched nonstop by new shiny objects that. Sound cool in theory, but, uh, there, there’s nothing to check because they’re brand new
[00:16:42] David Laborde:
every day. Um, you know, and we’ve quickly learned that a lot of these are just window dressing.
[00:16:48] David Laborde:
It’s, it’s the commercially available or, or freely available, um, AI products that just have it a pretty skirt on them and they’ll pitch them to you as something unique or something that, that’s not available anywhere else. And, uh. When you, when you lift the curtain, there’s really nothing else there. And so it’s gonna sort itself out.
[00:17:09] David Laborde:
But I think a lot of people will fall victim to, again, these snake oil salesman and, and the products that are, are valid and have merit to them are going to race, you know, rise, rise above and survive. The rest are gonna fall by the wayside.
[00:17:23] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, it’s crazy to see the level of funding in some of the legal AI products right now.
[00:17:29] Andrew Nasrinpay:
You’ve got several that have crossed the. Billion dollar valuation mark and, uh,
[00:17:36] David Laborde:
and some of them are already selling, so that, that should tell you a lot.
[00:17:39] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah. Yep.
[00:17:41] David Laborde:
A startup that started a year and a half ago has already has been sold already, so, well,
[00:17:45] Bobby Steinbach:
I talked to a firm, uh, a week ago. Uh, we’re looking to onboard some product on our side and, um, they started in August of last year and just raised a 20 mil series A.
[00:17:59] Bobby Steinbach:
So. Maybe a different, not quite selling, but you’re definitely pre-product market fit. You’re probably like, you have product and
[00:18:08] Andrew Nasrinpay:
it, it’s happening on both sides though, is what you’re saying. In what way? There’s a lot of investment going into it. As well as a lot of folks. Oh yeah,
[00:18:17] Bobby Steinbach:
of course. Yeah. It’s just boom bust right now.
[00:18:19] Bobby Steinbach:
So
[00:18:20] David Laborde:
like, and there’s no question that it is a future and, and the, the right product that comes along is, is going to dominate the market or the right products that are going to dominate the market. And, and there’s great utility in ai. We use it day-to-day in our law firm and are trying to explore ways to use it.
[00:18:36] David Laborde:
Uh, even more so because it, it does create a lot of efficiencies, a lot of cost savings, and in some cases a much better, uh, product. So, uh, we embrace it. We’re just very skeptical of, of these, you know, products that are surfacing every day and, and promising the moon.
[00:18:52] Bobby Steinbach:
That being said, on the flip side, are there any, like killer products that you guys have onboarded and, um, you think people should know about?
[00:19:02] David Laborde:
Um, I, I hate to endorse anything because we’re tr we’re still trying a couple of vendors right now, but, you know, there are a couple of them that if you ask me in three or four months, I’ll, I’ll feel better about endorsing. I hate just to, to do so right now without having more experience with them.
[00:19:16] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That’s fair.
[00:19:17] David Laborde:
There are two that come to mind that, uh, we’ve been using and, and everyone seems to be very pleased with, with the results that we’re getting.
[00:19:26] Bobby Steinbach:
All right. We’ll follow up in three months.
[00:19:27] David Laborde:
Yeah.
[00:19:30] Bobby Steinbach:
Did you have something? No. No? Okay. Alright, well, um, we’re pretty much in the sweet spot on our side in terms of time.
[00:19:38] Bobby Steinbach:
It’s a short and sweet one. So David, uh, thanks for joining us on Hot Docket. I, I think we covered some really like interesting topics. Talking, talking through things on the AI side. I am gonna follow up with you in three months and we’ll put in the show notes on this one. Yeah,
[00:19:53] David Laborde:
I’m happy to By then, we probably will have tried 10 more, so
[00:19:56] Bobby Steinbach:
yeah.
[00:19:56] Bobby Steinbach:
Good, good. You guys are adopters. Um, and, uh, yeah, we’ll put links to, um, Lauren Earls like website and socials and such in, uh, in the show notes. So easy access. We’ll see you on the next Hot Docket. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Hot Docket. We’re your hosts, Bobby and Andrew, founders of Meme Pug, the marketing agency for ambitious law firms.
[00:20:21] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Have questions about marketing or anything we covered today? Email us at bark@meanpug.com. Be sure to subscribe to learn more. Until next time.
