39. How to Pick The Right Attorney & The Blueprint to Scale a Trial Firm

[00:00:00] David Craig: 
The bigger the decision, the bigger the legal matter, the more important that decision is to pick the right lawyer and it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to interview them. You know, don't just make a decision because of an ad on a TV or a billboard or an airplane or wherever it is. I tell my people, treat people the way they, that treat the clients the way they want to be treated.

[00:00:19] David Craig: 
'cause every one of 'em is different. Some people like texting, some people like email, some people like Zoom, some people like, but let's work and let's figure out each client and uh, let's provide the services in the way they want it. 

[00:00:30] Bobby Steinbach: 
Welcome to Hot Docket, the show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.

[00:00:35] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm. 

[00:00:40] Bobby Steinbach: 
Hey everybody and welcome to Hot Dock Podcast. Today we have on with us David Craig of what might be one of the greatest, uh, attorney firm names ever, Craig Kelley and Faultless. Epic.

[00:00:58] Bobby Steinbach: 
Uh, you guys just need to now commit a wrongdoing so you can be faultless. But, uh, thanks for joining us, David. Good to have you. 

[00:01:05] David Craig: 
Thanks. I, I appreciate it. I look forward to being on here with you guys. 

[00:01:08] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
Did, did you bring Mr. Faultless into the firm? Purely for the name or, 

[00:01:13] David Craig: 
this is funny. I mean, it is literally 30 years ago, he applied for a job as a law clerk of mine.

[00:01:19] David Craig: 
And I'm like, you, you gotta be kidding you, you, I mean, first I looked at his resume, you know, I'm like, ah, brought the guy in. I'm like, your name really is faultless. He's like, yeah. And, uh, and so at the time I had a, I had a paralegal. Her name was Justice, um, and Kelley Justice. And so I thought, you know, Hey, that's, so who would've known that?

[00:01:37] David Craig: 
You know, 30 some years ago, I would hire a law clerk by the name of Scott Fless, and then he became my partner and him, and I've been practicing, I've been, I've been practicing for 40 years now. Um, and this law firm, Craig Kelley and Fless is 26 years old, and him and I were together. Four years, four or five years before that.

[00:01:56] David Craig: So I've known him for 30 years, but that really is his name. We didn't change it, but it's perfect for a personal injury law firm. Right. 

[00:02:02] Andrew Nasrinpay: Yeah. It's 

[00:02:03] Bobby Steinbach: amazing. 

[00:02:03] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
I think we've run into just a few in our career that are just absolutely perfect for personal injury. Well, you said 

[00:02:09] Bobby Steinbach: 
justice. We, we spoke to, um, Micah.

[00:02:12] Bobby Steinbach: 
Yeah. Micah. Justice. Liberty, yeah. Micah Justice. Liberty is, and it's her real, like God-given name. Uh, she didn't change it. That was like one of our first episodes. 

[00:02:22] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
The, the other one that we thought was excellent was, I think there was a Robin Hood that, oh, yeah, yeah. That was at, that was at Morgan Robin Hood that does disability.

[00:02:31] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
It's like, you can't get much better than that. Uh, if you have a name that rhymes with Carr. Yeah. Like a, some, something like that. I actually 

[00:02:39] Bobby Steinbach: 
ran into, I tried sending him a LinkedIn message. He never responded to me. Um, there was a guy who was carry on. Something carryon, C-A-R-R-I-O-N. And I said, if you're not running ads right now that are something like keep calm and carry on with your last name, then you're doing something wrong.

[00:02:55] Bobby Steinbach: 
Yeah. Uh, but he never responded to me, so I dunno, that guy's missing out. Yeah. Cool. Well, um, on the topic of. Truck accidents, which I know is a flawless transition here. Um, I'd love to talk a little bit about your practice. So one thing I saw on your guys' website, and I'm curious to hear if it works, because you're one of the few firms.

[00:03:16] Bobby Steinbach: Some firms do it, but not the majority. You have an ebook kind of front and center on your landing page, like, uh, get help after a devastating truck accident or something to that effect. Has that been a successful tactic for you? 

[00:03:30] David Craig: 
You know, I, and so it's, it's interesting. I mean, so when I started my practice, I'd say 80% of my business was, was referrals from other attorneys.

[00:03:37] David Craig: 
Um, now, um, and, but I decided to start marketing to consumers and so that's, you know, a book is more directed towards a consumer. I mean, you obviously you can write books to lawyers. Um, and uh, so we probably about, I know 12 years ago or so, I decided to switch and go to the consumers. And I think if you're gonna advertise to consumers than you need to provide helpful information to them.

[00:03:59] David Craig: 
Um, and so I've written two books. The first book I wrote was Semi-Truck Wrecks, A Guide for, uh, victims and their Families. And it just kind of walks them through the process because the reality is most people have no idea what to do if they've been in a semi-truck wreck or any kind, any kind of personal injury case, and they don't have a clue.

[00:04:18] David Craig: 
And so we wrote the book to give guidance to people and it was extraordinarily successful, not necessarily in just bringing business in the door. But more importantly, it was something that people could use. I got a lot of comments all over the country. People who had never hire me in states that I'm not practicing in, um, you know, thanked me for the book.

[00:04:36] David Craig: 
It was a bestseller in the legal area. Um, and so I got a lot of satisfaction outta writing the book. Um, it helped provided information. Where it's helped me and I guess, in converting clients is that when. People are looking for a lawyer and they're looking for a truck accident attorney, and so they maybe Google it or whatever they do, and they find maybe three or four firms, um, that they're looking at.

[00:05:01] David Craig: 
Not many of 'em have written a book that they can send in the mail to 'em, where they can say, look, on my, on my website, it's free there, or I'll send you a book and I'll overnight a book to them. Said before we meet in the morning, if you wanna meet in the morning, or whatever you wanna do. And I've had actually clients bring my book into meetings with me, potential clients that were narrowed it down to a few people.

[00:05:23] David Craig: 
And the book made a difference because it was simple. It was, it was kind of a guide, what they should do, how they should do it, um, and what they should expect. So that was extraordinarily helpful. I just finished a new book this year at on titled, uh, it's never been easier to pick the wrong attorney. Uh, and so, you know, in this day and age, man, it's, it's so simple to pick and click and get the wrong attorney, and then all of a sudden it's devastating consequences to you.

[00:05:50] David Craig: 
So, um, so I wrote that one, and it's more general. It's not just personal injury, it's, it's how do you pick the right attorney and how do you avoid picking the wrong attorney? If you pick a criminal attorney and it's. You pick the wrong criminal attorney, you may end up prison, you do a divorce. If you have a divorce case and you're fighting over custody or so, you pick the wrong attorney.

[00:06:07] David Craig: 
Then this other side gets all the money and the spouse and the kids and the dog. And, and so I wrote a book and said, you know, people as lawyers, if you're in the business, you kind of know who to look for and who's good and who's not good. Um, and I thought ordinary folks could use that information. So, so I've written two books.

[00:06:26] David Craig: 
Both of 'em have been extraordinarily helpful in converting. Clients to, or, uh, potential clients to clients, and also providing information, which also then helps you, as you guys know, um, as far as putting out information and content, um, and utilizing that for other purposes. 

[00:06:42] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
It also makes you a subject matter expert, so if you wanna go to conferences and speak on those sort of things, you might be one of the only people with a book on those subjects.

[00:06:52] Andrew Nasrinpay: 
I want to dig in a little bit too. The how not to choose a lawyer and, uh, run us through some of the basic ones there. Like as assuming you were a potential client, you knew nothing about legal, uh, what are some of the pitfalls or some of the red flags. On a bad lawyer. 

[00:07:12] David Craig: 
Yeah. I mean, so there, there's so many different ones, but, but people have a tendency, I mean, you can't, heck, I was going to the bathroom the other day and I was, went into the urinal and there was an ad for a lawyer over the urinal from a criminal defense lawyer.

[00:07:23] David Craig: 
I was in a bar. And so I thought, well, that's unique. Um, but is that really the best lawyer I hate on my criminal case? I don't know. And so the, the reality is. There's a lot of folks who advertise. Um, you can't go to a ball game now without seeing wrapped cars, wrapped billboards, um, signs inside the stadiums.

[00:07:43] David Craig: 
Um, you can't, you know, get you Google and you got all these ads that are paid ads above the, the search. Um, you, you know, you look at all these different places. Everybody kind of says a lot of the same things. You know, we're great. We've been practicing for 150 years combined, which I never understood why, why you'd pick somebody that I could be like 150 lawyers with one year experience.

[00:08:05] David Craig: But anyway, and so you, you see a lot of the same stuff and, and the book is just like, Hey, you know, the bigger the decision, the bigger the legal matter. The more important that decision is to pick the right lawyer and, and it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to interview them. You know, don't just make a decision because of an ad on a TV or a billboard or an airplane or wherever it is.

[00:08:30] David Craig: Don't make the decision. And, and depending on what it area, an area it is, for example. A BA has board certification com, uh, that they say, Hey, look, there's certain lawyers that have certain level expert expertise that they qualify as specialists or experts in this area. And so, but, and they have it in a state law, criminal law, family law, trial work, trucking.

[00:08:55] David Craig: And so in order to be an a, b, A approved group and to be board certified, you've gotta have a certain amount of experience. You gotta have credentials, you've gotta be vetted. And then you also have to pass a test. And so you have to have a number of years and a certain percentage of your practice has to be in estate planning or criminal, or in my case, truck accident law.

[00:09:17] David Craig: And so I'd say a good place to start, if you don't know, you don't have referrals or you don't know how people you can contact is start off with, okay, who are board certified lawyers in the particular area of expertise that I need? Um, because they've already been vetted. Now narrow it down to three or four of those lawyers.

[00:09:36] David Craig: Go interview 'em and don't be afraid to talk to 'em, and here's some questions you should ask 'em. You know, and then, you know, and so I think that's the start. I mean, I, I would start there if you don't know somebody, but just because somebody advertises doesn't make them a bad lawyer, but it doesn't necessarily make them a good lawyer either.

[00:09:54] David Craig: Just because somebody is a board certified may not be the right lawyer for you. So you, you know, especially in my area, a catastrophic truck case could take years to prosecute. And you're gonna be with them a lot, and they're gonna be with their team. And so I tell people, you should interview the lawyer and make sure you're comfortable with them.

[00:10:12] David Craig: I do the entire team, you know, you got a lot of lawyers, we have big egos. And so you get this ego and they say, I'm the best. I'll stand on trucks and wave my hand, you know, whatever the hell they're doing. And the reality is that that lawyer may never even touch their file. And so I say, you know, you should meet the whole team.

[00:10:29] David Craig: I wanna see all the lawyers, all the paralegals. Who's, who's gonna be working on my case? And you know, and a lot of times, because I've written books, people will say, well, I wanna make sure you're the attorney. And I say, well, that's a really bad decision because there's some things I do really well and there's other stuff I do horribly.

[00:10:49] David Craig: The last time I wrote a brief, I misspelled something in a caption and, and I look, it was ridiculous. But I have really smart lawyers who write really good briefs. And so we're a team. You don't want just me. You don't want just the brief writer, you don't want my partner Scott file. He's great at briefs.

[00:11:06] David Craig: He's, he's great at, he, he does a lot of appellate work and he keeps the verdicts we get. And I can't imagine practicing with anybody else but him. But the reality is you, you get both of us and he's really good at some things. I'm really good at some things and he we're both bad at other things, so I, you know, but people were kind of intimidated and afraid.

[00:11:25] David Craig: And why I wrote the book was like, no, you shouldn't be. This is a huge decision, whether it's family law, criminal law, personal injury, truck accident, this is a huge decision and it's gonna affect you for the rest of your lives. Here are some questions you should look for. And so that's kind of why I wrote the book and that's kind of how I would start.

[00:11:44] David Craig: If I was looking for a truck accident attorney, I would start off board certification. There's less than a hundred of us in the whole country. There's four in Indiana, two of them in my firm. Um, and um, and then I would interview 'em and see, you know, if. There's somebody that I like, that I care about. I had some people come in the other day that read my book, and so they were interviewing me and uh, and so they said, well, we're gonna, we haven't, we haven't chosen, we've narrowed down the three people, just like you said in your book.

[00:12:11] David Craig: And I said, that's, that's absolutely, that's all I ask. I mean, I just make a right decision. They go, why you wanna know who your competition is? I said, no, I don't care who my competition is. As long as you're using the questions that I have in the book, I know you'll get the right answers. And, and hopefully you, you picked somebody who's competent and is capable of doing the job.

[00:12:28] David Craig: I, I said, well, why should I pick you? I said, well, the, you're gonna be spending the next couple years with this team and you wanna see their whole team and you wanna make sure you're comfortable with their team, but then you also wanna know how this lawyer treats you. I would really appreciate the opportunity to work for you.

[00:12:45] David Craig: I really would. Other lawyers may make you feel like you should feel grateful that you have them as your lawyer. I go, it's a subtle difference, but it's a huge difference when you're spending two hour, two years with somebody. Huge 

[00:12:57] Andrew Nasrinpay: difference. 

[00:12:58] David Craig: And I said, so that's, and you know what? They came back and hired me about a week later and they said, you're absolutely right.

[00:13:04] David Craig: These lawyers had these giant egos in told em how great I am as an attorney and you. Talk about us and our problems and how you're gonna help us. And you were the only one that had a whole team that sat in the meeting. And so, um, so I wrote, you know, I think those are things you wanna do. You know, you, you, you don't wanna, somebody's been out there too long.

[00:13:25] David Craig: They may have been great at one time, but they may, may not be good anymore. So you don't wanna assume, just because I've been practicing 40 years that I'm still good. You need to verify it. Check it out, see what I'm doing, ask if I tried any cases lately. How am I doing? What kind of trial results do you have?

[00:13:42] David Craig: You know, and people are afraid to ask those questions. They're intimidated. And I hope to empower people through knowledge and make sure that they know what questions to ask, because there's no right que wrong questions. 

[00:13:55] Andrew Nasrinpay: Yeah, I, I do think choosing a personal injury lawyer might be one of the hardest areas because the differentiation.

[00:14:04] Andrew Nasrinpay: It's extremely difficult. One, the price is the same across the board because it's contingency. So price is not a factor that, uh, potential clients are gonna look at. Two, if they look at the verdicts and settlements, you might have a big $500,000 settlement, but what was the policy if mm-hmm. If it was a million dollar policy, that might be bad.

[00:14:26] Andrew Nasrinpay: Exactly. Like that might be a very bad settlement. And, uh, it from most firms websites. There's almost no differentiation from firm to firm, so it is actually very difficult for customers to do it. And one of the things that we have seen is that most firms don't even pick up the phone. Yeah. So they're going down the list in Google, they're calling all the firms, and they're just hiring the first one that actually picks up the phone and talks to them.

[00:14:53] Andrew Nasrinpay: As like a human. Yeah. Which is crazy to think about because the, the cases have such high value in their catastrophic injuries and they can't even get an attorney on the phone. 

[00:15:03] David Craig: Yeah. And it's crazy is that, you know, I mean, I went into business to, to make a difference in people's lives and, and, and not, I mean, the money's nice.

[00:15:11] David Craig: It comes, but that wasn't why, that's not, wasn't motivating me. And now I can honestly say I've been practicing 40 years and when you call after hours on the weekends, it goes to my wife. Give you an example. I was having ice cream with my grandson, my wife and a truck accident in Illinois happened, and these people were extraordinarily upset.

[00:15:29] David Craig: They call in after hours, it gets transferred to my wife. My wife says, let me, I'll talk to him. I'll let you talk to my husband, who's the partner, and I step out my, I tell my grandson, I'm sorry, you finish your ice cream. I'll be outside. And I immediately go out. And then they get done with their ice cream, they ride on the way back home.

[00:15:47] David Craig: And I'm talking to these folks all the entire way. Why wouldn't you do that? I mean, you, I mean, this is why I chose to be a truck wreck lawyer. I chose to help people in the worst of their times. Why the hell would I not answer the phone and talk to these people? Why would I have some service who knows where answering the phone and talking to these people?

[00:16:08] David Craig: And so I still do it. Um, and I still get excited about it because you're making a difference in these people's lives. And honestly. You're right. People don't know whether a settlement is a good settlement or a bad settlement, but people sure to heck know how they were treated in the process, and I think that makes all the difference in the world.

[00:16:28] Andrew Nasrinpay: I, I think that initial intake is make or break for most PI firms because that, that is beyond them looking on your website about what you say about yourself and the firm, which everybody's pounding their chest, showing huge verdicts and settlements showing like a great history. Good. Profile pages on all the attorneys.

[00:16:47] Andrew Nasrinpay: Uh, but at the end of the day, it's that first call and how they feel and how they were treated on that call. And most firms totally fumble that. 

[00:16:56] David Craig: Yeah, I agree. I, and, and I have a, a, a person who, with a psychology degree who does my intakes. Again, I'm not a big volume practice, so I'm, I'm a niche practice.

[00:17:04] David Craig: We're looking at higher end cases, truck accidents, catastrophic injuries, and death. And so I have somebody who has a psychology degree who handles those. First calls and then transfers it to an attorney. Um, but he, he's good at listening. You know, not all lawyers are good at listening. He's good at listening.

[00:17:22] David Craig: He cares. I have a social worker. I just hired somebody who has a social work degree, and, um, and that person spends time with all my clients on the front end, and as part of every team. That my clients meet. Um, and I don't see a lot of firms doing that, but I think that's a trend that we'll see, especially with ai that, you know, AI will help us do the paperwork and the administrative and all that kind of stuff.

[00:17:45] David Craig: And so what you really need are people who are empathetic, who are passionate, who listen, who help guide people. Um, and so that certainly is the way our firm is moving. 

[00:17:57] Bobby Steinbach: David, I, I've been like itching to ask this question because. You're kind of in a somewhat similar place to we are to what we are, uh, insofar as how do you scale, how do you get bigger while maintaining quality, right.

[00:18:12] Bobby Steinbach: For you guys, because you're dealing with such significant events and catastrophic events, it's like of utmost importance that everybody in your team is highest quality. And we kind of view ourselves the same way we we're. I always say we're like a goldilock zone agency. Not too little, not too big, but when we.

[00:18:29] Bobby Steinbach: As we grow, how do we maintain, um, like our quality standards? What do you think is like the perfect size law firm where you've got, you're big enough where you've got process and kind of like, you know, what works, what doesn't, but you're not so big where you don't smell like the sheep. If that, if that makes sense.

[00:18:47] Bobby Steinbach: Right? 

[00:18:47] David Craig: Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. I think, so my law firm is about 50 employees, 10 lawyers. Um, and um, and I think, and what I did here recently was I hired a computer. System engineer from a huge company, and he's like, I sat down with him. He's like, I don't know anything about law. I said, I don't give a shit.

[00:19:07] David Craig: I'm not looking for somebody who knows a lot about law. I need somebody who can, who can develop software, who can develop systems, who can help workflow, because the answer to your question is harder to find more and more great quality people. So you've gotta have your great quality people doing the more important things, and you've gotta remove everything else from them.

[00:19:30] David Craig: And the best way to do that is develop systems and workflow and, you know, adopt in, in our case, you know, use, utilize ai, utilize computer software programs that can make your free your people up to do more work, um, and to do higher quality work. And then you have to be really careful in hiring people. Um, I think that my law law firm has 10 lawyers.

[00:19:55] David Craig: All the lawyers in my firm with, except number one, were either a law clerk of mine or a legal intern. Now it has slow growth because you can only hire so many law clerks. I mean, that you keep, that are really good, but you vet 'em, you get to know them, you get to know their families before you ever hire 'em.

[00:20:13] David Craig: And so I'm, my firm is 26 years old and, and my, my, you know, Scott follows, like I said, I hired him 30 some years ago. As a law clerk. And so these, all these lawyers are really good and you bring them up and then you send them out and train them to the Lanier to, you know, all the different trial lawyers that are running trial trials things.

[00:20:32] David Craig: And you have to say, you have to have, you know, you have to be careful of your own ego because a lot of law firms have a big, are driven by a person with a big ego. But, and they don't really want people to be better than them, you know, I mean, secretly, but the reality is I take a lot of pride in that all my lawyers are really good lawyers and they're getting better.

[00:20:51] David Craig: And, um, and I think that that's hiring the right people. But then the other crazy thing is, is like so many paralegals, the ones that have a lot of experience, are pretty set in their way. And they come from a traditional PI firm, and I've quit hiring them because so many law firms are geared towards profit only.

[00:21:11] David Craig: Um, you know, how many cases, what are that, you know, and, and that's just not going to work in our firm. Um, and it's okay for other firms, but it's not gonna work in our firm. And so I have fired people who make me a lot of money. They're not the right team. And if you're gonna scale, you better have the right team.

[00:21:30] David Craig: You better everybody better be on board, on the quality of your services. You know what is gonna distinguish you from somebody else. And I can say, you can look at my reviews, you can talk to my clients. And you're gonna find not only do we, are we not afraid to go try cases, but. More importantly, we'll treat you in such a way that you are gonna be happy to refer clients to me in the future.

[00:21:51] David Craig: Whether it's from the onboarding with a social, uh, psychology person, with a social worker with my team. That's not the old school paralegals that we're used to. So we're moving in a whole different direct direction. I think reinventing how we practice is how you scale, and you have to look at it from like, Hey, look, just forget what everything we know.

[00:22:14] David Craig: Let's look how we can become more efficient and how we can provide, you know, look, hire nurses, hire social workers, hire psychologists, you know, to help run files versus paralegals. 

[00:22:26] Andrew Nasrinpay: Yeah. One example that I can give, um, in the asbestos litigation, um. Like vertical. You'll see that they all have books now. So they're all doing something very similar to what you said.

[00:22:40] Andrew Nasrinpay: Mm-hmm. And on the intake side, they've actually hired doctors. Mm-hmm. Because people are calling about a very serious medical condition and they want the best experience right off the get go. So if you look at that and compare it to the world of PI, where the intake department is, usually it leaves a lot.

[00:23:01] Andrew Nasrinpay: Um, to be desired with the way they treat people in most intake processes. So I think you're pretty spot on in the way you're developing your firm. 

[00:23:10] David Craig: I, and I think trying to treat people the way they wanna be treated. You know, we, you hear that, you know, I'll treat people the way I wanna be treated, but I tell my people, treat people the way that treat the clients the way they wanna be treated.

[00:23:21] David Craig: 'cause one of 'em is different. Some people like texting, some people like email, some people like Zoom, some people like, but let's work and let's figure out each client. Uh, let's provide the services in the way they want it. Um, and, uh, as a result, as you know, I mean, referrals are a huge part of our business, and if you do a great job for people, then that's a lot cheaper than having those people out there, um, getting you business and referring business to you.

[00:23:46] Bobby Steinbach: All right. I think this is a pretty good stopping point, David. Um, we talked about everything from books to AI to trucking, to. Yeah, faultless and what lies between there. So, um, I think we're gonna call it now. Sure. But, uh, thanks so much for joining us on Hot Docket. We all learned a ton. And, um, anybody, if you get injured, God forbid, in the, uh, Indiana, I think you're Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, that kind of corridor, right?

[00:24:15] Bobby Steinbach: If you get injured anywhere there, I have lawyer's license, 

[00:24:17] David Craig: lawyer's license in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, uh, Missouri, and Indiana. So. 

[00:24:25] Bobby Steinbach: Well, anybody gets hurt there. Faultless is the one to call. God, I love it. All right, see you on the next Hot Docket. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Hot Docket.

[00:24:34] Bobby Steinbach: We're your hosts, Bobby and Andrew, founders of Meme Pug, the marketing agency for ambitious law firms. 

[00:24:40] Andrew Nasrinpay: Have questions about marketing or anything we covered today? Email us@markatpug.com. Be sure to subscribe to learn more. Until next time.