Trial Lawyer View Podcast
Dirk Derrick

Dirk Derrick00:00:00

We’re not uncertain anymore. We got a good idea of what the jury’s going to do, and now we’re flipping the leverage of Thomas saying, you got 15 days to pay us. So it’s just a way to learn what the truth is and then leverage it either with your client if they want too much money or with the other side if they’re not paying enough money and getting paid fast.

Jason Lazarus00:00:18

That’s Dirk Derrick, founder of Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers. He believes focus groups can replace uncertainty with real jury data, giving lawyers leverage to better understand case value and push for stronger, faster results.

Dirk Derrick00:00:32

Over the hundred and 98 cases where we had a pre-focus group offer, the average increase was $169,190, or almost $33 million in settlement value.

Jason Lazarus00:00:46

In this episode, you’ll learn how focus groups can reveal the real value of a case, why reducing uncertainty can shift leverage in settlement negotiations, and how jury data and AI are changing the way personal injury firms evaluate, build, and resolve cases. I’m Jason Lazarus and this is Trial Lawyer View. I know that you started your firm back in 1991, and for years from doing my research, I found that you were frustrated by the leverage insurers had in personal injury cases. Can you talk about what changed for you in 2015 and pushed you to put a big case in front of a Ford Focus group.

Dirk Derrick00:01:29

At the time? It was a big case and they had some, they also had written it up as my, my guys fault, you know, so pedestrian. And it was a big case. All the witnesses were against us, but we built it up. Thought we had good case, had some good 36, testimony. But it was still something that happened that a jury could find. It was my client’s fault. So we ran a some rooms over to convention center, brought in 30 people, but I brought in a, audio video specialist. And for the first time, I’d done, focus groups before. But for the first time, interviewed each individual after the focus group defined their was why they decided that wah wah wah and just got real good information. And we used, the videos of, of the presentation and of the deliberations. And for the first time, I took all of this and put it in my demand package and actually shared with the other side what these people were saying about their defense is that they thought were strong. But I had four different juries that day, agreeing with the plaintiff against their defenses. And so I leveraged the truth of, from the eyes of the appraisers or the jurors, in an effort to take the truth, they told me about what they thought about the case, but also the value of the case and how to leverage it with the insurance company and the defense to try to get the real value of the case faster. And that’s when we started it and and got a good result in that case. And I said, that is something I had never done, but I actually took the results and the and the videos and, and used all the power of the focus group jurors to bring about a fair settlement, but faster settlement and not having to go through trial because we’d always had you know, the only leverage is, hey, if you don’t like what we’re paying, you file a lawsuit, we’ll see it a courthouse. So now I was able to show not only my client, but the other side. To what? Ordinary people who don’t have a dog in the fight thought about the value of the case.

Jason Lazarus00:03:41

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Dirk Derrick00:04:41

Two points. One, the defense attorney was impressed about it. You know, I don’t know what they are pay you, but I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. And secondly, we’d always been, kind of scared on on sharing things. But I also knew that every one of my clients, I mean, still up to date, 38 years I’ve done it. Every one of my clients want the real value of their case. They want to as fast as possible, and they’d rather not go sit in a courtroom and go through that process, every one of them. So our way, that our way. The information I’m handed over versus my client’s desire to get this over without going to court. And there’s cases where we focus group cases and there’s some stuff that come up. And I said, you know, they had mentioned that I don’t think they are aware that evidence exists. I’m not going to give them a heads up. But most of the time, you know, about time you get premeditation. A pretrial if you’re not showing your you’re opening and closing is am I? Everybody kind of knows what the evidence is coming in the case. You know, my time, we get that we’re 95, 96% sure of what the jury is going to hear. We’re just showing the jury that earlier, in that particular case, it made them go out and do their own focus groups. And, I found out later they had three focus groups, and, one of them agreed with the numbers. I, I presented to them. One of them, they said, came back with a defense verdict and one of them, maybe a little bit higher than my focus group. So, I don’t mind if it chases them to go find their own truths, but, it worked in that case and led me to say, okay, I need to give this to more my clients rather than just the more to me in all cases, I need to be able to do that. And that’s what got me started on the whole process.

Jason Lazarus00:06:34

Well, I definitely agree with that. You outline in terms of what’s important to someone that’s been involved in a personal injury case. I do have firsthand experience. I was struck by a car while cycling in 2016. It was actually the anniversary of. It was this past weekend, ten years ago. And having been through that hell, yeah, I could put me in the ICU and 21 days mask on, you know, a couple of years of of recovery going through that. Exactly what you outlined is, is what’s important. And whatever information gets disseminated to the other side that gets that outcome for the injured party is so darn important to to the personal injury victim who’s, you know, that their only only way to get what they deserve is by the hard work trial lawyers like you that do those sorts of things that get to the other side to do what they should do in the first place.

Dirk Derrick00:07:31

I felt a lot of frustration on being hired as the expert to represent individuals, and when the insurance companies started throwing offers on the table and them saying, you know, is that a good offer? We always you gave me a disclaimer. You never know what a jury gonna do. It’s going to do. Every jury is different. You know, you got good parts about your case. You have some weaknesses. I don’t know how they respond. And honest to God, I feel like that’s that’s weak. Weak. As a professional, that’s the best we can do. Or compare it to what John Doe got on a similar case down the road when I started doing it. I realize lawyers are terrible about evaluating cases. We do not look at the same thing that the ordinary people look at all cases. It blows your mind when you start doing these things. My God, that’s what they design these cases on. Did not anticipate that. And just to be able to give the data to your client, just to be able to say, hey, we ran about 12 people, we ran it by 112 people. Here’s the here’s the data. And, I just I feel better professionally to be able to give that to my client instead of telling them I don’t know, or playing the bad guy. And, you know, saying you got this problem and this problem goes, you know, if you represent plaintiffs and you start telling people, hey, you got this problem and this problem, I don’t know if they don’t believe this. It’s very easy for them to push back against you and say, hey, I thought you were my lawyer. I thought, I thought you’re fighting for me. Why are you talking trash? You don’t want to do the work. You’re trying to get easy money. You know, there’s it just it’s bad for the relationship. If I’m going to be their teammate in their fight or to all of a sudden start dogging their case. So we don’t do that anymore. We let we let the public give us their assessment and we just share the data.

Jason Lazarus00:09:19

So I’m curious from a business perspective, and I know you just gave the justification to why do that, but what do you feel like the focus group operation cost is in comparison to the return that you get in results? Because, you know, obviously as a business person, you’ve got to weigh your expense with what the return is on the investment. I’m guessing it’s proven out to be pretty darn good, but I’m just curious what how you view that.

Dirk Derrick00:09:53

Last week I had my focus group data. Manager pulled the data have 198 cases where, we had a, a pre focus group offer on the table. And when focus group the case and at some point after that we settle the case. And in those 198 cases, the average multiple is that we settled at 2.7 times what they offer, the average offer over 198 cases. And now some of these cases on, we found out that they were were close to the value. I mean, we got some bad cases in here too, but over the, the 198 cases where we had a pre focus group offer, the average increase was $169,190, or almost $33 million in settlement value on those 198 cases. When attorneys do this, they realize we live in this insurance matrix where we’re letting the insurance companies evaluate cases for us, and then that they have this leverage of uncertainty and time and money they beat our clients down with and beat lawyers down with. You know, I can’t go try a thousand cases this this year. But to be able to take that data and throw it back on them in South Carolina, we had bad faith insurance practices. So now we we renew our target river letter and say, hey, pass the policy limits in 30 days. Plus he goes, what 12 jurors thought this case and this more than your policy limits, we have flipped the leverage. We we’re not uncertain anymore. We got a good idea what the is going to do. And now we’re flipping the leverage of Thomas. And you got 15 days to pay us. So it’s just a way to to learn what the truth is and then leverage it either with your client if they want too much money or with the other side if they’re not paying enough money and getting paid faster. And it has, increased our average fee per case, it has made better trial lawyers with more attorneys who have to stand up and argue both sides in front of a, a focus group. It’s it’s creative fans from our clients. It’s creative fans from the focus group participants who come up here and watch what we’re doing at night in our courtroom. It’s it was so good that after the first year, I went from one courtroom in Conway, and now we have six across the state of South Carolina. And, and we went from doing in-house cases to attorneys throughout South Carolina. And in the last 18 months, we’re taking it nationwide. And, it is it’s changed everything about how we build cases. And it’s it’s made up a very good financial impact on our firm.

Jason Lazarus00:12:41

In doing prep for the podcast recording today, I saw that you just described it as flipping for leverages time, money, uncertainty and knowledge of those. Which one do you think actually moves the other side and why? What is it in there that is actually moving the needle for the results for your clients?

Dirk Derrick00:13:05

I think the biggest leverage is removing uncertainty. I tell the folks group participants when they come in that, you know, they blame lawyers for, too many lawsuits, but but really, they’re the blame because what happens is an incident occurs. And then both sides disagree with what 12 people would do with the case. I mean, happens over and over and over. You’ve got to establish the facts and go after facts hard, take depositions fast and get the facts in the case before you give it to a focus group that you can rely upon. But if you do and get good data on it and present it fairly and present a good for plaintiffs case, a good for defense case, and you can show the defense that you’ve done that. You’ve just you just dump, some truths on them that they got to make a decision on. You’ve kind of taken the uncertainty away so you can show your client, and now your client will get behind you and let you push harder and go further. But that leverage of uncertainty is gone, and that leverage of uncertainty scares our clients. You know, they they ask you, is that a good offer? I don’t think it’s a good offer. I think you should. You should wait. You should let me push harder on it. Well, can you can you guarantee me if we don’t get more money? No. Where now with this, I said, you know, I can’t guarantee you now, but I can show you data points, and it’s just a very, a very powerful thing that empowers the plaintiff to let you drive further to get more money. It’s very powerful to remove that uncertainty with the defense to where okay, we got some we got some problems here. We got some chances of of bad faith. Insurers are insured, have some chances of having a, judgment against them. And I think that’s the biggest leverage.

Jason Lazarus00:15:03

Flip are curious if you’re seeing any change is as a result of I use on the other side I had a medical provider has a gas recently on the podcast, and he was talking about, you know, some of the systems like Colossus and these other systems that are evaluating injuries on behalf of the insurers to come up with some, you know, usually lowball off her. But I’m curious if you think the focus group information sort of overwrites that kind of analysis or whether you’re eventually going to need some more, you know, tools in your tool charts that are perhaps technology driven to help assist with convincing the other side to pay what you believe based on focusing focus, grouping. That case should be the value of the case.

Dirk Derrick00:15:59

Well, I’m I’m a firm believer that on any one particular case, I got better data than anybody because it makes a difference who the parties are. It makes a difference when they meet the parties. It makes a difference on the individual facts of a case. And I’m a firm believer. And today somebody asked me the value of a case. They bring up the back pattern. And to me I said, I don’t know. I got to meet both of the parties. I’d like to see what they said in their deposition. Who’s your expert? There’s just so many factors that determine the value of a particular case. Every one of them separate, different, so they can base it on what all these attorneys may have gotten at different, courtrooms. They can, base it on a big thing. Now it’s just having a jury which bases, you know, you make a demographically correct jury, for every county. And it’s almost the way we pick juries in the past on steroids. You know, you make assumptions about different groups of people and how they don’t take cases. I’ve run them parallel with two of our focus groups and had completely different outcomes and what our focus group said. So I think the individual focus group, the specific people in the facts and the issues are is the best way to evaluate one case where now what we’re doing on the back side is we’ve run over 11,000 people through the service over the last seven years and got 28,000 people who have signed up and gave us their 107 data points of demographics, life experiences and beliefs that we have in a big data set and that big data set. We put it in Domo first so we could filter, and we’re presently building a product with it to where, when a case comes in, we use illegal but illegal summarizes the case. And we got game plans, to build at this particular case. Can mean here’s how it goes. An investigator game plan. It goes how we don’t attack it. We don’t able to plug in our big data set on the back end of it and take all these opinions of what these jurors said they wanted, who they want to hear it from, to add that into our our game plan, where what’s important to the jury now, what we think is important or what they’ve told us they wanted to see, what were they wanted to hear on this type of case, of this type of injury? We also building a jury selection process. Our system with this big data set, we know on a particular case, or you can take a particular type of case, or you can take a particular type of injury and you can say, we can plug that in at the big data set, and it will show us the ten or 12 or 15 data points of those 107 data points that drove somebody for that type of case to be a pro plaintiff or pro defense, top 25% Plano or top 25% defense. Or you can break it down by issue liability, actual damages and punitive damages. So if it tells us what data points made somebody four times more likely to be a defense juror, that’s something we want to know. If you’re in a state a Do or IRA knows what are. We don’t have radar in South Carolina, but you can ask these 12 or 15 questions and really give yourself an advantage on, who who to strike from the jury. What we have found out is there are jurors that we’ve always put on, on cases that are great on liability and are terrible on punitive damages and are they’re great on actual damages. And they’re terrible on liability. You can break it down issue by issue on the type of juror these people are. And depending on what your case needs, if I have a case with real strong liability, real strong actual damages, my my values will come from the punitive. So I want to pick a punitive juror. And if you can break it down, the big data set gives you that. Who’s the punitive value you want on there and who’s the bad on punitive you want to strike?

Jason Lazarus00:20:13

It’s a great segue because I was going to ask you if there is a belief or a set of beliefs about jurors that most experienced trial lawyers hold with confidence that perhaps your data says something to the contrary about, or whether it agrees with it. I’m just curious, based on what you were just talking about, how that data intersects with the beliefs.

Dirk Derrick00:20:40

I think very much so. I think very much so. We try to case a couple of years ago, and it was somebody who took our, our data showed us that we could not win the punitive issue. But, we had some coverage left and our client gave us permission to go after it. And, data also said that in this particular type of case, that conservative business owners, 50 to 60 year old men or the best jurors. And all my life I’ve dodged those people from the plaintiffs standpoint. And, so we struck people that we usually would not strike. I think the defense attorney thought we’re having an aneurysm or something going on at the table. And then we had nine of them in the jury box. And, we outperformed our focus group. We had done two focus groups. And in this group of conservative, men, many of which are owned businesses, outperformed the focus group. And, it just the data showed us on this particular case, we had very strong liability, didn’t have a winning plaintiff, had bad injuries, that they would give you more money than what we think are good plaintiffs jurors. So this is issue by issue is case by case type. And it will surprise you. I’ve been shot in because just podcast is public. I might tell you too many of the secrets I’ve learned, but there’s things I have shocked me about, jurors that I never knew. And if you go on stereotypes and, and they it’s just doesn’t pan out.

Jason Lazarus00:22:23

And we talk about this concept of focus groups on a huge case. And I you’ve alluded to this and what you were talking about that you’ve built a model for using it for ordinary cases. And but I’m curious in terms of now having built this system, what does that data tell you that’s important for someone listening to this that perhaps is not running their practice that way. They need to understand and be aware of so they can get the best possible results for their client.

Dirk Derrick00:23:02

I think. I mean, my message to everybody is escape this insurance matrix that we live in where we don’t know the value. I think everybody should find the truth on cases. Now he goes the cases, we find the truth. We find truth on any case that involves, any type of permanent injury. It can be a 5% permanent injury. I don’t care if it’s any kind of, forever injury. If my client says I still have headaches, they got this, any kind of permanency, any kind of reckless conduct, and it can be a statutory violation running a red light. Talking on the phone, anything that a jury could find, somebody that reckless or any kind of contested liability. You know, those are the three areas that the defense and the insurance companies usually fight back on. You know, we question the liability or we don’t think the jury’s off on punitive damages here or nobody’s, pay you for 10% permanent impairment. Baa baa baa baa baa. But those are the three issues that we really get kicked backs on in our policy in the law firm. And it didn’t start off this way until we found the the value of this. Our policy is you cannot settle a case that has a, any kind of permanency, any kind of punitive or contested liability unless they pay you all the money without folks in it. So go get all the money, all the money or focus group the case. And, we were losing a lot of money. On cases that we were convinced, you know, it could be 100 and 5070 $5,000 case. It’s not a bad offer. And we found ours were 4 or 450. And, you know, you start talking averaging 106, $970,000 more across the board on those cases. I mean, that makes that makes a difference to your clients and makes a huge difference to your profit margin. And, I think we we call it learning the truth and then leveraging the truth, attacking the facts early on. But, you know, set up a system yourself, get somebody to help you. You can do these things where you don’t have to spend, you know, 30, $35,000 to do a focus group. But you need to to learn the truth that people are losing money. Not on there’s just 7 or 8 figure cases. They’re losing money on the six figure cases. And this is a system that we developed. But anybody else can develop it too. But to find out what the truth is. So you can you can leverage that and get more money for your client. I mean, it’s it’s a win win. Your client’s happy with you. Your bottom line is happy with you. Your marketing’s happy with you. You create better trial lawyers. We don’t get in the courtroom enough now. And, you know, I got, I think, 30 lawyers, lawyers doing PR work, and they’re standing up once a month or once every six weeks and presenting both sides of a case and getting immediate feedback. And our system, the jurors actually grade the, the lawyers. And so they’re getting immediate feedback on connectivity and authenticity. And, so it’s to me, it’s a win win, win win. We have automated stuff with AI now where we have expedited the process. When we started off our lawyers were taking a day and a half or two days to get these presentations ready. Now, cloud, cloud design, we can we can upload, AI summary from Eve into cloud design and get, you know, the the slide decks done and 20 minutes and then adjust them to how you want to. But that saves a lot of time. The outside attorneys now who hires, they can they can finish their facts and their depositions. We can do it the same way. Then send them back, a draft of the two presentations. So we’re trying to speed up and taking the the rub off of doing this thing and trying to make it more and more, less expensive for people to do it so they can find the truth. And, I just for us, you know, you say 198 cases and, and our settlement was $33 million more than what they had offered. I mean, it’s not rocket science that that guess and add, value and taking what they offered you just I mean, you’re losing money and your your clients losing money.

Jason Lazarus00:27:43

It’s really interesting the policy you just talked about either get all the coverage available paid or focus group it. I’m curious about if you can describe how the data changes daily work for your 33 attorneys case evaluation and demand package. And in Goshen itself what what is how does this change the the operating dynamic?

Dirk Derrick00:28:13

Well, our process now is if we have I mean, we don’t ask for a policy limits on almost every case. Now, if you got a tractor trailer truck bump on somebody, there’s no physical damage and they may get well in two weeks. We’re not and ask for policy limits. Those cases, you know, the fender benders, the small cases, we still take them. I have a hard time. I don’t want anybody to say, you know, we’re happy if you got a big case that he can make money on it. South Carolina still small enough. I’d like if I see somebody get a straw, they say, you know, don’t help me. Even though I had a $10,000 case. Even. Even if I don’t make money on that case. If if I make a fan out of that person, we treat them right. They give us a five star review the number of times they come back and send us a big case. I mean, I just think, so we don’t we don’t do that. The process now, you can settle those cases. If it’s one of those cases where these three scenarios go ahead and ask for all the money, ask for it. Give them what you know. If we can leverage with this, with if we can leverage it with just the facts. Awesome. I mean, I don’t want to go focus group vacation. I don’t have to. But if they say the facts aren’t enough, then appraise the facts and leverage that. So that’s that’s the difference. I mean, we, ask for everything. They don’t pay everything. If we feel like there’s facts line behind litigation, go ahead and follow suit. Notice the depositions fast. Attack the facts and then leverage it with a focus group and get it back to and put the ball in their court as fast as you can.

Jason Lazarus00:29:47

I want to ask you about how you built and scaled your firm because you started out. My understanding is you want associate and now you’ve got 33 attorneys, 60 plus staff, ten officers. And as you scaled your practice, what broke first and what did you do after Fix It?

Dirk Derrick00:30:10

I practiced by myself for 25 years like I had. I had a paralegal and my wife worked part time. And, part of that was intentionally I stay small, older. I had two sons. They were eight and a half years apart. I didn’t want to miss that time of their life. I coached him in basketball, baseball and football all the way through rec department and told my wife after that I was gonna try to build a farm. It was 2009. I was 49 years old and one and a half staff and, trying to find a way to, market without looking like a personal injury lawyer. I wanted to do some things, unlike a personal injury lawyer, but letting people know what we did, and, stumbled across and it is 2009 doesn’t seem like a long time ago, but there wasn’t a whole lot of people using Google Chrome and Google was new. Stumbled across a website. They said, you know, get a get a, website, put content on it. We didn’t know what content man at the time, but put stuff about what you were doing and they’re going to Google was on send you people. I hired a girl coming out of, college. She came in and started putting anything to do a personal angel on our on a web page, and which just started growing. I mean, and this is where the biggest problem was, we started Grown-Ups, me as an attorney, and I went from one and a half staff to like ten staff, just trying to keep up with the influx. We we dominated Myrtle Beach area in the coast here in South Carolina with one college graduate typing stuff into our web page for like five years. I mean, like probably cost me $40,000 a year to dominate Google. And, but when we started dominate and people started calling, then you got to make sure you have your ducks in a row to, to represent them. Right. Are you get a bad reputation? Cause it was almost growing too fast to keep keep a grip on it. So first thing I did is, our department passed my paralegals. I couldn’t find qualified paralegals from sign up to conclusion. So I started hiring people in the nursing field to do my medical liaison, setting a medical staff and checking all my clients. Hired some some investigators, whether they’re, ex police officers or ex Department of Social Services investigators, to do my investigation. So I didn’t have to have a paralegal knew how to do everything. I started dividing up their jobs and made them as good as I could make them in one area. So we had a investigator, a paralegal, a building records paralegal, medical liaison who taught to the clients, insurance and lean paralegal, a settlement paralegal, and then a litigation paralegal. And we started hiring them to assist me in working the case up. Right, and making sure nothing fell through the cracks. That was the first big fix that we had to do. The second fix. So I had to start hiring lawyers. And I’d been by myself for 25 years or so, and and in that first folder, too, a lawyer was one of the hardest things I did to do this. Like, I would do it because I don’t want my name on it. You not do it. So and then we just started growing and trying to stay ahead of, ahead of the curve on being a build cases like we want to build cases. So we started we’ve started become a a high volume firm who wanted to do things the old way and build cases. Right. So I had to start, trying to find attorneys. And I think that’s the second biggest thing that’s hard to do is to find attorneys who actually want to be a trial lawyer after they see what it is to be a trial lawyer. A lot of people, yeah, that’s what I want to do. And then when they get into it and, and realize there’s weekends and there’s stuff involved, this is not a job. If you don’t be a trial lawyer, it’s a different animal. To find people who would do that so that I could hold the case number down. For our lawyers, I mean, our lawyers. When I started doing it at, first a large trial on 100 cases, and I know best not on high volume farms. A lot of them handle 100 cases, but I didn’t think they could do it. Right. So it came down to 80, came down to 65, and now we’re between 40 and 45 cases to to do it right, to build it right to get the real value and to, do it with speed for our clients. That’s not settling the case fast, but it’s beyond the case. Fast. Those are the two biggest, hurdles we had. Yeah, it was a blessing to me because that model required a lot of manpower. If you know how the case counts down and do it right and file the case after 180 days and focus group the case and, and, age really allowing us to automate stuff now so that we don’t have to hire people as we our case intake goes up. Everybody in the office can handle more. And, so it’s been a blessing for the model we run. So I guess that’s part of the third hurdle. The third hurdle would be hiring people fast enough to do it right and give personal attention. And I mean, the solution for that.

Jason Lazarus00:35:45

That’s pretty amazing what it can do paired with the right people who have the right mindset and the right training and can use it intelligently the way it it should be used. And we’ve we’ve done that ourselves and deployed it and have used that now to build systems that were giving well, providing as a service to law firms so that they don’t spend their, their own resources, on what is purely administrative work, which is you know, lead identification, verification, resolution, and, but it’s such a beautiful thing that it is allowing growth now. And that’s a good segue, because I wanted to ask you because you, you’ve had, some stuff out there about using AI on juror data and, curious how you’re using not and where it’s producing real value for you guys.

Dirk Derrick00:36:45

Is across the board. As I started, you know, we’re collecting data on these people on the ship to us, but I knew I needed I should collect their data. I knew I wanted to know what jurors were good for particular type of case. And this was a forum I was mentioning. Are, now when they start talking about AI. So we got to double down on this stuff and make sure we keep clean data. But, we’re using our focus group to better we transcribe everything that the jurors say in our building. And, we use a descript AI program that can identify who is saying it. So we we have the 107 data points on the, on the jurors, but we also have every we get their individual verdict form before they deliberate as a group. We get what they answer. We get what they say in the jury room. In the deliberation room when we squeeze them in and, and I, we get what they say there. So on any particular juror, we’d use AI to transcribe everything they say in their office, and it is given to their row of the AI data. Here’s how they decided case, here’s how they came in. And he goes, everything they said about the case while they’re in our office. And to be able to gather all that stuff without manpower is a beautiful thing. And then use AI to summarize everything, to come up with a 2025 page report on that focus group, to be able to give the lawyer everything that was said, done, decided, charted everything about the case. It just would have taken people weeks to, to gather all the information. And now we just do it, you know, with AI. So that’s how we use it with focus group, we use it, across the board on, case construction. I love, any use you can use AI to speed up litigation. I hate slow litigation. Our clients hate slow litigation. So the cases we have to file, I want to attack the fact and do discovery quickly. And, we have an, agent now that when the when the defense answers our discovery, agent automatically runs against their answers, pulls out all their witnesses, that they have named put puts those witnesses in context of the whole case and what they say they don’t testify to. And creates a deposition outline for that witness, for the lawyer to have as a, as a starting point to depose. That witness also notifies the paralegals who they who they have identified so that, she can get the attorney’s permission. Go ahead and set up these depositions. It also runs, a deficiency check on their answers and comes up with a letter saying y’all were deficient in these areas. And answering these questions. How about answering these questions? And, been a rule 11 letter here. If they don’t respond within ten days, they say we don’t file a motion. So just speeding that up. Just just speeding that up is huge for litigation. When they send us discovery, we have an, agent runs and goes through all of our information in our file and answers to their discovery as a draft for the paralegal to look at. And then for the lawyer to look at with just the draft, just to have a draft of the answer. Discovery, based upon everything in our file is a huge time saver for our paralegals. And, so we’re doing anything we can do to to take the initial drawing up of the document from our employees so that our employees are now supervising it and going through and making sure it’s right. And we don’t we don’t do use it at all. I said, hey, here’s how you get fired from the law firm. Since, to the court that’s been prepared by I don’t do that. But you can use it. You can use it as a start of the kind of starting kit on everything, you know, instead of start with a blank page, you start off with something that has pulled the appropriate data into your your product. I like it, I like it from my, the younger lawyers as far as taking the experienced lawyer, creating a prompt, and then a young lawyer put something in it and say, you know, how would an experienced lawyer work at this case? And to give them a starting point on a game plan, what causes of action they should be looking for? What evidence could be out there? Who would have that evidence? You just given a young lawyer information that they have not gathered yet with experience.

Jason Lazarus00:41:30

Say a 3 to 5 lawyer shop hears this and assumes courtrooms and, you know, data scientists and focus groups are out of reach. What can they do to build in year one on a shoestring budget, something that will begin to, change the practice and put into place the things that you’ve been talking about?

Dirk Derrick00:41:55

I think, a 3 or 5 man firm start off the day is a different world than when I started off, and I started growing the firm in 2009. You know, I think the the marketing has changed. It’s hard to catch people with all the reviews and stuff, and we’re early on that. So we got ahead of that. But now that it’s on to go to, I searches. So, what we’ve done with our marketing department is, determine what I want to see and where how they decide and who to send people to, and making sure that our website, everything out in the public is given things, like the directories and stuff are given information that right now the large language models are using to tell people who who good lawyers are in a particular area. I personally believe that’s where it’s going. I mean, and it’s people to show me. Talking to ChatGPT, who’s the best perf manager lawyer in Myrtle Beach, who’s the best ranger lawyer in South Carolina? So I want to show up when they ask that. So I think you need to learn that that marketing to I, it’s not the main driver yet, but I think it’s going in that direction. The second thing is, what I tell our are people all the time. Keep the client first and, make fans of the people who have already come into your doors. So we spent a lot of time finding out, something unique about our our clients. I might be sending them a gift while we represent them. If they’re a golfer, they get some DLF golf balls. If they’re a hunter, they get a draft knife. And I said, God, I hope that never shows up on the news with a DLF knife sticking out of somebody. But they don’t get some kind of personalized, hospitality touch somewhere in the representation. But also we, we talk to them every two weeks, the days when I, when I started practicing and 87 if you gave somebody a good result or what they thought was a good result, they loved you forever. Now it’s their experience. It’s about the customer experience through the whole process. You’re competing against Amazon for speed. You’re competing against Amazon for customer service. You’re not competing against other law firms down the road. You’re competing against the big dogs. So I think my customer customer service standpoint, if I’m starting now, you prioritize that. You prioritize, marketing to the people who are already in your office. I believe you can you can find out the real value of cases and increase the value you just know about and about how big your we have. We have a product or an offer we offer people, hey, if you don’t want to pay us, Adam, give me your best offer. Bring it to me. And if I think there’s a multiple in it, we’ll do the focus groups and stuff. I don’t want a contingency fee basis, and we’re just doing what? We increase the value. And you still keep the majority of that? We get the data, you get the increase. Your client gets happy. It’s a no lose. If it doesn’t increase value. We eat it and we tell people on all of our cases, if you don’t think you got an increase the value of what this data shows, you don’t pay me because I know what it is. So, you know, there’s really no excuse for a lawyer. If you can find somebody who would do that for you, not increase the value of your case, or to find a value, or just call people in your office and try to present the case fairly to them and see what they they tell you. But those are the things I think if you think about the the client and we try to keep the client, upfront, everything we do, and if I was starting a firm today, it’d be the same thing. Everything I do is to get the real value of the claim as fast as possible while giving five star customer service. And it. I mean, we hire for that. Our operations are set on that. Our use of AI is based upon that. I think that’s what the public wants. And I think if you drop one of those balls or two of those balls that you don’t have a hard time scaling to.

Jason Lazarus00:46:06

You provide the focus group services. Two plaintiff lawyers outside your firm. You talked about some technologies that you’re developing. I assume that you’re going to commercialize that as part of this. Why have you turned what is an internal edge for your firm into a service? For other lawyers out there?

Dirk Derrick00:46:25

The same thing that bother me bad enough to start it for myself? I do not like the insurance industry to have the leverage on ordinary people. If it’s my client, if it’s somebody else’s client. We do these outside focus groups. We really don’t make much money on it. If you look at the team I bring to the thing in the audio video and the the data, everything we doing, is pretty cheap is I mean, would you spend $12,000 to increase something hundred and $70,000? So it’s it’s affordable. It’s money back guarantee. You don’t want to pay me which really about helping people see, there’s an avenue to find out the truth and leverage the truth. And from a from a selfish standpoint, I like the data. I like to learn, what jurors think about it, and and I’m gonna leverage the data, but, the data, the truth from me is, is what I’m trying to find out, across the board. But it’s also to help people realize there’s a solution. I think I think most lawyers, if you ask them, they don’t like being in a position to tell their clients. They don’t know what a jury is going to do, and they don’t like the idea that the only way I’m gonna flip the leverage is go try every case, because you can’t economically do that. And I don’t think lawyers set out or not give them their clients or value. I think they are in the same position I was in for 30 years. There’s no way for me to find it, to flip this leverage on the insurance companies without trying every case. And I think a lot of people just don’t realize you can do it and you can do it. And I’d love to help other people do it, and I’d love them to have a somebody in every state in the, in the country who wants to replicate what I do, I’d help them get started, help them provide as much service as they want, and, gather this data across the country so that we’ll have a database, that this is as good as any database owned by the insurance companies across the country.

Jason Lazarus00:48:29

And final question. It’s very open ended, and I always ask it to conclude the podcast episode. And you can answer it however you like. Really what I’m trying to elicit is, is either something to take as close out of the episode or something you haven’t talked about that you want to talk about. But as a data scientist, as a data junkie, all the things you’ve talked about as a trial lawyer, what’s your view to the podcast trailer? You so again answered however you want.

Dirk Derrick00:49:03

We are live in in part the in the in the 38 years of practice, in a time of the most uncertainty as to what’s going to occur in the personal injury field and in all the legal fields, what is it going to look like to be a personal injury lawyer in five years or three years, or any type of a lawyer with the onset of a, I think it is the most uncertain time we’ve ever lived with, lived in during my lifetime. I believe it provides an opportunity to those who are willing to expand the way they do things and expand their thoughts. I think it is a huge opportunity for those people, to get ahead and to scale and to reduce the cost of doing business. And I believe that if you do not get on board, that you don’t be in a situation in 2 or 3 years that I don’t know how you compete against a firm who can run a 50 or 60% profit margin, and you’re still running a 10 to 20% profit margin. If you’re if any of your business comes from marketing, I think it’s, I have accepted and jumped on all this stuff, and I’m using it to build the firm and to get good information and get good data, because I love it and I think it’s a great opportunity. But on the back side, there’s some fear too, that if you don’t adopt, you’re going to get left behind.

Jason Lazarus00:50:40

Yeah, great. Great advice. And I don’t think that there’s any question that if you don’t use I as a lawyer, you are going to be left behind. I don’t think that there’s, question in my mind on that. So, Dirk, if you can, if someone’s listening to the podcast has a case that they want or refer, in South Carolina, what’s the background on your practice? And then if you can give a little information as well on the focus group service for anyone that might be interested, that’s listening to the episode today.

Dirk Derrick00:51:15

We practice across the state. We have ten officers said, ma’am, our staff with attorneys. We got officers in Conway, Myrtle Beach, Florence, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Columbia, in Greenville, staff with attorneys that we handle for stranger cases, across state, all types of personal injury cases, trucking cases, catastrophic cases. But across the board, we do some worker’s comp. Also we do nationwide focus group work. We present most of those cases. We present, the attorneys present from home. They have had some Florida, South Carolina and do it. But a lot of times they present from their desk, they’re present to a live jury. Most of the time, it is not a South County case. We do it in Myrtle Beach because we got an influx of people from all over the country, Myrtle Beach, so we can market to people who’ve spent time in different states so we can get four or 5 or 6 people from the state that the case is pending in. And we also do a for those we, do it by zoom. And at the same time, we present to a lab jury will present to a jury in the county that the case is pending in to get the local feel they can contact me. They go to our web page. Derek. Law firm.com. There’s a tab on there about focus group. There’s a tab. If you want to refer a case to us, if you want to talk about a case, if you want to talk about trying to set up your own focus group service, I’m open to that. If there’s a guy down in Florida now that has come up and visited and he’s got he’s working on his second courtroom, but I’ll help anybody I can to escape the insurance matrix and start getting real value for your clients.

Jason Lazarus00:52:55

Well, thanks for your time today and appreciate you joining me on Trial Lawyer View. And we’ll see everybody on the next episode. Right.

Dirk Derrick00:53:00

Thank you very much.

Jason Lazarus00:53:02

If today’s episode gave you a new perspective on how your firm operates or sparked a useful idea, consider sharing it with a colleague and be sure to follow the show so you don’t miss future conversations with leaders across the personal injury. Trial Lawyer View is brought to you by Synergy, a strategic operations partner helping personal injury law firms resolve health care lines more efficiently. If you’re looking to accelerate case flow and allow your team to focus on high level legal work that moves cases faster, consider partnering with Synergy. I’m Jason Lazarus and I’ll see you in the next episode.