Trial Lawyer View Podcast
Ralph Pillinger

Ralph Pillinger00:00:00

Most firms that don't specialize in that area. They treat it like a big car accident. And it is so different. I used to rely all the time on a checklist that I was given to buy a book early in the turned out of Georgia. I would go down this checklist all the time, and I always treat it like if I was a pilot. They go through their checklist and then they keep checking some of those things as the flight takes off from Florida to Utah. Otherwise, they're going to end up in Mexico or Canada if they don't continue to stay on course.

Jason Lazarus00:00:27

That's Ralph Killinger, litigation paralegal and production lead at Fellner. And when he helped to scale feller and went from under 50 to over 105 employees, he believes many firms treat trucking crashes like big car accidents. Their system make sure that never happens firms.

Ralph Pillinger00:00:46

What they do is they over invest in products that the teams, the people that put the boots on the ground, the ones that are actually supposed to use them either never had any input, they didn't test it prior to, and they didn't have or receive genuine buy in like the firm owner or the managing partners didn't receive buy in from the team before they actually got it. Get different teams to test them all out. Get a pilot going for every single one of them, and then get feedback from everybody, and then have them fill out a rubric, if you will, based on all the criteria that the firm uses. And then everybody get together, say this one. No, this one. No. This way we're going to be headed to.

Jason Lazarus00:01:22

In this episode, you'll learn how firms weigh software spend. One production staff had no input and had a pilot and rubric process help senior paralegals function as strategic operators. I'm Jason Lazarus and this is Trial Lawyer View. Ralph, welcome to Trial lawyer review. Thank you for being with me today.

Ralph Pillinger00:01:45

Thanks for having me I appreciate it, Jason.

Jason Lazarus00:01:47

So we were just talking about this before we got on the podcast, but your background is a bit unusual for someone sitting in your seat. You've spent more than two decades as a litigation paralegal, and you've led sales training across the country, worked in financial services, fitted runners for sneakers. You still coach endurance athletes. What does that mix give you? That a typical person in your career path does not bring to the role inside of a law firm?

Ralph Pillinger00:02:17

I kind of thought about how I could relate that, and I think, you know, all of those, prior and some of them are still relevant today. Activities, are always you always start with the end in mind. What's it going to look like at the end? And, and I think that's kind of how my approach has been. And, you know, in the legal realm, both as a paralegal, as a case manager, trial work, training and coaching, you know, the, the, teams from, you know, very basic from intake to case setup specialist all the way through associate attorneys. You know, focusing on the things that, that you can control, because in every one of those endeavors, you know as well as I do, there's so many things you can't control. You can't control the weather, you can't control, you know, the stock market. You can't control what you know, Congress is going to put in play or not. You know, take out of play. You can't control any of that stuff. So you need to make sure that you have a playbook and you run it no matter what.

Jason Lazarus00:03:16

Yeah. Great point. Because the world of personal injury is very much and well, every case is different. As you said, particularly like a practice like you guys where it's multi jurisdiction. There's a lot of things that vary state to state. And you know, having that ability to adapt is is critical for high functioning teams as well.

Ralph Pillinger00:03:39

I agree 100% with that. And sometimes you know obviously there's a lot of things that are the same no matter what the jurisdiction was. I'd say, hey, listen, you know, it's not rocket science. It's, you know, there are specific laws and a lot of times it's just the statute number changes. And in some jurisdictions, the statute number hasn't changed. Right. But the the processes are still going to always be the same. You know, how you, how you get to the end result and they may change a little bit, you know, you know, you're not going to always leave, you know, like my home is in Tennessee, even though I work for firms in, you know, Utah, Arizona and Idaho. And, you know, if I'm going to take, take, take a ride out to one of our Idaho offices. General, I got to get in a plane. I'm not going to drive a car. Right. Takes too long, and and I may, I may not ever get there because I may see a lot of things along the way that I want to stop by a little too long.

Jason Lazarus00:04:32

Yeah. And, so you are a litigation paralegal and production lead at feller. And when it's a multi state firm focused on catastrophic injuries, most personal injury firms don't have a production lead role. What do you actually own day to day in your role. And why does a firm at scale need someone sitting in that seat or performing that function?

Ralph Pillinger00:04:57

That's a great question. I think, you know, with, with, with feller one at number one is that they wanted to scale up, they wanted to grow. And if you take a look at just, a year ago, we had just under for, just under 50 employees. Now we have over 105. And, you know, looking at expanding the the amount of teams per location, to be able to maximize how many people that we can actually get, you know, complete justice for, the, the I think the differences are is that I, you know, as a case manager, I would naturally work with my team to, you know, make sure that they can get the best out of their own abilities, make sure that the right persons in the right chair, sometimes you put the wrong person in the right chair. Right. And so you need to make sure that they're in the chair that they're most comfortable in. That way, I can utilize their strengths the most. And the difference between that and the production lead was we saw not all the teams were operating at the same level. And so our Director of operations, Jeremy and he said, hey, look, you know, I think you're a natural coach because we had talked a lot about my athletic endeavors and what I still continue to do on the coaching side. And you said, what what's your thoughts on doing that here? You know, being able to take both of your natural skill sets and be able to do that. And I thought it was like what I always wanted to do, but never actually, you know, broach the subject with, you know, management or leadership or the owners of the firm and, and just our conversations, you know, he's super intuitive and, he has a military background. And so he's always looking at operations from that standpoint. And, and, you know, we the firm believes that, you know, that we you need to build infrastructure, based on our core values. And our core values are dedication to every client advocates for, community safety, generate incredible work product, have real work life balance, and then you have loyalty to the firm. And that doesn't mean, you know, loyal to feller. And when it's loyal to your teammates, loyal to the so the the direction we're going in, loyal to the process and ultimately loyal to the clients that we serve. So when you put all those things in, we're looking for people that fit that, that are looking for those type of values. Do those values match up with them? And when they do, you know, good things can happen.

Jason Lazarus00:07:12

Great point. You know, hire for culture fit. We do that first and foremost. And then secondarily look well does their profile, whether it's predictive index or disc or some other profile, fit within the position that they're looking to join the company and perform? Because you need both you otherwise you you run into problems with building the kind of team that you want to build, especially a high performing, high functioning team, and working on the types of things that you guys work on. Same with us, is critical. You know that people buy in to the mission, buy into the work, understand the importance of it, and all those things are are such an important part of the being able to scale and grow. Because if you don't have that foundationally, it becomes very difficult. So, you know, you guys handle catastrophic cases, trucking, crash cases, traumatic brain injury, which those are all very document heavy and timeline sensitive. Can you walk through what production looks like since that's what you oversee for that type of work, and perhaps what firms underestimate about managing all of that?

Ralph Pillinger00:08:29

Well, I think you know, if you're related to and one of the reasons, Jason, that I was drawn to the traumatic brain injury was through trucking crashes. Unfortunately, they kind of go hand in hand. Right. But what I see the that a lot of firms that don't necessarily specialize in, and I have gone out of my way to get myself around the smartest people, in the country when it comes to that particular, area. And when I first came to feller, when Matt Feller came into the office, when I was there for orientation, I flew out, to Utah, and he sat in front of me. I said, what do you want to do? What what interests you most here? And I told them, truck and crashes and, you know, and traumatic brain injury. And he said, anything we can do to help you support that. And one of the things that, you know, over the last 15 years that I've noticed is that the difference between firms that can really deliver for a client on that and, and you can tie all those together could be medical malpractice. It could be, you know, wrongful death, you know, could be up. Certainly the traumatic brain injury is that if you if you take a look at a simple example with a truck crash, most firms that don't specialize in that area, they treat it like a big car accident. And it is so different. I used to rely all the time on a checklist that I was given to buy a brilliant attorney out of Georgia. I would go down this checklist all the time and I always treat it like if I was a pilot, you know, they go, they go through their checklist and then they keep checking some of those things as their as as the flight takes off from Florida to Utah. Right. Otherwise they're going to end up in Mexico or Canada, right? If they don't continue to stay on course. And there are so many things that disappear early in the truck crash case number one, thing that you're going to be looking for is you want to be able to get, the, they call it the black box, which is kind of a misnomer, but the black box download in in a tractor trailer. Crash, because that data will disappear a lot of times the carrier will sell that truck immediately. You need to get an investigator out there. You need to make sure that you're looking for video right away. If it is a if it is a, fatality type of a crash, you need to make sure you start all of those things on that side on the probate end so that you're not stymied in the middle, and not being able to make a decision for the family. You know, some of the other things that you want to have is, is that there are so many areas where or layers of insurance, because unfortunately, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, the mandatory, amount of insurance that they have to carry is still only $750,000, which is an absolute joke in my opinion. Okay. You know, they really need to address that. And I know that there's a lot of, groups that are really trying to to move that, but that's where the specialization comes in, where you need to dive into that, find the layers of insurance, whether it's the broker, the shipper, the carrier, and all of the other layers that that could be in there. So you can possibly, you know, get maximum justice for your clients because imagine someone having 2 or $3 million worth of, medical bills and then future of because it's a catastrophic injury and there's only $750,000 on the table. That is an absolute travesty. So it's strategic. It's very much cadence oriented. I go by the checklist so nothing falls through. And now within our case management system, I've now actually had that checklist. There's actually in the system you can't even move to the next thing unless you check off the box. Yes. No. Or it's in play. And, you know, I wanted to make it as simple as possible for everybody. So those are the things I think timing what the steps are next, don't guess is the real key. And, you know, delays can be catastrophic. Both both on the evidence side and on the treatment side. And whether it's traumatic brain injury, whether it's a catastrophic medical type of of a deal, getting early diagnoses, getting early treatment, giving the right experts, you know, aligned for, for treatment providers to, for for the client is critical. And what there are long term outcome is going to be.

Jason Lazarus00:12:46

You know, system and processes is so key. I'm curious. That leads me to something else I wanted to explore with you. You've worked inside of multiple firms over your career, from boutique med mal to your current multi-state personal injury, catastrophic shop. What's the most common operational breakdown? Paralegals and people in your production role see clearly that perhaps the personal injury firm owner or the partners in the firm just miss and don't see?

Ralph Pillinger00:13:24

That's a great question. And I think I think not really dialing in to, a, a conversation with the client. And I think sometimes because the, the firm owner, perhaps the managing partner, whoever is in charge of that case ultimately didn't really have that initial contact with the client. They weren't the ones that necessarily met with them. It was an intake specialist. Or maybe it was the case manager. And then the attorney comes in at the back end because they're doing so many other things. And I think the attorneys that really dial in spend the time with the, with the with the clients themselves or debrief with the case manager, paralegal Diana was very good about that in Florida. She would always, if I was the one that was working with the client early on or or first, she would always debrief me on it and say, okay, this is what do you think she would ask me? What do you think we should do next? And then she would be totally involved in that. And I think that's one of the reasons for her success. That's one of the reasons for her success. Feller went because they're looking they're looking for that community safety advocates, you know, end of things. You know, where hey, listen, if we can change something that affects everybody, then we certainly want to go ahead and do that. But the only way you'll do that is you have to dial in on what do we have right now? How does it affect our client? How does it affect the community at large? And I think if you don't connect all those dots, you number one, you're going to miss opportunities to save people a lot of issues down the road. But you're not going to be able to maximize the value of the case for the for the client. And ultimately that's who we serve.

Jason Lazarus00:15:04

I'm curious about where in the case life cycle, you see the most, inefficiency and loss of momentum. Not talking about, you know, dramatic mistakes, but, you know, those small repeated drag points that, compound across hundreds of files. I mean, I would insert a little bit of selfishness here and talk a little bit about, you know, lean identification, verification and resolution being one of those those, you know, places where it's probably inefficient for most law firm staff to be doing that. But I'm curious, you know. Well, and maybe you'll point to that to you, it you know, where where do you see that happening in your own production? And like, how have you address those sorts of things?

Ralph Pillinger00:15:56

One of the things again, that comes it comes back to systems. Right? And if you developed the system upfront, which you guys have done an awesome job at Synergy and you have relieved one of the biggest pain points, on the other hand, that I'm going to come back to that because it's super important. I think, but early on, I think it's there's a lot of case managers, a lot of paralegals, a lot of legal assistance. They don't understand how the real life cycle of a motor vehicle crash works, how, reserves are set, and what moves the needle in those reserves. What do you have to do to dive into the psychology on why is the adjuster and or the carrier, why are they making certain decisions, or why are they not making certain decisions? And I think, you know, like one of the biggest ones is most people don't understand. Even coming into the firm, I was even working with some case managers that had been in the industry for several years. And it's like, do you guys realize that the the reserve is set within the first 30 days of the file and they're like, no, I didn't know that. And and, Jason, I don't know where this mentality came from. On the plaintiff's side, where they want to wait to hold everything until they're ready to put a demand together. That doesn't make any sense to me, because if you give them nothing, then they their response is going to be close to nothing, right? Like, to me, I think the breakdown is, is in the simplicity of all that complicated jargon that I just gave you. Right. It boils down to this the insurance company has money, and we need money for our client. But for them to justify giving our client the money, we've got to give them documentation. I need medical records and bills to prove to justify to their bosses, whoever it is that they report to, why they need to give a certain amount of money, whether it's a policy tender or whatever the amount may be. Now, how do you get from that point to that point? Number one is in your letter, of representation, if, you know, the client was transported and they had a hospital stay and they had they had some imaging happened in the drop that right in the middle, do not surprise in the adjuster down the road more. You don't be surprised that you got a little to no offer based on the fact that you didn't even let them know that they had imaging. They had, you know, particularly if you go back to that truck crash. Right. Could you imagine not sending an adjuster anything for a year? And then you send them a demand and they that's the first time they're hearing about that. You have a traumatic brain injury. What are they supposed to do with that? Right. Because there's still processes they have internally that they have to, you know, that they have to follow. Right. So and I think I think that is one of the biggest problems. And I was always so curious as to why all of a sudden I get a letter that there is a and when I was learning this process where all of a sudden I would get a letter that there was a new adjuster assigned, and I just figured, oh, well, that guy or that gal left. No, we exceeded the threshold of authority for the first person. Right. So then I had to go backwards and say, okay, how did I do that? And then once I kind of observed enough of those things, I sought out the brightest attorneys in the country and said, is this why it happens? Give me your thoughts on how that works. And and then acting in accordance with that, every single time you deal with an adjuster, that adjuster on the other side is it you know, a lot of them they get, you know, a bad rep. Either they're a black hat or whatever it may be. There's still a human being, right? But if you if you make sure that you get them what they need to justify giving your client money, then everything will flow exactly like it needs to be because a leopard doesn't change their spots if they know what they can expect from you. Also will have to do is pick up the phone. That will not be an adjuster who's avoiding you, right? And so to me, I think that's the biggest breakdown. They don't understand a the cadence of how you move a reserve from what the initial offer is. Or from what when the action initially starts and they send their letter of acknowledgment. Yes. We understand that we have, you know, a claim with your client all the way through potentially litigation. Okay. And I know some adjusters, both that are still in the industry and those are that have retired, that have explained to me in ad nauseum, the process that I felt that I uncovered. And they filled in gaps for me. And some of them I still, you know, hit for for updated information and things. And guess what? It hasn't changed. It's still the same. The processes are still the same. The only difference is now is that it's not just like, are you familiar with, the, software colossus that Allstate has been using now? It's now it's Colossus with AI. That's what that's what changed. Right? So now we can read or take a view of the pictures that you're sending where previously it could not. Right. It was just an algorithm. So if you're dealing with a lower level adjuster who couldn't take it out of the algorithm, none of the no narrative and no pictures did you any good, right? You had to get it out of their hands and you're willing to do that, by the way, send them enough mail so it moves out of their authority threshold or filed the suit which moves it to a litigation adjuster. And then that's that's how that's how you move. But I think that breakdown, and the some firms just don't, don't I guess they assume that the a lot of case managers and legal, it's just know that that's the process and they never dive into it. I don't leave any of that to chance. Personally. I want to make sure everybody's on the same page and everybody has the same information I have.

Jason Lazarus00:21:52

If you notice how most conversations about law firm grow stop at intake, marketing and trial results, but rarely addresses what happens after resolution. That's the gap Synergy focuses on. We partner with personal injury law firms to manage the operational side of health care, lien resolution and compliance, brain structure and clarity. One of the most overlooked but costly parts of what your team does day in and day out. If you're thinking more seriously about operations beyond the courtroom, you can explore Synergy services through the link in the show notes or by scanning the QR code on the screen. Now back to today's conversation. What I'm particularly like you said, with what's going on with I, I've written a couple articles on that subject in terms of, you know, addressing now through your discovery and because, you know, there there is all sorts of nuance that's happening because of that, in terms of what's being offered. And you're such, identifying such a critical issue, just really, that's that's an incredibly timely and astute insight in terms of making sure the team understands that part of what's going on.

Ralph Pillinger00:23:07

But the next level to that is when you eventually get that money. And then we're trying to get the, the, the funds disbursed to our client, having somebody like Synergy on our side, where essentially this is kind of how I viewed it. And where we can hire another firm that we don't actually have to pay. Okay. We're hiring more employees who, by the way, specialize in what I need done. And I it's not my wheelhouse. I'm pretty good at getting and getting a reduction, but I don't like it. Number one and number two, since it's not my A wheelhouse, it takes me five times as long as your guys do it, and at the same time I can go help five other clients negotiate, get an offer to settle out, whatever it may be, get their treatment where it needs to be, work with them and all while in the background I have Synergy working to get our clients the best, best possible outcome. It is a no brainer and anybody who's not using Synergy is in my opinion, this is my opinion and saying, okay, I'm just say.

Jason Lazarus00:24:18

Yeah, I mean, look, the I think anything within a law firm that today is repeatable, that is not high level legal work. That's administrative in nature, whether it's this, whether it's medical record retrieval or other functions within the firm, there are technology solutions and there are, you know, business process outsourcing groups like ours that can take those tasks off the plate of the team to allow the team to focus on either more client touch interaction, which improves client experience, which gets you the five star Google reviews or enhances the value of the case, which again enhances Google reviews, also enhances the firm's bottom line. I mean, I don't understand why any firm is doing some of these administrative tasks that they're not getting paid for, that they can pass along as a client cost to improve bottom line to improve operation efficiency, profitability and allow the team to focus on what they do best, which is securing justice for people that are injured. It's just that simple.

Ralph Pillinger00:25:31

I agree 100% is someone you know, but with a firm like yours, you know, I had somebody was questioning me at one point a while back and they and I said, well, let me ask you question would you ever put the reason you would come to XYZ firm is because we do the best lean reductions. Yes. And they're like, no. And I was like, okay, well then it's number one is because it's not true. And number two, it's it's not your wheelhouse. Why would you do that? Right. You can't be a generalist in law anyway. It's not possible. It's like being a generalist in medicine. You're not going to be very successful. And for us to be able to maximize and I would say it's not even passion at all, is a client cost for for our experience with Synergy is our clients get a better return on investment because the, the lean reductions are so big, right. In most cases that it I mean, it's a complete no brainer. And then your team is like, hey, listen, we've got to reduce from this to this, but we think we can squeeze a little more out of the orange. Do you want us to do it or not? Let me check with our client. The client happened to be there. I was out in Arizona. This was like a month and a half ago. And the guy said, yeah, let him keep going. Two days later, you guys dropped it. Another like $2,400, which actually more than paid for what the what Synergy got paid. And so he had that dollars. He was so excited to let me tell you. So.

Jason Lazarus00:26:56

And the only reason I mentioned case costs is because I think some law firms don't think about it in the term in those terms. But as you said, typically the the like in our area of expertise, we're paying for ourselves because we're getting better reduction than most law firms can get because our team are all from the other side. Rawlings, conduit, Optum, aqui. And they've come from all the recovery vendors. So they know the inside baseball and they can they can do things that you know law firms could do if they spent the time training their teams to do it. But again, that's not what you guys are there for. You're there to secure justice and litigate personal injury cases to get the right outcome for the injured party. So, don't want I don't want to belabor that point because I, I believe it's a bit selfish, but, you know, before we got on the podcast where you're talking a bit about our, experiences and endurance athletics, me being a cyclist and I over the years from when I started at age 13 till I quit racing competitively a few years ago, I continually had a coach that helped me with my training plans and built in these, you know, hard, hard training blocks with recovery and you as an endurance coach, you build those kinds of training plans for athletes and balanced load with recovery. And I'm curious if any of that sort of mindset carries over into how you manage case production within your firm and how you think law firm leaders should be thinking about pacing teams that carry complex case loads.

Ralph Pillinger00:28:46

That's a good question. And I'm I'm kind of, I'm kind of a picture guy. So I tell stories that create pictures because when most people are more visual, and if they're not, the weaving of the story generally will help them. But here's the coaching, an analogy that I use with all my teams. Okay, I say, Jason, number one, I'm going to treat you like you want to become the next rising star out of this office until you prove different. Do I have permission to speak to you that way? Right. And they always say, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, I want to be the rising star. I said, okay, great. I said, now I'm going to give you a little bit of an analogy on how I coach, okay? Because there's two things, Jason, if I was coaching you right now and you said you stopped competitive cycling for a while, but if I was going to take you from the couch to a 50 K in the trails, which is, which is like my preferred distance to begin with, by the way, and, but if I was going to do that, I'd say there's two primary things that are going to, lead to your success. Number one is, do I believe Ralph knows exactly what he's talking about? Do I believe that he actually has the information? And does he believe it? Okay, so if you, you know, do you understand? Do you do you think that I have enough knowledge to be able to pass on to you? And the answer is, you know. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Great. The second one is going to be when you have that, you say yes and you say, B, Will I follow the play no matter what? Because if there's 160 days in a training cycle, every single one of those is not going to be a great day. It's impossible. Right? 160 work days don't go great. 160 days with your family doesn't go great. 160 days of school doesn't know every single one is perfect, right? And so if you can bring those two things together, the the other part of that is, is that you need to understand how you're coached. How do you like to receive your coaching. So some coaches like to give their athletes a swift kick in the butt. Okay, I personally responded best to that type of coach, okay. Although I didn't need it because I was very individually motivated and very goal oriented. But if you were going to call me out of something stupid that I did or something that I didn't pay attention to, or I thought I knew better and I didn't even have you, I didn't have a problem with you calling me out in front of the team. Some people want you to coddle them. I got to put my arm around Jason's shoulder. Okay, but this is how it works, you know? Where are you? And then other people, you have to really kind of go into a really soft sell. Right. And so my question to you is, what kind of athlete are you, Jason? And then that's how I coached you. I said, great, do I have permission to coach you that way? Yes. And then so anytime that you are then working with the team, I would always tell any of the leaders. And so we have a step if you will, in, in processes. So you have intake, then you have set up specialist and they have legal assistant case manager, senior case manager and then attorney and then general manager of the location. And so what you'd have is I'd say, okay, how would you like to be coached and in during the process? Number one is you should know a little bit about the position below you and a little bit about the position above you. So you know what a case this part will look like as it comes to you. And if it isn't, if Ralph keeps sending new cases. Jason. And there's a piece missing or two pieces missing, it's a training opportunity for me. So then you'll start to develop some leadership skills, giving me feedback. Even though it's not your job to necessarily train me, I report to somebody differently. But if I repeat that, then you go to my manager, say, hey, Bob, you know, Ralph is missing this repeatedly, even though you gave me some some, some, additional coaching. Then you need to know what the case is supposed to look like as you pass it off to your case manager. So that, number one, if you want to become that rising star as a legal system and move to case manager, you need to know what everything's supposed to look like that way. But then you'll all obviously know how to prep a case, what everything is. Your questions will be driven that way. Your activity will be driven that way, your mentality be driven that way. And to me, that has been super successful, for the firm, because everybody really understands then that a rising tide does raise all ships. Right? A rising tide does when everybody, none of us, is as smart as all of us. And if we all collectively move in that direction, we're all going to be better for it, as will our clients, who ultimately are the people that we're serving.

Jason Lazarus00:33:16

Yeah, great. Great points. And, as a follow up, you, have spent years giving runners what you call the Lexus experience of being fitted, where the goal was getting it right for that specific person. I'm curious, does any of that translate into how a personal injury firm should be thinking about client communication in case experience and experience with the firm?

Ralph Pillinger00:33:42

100%. And one of the things I the that I look at the Lexus experience is, is that they treat every customer Lexus that is Lexus treats every customer as if they're the only person there. And I had a sales mentor a long time ago that said, if I'm sitting in front of Jason and I put a box around me and Jason and nothing gets in it, no overt noise, no telephone calls, no other customer, nobody on my team that happens to come in. Hey, can I get a second? Nothing. Because if I dial in to Jason and I really find out what his concerns are, then I have the ability to adjust them. Part of that Lexus experience at Fleet Feet is I really need to dial in to know where you came from. How did you get this injury? Why is it repetitive? Okay. And then we'll address it. And I may need to bring some specialists along the way. I may need to bring in an ortho. I need may need to bring a bring in a video trust, maybe a physical therapist. And together we'll all move you towards that same kind of thing. Right. You know, rising tide raises all boats. And like, if I was, you know, coaching you, one of the things I would say is I'm not going to coach you like a runner. I'm going to coach you like an athlete that happens to specialize in running. So you're going to be a little more well-rounded than the average runner. The average runner, only they get hurt because they only run. And that repetitive motion without developing any strength is going to hurt you. So my philosophy is prefab is better than rehab. And in context to a personal injury firm, rehab is that initial conversation with the client finding out, hey, is this their first crash? Is this their first foray in anything legal? Right. They're going to have some nervousness related to that. They're going to have some nervousness and apprehension with relation to how it's going to affect their job, how it's going to affect their family, the medical maze of trying to navigate, you know, treatment and such. The bills when they come, what am I supposed to do with them? All of those things. And then how long is this process going to take. Right. And so dialing in on that and getting the psychology, you know, maximizing the, the cycle, the psychological end of it, both from the, medical standpoint, the actual psychological standpoint, because a lot of people are pretty traumatized by some sometimes the crashes and such and then impacting to claim for full compensation, you know, whatever that number may be.

Jason Lazarus00:36:13

Yeah. Having been the unfortunate victim of, you know, one of these instances, I was struck by a car while cycling back in 2016. Yeah, that experience taught me a lot about what it feels like. Well, exactly what it feels like to go through a case like this. And yeah, I was very thankful a friend of mine handled the case and their firm was great in the way we interacted. And my experience and, you know, with personal injury being quite personal, you know, when when you are injured, it is it is a very personal thing. It's so critical to have that that feeling that you're heard and people understand what you're going through and you've got the advocates on your side and you've got the firm doing everything possible to help you. Because even for me, it was daunting. And having been, you know, in the industry for, you know, almost 20 years when it happened still was not easy navigating at all.

Ralph Pillinger00:37:24

No, no. And I think, you know, the one thing I try to, to get through to newer people is that chances are we're meeting the the client on their worst day. And so we need to try to navigate that to where they are as close to 100% as they were prior to this unfortunate incident happening. To them. And so it's our job to to go, you know, work through that process. But the way to do it is to develop that relationship with them, have them understand and in a softer way, find out how they want to be coached. Right. You know, without asking them how they want to be coached. Because you have to you have to kind of bring it down a little bit to their to their level, find out what they like, you know, find out about their family, find out about their job, how long they've been doing it, how much they like it, how much they dislike it. And when you find that all those things about them, number one, they're going to know you care about them, right. And then number two, they're more apt to, you know, be open to, you know, becoming, you know, getting evaluated by a different specialist that they never, you know, had had to sit in front of before. And then as you can talk them through the process, they will come back to you because they trust you. And that's super.

Jason Lazarus00:38:36

Important. You hit on something, and I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the podcast, but, you know, I do. You think I was probably the worst version of myself post being hit by that car and ultimately wound up in counseling because, you know, I had to deal with the anger that I felt around what was taken from me by that careless driver that morning. You know, my I identified as a cyclist. It was my community. It was, you know, and I went from training at a super high level, being the best shape I'd ever been. And thank God, because I probably helped me avoid getting infections and, you know, really having problems because I was on a ventilator for, almost two weeks. But, you know, like, even the people around me finally said, hey, you need to go see somebody you were not. And I say that the the being struck was the best thing that ever happened to me because I reset a lot of things for me and priorities. But that point that I was not I was definitely not at my best. And that was that was definitely, you know, one of the worst things that's ever happened to me. I mean, there's been a few other things, you know, we all have our, our stuff, but that that point is a really good point for any lawyer or paralegal that you know has not experienced this. It's hard to understand and know that. But I can definitely tell you that that that is, for most people, a very, very challenging and difficult thing to get past.

Ralph Pillinger00:40:26

I agree with you, and I think that's even a greater reason to develop that rapport with the client, so that if I suggest, Jason, I'm thinking, you know, I sense some PTSD type of things, you know, you know, whether it's, it's legitimately PTSD or it's just anxiety that you've never had before, never experienced before, your lack of ability to sleep. We should address that, okay. Because you don't want to have that down the road after we settle your claim. And you certainly don't want to have that being like Groundhog Day every day feels like another reset to you and you're right back to where you started from. And so we need to make sure that we work with them. And I think another area where people miss it is with kids. Kids physically will are super resilient. Right. And but you know, I think a lot of parents, they kind of don't address the psychological and a bit for their kids because the kids bounce back physically so fast, but they're very traumatized. If you actually dial in with the kids. I have had those conversations where all of a sudden they're in the conference room with random talking, and, you know, they'll confide in me. I don't like to be on the highway anymore. I don't like to be loud noises. I can't handle sirens. And then I have those conversations with the clients, you know, you know, the Guardian, or the parent. And, and that completely changes the case. And so that always needs to be addressed upfront. And I let them know right away. I mean, anytime there's a minor involved, I let them know right away. I said, look, you may have the same thing, but they will definitely have it. They just won't tell you that.

Jason Lazarus00:42:01

So switching gears, there is a massive shift in what's going on in the practice of law due to implementation of technology. We recently built for our own internal use and are now launching yet for customers to use technology that is AI driven, that helps with identification and verification of lines, because we know that that sort of solution can help law firms in terms of, eliminating waste and time that their team spent on administrative tasks. So I know integrating technology is one of your specialties. I'm curious, where do you see firms either over investing or under investing in terms of technology in the workflow? That supports that workflow today?

Ralph Pillinger00:42:57

Well, I can tell you, it's been a big difference between every place I've been prior to and then the difference between fellow and went. But let me give you like kind of the overview, because it could potentially be the same thing, but they're just so open to investing in their people and investing in things that will make everybody's job more efficient. And then make it obviously repeatable. Right? Okay. So, you know, repeatable processes are going to be something that you need to have. But I think the firms what they do is they over invest in products that the teams, the people that then are the boots on the ground, the ones that are actually supposed to use them either never had any input, they didn't test it prior to and they didn't have or receive genuine buy in the like. The firm owner or the managing partners didn't receive buy in from the team before they actually got it right. And it's like if you if if I was going to use something on a day to day basis and I'm just going to be buying it for myself, well then, hey, you know, if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. But if I'm expecting other people to use it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to go ahead and bring out something that, you know, there there are, you know, maybe 3 or 4 other very similar products just as and you having to get this one and it's missing a whole bunch of things. If everybody had a wish list. Right. Hey, I wish I had this. Oh oh well that product does. Right. And so so I think that's probably the biggest ones. And I think the ones where they under invest are things with like medical chronology, you know, and some people are actually, a little paranoid when it comes to the medical chron. Right. You know, they will say, you know, I don't trust the AI or, you know, it's not reliable or whatever. Well, you know, in just documentation and a review doc review, human doc review, over a 2000 page document has about 65% efficacy. Right. So here you have a 35% gap. Now, depending upon what model you use, you're between 85 and 95 with AI. So I would rather spend my balance at the time, you know, on the, the, the 5% and the, the analogy I use with, with technology is anything that you can do. That's a repeatable, admin type process. Let I do the 92% because the rest, the art is the last 8%. Right. And that's where you come in. That's where I come in. That's where the teams come in, where they can go ahead and do that. But you know, a lot of a lot of firms will invest in stuff that doesn't do the 92. And and even if it does 62, it's not doing it well. And they're you know, just my suggestion is get buy in from your team. So hey, these are the three products we're looking at. Get different teams to test them all out. You know get get a pilot going for every single one of them and then get feedback from everybody. And then have them fill out a rubric, if you will, based on all the criteria that the firm uses. And then everybody get together, say this one. No, this one. No, this is the this is where this is where we're going to be headed to. So everybody understands the pluses and minuses of all of them. And, you know, the people that are going to be using it are the ones that made they're not obviously paying for it, but they're the ones that are going to make it go and they're going to make your investment worth it. So you get an ROI on that investment instead of it being not used, and eventually falls to the wayside.

Jason Lazarus00:46:25

So if there's a firm managing partner, CEO, CIO listening to this that feels like their operation is one resignation away from chaos, where would you tell them to start to make sure that they don't feel like things will completely fall apart if they lose key people in key positions.

Ralph Pillinger00:46:49

That is a unique question in my friend. My first thought is is if you're one person, one resignation away from chaos, do you really have a business? Right? You've probably created a job for yourself, right? That you never know that you actually want it. Okay. And so I think what you wouldn't want to do some of that is fear, because some people don't want to let go of things. Right? They, you know, they they have a hard time delegating things. And to me, the, the delegation of it, you know, being able to give it to somebody else is a huge thing. So I always go look to try to hire people better than me, delegate real responsibilities to those folks. And if you have some key people that you're yeah, fear of losing, do the same thing with them, right? Give them real responsibilities. Put them in the right position to win. Maybe they don't belong in this chair. They belong in this chair. So move them over there and then hire somebody to fill that one. Right. Train them well, pay them well. And then, you know, obviously in that in the previous example where I gave you put them in the right chair because then you're maximizing their ability to win. I would also say, and this is kind of maybe a little self-serving, if you will, kind of something I always wanted. And I and over time, I did have this with several mentors at firms that I that I worked with, and I was very blessed to be able to have it is that getting that permission to how I want it to be coached. I look at it right now, the way that I am here, it's like I have I have told the teams that I eventually I want to duplicate myself so that if someday you guys have my job so that we need to have a production lead in every location, every state, if you will, and then maybe there's somebody else because at some point. Right, I'm I'll be 62 in July. Okay. At some point I will want to be, you know, chasing my grandkids around at the beach somewhere and if we're going to do that, you need to make sure that you can duplicate yourself. The first question I ask myself, am I worth duplicating? Am I too complicated? And do I have some gaps that I need to go for length? Right? So, you know, if I tend to me what our firm be better or worse, right. You know, kind of kind of those things and, and and and I guess it wasn't a, you know, a direct answer, but I think it that's not an easy that's not an easy question because you're going to find the answers in that, in that question, when you ask yourself those questions that you may not want to hear the answer to, you know, it's like I, a while ago, I ran a ChatGPT search and I said, tell me what I need to work on, that I don't see myself. And it was tough. It was tough, right? You know what's helped me not get my goals? And, of course, you know, there's some other things that you have to do, you know, before that, it needs to know you a little bit. You better have introduced, you know, chat you, me teach yourself, you know, by having a master prompt that tells all about Jason. Otherwise it won't, you know, won't come out to you. It'll be just general. And, and it was a tough answer for me, you know, and, but but I'm a voracious reader. And so I went down that rabbit hole and and went every way I could to improve in that area. But that was not an easy thing to do. And, you know, I bounced it off my fiance and she's like, yeah. So sometimes, you know, you don't see, you know, the, the things that, that, that maybe other people need to see. And that's why you need to have counsel. Right. You know, have you have your inner circle, if you will, and make and don't have anybody on your inner circle that's a yes man or yes woman. You want to have people that challenge you. Because if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Jason Lazarus00:50:39

I don't I'm, I've been very generous time. Couple of questions to wrap up. If you look ahead to the next three years, what is the operational shift? Do you think that most personal energy firms will be forced to make whether they want to or not? Because things are, you know, with AI and just the landscape seems to be changing very rapidly.

Ralph Pillinger00:51:06

I think, look, I'm, I'm a self-taught guy as far as technology is concerned, but I have a lot of very tech savvy friends, and they've been dialed into AI, and I was super intrigued by it. So I dove into tools, and then I would go back with them and do all that. And I have some that are like super on the edge, the cutting edge of all that stuff. And, you know, one of the things I heard from Mark Lanier, and this was kind of how I looked at the the use of AI, and I think it's going to be adoption into the at the end there uses is, usage of AI in various areas in their, in their, processes, whether it's intake or customer follow up. You certainly medical chronology, you know, things that they can go ahead and, and collapse the time frames on is going to be super critical. But getting buy in across the firm and having everybody use it, you know, we just had, a conversation with our CEO, Thaddeus went and he was talking about the fact that he wants everybody to become AI savvy, and he has encouraged everybody to do that. And so we're constantly looking at tools to make everybody better. But one of the things that, you know, I've had people ask me since chat became like a thing and was, you know, everybody is oh, now there's, you know, cloud. And then there's grok and then you know, what's going to be best. And I said, listen, don't get, don't get, you know, dazed, glazed and amazed by the 2000 products that are coming out per year. Dial in on one fine, one dial in on it. I want in on it because where everybody was saying, do you think that we will ever be replaced by AI, meaning paralegals and attorneys? And I love Mark Lanier's answer to that because I asked him it, two years ago in, at his, Trial Academy at 8.0 Trial Academy in Houston. He said, no attorneys and paralegals are not going to be replaced by AI, but attorneys and paralegals that embrace and use AI will replace the ones that don't. And I think that's relevant in almost every industry that you can think of. But where it comes again, Jason, is 92% can be done by AI of everything that we do, drafts, all that other kind of stuff. The art is the last 8% and that's where you come in. That's where I come in. That's where our fabulous attorneys and case managers and legal assistance, even our brand new case that, specialists all come in the art is going to be in the talent that you hire, and then how you encourage them to use their creativity and how that can move your entire organization forward.

Jason Lazarus00:53:53

Ralph, if you could talk about how Synergy has helped make Fowler and went more efficient in terms of day to day operations by relieving them the team from having to deal with some of the nuances and tough, lean issues.

Ralph Pillinger00:54:12

Well, Jason, thanks. One of the things that we pride ourselves in is, is efficiency. And one of the things that we also pride ourselves in is doing the best job for the client. And I think part of that is, is that, number one, being able to disperse the cases as quickly as possible after the settlement date. And then the other side of that would be to be able to reduce leads, and financial exposure as much as possible to the client to maximize, you know, the end value to them. You know, that the dollars, the sense that we put back into their hands and the utilization of Synergy, it's it's kind of like, I don't know if you ever remember that that rotisserie chicken guy said it and forget it, right? You know that that remember that guy, that rod or Rob or whatever his name was. To me, that's like Synergy. Okay? It's like, set it and forget it. You go ahead in you get you get a letter of acknowledgment back from, you know, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or BlueCross or VA or Tricare or a hospital. And as soon as you do that, you upload that and you send that off to Synergy. They will let you know every 45 days or sooner, what the status of the line is. And then your next communication with them is to say, hey, we're negotiating this case. Get this one reduced as far as you can get it reduced, whatever the level may be. If it's a small, if the settlement's tight, right where they need to go after maximum dollars and to communication's fantastic. We leave personally, Jason, we leave the feed open all day so I can see kind of what's going on in there and see what's going on between the teams. Your team and our team and, you know, jump in where I need to. But it has helped our case. Dispersant specialists dispersed cases so much quicker and have the clients so much happier, which obviously leads to five star reviews, which is what you want.

Jason Lazarus00:56:03

Last question I always ask. It's very open ended, so you can answer it however you want to close out today's episode as a paralegal and production leader within a personal injury firm, what's your view? Do you've got a unique view? I think.

Ralph Pillinger00:56:20

Yeah, I kind of do. And I think, you know, if if there's a firm out there listening and they're thinking, okay, how do I how do I tie in my production team to my litigation team? You know, taking the case to trial eventually, you know, the, the model that we use, we know we have, we have a litigation, team. And one of the things that I think is super important is that there is communication constantly on what the expectations are and what a case should look like. Again, if you were going from a case, that of specialist to a legal assistant to a case manager, if I'm that legal assistant, I have to know what a case looks like as it came to me and what it's supposed to know as it's handed off to my case manager. And it should be the same way from the case manager to the litigation team or the or the trial attorney. However, your your firm is structured and having certain expectations, having communication that's dialed in both with the client and then with everybody that's within that firm, I think is is something that, you know, a lot of firms miss. But, you know, if you go back to one of the earlier questions that you asked me, what is the difference with, you know, traumatic brain injury cases or catastrophic cases or trucking cases? It's all how you start the process out, right? Make sure that your processes are tight. Make sure that wherever, wherever one ends, the other one dovetails right in. There are some connectivity to the two so that it's not like the the old, iPhone plug to the new C, right. And you're trying to put the wrong plug into the into that hole. You want to make sure that everybody's on the same page and everybody knows what what the expectation is. And that is serving our clients as best we possibly can, getting them complete justice for, you know, negligence of some other party and then making sure that we all, work towards, you know, that community safety advocate and then, you know, like I said, I love our, you know, our core values at our firm. You know, and the and the key, right, is, is that if you guys have, core values, make sure there they are, out front and foremost, because there's where you're going to attract the people that are in aligned with those core values, because they're actually even on our website. And we hired a couple people that said, hey, we went in and took a look, man, those core values, that's exactly how how I want to live. That's exactly how I want to work with my clients and my and my, you know, fellow teammates. And to me, that that is a great place to be. So I just I would just say that do things with intentionality and then do things where everybody, can have a chance to succeed.

Jason Lazarus00:59:06

Beautiful. Ralph, if anyone has questions about anything you talked about today or has a case to refer to, follower and when and what's the best way to get in contact with you?

Ralph Pillinger00:59:17

Well, my direct line number is (865) 895-4020. Or you can certainly email me at Ralph Reed at feller wendt.com. That's f e leader w e n d like David t like tom.com.

Jason Lazarus00:59:37

And what what states does feller and when practice in just in case someone out there listening has a case that they need to refer in one of those cases states excuse me.

Ralph Pillinger00:59:46

We have offices in in Layton and Salt Lake, Utah. Boise, Idaho. Mesa, Arizona. And we also, do, try cases in Washington, and Florida.

Jason Lazarus00:59:59

Great. Beautiful. Well, Ralph, thank you again for joining me today. And we'll see everybody on the next episode of Trial Law Review.

Ralph Pillinger01:00:06

Jason, thanks so much. It was a blast. I really appreciate it.

Jason Lazarus01:00:09

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. Space Trial Law Review 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.