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Dan Ambrose joins us for Personal Injury Podcast Minute #69 and discusses Trial Lawyers University.
Complete with destination venue, all-star speaker lineup, truly fun activities, and amazing networking opportunities. Dan Ambrose, the founder of Trial Lawyer University is here to tell us all about the BEST conference for trial lawyers.
In 2024, TLU takes place in Vegas!
Visit the TLU Live Event site here: https://tlulive.com/.
TLU On Demand: https://tluondemand.com/.
Visit Dan online here: https://triallawyersuniversity.com/.
Visit us at TLU Live 2024: https://optimizemyfirm.com/tlulive-october-2024/.
See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.
Transcript:
Intro:
Lindsey:
Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I’m your host, Lindsey Busfield. With so many legal conferences vying for attendance and so little time to spare, it can be daunting to figure out which ones are worth the expense to attend. Optimize My Firm has been a part of a handful of these types of events and I can personally tell you that they are not all created equal. Most conferences are typical bar association events. Most lawyers go to these to get their CLEs checked off their list, say hi to a few colleagues, pick up some swags from the vendors to bring back home to the kids, knock back a few free drinks, and head home.
On the other hand, there are some amazing conferences that we’ve attended, like the Wisconsin Bar Association Annual Meeting at Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells. The food was out of this world, speakers were in engaging, and the social events were great for networking. Those are the ones to get really excited about. After hearing about the upcoming Trial Lawyers University Conference in Vegas this October, I am ecstatic. It is sure to be one of the best legal conferences of the year. It is complete with destination venue, all star speaker lineup, truly fun activities, and amazing networking opportunities. Dan Ambrose, the founder of Trial Lawyers University, is here to tell us all about it. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dan:
Well, thanks for having me, Lindsey. I’m actually excited to be here. Because this event that we’ve got coming up in Vegas, it is not just going to be one of the best events of 2024, it’s going to be one of the best, if not the best event of all time.
Why Dan Ambrose Started TLU:
Lindsey:
Absolutely. Well, and after talking to you about it, after talking to others who have been involved in your events, the excitement is just palpable. You can tell that this is going to be the event to show up for. But give us a little bit about yourself and why you created TLU.
Dan:
Well, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and practiced law there until I was 45 years old. When I practiced, I did 99% criminal defense work. So I did a lot of trial work. I probably did 175 jury trials. And when I was 45, I decided to move to California because I was roommates with Nick Rowley at the Trial Lawyers College, and I came out to Las Vegas to see the Consumers Attorneys of Los Angeles Conference which is… It’s a huge conference. There’s thousands of people.
I met all these lawyers from California and I got accustomed to this nicer weather. And I saw that they were getting big verdicts and I thought, “I would like to get some of these big verdicts too and be in the nice weather and near the ocean and mountains.” I didn’t load up my truck and move to Beverly, but I did put my car on a vehicle mover and packed some bags.
About a month after I came to visit Vegas, I moved to California to start new life and become a… I thought I was going to become a personal injury lawyer, but that wasn’t quite in the cards. And so, when I was out in California, I started doing workshops to help other trial lawyers improve their skills. And it was a social networking opportunity for me because I was 45. When you’re 45, you don’t make friends as quickly and easily as you do when you’re 25 when you move to a new place. And so, honestly, just to combat loneliness, create a community, I started doing these workshops. Those workshops eventually evolved into a conference or workshop I used to teach called the Trojan Horse Method. I did that for about six or seven years, probably trained over a thousand lawyers through that time. Because I do it once a month or so and travel around the country and do it at different venues.
And then, about a year before the pandemic, I started doing another small lecture-based program called Case Analysis, where a lawyer would get a verdict. And we would spend one day and I’d interview that lawyer about their verdict. And have them demonstrations of voir dire, opening cross, closing so everybody could understand how they built that case to get that verdict.
Well, of course, we had this amazing, amazing virus called COVID interfere our lives in March of 2020. That first was a real catastrophe for me like it was for most people. Because everything I did was… I did live programs, I did consulting, and I worked on trials. And that all disappeared in the blink of an eye. And so, I had nothing to do. And I’m just sitting around my new apartment I just moved into in downtown Los Angeles. It was like 2,000 square feet. I had all these visions of how I was going to rent. I had three bedrooms, even though I was living by myself. I was going to rent it out to people when they get downtown doing trials from out of city, out of state, and all that fell apart.
But what did happen is a good friend of mine named Brad Eggenberg, he calls me up, he says, “Ambrose, this is when real business is done.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “I’m basically in tears over here staring out at the city that’s completely dead and everything’s gone.” He’s like, “Now is the time to ask yourself, ‘How can I serve my community?'” They started sending me examples of other companies who were serving the community by doing charitable stuff and volunteer work. He’s like, “What are you going to do?” I’m like, “I don’t have any idea. What do you think I should do?” And he goes, “I don’t have any idea. I just know you should do something.” And then shortly after that, the next day, another one of my buddies named Ari Moss came over in violation of strict isolation, whatever they call that was when we were all sheltering in place, lockdown. We were working on some cases and we were watching Court Review Network. And he’s like, “You should…” I was making comments on the lawyers and some of the stuff they were doing. He said, “You should do a postmortem play-by-play in some of these trials. And maybe we get the lawyer who did it to come on with you.” I’m like, “Wow. They would never do that. I had no idea.” And the next day, I got a Zoom account and it was off to the races. We had 50 people on the first day within a month. Sometimes there’s 2,000 people on, depending on who is the speaker. But really got a chance to meet so many people, so many great lawyers, get mentored by them all, and mentor the trial lawyer world at the same time. So that’s how it all got started.
And after about it… Then, in 2021 when COVID was breaking, I thought, “I wonder if these people…” Because everything was free, as far as the webinars go, and I thought, “I wonder if these people would really want to come to a live conference with all these speakers.” It made sense, but I didn’t know. So it was… Feel a little risky. It’s always risky doing a conference, because you have to sign really large contracts for a lot of hotel rooms and a lot of food. And work your butt off and hope and pray and work and have faith that if you build it, the people will show up and… I could design the world’s greatest conference. But if people don’t show up, A, it’s not going to be good. But that hasn’t happened yet and it’s not going to happen in Vegas.
Lindsey:
No, it’s absolutely not. Anybody who has known you for more than six seconds, knows that you are larger than life extrovert. You just bring to energy. You are bringing the enthusiasm. With that, you’re bringing the knowledge and the experience and the connections of all the people that are the leaders in this industry. And bringing all of that together to help create a better legal industry is such a great way to give back to your community and the legal community at large. So I am so excited to be here to spread the news about this conference coming up. But do give us the details on the when and the where and the logistics of how this conference is being put together.
When and Where is TLU 2024?
Dan:
Well, the conference itself is going to be at Caesars Palace, of course, in Las Vegas on the strip. The dates are October 16th through 19th. October 16th is more of a social recreation day. So Sean Claggett from Claggett & Sykes, he’s hosting his second annual golf tournament. That’ll be about for 144 of his closest friends. And so, that will be a belly high on a first come first serve basis. And then, Nick and Courtney Raleigh will be taking 100 of their closest friends out to Red Rock National Park to do a little yoga and hiking. Because really, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world and the temperature at that time of year is fantastic. This time of year, it’s a little toasty out there. But that time of year, it’s really fantastic. And so, that’s going to be some pre-event stuff to do.
My other buddy, Kurt Zaner, is going to put together a small group of people that want to go out and see the Hoover Dam. Because if you’ve never seen the Hoover Dam, it is one of the most impressive. It’s awe-inspiring, to think that was built over 100 years ago and all the people that died building it. And also, the Pat Tillman Bridge is out there. There’s also a hot springs that’s about an hour hike from the Hoover Dam. It’s kind of a different kinds of things that people might want to do on Wednesday. And so then, if they just decide to come because that’s… So those people all come in on Tuesday. But people get there on Wednesday. So Wednesday afternoon, there’ll be a little pool and cabana social from 2:00 to 5:00 for people that get there early. And then, from 5:30 to 7:30, we’ll have a registration party. So that’s just everybody getting their badges, getting cocktails, having some appetizers, live music, getting warmed up.
Lindsey:
Getting into conference mode.
Dan:
Getting into conference mode. That way when we get started the next day, we’re all ready to go. So we’ll talk about them in order as far as networking and the educational content of it. So actually, we’ll talk about education first because we really focus on having the greatest education for trial lawyers. We do that by having a lot of selection. So at this conference, there’ll be nine lecture tracks. One of them will be on the business of law and AI. One track will be just on voir dire with different lawyers giving their philosophy on voir dire, how they look at it. And then, doing a model demonstrative voir dire on a spine case or a medical malpractice case or a premises case. And then, do an hour breakdown of, “What did you just see? Why did I do what I did?” So that’s one of the tracks.
Sean Claggett, Claggett & Sykes, has a 3-day trial college. They’ll be teaching all the methodologies and processes they use to get great results. Nick Rowley, who’s wrote the book Trial by Human, Running with the Bulls, he’s going to be teaching for three full days with different members of his firm called Trial Lawyers for Justice and the Trial by Human Community. Both Claggett and Rowley are both going to be doing some workshops, some small group trainings for various people on different skills, and those… It’s part of their program.
But then, you have some of the great trial lawyers coming. Randi McGinn from New Mexico, she’ll be teaching for three hours. Brian Panish, he’ll be teaching for at least three hours from Los Angeles. Joe Fried from Atlanta, he’s doing, I think, nine hours total teaching. Sach Oliver is doing nine hours. So some of these… Most times, you go to these conferences and you have these great trial lawyers, like they go keynote speakers and they give them a half an hour, 45 minutes, or an hour where they give all these people that aren’t very accomplished equal time for whatever reasons. A lot of times, there’s a lot of politics in these conferences too. I do my best to keep politics out of it because it should be the best and the brightest that should be teaching. The ones that have accomplished great things should be teaching how they did it. And who are not just good trial lawyers, but really work on finding people and helping them become great teachers because that’s a little bit different.
All Star Trial Lawyers Present:
Lindsey:
When you have that high level of knowledge, it’s really difficult to get something meaningful out of half an hour. You just spend the first 15 minutes giving a broad overview. And then, you can’t really get into any substance. And so, I love the idea of having more time dedicated to actually get into the meat of something that’s going to make a substantial difference in a lawyer’s practice.
Dan:
Right. Besides these great trial lawyers that we got coming, because we’ve got Lloyd Bell who’s a med mal master, John Romano from West Palm Beach, like a legend. Christian Morris, here from Las Vegas. Sagi Shaked out of Miami. So it’s just like the list of all-stars from top to bottom. David deruBertis is just crushing it in employment. The list of all-stars trial lawyers is just… I thought Huntington Beach was my biggest collection of superstars, but this one’s actually going to be even bigger.
On top of all these great trial lawyers, we have some of the most high-end trial consultants coming, like David Ball, John and Alicia Campbell that do big data, Jessica Brylow from Denver. Sean Claggett, who’s a great trial lawyer, but he also does trial consulting and helps people put their cases together. Harry and Claire Plotkin from Los Angeles, Eric Oliver out of Chicago. Cy DeLamont, she’s out of Oregon and she also… I always have trouble remembering her book. She’s going to be so mad at me. I keep forgetting the name of it. But Jesse Wilson, he’s a trial consultant. Also, he wrote From Victim to Victor. And then, obviously, Phillip Miller who does a lot of big data stuff, a lot of trial consulting for various lawyers from around the country. So we really got such a great group of consultants.
In fact, that was the most popular track two years ago, was a trial consultant track. So we really going to have something for everybody on the lecture basis. And then, there’s 20 workshop rooms where people can be learning skills. Like I developed this bootcamp where we teach, really, to master nonverbal communication: the eye contact, the facial expression control, the hand movements, the voice control, all these things. And so, the four days before the conference, October 12, 13, 14, and 15, we are doing a bootcamp here at my condo in Vegas for about 12 people.
So those people will actually have an 8-day program from Saturday to Saturday so they can learn all the skills of presentation. Then, be surrounded by the great trial lawyers, learning the theories and strategies. But for folks that don’t do that four days, they have the opportunity to do the same training at the conference. Because we do half day versions of the voir dire training, the cross-examination skills training, the presentation skills training. So that way, people could get on their feet and work on a particular skill without having to commit so much time and investment upfront.
Another beauty… So there’s so many great trial lawyers teaching these different workshops like Joe Fried and Sean Claggett teach these little workshops with eight to ten people. So you get this personal connection with them too. But the beauty of the workshops, also, is that every instructor has at least two Zoom meetups with their students ahead of time. So they can go over what they want everybody to learn if there’s any preparation or reading, so they get the most out of it.
And lastly, and maybe most importantly, it’s a chance for everybody to get to meet each other a little bit before they get there. Because when you go to a conference, you don’t really know anybody. It’s not nearly as much fun. But when you know a lot of people, it’s a lot more fun. Another thing that we do to help people get to know one another is that we ask every participant, whether they’re an instructor, student, or exhibitor to write a personal bio. And so, a personal bio has a current snapshot of them, of course, their headshot, up-to-date. But also, tells a little bit of the story of who they are. Not just what they do.
I attached mine in the confirmation email where we asked for this as exemplar. So like, “I’m the youngest of eight kids. I went to all boys Catholic schools my whole life, until I went to University of Michigan. I went to night school at Detroit College of Law. My dad, my uncle too, my brothers, and sisters were all lawyers.” So it’s stuff that’s more personal like, “I had to take the California bar four times, which means I failed it three times.” That’s not that kind of stuff people typically put into their bio they put on their website when they’re trying to solicit business from injured people. “I used to be a house painter from age 12 to age 32,” so anybody that’s ever worked a hard laboring job will be able to relate to me in that way.
Pickleball!
I obviously took up golf, skiing, and pickleball. I actually think I’m pretty good at… At least, I’m getting better at pickleball and-
Lindsey:
I’ll take you on there.
Dan:
We’re going to have that pickleball court inside. I just went and looked at the exhibit hall yesterday to see how big it is. And there’s definitely a room for a pickleball court and I brought the silent Nerf pickleball. So they’re going to bounce them-
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dan:
Passing out the tape and everything, so the pickleball court is going to be open for business in Vegas. So I’m pretty stoked about that.
Lindsey:
Oh, I’m so excited about that. All right. I’m going to challenge you to a match out there.
Dan:
In between classes, it’s time for pickleball for me-
Lindsey:
Fantastic.
Dan:
If I have a minute, I’m busy at the conference. The things that really help the networking a lot though is the workshops, when people get connected before they get there. The outings that are on Wednesday because that’s very low pressure, social connecting. When we do the workshops, the ten people in the group, one of my assistants sends out all the bios to that group of people. So they all have each other’s bio. So obviously, there’s ten bios to look at. Instead of 1,500, it’s a little bit easier. So that way, you really get to know that group of people ahead of time. And then, if you have that connection ahead of time, it just really facilitates having that connection. You get over that-
Lindsey:
Build those relationships.
Dan:
That everybody’s always cautious, “Okay. Who’s judging me?” There are a lot of bullshit that people go through. We do as human beings, right? Whereas, we’re comfortable around people, it’s a different story. I had to do… The program we just did out in Huntington Beach a few weeks ago where we bought out the entire hotel for four days and everybody there was with us, it was just a whole new level of comfort. Because you only share spaces like that with family or very close friends. And so, it gave it that feel even though most people didn’t know each other before they got there. But they knew there was at least a few people in common that they had, because they were all there for the same event.
Education, and Comfort, Food & Games:
So anyway, so that’s what the kind of stuff we’re doing for networking and education. And so, that the… Education, to be clear though, is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So the agenda every day is the same. So 7:30, breakfast starts. So we have breakfast from 7:30 to 9:00 and we do a full breakfast for everybody with bacon, eggs, coffee, tea, everything. We usually have very large, like ten-seat table rounds. So that way, they’re easy for socializing and networking, which is really important when you’re breaking bread with people. So that’s from 7:30 to 9:00.
And then, class goes from 9:00 to 12:30, but we take a break every hour for 15 minutes. So everybody’s required to take a break. We don’t take votes on it. One time I walked into a room, they weren’t taking a break. I’m like, “Why aren’t you taking a break?” And they said, “Oh, we took a vote.” I said, “Oh, you took a vote. Let me ask whose idea it was to take this vote?” Nobody said anything. And then I said, “When did this become a democracy?” Then somebody [inaudible 00:19:22] off the back like, “This is Dan’s dictatorship.” I’m like, “Exactly. We all take a break at the same time. We all take an hour and a half for lunch. We don’t get to vote and take 45-minute lunch breaks.” And the instructor was like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I’m like, “You didn’t know. It was your first time. Did you think that this was like every place else where you could just make the rules? No, we have very strict rules here. Because that way, everybody gets plenty of time to relax. They get some downtime.”
And whenever the instructors are like, “Who wants to push through and just keep going?” Everybody says yes. Nobody’s ever like, “Shut the f*ck up. I’m hearing you. I got to go to the bathroom. I need to make a phone call. I’m not even listening to you anymore.” They’re like, “Oh.” They’re like, “Yes, let’s please…” Because nobody wants to insult people and be rude. That’s why we have to have these clearly defined rules here. So we go from 9:00 to 12:30, then at 12:30 we have a lunch for everybody.
And so, it’s provided and hosted and sponsored. It’s really great food. That goes from 12:30 to 2:00, so there’s plenty of downtime because… And our exhibit hall is very different than other exhibit halls, because we really put the exhibitors around the perimeter. In the center, we have lounges so that some of the bigger law firms or exhibitors have lounges that typically have activations like coffee or cocktails or things like that but it’s an area to chill.
But we also have lots of games. So we’ll probably have six ping pong tables, air hockey, foosball. Like we talked about, we’re going to have a full-size pickleball court inside, cornhole. So lots of activities to keep people connected and involved in the exhibit hall because people… It makes it fun playing these games.
Then class goes from 2:00 to 5:30 with the same break schedule. Then every night from 5:30 to 8:30, we have live music and I’m really being much more conscientious. I’m going to see these musical acts around Vegas before I hire them because I want to make sure that they are top shelf music. And open bars and every night, with the parties in the exhibit hall. So people come right out of class… Because whenever you do parties offsite or someplace else, you lose at least half the people.
But when people come out and they see there’s music going and there’s cocktails flowing, they tend to get more involved. If they have to go back their room, then they hurry back because they’re suffering from FOMO. You don’t want to miss out.
Party Time!
And then, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday though, we’re going to have theme parties. So people who like to theme, well, this is their kind of conference. So on Thursday night, we’re going to have an ’80s party because I love the ’80s and-
Lindsey:
Who doesn’t?
Dan:
I really want to get a Queen cover band for that night, because they’re one of my favorite acts from that timeframe and most of their songs are great. And then, Friday night’s going to be the Halloween party. And so, that’s pick your own crazy costume. But we’re going to have live band karaoke that night, for sure. We got this really great band, a local band here called the Busker Kings. But they play over the Cosmopolitan at the Barber Shop. That’s where we’ve seen them many times, but they’re a great live band karaoke. And then Saturday night, we’re going to have a beach party.
Lindsey:
Oh, fun.
Dan:
It’s easy to do a beach party. You just wear your flip-flops and your Hawaiian shorts so you could show up that morning with your beach… Because it’s a totally casual and people are like, “What’s the dress code?” I’m like, “If anybody…” I tell my speakers, “Please do not wear a tie and coat. It’s totally unnecessary, a little uptight.” But some of them can’t help themselves. But it’s preferred not, because it’s totally casual. It’s like shorts, t-shirts, it’s going to be… The weather is perfect in October. We were over at Caesars like, “This is our busiest month of the year because the weather’s perfect, right? November’s got the holidays.” So that is the social aspects and networking aspects of Trial Lawyers University and that-
Lindsey:
Well, and I love all of this because it really leans into the university part of Trial Lawyers University. Where you think about your college experience, your university experience, and you hopefully had some really top-notch professors, educators. You got a great intellectual workout there. You learned everything that you need to know in order to be successful. And then, the other part of that is kicking back and having fun and hanging out with your friends. Going to the beach, having parties, and really enjoying that entire college university experience. So this is so aptly named with Trial Lawyers University because you get both of those key components of the university experience melded together in one fantastic Vegas experience.
Dan:
That is our goal. Our goal is to… This would be our third time doing Vegas and we just did a conference a little while ago. I thought it was our best event ever. Everybody that was there said, “This was your best event. This is the best event I’ve ever been to.” Somebody said, “This is one of the best events I’ve ever been to.” I said, “Really? Which compares to it?” And then, they stared at me and said, “Okay. Okay. You win.” I’m like, “I’m not trying to win.” [inaudible 00:24:24]. If somebody’s doing it at a high level, I want to go to their event. I want to go experience their event.
Because every time I go to an event, you know I’m looking at everything they’re doing. What’s their food like? How is the layout? Where are they putting their exhibitors? What’s the entertainment? What are they doing to get people connected and networking? And if I was in charge, what would I do? Because that’s the way I’ve been thinking for the last ten years until I finally got my… I would think all that stuff would just from a critical eye, but I never thought I would be in a position to dictate how I think it should be done.
Lindsey:
Right. Well, which is perfect because you’ve had so much experience going to these conferences and events for other people. That you can think about, “How would you do this differently? How would you do this better?” So what, in your opinion, is going to be different about this event from others that you’ve been to? Other than both parties being better and bigger than ever?
Dan:
Everything’s different. As soon as you… Even before the conference, I think when… I got to get the exact date. Around August 4th, we’re going to do an orientation where all the speakers are going to come on and give one minute for whatever… For every hour of their speakers, they give one minute summary of what they’re going to be teaching. So that way, people have a good reason to go see them. I also have the instructors write very detailed descriptions, a paragraph on, “What is this hour about?”
Not just opening statement. I tell them, “Look, you have a lot of competition. Each person has about 29 choices every moment they’re there, so give them a reason to choose you.” When things are done that way and people have been chosen, not just… But the instructors have been chosen. I tell them, “Look, this is serious stuff. You got chosen. Out of the 29 places this person could be, they chose to be with you. So please honor that. Give them information that’s going to change their life.”
But it happens, right? Competition brings out the best in all of us. When there’s 29 things to do, you better know there’s some competition. I want people to bring their A game because the benefit for the speakers, too, is everybody wants to have influence over others’ lives, right? If you’re at the top of this game.
Because all the lectures that we’re doing are being recorded. The lectures are all being recorded. And then, right after the conference, we take and edit those videos to break them down and cut out the beginnings and the ends, like the introduction stuff. So it’s just one hour. And then, we put them all on our app and website called TLU On Demand so that they’re accessible for eternity.
So the last seven conferences, every track has all been on there. Every webinar, I’ve done over 370 webinars. I think we did one yesterday, it was Number 372. And so, all those webinars and all the pleadings, transcripts, and PowerPoints are gathered for all of these cases so that it’s literally a library for trial. Or somebody the other day said, they called it the Bible for trial. I’m like, “Maybe it is the Bible for trial.” I like that, the Bible for trial or Netflix for trial. I mean, it’s just such great content if you’re a trial lawyer. And the people that use it, some of the one guy in… This one friend of mine, Eric from Houston, he’s like, “My wife’s angry.” I’m like, “Why?” She’s like, “I spend more time with you than I do with her. That’s what she tells me.” I’m like, “Honey, this is how we could feed the family. I got to become a great trial lawyer.”
So other thing is too is that everything’s recorded so you don’t have to worry about missing anything. And you have such selection, which makes it different. So that right there, people being where they want to be. Because if you look walking into most lecture halls, at most conferences, you’ll see at least half the people on their computers not paying attention or they’re just screwing around the exhibit hall or out at the pool. But that does not happen at Trial Lawyers University, because there’s so much to learn. What also makes it different to, Lindsey, is that when people are really learning what they need to learn, what they choose to learn, and they get ideas about their cases that are going to make their cases better, resolved for more, valuable to them, they understand how to value their clients’ losses, how to communicate them, well, these kinds of brilliant insights, these epiphanies, I think they release endorphins in people’s brains. And so, they’re vibrating at a higher level.
When you have that happen for 500 people, 1,000 people that are all in the same space, it’s like this different level of joy and energy. Because we’re all looking for the answer in whatever work we do, right? I mean, you’re on the map, so that’s digital marketing, right? SEO marketing. But as a business owner, you are looking for, “Okay. If I could just clearly communicate the value of my service to every prospect, they would buy every time.” So that’s the only breakdown is, how do I… First, I have to have their attention, right? Because unless somebody’s listening to us, we can’t communicate the value. But then, to give people full knowledge, then they understand and then you’re the obvious choice.
But at first, they have to listen, right? And so, that’s the beauty of the TLU is, too, is that besides… It’s designed for everybody, because I have speakers, attendees, and exhibitors. And if I can make all three of those people ecstatically happy… Because what do the speakers want? They want crowds, right? I mean, let’s be honest. If you’re up on a stage, you got an ego. You need crowds and those are people that… And they’re great trial lawyers that can make other people’s cases a lot more valuable than they are.
That’s why people collaborate on cases, so they can mentor those young lawyers. Those opportunities don’t come up without having a lot of people there. And what do the exhibitors want? Exhibitors want a chance to meet the lawyers, right? To have a conversation to the lawyer, because they have services and products that these lawyers need. But they’ll never get a chance to understand that if they never have a chance to even have a cup of coffee together, have a conversation.
And then, what do participants want? They want to learn because they want to get better for themselves and for their clients because they want to make more money. They want to have fun because life is boring in general. This work can be boring. And so, when you get a chance to get away for four or five days to Vegas, it’s great if you’re having a great time. But that doesn’t happen by itself, it happens… Especially, if you don’t… I mean, it has to be designed.
And then, finally, people want to have a bigger network, professional network. Because we all have cases we want to refer, want to make sure we get a referral fee, and we want cases referred to us. Somebody has a problem there in our location, hopefully they’ll call us to be a local counselor to collaborate. So I try to do my best to address the needs of all the different groups that are coming and perform at tens. I tell people at the beginning, I’m like, “I’m looking to get tens in these areas. I’m going to call you afterwards. If I didn’t get a ten, you need to tell me why. Because then, I’m just going to get to the ten next time, at least in your book.”
Lindsey:
Right. Well, you have an amazing grasp on the stakeholders that are involved here and all of the parties that are looking to get something meaningful and substantial and grow. And really enjoy themselves while they’re at it. And I think there are a lot of conferences out there that do a little bit for some, they either have more of an emphasis on the attorneys or they have more of an emphasis on the vendors. But you have taken an approach that is so mindful of bringing together everybody’s goals in a very substantial way.
You and I have talked about this, but I want to give you an opportunity to speak to the other exhibitors who are going to be out there. Because lawyers aren’t the only ones with limited time and resources to attend these events, exhibitors need to be very mindful about the time that they spend and the investments that they’re spending to go to different conferences. So talk a little bit about how you’re going to help break down the barriers and build the relationships between the other attendees as well as the exhibitors and how you’re going to make this an amazing experience on the exhibitors’ behalf.
To the Exhibitors:
Dan:
Well, I treat exhibitors as they should be treated. Because without exhibitors, there is no conference. It’s just the reality of it. Or attendees would have to pay $3,500 to make it worth it because these conferences are so expensive to do. Because I recognize the value of exhibitors, we do everything we can to help our exhibitors. From the way we lay out the exhibit hall, so that there isn’t a bad booth. Because we don’t put those maze traffic patterns in there. For people, it’s like a meat market. You push through and people are walking by you with their hand because they don’t want to… “Don’t talk to me. I’m busy,” or they put their earbuds in, so nobody’s there.
So by having that round open environment and all the games within the exhibit hall, it’s such a great way to interact because it’s a game. Whether you’re the greatest trial lawyer in the world or an exhibitor or just an attendee, it’s like, “I’m just playing here. I don’t care anything else about you. I’m just going to whoop your ass,” whatever the game may be. But also, by doing the parties at the exhibit hall, because that way, everybody’s there and all your stuff is right within their view.
Doing things like the live band karaoke. Everybody does it. It gets the people out of their shells, gets people to loosen up. The theme parties. If people put some type of… Even the most… Let’s say for the beach party, they just put on a Hawaiian shirt or flip-flops, that’s enough. Or you could go… I mean, some people go very strong. For the ’80s party, you could probably just put a bandana on, a pair of sunglasses. Hey, at least you’re theme-y. That changes your look a little bit, it says, “Hey, I’m here for fun,” right? It’s like, “I’m raising my hand. Let everybody know I’m here to have fun tonight. I’m not going to be boring, so please connect with me.” And so, all these things and having a ten-top table, large tables for breakfast and lunch, that way it’s easy to sit down. If it’s a four-top table and there’s two people sitting there, it’s a lot less likely. Unless you’re a very outgoing, confident person, you’re just going to go sit your ass down and say, “Hey, I’m Dan Ambrose. Who are you?” Now, I do that stuff because-
Lindsey:
Because you’re Dan Ambrose.
Dan:
I’m Dan Ambrose and I got to know everybody. It’s part of my professional… It is a profession, networking. I mean, I feel safe in saying that I have the largest network of trial lawyers of any person walking the face of this earth. And I’m not as famous as Brian Panish or Nick Rowley or Keith Mitnick, I fully recognize that. But I personally know more lawyers than they do. Not to brag, but it’s a reality because… It’s not something to brag about. But just the fact that I go to so many conferences, I do these bootcamps at my condo once a month, and I run webinars and podcasts. So I have a real opportunity to connect with a lot of people. I don’t have a caseload, so I don’t have anything distracting me from my networking work. Because it’s a big community and communities, like everything else, they have to be taken care of. You have to take care of your-
Lindsey:
You have to nurture them.
Dan:
To nurture them. If you don’t, they’ll forget. People have short memories. So those are the things that we are doing to help the exhibitors to… And the personal bios, it’s like that’s what people want people to know them, right? You don’t even have to do one. But if you do, so that way we give them to all the people coming. So as an exhibitor, if you know a little bit about the person that you want to do business with, well, it’s a little easier to do business with them. Or it’s important to know if there’s a law firm there, who’s the decision maker at the law firm? It might be good to know that too. Instead of, who’s the first year associate? Well, they might not… If their name happens to be the same name on the law firm, maybe they have some influence. But other than that, if they’re trying to sell something, that might not be the best place to spend your time-\.
Lindsey:
Well, and with those relationship pieces in place, with… My company, Optimize My Firm, we do SEO for law firms. Well, there are a dozen other companies out there that do SEO for law firms. The only way that I’m going to be able to bring more clients to me is by building that relationship and I need to have the tools in place to build those relationships. So no, I’m not just Lindsey with Optimize My Firm. I’m Lindsey who loves pickleball, who loves organic, pasture-raised eggs and cares about animals, and I have kids, and I’m… There are so many different other facets of my personality that I can use to build these relationships and really get to know my future clients. They’re putting a lot of trust in me, and they’re putting a lot of money with me, and they want to make sure that I am invested in their success. So having these opportunities to form those relationships, build that trust is a huge piece that you don’t necessarily get at every conference. And it’s one of the reasons that I’m so excited to be a part of Trial Lawyers University.
Dan:
Right. I can’t think of one other conference that does that. Frankly, not every conference. And I go to a lot of conferences. I probably probably go to 15 to 20 conferences a year that are not run by me.
Lindsey:
Yes. Yeah. So it’s definitely a special event that you have going on. And so, just another quick second to speak to the potential exhibitors. What exhibitor and sponsorship packages do you have available?
Dan:
Well, I mean, it’s a broad array depending on where people’s price points are. But I mean, obviously, there’s a standard basic booth or a premium booth that’s inside the exhibit hall. Probably, most people do that because you get access to the event. You get everything. But obviously, people that do sponsorships, that’s clearly a larger investment of money. A track sponsorship, I think, is one of the best sponsorships because your name’s above the door. You get a 1-minute shout out or get to speak one minute. And your name is on the top of the track on the website and on the hard copy brochure. Your name is everywhere. So I think that’s really just a great sponsorship. Where there’s lounges in there that some of the bigger sponsors will have and that we have a place to hang out and schmoozing and connect with people.
Let’s see. Maybe a pickleball sponsorship. Somebody wants to run… Because I think I’m going to have my pro from my club come over and give people’s lessons. She’s real friendly and bubbly, high energy. Her name’s Courtney. She’s going to be, “Oh, I do pickleball lessons for corporate events.” I’m like, “Great to know. Come over for a few hours and show people how to hold the paddle.” But really, we have a little brochure, like little booklet that has it in it and stuff. And so, it’s really most of the people that just do the… That’s great. We do our best to help our exhibitors and sponsors to get business because we want people to… Obviously, if you’re not getting business, you’re not connecting with people, you’re not going to be very excited about coming to Trial Lawyers University, and that’s not good for our business. Our business works and everybody’s business works, right?
Lindsey:
That’s right.
Dan:
It only works if everybody wins.
Lindsey:
That’s right. Exactly. There are all winners here. Well, if lawyers or exhibitors want to register and get some more information, where should they go?
Dan:
Well, our website for Vegas is TLU Live, but the website for the regular company is triallawyersuniversity.com and that’s where they can… If you ever want to see any of the stuff that’s happened in the past, that’s all on TLU On Demand. And so, my email is dan@triallawyersuniversity, so you can email me. If you don’t have TLU On demand, I will be happy to send you a 1-month comp code for it so you can check out all the great stuff that you’ve missed or my cell phone number’s (248) 808-3130.
Whether you’re an exhibitor or an attendee, if you need any information, questions… I’m sure people always have questions, because people always get confused about my website. Because it’s rather elaborate with all the different tracks and the workshops and they’re like, “I can’t figure it out.” They can’t figure it out because it’s not like any conference they’ve ever been to. Whereas, once they’ve been one time, they’re like, “Oh, totally makes sense.” But if you have trouble navigating the website, you have questions about anything at all, just give me a call or send me an email and I will answer them for you.
Thank you:
Lindsey:
You will be on it. Well, thank you so much, Dan. We’ll make sure to put all of that information in the transcript for this podcast. So we are so excited to get out there. Counting down the days and can’t wait to get ready to come out and see you.
Dan:
All right. Just in case anybody’s going to be here before then, next week is the… Well, this won’t come out for a little while. Because next week, there’s a… I think on the 15th, the National Bar Association is doing a big conference at Caesars Palace. And then, obviously, Mass Torts in October. If people are coming out to that, then I’ll be around then too. We’re having a party then too before Mass Torts that are… This is why we got the party pad here, the networking pad. So if you’re coming out here for those things, hit me up, let’s connect, and it’ll be great.
Lindsey:
Great. Thanks so much, Dan. Appreciate it.
Dan:
Thanks, Lindsey. Take care.
