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Michael Bonamarte, IV is the Managing Partner at Levin & Perconti. In this podcast, Mike will discuss how the law firm has grown over the last 20 years to become a major law firm in Chicago.
Mike joined as a Law Clerk and worked his way up to Managing Partner. He goes over how the firm has grown over the last couple decades – including branding, intake, marketing, growth, AI and more.
Visit Michael Bonamarte, IV here: https://www.levinperconti.com/attorneys/michael-f-bonamarte-iv/.
See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I’m your host, Lindsay Busfield. Throughout our business journey, we have had the privilege to work with some phenomenal lawyers. They have untouchable savvy when it comes to the legal strategy, which is why they became lawyers in the first place. However, lawyers often get so wrapped up in the cases at hand that they neglect the development of their firms as a growing business. Mike Bonar from Levin and TI joins us today to discuss the business of law. So tell me a little bit about your career with Levin and ti. You started there as an associate 20 years ago and now you’re a managing partner.
Mike:
Thanks, Lindsay. Actually, I started as a law clerk in 2003, became an associate in 2005 and I’m now the managing partner of the firm, and it’s been quite a journey. I’m one of the lawyers that actually didn’t really know what they wanted to do. I went to law school because I couldn’t figure out what to do in my life and I started to like my trial courses. So I reached out to someone that I’ve actually known for a lot longer, Steve Levin, and ended up working at this firm as a law clerk and just sort of the rest is history.
Lindsey:
Well, that’s funny. I was actually talking to somebody over this past weekend. I went back to the college that I went to center college and ended up talking to a student out there who was telling me that she is trying to figure out what major to have because she wants to be a lawyer but doesn’t really know if she wants to be a lawyer, was raised in a family of lawyers and it’s when you go to college, there are four different options for career paths. You can be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a professor. I mean, you only have a certain number of careers that people really show you. So she knows she wants to be in the legal industry but doesn’t know whether she wants to be a lawyer or a clerk or a paralegal or if she wants to go into business development. And so I think it’s funny timing. I’ve been talking about this for the past few days, but that’s great that you were able to work in the business development part alongside your trial career.
Mike:
Yeah, I think to the point you just made, I’ll take it a step further because I think it’s important for young people to consider this, whether they’re in college like this individual is, or just in law school trying to figure out what area of practice to go into. But I was actually one of the people on the path to be a doctor. I was pre-med, I took the MCATs. I think I did okay, maybe would’ve gotten into medical school, but I wasn’t quite sure about it. So I took a year off and ended up deciding to do this. And I think to any person that’s considering being a lawyer or somebody that’s in law school, on a more granular level, there’s, at least in Illinois, I think 20 to 25 different topics that are tested on the bar exam. And it’s really important if you’re like most people, you’re probably in the process of dropping a hundred, 150,000 on your law school education that you want to try to find something that you’re passionate about and that you can develop a career in as opposed to a job.
So I ask people a lot that interview at our firm, why are you here? And some people will give us surprising answer. Well, they saw the post, and I said, that’s not really the answer that I’m looking for. Nor should it be the way you approach your job search. Because if I’m tying it back, I mean, if you’re really going to have success, I think both personally, professionally, financially, however you view that word, you got to find something that you’re passionate about. And when you’re passionate about an area of practice, I think it translates into you getting into the business aspect of that practice and being passionate about that because it’s arguably equally important. It’s certainly up there. I mean, think about a plaintiff’s lawyer from a consumer’s perspective. You see people on tv, you see people on internet, everybody on TV has recovered millions or billions of dollars. How does the consumer choose who to select? So that’s been a big focus of my practice over the years and more so even in recent years as I’ve become the managing partner of the firm.
Lindsey:
Well, and you can’t fake that passion. People can see right through it. If you are practicing in the right sector, it naturally comes through and the business development part is a skill that some people are naturally born with and some people just aren’t. A lot of lawyers out there that I’ve worked with are incredible lawyers, but don’t necessarily have the same acumen when it comes to building their brand or growing their law firm in general. They get so sucked into whatever case it is that they have at hand, which is phenomenal for the person that they’re representing. But it’s not necessarily great for the long-term development of the business to keep those cases coming in.
Mike:
I mean it, I’ve been lucky, I had a mentor like Steve who’s always been focused on this. He wishes he would’ve purchased more domains at the time, but I don’t know, 25, 30 years ago, a big part of our practice has been and still is, there’s some issues that are causing us to be a little more selective in these cases. But he purchased nursing home law.com, I don’t know, 25 or 30 years ago, whenever that was. But I would think of it like this approaching, at least when you’re doing traditional old school networking and marketing, which I think people are forgetting now because it’s so easy to send out constant contacts and do everything you need to optimize your SEO and look into what kind of paid advertising you want to do. Sometimes we forget when you pick up the phone and have a conversation with people that way a marketing works really, really well.
Maybe you haven’t heard from a referring lawyer in a long time. During the pandemic, we took that as an opportunity at the beginning to, we sent a little bottle of wine to all our referring lawyers just to remind them, Hey, we’re still in business. And people love that kind of stuff. So I approach it like with this thought, especially as a young lawyer, because despite me telling all the young lawyers, there’s a lot of ways you can supplement your income. One of ’em is by bringing in business. Think of it this way, if someone in your family or a friend, God forbid, had a really serious personal injury or medical malpractice case and they ended up hiring a different firm, how would you feel? I’d feel nauseous. And despite you thinking all these people know what you do, they don’t. So it takes a lot of repetition and it’s really, really important I think, to start at a young age, just going racking your mind, looking at your phone, your emails, your outlook, developing a list of just every single person and make sure that you’re constantly reaching out in some fashion, whether it’s letters or emails picking up the phone depending on the type of potential relationship.
But the hard thing about advertising in a plaintiff’s personal injury business is that the entire world is the possible consumer. You don’t know who’s going to be injured by malpractice or hit in a car accident, whatever it is. I mean, I remember having a discussion with my brother who at some period of time was in the orthopedic prosthesis business and he was getting frustrated because he was having trouble bringing in a doctor. I said, Brian, I mean, think of it like this. You know who your targets are. Just set up meetings with every single orthopedic surgeon that you can get in to talk to and approach it like that. If you get one out of a hundred that does a lot of business, you’re going to have some success. It’s different. I mean, obviously we focus when we advertise online and we look at demographics and all of these different factors, but it’s competitive and it’s difficult, but you got to do it. If you want to build a successful practice,
Lindsey:
You do have to do it. And a lot of attorneys are hesitant about it because they’re afraid of reaching out. They don’t want to become that smarmy salesperson. And especially in personal injury firms, you don’t want to come across as a stereotypical ambulance chaser where you’re like, hello, hello, have you had a personal injury? A lot of people are very mindful about that, and it can be a challenge to kind of tow that line between being overly aggressive when staying at the top of mind awareness when it comes to your branding. So it’s a delicate balance, but it’s something that you’re right, you have to do because how awful would it be if you found out that somebody that you really cared about is getting lesser representation because they just didn’t know?
Mike:
Those are legitimate concerns. I mean, want to, we do sometimes get a bad rep until of course people need us. I mean, trial lawyers, obviously sometimes we get a bad rap, but sometimes we’re the ones that have to regulate major consumer industries, tobacco, I mean possibly social media has been a hot topic over the last year and things that are going on online and bullying and things like that, the gun industry. So a way to think about it is, and something to one of your points is how do you distinguish yourself or separate yourself? A lot of that is coming back to what you see on tv. Everybody’s talking about the results. I think some of the really good ads focus on the clients and telling the client stories, and that’s something that we’re trying to do more of because frankly, I get bored sometimes even looking at our social media post, oh, someone got another million dollar settlement, and it just sort of all runs together.
And I think you got to constantly be thinking about new ways to market yourself because despite your fears and your reluctance to doing that, someone’s going to get the cases. And if you truly believe you’re the type of law firm that is a top choice for a consumer because of the talent, the actual people that are working on and prosecuting the cases on a day-to-day basis, you want to make sure that the consumers know that so that they’re at least making an educated choice as opposed to just choosing somebody they see on TV or who comes up first in Google. And there’s a way to do all of those things, I
Lindsey:
Think, and it gets into a larger conversation about branding and really figuring out what your brand identity is as a law firm. That way you don’t blend in with the rest of the crowd. And that starts with finding out through some soul searching, what truly makes your law firm different from everybody else out there? What problem are you specifically solving? Are you the best at communication and keeping that line of communication open with your clients? Are you the most responsive? Are you the ones who are out there proactively trying to keep injuries from happening in your community? Are you the one who’s knocking on people’s doors trying to figure out, do you need groceries this week? How else can I help you? What personal touch are you providing that nobody else had out there is? And that should be reflected in your brand identity. So that way you are standing apart for whatever it is that you are doing best for whatever problem it is that you are solving for your clients in a way that nobody else is. And that is kind of what shapes the brand and makes you stand apart from all of those boring ads on tv. And so I love that you guys are special and that you are doing things that make you stand apart, but you can speak to that better yourself. What do you think it is that your firm is best at? What problems are you solving?
Mike:
I think that’s a great question, and I think there’s a lot of different ways you can go about answering it. And in some respects, we have specialists in a lot of different areas, and I’ve got people that are really have focused a lot of their career on working on sex abuse cases and those kinds of situations, foster abuse cases. I have people that we’re focusing a lot in recent years on group home cases, which are called Silas in Illinois. But another way to think about this as opposed to the practice area, we do have people that are really familiar with different practice areas, birth injury cases, that kind of stuff. What does your firm offer the consumer? Think about what does the consumer want, what’s best from their perspective? So I think where we’ve sort of, and I’m not sick saying no one else does this, but I think we’ve taken it to another level.
We’ve become really compartmentalized while still remaining collegial and there’s a flow. I mean, for example, it’s sort of surprising, but not that many personal injury firms that I know of, including some of the big ones, have truly dedicated intake specialists. I have several paralegals. I have one of my partners oversees this department and that department’s entire job, and they run really, really well is the development of new possible business and new cases, not the marketing part. When someone calls, they know that this team is going to guide them through this part of the process and explain exactly what’s going to happen from getting medical records, how long it’s going to take, how they’re going to get reviewed, who’s going to ultimately make decisions. And I have a person within that team that’s a floater. He just acts as sort of a client liaison and he keeps people updated while we’re trying to figure out if that person has a case.
Sometimes the lawyers will look at it, well, how long is a case? Well, we filed it on January 1st, 2025, so it’s only been filed for a month. The client’s thinking, well, I called this firm in June of last year, so they’ve had my case for six months. They don’t see that distinction. So I think it’s important that you got people, the communication part and people that truly know, I mean, the paralegals that we have that are asking new people about their potential cases know they’re so good at it now that they probably do a better job than most of the lawyers. And how it transpired is that someone interviewed with me, I don’t know, 10 or 15 years ago, and I didn’t really think that the person’s heart was into becoming a trial lawyer, but I liked the person’s professionalism, how she presented, she was articulate, and we had always played with this idea of having a dedicated lawyer to run the intake, the new cases.
So we hired that person and it worked out for a long time, and it’s evolved. I have a person, her only job is to order medical records. I have a lawyer or two lawyers now that all they do is once a case is settled, they process all the settlement paperwork and maintain client contact because sometimes you settle a case, the lawyer’s like, okay, now there’s a whole other case. I had to work out all the liens. So I have these lawyers that do that. And I think by doing that, it allows people to focus on the things they’re really, really good at, and we all are interacting with each other and communicating with each other. But that compartmentalization I think helps us run really, really smoothly. And I think the clients really see it and appreciate it. They’re like, wow, this place has it down. I got somebody that’s just dealing with this issue for me. But I always make it a point as a manager of the firm, if I’m walking around, I see somebody, I try to say, hi, Hey, you’re in great hands with this lawyer, but here’s my card. If you ever need me, please call. You. Ever see a manager at the, where are you from, Lindsay?
Lindsey:
I’m in North Carolina.
Mike:
So we have a lot of good restaurants in Chicago. We got a bunch of steakhouses and some of the ones that have been around forever. Gibson’s, for example, a lot of people have heard of Gibson’s. I don’t know. Their stake is great, but is it that much better than the new place? Why are they still in business? And the new steakhouse goes out within a couple of months. And I think it’s that client touch. And I think you can learn as a lawyer from other industries. I mean, I may be rambling a little bit, but recently I’ve been listening to this podcast called The Founders, and it’s someone, I’ll just say it, it’s sort of like the cliff notes of reading the autobiography. It’s somebody reads either a biography or an autobiography of really well-known entrepreneurs in American history, and then they kind summarize the stuff and it gives me, oh, that’s great ideas. And there’s a lot of different parallels between the business of law and these other businesses. I mean, I listened to the one on Sam Walton, Walt Disney, all these Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, all these different people, and you learn and you just got to be a sponge. And I think by doing that kind of stuff, you just get a lot of ideas that can translate to your law practice, whatever your practice is, whether it’s personal injury or something
Lindsey:
Else. Absolutely taking in as much information as you can and then implementing different strategies and trial and error, all of that can lead to some really innovative business practices that can help you stand apart in the growth of your own business. But going back to what you were saying about compartmentalizing these different functions is a great way to do it. If you have the resources to make that happen, it keeps things from falling through the cracks, which ultimately leads to the best possible client experience, especially starting with that intake piece. I cannot tell you how many clients have been lost to law firms because of bad intake or people just not answering the phone. A client will call a law firm and get stuck in a phone tree and not have anybody answer, and then within 15 seconds, they’re off to somebody who will actually pick up the phone. So having dedicated intake that is trained, that is actually working for your firm and is not necessarily a virtual assistant can make a make or break a deal, and then following that up with people who actually care about the different phases of the client’s journey is huge. And I think that in and of itself can make for a great brand to identity to lean into.
Mike:
Yeah, we actually on that point, I mean I’ve listened to the tone of the receptionists in the past, and we got to be mindful this, it’s in a really important job. I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to diminish another job, but someone calls customer service at McDonald’s. What the complaint is, if someone calls a law firm, it could be someone that has absolutely zero case or it could be a $10 million case and you have to have somebody because you could hear it in someone’s voice, their attitude. So we’ve struggled with different call centers and I’ve tried a lot of different ones, and it’s really hard to give them a script and have them figure out how to handle a new call. So recently we hired a second receptionist because I’d rather just have it internalized with somebody that we could train, that we can monitor and make sure that we’re getting these calls that are handled by people that know our business basically, as opposed to someone that’s trying to conform with a script. Because as you know, a lot of times people go off script and then it becomes a disaster. And I’ve gotten so many complaints over the years about different call centers that we’ve tried to use
Lindsey:
Well, or they stick too rigidly to a script. And so man, we’ve seen some real horror stories, but one sticks out in my mind where they’re given the script, told say, all right, what’s your name? What’s your case? What’s your phone number? Okay, we’ll get the lawyer to get in touch with you. And this woman called, and she was in tears because her son was just in a motorcycle accident. He was in the hospital, he was on life support. She wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. And she calls and says, my name is so-and-so, and here’s what’s happening. And the intake person on the other side of the phone says, can you repeat your name? What’s your phone number? And this poor woman is just like, am I even speaking to a real human? And was just so offended, rightfully so
This other person had zero empathy. And that was the first face of this law firm who obviously lost this multimillion dollar case. So having a real human on the line, who cares? Who still is going to get the appropriate information that you need, but do it in a human way that actually represents your firm accordingly? And I think that that is a very smart way of doing it,
Mike:
Or just the intuition to know I got to get somebody to a lawyer or this person to a lawyer right this second.
Lindsey:
Yes, yes, absolutely. We don’t need to go through all of the different steps to figure out if you have a case, this is a no-brainer, let’s get this moving forward. But the trick to that is actually getting the phone to ring. So talk to me a little bit about what you guys do in terms of marketing to help scale your business.
Mike:
So I mean, I guess just to give you the parameters, when I started as a lawyer, I’ll just fast forward to the law school part, but we had seven lawyers. I was probably the youngest lawyer there here by about 20 years or so. And fast forwarding to 2025, we have about 30 lawyers and a big staff in a lot of cases. And how we did it is I think trial and error. I think Steve, to his credit, recognized early on the power of the internet and we built a fairly robust website that still maintains a really good SEO or organic presence. And then as the business has increased over time, I think we’ve always been mindful of new opportunities, new practice areas, and we’ve taken chances if we see an opportunity to get into a new type of practice, we’re going to put some money and take a little bit of a risk.
And we’ve always, I think, put forth the appropriate amount of resources into it. So obviously the business was built a lot based on referral relationships with other lawyers. You have the traditional marketing and then also the internet, and then we scaled that into TV for a certain period of time. And we also knew when to scale back a little bit in certain areas. I mean, for example, nursing home abuse and neglect is going through kind of a difficult period of time, and at least in Illinois because of at least claimed financial issues that the nursing home industry is saying they’re not carrying enough insurance. And unfortunately we’re having to be a little more selective, and I’m not giving up on these cases. I’ve written legislatures. I sent a letter to about a hundred state representatives and legislators and elder advocacy groups last year to just make them aware of the problem.
And I’m getting, some people are reaching out to me, but you just have to got to, I think be present on a daily basis, listen to the news, talk to your staff. I mean, I’ve made it a point over the last couple of years to get feedback from the staff. What do you think we need? I’m evolving into this role. My co-managing partner, Margaret Batters, B Black, she was a third year law student when I was a first year lawyer. And so we’ve sort of grown up together over the last 20 years. And I don’t know everything about how to manage a firm. I’m still learning, but I’m trying and I’m trying to get input from other people. So you want to attract talent, you want to make it a good place to work. And I think we’ve done that. And a lot of people have similar stories.
A lot of people that have been with us for years and years and years either started with us in law school or started as their first job out of law school. And then there’s also the realization that as we’ve grown, it’s not, the job is not for everyone. And I’m transparent about that from a very early on. And on the one hand, you don’t like to lose people. On the other hand, I don’t want people to stay here just because it’s a job. I want people to stay here because they think of it as a long-term home. This is what they want to do, they’re hungry. And I think in the end, that’s probably the best scenario for everybody. So you have to embrace the fact that being a trial lawyer is not easy and it’s not for everybody. Despite a lot of law students I think, go into law school thinking that’s what they want to do. I don’t know. I’ve never heard a lawyer, someone in law school tell me that. And again, I’m just going to maybe sound bad, but I haven’t heard someone say, I really want to be a bankruptcy lawyer when they’re a first year law student, but we need bankruptcy lawyers.
Lindsey:
We do
Mike:
All these types of lawyers, but I’m just saying be open. We’re coming back full circle to just being open-minded, not just in new business areas, but to who you hire and all of those different scenarios.
Lindsey:
Well, and it’s not as though when you graduate from law school and pick a sector, that’s the sector that you have to have for life. And I think so many people put so much pressure on themselves that they have to get it right out of the bat. And whether you go into personal injury right out of the gate or you go into corporate law and then kind of weave your path into it, you’ll find yourself. And I mean these days in any career, in any industry, people are starting off with one a one job and moving into another and really kind of finding themselves and where their passion is. Nobody’s really staying in the same place for 30 years, for the most part at least.
I mean, I think the only caveat that I would say I’d push back a little is yes, you don’t know for sure if it’s going to work out, but I think you’re going to put yourself in a much, much better position for getting it right. Maybe not the first time, but maybe it’s the second time if you really, really think about it. And you really, really, some of the people I’ve hired, I’ve had a couple of people that have called me in college, which I love. I mean, they just cold call me and say, Hey, I’m going to go to law school. I think I’d love to just see what it’s like to be in a personal injury firm. One of ’em, both of ’em actually, I think I know for one for sure, but I think I wrote recommendations ultimately for them to go to law school. So I think exposing yourself and just talking to people and not just saying, oh, there’s a job opening here. Let me call them. See what that’s like. Give it some thought and talk to people, more people than you think. And the more information that you have, I think the better position you’re going to be to make that decision. And the better chance you’re going to have that you’re going to get it
Lindsey:
Right. And the other piece of that is mentorship. And just as you can pick up the phone and be a mentor people, regardless of whether they’re in college or debating a career change or making any sort of minor or major change within that path, talking to people, having a mentor, finding multiple mentors is a great way to make sure that you are getting it right or getting it right for where you are at this phase. So I think that that’s great that you were willing to help them out and share some wisdom and ultimately help get them where they wanted to go.
Mike:
Yeah, so I mean, getting back to what you said, our online presence has gone, has scaled upwards over the last 20 years. We’ve tried other things, we’ve hired more people, we’ve done the things that I talked about earlier in terms of compartmentalizing. We try to really make sure we’re handling those initial calls carefully. And I think that’s translated to where we’re at today.
Lindsey:
And clearly, as your business has grown and as you bring on more cases and get more attention, you’re going to be getting more of those cases that you aren’t necessarily in a position to take or aren’t in the best interest for the law firm to represent. What criteria are you looking at when you are assessing those cases and what do you do with cases that you don’t necessarily want to take on or can’t take on?
Mike:
So by the way, I’ll just say I do things like this where, for example, we have a national birth injury practice now. We’ve partnered up with some lawyers in the last couple of years and now our partners and about four years now. And we’ve expanded our birth injury practice over the last several years. So when there’s opportunities to talk to somebody like yourself when I know this podcast is going to be viewed by lawyers all over the country, that’s a possibility that maybe I get some business out of it. So you’re doing well by doing good, but in terms of criteria, it’s largely dependent on the area of practice or the type of case it is. I think traditionally, and I think it still is true with medical malpractice cases, you have to be careful. You have to have upside of a million dollars or more probably.
And you have to feel really comfortable that you’re on the right side of the case from both a negligence and a causation. Because as you probably know, and a lot of the people that are listening probably know they’re really expensive. I mean, some of the med mal and birth injury cases that I’ve tried in the last four or five years, the expenses have been anywhere from two to $500,000. So you’re taking big economic risks. So you have to consider those things when you’re making decisions. One of the temptations, especially if you’re developing a business, would be to take more. And that’s probably not the right way to go about it. I mean, I remember early in my career, and Steve let me run with it. I took a case, someone was, at the end of the day, I don’t know if I regret it, but as a business decision, it wouldn’t make sense to make a living like this.
But there was a big injury, the person was very deserving, but there was unfortunately only a $25,000 insurance policy and medical bills for 500,000. So I ended up negotiating all the liens with the amount of time that it took. It probably economically didn’t make sense from a business perspective. And I think you have to be able to recognize, maybe it’s not the right case for you, but maybe there’s someone I could refer the case to. I mean, I have referral relationships with people all over the state and all over the country, and some people may be able to handle based on how their practice is set up a larger volume of smaller cases. So we’ll send those out. So you have to decide, I think your criteria will decide on, will depend on what kind of practice you want to build.
Lindsey:
And you’re right, you have to be very intentional about what you allow yourself to take on. And it is so easy to say, oh, here’s a new case. I absolutely want that. And you look at the marketing spend that it takes to get new cases in the door, and it’s a little too tempting sometimes, but having those criteria in place can help you make better decisions for your firm. And ultimately in the long run, that’s going to be what pays off.
Mike:
And the other thing I’ll just add to that is you have to know, you have to also obviously consider the client because there’s the one thing, where should I take the case or not? The other side is I know it’s a case. I know there’s big upside, but am I really the right person to handle it? And that could be based on your years of experience, your experience in this field. It could be based on whether or not you have the financial resources to invest the cost in the case. And I think people, especially starting out, if someone calls me and they have a case and I can tell maybe they should work on a case with me, maybe that’s why they’re calling. Look, you could be as involved as you want, but I really think we’re going to add value to the case. I think it’s in the client’s best interest, partner up with us. We’ll pay all the costs. You get your referral fee and you’ll learn how we handle the case. And I think that’s important. Depending on the type of case it is the potential upside. And you got to always remind yourself, is it in the best interest of the client for me to handle this case or should I involve another firm?
Lindsey:
And that’s an excellent point, and that is definitely marrying two skill sets, one of business development as well as the legal strategy behind it. So the last question I have for you is more along the lines of time management. How do you balance being a great trial lawyer with the time that it takes to actually grow and develop your business?
Mike:
So I have probably a little bit different role, less traditional role. I mean, I’m not necessarily doing, I’m involved in the strategic decisions. I will take depositions, I will get involved in certain cases, but a lot of what I do is I’ll come in at the end and try a case. And it is funny, I don’t necessarily always think about the time management. I work a lot, but I spend the time I spend with my wife and my daughter as meaningful. And I think when you like what you’re doing, you don’t worry about that as much.
And I do think it’s important, obviously, to be organized and be intentional and think about what you do. I mean, for example, I’ve noticed with some lawyers that they’re here a lot, but maybe they’re not getting as much done. And sometimes it’s just because they’re paralyzed. And I think you have to, there’s different executive functioning skills that certain people have or need some work on, or you can give people tips. I mean, for example, you could think to yourself, maybe I should write down five things that I want to get done tomorrow and see if I get those things done. And you just have to always also remind yourself, there’s always going to be hopefully work to be done if you’re bringing in a sufficient amount of business. But just give it a little thought. But I just caution people spending, sometimes you spend too much time organizing and not enough time just doing stuff. And I think I had that issue maybe a little early on in my career. I was so obsessed with the organizational part of it that I’m like, man, I’m spending a lot of time making a list of all the things I need to do. Maybe I need to focus on, okay, here are the certain deadlines that I can’t let pass the statute of limitations, expert disclosure, deadlines, things like that, and then prioritize from there.
It’s not a nine to five job doing this. I can say that.
Lindsey:
No, it is a whole lifestyle.
Mike:
You also have to have a good team. I mean, for example, I was on trial for basically all November and December on two different cases. And when you got a good team running things in the background, you don’t worry about it as much. So
Lindsey:
Well, and to your credit, going back to what you were talking about earlier with how your firm functions in a more compartmentalized way, it means that you don’t have to do everything and you can really outsource and delegate to the people who do that part of the job really, really well. And that way you can focus on the tasks at hand that are really on your plate that fall into your wheelhouse that you’re going to execute really well. So I think
Mike:
I’ve done most of the jobs in the office at some point in my career, and part of the mentorship is obviously we have hundreds and hundreds of file cases and we can’t, no one lawyer, myself included, is going to be able to manage everything. And that is one of the struggles I want to help everybody, but I have a simple Google spreadsheet where I block off time for myself to get stuff done, and then I let people just sign up for times. They want to come meet and strategize on cases. Because one of the things that you want to teach younger lawyers or I do at least, is yes, there are certain tasks that have to get done, but are you thinking about the, are you doing it with intention? Are you doing it in a way where you’re trying to maximize the value of the case in the most efficient way or the fastest way without skipping any steps? That’s really what you’re doing as a trial lawyer. A plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer is maximize trying to maximize the value of the case. So think about, in a lot of ways, I’m trying to teach the younger lawyers to really think logically, because the advantage you have coming back to what we were just talking about is you do get to pick your cases.
The insurance defense world, they have to just take whatever’s assigned to them. So if you’ve picked your cases wisely and the defendant’s coming up with some defense to the case, there should be some fallacy, logical fallacy to their position that you can refute. So you’re training, it takes some time to train your brain to embrace every single defense that you hear in a case. And it also takes some time to train your brain to just constantly be thinking about business. I find myself, I’m like, okay, a few days have gone by or a day has gone by, have I forgotten to think about the business part of things? And that happens, but it becomes ritualistic when you do it every single day. You try to devote a certain amount of time every day.
Lindsey:
Well, and the theme throughout all of our conversation here has seemed to revolve around intentionality and whether it is intentionality on what sector to practice in or how to devote your time and money and resources into cases to intentionality on what cases to bring on, all of it is focused on thinking through things logically and acting with intention. If we can train our brains to do that, regardless of whatever task is at hand, you’re going to be successful. So thank you so much for joining us today. I think there have been some really great thoughts that our listeners will be able to turn into action and help them as they grow and develop their businesses.
Mike:
The one thing we didn’t talk about, and it’s been a pleasure, thank you. People better start embracing artificial intelligence. I’m obsessed with it.
Lindsey:
That’s true.
Mike:
There’s a lot of ways to streamline things that we’re doing and develop ideas. It’s not going to replace trial lawyers.
Lindsey:
It’s not. And there’s no reason to. I mean, we absolutely have to lean into it. And whether it is for generating new ideas or for creating documents that are kind of boilerplate, I mean, yes, you need to have attorney eyes on it and make sure that it’s done right, because AI is still in its infancy. But yeah, it’s not going anywhere.
Mike:
And some of it’s just affirmation. I mean, I’ve been exploring it a lot recently with marketing ideas and stuff like that, and I don’t even think you have to prompt it the same way you used to, but I would generally start with act as if you’re the managing partner of a 30 lawyer, plaintiff’s med mail firm, blah, blah, blah. Give me some marketing ideas. Obviously I’m simplifying this and it’ll come up with a lot of stuff, and sometimes it just feels good. Oh, I am doing that. But then they’ll give you another idea. That’s a good idea too. Let me try to work on that. So
Lindsey:
Yeah, it’s a great platform just to bounce ideas off of and to get that affirmation like, okay, here’s how 90% of the population who has put these ideas into the internet verse, that’s what they’re doing. So at least I’m on the right track.
Mike:
Yeah. Well it was great to be on your program. Thank you very much for having me. Hopefully maybe we could talk again in the future.
Lindsey:
Would love that. Thank you so much.
