Latest / Sharp Strategies Sweet Success / #80 – Using AI to Shorten Case Timelines and Increase Case Value with Josh Schmerling
Transcript
- 0:00I had one law firm call me a couple of weeks ago that said they
- 0:02used our tool in
- 0:03the middle of litigation to help with the cross-examination of
- 0:05an expert and that
- 0:07our tool completely transformed the cross-examination and it
- 0:10completely transformed
- 0:11SPEAKER_01: the case.
- 0:11SPEAKER_01: And they were able to get a really nice seven-figure verdict from it.
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: Sure.
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: Strategies.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: Sweet.
- 0:28SPEAKER_00: Success.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone, and welcome.
- 0:31SPEAKER_00: You're listening to Sharp Strategy, Sweet Success.
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Tiffany Swadensky.
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: And today we have with us Josh Schmerling of LawPro AI.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: I actually met him at the AI for PI Expo down in Orlando.
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: That was back in mid-January, if I remember right.
- 0:48SPEAKER_00: And we talked about his program and the tool and what it does.
- 0:53SPEAKER_00: I was really impressed.
- 0:54SPEAKER_00: And
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: What stood out to me from that conversation is that I asked you,
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: it's like,
- 0:59SPEAKER_00: how are attorneys doing this before AI?
- 1:02SPEAKER_00: Like, how are they doing this kind of stuff in the nineties?
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: And you said like, forget the nineties, like how are they doing it now?
- 1:09And a lot of law firms are still using antiquated systems for
- 1:13medical records
- 1:14SPEAKER_00: collection,
- 1:15billing and document review and a bunch of other stuff that is
- 1:18still can do.
- 1:20He said it to me before the podcast and it was a little too
- 1:22sophisticated for me to remember.
- 1:24SPEAKER_00: So I'll go ahead and let him introduce himself and his tool.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: And so you guys can get to learn more about him.
- 1:30SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, Josh.
- 1:32SPEAKER_01: Great, Tiffany.
- 1:33SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
- 1:33SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
- 1:35SPEAKER_01: Give you a little bit of background about myself.
- 1:36SPEAKER_01: So I'm a personal injury attorney myself out of Maryland.
- 1:39Started my own law firm right out of law school and grew my
- 1:43personal injury firm
- 1:43SPEAKER_01: from nothing to a decent firm with about 12 people.
- 1:46SPEAKER_01: And we were doing decently.
- 1:47And then we got stuck and our revenue had been stuck for a
- 1:50number of years and we
- 1:51SPEAKER_01: were not growing any longer.
- 1:53And what I realized was we really had a pain point in terms of
- 1:56how to deal with the
- 1:57SPEAKER_01: medical records and the bills.
- 1:58SPEAKER_01: And I realized that with the technology out there today,
- 2:00that there was a better way to do it because I was having a ton
- 2:03of time and
- 2:04SPEAKER_01: resources going into understanding the medical records and bills.
- 2:07So what I eventually did as a need for my law firm is I
- 2:10co-founded LawPro.ai with
- 2:12my brother and we hired a whole team of data scientists and
- 2:15engineers to create
- 2:17SPEAKER_01: LawPro.ai,
- 2:18which basically takes all the medical records and bills for any
- 2:21personal injury
- 2:21SPEAKER_01: case.
- 2:22SPEAKER_01: And it breaks it down to makes it really easy to understand.
- 2:25SPEAKER_01: So it does file summaries and case level summaries.
- 2:28SPEAKER_01: It does visual timelines so you can tell the treatment dates.
- 2:30SPEAKER_01: It does a whole medical chronology.
- 2:32And then you can interact with all the medical records and
- 2:35bills as well by asking
- 2:35specific questions or wanting to see certain things or certain
- 2:38items or have
- 2:39SPEAKER_01: certain documents drafted like a demand letter.
- 2:42SPEAKER_01: And so it got rid of the pain point I was having in my law firm.
- 2:46Since implementing LawPro.ai,
- 2:47we've grown by about 3x in the last couple of years.
- 2:50And a large part of that is we're able to shorten time on desk
- 2:53and increase case values.
- 2:55SPEAKER_01: And LawPro.ai is a tool that's used for medical records and bills from
- 2:59SPEAKER_01: pre-litigation all the way to litigation and negotiations.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: I'm really curious when you found a company,
- 3:05SPEAKER_00: like essentially a SaaS company,
- 3:06SPEAKER_00: or would you call a law pro AI SaaS?
- 3:08SPEAKER_00: Is that the category it falls into?
- 3:10SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: So when you talk about like founding something like that,
- 3:14did you walk into like that first meeting with a clear picture
- 3:21of what the tool
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: will do and all of its capabilities or how did that come about?
- 3:28SPEAKER_01: Well,
- 3:29SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 3:29SPEAKER_01: my brother and I started chatting about what the pain point was,
- 3:32SPEAKER_01: and we started chatting about how we could fix it.
- 3:34SPEAKER_01: And I started with,
- 3:35SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 3:35we need a medical chronology because that's what my team was
- 3:37spending their time on
- 3:38SPEAKER_01: was creating medical chronologies.
- 3:40SPEAKER_01: And I said, that's what we really need here is a medical chronology.
- 3:43SPEAKER_01: Then when we saw that our team could really start doing that,
- 3:46SPEAKER_01: then we started saying,
- 3:47SPEAKER_01: all right,
- 3:47SPEAKER_01: what else can we do here?
- 3:48SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 3:48SPEAKER_01: Medical chronology is not the only thing.
- 3:50SPEAKER_01: We know we can do that now.
- 3:50SPEAKER_01: We've got that taken care of.
- 3:52SPEAKER_01: What else can we do?
- 3:53And that's when we started moving into some of these other
- 3:55items that we have in
- 3:56terms of drafting documents and summaries and a visual timeline
- 4:00and be able to
- 4:01SPEAKER_01: really interact with the case and chat with it.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: And now we just have so many other ideas.
- 4:06SPEAKER_01: Now that we see what's possible,
- 4:07SPEAKER_01: that we keep coming out with more technology,
- 4:09SPEAKER_01: new technology every quarter.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: And we're going to keep releasing new items.
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, your tool does a lot.
- 4:17How do you think like you could have built this or something
- 4:21similar pre chat GPT
- 4:23SPEAKER_00: or pre AI,
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: or was that like,
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: what kind of technologies have you used to build this?
- 4:29SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we use a lot of different technologies to build this.
- 4:32SPEAKER_01: What's really important to know is we are not a like ChatGPT wrapper.
- 4:36So lawper.ai is not just like using ChatGPT on the back end and
- 4:39giving results to
- 4:40SPEAKER_01: people that they would be able to get on ChatGPT.
- 4:42SPEAKER_01: We don't do that.
- 4:43SPEAKER_01: So we're using about 10 to 12 different technologies on the back end.
- 4:47that are all going through all the different data that we have
- 4:50every time.
- 4:51And the last piece of the technology that goes through
- 4:53everything is something that
- 4:54SPEAKER_01: we've created.
- 4:54SPEAKER_01: We call it hallucination prevention technology,
- 4:56SPEAKER_01: which is patent pending,
- 4:58that goes back through everything before it goes to the end
- 5:00user to pull out any
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: issues,
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: any potential hallucinations or errors to autocorrect them.
- 5:06SPEAKER_01: And so that's the last part of what we're doing.
- 5:08But we have a whole stack of items that's going through all the
- 5:11records and bills
- 5:12SPEAKER_01: before it gets to the end user.
- 5:15SPEAKER_00: So I have a second question,
- 5:16SPEAKER_00: but first,
- 5:17will you explain to my listeners what a ChatGPT wrapper is and
- 5:21maybe like where
- 5:22SPEAKER_00: they've seen that kind of program?
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 5:25SPEAKER_01: so I mean,
- 5:25SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of people out there that claim they do AI,
- 5:28SPEAKER_01: but if you really dig deep into it,
- 5:30what's happening is you're putting into a company called XYZ
- 5:34Company and all XYZ
- 5:36SPEAKER_01: Company is on the backend is using a large language model,
- 5:39whether it's ChatGPT or a different large language model to
- 5:42then give you an
- 5:42SPEAKER_01: output.
- 5:43SPEAKER_01: So you think you have this company,
- 5:45SPEAKER_01: you think that you have this great technology that you're paying for,
- 5:47but really you could just go pay for the technology yourself
- 5:50directly and use it.
- 5:52SPEAKER_01: Instead,
- 5:52you're paying a huge markup to a company that's claiming that
- 5:54they have this
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: amazing technology when it's just a wrapper.
- 5:58SPEAKER_01: It looks like a different company,
- 6:00but it's really just a large language model that anybody would
- 6:02have access to.
- 6:05So to build the program that you have now,
- 6:09what type of developers did you have?
- 6:12SPEAKER_00: Like, what was their experience?
- 6:13SPEAKER_00: How many did you have?
- 6:14SPEAKER_00: How'd you find them?
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: I'm curious about that.
- 6:16SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 6:16so one of the biggest things when you're dealing with medical
- 6:19records and bills,
- 6:20SPEAKER_01: which is really important to keep in mind,
- 6:22SPEAKER_01: is number one,
- 6:22you cannot just put those items through large language models
- 6:25because those models
- 6:26SPEAKER_01: are not HIPAA compliant.
- 6:28SPEAKER_01: They're not closed systems.
- 6:30SPEAKER_01: They are not SOC 2.
- 6:31SPEAKER_01: They also train off the data that you put in.
- 6:34SPEAKER_01: You can't put clients' data in there,
- 6:35SPEAKER_01: their medical records in there,
- 6:36SPEAKER_01: and have it train off that.
- 6:37So that's really one really important thing to be aware of just
- 6:41in general for law firms.
- 6:42SPEAKER_01: The other thing to be aware of is,
- 6:44SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 6:45SPEAKER_01: you need a really good experienced team to make sure the data is secure.
- 6:49SPEAKER_01: And we knew that when we started LawPro.ai.
- 6:51So one of the first hires that we made was an engineer that
- 6:55worked for Amazon Web
- 6:56SPEAKER_01: Services for over a decade.
- 6:57And his job with AWS was to take all the data from the
- 7:02Department of Defense that
- 7:03SPEAKER_01: they were putting in through the AWS system and make sure it was secure.
- 7:07And we thought that was a perfect fit for what we were trying
- 7:09to do in dealing with
- 7:10SPEAKER_01: law firm clients' medical records.
- 7:13And so the first thing he built out was to make sure that the
- 7:15data we had was
- 7:15secure and just as secure as the data that he was dealing with
- 7:19on an everyday basis
- 7:20SPEAKER_01: when working for AWS.
- 7:22The next thing we really wanted to look into was not only how
- 7:25do we keep it secure,
- 7:27SPEAKER_01: but how do we also make sure that we're getting the right outputs,
- 7:31SPEAKER_01: right?
- 7:31And that's where we really brought in the right engineering
- 7:33team and data science
- 7:34SPEAKER_01: team to put everything together.
- 7:37And part of our data science and engineering team have created
- 7:39that hallucination
- 7:40SPEAKER_01: prevention technology that I mentioned.
- 7:42SPEAKER_01: So those were
- 7:42SPEAKER_01: some of the really big items for us starting off.
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: And then of course,
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: things like best practices,
- 7:47SPEAKER_01: dual authentication to be able to access the data.
- 7:50We've hired third-party companies to check to make sure we're
- 7:53doing everything best
- 7:54SPEAKER_01: possible standards to keep data secure and safe,
- 7:57SPEAKER_01: which is part of the SOC 2 that we have as well.
- 7:59So those are all things that we've looked at to help make sure
- 8:02that the outputs
- 8:03SPEAKER_01: that law firms are getting are accurate and that the data is secure.
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: So it's hot.
- 8:07Well,
- 8:07I don't,
- 8:07I don't want to pry too much into like how your program was
- 8:10developed.
- 8:10SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you this.
- 8:12Cause I build a lot of automations using AI and my general
- 8:17impression is people
- 8:19either overestimate how complicated it is or underestimate how
- 8:23complicated it is.
- 8:24And there are a lot of people out there now who are automation
- 8:29engineers who use AI
- 8:31SPEAKER_00: as part of like automations.
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: And how would you talk to an attorney or explain to an attorney,
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: like,
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: look,
- 8:40SPEAKER_00: this is not like something,
- 8:42SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 8:42SPEAKER_00: your college friend could make in two months.
- 8:45This is like,
- 8:46how would you explain that to somebody who's kind of
- 8:49questioning your program?
- 8:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
- 8:51SPEAKER_01: This is very complicated.
- 8:53SPEAKER_01: Like I said,
- 8:53SPEAKER_01: it's a 10 to 12 step process on the back end before it gets the end user,
- 8:57SPEAKER_01: where it's dealing with all the information asynchronously,
- 9:00SPEAKER_01: number one.
- 9:00Number two,
- 9:01one of the other things that we've had to overcome is token
- 9:04limits,
- 9:05right?
- 9:05SPEAKER_01: So if you go to put a lot of information to a large language model,
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: you're limited with how much you can put in at one time.
- 9:11And we have law firms that are putting in 10,
- 9:1520,
- 9:1630,
- 9:1650,000 pages at one time.
- 9:17SPEAKER_01: There's no token limits with our system.
- 9:19SPEAKER_01: We have law firms putting in 1,000 files at one time.
- 9:22SPEAKER_01: There's no limit in terms of how many files at one time.
- 9:24And the other thing that we've built out is you can put as big
- 9:27a file as you want,
- 9:28and it won't affect your coworkers or other law firm clients
- 9:31that we have.
- 9:32SPEAKER_01: Then the other thing that you got to really think about,
- 9:34SPEAKER_01: which makes this really complicated,
- 9:36SPEAKER_01: is every medical record has lots of different dates on it,
- 9:39SPEAKER_01: right?
- 9:39SPEAKER_01: So you could have the date of service,
- 9:41SPEAKER_01: the date of accident,
- 9:41SPEAKER_01: the client's date of birth,
- 9:42SPEAKER_01: the date the document was printed on.
- 9:44So pulling all the correct dates all the time on all these
- 9:47records that often are
- 9:48SPEAKER_01: not in any chronological order makes it very tricky.
- 9:51SPEAKER_01: And then one of the toughest parts,
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: which we have spent a lot of time on,
- 9:54it's much different than what you would ever get from a large
- 9:56language model,
- 9:57SPEAKER_01: is being able to show our work.
- 9:59SPEAKER_01: So what I mean by that is if you create a document or a letter,
- 10:03being able to have citations that cite directly to the medical
- 10:05records of where the
- 10:06SPEAKER_01: information came from.
- 10:07SPEAKER_01: So a click of a button, you could pull up that record.
- 10:09SPEAKER_01: Or being able to look at a medical chronology.
- 10:12SPEAKER_01: Say, hey, where'd they get this data from?
- 10:13SPEAKER_01: What document?
- 10:14And be able to click directly on there and have the exact
- 10:16document show up.
- 10:17So these are a couple of different pain points that you
- 10:19typically will see dealing
- 10:21SPEAKER_01: with large language models that are just not simple things to figure out.
- 10:23SPEAKER_01: They're difficult.
- 10:25SPEAKER_01: All these medical records are structured differently.
- 10:27SPEAKER_01: They all come in different format.
- 10:29SPEAKER_01: Some of them have handwritten notes still.
- 10:31SPEAKER_01: So it's not as simple as a large language model to be able to know,
- 10:34SPEAKER_01: all right,
- 10:34SPEAKER_01: on every record,
- 10:35SPEAKER_01: here's where the date of service is going to be.
- 10:37SPEAKER_01: It changes all the time, every time.
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: And that's one area that has advanced so much with AI,
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: which is document review,
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: organization,
- 10:47SPEAKER_00: summaries.
- 10:49SPEAKER_00: And that's one thing like I try to talk about when I talk about AI,
- 10:52SPEAKER_00: it's only as good as the information it has and what it has to reference.
- 10:57SPEAKER_00: And,
- 10:57SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 10:57SPEAKER_00: sometimes how it's been trained,
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: but I'm a marketer,
- 10:59SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 11:00most of the time we're not dealing with ultra specialized LLM
- 11:04tools the way,
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 11:06SPEAKER_00: your program obviously is.
- 11:09i mean i don't know if you have a story like just out of your
- 11:11hat but i'm curious
- 11:13because i mentioned the conversation we had at the event
- 11:15earlier this year but do
- 11:17you have a client who you've started working with or you've
- 11:20implemented your tool
- 11:21with them and it was just like transformed what they did like
- 11:26do you like how is
- 11:27how how far has your tool been able to bring somebody in terms
- 11:31of technology and
- 11:33SPEAKER_00: into the future i guess
- 11:34SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 11:34So first of all,
- 11:35two stories come to mind related to what we're talking about.
- 11:38SPEAKER_01: One is,
- 11:39SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 11:39we had a law firm in terms of the data is only the outputs only
- 11:43as good as the
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: information that goes into it.
- 11:45SPEAKER_01: And so we had a law firm that called us.
- 11:47SPEAKER_01: That's a customer of ours.
- 11:49And they were upset because the date law pro pulled out that
- 11:53there was a surgery
- 11:53SPEAKER_01: event and they said this client didn't get a surgery.
- 11:57SPEAKER_01: And I explained to him, we didn't just make that up.
- 11:59SPEAKER_01: It came from somewhere.
- 11:59So we went through all the records and went through all the
- 12:01bills with them.
- 12:02And it turns out one of the doctors incorrectly put a billing
- 12:07code on that was a
- 12:08SPEAKER_01: surgical billing code.
- 12:10And so LawPro had pulled out that surgical billing code
- 12:12thinking that it was
- 12:13accurate because that's the data that was uploaded and pulled
- 12:16out saying that there
- 12:16SPEAKER_01: was a surgery here.
- 12:18And I was able to show that lawyer that,
- 12:19no,
- 12:20we did everything we were supposed to.
- 12:21SPEAKER_01: Law Pro did what it was supposed to.
- 12:22There's a surgical code on here,
- 12:24and it pulled out a surgery based on that.
- 12:27Then they were able to see,
- 12:28like,
- 12:28that's not Law Pro's issue,
- 12:29that's a data issue.
- 12:31And they were able to go talk to that doctor and say,
- 12:33why is this code on here?
- 12:34SPEAKER_01: So I think it is really important to keep in mind,
- 12:36the output's only going to be as good as the information that
- 12:38goes into it.
- 12:39SPEAKER_01: In terms of helping law firms grow and succeed,
- 12:41SPEAKER_01: obviously,
- 12:41SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 12:42I'm the first test case where we've grown about 3x in the last
- 12:45couple of years.
- 12:46But we've heard from a number of our customers that it's helped
- 12:48them in a lot of
- 12:48SPEAKER_01: different ways,
- 12:49SPEAKER_01: depending on what their pain point is.
- 12:51If it's helping them with their pre-lit and get their cases
- 12:53done faster and pre-lit.
- 12:54SPEAKER_01: If it's helping them in the middle of litigation.
- 12:56SPEAKER_01: You know,
- 12:56I had one law firm call me a couple of weeks ago that said they
- 12:59used our tool in
- 13:00SPEAKER_01: the middle of litigation to help with a cross-examination of an expert.
- 13:03And that our tool completely transformed the cross-examination
- 13:07and it completely
- 13:07SPEAKER_01: transformed the case.
- 13:08SPEAKER_01: And they were able to get a really nice seven-figure verdict from it.
- 13:12SPEAKER_01: And they were super excited about it.
- 13:13SPEAKER_01: And that was the law firm that for a while was like, I'm not sure.
- 13:16SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure we need AI.
- 13:17SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if we're going to use it.
- 13:18SPEAKER_01: And when they saw that, they just said, this is a game changer.
- 13:21And then we have law firms that we've met with and we work with
- 13:24that are very heavy
- 13:25SPEAKER_01: in litigation.
- 13:26I want to make sure that we're going to be able to help them
- 13:28with litigation,
- 13:28whether it's answering discovery or helping with
- 13:30cross-examination or putting on
- 13:31SPEAKER_01: your own experts for deposition.
- 13:33SPEAKER_01: And we were able to show them how we could do all those things for their
- 13:36SPEAKER_01: litigation-heavy practice.
- 13:38So there's a lot of different ways you can use the tool
- 13:40throughout the process.
- 13:41And we have found that a lot of our firms have found a lot of
- 13:44success in getting
- 13:45SPEAKER_01: rid of their pain points through using LawPro.
- 13:47So you mentioned like you first use this at your firm and it
- 13:50saved a bunch of time
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: and I can easily see how it saves a bunch of time.
- 13:53SPEAKER_00: Like, what did you guys do with the time it gave back?
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: Like, how did you like reorient your workflow?
- 14:01SPEAKER_00: Like what happened once you implemented it?
- 14:05SPEAKER_01: So that's a question I get a lot.
- 14:06SPEAKER_01: And paralegals often get nervous that,
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: oh my gosh,
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: if LawPro comes into our law firm,
- 14:10SPEAKER_01: am I going to lose my job?
- 14:12And I can tell you,
- 14:13we have not let go of a single person as a result of LawPro.
- 14:16We actually have hired a lot more people because our firm has
- 14:18grown so much more now.
- 14:20And what we now do with all that extra time that our pre-lit
- 14:23paralegals and
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: paralegals have is we have them focus more on the clients.
- 14:27And there's more conversations with the clients and checking
- 14:29with the clients and
- 14:30SPEAKER_01: seeing how they're doing,
- 14:31SPEAKER_01: if they need help with anything,
- 14:32SPEAKER_01: whether it's,
- 14:33SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 14:33helping them with a car rental or getting the car fixed or
- 14:36whatever it is.
- 14:37SPEAKER_01: How's their medical treatment going?
- 14:38SPEAKER_01: How are they feeling?
- 14:39SPEAKER_01: Have they followed up for the referral appointments?
- 14:41SPEAKER_01: Have they gotten the medication that they were prescribed?
- 14:44And there's just a lot more communication directly with the
- 14:46clients and it makes it
- 14:48SPEAKER_01: for a happier client.
- 14:49SPEAKER_01: The clients are happier that way.
- 14:50And it actually helps the firm quite a bit because we actually
- 14:53are getting more
- 14:53SPEAKER_01: referrals from prior clients than ever before.
- 14:56SPEAKER_01: So the customer acquisition costs are going through the roof nowadays,
- 15:00SPEAKER_01: and we're able to get clients and more of them than ever before for free.
- 15:04SPEAKER_01: So we have hundreds of cases.
- 15:05SPEAKER_01: I can do zero marketing now for now on,
- 15:07and we would have hundreds of cases coming through the door
- 15:10just because of how
- 15:10SPEAKER_01: we've changed the entire client process and how we view the whole client
- 15:14SPEAKER_01: experience.
- 15:15SPEAKER_00: And I've heard that a lot about AI, like we've not lost a person.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: We've actually like hired quite a few people.
- 15:21And when you look at famous examples of AI and how it's
- 15:26affecting like the
- 15:26SPEAKER_00: workforce,
- 15:27SPEAKER_00: you hear about like the tech layoffs,
- 15:29SPEAKER_00: but that's mostly tech companies.
- 15:32SPEAKER_00: And there was quite a bit of like hiring bloat in the 2000s.
- 15:36SPEAKER_00: So,
- 15:36SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 15:37a lot of those companies are letting those extra employees go
- 15:40that they didn't
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: need,
- 15:41SPEAKER_00: but they still hired.
- 15:42SPEAKER_00: and AI as this cover, right?
- 15:44SPEAKER_00: To make it look, you know, not unappealing to their stockholders.
- 15:48SPEAKER_00: So when you talk to small businesses and say like,
- 15:51SPEAKER_00: AI helped us grow,
- 15:52I don't think they always like connect the dots and it's
- 15:56because your systems are
- 15:57SPEAKER_00: more efficient and you're hesitant to hire
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: If you're having to train a bunch of people on how to find files,
- 16:06SPEAKER_00: what to look for in the files,
- 16:08SPEAKER_00: where to get them,
- 16:09there's a lot of institutional knowledge that comes with file
- 16:13storage and data
- 16:14SPEAKER_00: storage.
- 16:15SPEAKER_00: And whenever you have AI that makes it easy,
- 16:19SPEAKER_00: like my favorite AI tool is my Notetaker,
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: which is attending here.
- 16:22And I can go to my Notetaker and ask it a question about any
- 16:27meeting I've ever been
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: in,
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: essentially.
- 16:29SPEAKER_00: And, you know, get back an answer.
- 16:31And,
- 16:32you know,
- 16:33it's such advanced search for like documents or any kind of
- 16:37files.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: Like,
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: there are so many,
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: like I'd start listing them,
- 16:40SPEAKER_00: but I always forget to mention a few.
- 16:41And I think people just underestimate what they can do with
- 16:45that efficiency.
- 16:46And you can hire more people,
- 16:47you can grow,
- 16:48you know,
- 16:48you can do other things.
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: So I want to pivot a little bit.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: if this kind of goes nowhere,
- 16:53then we can get back to talking about like a little more about
- 16:57your tool and what
- 16:57SPEAKER_00: it can do.
- 16:58But I'm curious,
- 16:59because you have a law firm and you also have the SaaS company.
- 17:04SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you guys doing to market like either one or both of them?
- 17:09SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure which one you want to talk about.
- 17:11SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
- 17:12SPEAKER_01: I'll just kind of go down the route you're going down for a second,
- 17:14SPEAKER_01: for a minute,
- 17:15SPEAKER_01: which is not only are we helping law firms be more efficient,
- 17:18SPEAKER_01: we're shortening time on desk and increasing case values.
- 17:21SPEAKER_01: You know,
- 17:21SPEAKER_01: sometimes these cases have one sentence,
- 17:23SPEAKER_01: one line,
- 17:23SPEAKER_01: one word that can completely change a case value.
- 17:26So if you're finishing cases faster and you're finishing them
- 17:29for a higher value,
- 17:30SPEAKER_01: that's going to give a law firm more money to spend on marketing,
- 17:33SPEAKER_01: which will then in turn help them grow.
- 17:34SPEAKER_01: And I think when you put those two numbers together,
- 17:36SPEAKER_01: more cases done at a higher case value,
- 17:39there's a lot more money that you can spend on your budget to
- 17:41grow your firm.
- 17:42SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you my law firm's a number one example of that.
- 17:45SPEAKER_01: We were not doing a lot of marketing throughout our history.
- 17:48The only thing we were spending money on was basically search
- 17:50engine optimization.
- 17:51SPEAKER_01: That was the only money we were spending on marketing for years.
- 17:55SPEAKER_01: But once we were able to finish cases faster at a higher case value,
- 17:58SPEAKER_01: we then had more marketing dollars to spend.
- 18:00SPEAKER_01: And we started spending more marketing dollars on things like Google Ads,
- 18:04SPEAKER_01: LSA,
- 18:05SPEAKER_01: YouTube,
- 18:06SPEAKER_01: Meta,
- 18:07SPEAKER_01: right?
- 18:07SPEAKER_01: All those different things, all those different channels.
- 18:10SPEAKER_01: So our budget went from less than six figures to close to seven figures.
- 18:14And now we're getting all those clients coming in and we're
- 18:17being very careful and
- 18:19SPEAKER_01: methodical to make sure we have the right client experience.
- 18:22And those are just more clients that are going out and getting
- 18:24our name around the community.
- 18:25SPEAKER_01: So that way we have more referrals coming from them.
- 18:28SPEAKER_01: And so it all works together.
- 18:29And the reason we can do all that is because the extra cash
- 18:31flow we have from
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: being,
- 18:33SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 18:33SPEAKER_01: finishing cases faster,
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: higher case values.
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: So like who's running your marketing?
- 18:37SPEAKER_00: Do you have like a marketing?
- 18:38SPEAKER_00: What does your marketing team look like?
- 18:40SPEAKER_00: I guess maybe the better question here.
- 18:42So for my law firm,
- 18:43our marketing group is I have a different company that does my
- 18:46SEO stuff.
- 18:47SPEAKER_01: I have a different company that does my Google ads and LSA.
- 18:49I have a different company that does my meta,
- 18:50a different company that does my YouTube.
- 18:52And I have all different companies doing each one for some
- 18:55checks and balances.
- 18:56SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I look at it.
- 18:58SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we'll have a group meeting about something.
- 19:00Like if I want to make sure YouTube's being incorporated in all
- 19:02the right places,
- 19:03SPEAKER_01: I'll get us all on the call together.
- 19:05SPEAKER_01: Or if something's going on with my Google ads,
- 19:08I think they could be using other stuff from my website that my
- 19:10SEO company is
- 19:11SPEAKER_01: dealing with.
- 19:12I get them together and I try to get everyone speaking to each
- 19:14other as much as
- 19:15SPEAKER_01: possible to make sure,
- 19:16SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 19:16SPEAKER_01: me as the client is getting taken care of the best way possible.
- 19:21SPEAKER_00: So you have like several vendors who are all doing pieces of it.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
- 19:26And is it the same way for lawpro.ai or do you guys have a
- 19:30different way of
- 19:31SPEAKER_00: marketing the SaaS tool?
- 19:34SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so when it comes to LawPro, we have a head of marketing.
- 19:36SPEAKER_01: So fortunately for me, that's not my job with LawPro.
- 19:39SPEAKER_01: And so I'm not in the weeds in it.
- 19:40SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
- 19:41I know that there are different ways that we're marketing and
- 19:44getting clients from
- 19:45SPEAKER_01: online,
- 19:45SPEAKER_01: from different events we attend and so on.
- 19:48SPEAKER_00: We met at an event.
- 19:49SPEAKER_00: How many are you attending this year, just out of curiosity?
- 19:53SPEAKER_01: Probably some around 20 events.
- 19:55SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did three in January.
- 19:56SPEAKER_01: I did one or two in February.
- 19:59SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking at an event next week.
- 20:00SPEAKER_01: I think I'm doing three or four in March.
- 20:02SPEAKER_01: And it'll keep going like that throughout most of the year.
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: And so do you do like much of the legal work at the law firm?
- 20:10SPEAKER_00: Are you very like high level there?
- 20:13SPEAKER_01: So I do keep some cases.
- 20:15My caseload has gone down dramatically since I now pretty much
- 20:18work for LawPro full time.
- 20:20SPEAKER_01: But I keep some cases because I enjoy being a lawyer.
- 20:22SPEAKER_01: I enjoy helping people.
- 20:23SPEAKER_01: And that's really why I got into this space.
- 20:25But my caseload has gone from several hundred to,
- 20:28you know,
- 20:28to very small nowadays.
- 20:30SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of fascinated how like you're in these two businesses,
- 20:36SPEAKER_00: you're attending 20 events.
- 20:38SPEAKER_00: I imagine your life's like super busy.
- 20:40Was it always super busy or has like starting the AI company
- 20:46just added to that?
- 20:47SPEAKER_00: What has that change been like for you personally?
- 20:49SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 20:50SPEAKER_01: I mean,
- 20:50SPEAKER_01: I was a lot less busy a couple of years ago,
- 20:53SPEAKER_01: for sure,
- 20:53SPEAKER_01: before the AI company and before our firm started growing.
- 20:55You know,
- 20:56our firm had been at the same numbers for five years,
- 20:58six years,
- 20:59something like that.
- 21:00SPEAKER_01: And I could go in and,
- 21:02SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 21:02work less than 40 hours a week and firm would just be trudging
- 21:06along and everything
- 21:06SPEAKER_01: was good.
- 21:07But then we sprinkled on some AI with the right policies and
- 21:10procedures,
- 21:11which is important.
- 21:12SPEAKER_01: And the firm started to really take off.
- 21:14SPEAKER_01: And when you start taking off fast, things happen.
- 21:16SPEAKER_01: Things can break sometimes.
- 21:17SPEAKER_01: Things have to be relooked at.
- 21:19So all that's happening at the same time as we're building an
- 21:22AI SaaS company.
- 21:23SPEAKER_01: So yes, it's very crazy right now.
- 21:26SPEAKER_01: I'm constantly traveling.
- 21:27SPEAKER_01: I'm constantly in depositions because any days I'm in town,
- 21:30SPEAKER_01: my law firm wants me to do a couple of depositions here or there.
- 21:33SPEAKER_01: So it's trying to manage time the best way possible.
- 21:35SPEAKER_01: I have a great team at both companies,
- 21:37SPEAKER_01: Zerkin and Schmerling Law and LawPro that makes it all possible.
- 21:40Do you have like a COO at both companies or somebody who kind
- 21:45of operates as a
- 21:46SPEAKER_00: stand-in when you're not around or somebody in that capacity?
- 21:49SPEAKER_01: So a paralegal in my office,
- 21:50SPEAKER_01: who was my former head paralegal,
- 21:52SPEAKER_01: and she was reading medical records all day long,
- 21:54SPEAKER_01: but was way too talented to be spending her time doing that.
- 21:57She no longer reads medical records anymore,
- 21:59and she's now director of operations of the firm.
- 22:01SPEAKER_01: And so she takes care of a lot of the day-to-day stuff that I used to do,
- 22:04SPEAKER_01: which has freed up a lot of my time.
- 22:06SPEAKER_01: And then for LawPro,
- 22:07SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 22:07SPEAKER_01: we're a startup,
- 22:08SPEAKER_01: so we don't have a COO,
- 22:09SPEAKER_01: but we have a number of us that take on different responsibilities.
- 22:12SPEAKER_00: So are you innovating on your tool on LawPro AI?
- 22:16SPEAKER_00: Are you adding features to it?
- 22:17SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
- 22:18SPEAKER_00: Like over the next few years, few months?
- 22:21SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 22:21it's hard to say a few years because this time is just moving
- 22:24so fast with AI that
- 22:25SPEAKER_01: few years,
- 22:26SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly where we're going to be.
- 22:28SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we keep adding more tools to LawPro every quarter.
- 22:32SPEAKER_01: So every quarter,
- 22:33SPEAKER_01: typically we come out with another tool or an update,
- 22:36SPEAKER_01: and we send an email to all of our customers letting them know,
- 22:38SPEAKER_01: hey,
- 22:38SPEAKER_01: you can now do this with LawPro.
- 22:39SPEAKER_01: If you want additional training, happy to do a training with your office.
- 22:42SPEAKER_01: All the trainings with LawPro are included for our price.
- 22:45SPEAKER_01: And so law firms can take us up on as many trainings as they want.
- 22:49And what we try to do is understand in the market what's needed
- 22:52based on medical
- 22:54SPEAKER_01: records and bills coming in.
- 22:55SPEAKER_01: And we also take polls of our customers and talk to our customers.
- 22:59And we respond to our customers and what they need and try to
- 23:02update our technology
- 23:03SPEAKER_01: based on that as well.
- 23:04We also recently did a poll with Morgan & Morgan of over 300
- 23:07law firms throughout
- 23:08SPEAKER_01: the country,
- 23:08SPEAKER_01: personal injury law firms,
- 23:09SPEAKER_01: to understand what was important to them.
- 23:11SPEAKER_01: And so we try to take all this feedback and then we meet,
- 23:14we have an amazing head of product and we talk every couple of
- 23:17weeks to talk about,
- 23:18SPEAKER_01: all right,
- 23:19SPEAKER_01: here's where we're moving forward with a couple of items right now.
- 23:21Here's items we have coming down the pipeline and constantly
- 23:24putting out our new technology.
- 23:25The thing that's really nice for current customers is that they
- 23:29never get charged
- 23:30SPEAKER_01: anything extra when we put out new technology.
- 23:33SPEAKER_01: So as we make the platform more and more valuable to our customers,
- 23:37SPEAKER_01: our pricing can go up over time and has.
- 23:40SPEAKER_01: But for our customers that are currently with us,
- 23:42SPEAKER_01: the pricing remains the original pricing point,
- 23:44SPEAKER_01: basically.
- 23:46SPEAKER_00: Another question I wanted to ask, and I don't want to forget it.
- 23:49You've gone from a law firm owner to somebody who has a product
- 23:55that you sell to
- 23:56SPEAKER_00: other law firm owners.
- 23:58What in that transition process have you learned about other
- 24:03law firm owners,
- 24:04SPEAKER_00: other law firms that you want to share?
- 24:07SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 24:07SPEAKER_01: well,
- 24:07what's really interesting is a lot of law firms operate
- 24:09differently and look at
- 24:11SPEAKER_01: things differently.
- 24:11SPEAKER_01: Just as simple as a demand letter.
- 24:13SPEAKER_01: My law firm, for example, we don't care much about a demand letter.
- 24:16SPEAKER_01: Either the insurance company is going to pay me what's fair for the case.
- 24:19SPEAKER_01: Or they're not.
- 24:19And if they don't,
- 24:20we're just going to file a lawsuit and we're going to go
- 24:22through litigation.
- 24:23SPEAKER_01: And there's firms that have the completely different approach,
- 24:25SPEAKER_01: that the demand letter is so important.
- 24:27SPEAKER_01: They spend hours or days on it.
- 24:29SPEAKER_01: And it's the end-all, be-all.
- 24:30SPEAKER_01: And this is going to get them the top value.
- 24:33SPEAKER_01: And so it's been really interesting.
- 24:34SPEAKER_01: That's just one example.
- 24:36SPEAKER_01: But law firms work very differently.
- 24:38SPEAKER_01: They don't all work the same.
- 24:39It's been really interesting to see some law firms that I meet
- 24:42are very much struggling.
- 24:44SPEAKER_01: Some law firms are excelling.
- 24:46SPEAKER_01: And there's lots of different reasons why.
- 24:47SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to see.
- 24:49SPEAKER_01: And when I was one of these law firm owners,
- 24:52SPEAKER_01: some law firm owners have no interest in talking to vendors.
- 24:54SPEAKER_01: Some love talking to vendors.
- 24:55SPEAKER_01: When I was solely a law firm owner, I didn't want to talk to any vendors.
- 24:59Now I realize the vendors are there to try to help law firm
- 25:02owners and have a ton
- 25:03of knowledge because vendors go to all these different
- 25:05conferences and they know
- 25:06SPEAKER_01: the newest and best tools and what's happening.
- 25:08And they actually have an inside scoop and the lawyers are more
- 25:11focused on their
- 25:12SPEAKER_01: cases,
- 25:12SPEAKER_01: which they should be.
- 25:14And so now I realize how important vendors can be to help law
- 25:16firms grow and grow the right way.
- 25:18So a couple of different things that I've learned since moving
- 25:21to the side of things.
- 25:22SPEAKER_00: That's been my experience as well.
- 25:23SPEAKER_00: And when I talk to people about my program and what I do,
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: I tell them like, it's very custom.
- 25:30SPEAKER_00: It depends on the law firm.
- 25:31And in my own way,
- 25:32I'm trying to tell them like each law firm is really different.
- 25:35And some of the stuff that we're doing for one client may not
- 25:39work for you.
- 25:40SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily telling them that to lower expectations,
- 25:43but if you're a business owner and you've never seen the inside
- 25:46of another business
- 25:47SPEAKER_00: in the same industry,
- 25:49you will tend to assume like a lot of things are the same and
- 25:52everyone does it this
- 25:53SPEAKER_00: way.
- 25:54SPEAKER_00: And on the flip side,
- 25:55it's surprising to find out like the differences between the
- 25:58firms and that it's
- 26:00kind of interesting to see like largely what is the same and
- 26:02what often gets
- 26:04SPEAKER_00: repeated.
- 26:04SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned,
- 26:06SPEAKER_00: particularly with vendors,
- 26:07SPEAKER_00: I was at one point a marketing director for a law firm.
- 26:11SPEAKER_00: That's where I got my start and initially like
- 26:14Talking to vendors,
- 26:15like I felt like the only marketing director in the US.
- 26:20SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 26:20SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds silly,
- 26:21but you think like you're unique and then you see it from the
- 26:25vendor's perspective
- 26:26SPEAKER_00: and you know,
- 26:27like an SEO vendor and you realize your account manager talks
- 26:30to probably 20 to 30
- 26:31SPEAKER_00: people.
- 26:33SPEAKER_00: different marketing directors at firms just like yours every week.
- 26:38And it's something they have a ton of experience in talking to
- 26:42marketing directors
- 26:43SPEAKER_00: and answering those questions.
- 26:45And like you said,
- 26:46they get to see inside all of these businesses and what's
- 26:49working.
- 26:50SPEAKER_00: what this one client is doing that this other client is not doing.
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: So,
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: yeah,
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 26:56it's definitely like a different like perspective shift on how
- 26:59you view other
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: people's businesses and your own.
- 27:02SPEAKER_00: And it's,
- 27:03SPEAKER_00: if you get the,
- 27:04SPEAKER_00: I'm not suggesting everyone open up their own on a second company,
- 27:08SPEAKER_00: but like,
- 27:08SPEAKER_00: if you do get the experience,
- 27:09SPEAKER_00: it is kind of interesting what you learn.
- 27:14SPEAKER_00: Well, usually I start to wrap up these podcasts.
- 27:17My first question,
- 27:17is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn't
- 27:19go over?
- 27:21No,
- 27:21I think we've covered a lot of good stuff,
- 27:23a lot of good information.
- 27:24Yeah.
- 27:25Well,
- 27:25what are your plans like next six months that you're willing to
- 27:29share?
- 27:30What are the big things coming up for you and your companies
- 27:33over the summer and the fall?
- 27:36SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
- 27:36SPEAKER_01: so without going into too much detail,
- 27:38SPEAKER_01: basically being able to take medical records and bills,
- 27:40and we already are providing so much data and information to
- 27:44law firms about that
- 27:45SPEAKER_01: and make it very easy to consume with very little training.
- 27:48SPEAKER_01: To get up and running in our platform takes 24 hours.
- 27:50SPEAKER_01: That's very simple to use.
- 27:52We're looking to make it even easier and simpler to really show
- 27:55a law firm their
- 27:57case from gain to end without having to even click or prompt or
- 28:01do anything.
- 28:02And so that's something that we're really excited about that
- 28:04we'll be rolling out shortly.
- 28:05SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to give away too many details about it,
- 28:07SPEAKER_01: but super excited about what we have coming out.
- 28:10SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 28:11SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for being on the show and talking with me.
- 28:15SPEAKER_00: I always, I love talking about AI, honestly.
- 28:17SPEAKER_00: Where do you want people to look you up and learn more about you?
- 28:21SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 28:21Best way to get in touch with me is my email,
- 28:23josh at lawpro.ai,
- 28:24L-A-W-P-R-O.ai.
- 28:28SPEAKER_00: Well,
- 28:28thanks again so much for being on the show and thanks for the
- 28:31listeners for tuning
- 28:32SPEAKER_00: in and we will catch you next time.
- 28:34SPEAKER_01: Sounds great.
- 28:35SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
- 28:35SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.