Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / The Mastermind Method: AI, Systems, and Scaling Your Law Firm

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The Mastermind Method: AI, Systems, and Scaling Your Law Firm · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  Can you explain how you understand mastermind groups?
• 0:03
  How do they actually operate? What kind of value and things
• 0:05
  are people getting out of these opportunities?
• 0:07
  In general, it's law firms coming together, sharing
• 0:10
  information, helping each other. There's only two ways the law
• 0:13
  firms make more money. One is they hire you, right, And
• 0:18
  you increase the number of cases that come into the law firm.
• 0:21
  There's no secret sauce to being successful in what we do.
• 0:25
  The reality is it's not your IQ, it's not your EQ, It's really
• 0:30
  how hard do you work. Welcome back to the John and
• 0:48
  Mark Podcast. We're here today with the one
• 0:50
  and only heavy hitter, Rob Levine.
• 0:52
  We're actually in Chicago for Rob Levine's mastermind group,
• 0:56
  which we just got done with day one downstairs.
• 0:59
  Rob, thanks so much for joining us.
• 1:01
  Absolutely. My pleasure.
• 1:02
  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
• 1:03
  What? We're going to talk about today
• 1:05
  is mastermind groups and learning from others, right?
• 1:09
  Being competitors but still learning and common
• 1:12
  misconceptions of mastermind groups, things people have
• 1:15
  learned in mastermind groups. So having run a mastermind group
• 1:18
  of your own, let's start with this.
• 1:21
  Why did you choose to start Mastermind Group?
• 1:23
  So the truth is probably about giving back.
• 1:26
  I joined my first mastermind group.
• 1:29
  See, I've been a lawyer for 25 years, so it's got to be close
• 1:33
  to 20 years, probably five years in.
• 1:35
  So I've been literally consistently in mastermind
• 1:37
  groups for 20 years and I can say without a doubt I would not
• 1:41
  be where I am if it wasn't for being in a mastermind group,
• 1:45
  right? I was very lucky when I first
• 1:47
  started out. I was friends with Paul Harding
• 1:50
  from Harding Mazzotti, and he was in a very large group, one
• 1:54
  that I probably had no business being in at the time.
• 1:57
  We were small, low revenue. And he talked the director to
• 2:02
  hey, let Robin. He's like, oh, well, we have
• 2:03
  smaller groups you can go in. And Paul's like, no, we're
• 2:07
  friends. I want him to be with me and you
• 2:09
  should let him in. And so then I was surrounded by
• 2:13
  really smart people like Jan Dills and Paul George Sink, like
• 2:17
  really large Jim Adler. Big firms, yes, big firms like
• 2:21
  this little guy. And I'm like, wow, surrounded by
• 2:24
  these monsters. And I think it was my first
• 2:28
  mastermind group. I went on a sunset cruise and I
• 2:32
  met Jim Adler. You know Jim, of course, right?
• 2:35
  And so he's just talking to me like, you know, do do, do, do.
• 2:39
  And I'm thinking this guy's been practicing a lot 2 years longer
• 2:42
  than I've been alive and, you know, a monster firm.
• 2:46
  And yeah, just everybody was so welcoming and sharing and I
• 2:50
  decided, right, we've grown a lot, obviously.
• 2:52
  And I thought I'd like to have my own group and help people and
• 2:56
  and do for others as people did for me.
• 3:00
  Did you remember like the, did you have a moment where like,
• 3:02
  hey, I need to join a mastermind group, Like I need to get advice
• 3:05
  from others? Was there like a breaking point
• 3:06
  to remember or was did you get recruited in and someone's like,
• 3:09
  hey, you're at the point now, you should probably join one of
• 3:12
  these things. Yeah.
• 3:13
  So I never worked for anyone else.
• 3:15
  I graduated from law school and I really had two jobs.
• 3:18
  I was in house counsel to a plumbing and heating company and
• 3:22
  then started my own firm at the same time.
• 3:24
  And you know, I used to call people constantly with
• 3:27
  questions, right? You hang a shingle, like, they
• 3:29
  don't teach you how to run a law firm, right?
• 3:31
  In law school, they teach you how to practice law.
• 3:33
  Barely. Along the way, I met people who
• 3:36
  were in mastermind groups. I heard about it.
• 3:37
  And I just got tired of trying to figure everything out.
• 3:40
  And I thought I should join a group.
• 3:41
  And Paul's like, oh, I'm in this group.
• 3:43
  I can get you in. And so went from there.
• 3:46
  What is that process of getting into a mastermind group?
• 3:49
  Because there is. You can't just say, hey, I went
• 3:52
  in, right? That's a great question and it
• 3:55
  depends on the group. So my group, I have all
• 3:59
  different size law firms combined together.
• 4:01
  Some groups like the one that I joined, I'm surprised they let
• 4:05
  me in, but they really only let me in because of my friendship
• 4:08
  with Paul because they were all really top tier law firms.
• 4:12
  Big certain amount of revenue. So qualifying a lot of times is
• 4:16
  based on your size, based on your revenue.
• 4:19
  Also some law firms believe that it has to be specific to your
• 4:22
  territory. So there's no overlap in DMA.
• 4:25
  Every mastermind is different, right?
• 4:26
  As far as what they allow right into a group.
• 4:29
  Some of it's an interview like there's a lot of different
• 4:32
  processes. A mastermind group can mean a
• 4:34
  lot of different things to a lot of different people.
• 4:36
  For someone who hasn't attended one before or who is a member of
• 4:38
  a mastermind group, can you explain how you understand
• 4:42
  mastermind groups? How do they actually operate?
• 4:44
  What kind of value and things are people getting out of these
• 4:47
  opportunities? There are definitely very
• 4:50
  different formats, right? For a mastermind group, in most
• 4:54
  mastermind groups, there's a facilitator, right?
• 4:58
  Usually the person who runs it and owns the group.
• 5:01
  And then presentations are done by the members.
• 5:04
  So you go there usually twice a year, some are three times a
• 5:08
  year in person, right? There's very little follow up in
• 5:12
  between those meetings. And then the people who are
• 5:16
  members get up and do a presentation.
• 5:18
  And so the problem with that, in my opinion, is that you have
• 5:23
  some people who are great at teaching and presenting.
• 5:26
  And let's be honest, some people just suck at it.
• 5:29
  And so you never really know what you're going to get.
• 5:32
  And it's it's not, in my opinion, that's not the greatest
• 5:37
  format. And the bigger problem is that
• 5:40
  you know, when you go to a seminar and you're a busy at
• 5:44
  work, to be able to take some piece of information from the
• 5:48
  seminar and then bring it back to work and execute on it and be
• 5:53
  able to get it up and running and going until you meet with
• 5:56
  your group again six months later.
• 5:58
  That's hard, right? So we have a very different
• 6:02
  format than that. So but I mean, it really depends
• 6:06
  on what you're want and what you're looking for.
• 6:08
  So I would say if you're looking for mastermind group, you got to
• 6:10
  see different formats and see what you like.
• 6:12
  But what is it in general? In general, it's law firms
• 6:15
  coming together, sharing information, helping each other.
• 6:19
  Some law firms bring in professional presenters, some
• 6:22
  don't never allow presenters in. Some let vendors in, and they're
• 6:26
  selling to them all the time. It's just kind of, it's
• 6:29
  different in every group. Who?
• 6:31
  Attends your group and do you think that that is homogeneous
• 6:36
  across all groups like yours? We were at it today.
• 6:39
  I saw marketers there and I saw law firm partners.
• 6:43
  They're actual attorneys. Like who else attends and how
• 6:46
  does that compare to others? So some groups only allow one
• 6:50
  person to come to the meeting and that would be the owner.
• 6:53
  We're like I said, a totally different format.
• 6:56
  So often you'll see in my groups, you'll see the owner
• 6:59
  come, you'll see the COO come and you'll see the CMO come.
• 7:03
  Those are usually the the three people.
• 7:05
  Today 1 owner came and he brought two of his top tier
• 7:08
  attorneys because of the stuff that we were talking about.
• 7:12
  He wanted them exposed to it. So it's different.
• 7:14
  I don't I it's only you can bring as many people as you
• 7:17
  want. I just have a a different theory
• 7:19
  of how to create that education and learning and people to
• 7:24
  facilitate what we do and bring it into their firm.
• 7:26
  I think it makes more sense to have more leaders present.
• 7:29
  Yeah, I think that's a good strategy.
• 7:31
  Cause one of the things you brought up earlier, I think one
• 7:33
  of the biggest challenges is probably you're getting really
• 7:35
  good pieces of Nuggets of information, but then like how
• 7:38
  do you implement that change in your firm as just one person
• 7:41
  Taking that, having to relay that information and implement
• 7:44
  it while doing your job is like a humongous task. 100%, So we
• 7:48
  have weekly meetings. So we meet every Thursday at
• 7:51
  3:00 PM at Zoom. And so two of the meetings a
• 7:55
  month are breakout rooms by subject matter expert.
• 7:58
  So I have in one room is our intake expert, in one room is
• 8:01
  our marketing director, in one room is our operations expert.
• 8:05
  And so depending on what you're specifically working on, you can
• 8:09
  go in that room and ask questions, get help, focus the
• 8:12
  other people in that room all help each other.
• 8:14
  So it really is a great way to continue the conversation.
• 8:18
  Our staff had dealt with this before, but I know I'm like
• 8:20
  really big going to a conference to learn something or I'm
• 8:23
  reading a book that there's like called like whiplash that I
• 8:25
  learned something new. Then I come back excited and
• 8:27
  they have to implement it all. So the staff for the mastermind
• 8:31
  group is probably like anxiously waiting for everyone to come
• 8:33
  back on Thursday without laundry list of things they got to
• 8:36
  change. Good calling sick.
• 8:38
  Calling sick. Mark's, Mark's coming back.
• 8:40
  I'll have your favorite Slack today in the room.
• 8:42
  I can see like, certain people like messaging their team when
• 8:45
  someone would say something on Slack or in an e-mail and I was
• 8:47
  like, they'd screenshot it and set that up for, yeah, someone's
• 8:51
  already getting actual items of things they have to do back.
• 8:53
  Home I used to do that when I used to go to mastermind groups,
• 8:55
  I'd be texting my COO saying Oh my God, this is a great idea Oh
• 8:59
  my God, we need to do this picture of the screen Oh my God,
• 9:01
  we need to implement that I don't do that anymore but.
• 9:05
  Yes, mastermind groups have firms participating, sharing
• 9:10
  information about what works at their firm and applying it to
• 9:15
  what could work for other firms. Right.
• 9:17
  Like overall that's the intent. I would say yes.
• 9:20
  At what point, and it would be great if you had an example of
• 9:23
  this, have you seen someone go beyond the this is what we
• 9:28
  should share And they start sharing whether it's like
• 9:31
  insider things that like only work at their firm that don't
• 9:34
  make sense or maybe it's something that like it's just
• 9:38
  information that is proprietary and should have stayed at the
• 9:40
  firm. Give us one of those stories of
• 9:42
  someone like went way too far and shouldn't have shared.
• 9:45
  I mean, so it depends on the group, right?
• 9:47
  I've belonged to lots of mastermind groups over the years
• 9:50
  and it depends on the group. Like some groups like share
• 9:53
  their numbers, like their revenue, their expenses.
• 9:57
  That's OK. Like it is encouraged, like this
• 9:59
  is how much money we brought in. This is how many cases we
• 10:02
  signed. In my group, no.
• 10:04
  SO and my group, we're not DMA specific.
• 10:07
  So I have several people in Texas that are in the same DMA,
• 10:11
  several people in Los Angeles that are in the same DMA.
• 10:14
  So I don't ever ask people to share their numbers.
• 10:17
  That's pretty private, right? And you don't necessarily feel
• 10:21
  comfortable sharing that with the person who has a firm maybe
• 10:24
  down the street, but other than that, they all share.
• 10:28
  I mean, the reality is there's no secret sauce to being
• 10:32
  successful in what we do. Like there just isn't, it's not
• 10:36
  your IQ, it's not your EQ, right?
• 10:38
  It's it's really, how hard do you work?
• 10:41
  What's the effort that you make and do you put things in place?
• 10:44
  We all have the same case management systems.
• 10:47
  We all run cases the same way. We're all generally doing
• 10:50
  marketing the same way. You have the group that that's
• 10:53
  traditional, so their TV, their radio, their billboards.
• 10:56
  You have people doing digital LSA, pay per click.
• 10:58
  Now, the whole thing you're talking about with AI and SEO,
• 11:01
  everybody's doing some of it, right?
• 11:03
  So the question is, how well are you doing it, right?
• 11:06
  And people seem happy to help each other.
• 11:08
  I talked to people that are interested.
• 11:10
  So right, we have a sales team, obviously, right?
• 11:12
  So I don't only have a mastermind group, but so under
• 11:15
  the Rob Levine Legal Solutions umbrella, we have a medical
• 11:18
  record retrieval company, a stopping company, and their
• 11:20
  mastermind group. So the salespeople meet people.
• 11:23
  I don't have to meet anyone that's interested in record
• 11:25
  retrieval or staffing, but if someone wants to be in the
• 11:28
  mastermind group, then I interview them personally.
• 11:30
  You can tell in that conversation that somebody's
• 11:32
  just not interested in sharing and they're I just this probably
• 11:36
  not a good fit for you. That's what I would tell
• 11:38
  someone. As someone who's grown like
• 11:40
  pretty large at for a firm, you guys are keep expanding.
• 11:44
  What is your mindset on my competition?
• 11:45
  Are you really competing against your neighbor firm or is there
• 11:48
  plenty like a blue ocean out there for you to grow?
• 11:50
  So my honest answer is I think our number one competitor, not
• 11:55
  just me, but any personal dream law firm is the insurance
• 11:57
  company, right? So that is our number one.
• 12:00
  If you think about the number of cases we sign for clients
• 12:04
  compared to the number of cases insurance companies settled
• 12:08
  directly that aren't represented by an attorney, it's a joke.
• 12:11
  We're like tiny, right? Because #1 they're allowed to
• 12:14
  make an in person solicitation. So imagine you get in a car
• 12:17
  accident, you call your insurance company and report it.
• 12:20
  The first thing they do is they call the other driver and say,
• 12:23
  oh Mr. Smith, I'm so sorry to hear that you're in an accident.
• 12:27
  I'm sorry that our client rear-ended you.
• 12:29
  Are you OK? Because they want to get on
• 12:31
  record that you saying Oh no, I'm OK because now they have a
• 12:34
  recording of that, right? And so they'll send somebody out
• 12:37
  to your house. We can come out to your house
• 12:38
  and appraise your car and we can write you a check for the amount
• 12:41
  of damage that was to your car. And while the adjustment there,
• 12:44
  you can say, oh, by the way, did you say you weren't injured?
• 12:47
  No, I'm not injured. Well, we'd like to take care of
• 12:49
  your personal injury claim. And I can give you a separate
• 12:51
  check for your bodily injury claim while I'm here if you'd
• 12:52
  like sign this release. And you're done on both cases
• 12:56
  without every having thought about it or talked to a lawyer.
• 12:59
  And that's our number one competitor.
• 13:01
  Damn, you think about that way. That's a very good point.
• 13:03
  I did not think about it that way.
• 13:05
  That is very interesting. So you think that's the
• 13:08
  overwhelming majority or you know, that's the overwhelming
• 13:10
  majority of cases? 0500 percent?
• 13:12
  Absolutely. That's.
• 13:14
  Crazy it. It's interesting.
• 13:15
  We did a podcast with Cassidy Lewis and she said her biggest
• 13:20
  challenge is not marketing to her like client base that's
• 13:22
  gonna sign up. It's marketing to the people
• 13:24
  that won't call a lawyer when ask for help or don't even know
• 13:28
  they can, right? It's like that there's the
• 13:29
  overwhelming market share of people that they need to get
• 13:31
  after the ones that don't know the how a lawyer can help them
• 13:34
  or that a lawyer can't help them at all.
• 13:36
  Right. So our whole free fee guarantee,
• 13:39
  you think for years how many lawyers are marketing
• 13:43
  contingency fee, no fee. It's still the number one
• 13:47
  question and the most misunderstood thing by clients
• 13:51
  is that if I don't win your case, you owe me nothing,
• 13:54
  nothing really. There's not going to be an exist
• 13:56
  no nothing. It's still to this day the
• 13:59
  number one question and the number one concern people have.
• 14:02
  I don't know any other service where that says there's no fee
• 14:05
  that actually has no fee attached.
• 14:07
  The legal industry as a whole is just so different from every
• 14:11
  other industry because you're selling someone on something
• 14:14
  that they don't have to pay for, right?
• 14:16
  100%. But they don't even know that.
• 14:17
  They in some cases apparently don't.
• 14:19
  Even have to, they think they have to pay for it and that's
• 14:22
  why people go to the insurance company because they know well
• 14:24
  if I could first of all, they think well why should I pay the
• 14:27
  lawyer 1/3? I could do this with the
• 14:29
  insurance company direct and not pay the lawyer.
• 14:31
  The third, not recognizing that the insurance company truly is
• 14:35
  the enemy. They are a for profit business,
• 14:39
  which means every dollar they pay you is a dollar less that
• 14:42
  they give to their shareholders, right?
• 14:44
  The most of them are publicly held companies, so they have to
• 14:47
  answer for it. So of course they pay you as
• 14:50
  little as they can. They lie, right?
• 14:52
  So in my state, for instance, you have to pay for the person's
• 14:57
  medical bills, whether it's been paid by health insurance or not.
• 15:00
  You have to pay twice. That's the insurance company's
• 15:02
  responsibility. And so they tell the person, Oh
• 15:06
  no, well, you're not entitled to your medical bills being paid.
• 15:08
  You have health insurance that's already been paid, whereas I'm
• 15:11
  going to get you the full value of the bill.
• 15:13
  You might have a $10,000 medical bill, health insurance paid 5.
• 15:16
  I get you the 10 they give you 0.
• 15:18
  People don't know. That's why you should have.
• 15:21
  I mean everybody. Should have a lawyer.
• 15:22
  You've been running these mastermind groups.
• 15:24
  What do you say is like the biggest problem in most firms
• 15:26
  have that they come to for advice on?
• 15:28
  There's a ton of different things, but if I I was going to
• 15:32
  say the number one unified issue that I see, but I'll call it the
• 15:37
  low hanging fruit is intake. That is the biggest problem that
• 15:41
  law firms have. You know, lawyers, if we remove
• 15:45
  the larger law firms, right, lawyers don't necessarily think
• 15:50
  of their law firm as a business, right?
• 15:53
  Which is really all it is. We're a business that happens to
• 15:56
  be in the practice of law. And so if you don't run it like
• 16:01
  a business, then you're missing a lot of pieces that you really
• 16:04
  need to tie together. An intake is that glue between
• 16:08
  you spend all this money on marketing, right?
• 16:11
  And then you focus on the practice of law in your
• 16:13
  operation. But without intake, you don't
• 16:16
  connect your marketing dollars to signing cases and bring it in
• 16:19
  the firm. And there's a lot of holes in
• 16:21
  most people's intake center. Do you see most firms handling
• 16:25
  intake in house and what is the threshold by which you feel they
• 16:29
  have to handle it in house? I think no matter the size of
• 16:32
  your firm, you should handle intake in house.
• 16:34
  I think that if you so for me, the number, there's a million
• 16:37
  different KPIs and, and measurements and criteria that
• 16:41
  you look at in intake. But the number one measurement
• 16:44
  would be a wanted to sign ratio. Meaning I spoke to you, you have
• 16:48
  a case that I want, you're injured, someone else has a
• 16:51
  fault and you plan on treating. It's really all I need to know.
• 16:54
  Like you hear some people's intake centers, it's like 20
• 16:57
  minutes worth of questions. Like really?
• 17:00
  You called me, I'm going to make you feel special.
• 17:02
  I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to have empathy.
• 17:03
  I'm going to have compassion. You were injured.
• 17:06
  Yes, Yes. And what happened?
• 17:08
  OK, so someone else is at fault. Do you plan on treating?
• 17:11
  Yes. OK, that's it.
• 17:12
  I want your case. If I can get you to sign, that's
• 17:15
  my wanted to sign ratio. There is no answering service or
• 17:19
  out third party company that is ever going to have The Wanted to
• 17:23
  sign ratio that you're going to have internally.
• 17:26
  What partner intake do you think is like sales as well of selling
• 17:31
  that person like 1 is qualifying and actually doing the work and
• 17:34
  making sure that it you're qualifying the right cases that
• 17:36
  your firm wants to sign? How much is like a sales job
• 17:39
  where you're convincing that person that you are the best
• 17:42
  firm for them to sign up with? So I think if you're an intake,
• 17:45
  you're a sales person. And so intake breaks down first
• 17:48
  into technology, right? So we're making sure when the
• 17:51
  phone call comes in that we don't put the person on hold,
• 17:54
  that we're answering in time, that we're getting the call
• 17:57
  connected. So there's a lot of things in
• 18:00
  technology that 95% of law firms do not have set up.
• 18:03
  That's piece one. But once you answer the phone,
• 18:06
  you're all, you're in sales, right?
• 18:09
  You have to have empathy, compassion, you have to listen,
• 18:12
  have to make them feel special. And if you don't, then your
• 18:17
  wanted to sign ratio is not going to be where it should be.
• 18:19
  My opinion wanted to sign should be 95%.
• 18:22
  The average firm that we talked to when we do consulting for
• 18:25
  people is between 70 and 80. And I've talked to firms at
• 18:28
  5050%. So of every case, 2 cases you
• 18:32
  want, you only sign 1. So I say to them, well, what's
• 18:35
  your average fee? Well, let's say $10,000.
• 18:38
  So even if you're a 50 or 70 or 80%, imagine if you were at 95%
• 18:44
  for every case you don't sign you 10 grand literally out the
• 18:48
  window. And that is something that you
• 18:51
  track as a KPI and your mastermind group members track
• 18:54
  as a KPI. Like that's the the North Star
• 18:57
  that everybody's looking at. I wish the answer to that was
• 18:59
  yes. So today in the mastermind group
• 19:02
  I presented today and I presented on intake.
• 19:05
  So one of the things I do for our mastermind members is ghost
• 19:07
  calls. So I told you we meet weekly,
• 19:10
  but we meet in person twice a year.
• 19:12
  And so we ghost call their firm, one call during hours, one call
• 19:17
  after hours, a form filled during hours and a form filled
• 19:20
  after hours. And we measure everything.
• 19:23
  Did you put the person on hold? How many times did you put the
• 19:25
  person on hold? How much empathy did you have?
• 19:28
  Like a million different criteria.
• 19:30
  And so today I asked the group how many people know their
• 19:36
  wanted to sign ratio. And there were still some people
• 19:38
  in the group today that aren't tracking it and don't know it.
• 19:42
  And statistics for us, for people we consult to, I know the
• 19:46
  average is 70 to 80%. But if you don't know your
• 19:49
  wanted to sign ratio, it's actually lower because you're
• 19:52
  not paying attention to it. If you don't pay attention to
• 19:54
  something, it never goes well. How much improvement do you see
• 19:57
  firms can make before they even talk to them on the?
• 19:59
  Phone. So imagine you have a
• 20:01
  receptionist and all the calls have to go through her and then
• 20:05
  you have your group over here who's going to be people who
• 20:08
  talk to clients so you answer the phone.
• 20:11
  Do we cheat them and how? Please hold because as a
• 20:14
  receptionist I'm taking every call the vendors.
• 20:18
  The existing clients and the small percentage of new clients,
• 20:21
  because obviously that's the smallest number of every firm,
• 20:24
  right? So exponentially, right?
• 20:27
  No matter how big your firm is, your existing customers
• 20:30
  outnumber your new customers. And then you have your vendors,
• 20:33
  the insurance agents, the doctors, the auto Body Shop.
• 20:36
  So that is a huge group of people calling and you only want
• 20:41
  to talk to your new clients and not put them on hold.
• 20:44
  But I'm so busy as Susie at the desk, barely trying to keep up
• 20:48
  with all the calls, I just treat the new client like garbage.
• 20:51
  Whereas if you use technology. So let's say I grab the caller
• 20:55
  ID when it comes in and I've connected my caller, my phone
• 20:59
  system to my case management system.
• 21:01
  So when the caller ID comes in, I scrub the case management
• 21:05
  system. If the number doesn't exist in
• 21:07
  the case management system, it's a no brainer.
• 21:09
  I know this is obviously a new client.
• 21:12
  So it goes directly the intake. An intake never puts anyone on
• 21:16
  hold. They answer the phone.
• 21:17
  They screen, they sign, that's it.
• 21:20
  And then vendors, I suggest go to an IVR because they're
• 21:24
  commercial, right? They're used to an IVR And so
• 21:27
  that's it. They get a phone tree and
• 21:28
  they're good. And then existing customers,
• 21:30
  same thing. It's scrubs and it looks at the
• 21:32
  status of their case. So based on the status, it
• 21:35
  routes the call to either the case manager, the lawyer,
• 21:38
  finance, whoever they need to talk to.
• 21:40
  How do you see text messaging in your in your current process and
• 21:44
  success rate of using text messages versus phone calls?
• 21:47
  If someone wants to chat, we do it externally.
• 21:50
  So that's the only thing we don't do in our intake center.
• 21:53
  We've tried it. We use like a pigeon and set the
• 21:55
  whole thing up internally. But probably we could do it now
• 21:58
  because of our size. But when we tried to do it, we
• 22:00
  were smaller. And to use it effectively, it
• 22:03
  needs to be immediate, right? When somebody messages you, they
• 22:06
  expect an instant response as if it was a phone call and we were
• 22:10
  taking way too long. So we use an external company
• 22:13
  and they're awesome. But the mistake we made is that
• 22:17
  when you're chatting with the person for a long time, we used
• 22:20
  to say to the person, oh, we have somebody standing by that
• 22:23
  would be happy to talk to you, can we call you now?
• 22:25
  And they would say yes. And so then we thought we were
• 22:29
  connecting to them. So the company would call our
• 22:31
  law firm, an intake person would answer and connect to the person
• 22:34
  chatting. And for a long time, we didn't
• 22:37
  really realize that people were hanging up in that process.
• 22:41
  And so when I finally said, hey, I, you know, want to look at the
• 22:44
  numbers and the statistics, how many calls are chatting And then
• 22:47
  we never speak to them and found we had a 50% disconnect rate
• 22:51
  from people who we say are chatting with us.
• 22:54
  And we're going to connect you to phone, which is obvious.
• 22:57
  If you choose to text me, you don't want to talk on the phone.
• 23:00
  And so now our policy is we sign you through text, you text with
• 23:04
  us, we sign you through text and we ask you what your preferred
• 23:07
  communication is. We some clients we literally
• 23:09
  never talked to on the phone, so we will text with them from the
• 23:12
  start of their case all the way to the end.
• 23:14
  We send them their settlement sheet to release everything
• 23:17
  electronic. That's the way to do it.
• 23:19
  I think it's very difficult to make someone switch channels in
• 23:22
  the preferred communication like personal like storage, not
• 23:25
  working. The law firm, my long guy like
• 23:27
  company, they only text me. They call me.
• 23:29
  I'm never going to answer during the work day.
• 23:30
  But if I'm in a meeting that like that should be taxes to see
• 23:32
  a pop up, I'll respond real quick.
• 23:34
  All my bills get sent through there and my only way of
• 23:36
  communication is through text usage.
• 23:38
  And I love that because it's painless for me, takes 2
• 23:41
  seconds, doesn't take time on my day, and I can do everything I
• 23:43
  need to do. Agreed.
• 23:44
  I'll be like reseed my grass please.
• 23:46
  They're like, here's your bill. Who you guys use for chat that
• 23:49
  also use alert? Use alert.
• 23:51
  So we use a modified contract. So our contract is enormous,
• 23:55
  right? It has all forms ipso which that
• 23:57
  doesn't really work. So if it's overnight and they're
• 24:01
  handling something and they're going to sign the person for us,
• 24:03
  it's a simple 1 pager and then when we reach out to do the full
• 24:07
  intake with the customer, then we'll electronically send them
• 24:10
  the larger document. So when you're doing that intake
• 24:12
  over text message, you're getting the intake questions.
• 24:14
  Like you said earlier, you try to keep it short and sweet, but
• 24:16
  you're asking those basic questions.
• 24:18
  We're all in through text and then we send you the contract
• 24:21
  electronically to your text, they sign it and it comes back.
• 24:24
  Like a link that's in their text message, not send e-mail
• 24:27
  Exactly. And that's a big mistake people
• 24:28
  make. They're like, OK, I'm going to
• 24:30
  send you via DAC sign. What's your e-mail?
• 24:31
  Yeah. No, no, no, stay in the text.
• 24:33
  Did you have to customize that for text?
• 24:35
  Is it DocuSign? We don't use DocuSign.
• 24:38
  We're using, I forget the name of the company.
• 24:41
  It's not DocuSign. But did you have to go with a
• 24:44
  specific company in order to get the text messaging?
• 24:46
  So we just. Integrated it with Smart.
• 24:47
  Advocate. So it seems like the message
• 24:50
  here is connect all your systems together 100% right?
• 24:55
  We talk about RingCentral Alert, Smart Advocate, DocuSign or
• 24:59
  whatever the E signature platform is.
• 25:01
  Domo, Domo all right for all your reporting.
• 25:05
  These systems do not have to live in silos.
• 25:07
  That's sort of the old way of operations, right?
• 25:10
  Your phone system was a hard wired phone system and your case
• 25:13
  management system, that was your case management system.
• 25:15
  Some even had a doc management system that was separate.
• 25:18
  Now the technology is so advanced that you have the
• 25:20
  ability to just connect all these pieces together and do
• 25:24
  some of the stuff that you're talking about.
• 25:25
  Though for those of you watching, I feel like this was
• 25:27
  like a free first mastermind class in intake.
• 25:30
  And this is all what you talked about today at the Mastermind
• 25:33
  session, right? 100%.
• 25:35
  What else do you want to tell the audience about things that
• 25:38
  have worked at Rob Levine Law? That maybe makes sense for other
• 25:42
  firms to start abapping across the country outside of intake.
• 25:45
  No, we hired you. So we hired you.
• 25:49
  What is this seven months ago or something and you rebuilt our
• 25:52
  website and from there we're building the SEO and the videos
• 25:57
  that you guys did an amazing job on the branding video.
• 25:59
  And yeah, you guys been in great for us.
• 26:01
  So that's definitely one thing. We use Hohna, so another piece
• 26:05
  of technology, right. So HOHNA is automated texting.
• 26:08
  So it integrates with any case management system and case
• 26:12
  management systems all generally work the same.
• 26:15
  So there's workflows and statuses of the case.
• 26:18
  So as the case moves through different statuses, it
• 26:21
  automatically sends a text message to the customer letting
• 26:25
  them know what's happening, what's going on with their case.
• 26:27
  And I did videos, so I shot 23 videos.
• 26:30
  So we send a text and we embed the link and then the person can
• 26:33
  click on the video and I'm talking to them, telling them
• 26:36
  what's happening now, what's coming next keeps them informed.
• 26:39
  For instance, for TBI screening. So if you're in a in a car
• 26:43
  accident, within three days of the accident, we send you a
• 26:45
  traumatic brain injury screening checklist.
• 26:48
  So it asks you a series of questions so we can figure out
• 26:51
  is there a potential TBI? It automatically sends one in
• 26:54
  two weeks. If you marked anything, that's a
• 26:56
  yes at three days so that we follow up.
• 26:58
  And then if yes at two weeks, you have symptoms, then we're
• 27:01
  going to get you into the right doctors.
• 27:02
  So Hone has been great for us. It's great for the clients
• 27:05
  because great communication. It automates things for us.
• 27:08
  It's been really good. Have you adopted any of these
• 27:10
  like AI tools that are now it's kind of going through the legal
• 27:13
  industry? We had a client we talked to
• 27:15
  earlier today who adopt SUPIO. Have you talked to people who
• 27:19
  use foundation? Are there any of these like off
• 27:21
  the shelf AI platforms that you use?
• 27:22
  So I'm a part owner and Faster Outcomes, which is an AI
• 27:26
  platform. I joined them maybe four or five
• 27:31
  months ago at this point. And so I'm, I'm a customer, I
• 27:36
  invest to be transparent, I'm a customer, I invested.
• 27:40
  So I'm a part owner and I'm now the general manager of the Pi
• 27:43
  division. So I'm building out what I see
• 27:46
  as the future for the integration between AI and the
• 27:50
  operation of a law firm. And so if you look at a number
• 27:55
  of the companies that are doing AI, they really look at the end
• 27:59
  game. So you submit your medical
• 28:01
  records, they'll do a demand letter and give you a demand
• 28:04
  letter to send to the insurance company.
• 28:06
  There's only two ways the law firms make more money.
• 28:09
  One is they hire you, right? And you increase the number of
• 28:13
  cases that come into the law firm.
• 28:15
  So you increase your percentage of market share.
• 28:18
  Other than that, the only way to increase the revenue is increase
• 28:21
  the value of each case. So I don't care what other
• 28:26
  companies say if at the end of the case you draft my demand
• 28:30
  letter. So we didn't do medical
• 28:31
  management. We didn't figure out what's
• 28:33
  going on with the client. We didn't maximize their
• 28:35
  treatment. I just give you the records.
• 28:37
  Whether I write it or you write it, Are you really telling me
• 28:40
  that you're going to get me more for my case because you wrote a
• 28:43
  better demand? That's ridiculous.
• 28:45
  Like, what do you think the insurance companies are stupid,
• 28:47
  right? So they don't care what you
• 28:48
  write in the demand. They're going to look at the ICD
• 28:51
  codes. They're going to look at the
• 28:52
  records, They're going to look at the bills to see what
• 28:54
  matches. And their computer, right,
• 28:56
  Colossus, 20 years ago existed, is going to run the numbers and
• 29:00
  figure out what the case is worth.
• 29:02
  We're not talking about catastrophic cases, right?
• 29:04
  So just the everyday case. So what we're connecting or
• 29:07
  what? My goal, what I envision the
• 29:09
  future is right, is bilateral communication between the case
• 29:13
  management system, an AI. So AI, our agent, you have a
• 29:19
  professional investigator, you have an orthopedic, you have a
• 29:22
  neurologist, they're all your AI agents, your bots.
• 29:25
  And so as I'm doing work in the case management system, you have
• 29:29
  communication going back and forth.
• 29:31
  So the minute I drop in the rescue report, the emergency
• 29:34
  room report, my agent is reviewing the medical records
• 29:38
  and saying to me, I see based on the information in the medical
• 29:41
  record, this person has a potential traumatic brain
• 29:44
  injury. I I think you should send them
• 29:46
  for an evaluation to this, which guaranteed in most law firms.
• 29:50
  First of all, case managers aren't even reading the medical
• 29:53
  records when they come in. They wait till the end of the
• 29:56
  case to read all the medical records because they're too
• 29:58
  busy, they don't have time. I don't personally believe we're
• 30:02
  anywhere near AI logically thinking and being on its own.
• 30:07
  You need the human in the middle A. 100% agree yet right.
• 30:10
  But if AI has the time to read the records, it can read the
• 30:16
  record and say to me, based on this, this and this, we should
• 30:19
  do this. Or even on the investigation,
• 30:21
  you have a slip and fall. OK, So based on this slip and
• 30:24
  fall, I think you should go out and send somebody to take
• 30:27
  pictures and take measurements. And then you submit that and
• 30:29
  then AI says, OK, based on the codes today, here's what I see.
• 30:34
  AI is brilliant because it has all specific criteria and data
• 30:38
  it knows. It might not be able to think on
• 30:40
  its own, but it can say to me, hey, submit this.
• 30:44
  Oh, based on what you submitted, this is what I see.
• 30:47
  In some firms, it makes sense. You need more cases.
• 30:50
  Anymore leads, you need more cases.
• 30:52
  In some firms, you got a lot of cases.
• 30:54
  How do you move them quicker? Yeah.
• 30:56
  How do you get more value out of them?
• 30:58
  I think it's, I think the things that you're talking about are
• 31:01
  great. This has been probably one of
• 31:03
  the most like hey get your notepad out.
• 31:06
  I've been like, it's taking mental notes this whole time so.
• 31:09
  Whether you are listening to this episode to learn about
• 31:11
  whether you should join a mastermind group, or how you
• 31:14
  should improve intake, or how you should use AI in your firm,
• 31:17
  I mean, you are just chock full of information and this has been
• 31:20
  incredible. I appreciate it, Rob.
• 31:23
  Thanks for joining those of you watching at home.
• 31:25
  We will catch you on the next podcast of John and Mark.
• 31:27
  Rob Levine, the heavy hitter, join his mastermind group.
• 31:30
  We got to sit through it today. It was fantastic.
• 31:33
  Roblevinelegalsolutions.com.