Latest / Statutes & Stethoscopes | Trial Lessons for Medical Injury Lawyers / Why In-House Lien Resolution Is Costing Your Clients a Fortune ft. Jason Lazarus | Ep. 1

Transcript

Why In-House Lien Resolution Is Costing Your Clients a Fortune ft. Jason Lazarus | Ep. 1 · Statutes & Stethoscopes | Trial Lessons for Medical Injury Lawyers

0:00
Jason Lazarus: The key thing to remember as a trial attorney is that you want to do what's best for your client and make sure that they are protected into the future.
0:08
Jason Lazarus: And that's really what it's about.
0:10
Tracy Liberatore: That's Jason Lazarus, founder and chairman of Synergy, a company that helps personal injury law firms navigate complex settlement issues.
0:18
Tracy Liberatore: He believes firms need to identify these issues early, bring in the right experts, and plan proactively so clients are protected long after the case is resolved.
0:28
Jason Lazarus: Depending on timing, you can foreclose someone's eligibility, and that could create a malpractice exposure for the trial lawyer.
0:38
Jason Lazarus: So being proactive allows that client to better understand what's going on, helps the law firm understand what needs to be done.
0:46
Tracy Liberatore: In this episode, you will learn why settlement planning should begin before mediation, how liens and Medicare or Medicaid issues can put a client's recovery and benefits at risk, and why bringing in the right experts early can help protect both the injured client and the law firm.
1:03
Tracy Liberatore: Welcome to Statutes and Stethoscopes, the show for attorneys who know that winning a case is only part of the job, and that reading the medical record right matters just as much as what happens in the courtroom.
1:16
Tracy Liberatore: In each episode, I sit down with trial attorneys, forensic pathologists, and expert witnesses who have lived the work of turning a chart into a case.
1:25
Tracy Liberatore: We move past the theory to examine how a record actually gets built, tested, and defended, because the chart never lies.
1:33
Tracy Liberatore: I'm your host, Tracy Libertori.
1:35
Tracy Liberatore: Let's get into today's conversation.
1:37
Tracy Liberatore: So, Jason, for those who may not know your work, give us a you know two to three minute version of who you are, what you do, how you found your way into this very specialized area of law.
1:48
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, it's quite a narrow niche.
1:50
Jason Lazarus: And really, I I came to it from the personal injury practice of law, but I was on the defense side.
1:59
Jason Lazarus: I was doing insurance defense work right out of law school, which I hated.
2:03
Jason Lazarus: And at some point decided, you know what, the rest of my life is not going to be spent this way.
2:10
Jason Lazarus: I want to help people and be part of the solution instead of what I felt like was part of the problem.
2:16
Jason Lazarus: Not certainly the defense has its place, and you know, they they need to be there.
2:22
Jason Lazarus: But for me, I just I had a calling and wanted to help people.
2:26
Jason Lazarus: And so I was trying to figure out well, what do I do that will leverage my law degree, my experience on the defense side, understanding personal injury the way I did.
2:40
Jason Lazarus: And it kind of naturally took me to settlement consulting and from there, just continued to develop my subject matter expertise.
2:50
Jason Lazarus: You know, when I started out, I didn't really realize the depth and how complicated these issues can be in a catastrophic personal injury situation.
3:01
Jason Lazarus: So, you know, over the years, I've just educated myself and become an expert in different areas.
3:08
Jason Lazarus: Went back and got an LLM in elder law to focus on some of the disability issues in my law practice and became a subject matter expert in Medicare compliance and special needs trusts and Medicaid preservation planning, as well as the healthcare lien resolution aspect, which is such a niche and subspecialty of its own.
3:33
Jason Lazarus: And so it's been a bit of a winding road getting to the ultimate destination.
3:39
Tracy Liberatore: Hey, if you're listening to today's conversation, chances are you're a lawyer with a case file full of medical records you never trained to read.
3:48
Tracy Liberatore: A few thousand pages, no clinical background, and a deadline that isn't moving.
3:53
Tracy Liberatore: That's exactly why I built Med Legal Pro.
3:56
Tracy Liberatore: We take the record review and the chronology off your desk, and we match you with medical experts who've been properly vetted so the chart comes back to you in a form you can actually try a case from.
4:08
Tracy Liberatore: If that sounds like the file on your desk, scan the QR code on the screen or click the link in the show notes, and you'll hear back from us within 12 business hours.
4:17
Tracy Liberatore: Now, back to the conversation.
4:19
Tracy Liberatore: And then I know I'm narrowing this down, but if you have somebody came to you and said, So what is your area of focus?
4:24
Tracy Liberatore: What is it that you do?
4:26
Tracy Liberatore: Um, or what kind of a client, I guess, finds you, um, you know, what would that look like?
4:31
Jason Lazarus: It's a personal injury attorney.
4:33
Jason Lazarus: You know, I'm not working directly with the injured clients in the sense of I don't advertise, hey, you've been injured, come come see Jason.
4:44
Jason Lazarus: You know, the personal injury attorneys, when they're settling a complex case, will come to me to and my company to get assistance and help in navigating these issues.
4:56
Jason Lazarus: Because, yeah, as a trial lawyer, your specialty is securing justice for injury victims through trying cases or putting them into a posture to resolve having to understand the complexities of the Medicare or Secondary Pair Act as one example, which is a massive piece of legislation, complex as heck, and a lot of nuance.
5:20
Jason Lazarus: That's just one little aspect.
5:22
Jason Lazarus: Then you add on Medicaid, you add when it comes to liens, ERISA, FIBA, military, you know, there is a lot of things that ultimately personal injury lawyers are not experts in, that they need experts.
5:38
Jason Lazarus: And that's that's how typically they come to me is hey, I've got this really challenging case.
5:45
Jason Lazarus: You know, can you help me?
5:47
Tracy Liberatore: Sure.
5:47
Tracy Liberatore: So after, basically after a settlement or something like that.
5:51
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's, you know, well, before even uh I've I've got a case I'm consulting a lawyer on now where they're very early on, but it it was a very catastrophic medical malpractice case where um all four extremities wound up being amputated.
6:08
Jason Lazarus: And just, you know, the the disability issues and the complexities around what needs to be done to plan for that recovery led the attorney to me, which in turn led me directly to the injured party's family to educate them and give them some guidance so that they understand what to expect when they're getting ready to resolve that case.
6:34
Tracy Liberatore: Okay.
6:34
Tracy Liberatore: So at what point do you think it would be a lawyer that would think, hey, this might be a good time for me to enlist the services of Jason?
6:41
Jason Lazarus: It really just depends on the case and the clients.
6:43
Jason Lazarus: You know, every one of these situations is different.
6:47
Jason Lazarus: Generally, earlier on is better so that the client is more prepared and understands.
6:54
Jason Lazarus: For example, you know, if a client doesn't understand all of the disability-related planning issues, and then they get to settlement and then it all gets thrown at them at that time, well, it's very stressful having the unfortunate experience myself of being through a personal injury case.
7:13
Jason Lazarus: When you get to mediation, there's a lot of stress around what's the case gonna settle for and thinking through all these things.
7:21
Jason Lazarus: If on top of that, what's introduced is well, you know, to keep your government benefits, you need to set up a trust and all the money that you thought you were getting, no, it's gonna go into a trust, and the trust's gonna pay for things for you.
7:36
Jason Lazarus: Well, that's hard to process all of that.
7:40
Jason Lazarus: So I try to educate trial attorneys on these issues uh in terms of being proactive and educating the client because the client ultimately has to make an informed decision.
7:54
Jason Lazarus: That's part of you know the ethics uh around representation.
7:57
Jason Lazarus: So giving the client enough information in a way that they can digest it to make the right decisions is really critical.
8:55
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah.
8:55
Tracy Liberatore: And so you since you brought it up, let's um, I know we want to talk about a little bit about that, your experience with this motor vehicle accident.
9:03
Tracy Liberatore: So I want to tell us that story.
9:05
Jason Lazarus: I was struck by a car while cycling in 2016.
9:09
Jason Lazarus: So I at that time I was had been riding and racing since I was a teenager, thank God, in very good condition at that time.
9:20
Jason Lazarus: Uh, because when I got struck by the vehicle, my face hit the A pillar of the truck, which caused what's called a LaFort III fracture, which basically means I broke every bone in my face, um, fractured my jaw, um, pretty severely knocked out teeth and broke my collarbone.
9:41
Jason Lazarus: Anyway, it landed me in the ICU and you know, 21 days in the hospital um on a ventilator for a good port of that because they were afraid they were gonna lose my airway.
9:53
Jason Lazarus: So as bad as you want to experience without getting killed, you know, I mean, I I was very lucky because it could have easily been a spinal cord injury or a really severe traumatic brain injury.
10:06
Jason Lazarus: But, you know, I I went through what every injury victim typically goes through, which is got a visit from my personal injury attorney, who, you know, thankfully I knew a lot of them, um, was a friend who came to visit me while I was still in the ICU.
10:20
Jason Lazarus: And that's that was the start of, you know, what was uh a year and a half to years of litigation.
10:28
Jason Lazarus: You know, unfortunately, um that's just the way it goes for most, even though this was a pretty clear-cut liability case.
10:38
Jason Lazarus: I was in a bike lane when I was struck and you know, doing nothing wrong.
10:43
Jason Lazarus: And but, you know, still and we we had to sue my insurance company.
10:49
Jason Lazarus: My underinsured motorist coverage was what was really the only available coverage.
10:54
Jason Lazarus: The driver that hit me at like $10,000 in coverage, and my medical bills alone were, you know, almost $400,000.
11:02
Jason Lazarus: It opened my eyes to what everybody goes through when they experience something like this.
11:09
Jason Lazarus: And of course, you know, having had at that point about 15 years of experience working with people, I had a good understanding.
11:17
Jason Lazarus: But until you actually go through something like this yourself and experience every facet of it, you know, the the the difficulties in the physical recovery, the mental aspects of, you know, the trauma and how that impacted everything.
11:35
Jason Lazarus: So, you know, I in the end, I think it was one of the best things that's ever happened to me from the perspective of it gave me a good life reset.
11:43
Jason Lazarus: You know, it focuses you on really what's important, uh, but two, it gave me unique insights that I think has helped make sure that our services and what I do is as compassionate and as focused as it can be on the mission, which is helping the injured parties protect their net recovery.
12:06
Jason Lazarus: That's Synergy's mission.
12:08
Jason Lazarus: Um, and we do it through partnerships with personal injury firms, and our team understands the importance of that mission.
12:15
Jason Lazarus: I've used my own accident, and we use examples of cases for every all hands meeting we have each month to explain the mission moment so people understand how important the work they do each day is.
12:31
Tracy Liberatore: No, absolutely.
12:32
Tracy Liberatore: And it's amazing how, because I found it interesting.
12:35
Tracy Liberatore: You said one of the best things that happens to me, and I've had a lot of, we'll say, not wonderful things have happened to myself, but it's like, you know, you look back on it, and there is a way to find how, geez, that really sucked going through it, but how it impacted me now where I'm at now, where I wouldn't have been here now, right?
12:54
Tracy Liberatore: It's interesting.
12:55
Tracy Liberatore: I always love to hear those stories because it's, you know, really reframing something that could have really gone really badly into turning it into something positive where you've actually now opened a company to help others that may be suffering from the same thing, right?
13:10
Tracy Liberatore: It's amazing.
13:11
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone else to go through it and I would have rathered that not happen, but in the end, as I said, it was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me just from multiple angles and perspectives.
13:26
Tracy Liberatore: Most trial lawyers measure their success by their settlement verdicts.
13:30
Tracy Liberatore: Um you've sort of built a career around what happens after that check arrives.
13:35
Tracy Liberatore: Why is this special needs settlement planning something attorneys need to be thinking about really before mediation instead of afterwards?
13:43
Tracy Liberatore: And we may have touched on this a little bit earlier, but it kind of maybe a little more in-depth.
13:47
Jason Lazarus: The key thing to remember as a trial attorney is that you want to do what's best for your client and make sure that they are protected into the future.
13:56
Jason Lazarus: And that's really what it's about is making sure ultimately that the recovery is put to work in a way that helps that plaintiff as much as possible.
14:08
Jason Lazarus: You know, for most personal injury victims, the money that they're gonna receive is not sufficient to take care of them well into the future, particularly catastrophic cases.
14:19
Jason Lazarus: You know, I mean, you can have life care plans that are $7,500 million.
14:23
Jason Lazarus: Well, you know, even the most catastrophic cases are not gonna settle for anywhere near that kind of money.
14:31
Jason Lazarus: And so, for example, $5 million sounds like a lot of money.
14:35
Jason Lazarus: Well, if you have $100 million in future care, it's not that much.
14:40
Jason Lazarus: And so the planning that's done to make sure that they have access to government benefits, which can pay for the majority of care, then that five million dollars can really work for that injured party to provide for things that the government assistance basics doesn't provide for.
15:01
Jason Lazarus: So helps them have a better quality of life, have better mobility equipment if they're, you know, um mobility uh challenged or mobility disabilities, or, you know, if they're severely brain injured, there's more attending care available because government assistance is only going to cover so much.
15:23
Jason Lazarus: That money can be used to pay for those other things.
15:25
Jason Lazarus: So this type of planning creates a framework for the injured party that will take care of them for the rest of their lives.
15:35
Jason Lazarus: That that type of planning is key in catastrophic cases.
15:40
Tracy Liberatore: I think it's almost key for life, right?
15:42
Tracy Liberatore: I think we forget this too.
15:44
Tracy Liberatore: But no, you're absolutely right because these people are not going to be able to work and they never gonna have their regular bills to pay.
15:50
Tracy Liberatore: And I know, you know, we sit here and think, well, gee, five million sounds like a lot of money, but think about all of the famous athletes that we hear about that blow through it, right?
16:00
Tracy Liberatore: And I mean, I just think people, regular day-to-day people, working people that come into this large amount of money don't know what to do with it, don't know how to manage it.
16:09
Tracy Liberatore: Um, and it really is something that even I didn't start thinking about till much later in life is like, you know, living off of a large sum of money is really the way to have your financial freedom, you know, necessarily.
16:21
Tracy Liberatore: So it's it's interesting.
16:22
Tracy Liberatore: I think it's a good point for all of us to sort of take in.
16:26
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, it's important for anyone, really, not just someone, but it's especially they don't have the capabilities of being able to go out and find work anymore.
16:37
Tracy Liberatore: And so, like, yeah, really being able to live out the rest of their life with some sort of support.
16:43
Tracy Liberatore: And um, so uh and as another point for your, you know, the Medicare and Medicaid, I think a lot of attorneys maybe think, oh, well, maybe we'll just figure this out later.
16:51
Tracy Liberatore: But why do you think that it's maybe more of a dangerous approach instead of hitting that up front?
16:56
Jason Lazarus: Depending on timing, you you can foreclose someone's eligibility, and that in and of itself could create a malpractice exposure for the trial lawyer.
17:08
Jason Lazarus: So, you know, being proactive and dealing with these issues in advance, one, obviously make sure that something is not missed or um you know escapes uh the expert's eye.
17:22
Jason Lazarus: But you know, two being proactive allows that client to better understand what's going on, what needs to be done.
17:30
Jason Lazarus: Being proactive helps the law firm understand, you know, what needs to be done.
17:36
Jason Lazarus: And time is is not on your side once the case is in a posture to settle, meaning there's a rush typically at that point because the client wants relief, you know, they want access to the money.
17:50
Jason Lazarus: Well, if you start after the case is settled, then it becomes a bit of a time crunch because there's there's time that it takes to do what's necessary to plan for someone that's disabled and on these types of benefits.
18:06
Jason Lazarus: And then you add on top dealing with the liens.
18:09
Jason Lazarus: And I mean, there there's so many things that you know can cause a bottleneck at settlement.
18:17
Jason Lazarus: So being proactive about these issues helps to prevent that from occurring.
18:23
Tracy Liberatore: Aaron Powell Is there anything else that, you know, after the settlement happens or after settlement is reached that we haven't discussed already that you feel is important for many attorneys to know that maybe they might otherwise overlook?
18:34
Jason Lazarus: Aaron Powell A tough question in the sense of there's a lot of things really, you know, to nail down a few things.
18:41
Jason Lazarus: I I think being aware that there are things that, for example, Medicaid liens that can have a process or Medicare conditional payments, for example, that have processes that are set by statute, that have time frames that if you're not cognizant of that, that can that can be really problematic if you don't plan for that.
19:08
Jason Lazarus: The client doesn't understand, hey, this may take a little bit of time once the case is in a posture for resolution too.
19:16
Jason Lazarus: So you know that that's just one of you know a myriad of things.
19:22
Jason Lazarus: I I've I've written a book on this subject.
19:25
Jason Lazarus: So I mean it's not like uh it's it's succinct typically speaking, but you know, it it also varies based on what the situation is with the client, you know, what type of benefits did they receive when they were injured, what type of health insurance plan were they covered by, or what plans, because oftentimes people can be on a lot of different types of plans, or uh someone can, when they're injured, be on Medicare, part A and Part B, traditional Medicare, but then they transition to part C, which is private coverage, but Medicare dollars and some different issues that arise with that.
20:05
Jason Lazarus: So what's going on in the case is going to drive some of the questions and issues.
20:13
Tracy Liberatore: And then as far as like, say, Medicare, Medicaid, special needs trust, I think a lot of people or even attorneys hear these words and it kind of is like overwhelming to think of these big things.
20:23
Tracy Liberatore: It's almost just, I know we've said this specialty area, really.
20:27
Tracy Liberatore: Um, are there any some of the biggest misconceptions surrounding these things, like the set asides and the payments and the eligibility, special needs trusts, and all these things that you can talk about to maybe simplify anything for our guess, our listeners today?
20:41
Jason Lazarus: You know, I mean it it does sound like Gobblygook, right?
20:44
Jason Lazarus: There's all these acronyms, SNT, MSAs, uh, you know, conditional payments.
20:52
Jason Lazarus: And the key thing really is to understand 30,000-foot level.
20:57
Jason Lazarus: You've got typically two primary medical programs that are government needs-based assistance um or entitlement, which is Medicaid and Medicare, um, SSI and SSDI.
21:12
Jason Lazarus: So Medicaid and SSI are for those that are disabled and indigent.
21:20
Jason Lazarus: So Medicaid is healthcare, SSI is supplemental security income.
21:25
Jason Lazarus: That's just a monthly disability benefit.
21:28
Jason Lazarus: If someone's worked enough quarters, they'll have Medicare.
21:33
Jason Lazarus: And then if they become disabled, they get Social Security disability, uh, SSDI benefits, which are Social Security benefits, those are entitlements.
21:41
Jason Lazarus: They're not needs-based, but then you're dealing with the Medicare Secondary Payer Act.
21:45
Jason Lazarus: So understanding just as a trial lawyer broadly, these classifications, understanding that they require some thoughtfulness in the way that case is resolved is really the key.
22:00
Jason Lazarus: And then, you know, if you want to do a deep dive, like I said, I've written a book on this, it's i i it's good uh to put you to sleep before you go to bed because it is so darn uh heavy and complex.
22:13
Jason Lazarus: You know, uh as a lawyer, having spent uh a fair bit of time with with these laws, it it it really is fairly complex, but manageable if you know how to issue spot.
22:27
Jason Lazarus: For trial lawyers, that's really it.
22:28
Jason Lazarus: I try to, you know, what I write and how I educate is how do you issue spot because that's key.
22:36
Jason Lazarus: And then you bring in experts like me or others.
22:39
Jason Lazarus: There's there's certainly many others in this field who can then help you navigate.
22:45
Jason Lazarus: That's the key is as a lawyer knowing okay, I'm outside my My area of expertise, right?
22:53
Jason Lazarus: Like, you know, as a trial lawyer, you typically aren't going to go and litigate a business dispute, or you know, you're not going to get into the legalities around AI, or because there's, you know, any area of the law is it's impossible to know everything.
23:14
Jason Lazarus: So you really have to have on your speed dial people that understand some of these expert areas.
23:20
Jason Lazarus: That's you know why my company, Synergy, we've got hundreds of people that have deep subrogation experience coming from working for recovery contractors, because you need to have that expertise and understanding to be able to negotiate and get the best results when you're negotiating and resolving a lien.
23:41
Jason Lazarus: So, you know, having that team of experts standing behind you as a trial lawyer is really what is going to make ultimately your practice as protected as it possibly can be.
23:54
Jason Lazarus: Because that's really the key thing is not making an error that causes malpractice exposure.
24:01
Jason Lazarus: It's risk mitigation.
24:03
Tracy Liberatore: No, absolutely.
24:04
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah.
24:04
Tracy Liberatore: And on that note, I guess, what is the biggest mistake that you see that attorneys make when you're dealing with them that end up costing their clients significant money?
24:13
Jason Lazarus: Aaron Powell When it comes to liens, it's not understanding the leverage points that typically will get the best reduction for the injured party or not understanding the processes or the law.
24:28
Jason Lazarus: For example, with Medicare, there is a standard reduction formula, but there are these processes that we use that you can get Medicare to issue a refund after they've received payment for the final demand.
24:46
Jason Lazarus: That is a way of making sure that the client gets more net whole dollars from their recovery.
24:57
Jason Lazarus: So not understanding that, uh, those mechanisms is a big issue for trial lawyers if they're if they don't understand it.
25:08
Jason Lazarus: And they they shouldn't have to or really understand those nuances as we we discussed.
25:13
Jason Lazarus: And certainly, you know, even paralegals or people within the uh law firm uh are are not going to have that subject matter expertise.
25:23
Jason Lazarus: You really need folks that understand the inside baseball of that all.
25:27
Jason Lazarus: When it comes to Medicaid and Medicare, it's not knowing what what you don't know and the you know letting the client walk out the door without proper counseling and advice on their legal options to preserve government benefits, for example, that that certainly exposes you to a malpractice claim because there are quantifiable damages that you can quantify, the loss of those government benefits, what that means to that personal injury victim.
26:01
Jason Lazarus: And, you know, on the just the management side of the recovery, it's very common to allow personal injury victims just to walk out the door without the right kind of guidance and counseling and experts to give them optionality so that they can make the best decision about their futures.
26:20
Jason Lazarus: I call it a transition from litigation to life.
26:22
Jason Lazarus: You're the injury victim's been dealing with this litigation, which can be all-consuming.
26:28
Jason Lazarus: I know for me it was very difficult juggling all that with working and trying to recover from my injuries.
26:38
Jason Lazarus: So, you know, without getting this kind of guidance, you've you've inflicted another injury really on that person.
26:47
Jason Lazarus: Because if the planning hasn't been done correctly or they don't understand that they've got these options, then that client hasn't hasn't been given the best possible representation ultimately.
27:02
Jason Lazarus: Critical money, you know, because as we said, most injured parties are not receiving full compensation for their injuries.
27:11
Jason Lazarus: They're getting, you know, some fraction of the total damages that they've suffered because the case settled, you know, because there's only policy limits available.
27:23
Jason Lazarus: Say there's only 100 grand available, but they've got millions of dollars in damages.
27:27
Jason Lazarus: Well, they're limited to the 100 grand, or, you know, sometimes there's liability issues or causation issues, whatever it may be, that causes a case to settle for a fraction of what full value is.
27:38
Tracy Liberatore: Sure.
27:39
Tracy Liberatore: No, absolutely.
27:40
Tracy Liberatore: So can you share a story with us where one of your proper settlement planning had dramatically changed someone's future?
27:48
Tracy Liberatore: Is there any case that you've worked on or something that stands out in your mind that you'd like to share?
27:52
Jason Lazarus: Great question.
27:53
Jason Lazarus: There's a lot of them.
27:55
Jason Lazarus: I I think what stands out in my mind is just this more broad concept of hearing from clients say, you know, the planning that was done has meant everything in terms of being able to live the rest of their life the way they want to live, or having that team around them because of the planning that was done that lets them experience life in a way that is fitting for you know what they wanted uh ultimately.
28:33
Jason Lazarus: And yeah, that to me is is such a beautiful thing and and is the end goal of this type of work is to make sure that that injured party can live with dignity in a way that they want, having the things they need um as a result of what they've suffered.
28:55
Jason Lazarus: So you know, because some of these cases are just so devastating to see what people have been through and knowing that you get to play a part in helping to protect them, whether it's you know, making sure there's more money in the pot for them by negotiating liens or the planning surrounding this, you know, is is really a great, great feeling to to experience.
29:28
Tracy Liberatore: I don't know if we'd have much of a conversation or show if we didn't talk about AI at this point, right?
29:34
Tracy Liberatore: So in your expertise and in your field, I mean, we know medicine, law, I mean, this is like the hot topic now to talk about, right?
29:44
Tracy Liberatore: So have you seen or how do you foresee uh the use of AI in what you're doing?
29:49
Tracy Liberatore: Negative impacts, positive impacts, how are you using it?
29:53
Tracy Liberatore: Um anything on that?
29:55
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, you know, we have just recently launched a new company that is uh a technology solution for law firms to identify and verify claims that are being made against a personal injury settlement.
30:12
Jason Lazarus: And because today that's something that, for example, law firms do.
30:16
Jason Lazarus: Same thing with lean resolution as well.
30:19
Jason Lazarus: These are tasks that law firms take on that really technology and outsourcing providers can do better, more efficiently.
30:29
Jason Lazarus: And so, in my opinion, the the key thing for AI is for personal injury firms, is really looking at their law practices, understanding what tasks could be done by technology, and then leveraging that after you've analyzed the time savings that can be achieved by doing that.
30:54
Jason Lazarus: Because then, you know, the the law firm staff can focus on the human interaction with the injured party and you know helping to increase value of the recovery versus dealing with some of the ins and outs of administrative burden that law firms today still continue to take on.
31:18
Jason Lazarus: So I I see this, these technologies that are evolving very quickly as ways to continue to enhance the practice of law by leveraging them.
31:32
Jason Lazarus: I mean, for me personally, I don't know about you, I I use it every single day for uh a million different things that accelerates what I do.
31:44
Jason Lazarus: I I use it um particularly in my podcast.
31:48
Jason Lazarus: Uh like you, I'm I'm a podcast host too.
31:51
Jason Lazarus: So it's incredibly helpful.
31:54
Jason Lazarus: I mean, what used to take me hours of prep is like minutes now.
31:59
Jason Lazarus: I mean, it's it's insane and incredible what it can do.
32:05
Jason Lazarus: And so I I think we are at such an early stage of what this will look like.
32:13
Jason Lazarus: You know, for example, with law firms, you've got the traditional case management software systems that are now launching AI as part of their systems.
32:25
Jason Lazarus: Then you've got pure AI systems that are taking on a lot of facets of some of the administrative burdens for law firms.
32:33
Jason Lazarus: And well, which one's gonna win?
32:35
Jason Lazarus: Like, are the case management systems gonna buy up all these AI players, or are the AI players gonna buy them up?
32:42
Jason Lazarus: Because there's so much money pouring specifically into the plaintiff personal injury technology space.
32:51
Jason Lazarus: It's it's incredible.
32:52
Jason Lazarus: I mean, some of these companies are being valued at billions of dollars without, you know, really the traditional revenue benchmarks to drive that valuation because there is so much potential for uh technology to be deployed in those spaces.
33:11
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, the the key thing to me is just making sure that it doesn't take the place of some of the more key things that you need a human in the loop.
33:21
Jason Lazarus: Even our AI technology solution that we've built is a human in the loop.
33:26
Jason Lazarus: We have subrogation experts that are part of that process.
33:30
Jason Lazarus: Same thing in a personal injury practice, or really any way you're using it is making sure the human in the loop is, you know, an important part of that, particularly you know, personal injury is intensely personal by definition.
33:45
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I I you know what I went through was very personal.
33:49
Jason Lazarus: It impacted every aspect of my life.
33:53
Jason Lazarus: And so, you know, for law firms understanding that and not using technology as a way to avoid, you know, interaction with the client, but to enhance interaction with the client, enhance their ability to represent that client to me are the key ways that AI is going to be leveraged in the future.
34:13
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, absolutely.
34:14
Tracy Liberatore: I know in the medical expert space, we're seeing a lot of experts who are kind of getting in trouble for using it to help them either write reports where they can't testify to their report.
34:23
Tracy Liberatore: They don't even know the content.
34:25
Tracy Liberatore: So it's like an overusage and depending on it where it's making up cases and hallucinating and doing all these things.
34:31
Tracy Liberatore: Um, but on the other hand, it really helps you get organized and to do a lot of things and make some of the other tasks more.
34:38
Tracy Liberatore: I mean, I created a like like you, if it's in my business, uh, an AI teaching training guide to help, you know, medical experts learn how to write because I've been teaching these things for 10 years.
34:48
Tracy Liberatore: And so some of the stuff that I do all the time, you can delegate that to help.
34:53
Tracy Liberatore: Um, but there's still certainly with the analysis piece going to need that human interaction.
34:57
Tracy Liberatore: And I think especially in court, you need that experience of the expert to be able to speak to that.
35:02
Tracy Liberatore: And if if the expert can't speak to that, then that's where they're kind of getting in trouble in the medical expert space.
35:08
Tracy Liberatore: And do you see anything like that in the space you're in now where people are not using it properly and sort of getting into trouble for using it?
35:15
Jason Lazarus: I mean, there's certainly been instances.
35:17
Jason Lazarus: I don't have personal knowledge of it, but you've seen, you know, some of the news around, you know, lawyers on both sides of the V using it in a way that it hallucinated cases.
35:31
Jason Lazarus: And see, I mean, you you just have to be very careful and understand what it can do, what it's good at, what it can't do.
35:39
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, I mean, it's just like anything else.
35:43
Jason Lazarus: You have to use things knowing what their limitations are and what their capabilities are.
35:49
Jason Lazarus: If you don't have that understanding, you shouldn't be using it in the first place.
35:52
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, it's very true.
35:53
Tracy Liberatore: Very true.
35:54
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, and I've I've actually seen it extend to the lawyers getting into trouble with the courts because they didn't check the experts' work because the expert didn't, you know, and it's just like, you know, at what point does this become who's, you know, who's in trouble for it?
36:07
Tracy Liberatore: I guess they're just everybody is at this point for now.
36:10
Tracy Liberatore: It's it'll be interesting to see how this all works and plays itself out.
36:14
Tracy Liberatore: So how about um for you?
36:15
Tracy Liberatore: I'd like to talk a little bit about your books and your education.
36:18
Tracy Liberatore: I know you've mentioned your your one book at least.
36:21
Tracy Liberatore: Um, and so maybe like tell us a little bit about if you want to tell us the book titles, or I know you've written several.
36:27
Tracy Liberatore: Um, and why is education so important to you?
36:31
Jason Lazarus: So I've written two books uh so far.
36:33
Jason Lazarus: Third book is in process.
36:35
Jason Lazarus: Uh, it's about to go to the publisher and for final editing.
36:40
Jason Lazarus: But the first book was called Art of Settlement, which was a guide for personal injury firms, paralegals, trial lawyers, legal professionals, to really educate on issue spotting.
36:52
Jason Lazarus: What I had talked about, giving you know this kind of broad-based guide for law firms to leverage when they're representing catastrophically injured.
37:04
Jason Lazarus: And then I decided to write a book for the injured parties.
37:11
Jason Lazarus: That's called Litigation of Life, so that they better understand what to expect.
37:16
Jason Lazarus: It's kind of a what to expect when you're involved in personal injury litigation guide for the injured.
37:23
Jason Lazarus: And yeah, I wrote that because I knew how difficult it was for me, being a professional in the space to navigate all this, much less be someone who's never had any experience in the personal injury system.
37:41
Jason Lazarus: So I wanted to write something that would help give those people uh a better understanding of what's going on when the case is about to resolve.
37:52
Jason Lazarus: Obviously, personal injury attorney guides them through the personal injury case, but this is a guide, sort of what to expect when a case is settling if you're you know catastrophically injured.
38:04
Jason Lazarus: And the educational piece for me has always been important because you know, ultimately, I want to make sure that everybody has the tools and information as it relates to this area of the law so that they make the right decisions, whether it's a personal injury firm making the right decisions about how to advise their clients and dealing with liens and government assistance and the financial aspects and for the injured party is understanding all that so they can make the best possible decision for themselves, just knowing how critical this particular area is.
38:47
Jason Lazarus: I mean, that that's the thing is you know, this is not, you know, and you articulated this earlier, you know, people that are catastrophically injured, they don't go back to work.
38:57
Jason Lazarus: They've permanently, they've retired, and they don't ever get enough money to take care of themselves for the rest of their lives.
39:04
Jason Lazarus: So this is important, you know, because the alternative becomes, you know, they wind up having nothing left from their recovery and they're completely dependent upon society.
39:17
Jason Lazarus: And that that's really not what we want.
39:19
Jason Lazarus: We want people as protected as they possibly can be when something like this happens.
39:25
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, no, absolutely.
39:26
Tracy Liberatore: It's hard and bad enough to have suffered the injury itself and then to have to have nothing left after that.
39:32
Tracy Liberatore: It's um devastation after devastation, right?
39:34
Tracy Liberatore: In that sense.
39:35
Tracy Liberatore: So if a young attorney wants to build a practice kind of like you around this catastrophic injury litigation, what what would you tell them or what should they learn first?
39:44
Tracy Liberatore: Where would they even begin?
39:45
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, I don't know that you necessarily have to to to get into the niche that I've I've found myself in.
39:52
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I think, you know, if you're if someone's interested in this, it's gonna be kind of a probably just some experiences that they have lead them into this this area, but it really becomes an area where you have to self-educate because it's not like there's a degree even like.
40:12
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I went back and got my degree in elder law because it it has overlap with disability law.
40:21
Jason Lazarus: I mean, in essence, elder the elderly and the disabled have similar but not the same legal issues.
40:28
Jason Lazarus: So there's not even, you know, a specific degree that you can get in this.
40:34
Jason Lazarus: There are, you know, designations.
40:37
Jason Lazarus: For example, I've I've got a designation for Medicare set-aside consultancy.
40:44
Jason Lazarus: So you've got to go through those, those types of things to become educated as an expert in these areas.
40:53
Jason Lazarus: I mean, for the personal injury attorney, I think it's critical for them to have some underpinning and understanding of all this stuff.
41:01
Jason Lazarus: Not, you know, they certainly don't need to be the expert in it, right?
41:06
Jason Lazarus: That's that's the whole point of what I've been saying.
41:09
Jason Lazarus: But, you know, reading a book like the book I've written will help them understand issue spotting or go out and you know, do some continuing legal education webinars.
41:21
Jason Lazarus: There's plenty of stuff that we've put out there that helps attorneys and paralegals understand these these particular issues to better um represent their clients.
41:31
Jason Lazarus: So I think you know, both those are two answers to the question.
41:35
Tracy Liberatore: Sure.
41:35
Tracy Liberatore: So if somebody were just thinking, hey, I really like how it sounds, I want to help people sort of like Jason.
41:40
Tracy Liberatore: I mean, they need to start where law school, basically.
41:44
Jason Lazarus: I mean, like, there are people in the profession that are not lawyers.
41:48
Jason Lazarus: You know, you can certainly be a lean negotiator, you can be an advisor on the financial aspects of a personal injury recovery without being a lawyer.
41:59
Jason Lazarus: I mean, that was part of what I did when I first got out of um actively handling litigated matters, was I was doing more consulting on the financial part of the recovery and how to manage everything.
42:13
Jason Lazarus: So you don't have to be a lawyer to do that.
42:16
Jason Lazarus: There are certainly careers within this space that you don't have to be a lawyer to do.
42:23
Jason Lazarus: But, you know, if you really want to do legal work that helps the injured party, then you gotta go to law school.
42:32
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, I find it interesting because I I was in a similar situation myself.
42:36
Tracy Liberatore: You don't necessarily have to be a lawyer to do what I do with medical experts, but it certainly helps with the understanding.
42:42
Tracy Liberatore: And I sort of have felt now, ever since going through law school, I feel like I needed to go through law school just to survive every day, like day-to-day life.
42:52
Tracy Liberatore: Knowing the law just helps with that too.
42:55
Jason Lazarus: So definitely teaches you some important skills, both writing, oral, you know, your your speaking skill sets that you develop through that.
43:05
Jason Lazarus: You're with the wing.
43:08
Tracy Liberatore: Everything you do is a contract.
43:10
Tracy Liberatore: It's crazy.
43:11
Tracy Liberatore: All right.
43:11
Tracy Liberatore: So, how about some quick questions here at the end?
43:13
Tracy Liberatore: Biggest career lesson.
43:15
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I think the biggest thing I've I've learned in my career is that what got you here won't necessarily get you to where you ultimately want to go and in building a company.
43:27
Jason Lazarus: So, my my company synergy, we started with five people in 2008.
43:32
Jason Lazarus: Today it's over a hundred people, you know, in 2026.
43:37
Jason Lazarus: And the journey and how I've had to evolve myself as a leader, you know, eventually um stepping aside as CEO to allow the company to have some different leadership and grow in different ways, but yet still be part of the organization.
43:55
Jason Lazarus: You really have to reinvent yourself and evolve in your career because when I started out in my career, I thought I was gonna be a litigator.
44:05
Jason Lazarus: Well, here I am.
44:06
Jason Lazarus: Now I'm in an alternative legal career and started a company and have grown.
44:11
Jason Lazarus: I mean, it's always going to be a bit of a crooked path.
44:15
Jason Lazarus: And so you've got to be able to recognize your weaknesses and your strengths and how you use that and deploy that to get to the the right destination.
44:27
Jason Lazarus: That and it's always going to change.
44:29
Tracy Liberatore: That's a great piece of advice.
44:31
Tracy Liberatore: So on the heels of that best advice you ever received.
44:34
Jason Lazarus: I've got a uh a lot of people I've worked with over the years that have coached me.
44:40
Jason Lazarus: And I really believe wholeheartedly in coaching because you can't seed the forest for the trees when you're mired.
44:50
Jason Lazarus: In everyday minutiae.
44:54
Jason Lazarus: And some of the best advice I've gotten has been around recognizing that when there's extraordinary stresses going on within a business or within your career or even personally, you have to give yourself grace to realize you're not going to be able to operate at 100%.
45:12
Jason Lazarus: Because if there's something going on that takes away 20, 30, 40% and you're only operating at that, you have to give yourself grace and understand that you can't place the same expectations and demands on your body, on your mind when you're not at full strength.
45:34
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I obviously when I was going through my recovery from my my personal injury case, that was like, and it was so hard because I just wanted to get back to normalcy and really pushed hard to get there, but I didn't really realize how much was being drained away from my capabilities from the physical and mental recovery aspect of that.
46:00
Tracy Liberatore: No, absolutely.
46:00
Tracy Liberatore: That's great advice.
46:02
Tracy Liberatore: Um, how about a most memorable case if you have one?
46:04
Tracy Liberatore: I know we asked sort of that question earlier.
46:07
Jason Lazarus: Most memorable case is one where I helped a family.
46:10
Jason Lazarus: They had been involved in a very serious motor vehicle accident.
46:15
Jason Lazarus: Um, mom and dad and three kids.
46:18
Jason Lazarus: Um mom and dad were significantly injured.
46:23
Jason Lazarus: Two of their daughters were killed, the third was paralyzed.
46:27
Jason Lazarus: And they were the most positive, amazing people to be around.
46:33
Jason Lazarus: And I I struggle to understand how you could maintain that kind of positivity with such a catastrophic situation.
46:42
Jason Lazarus: I mean, I I've got three kids and I could not imagine losing two and having your third be in that situation and being able to maintain that kind of positivity.
46:53
Jason Lazarus: So that that's always stood out in my mind.
46:57
Jason Lazarus: And there's a lot of others, uh just incredible situations that people seem to have, you know, the this ability to overcome that.
47:09
Jason Lazarus: I wish I I understood because it's amazing.
47:13
Tracy Liberatore: I can so hear you on that because I it's something, and I don't know why, but I think of regularly.
47:18
Tracy Liberatore: I have three children as well.
47:19
Tracy Liberatore: And like, you know, you see these different things in the line of work that we do, right?
47:23
Tracy Liberatore: And it's just like, how do you ever recover?
47:26
Tracy Liberatore: Like, because I think about my kids and myself, and I just I don't know.
47:30
Tracy Liberatore: I mean, would I be strong enough to recover from that?
47:34
Tracy Liberatore: It's hard to know.
47:35
Tracy Liberatore: God, I hope I never have to find out.
47:37
Jason Lazarus: Or just, you know, seeing how some parents become these incredible caregivers when a spouse um is catastrophically injured and seeing how much they care.
47:48
Jason Lazarus: And then I've seen the flip side too, where you know, you you see there isn't that care, and you know that planning to protect that injured party is really critical in those situations, protecting them from their own family.
48:03
Tracy Liberatore: Well, absolutely both very great points.
48:05
Tracy Liberatore: So tell us a little bit about yourself.
48:07
Tracy Liberatore: Let's get a little personal here.
48:08
Tracy Liberatore: How about you?
48:09
Tracy Liberatore: Where did you grow up?
48:10
Tracy Liberatore: Were there many siblings, you know?
48:12
Jason Lazarus: Yeah, zero siblings.
48:13
Jason Lazarus: I'm an only child, which I get reminded of every day by my better half.
48:17
Jason Lazarus: She's like, You're such an only child.
48:20
Jason Lazarus: Uh I was born in uh Brooklyn, New York.
48:24
Jason Lazarus: My parents were born and raised in Brooklyn, and they moved to Jersey when I was three.
48:29
Jason Lazarus: So lived there until I was 10, and then I've been in Florida ever since.
48:34
Jason Lazarus: My family relocated here to my parents started a business here in Orlando, and so it's probably part of why I ultimately started a company was that entrepreneurial spirit.
48:46
Jason Lazarus: And uh, but I've been in Orlando for a very long time now, since 1980.
48:51
Jason Lazarus: So I've seen Orlando grow from basically Walt Disney World to what is now a very bustling, large city with a lot of obviously tourism at its at its uh center, but still a great place to to live and raise a family.
49:10
Tracy Liberatore: Oh great.
49:10
Tracy Liberatore: And um have a biggest influence on your life?
49:14
Jason Lazarus: I would say my parents, they are still around, thankfully, declining in health.
49:21
Jason Lazarus: It's tough to watch that with with where they are, but they're still they're still around.
49:27
Jason Lazarus: I didn't wear them last night, and so you know that's incredible that I still have the opportunity.
49:34
Jason Lazarus: They actually live right around the corner from me.
49:36
Jason Lazarus: They in my community, there's a retirement community within a very large master plan community, so I can literally walk to where they are, which is a beautiful thing.
49:46
Tracy Liberatore: That's great.
49:47
Tracy Liberatore: Yeah, no, for most of my adult life, I had lived uh, it was like nine-tenths of a mile from where I grew up.
49:53
Tracy Liberatore: So we've always been close with my parents.
49:55
Tracy Liberatore: Now I've moved about 20 minutes away.
49:56
Tracy Liberatore: But I think it's also great for, and I I imagine your kids too, to really get to know their grandparents and have that.
50:03
Tracy Liberatore: We're very fortunate.
50:03
Tracy Liberatore: I'm very fortunate.
50:04
Tracy Liberatore: You're very fortunate that our parents are still around.
50:07
Tracy Liberatore: And I'm struggling as well with the declining health and looking at them and thinking, I grew up, they were my age, and now they're this age.
50:15
Tracy Liberatore: It's just one of those things that you're like sort of watching and observing, right?
50:19
Jason Lazarus: I've been working very hard of late on my my own longevity and just hopefully not being in the same situation, like with some of the health challenges that they've they've had.
50:29
Tracy Liberatore: As a society, I think we've all grown a little more health conscious.
50:32
Tracy Liberatore: Great.
50:33
Tracy Liberatore: So what did you enjoy doing outside of work?
50:36
Jason Lazarus: So I am uh very much an avid fitness buff, still cycle, although I I don't ride and race like I used to, and I'm very careful about where I ride these days.
50:48
Jason Lazarus: Uh, and then I race cars, um, which is uh another dangerous activity, but so there's a little bit of a theme there.
50:56
Jason Lazarus: Uh I actually instruct other people in learning how to drive on track.
51:02
Jason Lazarus: And so I find that it's the one place where I can really clear my mind because you really have to clear your mind and not be thinking about work or anything else when you're going 160 miles an hour, you you gotta be, you gotta be on point.
51:20
Jason Lazarus: So it's a great way for me to challenge myself, keep keep my mental skills, you know, sharp, and also be able to focus on something other than the day-to-day day stuff that we all struggle with.
51:36
Tracy Liberatore: Final question.
51:37
Tracy Liberatore: If every lawyer listening can make one change tomorrow that would immediately improve the outcomes for catastrophically injured clients, what would that change be?
51:46
Jason Lazarus: Well, I think for personal injury firms is having a process within the firm to identify these types of cases and make sure that ultimately they are flagged within the law firm's case management system and the people handling it understand that there are issues that need to be dealt with and experts that probably need to be retained to help make sure that that the outcome of that case is optimal.
52:14
Jason Lazarus: You know, it's just like with with with experts, it's critical to have the right experts on your side when you're litigating a case, you know, in terms of proving up your case.
52:25
Jason Lazarus: Same thing goes when the case is being resolved as well.
52:28
Jason Lazarus: So and most firms just don't have specific processes to to do this.
52:34
Jason Lazarus: And yeah, I I use a uh a very simple acronym.
52:40
Jason Lazarus: It's CAD, consult, advise, document.
52:43
Jason Lazarus: Consult with experts, advise your client, document everything you're doing.
52:47
Jason Lazarus: Protect your client.
52:49
Tracy Liberatore: Well, Jason, this has really been a fantastic conversation.
52:52
Tracy Liberatore: Um, if you could now just maybe tell everyone if they're looking to try to get in touch with you, where can you be found?
52:58
Jason Lazarus: Well, the easiest way to find me is through my company, Synergy, which is a healthcare lean resolution company.
53:05
Jason Lazarus: It's partner with Synergy.com, S Y N E R G Y.
53:09
Jason Lazarus: Um, I give out my cell phone too.
53:12
Jason Lazarus: If you've got uh a challenging case that you need help with, you can reach me at 407-687-4165.
53:20
Jason Lazarus: Um, and then I've got my law practice, which is special needs firm.
53:24
Jason Lazarus: Uh special needs law firm, specialneedsfirm.com is the website.
53:29
Jason Lazarus: And you can also find my books and information at jasondelazarus.com.
53:36
Tracy Liberatore: Yep.
53:37
Tracy Liberatore: And your podcast is Tri Law Review.
53:40
Jason Lazarus: So I interview mostly trial lawyers, but also industry experts, paralegals, um, trying to help law firms better understand some of the challenging issues, not just related to what I do, but more importantly, how to optimize their practices using technology, marketing, AI, you know, all these things that are topical for a law firm to maintain peak practice.
54:07
Tracy Liberatore: Well, thank you again for taking the time to be with us today.
54:10
Tracy Liberatore: I really appreciate um all the information you shared with us.
54:14
Jason Lazarus: Great to join you today.
54:15
Tracy Liberatore: If today's episode changed how you'll read your next medical record, consider sharing it with a colleague and follow the show so you don't miss future conversations with trial attorneys shaping the space.
54:26
Tracy Liberatore: Statutes and Stethoscopes is brought to you by MedLegal Pro, where I match attorneys with rigorously vetted medical experts and turn complex records into court ready work product.
54:38
Tracy Liberatore: If you're sitting on a case where the medical evidence isn't adding up, consider submitting it for a review.
54:43
Tracy Liberatore: I'm Tracy Libertori, and I'll see you in the next episode.