The Fireproof Podcast

Corey Vandenberg has spent more than 15 years helping law firms get found online—and he believes the rules of SEO are being rewritten in real time.

Since 2019, Corey and Clixsy have managed the Mike Morse Law Firm’s SEO strategy. During that time, search has expanded beyond traditional organic results to include map packs, AI overviews and platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity.

In this episode, Corey sits down wit...

Josh Inkell is building a Delaware personal injury firm designed to punch above its weight.

After nearly a decade defending doctors and insurance companies, Josh encountered a case that made him question which side he wanted to represent. Today, The Inkell Firm handles car crashes, nursing home abuse and medical malpractice—using the predictable revenue from auto cases to fund complex, high-cost litigation.

But Josh’s con...

Jesse Callahan took an unconventional path from practicing attorney to law firm operator.

After starting as a law clerk and gaining experience in pre-litigation, Jesse discovered that she was more energized by the business behind the practice. Today, as Chief of Staff, she connects teams, improves operations and helps turn leadership strategy into action.

In this episode, Jesse joins Kate at the Fireproof Legal Production Summit in C...

Riz Ali is building a personal injury firm in one of the country’s most competitive legal markets.

With an eight-person team and Riz serving as the firm’s only attorney, he has grown without relying on television, radio or billboards. Instead, he shows up at community events, builds referral relationships, creates social media content and invests in learning from law firm owners who are further ahead.

In this episode, Riz...

Perry Schneider has had a front-row seat to nearly two decades of growth at the Mike Morse Law Firm.

He joined when the firm had roughly 30 employees, inherited a distressed docket and was asked to lead the pre-litigation department within his first year. Today, Perry is an attorney and senior business coach at Fireproof, helping law firms build the leadership, structure and accountability needed to grow with intention.

In this episo...

Jen Harvala has spent more than two decades growing alongside the Mike Morse Law Firm.

Starting as a receptionist after working as a hairdresser, she built her career one opportunity at a time—becoming a paralegal, joining the leadership team and eventually overseeing nearly 60 domestic and offshore employees in pre-litigation.

In this episode, Jen breaks down the “how” behind two major department restructures, incl...

For years Mike Morse hired on gut alone, but he was burned more than once.

So he built a system.

Now interviews carry 40% of the decision, testing and resumes split the rest. He reads people the way he used to read tables as a waiter, watching for small tells: a jumpy resume, a typo on a cover letter, a candidate who's five minutes late.

After implementing this system, Mike Morse has built one of the largest personal injury firms in...

Paul Faust runs RingBoost, the country's largest marketplace for custom phone numbers, and he's spent 20 years inside the legal industry building relationships instead of selling to them.

Early on, his job was simple. Sell to a lawyer. But a few years in, he figured out that wasn't actually his job anymore.

When Paul switched his approach from selling to connecting, it changed everything about the work and the results.

In this episode...

After two decades in the digital marketing trenches, Wes Mathews grew restless with the model of just “selling product.” He realized the industry had become a black box, and left many founders blindly trusting vendors with their budgets.

After pivoting to the founder's side, he launched Stealth Consulting to audit marketing services and provide objective clarity.

In this episode of The Fireproof Podcast, Wes explains his ...

Mike Morse ran his law firm as the Visionary and the Integrator for 12 years.. he didn't know there was another way to do it.

He set the firm’s direction and worked the daily grind of every detail to achieve that vision. Which works fine… until it completely collapses.

The moment Mike finally brought someone in to run the operation, he saw what he'd been missing plus his firm grew from 27 employees to 300.

What we covered...

Larry Disparti has built one of Chicago’s most dominant personal injury firms..

Starting in Florida in 2004 with a Social Security disability firm, he expanded into Chicago in 2013. Faced with a hyper-competitive market, he pivoted back to his roots: community-first advocacy. Through initiatives like backpack giveaways, holiday free-ride programs, and anti-bullying campaigns, he transformed his firm into a community pillar.

In ...

Nick Schnyder spent his first years as a lawyer fighting to try a single jury trial and getting told no every time. So he quit.

His wife had just left her job when their son was born. He started with zero clients out of a spare bedroom, but cold emaied every lawyer in a ten mile radius asking them to send him their worst cases.

But that was 10 years ago. Now he runs his Atlanta litigation firm with 11 lawyers and 60 employees.

In this...

Mike Morse built a personal injury firm from nothing into an operation with 300 people. For a long time he thought he was the only one who could talk to clients, close deals, and hold the operation together.

But he was wrong. And it nearly wore him out realizing it.

After a hire through a newspaper ad, came the slow and painful process of handing off the parts of the business he thought only he could run.

What we covered:

→ Why "nobod...

Phil Pendergrass has been practicing personal injury law for over a decade... Last year, he merged his firm with two of his closest colleagues and built something new from the ground up.

But it hasn’t been an easy transition: Two firms with different cultures, both with different ways of doing things. Plus a leadership team that wasn't fully aligned.

Eight weeks into Fireproof, they've redefined their core values, restructured ...

Chris F.N. Rose moved to Vegas on his 21st birthday and dealt casino games for a decade before going to law school and eventually opening his own firm.

He built a referral business aimed at consumers… but after realizing he couldn't compete with the big players he had to scrap the model.

We covered:

→ Why he introduces himself as "Chris F.N. Rose"

→ How ten years dealing craps taught him more about reading people than law schoo...

I wrote a book in 2020 called Fireproof. Five years later, the firm has almost doubled, and Kate wanted to know what still holds up.

So we sat down to go through it chapter by chapter. We started with the first one: Know Thyself.

Here's what I've watched happen over and over. A lawyer builds a good practice, makes good money, then hits a ceiling they can't explain. They know they're a litigator. But they've never asked whether they'r...

Tim spent 16 years in property management before landing at Michael Kelly Injury Lawyers in Boston as their first-ever COO.

No law background. No courtroom experience. Just a sharp business mind and a willingness to do the hard thing first.

He restructured attorney compensation, built a leadership team from scratch, and helped grow the firm. Profitability went from 13% to 28%. Staff went from 32 to 87 with contractors.

Here are the ...

Seth Bader built one of Atlanta's most recognized personal injury firms from the ground up, starting in 2008 with zero team members and a clear mission: fight for injured people the way the insurance companies never would.

But building a firm and running one are two different things.

For years, Seth ran Bader Law the way most lawyers do: he made decisions by gut, spent millions on channels that felt right, and kept waiting for the ...

Angel Reyes has been a plaintiff's attorney for 35 years. His firm has resolved over 70,000 cases and recovered more than $1.3 billion for clients across Texas.

For most of those years, he ran the playbook everyone else ran: TV spots. Billboards. Bus ads.

Over two decades, he spent roughly $200 million on traditional advertising and built a firm that worked. Then in 2019, he walked away from ALL of it. He went all-in on digital, res...