August 5, 2025 • 19 mins
This week, Bob is joined by Josh Schmerling of LawPro.ai and Zirkin and Schmerling Law. Discover how Josh revolutionized his law firm's operations and expanded to over a hundred firms using LawPro.ai. Josh talks Maryland's dog bite laws, the importance of contributory negligence in legal cases, and the groundbreaking AI solutions that are enhancing efficiency and client service in the legal field.
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(00:02):
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin.
You can actually in real time beable to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
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Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andI'm here to talk to you about.
A man that one runs one of the mostefficient law firms in America, came
(00:44):
to us from the state of Maryland today,and he also was wise enough to start
a legal technology company to firstto enhance the operations of his law
firm to make things more efficient.
And now they have over a hundredlaw firms on the platform.
Josh, welcome.
Thanks a lot for having me, Bob.
Really appreciate it.
So first, let everybodyknow what your law firm is,
Zukin and Schmeling Law in Maryland.
(01:04):
We're in Baltimore, we're alsoin, uh, Anne Arundel County
in Maryland.
Um, and the firm, correct me, I'm not,but you guys have actually changed
the law on dog bite cases in Maryland.
Yes, that's right.
So, uh, we've won a couple ofdecisions that got appealed and on
appeal, uh, it further expanded thedog bite law throughout Maryland
for injured victims, uh, throughoutMaryland, which we're really proud of.
But what is, isn't Maryland like one ofthe weird states that has weird laws on,
(01:27):
like if you're injured and stuff, couldyou just educate everybody about that?
Yeah, sure.
Happy to.
So, so Maryland hascontributory negligence.
Uh, so if you're 1% at fault inMaryland, you collect zero on a case.
Zero,
zero.
So if you're, if you get rear-endand they're like, well, you
stop too short a little bit andyou're 1% at fault, you get zero
In theory, you know, you could be crossinga street, not be in the crosswalk,
and doesn't matter, you get hit zero.
(01:50):
So it's wild.
So we have some bad laws thereand we had some really bad dog
bite laws, uh, for a while.
And not, not to bore you withall the back and forth, but the
law changed a lot over the years.
Um, but one thing that was still outthere that was a really bad law was.
You know, a delivery driver,let's say you're a UPS driver,
Amazon delivery driver.
You deliver a package and someone'sdog is out in the yard and bites you.
Well, in Maryland, thathomeowner, that dog owner would
(02:12):
not have been at fault for that.
And um, so it's crazy.
Um, so on appeal, the appellate courtof Maryland actually took the case
that we had and further expanded onthe law, uh, which is a pretty new law.
It's a new law that went intoeffect in the last 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
And basically said that.
No, there is, uh, strict liability.
An dog could be running at large on yourown property if it attacks somebody.
(02:35):
So now all those cases, now whenyou have a delivery driver going to
somebody's home are now strict liability.
But is, but I mean, if you thinkthat should make sense because
people are coming there to give youa service to deliver a package or
mail, and you want to incentivizepeople to keep their property safe.
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
Um, my dad used to be a localdelivery driver for UPS.
He worked there for 35 years and.
(02:57):
When you go out to the more rural placesof Western Pennsylvania and central pa,
he was like, he's like dogs, no problem.
He's like, you know whatthe worst animal was?
Fucking chickens.
He's like, these chickens and roosterswould run up and just peck your
shins and wouldn't leave you alone.
He is like, I'm tellingyou man, this is crazy.
So that's, uh, that's changedthe, uh, chicken pecking law.
(03:18):
That'd have to be, that's probably strictliability, I would assume it's an animal.
Uh, yeah.
I think in Maryland it mightbe if it's, uh, kind of a
dangerous animal off the bat.
And maybe your dad wouldbe an expert on that.
He's also a trucking expert andnow a chicken pecking expert.
Chicken pecking.
Um, yeah.
So you have two locations.
So tell us kind of.
The origin story of how law pro AIkind of developed out, I assume it
(03:40):
developed outta law firm out of need.
Yes, exactly.
So, you know, my law firm, uh, I startedmy law firm right outta law school.
Uh, had no cases, had no clients,my partner and I, uh, we've been
building it up and then we got stuck.
Uh, our revenues were not growing,our caseloads were not growing.
And, and even if our caseloads didgrow, we didn't know what to do with
them or how to move them along fastenough to be able to take on more cases.
Um, and what we figured outwas the, the best people in my
(04:03):
office, my top paralegals, themost knowledgeable, well-trained
paralegals were spending their days.
Reading through medical records.
Mm-hmm.
And we, we decided how were we evergonna grow if that's how we had our
best people spending their time.
And that's when we created LawPro do ai, which basically takes
all the medical records that alaw firm has in personal injury.
We upload it to our system, we createcase, uh, summaries, medical chronologies.
(04:24):
We pull out important information.
We can write, you know, demandletters or calls or relationship
letters or anything else you need.
And, and those people in my office thatwere reading medical records all day, one
of 'em now is my director of operations.
One of 'em manages and doesall the training for all of
my paralegals in the office.
So now we can really move a lot faster.
My office now has, has increasedby 300% in the last couple years.
(04:45):
Wow.
And we're growing like gangbustersbecause we don't have this holding back.
And, and the most important thingis, and I'm sure you would agree, is
making sure that you're not losingwhat you're doing for the client,
that you're keeping the same standardsthat you had before while you grow.
And that's been really important to us,is that we've kept the same standards.
We're getting the exact same resultsand, and Law Pro is actually, frankly,
helping us get better results.
(05:06):
Um, so we haven't lost anything.
We haven't lost that client touch,we haven't lost to be able to
get, you know, fair value forour, for our injured clients.
Um, but we're able toreally grow our firm.
Now,
you're also probably able tospeed up the ability to resolve
cases by using these systems.
Oh, a hundred percent cases, casescome, can, can get resolved much faster.
We don't have to wait on peoplereading through medical records to
understand the case and what to demand.
(05:28):
And when we're negotiating withan adjuster, I don't have to hang
up the phone with them every time.
Review the, the questions that theyhad, why they told me the case was not
valuable enough, and then call them back.
I can tell 'em right on the fly,here are all the objective findings.
They ask me a question or they'retelling me why my case isn't valuable.
I can immediately, you know, queryour system and say, you know, why
is the case have a lot of value?
And they'll give me those answersthat I can read back to 'em.
(05:48):
Wow.
So it's been really helpfulfor our clients, for us.
Um, it's been a win-win.
Yeah.
And, and something elseyou said resonated is.
Those folks that were doing.
Look, when I started my firm bymyself too, probably you as well,
you were doing all these things andit took a lot of, a lot of time.
You've not been able to elevate thosefolks that are doing that into these
higher level managerial positions,
(06:10):
correct?
Yeah.
And that, that's been crucial forus because if you're not layering
kind of with your, with yourpeople, um, a couple things happen.
Number one, um, your bestpeople have nowhere to go.
So eventually they leave the firm.
They're not gonna wanna sit thereand read medical records all day.
They'll get burned out.
They're not gonna,they're not gonna do that.
They need to see an ability to grow.
Um, and so this helped us give theman ability to grow as the firm grows,
(06:30):
you know, um, they get to grow.
And, um, it's, it's just beenphenomenal for, for my staff, for
my employees, for our clients.
So let me ask you this question.
As a law firm owner, if you have, like,I have people that, you know, staff that
work here, and they ask questions of,well, how can I accelerate my career?
What are some thingsthat I should be doing?
Um, how do you incorporate the use ofusing AI into the answer to that question?
(06:55):
Yeah, so, you know, first of all,I think it's really important.
Every law firm has to have KPIs,um, and you have to have KPIs
for every job in the law firm.
So you can give specific metrics that eachperson has to hit within the law firm.
So, so they know whatthey're supposed to do.
If it's just to be in there allday and be like, oh, do as many
cases as you can, or, you know,open up as many claims as you can.
There's no, there's no goals there.
There's no incentive.
(07:16):
So with every single person in my office,there's KPIs and there's certain metrics
that, and goals that we need to hit.
Can you explain what aKPI is for reviews and
listeners?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Uh, key performance indicator and a keyperformance indicator basically tells
each person in my office what the goalis, what, you know, my intake team,
how many intakes should we be signing?
Um, what should be ourpercentage of sign ops?
Um, how many cases we should notbe losing per, per, you know,
(07:39):
week, month, day, whatever it is.
Those are all things that we trackand you can use AI for all this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's, you know, tracking, youknow, um, phone numbers, where they
came from, how well my paid ads aredoing, or it's how well is my intake to
team doing with signups and what are wedoing with the information, where are
we sending it out in terms of, to maybeother law firms, you know, to bring in
other law firms if we don't handle thecase or if it's from a different state.
(08:02):
Um, law Pro for medical records.
There's, there's AI solutionsand technology nowadays for, for
almost any part of the law firmthat, that you wanna use it for.
Yeah, and I think if anybody's, youknow, we do a lot of mentors with young
lawyers, law students and staff, and Ialways say, if you learn how to leverage
technology and learn these systems,you'll probably be a very instant hire
(08:23):
in add value to anywhere you want to
go.
Oh, a hundred.
I, I interviewed a lawyer last week whohappened to know the case management
system that we use really well.
Um, she built it out for a priorfirm when she was a law clerk.
And so for me, yeah, you have a jobhere, uh, because I know that you can
make changes to our case managementsystem whenever we need, and I can
take one of my partners who doesthat now and take 'em off of that.
Um, so the more that we can bring inpeople that can help with our technology
(08:46):
and help that grow, that's justgonna, you know, put gas on the fire.
Yeah.
You know, if we're on our side of thecoin where we're getting paid, you know,
perhaps rather than per hour, you have toleverage these systems and be efficient.
You have to.
Um, so let's talk about the ethic of.
Use of your, of of law pro ai and as alaw firm owner, what steps do you take
or do you encourage our people that arewatching or listening to take to ensure
(09:07):
that they're doing things ethically?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, listen, no, no system out thereis gonna be a hundred percent right now.
AI is not a hundred percent.
If anybody tells you that they're,you know, doing everything a
hundred percent perfect, they'rejust not being truthful and honest.
So every law firm has to understand thatwhatever it is, whether you're citing case
law, which law firm doesn't deal with caselaw, but if you are, it has to be correct
(09:28):
cases, it has to be actual case law.
Um, and it's the lawyer's jobto make sure to check that.
Same thing with the medical records.
You have to make sure that if you'regoing through a chronology or case
summary, that you can see what thesources are and Law Pro provides that.
So anytime we write a demand orcause a relationship letter or, or
anything you want, we have inlinecitations for everything that we do.
So you can click on the citation,which will take you to the exact
medical record so you can check ityourself to make sure it's accurate
(09:50):
before you go telling an adjustersomething or, or using it in court.
Um, so it's really crucialthat as lawyers, right, we,
we are officers of the court.
And, and we have to make sure everythingwe're doing is, is truthful and honest,
even though sometimes the people onthe other side of us might not be.
Yeah.
And so it's, it's thetrust but verify thing.
So like, you know, there's hyperlinks andthere's the ability you guys have, you
(10:10):
know, do the case summaries, the causerelationship, but you can click a button
to verify the information's correct.
And a lot of times, you know, we're.
We're trusting our staff or whateverwe're using to do that anyway.
So you have to verify theinformation's correct.
It's the same, same process,but now it's a lot faster.
You just go click see it.
Okay, good.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Um, and then what also what Law Prodoes, it also has like kind of a
(10:30):
query and then a highlight to showyou like the objective or like the,
the really good stuff about your case.
So the stuff that may not beso good on, on a highlight.
Right.
So we wanna pull out for lawfirms, you know, all the positive
and negative value drivers.
You don't wanna waste your time inlitigation doing depositions, doing
discovery on a case that's not gonna havea lot of value, because there's a lot
of things in the, in the medical recordsthat are just gonna blow your case apart.
(10:52):
It's important to know that from thebeginning so you can have honest and real,
real conversations with your clients.
I mean, uh, you owe it to yourclient to have those conversations.
But the other side also, you wanna pullout all the positive value drivers.
So just a quick example from lastweek, I had a client that was
injured in a dog bite, um, and hadto get a wrist surgery and, um, the
insurance company at first offered 80.
We then got them to one 40 and theyjust said, I'm not going any higher.
(11:16):
Well, law Pro had pulled up, um,specifically that the client woke up
during his medical procedure, um, and,you know, then went back to sleep, but,
but had gotten up and was actually awakewhile they were performing the surgery.
Mm. And I brought that up to the adjusterand it was pulled out for me really
clearly in Law Pro brought up to him,he said, you know, I saw a movie like
that one time where that happened.
It still freaks me out today.
(11:36):
Lemme go reevaluate the case.
And the case ended up settlingwith two more phone calls
for a hundred thousand more.
Wow.
So, so just, you know, thatone little piece of information
made all the difference.
Um, and, and that's whatthese value drivers can do.
The both the positive andthe negative value driver.
Yeah.
And one thing that LoPro does is you guysare subscription based, and I want you
to explain it for viewers and listeners.
'cause some people do it perrun or per page, but you guys
(11:58):
are straight subscription.
Yeah, we do subscription based so that wayyou know what you're paying each month.
Um, and, and you know, we're not chargingyou this much per demand or this much
per this letter or this much per this.
It's all comes in one.
You get the whole package.
And so that way, you know, everymonth, this is how much I'm paying, you
can put all your medical records in.
You don't have to think about it twice.
Um, you know, as you, as you paymore, you're getting a lot more usage.
(12:18):
So it's, it's cheaper as you paymore and you're doing more with us.
Um, but, but yeah, we don't try to toto limit people or have people guess,
you know, this is how many demandsI'm gonna need this month for the rest
of the year, you know, every month.
Mm-hmm.
You know, um, it's just putin whatever you guys want and,
and we take care of the rest.
Yeah.
But it's not like a per case.
Rib.
Yeah, it's not, and I, I like it.
So it's just, hey, you pay this amount.
(12:39):
So like for a lot of litigation firmsor folks that are getting sent cases
to co-counsel refer, it usually comeswith a lot of medical records and it
takes a long time for you to reviewthat and sees this is a case we
wanna work on and get your timelines.
And I think that's a huge usecase for, for Law Pro, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's a perfect casewhere you could immediately
know within, you know, our, our.
(13:00):
Our system goes through a thousandpages in about a half hour or so.
So if you had a thousand pages uploadedwithin a half an hour, you're gonna
be able to have a really good idea.
Is this a case that we canmove forward with litigation?
Can we not move forward?
What are the positives?
What are the negatives?
Um, you know, a 5,000 page casetakes about a half day, so, you
know, you'll know very quicklyand, and we can take any.
Any size, any number ofpages is all at once.
(13:21):
Yeah, but what, but what arethey getting in that timeframe?
Does that come with like the timeline?
All the stuff, everything.
Wow.
The,
the whole case summary,the whole timeline.
Being able to query andask anything you want.
It comes with everything alreadydone within that timeframe.
Wow.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's in real time.
We don't have humans on the back end.
It's all tech-based.
It's all based on engineering, ai,and so it, it allows the law firm
(13:41):
to make a very quick decision.
Also make sure the client isn'thanging out there in limbo.
Like, is this firm gonna take my case?
Are they not gonna take my case?
We know that's a really stressfultime for our clients when, when they
don't know what's happening, whenthey don't know what's going on.
This allows you to really give themcomfort saying, Hey, I can move forward
with the case or say, Hey, I can't,but I have another firm for you.
They can.
Yeah, and, and even if, I mean, imaginewhere you wanna refer a case to another
(14:03):
firm for litigation or trial purposes.
If you had your system already setto go, it makes it so much easier.
Hey, here, like, here's allthe files, here's the record.
By the way, here's everything hyperlinkedso you can see everything quickly.
Then we would know.
Like at my firm within 10minutes, whether or not we could
take that case you would know.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
We have, we have a huge firm that wework with on the East coast that they
(14:23):
send out the vast majority of theircases, they don't do much litigation
and they use us for every case.
And when a case needs to be sentout, which the vast majority of 'em
do, they already have, like you'resaying, they have the PDF timeline with
the hyperlinks and everything else.
And co-counsel firms can decideimmediately, yeah, we'll take this.
We won't take this.
Wow, that's awesome.
So what are your, I mean, are.
(14:43):
I assumed law pro AI's having hypergrowth and the law firm is as well.
So like how do you handle that man?
Well say, I mean, I'm just asking
you like a real question'cause it's a lot, you know,
nobody would know more aboutthat than you probably, but um,
yeah, let's, it's really hard.
You have to have really greatpeople working with you and you
have to rely on those people.
So we have an amazing team at LawPro, uh, engineers, data scientists,
(15:05):
our head of products, incredible.
Um, so just incredible people at Law Pro.
And then my law firm, like Imentioned, my director of operations
who had been reading medicalrecords before, she's amazing.
She, like, there's no amount of, ofwork or issues or things I need her to
fix or look at that she can't take on.
And then, and, and then we've hiredother managers in the office also, so,
wow, it's having a great team of peoplethat are really willing to work hard
(15:27):
and understand why this is so important,you know, for, for a law firm, right?
It's not just about makingmoney, it's helping people.
And if you went into being alaw firm just to make money.
I don't think you're gonna be supersuccessful, and I don't think you're,
your clients are gonna feel that also.
So it's there to help people.
And now Law Pro, we're helping withthat same mission of being able
to help people that are, that arehelping those that are injured.
(15:48):
Wow.
So how do people find you?
Like what's, I mean, 'cause you gotthe law firm side and the Law pro side.
It's start with Law Pro.
How do people get a hold of law
firm?
Law Pro easiest way is, uh, email, um,josh@lawpro.ai, uh, law firm, um, Josh
at z and s law.com, Z as in zebra.
A-N-D-S-L-A w.com
man.
(16:08):
I love it.
Well, thanks for, um,thanks for coming on, man.
And so, if anybody's out thereon the, uh, conference circuit, I
know they're gonna be at Cal Vegas.
That's coming up over Labor Day.
What else do you have on Slate this fall?
Have you guys lined anything else up?
Oh yeah, we've got abunch of stuff coming.
We're gonna be at the Cleo Conference.
Yep.
Um, and, uh, I, I think.
I'm gonna be from end of Augustthrough middle of October every week.
(16:30):
I think we have something else going on.
Yeah, you're you're on the same,probably on the same schedule.
Yeah.
But if you see, if you look, just, ifyou're at these conferences, just look up.
'cause Josh's about six foot 5, 6
4,
6 4, 6 5. But he alwayswears like cool ass kicks.
Like I could see he has the taxi cab.
Um, these are Jordan ones, right?
So always has different type ofJordans on, and I'm a big fan of
them, even though I'm wearing these.
(16:50):
Uh, what are these?
These are natives.
These are slip-ons that my wife issponsored by, so I also get these.
So do the kids.
It's a good little beach shoe look.
It looks nice.
Yeah, it's nice and clean.
You can just like styrofoam or whatever.
It's,
you can wear this withyour Steeler jerseys.
I actually, that's whatI wear every Sunday.
I wear the taxi cabs with theSteeler jerseys, so I have
that, uh, high and a mid.
Oh, okay.
So, yeah.
Well, question is,
what jersey do you, do you wear?
(17:11):
It depends because if theylose, I switch, you know,
superstitious, so like sometimes.
I'll have a really good t-shirtthat I wear and until they
lose and then I'll switch.
But like when they're in the playoffs,the Jerome Betis jersey will come out.
Right?
Classic.
Um, so somebody actually came tomy house and brought me an Aaron
Rogers jersey this year to troll me.
So I don't like how this experiment'sgoing to go, but I, I'm more of a
(17:34):
retro Steeler jersey wear when I do.
How about you?
I'm not a Steeler's.
Uh oh, I know you're not.
Uh, but I'm, I'm actually a Washingtonfan, so, uh, we don't have any bad
blood between football teams here.
Not, no, not at all.
Uh, Jayden is the man, uh, I love watchinghim play and he's just, he seems like
the best teammate you could hope for.
And so amazing year, last year.
I can't wait to see whatthis year has, has in store.
(17:54):
Man.
There was a, a guy when.
We used to play against in highschool named LaVar Arrington.
You remember when he was, ohGod, that guy was an animal.
He was a second or third pick.
You played against.
Yeah, so he was, um, when he wasin high school, he had a little
younger brother named Brian, buthe was the, he actually kicked off.
He was the punter.
He was running back and the linebackerand like, he would just annihilate
(18:16):
you for the whole game, like onhis special teams defense offense.
He played in Penn State, I think.
Yeah.
And, and he just would destroy people.
Yeah.
I Did you have to hit him ever?
I mean, no.
I mean, imagine he was a couple yearsolder, so I wasn't like that wedge
year where like, but he imagine a guythat size playing against, because he
was that size when he was like 13, 14.
I mean, it was just not fair.
(18:38):
And I remember like just watchingand they would just like, literally
just run him up the middle andhe would just run over everybody.
That's insane.
It's insane.
I, I would've gottenoutta the way for sure.
Yeah, we had, Terrell Pryor was in our.
He was our, he played againstmy little brother, um Oh, nice.
Darrell Rivas.
We had a lot, a lot of bigguys that came from that area.
But yeah, my brother's famous story,Darrell Rivas, dunked on him one time.
(18:58):
He was my brother Brandon.
He was our, um, high school, actuallycaptain of the basketball team.
Typical, you know.
Guy played defense shooting guard, hittingthrees, playing solid D, taking pride
in charges and well guys just dunkingon your head, what are you gonna do?
But welcome to Rivas Island,more popular island than other
islands that we hear in the news.
Well Josh, thanks for coming on, brother.
(19:18):
We appreciate you again, we'llsee you all the conferences.
We'll probably be on thesame leg of of everything.
But thank you for picking up thisindustry and making it better.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening, watchingthis episode of The Justice Team
Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin.
You can actually in real time beable to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
being plugged into your firm's intakewith real intelligence CallRail.
Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andI'm here to talk to you about.
A man that one runs one of the mostefficient law firms in America, came
(00:44):
to us from the state of Maryland today,and he also was wise enough to start
a legal technology company to firstto enhance the operations of his law
firm to make things more efficient.
And now they have over a hundredlaw firms on the platform.
Josh, welcome.
Thanks a lot for having me, Bob.
Really appreciate it.
So first, let everybodyknow what your law firm is,
Zukin and Schmeling Law in Maryland.
(01:04):
We're in Baltimore, we're alsoin, uh, Anne Arundel County
in Maryland.
Um, and the firm, correct me, I'm not,but you guys have actually changed
the law on dog bite cases in Maryland.
Yes, that's right.
So, uh, we've won a couple ofdecisions that got appealed and on
appeal, uh, it further expanded thedog bite law throughout Maryland
for injured victims, uh, throughoutMaryland, which we're really proud of.
But what is, isn't Maryland like one ofthe weird states that has weird laws on,
(01:27):
like if you're injured and stuff, couldyou just educate everybody about that?
Yeah, sure.
Happy to.
So, so Maryland hascontributory negligence.
Uh, so if you're 1% at fault inMaryland, you collect zero on a case.
Zero,
zero.
So if you're, if you get rear-endand they're like, well, you
stop too short a little bit andyou're 1% at fault, you get zero
In theory, you know, you could be crossinga street, not be in the crosswalk,
and doesn't matter, you get hit zero.
(01:50):
So it's wild.
So we have some bad laws thereand we had some really bad dog
bite laws, uh, for a while.
And not, not to bore you withall the back and forth, but the
law changed a lot over the years.
Um, but one thing that was still outthere that was a really bad law was.
You know, a delivery driver,let's say you're a UPS driver,
Amazon delivery driver.
You deliver a package and someone'sdog is out in the yard and bites you.
Well, in Maryland, thathomeowner, that dog owner would
(02:12):
not have been at fault for that.
And um, so it's crazy.
Um, so on appeal, the appellate courtof Maryland actually took the case
that we had and further expanded onthe law, uh, which is a pretty new law.
It's a new law that went intoeffect in the last 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
And basically said that.
No, there is, uh, strict liability.
An dog could be running at large on yourown property if it attacks somebody.
(02:35):
So now all those cases, now whenyou have a delivery driver going to
somebody's home are now strict liability.
But is, but I mean, if you thinkthat should make sense because
people are coming there to give youa service to deliver a package or
mail, and you want to incentivizepeople to keep their property safe.
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
Um, my dad used to be a localdelivery driver for UPS.
He worked there for 35 years and.
(02:57):
When you go out to the more rural placesof Western Pennsylvania and central pa,
he was like, he's like dogs, no problem.
He's like, you know whatthe worst animal was?
Fucking chickens.
He's like, these chickens and roosterswould run up and just peck your
shins and wouldn't leave you alone.
He is like, I'm tellingyou man, this is crazy.
So that's, uh, that's changedthe, uh, chicken pecking law.
(03:18):
That'd have to be, that's probably strictliability, I would assume it's an animal.
Uh, yeah.
I think in Maryland it mightbe if it's, uh, kind of a
dangerous animal off the bat.
And maybe your dad wouldbe an expert on that.
He's also a trucking expert andnow a chicken pecking expert.
Chicken pecking.
Um, yeah.
So you have two locations.
So tell us kind of.
The origin story of how law pro AIkind of developed out, I assume it
(03:40):
developed outta law firm out of need.
Yes, exactly.
So, you know, my law firm, uh, I startedmy law firm right outta law school.
Uh, had no cases, had no clients,my partner and I, uh, we've been
building it up and then we got stuck.
Uh, our revenues were not growing,our caseloads were not growing.
And, and even if our caseloads didgrow, we didn't know what to do with
them or how to move them along fastenough to be able to take on more cases.
Um, and what we figured outwas the, the best people in my
(04:03):
office, my top paralegals, themost knowledgeable, well-trained
paralegals were spending their days.
Reading through medical records.
Mm-hmm.
And we, we decided how were we evergonna grow if that's how we had our
best people spending their time.
And that's when we created LawPro do ai, which basically takes
all the medical records that alaw firm has in personal injury.
We upload it to our system, we createcase, uh, summaries, medical chronologies.
(04:24):
We pull out important information.
We can write, you know, demandletters or calls or relationship
letters or anything else you need.
And, and those people in my office thatwere reading medical records all day, one
of 'em now is my director of operations.
One of 'em manages and doesall the training for all of
my paralegals in the office.
So now we can really move a lot faster.
My office now has, has increasedby 300% in the last couple years.
(04:45):
Wow.
And we're growing like gangbustersbecause we don't have this holding back.
And, and the most important thingis, and I'm sure you would agree, is
making sure that you're not losingwhat you're doing for the client,
that you're keeping the same standardsthat you had before while you grow.
And that's been really important to us,is that we've kept the same standards.
We're getting the exact same resultsand, and Law Pro is actually, frankly,
helping us get better results.
(05:06):
Um, so we haven't lost anything.
We haven't lost that client touch,we haven't lost to be able to
get, you know, fair value forour, for our injured clients.
Um, but we're able toreally grow our firm.
Now,
you're also probably able tospeed up the ability to resolve
cases by using these systems.
Oh, a hundred percent cases, casescome, can, can get resolved much faster.
We don't have to wait on peoplereading through medical records to
understand the case and what to demand.
(05:28):
And when we're negotiating withan adjuster, I don't have to hang
up the phone with them every time.
Review the, the questions that theyhad, why they told me the case was not
valuable enough, and then call them back.
I can tell 'em right on the fly,here are all the objective findings.
They ask me a question or they'retelling me why my case isn't valuable.
I can immediately, you know, queryour system and say, you know, why
is the case have a lot of value?
And they'll give me those answersthat I can read back to 'em.
(05:48):
Wow.
So it's been really helpfulfor our clients, for us.
Um, it's been a win-win.
Yeah.
And, and something elseyou said resonated is.
Those folks that were doing.
Look, when I started my firm bymyself too, probably you as well,
you were doing all these things andit took a lot of, a lot of time.
You've not been able to elevate thosefolks that are doing that into these
higher level managerial positions,
(06:10):
correct?
Yeah.
And that, that's been crucial forus because if you're not layering
kind of with your, with yourpeople, um, a couple things happen.
Number one, um, your bestpeople have nowhere to go.
So eventually they leave the firm.
They're not gonna wanna sit thereand read medical records all day.
They'll get burned out.
They're not gonna,they're not gonna do that.
They need to see an ability to grow.
Um, and so this helped us give theman ability to grow as the firm grows,
(06:30):
you know, um, they get to grow.
And, um, it's, it's just beenphenomenal for, for my staff, for
my employees, for our clients.
So let me ask you this question.
As a law firm owner, if you have, like,I have people that, you know, staff that
work here, and they ask questions of,well, how can I accelerate my career?
What are some thingsthat I should be doing?
Um, how do you incorporate the use ofusing AI into the answer to that question?
(06:55):
Yeah, so, you know, first of all,I think it's really important.
Every law firm has to have KPIs,um, and you have to have KPIs
for every job in the law firm.
So you can give specific metrics that eachperson has to hit within the law firm.
So, so they know whatthey're supposed to do.
If it's just to be in there allday and be like, oh, do as many
cases as you can, or, you know,open up as many claims as you can.
There's no, there's no goals there.
There's no incentive.
(07:16):
So with every single person in my office,there's KPIs and there's certain metrics
that, and goals that we need to hit.
Can you explain what aKPI is for reviews and
listeners?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Uh, key performance indicator and a keyperformance indicator basically tells
each person in my office what the goalis, what, you know, my intake team,
how many intakes should we be signing?
Um, what should be ourpercentage of sign ops?
Um, how many cases we should notbe losing per, per, you know,
(07:39):
week, month, day, whatever it is.
Those are all things that we trackand you can use AI for all this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's, you know, tracking, youknow, um, phone numbers, where they
came from, how well my paid ads aredoing, or it's how well is my intake to
team doing with signups and what are wedoing with the information, where are
we sending it out in terms of, to maybeother law firms, you know, to bring in
other law firms if we don't handle thecase or if it's from a different state.
(08:02):
Um, law Pro for medical records.
There's, there's AI solutionsand technology nowadays for, for
almost any part of the law firmthat, that you wanna use it for.
Yeah, and I think if anybody's, youknow, we do a lot of mentors with young
lawyers, law students and staff, and Ialways say, if you learn how to leverage
technology and learn these systems,you'll probably be a very instant hire
(08:23):
in add value to anywhere you want to
go.
Oh, a hundred.
I, I interviewed a lawyer last week whohappened to know the case management
system that we use really well.
Um, she built it out for a priorfirm when she was a law clerk.
And so for me, yeah, you have a jobhere, uh, because I know that you can
make changes to our case managementsystem whenever we need, and I can
take one of my partners who doesthat now and take 'em off of that.
Um, so the more that we can bring inpeople that can help with our technology
(08:46):
and help that grow, that's justgonna, you know, put gas on the fire.
Yeah.
You know, if we're on our side of thecoin where we're getting paid, you know,
perhaps rather than per hour, you have toleverage these systems and be efficient.
You have to.
Um, so let's talk about the ethic of.
Use of your, of of law pro ai and as alaw firm owner, what steps do you take
or do you encourage our people that arewatching or listening to take to ensure
(09:07):
that they're doing things ethically?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, listen, no, no system out thereis gonna be a hundred percent right now.
AI is not a hundred percent.
If anybody tells you that they're,you know, doing everything a
hundred percent perfect, they'rejust not being truthful and honest.
So every law firm has to understand thatwhatever it is, whether you're citing case
law, which law firm doesn't deal with caselaw, but if you are, it has to be correct
(09:28):
cases, it has to be actual case law.
Um, and it's the lawyer's jobto make sure to check that.
Same thing with the medical records.
You have to make sure that if you'regoing through a chronology or case
summary, that you can see what thesources are and Law Pro provides that.
So anytime we write a demand orcause a relationship letter or, or
anything you want, we have inlinecitations for everything that we do.
So you can click on the citation,which will take you to the exact
medical record so you can check ityourself to make sure it's accurate
(09:50):
before you go telling an adjustersomething or, or using it in court.
Um, so it's really crucialthat as lawyers, right, we,
we are officers of the court.
And, and we have to make sure everythingwe're doing is, is truthful and honest,
even though sometimes the people onthe other side of us might not be.
Yeah.
And so it's, it's thetrust but verify thing.
So like, you know, there's hyperlinks andthere's the ability you guys have, you
(10:10):
know, do the case summaries, the causerelationship, but you can click a button
to verify the information's correct.
And a lot of times, you know, we're.
We're trusting our staff or whateverwe're using to do that anyway.
So you have to verify theinformation's correct.
It's the same, same process,but now it's a lot faster.
You just go click see it.
Okay, good.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Um, and then what also what Law Prodoes, it also has like kind of a
(10:30):
query and then a highlight to showyou like the objective or like the,
the really good stuff about your case.
So the stuff that may not beso good on, on a highlight.
Right.
So we wanna pull out for lawfirms, you know, all the positive
and negative value drivers.
You don't wanna waste your time inlitigation doing depositions, doing
discovery on a case that's not gonna havea lot of value, because there's a lot
of things in the, in the medical recordsthat are just gonna blow your case apart.
(10:52):
It's important to know that from thebeginning so you can have honest and real,
real conversations with your clients.
I mean, uh, you owe it to yourclient to have those conversations.
But the other side also, you wanna pullout all the positive value drivers.
So just a quick example from lastweek, I had a client that was
injured in a dog bite, um, and hadto get a wrist surgery and, um, the
insurance company at first offered 80.
We then got them to one 40 and theyjust said, I'm not going any higher.
(11:16):
Well, law Pro had pulled up, um,specifically that the client woke up
during his medical procedure, um, and,you know, then went back to sleep, but,
but had gotten up and was actually awakewhile they were performing the surgery.
Mm. And I brought that up to the adjusterand it was pulled out for me really
clearly in Law Pro brought up to him,he said, you know, I saw a movie like
that one time where that happened.
It still freaks me out today.
(11:36):
Lemme go reevaluate the case.
And the case ended up settlingwith two more phone calls
for a hundred thousand more.
Wow.
So, so just, you know, thatone little piece of information
made all the difference.
Um, and, and that's whatthese value drivers can do.
The both the positive andthe negative value driver.
Yeah.
And one thing that LoPro does is you guysare subscription based, and I want you
to explain it for viewers and listeners.
'cause some people do it perrun or per page, but you guys
(11:58):
are straight subscription.
Yeah, we do subscription based so that wayyou know what you're paying each month.
Um, and, and you know, we're not chargingyou this much per demand or this much
per this letter or this much per this.
It's all comes in one.
You get the whole package.
And so that way, you know, everymonth, this is how much I'm paying, you
can put all your medical records in.
You don't have to think about it twice.
Um, you know, as you, as you paymore, you're getting a lot more usage.
(12:18):
So it's, it's cheaper as you paymore and you're doing more with us.
Um, but, but yeah, we don't try to toto limit people or have people guess,
you know, this is how many demandsI'm gonna need this month for the rest
of the year, you know, every month.
Mm-hmm.
You know, um, it's just putin whatever you guys want and,
and we take care of the rest.
Yeah.
But it's not like a per case.
Rib.
Yeah, it's not, and I, I like it.
So it's just, hey, you pay this amount.
(12:39):
So like for a lot of litigation firmsor folks that are getting sent cases
to co-counsel refer, it usually comeswith a lot of medical records and it
takes a long time for you to reviewthat and sees this is a case we
wanna work on and get your timelines.
And I think that's a huge usecase for, for Law Pro, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's a perfect casewhere you could immediately
know within, you know, our, our.
(13:00):
Our system goes through a thousandpages in about a half hour or so.
So if you had a thousand pages uploadedwithin a half an hour, you're gonna
be able to have a really good idea.
Is this a case that we canmove forward with litigation?
Can we not move forward?
What are the positives?
What are the negatives?
Um, you know, a 5,000 page casetakes about a half day, so, you
know, you'll know very quicklyand, and we can take any.
Any size, any number ofpages is all at once.
(13:21):
Yeah, but what, but what arethey getting in that timeframe?
Does that come with like the timeline?
All the stuff, everything.
Wow.
The,
the whole case summary,the whole timeline.
Being able to query andask anything you want.
It comes with everything alreadydone within that timeframe.
Wow.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's in real time.
We don't have humans on the back end.
It's all tech-based.
It's all based on engineering, ai,and so it, it allows the law firm
(13:41):
to make a very quick decision.
Also make sure the client isn'thanging out there in limbo.
Like, is this firm gonna take my case?
Are they not gonna take my case?
We know that's a really stressfultime for our clients when, when they
don't know what's happening, whenthey don't know what's going on.
This allows you to really give themcomfort saying, Hey, I can move forward
with the case or say, Hey, I can't,but I have another firm for you.
They can.
Yeah, and, and even if, I mean, imaginewhere you wanna refer a case to another
(14:03):
firm for litigation or trial purposes.
If you had your system already setto go, it makes it so much easier.
Hey, here, like, here's allthe files, here's the record.
By the way, here's everything hyperlinkedso you can see everything quickly.
Then we would know.
Like at my firm within 10minutes, whether or not we could
take that case you would know.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
We have, we have a huge firm that wework with on the East coast that they
(14:23):
send out the vast majority of theircases, they don't do much litigation
and they use us for every case.
And when a case needs to be sentout, which the vast majority of 'em
do, they already have, like you'resaying, they have the PDF timeline with
the hyperlinks and everything else.
And co-counsel firms can decideimmediately, yeah, we'll take this.
We won't take this.
Wow, that's awesome.
So what are your, I mean, are.
(14:43):
I assumed law pro AI's having hypergrowth and the law firm is as well.
So like how do you handle that man?
Well say, I mean, I'm just asking
you like a real question'cause it's a lot, you know,
nobody would know more aboutthat than you probably, but um,
yeah, let's, it's really hard.
You have to have really greatpeople working with you and you
have to rely on those people.
So we have an amazing team at LawPro, uh, engineers, data scientists,
(15:05):
our head of products, incredible.
Um, so just incredible people at Law Pro.
And then my law firm, like Imentioned, my director of operations
who had been reading medicalrecords before, she's amazing.
She, like, there's no amount of, ofwork or issues or things I need her to
fix or look at that she can't take on.
And then, and, and then we've hiredother managers in the office also, so,
wow, it's having a great team of peoplethat are really willing to work hard
(15:27):
and understand why this is so important,you know, for, for a law firm, right?
It's not just about makingmoney, it's helping people.
And if you went into being alaw firm just to make money.
I don't think you're gonna be supersuccessful, and I don't think you're,
your clients are gonna feel that also.
So it's there to help people.
And now Law Pro, we're helping withthat same mission of being able
to help people that are, that arehelping those that are injured.
(15:48):
Wow.
So how do people find you?
Like what's, I mean, 'cause you gotthe law firm side and the Law pro side.
It's start with Law Pro.
How do people get a hold of law
firm?
Law Pro easiest way is, uh, email, um,josh@lawpro.ai, uh, law firm, um, Josh
at z and s law.com, Z as in zebra.
A-N-D-S-L-A w.com
man.
(16:08):
I love it.
Well, thanks for, um,thanks for coming on, man.
And so, if anybody's out thereon the, uh, conference circuit, I
know they're gonna be at Cal Vegas.
That's coming up over Labor Day.
What else do you have on Slate this fall?
Have you guys lined anything else up?
Oh yeah, we've got abunch of stuff coming.
We're gonna be at the Cleo Conference.
Yep.
Um, and, uh, I, I think.
I'm gonna be from end of Augustthrough middle of October every week.
(16:30):
I think we have something else going on.
Yeah, you're you're on the same,probably on the same schedule.
Yeah.
But if you see, if you look, just, ifyou're at these conferences, just look up.
'cause Josh's about six foot 5, 6
4,
6 4, 6 5. But he alwayswears like cool ass kicks.
Like I could see he has the taxi cab.
Um, these are Jordan ones, right?
So always has different type ofJordans on, and I'm a big fan of
them, even though I'm wearing these.
(16:50):
Uh, what are these?
These are natives.
These are slip-ons that my wife issponsored by, so I also get these.
So do the kids.
It's a good little beach shoe look.
It looks nice.
Yeah, it's nice and clean.
You can just like styrofoam or whatever.
It's,
you can wear this withyour Steeler jerseys.
I actually, that's whatI wear every Sunday.
I wear the taxi cabs with theSteeler jerseys, so I have
that, uh, high and a mid.
Oh, okay.
So, yeah.
Well, question is,
what jersey do you, do you wear?
(17:11):
It depends because if theylose, I switch, you know,
superstitious, so like sometimes.
I'll have a really good t-shirtthat I wear and until they
lose and then I'll switch.
But like when they're in the playoffs,the Jerome Betis jersey will come out.
Right?
Classic.
Um, so somebody actually came tomy house and brought me an Aaron
Rogers jersey this year to troll me.
So I don't like how this experiment'sgoing to go, but I, I'm more of a
(17:34):
retro Steeler jersey wear when I do.
How about you?
I'm not a Steeler's.
Uh oh, I know you're not.
Uh, but I'm, I'm actually a Washingtonfan, so, uh, we don't have any bad
blood between football teams here.
Not, no, not at all.
Uh, Jayden is the man, uh, I love watchinghim play and he's just, he seems like
the best teammate you could hope for.
And so amazing year, last year.
I can't wait to see whatthis year has, has in store.
(17:54):
Man.
There was a, a guy when.
We used to play against in highschool named LaVar Arrington.
You remember when he was, ohGod, that guy was an animal.
He was a second or third pick.
You played against.
Yeah, so he was, um, when he wasin high school, he had a little
younger brother named Brian, buthe was the, he actually kicked off.
He was the punter.
He was running back and the linebackerand like, he would just annihilate
(18:16):
you for the whole game, like onhis special teams defense offense.
He played in Penn State, I think.
Yeah.
And, and he just would destroy people.
Yeah.
I Did you have to hit him ever?
I mean, no.
I mean, imagine he was a couple yearsolder, so I wasn't like that wedge
year where like, but he imagine a guythat size playing against, because he
was that size when he was like 13, 14.
I mean, it was just not fair.
(18:38):
And I remember like just watchingand they would just like, literally
just run him up the middle andhe would just run over everybody.
That's insane.
It's insane.
I, I would've gottenoutta the way for sure.
Yeah, we had, Terrell Pryor was in our.
He was our, he played againstmy little brother, um Oh, nice.
Darrell Rivas.
We had a lot, a lot of bigguys that came from that area.
But yeah, my brother's famous story,Darrell Rivas, dunked on him one time.
(18:58):
He was my brother Brandon.
He was our, um, high school, actuallycaptain of the basketball team.
Typical, you know.
Guy played defense shooting guard, hittingthrees, playing solid D, taking pride
in charges and well guys just dunkingon your head, what are you gonna do?
But welcome to Rivas Island,more popular island than other
islands that we hear in the news.
Well Josh, thanks for coming on, brother.
(19:18):
We appreciate you again, we'llsee you all the conferences.
We'll probably be on thesame leg of of everything.
But thank you for picking up thisindustry and making it better.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening, watchingthis episode of The Justice Team
Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
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