August 26, 2025 • 30 mins
Law firm growth isn't always about getting bigger. Here's what 40 years of practicing law taught Jeffrey about smart scaling.
Most lawyers think law firm growth means taking every case that walks through the door. Jeffrey's small law firm scaling approach proves otherwise. His boutique law firm management strategy focuses on legal practice sustainability over quick wins, showing why attorney firm size optimization beats cookie-cutter expansion.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@TylerxDolph
📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit
---
📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Growth: 40 Years of Hard-Won Lessons From Jeffrey
1:44 - Small Law Firm Scaling: Why Size Isn't Everything in Daytona
3:51 - Attorney Career Progression: From Wall Street to Wilson Elser Partnership
8:58 - Law Firm Capacity Management: Choosing Quality Over Quantity
11:46 - Legal Practice Sustainability: The Brain Trust Decision-Making Model
18:14 - Attorney Business Development: The $180M Case That Changed Everything
24:17 - Legal Practice Specialization: Why Preparation Beats Everything Else
----------------------
Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers?
Follow these steps:
1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
3. CONNECT WITH US:
LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
Facebook: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
Instagram: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls
4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jeff has over 40 years of law experience and now
is a partner at the Daytona lawfirm practicing insurance law.
He has a wealth of knowledge toshare with you and I hope you
enjoy this episode.
My name is Tyler Dolph.
(00:20):
I am the CEO of RocketClicks,which is our partner agency.
We exclusively work on familylaw firms nationwide, built from
the success of our own familylaw firm called Sterling Lawyers
, which has grown to over 30attorneys and 25 offices across
Wisconsin and Illinois.
(00:40):
Today we are interviewingJeffrey from the Daytona Law
Firm.
Jeffrey has over 40 years ofexperience.
He works and focuses oninsurance law and the PI side of
things, but his firm ismulti-practice.
He shares valuable insightswith us over the span of his
career and I really hope youenjoy the episode, jeffrey.
(01:04):
Thank you so much for beingwith us today.
We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love it.
Give us a little introductionto yourself and your firm, and
then I'd like to start way backat the beginning, when you first
got started in law.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Sure, so I'm a partner at a law firm, really a
shareholder.
We're a limited liabilitycompany at what I call a small
firm in Daytona Beach, florida,although for Daytona it's like
the second largest firm.
So it's more of a big fish in asmall pond these days, and ever
(01:38):
since 1996.
Ever since 1996.
The firm itself, smith BigmanBrock, got started in I think
it's 1988, by some folks thatleft another law firm locally
(01:59):
and started up their ownpractice and I joined it, coming
from New York, in 1996.
It's a multi-specialty practice.
About half of it is insurancedefense-based, which is what I
do.
I'm a board-certified civiltrial lawyer.
I'm also certified by a BOTA.
I've tried a lot of cases overthe last 42 years.
(02:20):
I started out in New York City,new York City, born and raised
you can see a lot of New Yorkstuff in the background of my
home office here and I graduatedfrom Fordham Law in 1983 and
went to work for a firm that Ihad worked with as a law student
(02:41):
on Wall Street doing commerciallitigation and it was not for
me because I was not going toget into court doing that.
I saw that there were lawyersthere for six years that hadn't
really taken a deposition.
A lot of it was preventativelaw for ABC, the network, and it
(03:06):
was just.
I wanted to get into court andI switched after a year to a
medical malpractice defense firmand then spent the next 12, 13
years defending doctors,hospitals, podiatrists in court
and started trying cases.
I think I second chaired cases.
(03:27):
The first year I was at the firmthat I went to and then
switched firms a couple of yearslater to go with a bigger firm
that needed trial lawyers,called Wilson Elser.
At the time Wilson Elser was, Iwant to say, 90 lawyers.
When I joined them in 1987 whenmy daughter was born, and by
(03:52):
the time I left at the end of 95, they were 450 lawyers.
Wow, and now I looked it upthis morning just to see what
the current was, because thelast time I looked they were
approaching a thousand.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
There are 1300 lawyers now, that is a mega firm
.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, so they're one of the largest insurance defense
firms in the world.
I don't know.
I think they've said they arethe largest at a few times, but
I've seen others that have growntremendously over the years too
.
And what was interesting was Imade partner there after seven
years of practice, which was thefastest track you could have in
(04:31):
that firm, which was nice.
But I walked in there tryingcases and was part of a team of.
When I got there they had, Ithink, about 15 MedMal lawyers
with only two of them tryingcases at the time, and I became
the third.
When I left there, we had about50 MedMal lawyers with about 10
of them trying cases, and so itreally was a growing practice
(04:56):
and as long as you had thecapability of doing the trial
work, you were a valuablecommodity.
As a matter of fact, they'vereached out to me a couple of
times to come back to New York,but I got dragged to Florida by
my ex-wife and settled in herequite nicely.
So I learned trial law in NewYork and it was a little bit of
(05:26):
a different animal there too,because it's and I still this
way talking to my friends atWilson, elster and other firms
in the MedMal arena.
There it's still trial byambush, you don't identify the
experts and you don't takeexpert depositions, and so it's
kind of like almost like the oldWest, a little cowboys and
(05:48):
Indians style, and so and it'ssolely in MedMal, because in
other areas of specialty theyfind out who the experts are,
they take depositions.
It's more like federal courtand more like Florida.
But when I came to Florida,somewhat kicking and screaming,
(06:09):
I and did you leave the firmLike you couldn't work.
I proposed to Wilson Elster thatthey open a Daytona office and
they had had a bad experiencewith the Miami office at that
time and they thought thatDaytona was a small town which
it is, and that Daytona thattheir clients wouldn't pay their
(06:30):
rate structure in Daytona.
So they said you know, go withour blessing, but we're not
going to open an office there.
And I ended up landing in aplace where I still am.
The lawyers that were operatingthis firm my ex-wife was a
(06:54):
physician and the people thatrecruited me were friends with
people at the firm gave me theintroduction.
We had a mutual need.
They wanted to continue to growtheir practice.
I wanted a place to grow mybusiness.
I want to try to establish medmal.
There wasn't a lot of uh med malin florida still isn't um the
(07:18):
way it's developed here.
The doctors mostly have $250,000policies which are like really
small and it kind of discourageslawsuits.
There was tort reform years agowhich discouraged a lot of med
mal lawsuits from theplaintiff's side and there's
just a lot of other verylucrative areas here and it's
(07:44):
much more favorable for badfaith for the plaintiffs here.
We have a lot of advertisingfirms here that have really
driven up the car accidentbusiness and the firm I joined
was already doing some insurancedefense mostly motor vehicle
(08:04):
and some slip and fall andthings like that.
So I ended up, after a fewmonths of settling in joining
that practice area and ended upsharing the insurance defense
group with a partner of minethat ended up going on the bench
back in I think it was 2009.
And then it became mine and nowI have one junior partner and
(08:29):
one person of counsel thatreally should be a partner.
She was a partner and decidedto have some more quality of
life left, came back, so she'llprobably end up being a partner
again, but in the firm of 15attorneys there's seven of us
doing insurance defense.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And how big was the firm, how many attorneys, when
you came over.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It was about 10 or 12 attorneys.
We're still pretty much on thesame blueprint and we're not
looking to grow to be a big,mega firm.
Matter of fact, we turned a lotof work away over the years to
stay the size that we are.
We have decent leverage because, you know, for the 15 attorneys
(09:14):
we have about 15 paralegals andlike 15 legal assistants and
three administrators, you know.
So it ends up being about 50people to support, you know, 15
attorneys altogether and I thinkit's a good model.
The big difference that I sawcoming from Wilson Elser and
(09:38):
going to a small firm was youknow everything.
You know, in the big firm it'smore like a corporation.
A big firm it's more like acorporation.
And even the compensation, youknow.
It was like you'd be going stepby step, even as a partner, and
if you were within a certainclass of people, you would have
this established amount and thenyou'd get bonused at the end of
(09:59):
the year and you really theywould tell you that there were
different factors, but it wouldbe some executive committee
making a secret decision abouthow much money you got at the
end of the year and you know howmuch money went into my defined
benefit plan, the you know thepension aspect of it.
So I mean I don't think I wouldhave left if right away, if my
(10:23):
ex didn't want to move toFlorida, but at the same time
I'm pretty sure I would haveleft with one of two waves of
people that defected fromWilson-Elser, because two of my
fellow trial partners left likeone year later and another one
left two years later to formtheir own firms, and I probably
(10:45):
would have gone with one of thetwo of them and then been part
of, instead of this mega 1300lawyer firm, a hundred lawyer
firm or 50 lawyer firm that theythey have presently and it just
the corporate structure was awas a bit too much, I think, as
they grew and grew.
(11:05):
But what I like about thesmaller firm is that while
there's enough people to bouncethings off of because we always
we call it our brain trust whenwe have something that you know
we want to make a you knowdecision on a case or even a
personnel matter, we'll justwe'll kind of run it up the
flagpole with everyone.
(11:25):
There's people to bounce it offof but at the same time it's
not so big that you get lost inthe weeds.
I think that I know that youknow part of the purpose of your
podcast is to teach youngpeople how to run law firms, and
one of the things is, I thinkthat you don't exceed your
capabilities.
One of the things is, I thinkthat you don't exceed your your
capabilities, so you have torealize how much you want to
(11:49):
grow.
You know, while continuing togive the same quality of work,
you need to know when to turnwork away, whether it's outside
your specialty or because youhave just too much work.
(12:10):
What we ran into here in Floridawas during the pandemic, the
work just kept coming in and wehad a crisis here in Florida on
first party property and westarted taking some of that and
then it got almost overwhelmingand we just had to say, hey,
stop, we're at capacity and weneed to also service the clients
that we've had for 30 years.
(12:31):
And then, once the courtsreopened, we had another kind of
crisis here in Florida wherethere was tort reform and just
ahead of the tort reform, allthe plaintiff's attorneys dumped
all their inventory into thesystem in order to avoid the
ramifications of the tort reform, and so we had I think it was
(12:55):
like three times the normalfilings for that year of 2023,
this tort reform happened and weturned a lot of work away.
And we turned a lot of workaway and you know a lot of the
insurance company clients thatwe have.
They had to expand theircounsel base.
But I think they respected thefact that we weren't going to
(13:16):
just try to grow without goodreason and that we would just do
quality work on the number ofcases we felt we could accept.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think that's such a huge point, especially for
young attorneys starting out andmaybe hanging their own shingle
or working at a smaller lawfirm.
The tendency is to take on asmuch as you can right Because
you're like revenue is oxygen atthe beginning and if you overdo
that and then you sacrificeservice, you're almost setting
(13:51):
yourself up for disaster longterm.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think I've watched more.
So the well I guess both sidesreally.
Plaintiffs and defense firms inthe personal injury arena grow
so fast here in Florida and,without naming names of firms,
the quality has gone downtremendously at a lot of the
(14:15):
larger firms and while they havea lot of quality at the top,
they're not giving good trainingto the people at the bottom.
The people at the bottom arejust kind of running a formulary
type of practice where they gettold okay, this is what you do.
You do X, y and Z on a case andyou just do that on every case.
(14:37):
And that's not the way topractice law.
Law was not meant to be a cookiecutter type of thing.
Or you know, just take a recipeand you follow it on every
single thing.
You'll you'll eat the samebland food every time it's.
You've got to look at everycase individually on its own,
(14:57):
treat every client like they'rean individual and, you know, an
insurance defense.
We always have to keep it clearin our mind in third party cases
where an insurance company ishiring us to represent someone,
that that someone is our client,not the insurance company, and
that's a distinction that itseems to me a lot of the larger
(15:22):
insurance defense firms don'tget.
Larger insurance defense firmsdon't get.
I've seen them even say incourt my client meaning the
insurance company, when that'snot their client, and sometimes
the judge or the plaintiff'sattorney will say, hey, that's
not your client.
Your client is this individualthat I sued and they're
(15:42):
absolutely right and I neverlose sight that it's that
individual and I think that theclient preservation and you know
you're doing a good job keepsthe business that you have,
which is the most importantthing thing.
(16:07):
You know it's that old bird inhand worth two in the bush.
Well, you can go out and getnew business.
Never sacrifice trying to getnew business for keeping your
current clients happy 100% agree.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's so interesting to watch the personal injury
space being in marketing.
We have, you know, the agencyas well.
We see so many personal injuryattorneys focus on branding and
building brands, which I thinkyou have to do in that space
because that's how people buy inthat space.
But they become almost likejust churn factories, these PI
(16:40):
firms that just want to getsettlements and they want to
process as many cases as theycan.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And really the only person that loses there is the
person that signs up.
The firm decides, hey, this isa valuable case and they take
risks for that client, that theclient, I don't think, goes in
sometimes with completely openeyes and when they could get a
(17:15):
good settlement, but this firmdecides this is a case to try
and then they end up trying itand if they lose it, the client
goes away with nothing.
And I see that all too often,you know, on the flip side, I
also see, you know, especiallywith larger firms on the defense
(17:35):
side, where, like I said, it'sthis cookie cutter practice and
they're doing things that seemto aim more at billable hours
and, you know, just following achecklist rather than doing
what's going to aid the case inits defense.
I inherited a case a few yearsago, a terrible case, and I
(18:00):
really felt that the lawyer whohad handled it before me created
a conflict to get out fromtrying the case lawyer who had
handled it before me created aconflict to get out from trying
the case.
The case was on the eve oftrial.
It was in Ocala, florida, whichis about an hour and a half
from me, and a mother wasdriving her four sons home from
(18:21):
school and got rear-ended by myclient at a traffic light where
he was going about 70 miles anhour, high on cocaine, with his
stepdaughter in the car.
When you looked at the vehicleand the vehicles you wouldn't
(18:42):
know how anyone would havesurvived in this car and it
looked like an accordion and theplaintiff's attorneys actually
brought the car to the courtroomfor a view by the jurors.
And the mother in the front seatsuffered a broken back and a
(19:02):
mild traumatic brain injury.
The three boys in the back, onewas a one and a half year old.
He ended up becoming a braindamaged paraplegic.
Another boy in the back brokeboth his femurs, the hardest
bone in the body to break.
And the other boy in the backsuffered terrible degloving
(19:23):
injuries from the middle of hisback down to his ankles and he
ended up with about 13 surgeriesas of the time of trial and
would always walk with analtered gait and had basically
been homebound in the yearsbefore the trial.
And then the boy in the frontseat was almost unscathed but
had emotional injuries fromseeing all this happen to the
(19:46):
family and the mother got takento one hospital and the little
boy was on life support taken toanother hospital and the father
, who was not in the car but wasa consortium plaintiff, had to
go back and forth to tell themother how the little boy was
doing for weeks as they wereboth in different hospitals.
(20:06):
And it was probably the mostsympathetic case I've ever tried
.
And when I looked at the workupthat had been done that the
lawyers from one of these bigfirms had had all these
plaintiffs examined by likemultiple specialists and they
were all really injured andthere was no way I was going to
(20:29):
use those experts in the trialthat they had hired like five
experts for each plaintiff, andto me it was what was the
purpose of all that?
And that's where you know thedifference between thinking
about what you actually need fora case and you know what you're
(20:49):
going to do to make money.
And that was not the case to doall those things on, and I
ended up basically putting onalmost no witnesses, being very
gentle with everyone.
The plaintiffs asked for $180million.
I told the jury to give themwhat added up to about $20
(21:13):
million and they ended up giving$50 million and everybody was
happy on my end with the result.
Now there wasn't enoughinsurance coverage for that, but
there was subsequent litigationover bad faith and that I
understand resolved for someconfidential amount.
(21:34):
But it was a case where so muchwas done that didn't need to be
done on the defense side and Iuse that as an example to my
associates and to you knowpeople in my industry when I go
to conferences.
This is not the way you work upthese cases.
You need to look at each caseindividually, see what.
(21:57):
What are you going to want toput on at a trial.
And a lot of people just don'ttry a lot of cases and so I
think they they lose sight ofwhat is actually needed and
what's going to happen at atrial.
And I will say that over theyears trials have evolved so
(22:17):
much and I think that at leasthere in Florida, the plaintiff's
bar has often been one stepahead of the defense bar in
their tactics and they just keep.
You know you have to really stayon top of it.
You know, in the last decadewe've seen a rise in these
nuclear verdicts and all theseplaintiffs' attorneys are
(22:38):
following the reptile theory andyou know they're doing it to a
T.
Now it's the use of AI and nowthere's webinars out there.
I see it on both sides and Iget the Abota side, so I get
kind of both.
You know, it's use of AI attrial is like the most popular
(23:00):
webinar that there is now, andI've got to tell you I've
dabbled in it a bit.
You know, and it's hard toteach an old dog new tricks.
But it's amazing what you know,chat, gpt and the Google genius
how they can reword somethingfor you, even, even even a
(23:21):
complaint to an airline or ahotel.
They could say a lot betterthan than you can if you just
give them the basics.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
It's been unbelievable, I mean for us both
at our law firm and ourconsultancy being able to
leverage AI, I think, in anethical like.
We think about it as thoughtstarter right.
It's an opportunity to create adraft or to open a discussion
and create a thought to reallypolish it.
But it'll be interesting to seehow it affects law firms
(23:53):
nationwide and we're going toactually do a whole series on AI
, so make sure to stick aroundfor that.
But, jeffrey, I'd like to aswe're kind of concluding here,
given the fact that you've beenpracticing for over 40 years.
You've had so many experiencesand I've loved your narrative as
it relates to really thinkingabout each case as an individual
(24:14):
one, especially in theinsurance space, going to trial
and being okay with that.
Is there any additionallearnings that you could impart
on our listeners as it relatesto being successful in your role
?
You know you've been, you'vehad to work hard and you've made
(24:34):
partner at now two differentfirms, and I'm sure that wasn't
by accident.
So give our listeners a littleperspective on what it really
takes to be successful in alarge firm.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know, I think in a large firm or a small firm or
even as a sole practitioner, themost important thing you could
ever be is prepared, if you justtry to master your craft and
continue to get better it's soimportant and also to be a
(25:05):
well-rounded individual.
We always encourage our folksto get involved in the community
in whichever way they have apassion.
So like when my kids weregrowing up, I coached baseball
and softball from when they werefour years old till they were
12.
I've always been involved inorganizations locally and I've
(25:27):
always been involved inorganizations locally, mostly on
my side.
I'm Jewish and I've been templepresident.
I was on the temple board for30 something years.
I just finally resigned andsaid let's stay my place, but I
continue to be on the board ofthe Jewish Federation locally
(25:48):
and I chair a Jewish HeritageFestival that happens every
other year.
So you know, first started outbeing on committees, then being
the chair of a committee, thenbeing on the board and working
(26:11):
my way up through the leadershipuntil I was president, and now,
you know, as part of a pastpresident's council, and you
just have to continue to.
By giving back, you also learn.
Uh, so many things that helpedyou in the practice of law.
Yeah, and you know you reach outand you know, just like the
(26:35):
plaintiff's bar, we have chatboards and you know, I think
when you see someone that's beenthrough it all on the chat
board answering, it encouragesthe younger lawyers to say, hey,
I want to share too.
And when I was actuallypresident of the FDLA, my
biggest thing was trying to getus to share more, like the
plaintiff's board does, and beopen to it.
(26:56):
Don't treat your depositiontranscripts as trade secrets.
Don't treat your experts astrade secrets.
When one person helps the other, when one person helps the
other, we both get helped in thelong term and that's always
important.
So I think you need to bewell-rounded, you need to get
(27:16):
involved both in law and outsidelaw, because it opens your mind
, it opens your network.
Like you say, you just neverknow.
Uh, you know and you know, onthe insurance defense side,
treat the, the insuranceadjusters, as well as your
clients, like human beings, notjust feeders.
You know, I I count some of mybest friends that I've developed
(27:38):
relationships with for over 25years here in florida.
Um, there are people that haveretired that I still talk to on
a weekly basis that I workedwith because they were an
insurance company representativethat I dealt with a lot.
So there's, you know, there's alot of.
You know the interpersonalrelationships are most important
(27:58):
and they really help you growyour business and keep it where
you want it to be.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Well, said To that point quickly.
I mean we were just touching onAI for a second.
It'll be so interesting towatch how important
relationships and human-to-humanconnection becomes as everyone
ventures into AI.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm both anticipating in a good way, but also, at the
same time, I'm really worriedabout AI.
And I was my my son anddaughter-in-law in New Jersey
with my first grandchild and Iwas just visiting there last
week and we were there talkingabout AI and my son goes.
(28:48):
You know, dad don't talk to meabout AI that's out to take our
jobs because he's a film editorand she's a graphic artist and
and you know that's, it's ascary, scary thing.
And you know, same thing withlawyers.
I mean, I could see us, youknow, needing a small fraction
(29:10):
of the lawyers that we have,especially, if they like, put
some systems in place to replacethe way we evaluate cases, the
way we try cases or resolvecases within a state system.
I could see them coming up withsomething as an alternative to
jurors.
It's, it's, it's kind of scary,you know, plug in the
(29:33):
parameters and you have theresolution.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
It's uh there's still gotta be the human element,
though, right At the end of theday.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I truly believe that, and I believe that the human
connection and buildingrelationships and having a
strong network are going to meaneven more as AI continues to be
prevalent but obviously aconversation for a different day
.
Jeffrey, I really appreciateyour time.
I appreciate your insights.
I hope you have a wonderful dayback there in Florida and we'll
(30:04):
look forward to talking to youvery soon again.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Absolutely.
Have a wonderful day If youenjoyed this video.
We have many law firminterviews that we are doing.
This is a series that we love.
It's an opportunity to learnfrom incredible business owners
that are building firms all overthe country.
Make sure to check them outtoday.
Jeff has over 40 years of law experience and now
is a partner at the Daytona lawfirm practicing insurance law.
He has a wealth of knowledge toshare with you and I hope you
enjoy this episode.
My name is Tyler Dolph.
(00:20):
I am the CEO of RocketClicks,which is our partner agency.
We exclusively work on familylaw firms nationwide, built from
the success of our own familylaw firm called Sterling Lawyers
, which has grown to over 30attorneys and 25 offices across
Wisconsin and Illinois.
(00:40):
Today we are interviewingJeffrey from the Daytona Law
Firm.
Jeffrey has over 40 years ofexperience.
He works and focuses oninsurance law and the PI side of
things, but his firm ismulti-practice.
He shares valuable insightswith us over the span of his
career and I really hope youenjoy the episode, jeffrey.
(01:04):
Thank you so much for beingwith us today.
We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Love it.
Give us a little introductionto yourself and your firm, and
then I'd like to start way backat the beginning, when you first
got started in law.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Sure, so I'm a partner at a law firm, really a
shareholder.
We're a limited liabilitycompany at what I call a small
firm in Daytona Beach, florida,although for Daytona it's like
the second largest firm.
So it's more of a big fish in asmall pond these days, and ever
(01:38):
since 1996.
Ever since 1996.
The firm itself, smith BigmanBrock, got started in I think
it's 1988, by some folks thatleft another law firm locally
(01:59):
and started up their ownpractice and I joined it, coming
from New York, in 1996.
It's a multi-specialty practice.
About half of it is insurancedefense-based, which is what I
do.
I'm a board-certified civiltrial lawyer.
I'm also certified by a BOTA.
I've tried a lot of cases overthe last 42 years.
(02:20):
I started out in New York City,new York City, born and raised
you can see a lot of New Yorkstuff in the background of my
home office here and I graduatedfrom Fordham Law in 1983 and
went to work for a firm that Ihad worked with as a law student
(02:41):
on Wall Street doing commerciallitigation and it was not for
me because I was not going toget into court doing that.
I saw that there were lawyersthere for six years that hadn't
really taken a deposition.
A lot of it was preventativelaw for ABC, the network, and it
(03:06):
was just.
I wanted to get into court andI switched after a year to a
medical malpractice defense firmand then spent the next 12, 13
years defending doctors,hospitals, podiatrists in court
and started trying cases.
I think I second chaired cases.
(03:27):
The first year I was at the firmthat I went to and then
switched firms a couple of yearslater to go with a bigger firm
that needed trial lawyers,called Wilson Elser.
At the time Wilson Elser was, Iwant to say, 90 lawyers.
When I joined them in 1987 whenmy daughter was born, and by
(03:52):
the time I left at the end of 95, they were 450 lawyers.
Wow, and now I looked it upthis morning just to see what
the current was, because thelast time I looked they were
approaching a thousand.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
There are 1300 lawyers now, that is a mega firm
.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, so they're one of the largest insurance defense
firms in the world.
I don't know.
I think they've said they arethe largest at a few times, but
I've seen others that have growntremendously over the years too
.
And what was interesting was Imade partner there after seven
years of practice, which was thefastest track you could have in
(04:31):
that firm, which was nice.
But I walked in there tryingcases and was part of a team of.
When I got there they had, Ithink, about 15 MedMal lawyers
with only two of them tryingcases at the time, and I became
the third.
When I left there, we had about50 MedMal lawyers with about 10
of them trying cases, and so itreally was a growing practice
(04:56):
and as long as you had thecapability of doing the trial
work, you were a valuablecommodity.
As a matter of fact, they'vereached out to me a couple of
times to come back to New York,but I got dragged to Florida by
my ex-wife and settled in herequite nicely.
So I learned trial law in NewYork and it was a little bit of
(05:26):
a different animal there too,because it's and I still this
way talking to my friends atWilson, elster and other firms
in the MedMal arena.
There it's still trial byambush, you don't identify the
experts and you don't takeexpert depositions, and so it's
kind of like almost like the oldWest, a little cowboys and
(05:48):
Indians style, and so and it'ssolely in MedMal, because in
other areas of specialty theyfind out who the experts are,
they take depositions.
It's more like federal courtand more like Florida.
But when I came to Florida,somewhat kicking and screaming,
(06:09):
I and did you leave the firmLike you couldn't work.
I proposed to Wilson Elster thatthey open a Daytona office and
they had had a bad experiencewith the Miami office at that
time and they thought thatDaytona was a small town which
it is, and that Daytona thattheir clients wouldn't pay their
(06:30):
rate structure in Daytona.
So they said you know, go withour blessing, but we're not
going to open an office there.
And I ended up landing in aplace where I still am.
The lawyers that were operatingthis firm my ex-wife was a
(06:54):
physician and the people thatrecruited me were friends with
people at the firm gave me theintroduction.
We had a mutual need.
They wanted to continue to growtheir practice.
I wanted a place to grow mybusiness.
I want to try to establish medmal.
There wasn't a lot of uh med malin florida still isn't um the
(07:18):
way it's developed here.
The doctors mostly have $250,000policies which are like really
small and it kind of discourageslawsuits.
There was tort reform years agowhich discouraged a lot of med
mal lawsuits from theplaintiff's side and there's
just a lot of other verylucrative areas here and it's
(07:44):
much more favorable for badfaith for the plaintiffs here.
We have a lot of advertisingfirms here that have really
driven up the car accidentbusiness and the firm I joined
was already doing some insurancedefense mostly motor vehicle
(08:04):
and some slip and fall andthings like that.
So I ended up, after a fewmonths of settling in joining
that practice area and ended upsharing the insurance defense
group with a partner of minethat ended up going on the bench
back in I think it was 2009.
And then it became mine and nowI have one junior partner and
(08:29):
one person of counsel thatreally should be a partner.
She was a partner and decidedto have some more quality of
life left, came back, so she'llprobably end up being a partner
again, but in the firm of 15attorneys there's seven of us
doing insurance defense.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And how big was the firm, how many attorneys, when
you came over.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It was about 10 or 12 attorneys.
We're still pretty much on thesame blueprint and we're not
looking to grow to be a big,mega firm.
Matter of fact, we turned a lotof work away over the years to
stay the size that we are.
We have decent leverage because, you know, for the 15 attorneys
(09:14):
we have about 15 paralegals andlike 15 legal assistants and
three administrators, you know.
So it ends up being about 50people to support, you know, 15
attorneys altogether and I thinkit's a good model.
The big difference that I sawcoming from Wilson Elser and
(09:38):
going to a small firm was youknow everything.
You know, in the big firm it'smore like a corporation.
A big firm it's more like acorporation.
And even the compensation, youknow.
It was like you'd be going stepby step, even as a partner, and
if you were within a certainclass of people, you would have
this established amount and thenyou'd get bonused at the end of
(09:59):
the year and you really theywould tell you that there were
different factors, but it wouldbe some executive committee
making a secret decision abouthow much money you got at the
end of the year and you know howmuch money went into my defined
benefit plan, the you know thepension aspect of it.
So I mean I don't think I wouldhave left if right away, if my
(10:23):
ex didn't want to move toFlorida, but at the same time
I'm pretty sure I would haveleft with one of two waves of
people that defected fromWilson-Elser, because two of my
fellow trial partners left likeone year later and another one
left two years later to formtheir own firms, and I probably
(10:45):
would have gone with one of thetwo of them and then been part
of, instead of this mega 1300lawyer firm, a hundred lawyer
firm or 50 lawyer firm that theythey have presently and it just
the corporate structure was awas a bit too much, I think, as
they grew and grew.
(11:05):
But what I like about thesmaller firm is that while
there's enough people to bouncethings off of because we always
we call it our brain trust whenwe have something that you know
we want to make a you knowdecision on a case or even a
personnel matter, we'll justwe'll kind of run it up the
flagpole with everyone.
(11:25):
There's people to bounce it offof but at the same time it's
not so big that you get lost inthe weeds.
I think that I know that youknow part of the purpose of your
podcast is to teach youngpeople how to run law firms, and
one of the things is, I thinkthat you don't exceed your
capabilities.
One of the things is, I thinkthat you don't exceed your your
capabilities, so you have torealize how much you want to
(11:49):
grow.
You know, while continuing togive the same quality of work,
you need to know when to turnwork away, whether it's outside
your specialty or because youhave just too much work.
(12:10):
What we ran into here in Floridawas during the pandemic, the
work just kept coming in and wehad a crisis here in Florida on
first party property and westarted taking some of that and
then it got almost overwhelmingand we just had to say, hey,
stop, we're at capacity and weneed to also service the clients
that we've had for 30 years.
(12:31):
And then, once the courtsreopened, we had another kind of
crisis here in Florida wherethere was tort reform and just
ahead of the tort reform, allthe plaintiff's attorneys dumped
all their inventory into thesystem in order to avoid the
ramifications of the tort reform, and so we had I think it was
(12:55):
like three times the normalfilings for that year of 2023,
this tort reform happened and weturned a lot of work away.
And we turned a lot of workaway and you know a lot of the
insurance company clients thatwe have.
They had to expand theircounsel base.
But I think they respected thefact that we weren't going to
(13:16):
just try to grow without goodreason and that we would just do
quality work on the number ofcases we felt we could accept.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I think that's such a huge point, especially for
young attorneys starting out andmaybe hanging their own shingle
or working at a smaller lawfirm.
The tendency is to take on asmuch as you can right Because
you're like revenue is oxygen atthe beginning and if you overdo
that and then you sacrificeservice, you're almost setting
(13:51):
yourself up for disaster longterm.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think I've watched more.
So the well I guess both sidesreally.
Plaintiffs and defense firms inthe personal injury arena grow
so fast here in Florida and,without naming names of firms,
the quality has gone downtremendously at a lot of the
(14:15):
larger firms and while they havea lot of quality at the top,
they're not giving good trainingto the people at the bottom.
The people at the bottom arejust kind of running a formulary
type of practice where they gettold okay, this is what you do.
You do X, y and Z on a case andyou just do that on every case.
(14:37):
And that's not the way topractice law.
Law was not meant to be a cookiecutter type of thing.
Or you know, just take a recipeand you follow it on every
single thing.
You'll you'll eat the samebland food every time it's.
You've got to look at everycase individually on its own,
(14:57):
treat every client like they'rean individual and, you know, an
insurance defense.
We always have to keep it clearin our mind in third party cases
where an insurance company ishiring us to represent someone,
that that someone is our client,not the insurance company, and
that's a distinction that itseems to me a lot of the larger
(15:22):
insurance defense firms don'tget.
Larger insurance defense firmsdon't get.
I've seen them even say incourt my client meaning the
insurance company, when that'snot their client, and sometimes
the judge or the plaintiff'sattorney will say, hey, that's
not your client.
Your client is this individualthat I sued and they're
(15:42):
absolutely right and I neverlose sight that it's that
individual and I think that theclient preservation and you know
you're doing a good job keepsthe business that you have,
which is the most importantthing thing.
(16:07):
You know it's that old bird inhand worth two in the bush.
Well, you can go out and getnew business.
Never sacrifice trying to getnew business for keeping your
current clients happy 100% agree.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's so interesting to watch the personal injury
space being in marketing.
We have, you know, the agencyas well.
We see so many personal injuryattorneys focus on branding and
building brands, which I thinkyou have to do in that space
because that's how people buy inthat space.
But they become almost likejust churn factories, these PI
(16:40):
firms that just want to getsettlements and they want to
process as many cases as theycan.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And really the only person that loses there is the
person that signs up.
The firm decides, hey, this isa valuable case and they take
risks for that client, that theclient, I don't think, goes in
sometimes with completely openeyes and when they could get a
(17:15):
good settlement, but this firmdecides this is a case to try
and then they end up trying itand if they lose it, the client
goes away with nothing.
And I see that all too often,you know, on the flip side, I
also see, you know, especiallywith larger firms on the defense
(17:35):
side, where, like I said, it'sthis cookie cutter practice and
they're doing things that seemto aim more at billable hours
and, you know, just following achecklist rather than doing
what's going to aid the case inits defense.
I inherited a case a few yearsago, a terrible case, and I
(18:00):
really felt that the lawyer whohad handled it before me created
a conflict to get out fromtrying the case lawyer who had
handled it before me created aconflict to get out from trying
the case.
The case was on the eve oftrial.
It was in Ocala, florida, whichis about an hour and a half
from me, and a mother wasdriving her four sons home from
(18:21):
school and got rear-ended by myclient at a traffic light where
he was going about 70 miles anhour, high on cocaine, with his
stepdaughter in the car.
When you looked at the vehicleand the vehicles you wouldn't
(18:42):
know how anyone would havesurvived in this car and it
looked like an accordion and theplaintiff's attorneys actually
brought the car to the courtroomfor a view by the jurors.
And the mother in the front seatsuffered a broken back and a
(19:02):
mild traumatic brain injury.
The three boys in the back, onewas a one and a half year old.
He ended up becoming a braindamaged paraplegic.
Another boy in the back brokeboth his femurs, the hardest
bone in the body to break.
And the other boy in the backsuffered terrible degloving
(19:23):
injuries from the middle of hisback down to his ankles and he
ended up with about 13 surgeriesas of the time of trial and
would always walk with analtered gait and had basically
been homebound in the yearsbefore the trial.
And then the boy in the frontseat was almost unscathed but
had emotional injuries fromseeing all this happen to the
(19:46):
family and the mother got takento one hospital and the little
boy was on life support taken toanother hospital and the father
, who was not in the car but wasa consortium plaintiff, had to
go back and forth to tell themother how the little boy was
doing for weeks as they wereboth in different hospitals.
(20:06):
And it was probably the mostsympathetic case I've ever tried
.
And when I looked at the workupthat had been done that the
lawyers from one of these bigfirms had had all these
plaintiffs examined by likemultiple specialists and they
were all really injured andthere was no way I was going to
(20:29):
use those experts in the trialthat they had hired like five
experts for each plaintiff, andto me it was what was the
purpose of all that?
And that's where you know thedifference between thinking
about what you actually need fora case and you know what you're
(20:49):
going to do to make money.
And that was not the case to doall those things on, and I
ended up basically putting onalmost no witnesses, being very
gentle with everyone.
The plaintiffs asked for $180million.
I told the jury to give themwhat added up to about $20
(21:13):
million and they ended up giving$50 million and everybody was
happy on my end with the result.
Now there wasn't enoughinsurance coverage for that, but
there was subsequent litigationover bad faith and that I
understand resolved for someconfidential amount.
(21:34):
But it was a case where so muchwas done that didn't need to be
done on the defense side and Iuse that as an example to my
associates and to you knowpeople in my industry when I go
to conferences.
This is not the way you work upthese cases.
You need to look at each caseindividually, see what.
(21:57):
What are you going to want toput on at a trial.
And a lot of people just don'ttry a lot of cases and so I
think they they lose sight ofwhat is actually needed and
what's going to happen at atrial.
And I will say that over theyears trials have evolved so
(22:17):
much and I think that at leasthere in Florida, the plaintiff's
bar has often been one stepahead of the defense bar in
their tactics and they just keep.
You know you have to really stayon top of it.
You know, in the last decadewe've seen a rise in these
nuclear verdicts and all theseplaintiffs' attorneys are
(22:38):
following the reptile theory andyou know they're doing it to a
T.
Now it's the use of AI and nowthere's webinars out there.
I see it on both sides and Iget the Abota side, so I get
kind of both.
You know, it's use of AI attrial is like the most popular
(23:00):
webinar that there is now, andI've got to tell you I've
dabbled in it a bit.
You know, and it's hard toteach an old dog new tricks.
But it's amazing what you know,chat, gpt and the Google genius
how they can reword somethingfor you, even, even even a
(23:21):
complaint to an airline or ahotel.
They could say a lot betterthan than you can if you just
give them the basics.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
It's been unbelievable, I mean for us both
at our law firm and ourconsultancy being able to
leverage AI, I think, in anethical like.
We think about it as thoughtstarter right.
It's an opportunity to create adraft or to open a discussion
and create a thought to reallypolish it.
But it'll be interesting to seehow it affects law firms
(23:53):
nationwide and we're going toactually do a whole series on AI
, so make sure to stick aroundfor that.
But, jeffrey, I'd like to aswe're kind of concluding here,
given the fact that you've beenpracticing for over 40 years.
You've had so many experiencesand I've loved your narrative as
it relates to really thinkingabout each case as an individual
(24:14):
one, especially in theinsurance space, going to trial
and being okay with that.
Is there any additionallearnings that you could impart
on our listeners as it relatesto being successful in your role
?
You know you've been, you'vehad to work hard and you've made
(24:34):
partner at now two differentfirms, and I'm sure that wasn't
by accident.
So give our listeners a littleperspective on what it really
takes to be successful in alarge firm.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know, I think in a large firm or a small firm or
even as a sole practitioner, themost important thing you could
ever be is prepared, if you justtry to master your craft and
continue to get better it's soimportant and also to be a
(25:05):
well-rounded individual.
We always encourage our folksto get involved in the community
in whichever way they have apassion.
So like when my kids weregrowing up, I coached baseball
and softball from when they werefour years old till they were
12.
I've always been involved inorganizations locally and I've
(25:27):
always been involved inorganizations locally, mostly on
my side.
I'm Jewish and I've been templepresident.
I was on the temple board for30 something years.
I just finally resigned andsaid let's stay my place, but I
continue to be on the board ofthe Jewish Federation locally
(25:48):
and I chair a Jewish HeritageFestival that happens every
other year.
So you know, first started outbeing on committees, then being
the chair of a committee, thenbeing on the board and working
(26:11):
my way up through the leadershipuntil I was president, and now,
you know, as part of a pastpresident's council, and you
just have to continue to.
By giving back, you also learn.
Uh, so many things that helpedyou in the practice of law.
Yeah, and you know you reach outand you know, just like the
(26:35):
plaintiff's bar, we have chatboards and you know, I think
when you see someone that's beenthrough it all on the chat
board answering, it encouragesthe younger lawyers to say, hey,
I want to share too.
And when I was actuallypresident of the FDLA, my
biggest thing was trying to getus to share more, like the
plaintiff's board does, and beopen to it.
(26:56):
Don't treat your depositiontranscripts as trade secrets.
Don't treat your experts astrade secrets.
When one person helps the other, when one person helps the
other, we both get helped in thelong term and that's always
important.
So I think you need to bewell-rounded, you need to get
(27:16):
involved both in law and outsidelaw, because it opens your mind
, it opens your network.
Like you say, you just neverknow.
Uh, you know and you know, onthe insurance defense side,
treat the, the insuranceadjusters, as well as your
clients, like human beings, notjust feeders.
You know, I I count some of mybest friends that I've developed
(27:38):
relationships with for over 25years here in florida.
Um, there are people that haveretired that I still talk to on
a weekly basis that I workedwith because they were an
insurance company representativethat I dealt with a lot.
So there's, you know, there's alot of.
You know the interpersonalrelationships are most important
(27:58):
and they really help you growyour business and keep it where
you want it to be.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Well, said To that point quickly.
I mean we were just touching onAI for a second.
It'll be so interesting towatch how important
relationships and human-to-humanconnection becomes as everyone
ventures into AI.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm both anticipating in a good way, but also, at the
same time, I'm really worriedabout AI.
And I was my my son anddaughter-in-law in New Jersey
with my first grandchild and Iwas just visiting there last
week and we were there talkingabout AI and my son goes.
(28:48):
You know, dad don't talk to meabout AI that's out to take our
jobs because he's a film editorand she's a graphic artist and
and you know that's, it's ascary, scary thing.
And you know, same thing withlawyers.
I mean, I could see us, youknow, needing a small fraction
(29:10):
of the lawyers that we have,especially, if they like, put
some systems in place to replacethe way we evaluate cases, the
way we try cases or resolvecases within a state system.
I could see them coming up withsomething as an alternative to
jurors.
It's, it's, it's kind of scary,you know, plug in the
(29:33):
parameters and you have theresolution.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
It's uh there's still gotta be the human element,
though, right At the end of theday.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I truly believe that, and I believe that the human
connection and buildingrelationships and having a
strong network are going to meaneven more as AI continues to be
prevalent but obviously aconversation for a different day
.
Jeffrey, I really appreciateyour time.
I appreciate your insights.
I hope you have a wonderful dayback there in Florida and we'll
(30:04):
look forward to talking to youvery soon again.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Absolutely.
Have a wonderful day If youenjoyed this video.
We have many law firminterviews that we are doing.
This is a series that we love.
It's an opportunity to learnfrom incredible business owners
that are building firms all overthe country.
Make sure to check them outtoday.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.