Life Beyond the Briefs

Stop Being Polite… and Get Rude In Your Branding | Lee Rudin

• Brian Glass

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Forget boring branding and forget trying to please everyone, this episode is about standing out, building trust, and boldly owning your space.

This week, Brian sits down with Lee Rudin, founder of RUDIN LAW and the brain behind the unforgettable “Get Rude” brand. If you’ve ever wondered how to create a law firm identity that clients actually remember and wear on a t-shirt, this is your playbook.

Lee shares:

  • Why polite branding gets you forgotten (and what to do instead)
  • How niche swag and grassroots engagement built his client base
  • The psychology behind bold legal advertising
  • What most firms get wrong about digital marketing
  • How he's managing cash flow and growth while scaling fast
  • And why your brand should repel as much as it attracts

He’s not selling gimmicks — he’s building real relationships and a brand that hits hard.

If you're tired of safe, bland, forgettable law firm marketing... it's time to Get Rude!

🎤 Connect with Lee Rudin:

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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.

Want to connect with Brian?

Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
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Speaker 1:

And my daughter, the oldest goes to school and their motto is be kind. And my wife is always like, hey, do you want to sponsor this crawfish boil or the dance or this? And I'm like I will sponsor anything as long as I can make merch that says be kind, get rude. You know she's like, well, what are they going to say? I said, well, don't we want to teach our kids to stand up for themselves, like have a voice. That's what it means right.

Speaker 2:

Hey friends, welcome back to Life Beyond the Briefs, the podcast for lawyers who are ready to live life on their terms. Today's guest he's not your average personal injury lawyer. He's bold, he's unapologetic and he's here to shake up everything you thought you knew about legal marketing. I'm talking about Lee Rudin, or as his brand puts it Get Rude. Lee shares how he went from corporate law to launching Rudin Law with a clear mission Stop being polite and start standing out. From wrestling-inspired merch to grassroots swag that actually gets worn.

Speaker 2:

Lee is building a law firm brand that people talk about. And, more importantly, remember, we talk branding, client psychology, community marketing, managing cash flow in a new firm and why it pays to be polarizing. If you're tired of blending in and ready to attract the right clients, the ones who vibe with your mission, hit, play this one's part branding masterclass, part pep talk and all rude. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. Today's guest is not polite. Lee Rudin, who's a lawyer in Louisiana and practices in Texas as well, is here to talk about branding, being bold with your brand and getting a little bit rude. Lee, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for having me Appreciate it, but I mean, I'm not that bad right. Well, we're going to find out that. Fair enough, touche, touche.

Speaker 2:

So you're kind of I want to start there, right. So you have this all of your branding is get rude and you're from, you're in the Louisiana and you have a Texas, you have a physical presence in Texas, or you're just doing cases in Texas.

Speaker 1:

You have a physical presence in Texas or you're just doing cases in Texas? We do not. I'm licensed in Texas, my COO is a lawyer based in Texas, so that's the next. Let's say brick and mortar will be there, I presume. Maybe like create these little satellites that would make sense to start where he is, but no not right now.

Speaker 2:

There seems to be in Texas more of a license to have this bold branding. There's that guy who's like need a lawyer, hire a dick, um, and there's there's a couple of other people that are like there's a Texas law hawk, texas hammer. Right, this Alabama, there's a hammer and there's a hammer in every.

Speaker 2:

DMA. Um, it strikes me that when your branding is get rude, you tracked a certain demographic, a psychographic of clients, and so how intentional were you about? You know, I got this name that kind of like you could blend into Rude really quickly, but I want to make sure that I'm attracting the kind of people that I actually want to work with. Did that thought, did you go through that thought process before you rolled all this out?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I did, and you know, this is the funny thing, and I think I'm sure you would agree that the people that hire an advertising injury lawyer kind of fit within a certain demographic, meaning they probably don't have a network of people they can just turn to and say, hey, who do you think we should hire?

Speaker 1:

So if we start there, you say, ok, well, if that's going to be my demographic anyway, that I'm going to attract purely through advertising, how different is it from this bold brand? And frankly, I don't think it's terribly different. I think there's obviously two sides to that coin. When we're talking about the hammer, right, there's a hammer in every jurisdiction, there's a strong arm, so you've got that. But then there's people doing the opposite that are like, hey, I'm the man or woman of God and I'm the Christian lawyer, I'm the Muslim lawyer, and it's the same coin, it's just the two opposite sides of it, and people that are going to hire me might not hire the Christian lawyer or the Muslim lawyer, but I don't have to have everybody hire me. I just need enough to survive. And if I want to grow, then to grow.

Speaker 2:

Completely fair point right. So I think so many lawyers look at what anybody else does and say, oh, that must attract the kind of clients that you don't want. But no, it's the kind of clients that I don't want. You know, your point is you're servicing a demographic of people who don't have access to a lawyer, and so you're giving them an option that's not a multi-state or a regional brand like a Morgan Morgan or I don't know who's popular down in your neck.

Speaker 1:

Morris Bart's probably our big 800-pound gorilla. Who's that, morris Bart? Morris Bart, yeah, yeah, he's like a godfather of lawyer marketing.

Speaker 2:

It's funny how regional this is, because there's no Morris Bart up by me. Actually, there's really no large firm heavy advertising up by me. Morgan Morgan is kind of sort of here. My sense is that, because Virginia is a contributory negligence state, that they just avoid us, which is fine. But you're competing with big names down there and you're trying to brand and your firm only started, I think, in 2023. Coming up and competing with these big players. Coming up and competing with these big players. How did you make a choice that this is what we're going to do instead of like going out into the neighborhood and sponsoring teams? You probably also sponsor teams, but like building the grassroots way versus building the heavy advertising and branding way?

Speaker 1:

Well, it's both. So you know, my thought process is if you're new, you're young, you've got, let's say, a limited budget compared to some of these behemoths, then you've got to do it in a couple of ways. The first way is, I think you got to be bold, right, you got to get bold because you got people have to know who you are first. Then they have to remember you if you want them to hire you. So what are you going to do to stand out in the crowd If your brand is boring, bland, just like everybody else? And I joke, like if your logo has the scales of justice or pillars or a gavel, like you're not interesting, right. And so why are they going to pick you? And I joke like I'm a, I'm a white guy, I'm a white male lawyer, like there's a lot of us. And so if you're not going to do something different, how are they going to pick you? And so I said let me be intentional and try to idiot proof the brand I own get rudecom. I've got the get rude Instagram, tik TOK YouTube handles. I bought an eight, three, three get rude phone number, which is hard to get because rude is also sued, so there aren't that many of them available, very challenging.

Speaker 1:

So once I saw the opportunity to get it, I took it. Do I need it? I mean, who's making 800 number phone calls anymore? But nonetheless I have it. So I think about building the brand in that way.

Speaker 1:

You got to be sticky and then I fully believe you got to invest in the community and do grassroots stuff. So I wish what direction I'm on over this shoulder is a WWE championship belt that a vendor sent me because he knows that I sponsor the local pro wrestling promotion and I go to the events and I give out t-shirts and other gear and I meet all these fans that I think are kind of the right kind of fans to hire an advertising injury lawyer. And they're black, white, hispanic, young, old, male, female. It's crazy. The cross section. There's other lawyers there that are like, oh man, I wish I could do this, but I'm a defense lawyer and like they would never let me sponsor the wrestling promotion. And then the last part of it is if you're gonna be on social media and again you're doing the same thing everyone else is doing, why are they gonna look at anything you put out?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I try to be a little crazy, so let's talk. That says stop being polite and on the back is your slogan and your law firm name. We were talking before we got on about how serious you are about giving away clothes that'll actually get worn by clientele or prospective clientele. So what kind of things have you given away into the community?

Speaker 1:

so I say the the largest amount of stuff we've given away are t-shirts, but we think about it in a couple ways. So who's gonna wear it and where are they gonna have an opportunity to wear it? So for a variety of different wrestling events we took very well-known wrestling brands and then spun them off. So the first one we had a wrestler from the nwo the new world order was coming. I said, oh, I'm gonna take that logo, I'm gonna make it the rwo, it's gonna be the rude world order. And I had them in the black and white and the red and black and fans, like they were like clamoring over them. They thought it was so cool that they got a free t-shirt that looked like a wrestling logo and they've worn them. You know this was back in April of last year and they still continue to wear them to the subsequent events, which means they're probably wearing them out.

Speaker 1:

Also. We did it with Hulkamania, we did Rudomania and the back says what are you going to do when we get rude with you? And it's got a silhouette of Hogan with the rude and law on the headband. So like that's all you see about my firm name, but it's got our website. And again, if somebody looks at the shirt and it's like, oh, that's cool, what is that? The person is going to say, oh, it's from a lawyer Like this is his brand and hopefully it gets that conversation conversation going. And then we do stuff that's and I think this, everybody can do this. I have shirts that are in the colors of the saints, the colors of LSU football, the colors of Tulane football. We do shirts that are Mardi Gras themed and colored, because then the people have the gear that they can and I have a place to wear it too. So if you're wearing my shirt walking down the concourse of the Superdome or at a saint's tailgate or on the street watching parades, that's free advertising, that's a win for me.

Speaker 2:

Do you know anything about trademark law? Or have you tripped in any cease and desist letters, or have you Nothing like that.

Speaker 1:

You know, obviously I'm not selling it right, I'm giving it away for free. I think there's probably some fair use here, especially given like what I've seen out in the market. Like I took the. I'm a Mets fan and I took the Mets logo. I was going to opening day of Mets Astros and met a buddy of mine and I said, well, I got to make a shirt that says, instead of saying Mets across it, it says rude and it says get rude. And I made him one, I made me one. I'm like, well, if I'm making two, I might as well make 42 and send them to my friends and family around the country just to have a little fun with it. But no, don't give me any ideas please.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, it's like it's better to ask forgiveness than ask permission, right? Because permission would just slow you down. And when you say you made 42 shirts, do you have a screen printer in-house or you're ordering a batch of 42?

Speaker 1:

No, I mean on that one I ordered a small batch. Ordinarily they're like much larger quantities, but I like to have fun with it so much that I'm a great customer of theirs. I'm constantly coming up with ideas because I figure if any of it works, if I get one case from one shirt, it pays for all of it. But no, I don't have a screen printer in house. I have a local company. They're based in one of the suburbs here and they're based in one of the suburbs here and I believe they have a factory in the Midwest. So the stuff gets turned around very quickly, you're going to drop the name of the company.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's called Genealogy G-E-N-E, and so I'm happy to share the contact. They're really excellent. The one thing about them that I think is really cool is they don't charge me every single time for art creation. It's kind of just like what they build into the price. So I'm like, hey, I want you to mock this up. And they know, nine times out of 10, I'm buying that shirt or I'm buying that whatever piece of gear.

Speaker 2:

And so you'll be out a couple of weeks probably after this episode comes out out of PimCon. Talking about brand, how did you get hooked up with Chris Dreyer and Rankings?

Speaker 1:

Honestly, I guess, probably some good luck. I got solicited by a company saying hey, we see you like to be on podcasts. Would you like us to try to set you up with some others? And the company ended up setting me up with a few. Four out of the five were people that I already knew. I was in mastermind groups with them. They were vendors I knew and I said, look, I'll let you do three of these, one of them you got to give me a credit on, and then the other one was personal injury mastermind with Chris.

Speaker 1:

So I talked to Chris and then shortly thereafter his team reached out to me. I reached out to them with some questions about certain things After the post had gone live. I had questions about their strategy, how they get it out to the public, and then they had questions for me. We're talking about merch and things like that and we built up a dialogue and then, out of the blue, they asked me to speak, which I was honored to be asked to speak. It seems like it's going to be a banging lineup.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. I've heard nothing but good things about his event and the parties and the people that are there, so good for you. Thanks, appreciate it has, I'm curious, has get rude ever come back in a negative consequence to you, like dealing with an adjuster or being in court or anything like that?

Speaker 1:

Has it haunted you at all? I haven't, haven't had the issue in court and I joke and the adjuster sometimes will play with me. They're like, oh, you're not so bad. I'm like I didn't say it's be rude. It's get rude and you know, when people have asked me this question, I, you know, cause my, my little kids. I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter and they all wear my gear like kids versions of my gear in school. And my daughter, the oldest, goes to school and their motto is be kind. And my, my wife, is always like, hey, do you want to sponsor this crawfish boil or the dance or this? And I'm like I will sponsor anything as long as I can make merch that says be kind, get rude. And you know she's like, wow, what are they going to say? I said, well, don't. We want to teach our kids to stand up for themselves, like have a voice. That's what it means right.

Speaker 2:

It's so funny because we sponsor the local high school and we, you know, we get to hang a banner there, and this year's the banner that I proposed to them was kick the insurance company in the glass, and they wouldn't let me hang it.

Speaker 1:

I envision such things in my future. But I said, you know money talks, so if you want me to sponsor the basketball court at the gym, you gotta let me put, Get Root on it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so they already have my check.

Speaker 1:

You lost the leverage there. Yeah, my, my oldest it was really my wife and I played soccer as kids and I was. I knew she would enjoy it if she just would take the leap and try. And I said she didn't want to play. I'm like, peyton, how about make a deal with you? What if I sponsored the team? Like, would you go play? She's like, okay, I'll play. I was like you can help me make the logo. I'll give you some options you can pick. So they're called the Get Rude Girls, which I'm sure the other parents are going to love.

Speaker 2:

But that's awesome. One of the things that is really curious to me about you is your firm's only been around since 2023 and you seem to be investing in everything from coaching and mastermind programs to you. You mentioned getting an implementer or an integrator a COO style person, on your team earlier this year sponsoring a bunch of stuff. You know your website looks like it's on the expensive end. How have you managed cashflow in the first two, three years of the business?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it's so funny when I run into a couple of my former managing partners when I was at hourly billing defense firms. I've looked at them and said I understand when you used to say cashflow, cashflow, I get it now and we don't have salaries like they did. You know bigger firms, you got to make payroll every week, even if the clients haven't paid you on time. Oh what? I've told people coming out. I said give yourself at least 90 to 120 days from the day you open your doors to see dollar one, because even if you had cases, by the time you get them settled, get the checks in, get it distributed, it's at least going to be 90. It's probably closer to 120.

Speaker 1:

I came in because it wasn't like I was a new lawyer. I'd been a lawyer for a dozen years. I came in with cases that I knew were going to turn over at certain benchmarks across the end of 2023. So I was able to predict hey, I'm going to have some money coming in. Can I hold on long enough? Not need things.

Speaker 1:

I started working out of my house. Luckily, my wife has a job that allowed us to take a risk without worrying. We're going to keep our lights on and then, once I saw the cash flow was starting to come in, then I started adding pieces. So I added a local paralegal that I had worked with in the past. Then I started adding virtual team members to keep costs down and you know, I found I figure you can find some pretty good talent globally, which I've really I liked, I liked exploring all that and then I started figuring out what do you have to spend to get the cases. And that that's challenging. You know you do a lot of missing before you hit, but that's the nature of our business, I think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And then the challenge is, once stuff is working, to not go and look for the next thing, but to say you know what? What would happen if I spent twice as much money on that thing? That's already working. You know, what is your best performing channel right now?

Speaker 1:

Well, we my best performing channel was branded lead gen. That we were doing, but it kind of petered off. So I pivoted and I went into, I hired somebody else and we just started launching truly branded ads. So before that it was stuff that was coming out on my profile but it wasn't of me, so they were. It was kind of an innocuous hey, have you been in a car accident? You know we can help you fill out this form and we'll call you. Now it's similar but it's me and I figured it might not perform as well, but at least we are truly building the brand and know who I am. So that's working right now. But but frankly and I think most lawyers will say this it's the referrals. The more people you help, the bigger your web goes, and you know I can now track about how many referrals I'm going to get a month Client, now that I've been at it long enough. I see give or take. You know what that range is going to be.

Speaker 2:

So I'm curious. Just going back to the branded lead gen, was that something you were running lead gen in-house, you were paying a vendor to generate?

Speaker 1:

I had a vendor that was running it on my meta profiles Okay, got it. So they had ads. They said these are ads that we think perform. We're going to tailor them to your brand, meaning it's going to show that it's you and your survey. Or we were running ads that were picture of a check. They said static ads are working. And it was a picture of a check. It was a true amount that this client had received and the specs on it were accurate. You know what was the treatment. You know what.

Speaker 2:

No, I don't want to do anything. You mean it wasn't like a cashier's check that said a hundred thousand in one field and 10,000 in the other field.

Speaker 1:

Well, it was that because I wasn't going to use her real check, right, but the point was we weren't coming up with numbers that weren't true. I didn't want to do anything misleading like that because I didn't. First of all, I don't want to run afoul of any ethics rules, but I also felt like it's not necessary. I have a case where this person got this award and then or this settlement, and the medicals were such that I think it's persuasive, like she didn't have to go get a surgery to recover this because she was entitled to it under our quantum and the way that you know we strategized.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I think the trick is with with running ads like that is lawyers man, we love, like I play this game.

Speaker 2:

Um, when I read Virginia lawyers weekly reports like what important fact did the lawyer leave out to make himself look better, right, and so so we love putting these cases out there. We're like $150,000 for somebody who wasn't hurt or not wasn't hurt but didn't need a surgery, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you leave out like that it was caused by a drunk FedEx driver, right. And so now we've got this one-off thing that we're holding up as what we're capable of doing, and then the next nine people that call you with a similar injury expect a $250,000 result. And maybe you figured out a way to handle that objection or maybe you've got a formula that's working that out in every case. But the challenge is for most lawyers is we love to write reports that make ourselves sound better to the legal community and then to the broader perspective client market, and then it creates that expectation in the client's mind, whether that was our intention or not. They're like my case is exactly the same. So how have you handled?

Speaker 1:

that. You know it's funny, this is probably going to be my undoing at some point, and I joked. I was like I don't care, like this is not an ego play for me, like I'm running a business and I'm trying to help people and I don't care if I don't have all these seven figure numbers up on my social media. It is what it is. And you know I didn't start this firm because I wanted to have my name on the door. I've been partners with other firms and I didn't care at all.

Speaker 1:

This is my profession. It's not. You know everything about my life. I've got a wife and kids and whatever. And I tell the clients all the time. I said what you don't understand is that the same exact case, the same exact case, but you got rear-ended by a Honda Civic and that person got rear-ended by an 18-wheeler and all of a sudden the recovery is light years different. It's not fair. But if you haven't gotten the uninsured motorist coverage or something else to protect you, I'm not going to say you're up the creek without a paddle, but the paddle you've got ain't so good.

Speaker 2:

What are your limits down? In New Orleans, louisiana, 15 ain't so good. What are your limits down?

Speaker 1:

in New Orleans, louisiana, 15. 15? Oh my God. So think about this, right, if you're spending a ton of money trying to acquire cases, yeah, but most of the ones you're going to get are or no insurance or this low insurance and having to tell somebody hey, I'm so sorry that your family member just got killed by a drunk driver. They had 15,000 in coverage and you're you didn't have any. We can chase after assets, but it might be a fool's errand because they were only carrying 15. What assets could they possibly have to compensate you? Possibly half To compensate you.

Speaker 2:

So that's another thing that I just find I find so interesting about these heavy digital marketing or heavy advertising firms, because they do tend to be concentrated in states where you have that crappy insurance minimum limit right, like I think about Alabama or Florida has a $10,000 limit and if you're spending I don't know what you're spending, but I've heard 3,000, 3,500 to acquire a case where your fee might be five grand man the incentive really is number one to get that in and out as quickly as you can and number two to hang on. I guess hang on long enough until you have somebody who's got an 18 wheeler involved.

Speaker 1:

I think that you've got to be like in my state I think you've got to be sub 2,500 and really you want to be sub two grand to start to make it make sense. And then you have to be smart about how you're building your team right. You can't pay everybody six figures to handle some of these cases, because or else they're going to have to have a ton of volume and then your customer service is going to drop. And we're a big team for how young we are as a firm Like I got 14 people on my team, a lot of which are. We have about half half local in the States and then throughout the globe. But you have a hard time trying to attend to everybody on those minimum policies unless you get some good ones to help you.

Speaker 2:

It's a trade-off. I mean we, every six months or so, we experiment with some other digital channels. So LSA is, or we did, lead gen, primarily so I could figure out like is there a secret here that I just don't understand? And every time we do it it costs us about 2000 to $2,500 to acquire a case. Now I'm going to say where our minimum now is 50,000. And by default you're underinsured stacks on top of the fit on top. So most cases now, unless you've done something wacky, there's $100,000 in coverage, which is amazing. Don't tell all the people that have stayed out of Virginia, because it's Virginia.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say I got to find me a Virginia lawyer and expand up to you.

Speaker 2:

And that just changed the beginning of this year that yeah, now I can pay $2,500 to acquire a client. But the thing that people don't think about is it's not just the $2,500 that you paid to acquire the case. You still have to service it and you still have all of whatever costs. If you have a marketing director, if you have an intake department, you have organic SEO, like those don't go away just because you added this other channel where it costs you $2,000 to acquire the client. Like our average across all comers. Our average fee is about our average case acquisition cost is about $1,600. But then when you add on that $2,000 to $2,400 price tag, it's like, well, it just went to $4,000 for those cases.

Speaker 2:

And those cases tend to be small sample sizes because we do limited runs of these tests before I decide. You know what it doesn't actually work for us. But they tend to be smaller cases because it's the people that you don't have to your point earlier. They don't have access to other lawyers in their life and so when they're hit and they go to an emergency room and they do a couple of follow-up visits, they're like what do I do? I don't know what to do. I should call a lawyer, right? So I don't know, but the economics have not made sense for us recently but we continue to test every six months or so.

Speaker 1:

I think that what you guys are doing in your state is excellent and really fair to the people, the drivers of your state, because what we see I mean 15 grand doesn't do anything for you, especially if you have to go to the hospital and then you know our rates are through the roof for a variety of reasons, and you know the insurance companies and their lobby are banging. It's the, it's the trial lawyers and this and that, but really what it is is there's so many people that are driving around uninsured or underinsured and I think you you raise the limits, you put people in a better position to be made whole and maybe there isn't so much so many, so many times that people are left holding the bag.

Speaker 2:

And the frustrating thing about what we do is you know you do all this education but nobody ever cares, until you're in a situation where you have the 15 or the 25 limit and now you're screwed.

Speaker 1:

My favorite clients. My favorite clients are the ones that they're repeats. But the second time around they actually listened to me and they put the on top and they can say oh yeah, I got the same scenario right. I got hit by someone with a minimum, but now I have another minimum to put on top and it just changes the complexion of the treatment. They can actually go get that they need. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Um, let's talk law firm swag. So one of the things that you do which I think is really smart is, like your shirt that you're wearing now, your firm name, very small letters on the back. It's the opposite of what most firms do. Right, we sponsor something, we put our name across the chest, which is cool. It's nice to give that out in a 5K race bag or whatever, but it never gets worn again. What are you doing.

Speaker 1:

You think it's cool, your wife thinks it's cool.

Speaker 2:

Your kids think it's cool. Your kids think it's cool and nobody else does. That's right.

Speaker 1:

It's cool for the pictures that you can use on your law firm newsletter. What are you doing to ideate on slogans like stop being polite? So I remember being in first grade and my teacher the first time that someone made the connection of rude and rudent and Mrs Pavone said Mr Rudin, you're being very rude, you know you sit down or whatever I was doing. And that connection stuck with me and then I thought how does that work for a brand when you're really trying to say fuck the insurance company, like that's what you're trying to say right, because no one's going to hire me if they're having a great experience with the insurance company. But so many people have such a difficult time in whatever space we deal with a lot of hurricane property damage. Everybody was losing their shirt and the insurance companies were dragging their feet because that's their model. And it's the same thing with auto claims. If they paid out what was fair up front, no one would hire us.

Speaker 2:

And they shouldn't hire us. You paid 75% of what was fair up front. You would make us economically inviolable.

Speaker 1:

I've had clients, potential clients. Then they become clients. I'm like come to me with the best offer you get. If I can't do better, after I take my fee out I'll tell you to take the offer. I know the offer is not going to be good, it's not going to be fair. So once I figured that out and figured out how many people have this experience including myself who's a lawyer has had that experience I said this should work. And then I didn't think that putting get rude on everything you know front and center was going to be appealing. So I thought how do I pivot off of that and give me basically two taglines to work with? And that's where the stop being polite ellipses dot, dot, dot, get rude came to be.

Speaker 2:

I think that's really, that's really smart, because I know a number of people that wouldn't wear get rude but probably would wear stop being polite.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Um, so we don't have hurricane claims up here. You know, for car crash claims there's this ambulance chaser stigma and I know, for hurricane claims maybe there's like the the roof chaser stigma. Does that exist for the lawyers that represent people?

Speaker 1:

oh yeah, yeah, you got, uh, you get the. You get the storm chaser claims and we're all hacks and this and that and public adjusters are always doing wrong by the clients and I mean I've heard it all before. I said I want to. I did an ambulance chaser instagram video where I literally in a suit in the middle of the summer, was sprinting in front of the er and then stopped and said you know, we don't chase ambulances at Rudin Law, we just stand right here and wait for them to stop.

Speaker 1:

And uh, you know we're too smart for that. So, but I don't, I don't care, like I have a mocked up shirt that just says ambulance chaser on it. Uh, I had a guy call me a bottom feeder once and I took that and said look, we're in Louisiana. All the good things we do are bottom feeders. Right, crawfish, alligator, like catfish, it gets all. So if you've got a problem with bottom feeders, you should get out of here.

Speaker 2:

How do you get paid on hurricane and homeowners claims?

Speaker 1:

Is it a percentage of the recovery or yeah, it's a percentage and it's a similar percentage to the auto stuff. But you know, a lot of times because the homeowners are not being made whole and it's very similar to dealing with auto property damage claim I was cutting almost every fee unless I could bring a bad faith claim and then really ratchet up the recovery such that I could take a full fee. But again, you know, the best thing you can do is leave a satisfied that you did right by them, because you're going to get those referrals tenfold.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now everybody has that story of the client who had the $10,000 case and you reduced the fee a little bit and then three weeks later his family member was in a million dollar crash, right, right. So it's always good to leave a little bit of meat on the bone with the client, because the client only has that one case, but you have a whole portfolio where you're able to do that. I won't do any negotiation of the um of the fee on the front end, but almost always on the backend. If the numbers look bad, we're we're cutting the fee.

Speaker 1:

I think I saw you put that out on LinkedIn and I thought that was like it's pretty brilliant, right? If you're hiring me, like, why are you trying to beat me up on the front end? We're supposed to be a team.

Speaker 2:

I've never actually said that to a client. I've heard that I have probably said that somewhere, but I've never made that point to a client. Like, oh, you're hiring me because I'm a great negotiator, right? What kind of shitty negotiator would I be if I let you beat me? But the broader thing, lee, is I think you don't want to be the one case in my portfolio that I'm doing at 22%. If I have all of these other places I could spend my time. You don't want to be the one at the discount rate, and that I will. I will say to clients.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's really smart. Yeah, cause you're going to. You know not, maybe not intentionally, but you might get that kind of service and you don't want it.

Speaker 2:

but I'm not trying to give it to you it's human nature. It happens to everybody who's ever taken a friend's case and been like man. Why am I doing this practice area? I don't actually know anything where I have to do more work, and I'm doing it for free for somebody.

Speaker 1:

The worst kind of gift you gave somebody. Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2:

All right, man, so people can come and check you out at Pimcon Where's that? Scottsdale, scottsdale, scottsdale, at the Phoenician, and Get Rude on all social media channels Anywhere else you want to direct people.

Speaker 1:

So we're Get Rude Law Instagram, tiktok, youtube. We're Rude and Law on Facebook. My website is getrudecom. If you need anything, I'm lee at getrudecom. We've got info at getrudecom my 800 number for your rotary dial phones and all that. Pay phones eight, three, three get rude, but we're not hard to find All right Lee, thanks for coming on. Appreciate you Kick some glass.

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Brian Glass

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