Why Law Firms Are Getting Sued Over Their Own Marketing | John Henson

Most law firms assume their marketing is someone else’s problem.

The agency handles it.
The lead vendor handles it.
The intake team handles it.

Until the lawsuit shows up.

In this episode, Brian sits down with John Henson for a conversation that starts with TCPA compliance and quickly turns into something much bigger.

Because this is not really about regulations.

It’s about how little most firms actually know about where their leads come from, how their marketing vendors operate, and the amount of risk hiding inside systems they barely pay attention to.

John breaks down how law firms end up exposed without realizing it, why “more leads” can quietly become a liability, and how firms accidentally outsource responsibility while still being the ones left holding the bag.

And honestly, some of the stories in this episode are a little wild.

But underneath all of it is a bigger point.

As firms grow, complexity grows with them. More vendors. More automation. More moving parts. And if nobody is asking hard questions, things can go sideways fast.

If your firm is spending money on lead generation, intake, or marketing vendors, this episode is worth your attention.

Because the problem usually starts long before the lawsuit does.

Connect with John

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-h-henson/
Website: https://www.henson-legal.com/newsroom

____________________________________
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?

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Transcript

Recorded Lines And Consent Warnings

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yeah. The other thing people miss on that is AI voice calls are all recorded and people don't get the consent.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

And so like in if you're in a two-party state, California, Pennsylvania, is Virginia two party?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Virginia's one.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Okay. So it's Alabama. The uh you know you need to tell people that you're using a recorded line. And again, I tell people with my clients this all the time, you're we're at a point that people are deaf to that. It's not gonna hurt. Right? Like you're gonna say, hey, this is John, a digital assistant on a recorded line. How can I help you, right? And no one's gonna hear you.

TCPA Risk For Legal Marketing

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back into Life Beyond the Briefs, the number one podcast for lawyers choosing to live lives of their own design and build the kind of practices that actually make them want to show up for work on Monday. Today's guest is John Henson of Henson Legal. John is somebody who I've wanted to have on the show for a long time to talk about something that maybe is kind of esoteric, but but I think it's important for all of us who are in the legal marketing space, which is TCPA laws. Man, I couldn't sound more boring when it's coming out of my mouth. We're gonna make it exciting today. All of the ways that lawyers and law firms can set themselves up to get sued by not complying with federal law when we're reaching out to people who have contacted us in the first place for not contacting us at all about their legal cases. So, John, welcome to the show. Thank you, Brian.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Uh, excited to be here. You know, I tell people all the time that I write the language on websites nobody reads. Um I totally understand the uh perception that it's boring, but it's actually it can actually be kind of interesting. And I think that, you know, you highlighted something in your opening there of just like it's not federal because it's state too. And it's not just like the attorney advertising. There are some state laws that are getting attorneys in trouble for real dollar amounts. Uh, and that we're seeing some real trends over that in the last six months. So excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

When you explain to people at parties or at your kids' school events what it is that you do, how do you explain it?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

So I explain it that I help any company that is communicating with consumers do so in a compliant manner. And they usually say, What does that mean? I was like, you know, do you hate spam calls? And they're like, Yeah. I was like, me too. And I

What John Henson Actually Does

SPEAKER_02 2:07

try to make sure my clients don't do that. Right. So that's that's kind of how I explain it.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

And the the funny thing is, the first time that you and I met in person was out in uh Las Vegas at Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Summit. And I said to you, it's a great business model, and it sounds amazing. You just sue people all day. And you said, No, actually, I'm on the other side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Yeah. I I am on the other side. I can probably make more money suing people, but I grew up in a small business. My family had a small business, and like you see, I I enjoy helping my clients that this is their baby, right? And they are trying to protect their baby, and that is what I'm happy to help them do. That and it's across industries, whether it's mortgage or real estate or legal or any insurance, it's so I'm touching a lot of businesses, and it's been really fun because I like to talk to people about how are they marketing? What channels are they using? Where are they seeing change in the marketing landscape, right? So it's a it gets to touch a lot of the areas that I'm interested in.

Lead Buying And The Wild West

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So take me through and I'll let you set up the hypothetical, but for a law firm who might get in trouble with a TCPA claim, what does that client journey look like? And then what has the law firm either done or not done that would set them up for failure?

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Yep. You know, I think this is something that you'll recognize, right? Of like oddly, lawyers are terrible at this. They do not do a good job when they're vetting vendors, and they are also oblivious to the risk that they're taking on. They know they need to get X number of leads in the door. They go talk to somebody and they say, Well, yeah, we'll get you X number of leads in the door, and that's it. They wash their hands of it after it. But I'm telling you, in all the verticals I'm in, the legal space for legal lead generation is the wild, wild west. And more than any other, any other vertical. Worse than mortgages? No, god just way worse than mortgages. Yeah. So way worse than mortgages. Um, the it's it's up there with like credit or debt repair, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

And um that's where lawyers want to be under mortgages, credit debt repair, and prostitutes.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I mean, I was at a conference for a lead generation conference, ran into a guy I knew, and I was like, what are you doing? He's like, Oh, I'm in legal legion now. And I was like, Oh, really? He's like, Yeah, I guess I had to get out of credit repair. Uh these lawyers don't know what they're buying. And it was like, okay, that's one way to do it. But what happens is they buy these leads and it's, you know, they don't know where the leads are coming from. They don't know how they're sourced. They don't ask those questions. And then so they just get a list of phone numbers that they need to call, or they get a warm transfer into the intake that they need to call. Um, and then maybe they call a person back the next day, and that person has never given consent. That person may never know why they're on the web, why they're even on the phone with the lawyer. I mean, I've heard call recordings of that would make your toes curl, right? Because they're so bad and it's so we call it slippery, right? Like the the funnel's so slippery, and the lawyers have no idea what goes what goes on above it until they get a demand letter. And go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

So let's say a client goes on a website, fills out a form, goes to XYZ, Arizona, alternative business structure, and then it gets parceled out to a law firm in Virginia on a Friday afternoon. Law firm in Virginia calls the person on Monday morning. What is the federal or the state law that the Virginia law firm has violated?

Damages Math And Texas Penalties

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yep. So let's assume they didn't get consent and they just ended up there and that they shouldn't be calling on. That's the TCPA, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. TCPA is a somewhat unique statute in the federal statutes because it has statutory damages and a personal and a private right of action. So you'll see lots of class actions for lots of dollars because the statutory damage is $500 per call, up to $1,500 per call if they're willful and uh not knowingly made. So you can see by running a call center 100 calls a day, that's real money real fast, right? And you know, that is the problem people have. And what happens is you've you've been told by your lead buyer that, hey, these are good leads, you've got consent to call, it's fine. And then you call them and then you get a demand letter. And then if you're in some states, like the state that I'm seeing a lot of activity in right now is Texas for a couple of reasons. One, Texas, obviously TCPA. Texas has a new state law about telemarketing registration that has high statutory damages. And then the Bear Tree law in Texas has a $50,000 penalty for a lawyer solicitation. So you make three calls and you're looking at a demand letter for $50,000 up because they've just hacked all the statutory damages on it, and they're like, we want $50,000, but we'll settle right now for $25,000. Or we're going to turn this into a class action. It's like it is a racket. There are professional plaintiffs in this space. So like that's that's the other issue, right? Is like last year was the most TCPA class actions filed in a year, and 45% of those were filed by someone who had filed a TCPA lawsuit before.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

It's good money if you can get it. So I was I was gonna ask you how how these um you know these claimants who've been, I guess, damaged or who have had their TCPA rights by Lily, how they learn that they have a cause of action, maybe they're all just 45% of them at least are free frequent flyers who've been here before. Yep. Exactly. And so And then and then you just go around, they just go around looking for lawyers. If I if I set up my my call center outbound to law firms and I call 10 law firms a day and two of them violate TCPA, it's not a bad cottage industry.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

It's not a bad cottage industry. And like the the other thing that these professional plaintiffs know is certain industries, such as legal, don't have as good a record keeping as mortgage, right? So mortgage, you have state laws, you have, you know, if you're a bank, the federal regulators to like they want to see the entire customer journey of like show me every single ad this customer saw, show me who they talked to. And when you're doing leads for mortgage, you have to like present that, right? Legal, they don't have that information because they because the lawyers are doing such a bad job of vetting their vendors that they're like the vendors won't be able to show them the whole chain. So they can't go back and show that consent. And, you know, whether you're whether the plaintiff is right or not, if the defendant can't produce the documentation, that that's how that 50,000 gets to be 30,000

Vendor Vetting And Consent Records

SPEAKER_02 8:42

real quick.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

The events I've I have done a couple of lead generation um deals. We we like to trial stuff every six months or so. We'll take 10,000 and spend it on LSAs or on um on lead generation with a company. Um and and every time I've gotten on one of those phone calls and I've asked them to show me the collateral before they run the ads, it's like I'm the first person who's ever asked them that question. And I don't know whether that's a sales tactic or actually lawyers aren't investigating or don't care about what's being run on their behalf or where these leads are are coming from. Um, but it's crazy that they're they're never able to show you all of and and I think it's getting worse. Um, probably it's getting worse because the cost of production has gone way down in the age of AI. You can spin up 10 variations of the same ad. And I mean it must be a way in meta to track the pixel and see who's who's being shown what. That that must be a capability, but you're telling me it's not actually being done. And certainly not by the law firm.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Yeah, definitely not by the law firm because they're outsourcing it to the third party, right? Because they're they're handling everything and they're just driving you calls or leads, right? And you know, you hear vendors say, Oh, we can't show you that that's our secret sauce. Well, I I've been doing this long enough, there is no secret sauce. Like everybody's bidding on the same terms, everybody's creative is roughly the same, or at least rhymes, right? And like it's they just don't want to show you because they either can't show you because they don't know where they're gonna buy the traffic from, whether it's a sub-publisher, which is happens a lot, right? Or they don't want you to know that it's a sub-publisher. They're not the

TCPA Insurance And Scale Risk

SPEAKER_02 10:16

first party.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Is this a risk I can insure myself against? Actually, yes. There is TCPA ins. What else? What should I buy?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Uh yeah, there's there is TCPA insurance. Um, I have a couple vendors I could tell tell you about, but uh, you know, it's it's not actually that expensive. Sometimes they have different requirements about where you're buying leads, what vendors you're using, or what what they need from the vendors, right? Um, but yeah, it's it is insurable. The problem is if you get hit with a big enough class, the insurance doesn't matter. Because that, like I said, if you're looking at $1,500 a case and you're doing any real scale, you can see how like if you have a screw a technical screw up in the in a week, right? And you're doing 100 calls a day, that gets real dicey real quick. So that's that's one of the problems with the insurance. I have I I recommend it to most of my clients.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And so your your job is to educate law firms and to prevent them from making these kinds of mistakes, either with vendors or but also I think I think I heard you say you talk to vendors on the front end and help them from making this kind of mistake on behalf of their law firm clients.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Correct. Correct. I would say that uh my clients, I do have a couple of clients in the legal space, and they are lead generator aggregators. So they are trying to do things the right way, you know, and they're hamstrung sometimes by you know their partners on either side. So trying to do that the right way. And then also the other clients that I have in the legal space are on the AI voice providers. What's what's what's in What's an example of a lead generator aggregator? So like lead generator slash aggregator, right? So a lead generator is gonna be generally could be first party. Like I'm gonna go generate this lead, I'm going to sell it to you. An aggregator is I'm going to potentially generate leads, but I'm also going to get third-party leads from sub-publishers and then sell those. I'm going to aggregate them together and then sell them to you. This is a gross industry when you just wild. It is wild.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I shouldn't, I shouldn't insult your clients by calling it, but but it is it is the wild west. All right. And so so you also mentioned AI voice, right? And this seems so tell me what the risk of running AI voice and what an AI voice company would need somebody like you to educate them on or to put in guardrails around the voice bot.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yeah. So uh the FCC, which is in charge of TCPA, came out in 2024 and said uh the TCPA regulates automatic telephone dialing systems and pre-recorded or artificial voiced. And in 2024, they said when we say pre-recorded or artificial voice, we're including artificial intelligence generated voice in that, right? So immediately every outbound AI voice dialer is now subject to TCPA. And what that means is twofold. So one, all informational calls made with AI voice, think of that about like uh appointment reminders. Hey, Brian, you're not your mom's tomorrow, right? Hey, your prescription's ready. Hey, don't forget to come get your dog, right? Those are informational and they have to have the customer's prior

AI Voice And FCC Rules

SPEAKER_02 14:10

express consent. That's pretty easy. That's just you dropped your car off at the garage, you said, call me when it's ready. That's your and you gave me your phone number. That's prior express consent. Where it gets tricky is when it's marketing. Because marketing currently requires prior express written consent. And that's the language you see at the bottom of a form, right? Hey, you know by putting your information in, I'm gonna call you for marketing, right? So because of that, you have to have that language, and then you have to have the prior express written consent and you have to be able to show it if there's a claim, right? And that's where people are getting into trouble because they're just throwing AI voice on top of their processes, or they're buying a list and they're just gonna run it through. And there's some there's obviously other wrinkles in there, but like that's the biggest one is like, do you have consent to use this technology? Because the way the TCPA is written, the content of the message matters, but just the fact you're using the technology loops you into the the rules.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And so does does an informational um message become a marketing message if it's hey, your dog is ready for you to come pick him up. Do you want us to bay them before you get here?

SPEAKER_02 15:19

I like to explain to people that my rule of thumb is money you've already spent email, I mean a call about money you've already spent, informational, right? If I'm trying to get you to spend new money, probably not, right? So in your case, let's let's we'll use your law firm, right? You could use AI voice to say, hey, John, we're still you still need to provide us your doctor's stuff, right? You still need to go see the doctor. Here's where we are. That's informational. You're just updating the client about the current contract needing, right? If you were gonna say, Hey, your doctor's stuff's ready, and oh, by the way, do you have any car crash friends we could talk to, right? And that's marketing now. Right. So you're trying to get them to spend more money.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Right. Do um is there any regulation around inbound AI? So if somebody calls me, somebody calls the law firm, we don't answer live, but we have instead of a rollover after hours answering service, we have an AI answering service. Are there rules and regulations about that?

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So currently the TCPA does not cover inbound AI. There was a proposal at one point, but uh not sure if you know this about the current administration. They're not doing a whole lot of new rulemaking in this space. The not in this space. In this space. Uh yeah, the FCC is now doing other things. Um the so where we see it is in states. Like Colorado has an AI bill that's supposed to go live in June. There's some issues there. Also, California has an AI law. I'm having clients say, even on the inbound stuff, like, hey, this is John, the digital assistant for Bend Glass Law, right? Sure. Just to at least say it out there. Yeah. The other thing people miss on that is AI voice calls are all recorded and people don't get the consent. And so, like, and if you're in a two-party state, California, Pennsylvania, is Virginia two-party?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Virginia's one. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

So it's Alabama. The uh, you know, you need to tell people

Inbound AI And Call Recording Laws

SPEAKER_02 17:05

that you're using a recorded line. And again, I tell people my clients this all the time. You're we're at a point that people are deaf to that. It's not gonna hurt them. Right? Like you're gonna say, hey, this is John, a digital assistant on a recorded line. How can I help you? Right? And no one's gonna hear it, hear it.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Do you think that's true across across all practice areas? Because I've heard and I don't know whether this is anecdotal or factual. Criminal defense lawyers in particular are really hesitant to use that recorded line uh even even in California.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah, I would I would probably agree with that. Like I know that I have some some of my verticals are like health insurance or doctor's offices also because nobody wants to say, you know, my rash is back, um, or whatever. So yeah, I could see that. I could see that.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And so this, like, how did you get into this niche?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

That's a great question. So uh I was a mortgage compliance officer at a bank, big bank here in Birmingham, went to go do compliance legal work at a company called Lending Tree in Charlotte. And then Lending Tree is a huge caller, like just huge lead generator. It's like billion dollars a year now in revenue. And that's kind of how I got into this niche and just niched my way down over time. And then the AI voice stuff is obviously new, but it's related. I mean, I've leaned in there marketing-wise, and said I post a lot of content about AI voice. I talk, I go to a lot of events and speak about it. So I've kind of become known for that over the last eight, let's call it 12 months.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

And it is interesting, you know, the uh the marketing of your services. It's it's almost like like lawyers that go around and uh injury lawyers will often say, we try to do educational materials on you should have more underinsured motorist coverage than you have. And everybody

Running A Solo Compliance Practice

SPEAKER_01 18:52

is totally deaf to that until they're in a crash and they don't have enough underinsured motorist coverage. And I've got to imagine that your prophylactic, but here's all the things that you should do to make sure that you don't have a TCBA claim uh or make sure you aren't violating any state or federal laws, is a tough message to get across to most law firms and most companies.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Yeah, I I think it's uh because I've thought a lot about this. And I think the legal practice area I like equate it to is trust in estates, right? Everybody knows they should be thinking about TCPA compliance, but like until their buddy who's also in this place dies or gets, you know, a giant lawsuit, they don't think about it, right? So that's kind of like you know, I pay attention to trust and estates marketers and what they're doing because it's the same thing. Like it's a needed service, but how do you pull people to you, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

How have you dealt with tire kickers in that space? Because uh as somebody who went to a trust and estates lawyer uh right before I was flying overseas and then did not do anything and safely came back for another five years. Yeah. I gotta imagine you have a bunch of people that come to you and know that they have a problem and then uh don't don't pull the trigger and don't engage. And you're and you're true, basically true solo, right? Yeah, don't have any staff and it's just you. Just me.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

I'm bad at it. Um I just am. I have a tendency, uh, it's like you know, my toxic trait of I'm overly helpful on pitch calls. And then so like people get the answers they need, and like I literally have to like hold myself back because I can just like say, Oh, here's what you need to do. You know, it's one of those things we all have those areas that's like this is so easy, this comes so naturally to me. Like, this should be easy for you. And I so I kind of just vomit things out at times. It's frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

This is all lawyers, by the way. So don't don't feel like you are alone in that because this is the problem with all lawyers doing sales calls or intake calls, is that we love to issue spot and where it manifests in the personal injury practice is you you scare clients off by telling them all of the things that might happen in their case. Yeah. And if you're you if you're telling them all the things that might happen in the case, but you're probably not, right? You're probably, as an injury lawyer goes down, here's the things that might happen, and here's how we would solve it, you're giving the solutions away in the same way.

unknown 21:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yep. So I say, hey, by running that campaign, here are the three issues that we sh see right now. How I would think through those is fix this language, fix that language, fix this language. And then they go chat GPT. And that's my Chat GPT. That's my problem. Yeah. That's my that's the other problem in my job right now, is ChatGPT.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

How many of the clients that have come to you are you know one and done clients versus somebody that now wants you to look at every single campaign that they're running?

SPEAKER_02 21:37

That's a great question. So probably a third, a third, a third. A third is they got what they needed, they're out. A third is I want to really continue this relationship and be close. And then a third are in the middle somewhere. Right. So the key for me is find those, I can move those people in the middle third to the the top third, right? And then just keep the funnel coming in. Because they need, I mean, again, it is like personal injury, right? Like in the sense of if I just solve the problem and they leave, I gotta keep filling that funnel.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Well, yeah. I mean, in and in personal injury, at a certain point, you're always gonna have solved the problem and they will live up. It's it's all it's like essay planning, right? So the transaction, once it's over, okay, you you can you do a subscription model uh that maybe gets you a discount on whatever probate there is, if if there is anything to probate, um, and get you kind of annual updates and something like this. But otherwise, you were just chasing the next client who will be with you for 18, 24 months and then and then be over. It's yeah, it's and and you're constantly um trying to strike this balance between am I going to be able to feed my family and I don't want to be still working at six o'clock on a Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Yeah. It's it's you know, I would explain it to my wife. I'm like, it's a constant roller coaster of uh, oh my God, I don't have any work to do versus oh my god. How am I gonna get all this work done? Um the other wrinkle too that is problematic for my business is I don't do litigation. So like if I have someone come in and say, Hey, I've got a demand letter, like I'm like, I don't do that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Do you have a firm that you refer those to? Yeah, I got a couple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Um and it's personal choice, like I don't want to. I I will do demand letters for my clients. Like if I have a client that gets a demand letter, I'll work with them on that. But all my clients know, like, as soon as a lawsuit is filed, I'm out. And here's what you're gonna use. Right. So how have you messaged that? Um very upfront about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah. From from very beginning of the engagement or very beginning. Yep. Yeah. And how often is that met with resistance? Rarely. Rarely. So I I ask that because that's the big fear of of guys who are in this transactional um uh space where they're subject matter expert on something, but they just don't want to do litigation for whatever reason, right? The big fear is if I don't do the litigation for you know ABC firm, that they're gonna go to somebody else, and then that person is gonna win them over and win all their general counsel work going forward. Sounds like that has not been your experience.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

No, I have really good relationships of like probably two, two, like I said, two or three firms, and like I know them pretty well. And every time I make an introduction through through email to a client, more potential client, generally that email is responded with, Hey John, thanks for the info. And Brian, if you have any compliance questions, go to John. Right. So like and they're they're in the same space as I am, like they have a compliance program too.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

So cool.

unknown 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

All right. Well, if you are out there listening and you are attracting clients through any kind of gray area, black area, white area, lead generation where they're not directly calling your client, calling your law firm. You need to speak with somebody like John, or or better, just speak with John. John, where can people find you? I am very active on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

I'm the Bob Gav Glasses. That's not Brian. If you if it's not glasses, it's Brian. If it's glasses, it's me. Um you can also find me at Hinson Legal.com.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

My my old driver's license, I had hair and glasses and no beard. And I went through TSA one time and they were like, this isn't you.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

I said, No, this is it's me.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

It's just a 28 year old version.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Exactly. Exactly. All right, John. Thanks for coming on today.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Thanks, Brian.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Really appreciate it.