Episode 22: Lessons From Insurance Adjuster Turned Injury Attorney, John Griffith

In this episode of Championing Justice, Darl Champion interviews John Griffith of Griffith Law in Franklin, Tennessee, who went from working as an insurance adjuster to becoming a successful personal injury attorney. 

John shares personal stories that shaped his philosophy about helping injured people, insights into how insurance companies operate, strategies for efficiently managing personal injury cases, and predictions about the future of the legal industry.

→ Learn more about John and Griffith Law here: https://www.griffithinjurylaw.com

→ Connect with John on LinkedIn

Watch this and other Championing Justice episodes on YouTube: Championing Justice video episodes

Additional Resources:

Learn more about The Champion Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.C. here.

Learn more about Georgia tort law cases and topics here.

Follow Darl and The Champion Firm on social media:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
TikTok
Darl’s LinkedIn

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show!

Transcript

Thanks for listening to the Championing Justice Podcast.

My name is Darl Champion.

I'm the founder and owner of The Champion Firm.

We are a personal injury law firm based in the metro area of Atlanta.

Today, we have John Griffith.

He's an attorney in Tennessee, in Franklin, Tennessee.

It's just outside of Nashville, is that right?

The south, yes, sir.

Excellent.

Well, thanks for joining us.

I was just up in Tennessee for my kid's spring break.

We went to Dollywood.

Oh, that's great.

That was a nice experience.

A lot of people asked me, they were like, what is that whole Gatlinburg area like?

I'm like, imagine Myrtle Beach in the mountains.

That's essentially what it's like.

But I'm glad to have you on the show with us and to talk about your background working in the insurance industry and what led to you becoming a personal injury lawyer and owning your own law firm.

So let's start just telling us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, I was born in Middle Tennessee.

I was raised on really a farm, about 1200 acre farm.

My father was a lawyer, but also he loved to farm more than he loved to be a lawyer, I think.

And just a small town, had a lot of really good people in my small town.

I just I love it.

It's still home to me.

It's about 90 miles west of Nashville.

And and then I went to school, wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do.

And then I got out after I graduated.

I tried to play football and got a little hurt, banged up hurt doing that in college.

And then when I got out, I unlocked into a job with Progressive Insurance.

And a friend of mine said, Hey, we got an opening over here if you'd like to give it a shot.

I didn't have anything else better going at the top.

So I did it.

I liked it at first and it was good training.

But after a couple of years, I realized I was just really hurting people.

I was taking advantage of people and I just just got tired of that.

So I worked there for about eight years and there were just some things that happened, some specific things that really created a desire to change and get out of that industry.

So those had a tremendous effect on me.

And so I got out and I knew when I went to law school, when I applied to law school, that I wanted to be a plaintiff lawyer.

I knew it before all of that happened.

I didn't figure it out along the way.

I went to law school with the intent of becoming a trial lawyer.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Now, tell me a little bit about those experiences at Progressive that kind of shaped your kind of philosophy or your background or caused that need or the desire at least to get out of there and fight for injured folks.

Yeah, you know, I got to be careful because I have a lot of friends who are in the insurance industry and I was there for, you know, a number of years and I made a lot of good friends that were my coworkers.

And it just, for me, it wasn't the right job.

And a lot of adjusters, I think I have a good rapport with a lot of the adjusters because I understand that they're, I always say they're between a rock and a rock.

The good adjusters have some empathy but they can't act on it because they've got certain authority they must act within with the insurance company.

So, I always say that they're just in a tough position but I had a situation where a lot of managers are really good people but some aren't and so I had one who was pretty cutthroat and we went into a lady's house that had a claim that was worth every bit of our 250,000 limits and we settled it for $15,000.

Wow.

And it involved a drunk driver, it involved her having a fractured hip, and we settled that case, she invited us into her home and I walked out of there with a release and with my manager and we were quote celebrating afterwards.

We went out to Hooters and had some wings and beer after because he was so excited.

He's like, man, we saved the company so much money today and I didn't really feel like celebrate and the next day that lady called me and she said, Mr.

John, she said, it just so happened I got a bill and Medicare is not paying it and because it was not a wreck and it's worth all it's the bills a lot more than the $15,000 and I just can I send that to you and I said ma'am I'm sorry we are not gonna be responsible for paying that bill and she hung up and then she called me later that day and she said or the next day and she said John I don't know how you sleep at night she said I trusted you I invited you into my house I sat down with you you talked to me and you said this was a fair deal and I know now that it's not and she ended with I don't know how you sleep at night click and that night I didn't sleep and I thought about it and I thought man I just don't feel like my soul is in a very good place right now and so I went to a payphone this is back in 1992 one or two and I went to a payphone because I didn't want my phone call to be tracked from anything and I called her and I said you need to go see this lawyer in Canton, Georgia and you need to tell him everything that happened and you need to tell him how much hydrocodone you were on at the time and get that reversed because that's just not fair to you but this conversation never happened.

So she did, that lawyer did and it wound up being very good for her in the end but that was the story that just kind of at that point I just had the desires like I got to get out of this business man I get it's just it's hurting me and I can't stand it.

Yeah, now was this in Tennessee where you were working as an adjuster?

No, I was in Georgia.

I was in North Georgia working a lot in North Georgia and anyway it was it was an interesting time in my life.

But one of the it's the only time I really lived out of the state of Tennessee.

I've been in Tennessee my whole life.

But yeah, I was I was actually based in Cartersville for a while and I was responsible for all of North Georgia territory.

Yeah, very familiar with that area where our main office is in Marietta.

But we've got a satellite office in Woodstock, which is just right by Canton.

Yeah, Highway 20 ride, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I lived in Cartersville.

Yeah.

Which is now grown like crazy.

Yeah, the whole area has grown like crazy.

So you go to law school, you decide I want to be a plaintiff's lawyer.

Did you become a plaintiff's lawyer right after law school?

Right out of law school.

No question about it.

Actually, that's not true.

At first, I worked while I was in law school, I had the good fortune, in Tennessee, they have a Supreme Court rule that allow third or fourth year law students to work under the tutelage of a public defender or district attorney.

So I worked for the district attorney in my hometown, Humphreys County, Waverly.

And so I was trying cases, and then I was driving to law school at the end of the day, I went to school at night.

And so I would try a jury trial, it's a criminal jury trial, a DUI trial.

And then the assistant DA would call me, well, congratulations, you got a verdict, or man, unfortunately, the jury was hung, or they found a defense verdict.

And I'm like, man, and it was just so cool, driving to law school, and all these guys hanging out outside before class, and they say, what did you do today?

I said, oh, not much, just trying to jury trial.

They're like, what?

That's awesome.

That was great fun for me, man.

I didn't have that much pressure.

I was still scared to death, but I didn't have that much pressure because it really didn't matter.

I mean, it mattered if you won or lost, but the state's not going to fire you if you lose a case.

Sure.

Yeah.

You're not even a certified lawyer yet.

Yeah.

I'm sure that was a great experience and probably solidified your desire to be a trial lawyer.

Yeah.

I realized that before I got my law degree, I realized that I could try a case, not well, but try a case and just be myself.

And it kind of, you know, trying a bunch of jury trials before I got my final law license and was admitted to the bar was a great, one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I think a lot of people should do that.

They should work for the DA's office and just get to try cases on the state's dial.

It's a great opportunity for lawyers.

Yeah, no, for sure.

I mean, I'll tell you, I went to law school with the desire of being a criminal defense lawyer and I thought maybe I would do that and maybe also practice some plaintiff's personal injury law.

I grew up in a kind of medium sized town in North Carolina.

There weren't big law firms where I grew up.

Most people were doing divorces, wills, criminal, like they were doing everything.

So I didn't know that you could, I mean, I just didn't know you could specialize in being a plaintiff's lawyer.

We had one or two lawyers that would show up on TV, but it's still not that common in North Carolina.

Although it's certainly getting there like it is in a lot of other states.

So when did you start Griffith Law?

Well, I started working after I got licensed for my father, and he was working in a small town in Waverly and doing a little bit of everything that you were talking about, just a jack of all trades, master of none.

I really love personal injury.

I've always been, I was drawn to torts and remedies and civil procedure just in law school.

I could have taken four classes in law school and been doing all right, everything that I love.

But my dad had represented this man for years in criminal cases, done a will for him, and then his wife got killed in a car wreck, and she went to Nashville.

He went to Nashville and got a lawyer.

And I was like, man, why would he have done this?

Why would he have done this when you've got the relationship with him?

And he said, well, everybody wants a Nashville lawyer for their big cases.

You know, after that, I moved to Nashville, and that was tough, leaving my dad.

But I started working for a large personal injury law firm, and then I had a law partner, a guy that I met in law school, and we formed a law firm, and it worked out really good for the first 10 years or so, because he did workers comp, and we did tons of workers comp, and I did all the personal injuries.

So we really didn't have to advertise as much, which was nice, but we would get all the workers comp through a factory, and then all that, they would send their cases to us, and then they would know somebody who got hurt in a personal injury wreck, and we would handle that.

But in 2012, Tennessee had a change in the workers comp law.

So my law partner's business was officially, legally, I mean just judicially removed.

And the pendulum was really easy, too far in the workers, perhaps too far in the workers favor, but it swung way over into the employers favor, way too far.

The pendulum never stops in the middle.

And I was like, man, what are you gonna do to replace that business?

He's like, I don't know.

I guess I'm gonna do what you're doing.

And so I just said, well, anyway, it was just, it wasn't working out that way.

So I just, we split up and I was in downtown Nashville at the time, so I moved.

I'm in Franklin.

My wife said, why don't you just open an office in Franklin?

You're here.

And I'm like, yeah, why don't I?

So I credit my wife with that, but it's been, it was the best decision because I'm closer to home.

My wife comes by and sees me and brings the kids.

And, you know, I'm home in 10 minutes.

It's just, it's fantastic.

And it's been a great location for me.

And just Franklin's booming, it's growing.

And so I just, I've always just said, I just want to own Franklin.

If I go on Franklin, I'll be happy.

You know, we're expanding now.

I mean, we've got two other offices, but we're, everything's, it's been, been a good move and it's just good people here.

You know, we've got very, a lot of conservative people here, just kind of like minded.

And a lot of lawyers will tell you that, you know, the traditional lore is that conservatives aren't good jurors.

And I, you know, I'm a big of the reptile fame.

I think people, all people are rule followers, especially more, maybe right leaning people.

They're rule followers.

And so if you focus on the conduct of the defendant, you've got system failures, they're going to, they're going to give you just verdicts in those cases.

So, and then I like it when people of all, they do not like when people don't take responsibility.

Exactly.

And so I think as a lawyer, you know this, Darl, but we have the power of good lawyering.

The right lawyer makes a difference.

We have the power of focusing the attention on the actions of the defendant.

And it's just, it's not the way things were done when I first started trying cases.

You know, there was more, maybe an appeal to sympathy towards the plaintiff.

That's gone.

That's, that's, I always, yeah, our clients aren't getting any sympathy.

We just, but I don't want to have sympathy for the defense at the same time.

That's what, you know, jurors don't know, for example, that defendants in car wreck cases are fully insured in Tennessee.

We can't even discuss insurance.

And so insurance is all over the courtroom, but nobody knows.

Everybody just pretends it doesn't exist.

And I can't dispute the rule, but we just try to act within it.

And we try to maximize ways to get that information out there.

So that's, you know, not not unethically, but sure.

What are some tactics that you use to do that?

I'll tell you something I do.

My very first trial that I had in Nashville, there was a great seasoned lawyer and he's still practicing today.

His name is Barry Howard and he's a good friend of mine.

I love him.

We had this trial and his the defendant had rear ended the plaintiff.

So I prepared for trial.

It was one of my first trials as a licensed lawyer.

I show up in court and I'm just going to hammer the defendant on not taking responsibility.

I'm like, man, we're going to wear him out.

I can't believe he rear ended us.

Our client is just sitting still in red light and they blame us.

How irresponsible is that?

So they denied the liability for two years.

Barry stands up in front of the jury and says, Your Honor, we're here to admit liability.

We just don't think that the plaintiff should be given a blank check.

I was like, what?

He can't do that.

I remember looking at the table and I'm looking at my feet.

I'm like, I want to crawl under this table right now.

Because I'd really focused most of my prep on that and not really on the plaintiff's damages.

I had my medical proof and all that.

I said after I walked to that trial at a ripe young age, I said that will never ever happen to me again.

So now, you know how it is, Darl.

Most people don't know this.

When you're a car wreck and you have to file a lawsuit because the insurance company has been low balling you, they won't even offer the medical bills.

You file a lawsuit and their lawyers, the insurance lawyers who appear to be independent, but they're not, the insurance lawyers deny liability.

They say, no, we're not at fault for this wreck.

That's not us.

That's not our fault.

And so, then I immediately send requests for admissions under Rule 36 and I state it in clear bubble language, as simple as can be, admit you're 100% at fault.

Admit the plaintiff did nothing wrong.

Not the second one and they deny that, deny that.

Then you take the deposition and they still might deny it without a valid reason.

Well, the plaintiff, I think she might have stopped suddenly.

What, did you see her stop suddenly?

Well, no.

And you didn't see her stop because you had your head down looking at your phone.

And then I do motions for summary judgment liability.

That way, the defendant can't stand up and say that.

We can say, ladies and gentlemen, we sued them because they refused to accept responsibility.

The court found as a matter of law that they're at fault.

They've never, they've denied liability three times.

And so we kind of get away with that with some of our judges and it's the right thing to do.

And that way it just takes away that, oh, that altruistic false attitude that they portray is like, oh, we are so sorry we did this.

The plaintiff is just being so greedy.

They want billions of dollars.

We take all that crap away, you know?

And so just really focus on that.

I don't know what the rules are in Georgia as far as those type of pleadings.

But yeah, we're not allowed to mention insurance.

You know, our uninsured motorist law is kind of interesting because we have to sue the tortfeasor.

And so the insurance company, though, they get served with a complaint, the uninsured motorist carrier does, and then they have the option to either defend in their own name, in which event their name is going to be all over the case, right?

Or they can defend in the name of the driver.

Now, normally, you know, even if they answer in the name of the insurance company, they'll switch it at the last minute, unless it's like an egregious misconduct case.

So, maybe a drunk driver or something.

They just don't want to be associated.

And they want to get up and say, we're just the insurance company.

We're not this person.

So, those put them in a tough position.

But, you know, certainly, I think everybody knows insurance is involved now.

And I mean, plus, you know, you go through it in Boardhire with the questioning of the panel.

I had a case in Cherokee County a year or two ago, and the judge was asking who on the panel had State Farm.

And a few people had made it into the court.

They were supposed to be screened out before even getting into the courtroom.

A few people raised their hands and said, I have State Farm.

And the judge said, you got to go down to courtroom three.

That's an all-state case.

Oh, my gosh.

I was like, well, I guess the defense lawyer is not going to say anything about that.

But again, I think everybody kind of knows.

And, you know, but to your point, though, we do deal a lot with the last-minute admissions of fault.

And they try and come to court and act like they're sorry and have been sorry all along.

You know, we file motions and eliminate on that, though, too, that sort of prevent them from acting like they've accepted responsibility all along.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, they may open the door.

Most of the time, there, you know, when you send requests for remissions under Rule 36, Rule 37 has sanctions.

And so most of the time, you know, they deny it and then you take the depositions to prove it and they, they deny it.

And then they come to court saying that.

I said, Your Honor, under Rule 37, they, they were supposed to admit this.

What nothing changed.

I always ask them a deposition.

Is there any additional investigation you're going to do?

Has all of your investigation into the facts of liability in this case been done?

Or what do you plan on doing?

I asked them if there was anything else and they said no.

And so what has changed?

Nothing.

It's just a trial strategy.

And because of that, they should not be allowed to, number one, admit any type of sorrow or responsibility and it should be that the court has found.

Not that they've found, they've just had suddenly this altruistic attitude.

The courts, the court had to intervene and find them at fault.

Yeah.

Well, you know, and we certainly have some cases too where the defense attorney has admitted fault in the answer and you get the defendant in a deposition and they try and act like it wasn't their fault, which is kind of an interesting scenario that comes up occasionally.

I have the reverse of that.

I have the defense, the defense admitting or denying fault in the answer and then the defendant himself admitting fault.

We'll get those too.

We'll get those too.

And then you show them the answer.

Like, is this your answer to say, no, that's not my answer.

And the defense lawyers object to like, right?

They're like, man, that's just, that's just there.

It's in their blood.

A defense lawyer cannot admit fault most of the time.

They just don't do it.

Well, the other thing that's in their blood, and I cannot understand that.

If any defense lawyers are listening to this, I apologize for what I'm about to say.

But they have the easiest job between being the host and them.

I mean, they do the same shtick every freaking trial.

I hear the same analogies.

I hear the same stories.

It's the same slideshow.

And what blows my mind is they approach, they don't take a tailor-made approach to each case.

Almost every case is the same thing.

If they don't blatantly say it, the undertone is the plaintiff's lying and they're excited.

And I've had trials where that blows up in their face and I'm sitting there and I'm like, how tone deaf can you be?

Yeah.

And they still do it.

And it's like they can't help themselves.

They're going to do it regardless.

Yeah.

I had a defense lawyer tell me, he's from New York, he said, John, if a plaintiff's lip's moving, they're lying.

But to your point, I mean, there are a good defense lawyer can make a great difference, but you're, and there's some good ones that I go against regularly that I have great respect for that are actually friends of mine.

But one of my favorite things is, I didn't make this up, but it takes a craftsman to build a barn, but any jackass can knock it down.

You know, we have to build it, we have to prove it.

And all I have to do, you know, if I have a doctor's deposition or plaintiff's deposition, and I've got 2,000 pages of medical records, I still don't trust AI yet to go through those records.

But I've got to go through every one of them, because if you know this, Darl, one record can be taken out of context and can make your client look like a liar.

That's what they do.

A quick example.

This is fresh on mind from last week.

I had this lawyer who was asking my client questions, said, have you had any neck pain?

She's got a neck injury in her neck.

Have you had any neck pain in the last six months?

Nope.

I haven't had any.

That's not my favorite answer.

To the best of my memory, no, I don't recall any, but she said no.

Then he whips out, no, he says, well, did you see Dr.

So-and-so and tell him that you had severe neck pain?

Well, according to this note, you did.

I'm like, where's the note?

He didn't show me the note.

I find the note based on the date later, minutes later, and it says, patient has severe tooth abscess with severe pain in jaw radiating to neck.

That's an example of how they take stuff out of context.

I said, in accordance with Rule 106, I want to interrupt here and state this.

He said, no speaking objection.

I said, no, you brought this out.

I want to put this in context.

You only gave half the story.

You said the note had this.

That's a judge call there.

Well, I had a mediation recently where defense attorney was talking about all our clients prior back pain.

There was a little bit, but it wasn't a ton.

But most of the prior stuff had to do with gastrointestinal stuff that was radiating to our back, and a couple of visits for kidney stones.

That's very different.

Their job is to distract, to confuse, and to, quite frankly, mislead the jury.

I think that's where, when they get caught doing it, that's where these verdicts blow up in their face, and they act like, oh my God, how did this happen?

Because you were lying.

In jury selection, I think in every trial I have, context is always an issue, and I have some pictures that I took in New York.

It's a picture of a pond, and I like, if you look at this pond, at this picture, it looks like you're in the beautiful countryside, but you're in the, you know, then you pull back and put it in context.

You're in the biggest city, one of the biggest cities in the world.

And just putting things in context is our job as plaintiff lawyers, and not let them mislead the jury, because that's exactly what they do.

I want to talk about, you know, your law firm and how you've built it and kind of your approach in a second, but I want to come back to the whole insurance industry experience and kind of your knowledge of it.

Were you doing pre-suit, were you a pre-suit adjuster, or were you a litigation adjuster, or did you work in both?

I worked in both.

I did pre-suit, and I was a pretty good claims adjuster as far as handling lots of volume.

Progressive taught me well, and then I went to another law firm while I was, I mean, another insurance company while I was in law school.

And I had more experience than a lot of those guys who were newer, and I had years of experience.

So I got rewarded by giving, being given more claims than anybody.

I mean, you just, you got punished for it.

The reward for doing great work is more work.

Yeah, that's right.

So, but I was on the litigation team, and so we would have the proverbial roundtable discussions in evaluation of case.

There would be the claims president of claims.

There would be all the claims attorneys, you know, four or eight of them, depending on how many showed up.

And then I was on that team.

And then each, we would sit there and evaluate cases, and each claims manager, along with the just would bring in and present the case that they were seeking authority on.

And we learned about reserve settings, those type things, learned about how insurance companies evaluate claims.

Had a little bit of that with Progressive, where I'd work with their attorneys and legal counsel.

But what people need to know, what attorneys need to know is, when you're preparing for mediation, and you know this, Darl, it's nothing for you, but the amount of money that was decided to be offered at mediation was determined a month ago.

And so, because of that, we get our mediation packages in and try to get them in very early to the, and usually I'll send the mediation demand or packet, it's usually just, I'll send it sometimes to the defense lawyer.

Like, hey, this is what we're asked for.

I don't put everything in there.

I mean, I don't put our subrogation in there.

But I'll put strengths and weaknesses.

I mean, I'm going to hold back the things.

Obviously, I don't want the interest to say, but I'll put weaknesses in there because the interest lawyer, he's already discovered them.

He knows it.

They know it.

This is not as someone once said.

I think too, when you acknowledge some of the weaknesses in your case, it gives you credibility.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, the best defense lawyers to me, like when I'm shooting straight with them and they're acknowledging, yeah, like this is a problem for us, we agree, but hey, have you thought about this on your case?

I'm more likely to give them weight for what they've said about my case if they're acknowledging the problems with their own because it tells me that they're looking at this, although they are advocates, that they are looking at this objectively.

But if they're like, oh yeah, and the fact that there were beer cans falling out of my client's truck and all of a sudden.

Not a problem.

That's no problem.

No problem at all.

But you know, your guy had back pain 10 years earlier.

It's like, oh, come on.

Yeah.

Well, so I will tell you, and this is my view of how the personal injury industry is kind of set up now.

And you tell me if I'm wrong.

And now I've been a plaintiff's lawyer for about 15 years now.

And before I started my firm about 10 or 11 years ago, I was at a very kind of boutique firm that focused mainly on litigation and catastrophic cases.

So I didn't deal with a lot of the cases that I deal with now, which I do deal with a lot of routine audit cases.

It seems to me that at some point, insurance companies made medical bills and the amount of medical bills, the single most important metric for claim value, at least pre-suit.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that.

And it seems to me that what that has led to is a cottage industry of lean treatment, medical funding, and certain attorneys, not all of them, because lean treatment and medical funding is valuable for a lot of clients.

But there are some lawyers who I think abuse that, and whose sole goal is, because they're running volume, they're, hey, I just got to run this volume.

Their sole goal is to, let's try and get these medical bills close to what the policy limits are.

And the insurance companies seem to play that game too, because they, those are often the only claims they pay.

We've gotten to the point now with State Farm, for example, we're like, why are we even sending a pre-suit demands?

Because, you know, we've got, we'll have a case, clear liability, horrible wreck, ton of property damage, 30,000 in conservative medical bills.

Like these aren't inflated bills at all.

These are very reasonable and customary bills.

You get a $10,000 offer.

Yeah.

And you're like, what, so what is going on in the insurance industry?

Do you have any perspective on that?

Well, I have a lot of concerns because I know in Georgia, you guys, they just passed a collateral source bill that I think is terrible.

And I, and it's been attempted here in Tennessee.

It was taken up to our Supreme Court.

I thought there was a chance we could lose it, but we hung on pretty strongly to it.

But it doesn't mean they can't be changed legislatively.

So, I'm always worried about that.

There have been cases where the bills in one of my clients, in several of my clients' cases were so inflated.

I chose not to push those bills because I think, I'm worried about being the goose that kills a golden egg.

I think that, you know, what happened in Tennessee, or Georgia could happen in Tennessee, and I don't want that to happen.

But I think some lawyers have such disregard for that.

They think they have some entitled right to have an MRI that's worth $18,000.

You know, a standard MRI.

I just think that's stupid and unreasonable.

And I've actually had an independent doctor go back and lower values on things.

And that would help our credibility.

He's like, yeah, I don't think those bills are reasonable.

I think a third of that bill is reasonable.

And that worked out really, really well for us.

But as far as the insurance companies playing the game, I mean, insurance companies hate us.

I mean, you know how it is.

There's just nothing they like about us.

The sad thing about an insurance adjuster is they don't realize that the way the insurance company wants to treat guys like you and me and our clients and plaintiffs is the same way they want to treat their own employees.

These employees are just overhead to them.

They don't like wasting money on claims.

I have a case right now where my clients are state farm adjusters.

Oh, man.

It's a state farm policy.

They're getting low ball like crazy.

Oh, man.

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

No, it's crazy.

What I can't figure out is, the problem with insurance companies to me is they commoditized claims handling from my point of view.

It's all about metrics, data, what are the bills, what are this.

So if you're on the plaintiff side and your goal, if you're running a volume firm, a lot of these firms don't want to try cases and don't want to work them out for litigation.

They just want to flip them as quickly as possible.

So they're trying to reverse engineer this, whatever algorithm is the insurance company is using, which again, the crudest way to do it is just, hey, let's get a large bill.

So that's my perspective, at least on what's gone on in Georgia a lot, because I do hear a lot of my defense lawyer friends complain about, oh, these bills are inflated, these bills are high.

And I've been the first one to criticize that practice and say, yeah, it exists.

But it's a two-way street.

When you're trying to get claims settled, and you're the insurance company, you've indicated to people the only way to get the claim settled is to do this.

And then you reward the law firms by paying their $25,000, $50,000 policy limits, demands on those claims.

Yeah.

You know, everybody with a $25,000 policy limits case gets, regardless of what happens, whether it's hospital, urgent care, or whatever, and then they get an MRI, an epidural, and some physical therapy, and then maybe some other injection, but the bills are $18,000 to $20,000.

Those claims are getting paid all day long by State Farm and others if the limits are $25,000.

But when we've got the clients treating conservatively and the bills are lower, we're getting punished.

And I see this time and time again where our pre-suit offers are just insane on a lot of cases.

And that's why it's like, we just need to file suit on all these cases.

And then normally, and I will say Progressive is one of them, Progressive is one of these insurance companies that as soon as it goes to litigation, we're getting a call from somebody and the demand is going up pretty quickly, or the offer is going up pretty quickly.

State Farm, eventually.

I think one of the biggest frustrations that I deal with are in-house counsel for insurance companies.

Do you all have that in Georgia?

Yeah, yeah.

State Farm, Progressive.

I think it's unethical.

I don't think their lawyers are unethical, but I think it's just unethical to have the appearance of a lawyer, you know, they have the law offices of Julie Schmoley, whoever.

And it looks like every other law firm that's independent, but it's not.

These people are basically, well, they're all on the dole of the insurance company.

Everything is paid for by the insurance company.

It's a legal fiction that's set up by an insurance company.

And nobody knows this.

And who really doesn't know it are the people they're defending.

And so who is a lawyer going to represent the person that's, I mean, more zealously and take direction from, the person who pays them or the client who's just another insured that they've been forced to represent.

I just think there's an ethical problem with that.

And I just, and the other problem is the insurance companies have a scorched earth policy.

There's no cost of defense that they have to consider.

Like another, if they had outside counsel and they say, well, yes, this is a complicated case.

There's eight defendants.

You know, we're going to spend 20,000 on this.

Let's just go ahead and offer whatever.

Now, that's that's that'd be better for plaintiffs, of course.

But it's just it's just a real way of doing business.

Yeah, I'm with you.

And I think a lot of.

I mean, these in-house staff counsel, captive counsel, whatever people call them, they are they almost universally view the adjusters as their clients.

Now, they may say, Oh, well, yeah, I know who my client is.

I don't need you to tell me who my client is.

It's like, come on.

You're with that adjuster on every single claim.

And you know that adjuster well.

You don't know the insured.

And I do think it leads to a lot of problems.

Tell me about Griffith Law.

Tell me about your firm and how y'all are set up and how you've been so successful.

I was on your website.

You've gotten some great results.

Looks like you have a great group of people there.

You know, we started in 2016.

It was just me and one other lawyer and one paralegal.

And we're over 30 employees now.

But that can just be a large payroll if you're not careful.

You know, but we've we've grown pretty significantly year over year.

And I've just been very thankful.

A couple of things have been important along the way.

Number one, our core values of who we are.

You know, honesty and integrity, superior legal services, excellent client communication and team first attitude.

You know, I had a former firm where people were fighting and I really didn't have control to get rid of them.

And I hated to go to work some days.

Like, man, I would like to have the freedom to hire and fire who I want and to have the type of culture here that I really want to develop and cultivate.

And to me, I hire culture over aptitude all the time.

I go out and I look for people.

There's one lady who works with us and she worked at a restaurant and a fast food place.

And every time I went there, she was so friendly.

She knew my name.

Everybody else within that organization was coming to her as she was obviously a leader.

And I was like, man, are you looking for a job outside of this?

Because I would love to hire you.

And she's been a great employee for us.

And I just, I try to hire her great attitude.

And so that goes with the attorneys, everything.

I've had those culture killers, those gossippers, those halfway hanger ons.

And man, they are poison in your law firm.

And I always tell people when I hire them, we are here Monday through Friday more than we, you will see us more than you see your spouse or your significant other.

And let's at least like each other or pretend to like each other, but be very respectful of one another.

So that's always been key.

We've, you know, we've, as far as business organization, I've had just key people and I've learned to, I've tried to be very generous to my key people.

I think, I think based on other lawyers that I roundtable with and go to mastermind meetings with, I think I pay more than most everybody.

I'm very thankful for them.

I'd rather have a smaller piece of a bigger pie.

And so I reward loyalty and I just, and it's hard to keep training people over and over again.

And so when I got somebody that's really good, I really want to keep them here.

I want them to be happy here.

I mean, you can't make everybody happy, but you know, it's just our general attitude and demeanor.

And our core values, I mean, we have a very Christ centered firm and that's not for everybody.

I don't push my religion on everybody, but I try to live my faith and I try to treat others the way that I want to be treated and the way that I think everybody should be treated.

So that rubs some people wrong.

I don't care, go start your own firm.

Yes, that's your prerogative and you have the right to do that.

But it's really been good for us.

And I have some wonderful, beautiful souls working here.

And I'm just very thankful for every one of them.

Well, excellent.

Well, what's been some of the keys to your success in getting cases?

Because that's a big challenge for personal injury lawyers, especially, I don't know how the market is up in the Nashville area, but like Atlanta is just booming with advertising lawyers everywhere.

Oh, yeah.

It's harder and harder for small guys like us to, you know, get a case.

We still do.

We've been successful, but it's competitive out there.

It's extremely competitive and it's amazing the money we spend on marketing and our efforts that we do.

So, number one, I think you have to have an attitude within your firm, your whole firm of marketing.

So, I just naturally love people.

I hope that that's always an authentic trait that I have.

But when somebody's calling, I always say new clients are the lifeblood of our firm.

Without them, we are either growing or you're dying.

You're never staying the same.

You're one of the two.

So, I still meet with a lot of potential clients.

I had a hard time at first delegating that to other lawyers, but I spend a lot of time training my lawyers on our way of doing things, the Griffith Law way.

And once I feel like they're sufficiently knowledgeable, excellently taught, then I will let them do that.

And people don't have a problem meeting with my lawyers.

I used to think everybody wanted to see the man on the wall, you know, but that's not true.

And I can't see everybody.

I'm like this vessel.

I've only got, I can only carry so many ice cubes, you know, at the end of the day.

So I'm trying to do that.

One thing that's helped us business-wise, though, Darl, I'll tell you, I always felt like there's always issues in business.

There's always issues.

And I always felt like I was, you know, the man at the dam.

There's a leak here.

I'm plugging it here, plugging there and using my toes.

And then we get those plugged and then there's another one.

Then that's the old one spouts up again.

And the thing that's helped us get around it or work with that is EOS.

Have you ever heard of that?

I have.

I've read part of the book Traction.

So, familiar with that.

I went in and hired an implementer three years ago.

And I've got a great executive team, leadership team.

And I've given them lots of autonomy, lots of power to make decisions.

I just, I don't want to make every decision.

You know, I will tell you, it's hard.

And what people don't realize is the decision fatigue that goes along with that.

Yeah.

And it's not just us as lawyers, Darl.

I mean, that's a complicated part with just spending time making legal decisions.

But just any business owner, you've got, when you're, as your business grows, you have the same problems as a guy who owns a hardware store or a coffee shop.

We have the same issues that they're, and EOS helps differentiate and specialize in certain things and gives different people authority to handle those issues.

And it's just a coordinated way to do it.

I highly recommend it.

We have grown probably 35, 30 to 35 percent year over year.

And I, I attribute most of that to EOS.

I really do because John's not in here pulling his hair out with 50 things.

I've got to do everything.

And I've so finding that balance because your leadership team does take on a lot more responsibility.

So they need to be compensated for that.

They need to.

It's just it's hard figuring this all out.

But with EOS, it's made it so much easier.

And my only other advice would be hire a facilitator to do that.

They're expensive, but I think they're way worth it because I don't trust the fact that I would, my procrastination, I'd put it off and like, ah, it's not that important, you know?

Now, every day, this clock is ticking, man.

It's the time, the sands in the hourglass are running.

Now, when you say a facilitator, is that somebody that helps you kind of like get it off the ground?

Or they stay with you on an ongoing basis or both?

It's an EOS facilitator.

So we have our guy, David King.

He's fantastic.

I just love him.

But we meet at the two-day annual meeting where we do two days of just, you got to block everything else out.

It's always at a terrible time.

There's never a good time.

But you plan early in advance.

And then every quarter, we just had ours two days ago, you have your quarterly meeting.

And you set goals at the annual and then you just launch your goals and you set rocks or big goals and you just follow those.

And, for example, I've got 30 employees and every employee's got 32 or three goals a quarter or at least one.

Well, that's 60 and there are things that are designed to advance your company forward and make you better, make you a better marketer, marketing person.

And if every quarter you're getting 120 to 180 to 200 things done that advances the company, it works.

I'm just telling you it works.

It takes a lot of work and I didn't think that I could ever get it done.

And nothing's perfect, but we had less issues this time than we ever had.

That means that we're getting ready to have a bunch.

There's always, you know, having a flow.

But everything's working.

I really trust my team.

They're good people and we're expanding our leadership team.

We're thinking that's one thing we discussed, bringing more people in because we're growing.

So anyway, I just don't mean to get off on that.

But yeah, that's great.

It's always, I mean, I think as a law firm owner, I mean, the challenge for me has always been, I started my firm 11 years ago, it was just me and then a paralegal and then just kind of grew from that.

But it's always, I used to be really anxious about adding people because the thought of adding fixed overhead when you've got a contingency feed-based practice, it is very stressful.

And there's always this question and debate that I have and other colleagues of mine have that are in a similar position is, what's like the sweet spot where you're like hitting the right stride from a profitability standpoint?

Or are you going to get diminishing returns by adding more people?

And I don't think we've had diminishing returns by adding more people, if anything.

I mean, I think it's certainly benefited us, not only on a profit level and a revenue level, but I think as I've gotten more experienced as an attorney and getting a little more gray in my hair, the things that I'm more interested in are different than I was 10 years ago.

You know, 10 years ago, I was fine doing everything.

I enjoyed that.

But now, you know, I've got a seven-year-old son, I got a 12-year-old daughter, they've got stuff going on.

I want to be present for them.

And if you build a firm that can run without you having to make every single decision, that can actually make your life better.

So I always tell people, having more employees can actually be less stressful because you're not the one having to do everything.

Yeah.

I had this false, I was just, I don't know what's wrong with me when I was in my 30s and early 40s, I would say, I took pride in the fact that I could outwork anybody, you know, and then I lost my first family, you know, went through a divorce and like, man, it's pain is a big, big teacher sometimes and that really hurt, being away from my kids, that was just, that was terrible.

And so now those things are not, I mean, I still work hard, but I don't work hard for as long, unless I've got a trial.

Trial is everything is off the table.

I had a MedMail trial a couple of months ago and man, I was working 16 hours a day.

I wish I could do it for less than that, but I was working 18 hours a day.

Well, here's what I tell people too, that if you're working hard on something you're passionate about too, like it's a MedMail case you're really passionate about and care about, you believe in the client or a car wreck case where you really believe in the client and they're getting taken advantage of, that helps a lot versus if you're just grinding away on a case, and you don't really like the client or you don't want to be working on it, being at the office on a Saturday or Sunday sucks in that scenario.

But when you're fighting for something you believe in and to be there, there's times I've been in the office on a Sunday and like, yeah, it's great to be with my family.

But when I'm working on something I'm really passionate about, I'm like, I'm all in and it feels great.

And, you know, you've got to have that balance, though.

You can't do it every day.

I love trials, but I tell, I have a meeting with my family before everyone I like.

Daddy's got a trial.

I'm going to be gone.

You know what it's like.

I said, but we're going to celebrate next Saturday, a week from now, and win and lose or draw.

You would think that I won a billion dollar judgment no matter what happened because I'm happy to be back with my family.

I've learned not to come back and like, you know, if you didn't have a perfect result or something, it's great when we win, but we don't always happen that way.

And when you don't, it's like, man, don't get in there, John.

I don't want anybody ever doing that to me.

I'm like, no, man, I'm blessed.

I'm extremely blessed.

You know, we did OK.

It could have been better, but we did better what the insurance companies offer.

But it wasn't, you know, spectacular.

And or it was great.

That's a great, great mentality to have.

I'll tell you one other thing that's helped us, Darl, too, is just from a attorney management or law firm management is when we switched to FileOn, now we had a bunch of data that we could monitor.

And Kirby and Miles has done a fantastic job monitoring data.

And I don't want to be one of those just numbers guy.

But we, the two things that I get calls from Morgan and Morgan clients all the time, who want to fire them and hire us is, is they don't hear from their lawyers or their case takes forever.

Those are the two main criticisms and complaints that people give about their lawyers, any personal injury lawyer.

And so we can have direct control over our communication.

So that better not, that's one of our core values that we live and breathe by is excellent client communication.

So that's something that better should not hear about.

But secondly, shelf life of the cases or how long it takes.

We have really focused on that.

We found the gaps in our procedural litigation procedure timeline.

And we've really worked hard to decrease those gaps.

And we're making significant strides in that.

For example, the time between party depositions and medical proof was over a year.

Now we're getting that down to about six or seven months, you know.

And sometimes there's valid reasons why you can't do that.

The client's not even gonna ma.

We filed suit really early.

But really focusing on that makes you more profitable and the clients are happier.

Yeah.

But you know, a lawyer-

Here's the other thing that I tell people all the time too.

You know, we're not a churn and bourbon firm.

It sounds like our firms are very similar.

Yeah.

You know, we do want to keep our foot on the gas though.

Because if you've got a bunch of cases languishing, that affects your ability to take on new cases.

Because you start looking at the case numbers that, you know, John's got 50 cases or how many ever, and that's kind of the max that you want him to have.

But a lot of them are just kind of sitting there.

If John had gotten those cases resolved, he'd have some bandwidth to take on some more stuff.

And then maybe you don't have to hire somebody else to come in and do this.

And it's the same thing, and it has a huge trickle down effect.

And I always preach to people that in our business, one bottleneck can lead to another bottleneck, one bottleneck can lead to another bottleneck.

You take a few extra weeks to request the medical records.

You take a few extra weeks to follow up when you don't get that initial response.

You then get the records and then don't really follow up and review them to make sure that they actually sent everything.

And then you want to have that before you do this deposition, and then you don't request that deposition.

The next thing you know, you've taken what should have maybe only been a one month process and made it potentially a three or four month process.

So that's that's perfect.

That's exactly right.

And one thing, for example, we've got our discovery response deadline down very low.

We've shrunk it by over a third because think about this.

We go against the same insurance companies, the same defense lawyers.

We've are it's a car wreck case.

It's a really know exactly what they're going to ask you.

We've already got it.

So we give it to our clients at the time of intake.

If we know that, say, hey, these are some questions you're going to have to have.

Go ahead and give it to us.

We have had we've got several examples of where the defense lawyer sends us discovery and we send it back in less than five minutes fully answered.

And they're like, man, but you know what?

I'd say don't stop there.

Say, hey, here's your discovery responses.

I would like to go ahead and depose the defendant here dates four to six weeks out.

Please provide earliest opportunity.

Well, gosh, I can't do it that quick.

Okay.

When they respond now, give them six to eight weeks out from that date.

And then you give them eight to ten weeks.

And then after the third or fourth week of not doing that, I'm like, okay, is it something we want to push?

Do we want to?

I don't try to be a jerk by any means.

What goes around comes around.

But I'm always pushing the next step.

Whatever the stage is in litigation, you've got to be working that stage and thinking about the next stage.

You've got to be pushing the next stage.

Mediation.

One of the biggest problems we found was mediation.

You go to mediation and everybody acts like, oh, well, that's the day the case is going to settle.

What if it doesn't?

So there's nothing to compel a defense attorney to settle more than having a doctor's deposition set right after the mediation, like two weeks post.

Because if you wait till after the mediation, they say, OK, tomorrow we're going to reset this.

And then you're four to six months out.

It's going to just take forever.

So we do that all the time, John.

We do that.

Yeah.

I mean, when and it's even worse when they want to do an early mediation.

Right.

Well, let's hold off on this.

Well, I'll hold off and not do something maybe until the mediation itself.

But we're going to go and have this on the books so that these depositions are set for right after that mediation is set in.

Because if we don't settle, I don't want to be sitting around waiting another three or four months for the dates.

You and I are in the minority, brother, because most people don't do that.

And that's an excellent practice.

And I think it's I think every attorney should be doing that.

The other thing that's driven me nuts is, yeah, look, I get that you want to have full and complete discovery responses.

And it depends on the witness and the type of case.

But so many times I've had associates working with me and they'll say, well, I'm still waiting on documents.

They got to respond to my 6.4 letter.

And I'm like, look, even if you think you need those documents, go ahead and set it.

Set the deposition for a date by which you think you already have the documents.

But in a lot of these cases, like a car wreck case or other ones, I just go ahead and just full speed ahead, do the deposition.

I then use the deposition to find out all the stuff they didn't give me.

Oh, yeah, I gave a statement to my boss at the scene.

Oh, yeah, I took a drug test after.

Until you start, yeah, I love baseball.

There's saying in baseball, good things happen when you put the ball in play.

When you do things in your litigation cases, good things happen and things start moving and they start realizing stuff.

When you're just sitting there, shuffling some papers around, nothing's happening.

Yeah, or you're not working your case.

That's how it works.

Well, one more question before we go, John.

I love asking lawyers this question.

What predictions do you have?

It could be one or it could be multiple predictions for the future of the personal injury industry.

Could be something marketing related, firm structure, consolidation of firms.

Could be anything firm related or claims handling related.

I think the insurance adjuster is going to be largely replaced by AI.

Interesting.

I think the ability to output on the plaintiff side is going to be reduced largely by AI.

I have a very good lawyer at my firm, Josh Cantrell, and he's written a book on AI for lawyers, and I got a website for that.

It's amazing some of the things I was working with this morning.

I've got a complicated construction case, and give me some good ideas, blah, blah, blah, for this case.

And it comes up with things that are just very good, concise, very well written.

But I don't think, as far as plaintiff lawyers or defense lawyers, there's going to be any change.

I think we have good job security.

Oh, for sure.

Because I think what we do, what good lawyers do, is a very good skill.

I mean, the right lawyer, you know this, can make a humongous difference in your case.

And the ability to go to trial is, and being a good trial lawyer, I worry about the younger lawyers because they're not getting as much trial experience.

For whatever, for many reasons.

We went to trial all the time.

I would try four or five law civil jury trials a year.

Now, I'm trying maybe two a year, and that's pushing it.

I've got a list.

I would pan the camera over, but I've got a list between now and February of next year.

I've got probably 14 cases sent for trial right now.

Some of those are going to go.

Anyway, my prediction is just that.

I think the claims adjuster is going to be almost fully automated in the future.

I don't know what that is.

I feel like we're dealing with a brick wall right now.

It may actually be better to deal with it.

They don't have much autonomy.

I mean, everything they're done is given from above.

All they could do is, they're really document processors, and they got to get permission from somebody else.

I just think that's maybe not anytime soon, but in the next five to seven years, I think there's going to be some significant change in the way these interests, companies do business and so on.

That begs the question, what does that mean for us?

I mean, for settling cases?

I don't know.

I think it means more lawsuits, and I think that for me, the value in a lot of our cases isn't the medical bills, it's the pain and suffering, and insurance companies, they don't do a great job of that even in litigation, but they're better at it in litigation than they are pre-suit, because you could say anything in a demand letter, like the insurance company doesn't care, they're plugging in those data points, those numbers, and it's spitting out a number, and that's it.

Yeah, I get to where my demands are extremely short and sweet.

Nobody really reads those, I don't think, that much.

But anyway.

Oh, thanks for joining us, John.

If people want to look you up, what's the best place for them to find you?

griffithinjurylaw.com, Franklin, Tennessee.

We're just having a good time and just trying to help and love on people and make their lives better under bad circumstances, just like you.

Awesome.

Well, thanks for joining us, John.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you, Darl.

Appreciate it.