Episode 23: A Peek Inside the Marketing Mindset of 'The Hometown Lawyer' Josh Hodges

In this episode of Championing Justice, Darl Champion interviews Josh Hodges—partner at Kruger & Hodges and the face behind The Hometown Lawyer. Josh shares how he’s built a powerful local brand using TikTok, food videos, and community features to market his personal injury firm in Hamilton, Ohio. 

Tune in as we explore how social media can be a genuine networking tool, what it means to “give more than you take,” and how to stay competitive without chasing every flashy trend. 

→ Learn more about Josh and Kruger & Hodges here: https://thehometownlawyers.com

→ Connect with Josh 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.

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Transcript

Thank you for listening to the Championing Justice Podcast.

My name is Darl Champion.

I am the founder and owner of The Champion Firm.

We're a personal injury law firm in Marietta, Georgia, which is just right outside of Atlanta.

This month's guest is Josh Hodges.

Josh is a partner at Kruger & Hodges in Hamilton, Ohio with various satellite offices in the area.

Josh has a brand called The Hometown Lawyer that's been great for marketing and it's something that has really drawn my attention.

I want to talk to him about and how he's grown his law firm.

So thanks for joining us, Josh.

Thanks for having me.

So tell us a little bit about your firm and what you do.

Well, we're a personal injury firm predominantly about 90-95 percent.

We do have a criminal defense attorney just because my partner had done a lot of criminal defense previously before we started the firm and we get a lot of calls for it.

When you're in a small town, you don't want to turn away people you've helped in the past.

So we have one criminal defense attorney.

She actually went to law school with me and does a great job.

Shout out to Bridget.

The rest of us do personal injury and the run-of-the-mill personal injury.

A lot of car accidents, dog bites, slip and falls of that nature.

We don't do med mal or product liability.

I'll co-counsel with people on those.

I get calls for them, obviously.

Same with work comp.

I don't do that.

How many attorneys do you have?

Six attorneys, including me in total.

We have about 24 people, I believe, 24 or 5.

Awesome.

Hamilton, Ohio.

It's similar to kind of situate with Cincinnati, how Marietta is to Atlanta.

Yeah.

A little bit further maybe, but it's about 63, 4,000 people.

Nice little town of its own.

That's where we're headquartered.

You can kind of focus on small towns.

The Hometown Lawyer has like a small town vibe more and kind of lean into that, and that's the website and all the marketing and branding, but it's also like boots on the ground.

You got to actually live up to the name.

So we kind of, me and my partner both kind of always agree on that, you know, give more than we take.

And your social media presence is pretty big, right?

I mean, you have a lot of followers.

Yeah, yeah, I do.

And it's funny.

I mean, I was in law school.

I went a little bit later in life.

Like I talked about, I was 29 when I started and I missed one of the first happy hours.

I was like, man, I didn't get an email about that.

And the kid next to me was like 21.

I was like, dude, I was on the Instagram or Facebook group or whatever.

And that's I needed to get on there.

And I didn't really get active till I had a law firm.

So I was in my 30s and felt like I was way behind the time.

But I just felt like I needed to do it.

I started getting after it and doing TikToks.

And then you start putting a lot of work in it, you see some success.

And then I just found a way to kind of almost, I wouldn't say I love it, but I'd say I don't mind it.

I like it.

And you meet a lot of good people if you go into it open minded.

It's not just fake people online you're dealing with.

It's real people.

I'm sitting here with you from social media.

And I've done that with dozens and dozens and dozens of people in my hometown and around Ohio.

You meet real people, make real connections.

You can do that on social media if you're doing it right.

And that's to me like one of the things that's lost.

Like people will try on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram to do like Legion.

And there might be ways to do that.

But especially when you're in a saturated market, not just geographically, but personal injury just saturated everywhere.

Yeah.

You're not going to stand out, right?

And so you can make these connections.

And you've done that with the hometown lawyer brand that you've kind of developed on social media.

And so now people know you as the hometown lawyer.

And I know you've told me before, like people will see you out.

Be like, oh, that's the hometown lawyer, right?

Yeah, they do.

A lot of people or a lot of people knew me from school.

Just that they see me on there.

It definitely helps.

I would say the lawyers that are kind of hesitant.

I know a lot of lawyers were like conservative, not necessarily politically, but just scared to do new things.

And then I was kind of scared to start doing some videos, too.

What are the judges going to think?

You know, one of the bailiffs came up to me one day and he was like, the judge, we watch your videos, they like it.

I was like, I felt a little bit better.

You know, do something you're comfortable with, be authentic to yourself.

But I would say a lot of attorneys are like, oh, I like in-person networking.

I'm good at that.

I don't want to do this social media BS or whatever.

And I was kind of maybe more of that, too.

I was trying social media.

I didn't think I was getting a lot of like positive, you know, anything good coming from it, really.

And then one day I just thought, like, it's network.

It's in the name.

I mean, how dumb do I have to be?

So, it's a social network.

It's just networking.

I like networking.

I like people.

It's just a different way of doing that.

And it really took a while for me to fuse that together.

I still think a lot of people think it's different.

It's, there's some different techniques, but it's really, if you're, like you said, it's not Legion.

It's meeting people, real people.

Do, you know, do the same thing you would in a regular networking.

I think a lot of people worry so much about what they're going to post.

That'd be like going into a networking event, just the stories that I'm going to tell.

I'm not going to listen to your stories.

I'm not going to comment on your stories or listen.

I'm just worried about my post.

You know, a lot of people do social media.

Even the people that are trying hard do that.

Show up in the comments of other people's.

Share other people's posts.

Help them out, you know.

It's give and take and it's just like networking.

It's just on, you know, the computer.

And if you treat it that way, you know, I think the world's kind of fused those together.

You need to get with the times.

It's not two separate things.

I think a lot of the same rules that you would, you know, I think older lawyers that are great at networking, they could be good at on a social network if they've blended some of those skills.

And I think if you see a young person, a young attorney, that's got a really good social network, they probably, there's a reason for that.

They're likable.

They're good.

For some reason, people are interested in them.

You could probably carry that over into real life too.

So it goes both ways.

Good place.

Also, we haven't touched on, it's a great place to find people to work for.

I've found three of some of my best workers I've found off of the line.

Interesting.

Have they reached out to you, like, because they see your stuff and they're like, man, I'll tell one story, Ashley, my young attorney is doing great.

She's been with me over two years now.

Her dad followed me.

So I think her dad's about 50.

I was about 40 at the time, so she's like late 20.

So I'm in between the two and she was like studying for the bar, finishing up law school and her dad was watching all my little food videos.

And he was like forwarding it to her like, Ashley, look at this guy.

He's just right down the road.

She's like, dad, leave me alone.

Like I'm studying all this stuff.

She's like, well, then I took the bar and passed it.

And I was like, started watching like, well, maybe I should reach out to him.

So I met her through that.

I've got two other people I've met on social media through other people who were doing content.

I'd put out, like, hey, I'm looking for a new, fill in the blank, and someone who is on there a lot.

Hey, my friend does that.

I mean, it's powerful stuff.

It's like networking with gasoline, if you do it right.

But if you're on there looking for cases, not going to work as well.

Just like if you went to, if you go to the bar meeting, like I got to find cases today, it's so stupid.

You're not going to get anything that way.

Well, you mentioned networking, right?

I mean, what other venue could you network in where you might have access to thousands, tens of thousands of people?

Nowhere.

Yeah.

But you just got to come over that mindset.

I think people think they're separate, they're not separated, they're the same.

I think some of it's generational too.

I mean, you're going to be 42 this year.

Yeah, next month.

I'll be 43 this year in July.

So we're about the same age.

I remember when there was no Facebook.

Like, I mean, I remember sitting in law school and there were people that were like, there's this new thing called Facebook, and they were pulling it up and they were showing it.

And I'm like, I have no idea what this is.

I had a flip phone.

Yeah.

Like, there were no smartphones then.

I think Blackberries were around.

But even then, Facebook was only open to people at that school.

College students.

College students, yeah.

And you had to be at that school and you could only connect with those people.

I think MySpace was around.

I think that's like the original one.

But like, I was never on MySpace.

So I think for some of us, we really, because we didn't grow up with it, it's not as intuitive for us.

But people that are growing up with it, it's absolutely intuitive for them.

And you know, they can do well with it.

What type of content do you post and what do you find has the most success?

I think I do a bland.

I do legal content.

Those don't do as well.

But over time, because of my other content, people kind of watch that more than they would have otherwise.

I do a lot of local food content.

I do videos with my wife while she's cooking.

I just show her hands and she's like, you're not always going to show my face.

And she's like, has her face ever appeared on the video?

Maybe a few times, but I got okay with her.

Her thing is she'll be cooking.

I'm usually like, honey, what do we have today?

And she'll be in a good mood usually.

Sometimes she's not, then she'll be like, it's like husband-wife banter, people like that.

It's kind of funny.

We get a lot of comments.

We've been together so long since we're 18, so people are like, man, you guys, people just tell we're super comfortable with each other.

We kind of grew up together.

So that shows us in a good light.

I'm not just some lawyer that's like this all time, I fight hard or whatever, like it's just caricature or whatever.

I think those do good.

Then I've branched out.

I've leaned into it.

I've hired a videographer.

He goes, we call it the Around Town Minute.

We go do highlight videos.

They're around a minute or a minute and a half of other people's businesses.

I'm not even in it.

We'll just be like, hey, where are we at?

We're a dog groomer.

I'm like, awesome.

We'll shout them out.

I put that on my platform, get them views that some of their followers might see my stuff.

So just a lot of interaction, give a lot of highlights for other people more so than us.

Then I think I've almost done almost too much of that.

That's even impossible.

I'm starting a new one.

I'm going to call it The Hometown or The Home Team Highlight.

I'm going to highlight people on my team.

They're really, I've only shot one.

They're really happy to do that.

They're really not going to make me.

But they need highlights too.

I got a lot of good people work from young people.

What expands your reach too, right?

I mean, because then you're not having to be the one that's doing everything.

You can have other people.

For sure.

I got a lot of young people work for me that work hard, that are smart.

A lot of times, we're talking about generation.

A lot of times, older attorneys grumble about younger people.

I don't think all the things they say are untrue.

But as we're in the middle ground between Gen Z or whatever and boomers, I think some of the things they may say are true.

I think some of the things are just harkening back to the 80s when they were young and they liked it better.

Everything wasn't perfect back then, let me tell you.

Some of these young people were really smart and hardworking.

I got some for me and whether they are or not, you got these are your workers, so you got to figure out how to deal with them.

And some of those, they might not have to be tied at the desk in the office every day, as long as they're doing their work.

Sometimes I think some of them work better from home.

I think they chat less depending.

So you got to set clear goals with them, make sure they're doing a good job.

And once they prove to you they can, you got to get with the times a little bit, whether you like it or not.

That's just how it is.

They're going to work for somebody that does allow them a little bit more freedom.

Absolutely.

I mean, we run into that.

I mean, I was kind of old school when it came to the in-person versus remote thing.

And, you know, then COVID hit.

And, you know, we've always used an electronic case management system, been largely paperless where like everything scanned in and you could access the documents electronically.

But, you know, when COVID started and people went remote and then kind of gradually phased back in, what I realized was you can't recruit people if you're not willing to offer flexibility, because one of the first questions they ask is what's your work from home policy or your remote policy?

We're not fully remote.

We're a hybrid.

We do three days in office, two days remote.

And we find it works for us.

But having that flexibility is key.

We're talking about the Hometown Lawyer brand.

Did you trademark that?

Good question.

I did not early on.

I mean, I've done it in the state of Ohio.

I tried to look into it doing nationally and there's people who've used close variations in other states I didn't even know about.

They're like probably not worth it.

But I have a state, they call it a service mark, I believe in Ohio.

Okay.

So I don't think people in Ohio could use it.

And I'm not trying to grow all over the world anyway.

I think Ohio keeps me busy enough.

So, I mean, hopefully people don't do it.

But honestly, I think if I had to change, if someone came in and stole it, some out of towner, I think I could just switch it to more.

I got a following and people know me like I could change it something different.

Might hurt me a little bit, but yeah, I'm not so worried about honestly, because it's more than just the website.

You know, it's how you treat people and always show up.

So, if someone comes in and out Hamilton's me, I'd almost tip my hat to him.

I probably wouldn't be mad about it, because it's not just Google ads and videos.

It's like actually being out in the community all the time.

What's the personal injury market like in the Cincinnati area?

I mean, do you have, I mean, we're in Marietta.

So, I mean, we say Atlanta, because like if I went out of town somewhere and let's say I'm at the beach in Florida and I run into somebody and say, where are you from?

Most people aren't going to say, oh, I'm from Smyrna, I'm from Marietta, whatever, they'll say, oh, I'm from Atlanta.

It's easier.

Yeah.

And I don't know if that's kind of a similar thing with Cincinnati, but you know, we're in Marietta, but we still get a lot of that competition from Atlanta that's marketing to cases everywhere in the Metro area.

And do y'all see something similar in your market?

Yeah, I mean, I think in the last year or two, you've probably seen this too, I see people running ads in Hamilton, Ohio that are from Atlanta or originally are from Texas or from places.

They might not even be lawyers half time, to be honest.

I don't know.

But yeah, it's competitive.

I think Atlanta is more saturated than most places, but Cincinnati is competitive.

There's old firms been running TV ads since I was a little kid.

So, I mean, it's that's why I've kind of just focused on the small towns around.

I'm not trying to take over Cincinnati, but, you know, I want to build a little moat on these little small towns.

Yeah.

One of the things you do with The Hometown Lawyer is you've got these social media channels.

Which social media channels do you focus on the most?

I mean, the one that I blew up on originally, which has been the one I would have bet the opposite I thought I'd be worse on was TikTok.

I started doing those in 2020.

My wife had it during the lockdowns.

We're just stuck at home.

I, like most people my age, looked like they had some kids dancing around or whatever.

And then I started looking at more and I started, the algorithm was feeding me things I was interested in.

I was like, oh, there's some smart people in here.

So I started doing videos.

I was probably one of the first lawyers on it, maybe not nationwide, definitely the first one in Ohio.

And I kind of blew up fast on there.

I'm asked a good following.

Doing stuff about law, but doing other stuff too.

Shout out local mom and pop businesses, restaurants.

Coming home and asking my wife what she's cooking.

My wife stays home now.

I could get in the whole thing about my daughter.

My wife had a job and we had a second child and she had a genetic disorder.

Right when I started my firm, all this happened.

I thought my wife had a government job with benefits and I'd be at least not starving.

Then she lost all that to take care of our daughter.

She stays home and she got really serious about cooking and all that.

I do videos coming home from her, which again, I think there's perception of lawyers, we're all jerks or we're all money hungry.

But if I come home, hey honey, what are you doing?

Then she gives me crap and puts the husband like she's, I'm not so big and bad and tough or scary to talk to.

I think it makes you look like more of a person.

And that's our real banter.

Sometimes we play it up a little bit more just because we're taping, but we do those and those videos, some of those went viral.

Are they helping me get cases all the time?

I don't know, but I know that does help me.

So I do a lot on TikTok, but then I put the videos on YouTube, Facebook.

I've leaned in more Facebook recently because the TikTok maybe is going away, but I think you kind of have to try to be everywhere.

It takes a lot of work and it's not easy.

So when you started doing TikTok, were you just on TikTok or did you put them on other platforms as well?

At first, I was just on TikTok.

I mean, I had a Facebook, but I didn't do much on it.

We had a firm Facebook page, which never did a ton.

We kept it busy, more than most people for sure, but it was just on TikTok.

And then I was like, okay, I kind of got a thing going.

So I started putting them on YouTube too and other places.

I prefer TikTok myself.

I think it's just easier to work with and a lot of eyeballs are there still.

But I do realize I don't want to lose all this content.

Is that where you get most traction with your following is on TikTok?

Yeah, I think it's different.

TikTok, broadly, more views for sure and more people all over the country.

I mean, I'll get people in Texas or random places reach out to me on there sometimes and locally too.

I have a good local following.

But Facebook, because you're connected with your friends, most of my friends and people I know are more localized.

So I do, I think better with the older crowd on there.

So I think I need to be both places, but a lot of the content is similar.

It's either the same content, but I'll write up a little blurb on Facebook.

The videos I do for the local businesses where I highlight just them, I call it the Around Town with the Hometown Lawyer.

I put, and I'm not in it.

It's just like a minute video of the new bakery or whatever.

And I post that up there with our branding or whatever.

Those do better on Facebook than TikTok.

The videos I do just BSing around or talk with my wife do better on TikTok.

It's like the opposite.

Now, when you started, what was, I mean, was there like a long-term plan with this?

Or was this just like, hey, I'm going to go film some videos?

Yeah.

I mean, I kind of knew that this was about 2018, 19.

I was like, videos is where it's at now, and it's just going to get more.

People aren't reading as much.

You know, I could see these elaborate blogs I paid for, wrote myself sometimes early on.

You could see the bounce rate, like people stay on them for 4.2 seconds and all that work, all that beautiful language you put together.

It's like, you know, nobody's reading it.

I was reading it.

So I started doing videos.

I didn't like doing them.

I, the highlights on your phone from, you know, how it brings up memories.

I brought some up the other day of me, like in my suit, trying to look serious, like talking about uninsured motorists, like giving great advice, but no one gives a crap about that.

They just don't.

I mean, and so the long term, I just knew I needed to be out there.

And I just kind of like anything else.

The more I did it, the better I got.

And I started realizing what worked.

And like, it's not a whole lot different than becoming a trial lawyer.

Like you can watch people, you can learn some skills and tools, but like you can't implement exactly what some other later guy does on you.

You kind of have to find out what works for you.

So like, I like saying off the cuff kind of funny things.

I'm not too stiff.

I'm more relaxed.

That's how I am on the videos.

Those do better.

If I try to like prepare something I'm going to talk about, those are not going to be as good.

And you kind of have to get over the ego of like, it's okay to sound a little stupid sometimes or even say something wrong.

I think people relate to that more than just like stiff lawyer with books in the background sounding all smart.

People already think we think we're smarter than them anyway.

So why are you going to try to sound smart?

I want to talk to the people I grew up with, just be myself, be comfortable.

Shout out more other people than talking about us.

I think you get more, I think you get some.

But for a long time I couldn't track if I got anything.

I still remember the day, because I had been doing videos every day for about a year.

One of my older paralegals, one of my first ones who is now retired, I could hear on the phone is Pam.

She said, you heard him, you're hiring us, why?

Then she closed her thing, they saw you talking about tacos.

She rolled her eyes because she knew my head was like gross, it worked.

You feel like you're yelling into the void.

Doing a podcast, it's not like people just call you the next day.

Correct.

It's like you're yelling into the universe.

I did that every day for probably a year until I tracked I got a case.

But then you build.

I'm not like a celebrity in town, but there's definitely people know me that don't really know me.

They know me from videos and they say, I went to the doctor with my daughter one time.

It was like the podiatrist and the guy's like, that's the Hometown Lawyer.

He pointed out to his daughter.

That's me.

It's weird, but it's funny.

Who was doing the production of your original videos?

Was it just you and a cell phone?

Yeah, cell phone.

You're doing the editing as well or did you send it off to somebody?

I didn't even edit them.

The ones I do, I don't edit.

I might write a little word on it or whatever on TikTok.

I'm not an editor.

I don't even try.

I just send it out and sometimes they're not that great of quality, but I think that works because I'm a lawyer and I'm running a law firm, I don't have time just to be a Google or whatever expert YouTube editor.

But then as we've grown, I hired a videographer who does do TikToks where he'll edit them a little bit different and he's the one that does the highlight videos for the other people.

Because I want their little commercial for their business to be more high quality.

So he does those.

Yeah, so it's a little bit of both.

If I'm doing it, it's on my phone and it's not going to be too edited.

But people know that's my style.

It's as quick.

I just did one down the road, shaky, whatever, but I'm just talking as I go.

The ones I do, my camera guy's name is Josh.

He shoots those.

He edits them well.

So I have a mix of those two.

When did you transition away from doing these pure legal videos where you're stiff in a suit, talking about legal topics to going this different direction and focusing on local businesses?

Yeah.

I mean, just you run out of things.

I mean, personal injuries.

Yeah.

Is it uber complicated?

Sure.

Can you spend the rest of your career getting better at the nuances?

Yeah.

But you can't get in that with normal people.

They don't even know where to start.

So when you're talking to lay people, I mean, how many things can you talk about?

Is there like a list of 100?

I don't know.

I mean, you could start rehashing.

I will do a video about uninsured motors about every month because it's that important.

I want them to listen to me, at least people in my family.

I don't know if they have always, but.

So it's about 2020.

I did a couple local food videos and they did a little bit more views.

I mean, the algorithm will tell you if it's working or not.

Like it did better than me talking about whatever rule.

Robinson v.

Bates, that's the case in Ohio where they get to show the bills that were paid, not the actual bills, not every state has that.

So I hate that case, obviously.

So talking about that, it's not going to get a lot of views with regular people.

But a little local coffee shop down the road did.

I did a donut video that blew up bigger than any other.

I was like, people like food.

And then I did a video of my wife cooking.

Yeah, people fight about donuts.

They'll start saying who's best.

Those videos always do good because they'll have a place that's better.

I got to get a local donut place.

Yeah, they're good.

But then I started doing them once with my wife cooking.

So that was food too and those were blowing up.

And it honestly became something fun amongst us to do.

Like she was staying at home during 2020.

Our daughter's medically complex.

She's really scared during all that.

We all are.

She just really had a rough go of it.

And so I'd come home.

It was something me and her could do because she didn't get to leave that much and they were blowing up.

And the food was still mixed in.

So people were either saying she was doing it wrong or they're ruining the recipe.

And it showed banter between me just being a husband, dad, you know.

I think it became fun.

Those videos are the best videos, the biggest ones.

And I think people will comment on it.

Like literally I'll have comments every now and then like, I hope I never need an injury lawyer.

But if I do, I'm hiring you just because your wife cooked this meal and it's cool and I'm going to use it.

I mean, it's not that hard.

And those are not edited at all.

I just off the cuff.

You mentioned, you know, one of the questions I'll get for any marketing strategy, and I'm sure you get this as well, is they'll say, well, does it work?

Do you get cases from it?

And that's a complicated question because a lot of things that we do are not lead generation.

I mean, they're not, we're not putting up an ad trying to get a direct response to that ad.

It's long term.

It's building a brand.

It's building relationships.

So I would imagine that's a lot of what you're doing with these videos.

You're making connections with people, developing relationships.

I would imagine one way you could get a case of somebody just seeing your videos.

Another way might be you're developing that connection with a small business owner.

And then they put it out, and then you kind of are marketing to their group.

I mean, what are you seeing in terms of how these videos are working for you?

Yeah, it is hard to track, and I still think they probably helped me a lot more than I could ever prove.

I kind of know that in like my DNA or whatever.

But I do have instances where I do a video for a cafe, and then like I forget about it, and like six, seven months later, the same cafe on their Facebook or TikTok account will message me like, hey, you did a video for us however long ago.

It might just been one I just did off the cuff while I was there.

I didn't even meet them, but they saw I tagged them and they were appreciative.

And they say, hey, my dishwashers got ruined on the way to work.

I've gotten cases like that.

I mean, where it's direct.

So it shows you know people do appreciate it.

I also like, I actually like doing it.

So I think that's one point people need to know and I kind of compare it to the gym.

Like if you like running, I'm not going to put you on just always lifting weights and nothing more than that.

If you hate, if you tell me you hate doing that because you're going to do it for a while and you're going to stop.

So if you hate doing videos, I'd push you to maybe try to overlook and get through it and see if you could like it.

If you actually hate doing a type of marketing, you're not going to do it on the long term.

If you're going to do video marketing outreach, it's just a long term game.

It's like a lifestyle will change, like eating healthy or something.

So I like doing these.

I like going out to a small town.

I'll go to Leesburg, Ohio.

No one's ever heard of that in Georgia.

That's 1,500 people live there.

They got one little strip with about five businesses.

Some of them are young people running it.

I drove through once, I guess, a school strips.

I took my video person and my outreach person.

We did a whole day and we did a video for every one of them.

It was like a big deal in that little town, tiny town.

But they all got behind it.

They all shared each other's video.

Now, they all comment on all my other videos I do for other small towns.

They're on my team.

Are there a lot of cases in a little town like that?

Probably not.

I hope not.

But I know I'm their guy, those five businesses because no one else is going out there doing anything.

I spent maybe two days out there in a year.

I drive by, I might stop to get a coffee.

But it makes you feel good.

I know I do help small businesses.

Do I think I'll get some cases out of that?

Yeah, if I don't, like I look at it this way, like when I'm old and like regretting things in my life, will you regret, oh, I did a bunch of videos for these small town people helping their businesses out and give them a shout out when other people might not be.

And I can't prove I didn't get a case.

Or will I be thinking about, I spent 20 grand on LSAs.

I mean, I think I'll be regretting that more.

If you're able to spend 20 grand on LSAs, you're lucky.

We can't even get our LSA budget to spend.

Why didn't my LSAs work?

But I mean, it's not going to be something I can, I'm going to regret, I don't think.

Like I shout out a bunch of people in my small town.

It's fun, I like doing it.

I do think it gets my name out there in a positive way.

And it's really getting good now, because now, early on it's hard, because you're shooting content to keep up all the time.

Now I've shot so many videos, I have like a bankroll.

I posted one the other day from 2020 and my aunt was like, you're looking better looking today than normal.

And I was like, yeah, I was like five years younger.

Like, it's just like, that made me feeling worse.

I was like, she's trying to make me feel good.

But the point is, you know, I can take a couple of days off now.

I got like old videos I can just re-post.

People forgot I did it already.

So now I got like a safety deposit box of old videos I can just toss out there.

So it gets a little bit easier with time to keep the ball rolling because it's hard to do every day.

Yeah.

So Josh, your brand, The Hometown Lawyer, really speaks to me because it represents a lot of things that I like about the personal injury industry.

And it kind of goes against the grain of what's happening a lot.

And I'll give you a great example.

I posted about this on LinkedIn the other day.

I was on Facebook and I see an ad for a quote, Georgia law firm.

And it talks about how they got this best of Georgia honorable mention.

And I had never heard of this law firm.

And I'm pretty plugged in in the personal injury community.

Even though Atlanta is a big city, like you still know most of the people.

And so I started doing some digging.

I go to their website.

These guys are in Florida.

Like they're not even here.

Their Georgia office is like a temporary regis suite, like an office year type arrangement.

And I'm like, how did the, I mean, these people did not win an award because they have some genuine, authentic Georgia connection.

They probably paid people to vote or did something.

Most of the Google reviews are either fake or I think they're out of state people that they drove to that page.

And I see so much of that where lawyers are opening these satellite offices in other states.

I think you mentioned you've got people in California advertising.

There's people running ads in Ohio.

I don't even know if they're lawyers half the time.

Or especially on social media, some of the Legion, I mean, they're promised to be free AI lawyers that will get you 250 grand in the next 30 days.

Yeah.

I almost wish it was true myself.

I mean, I'd hire some for the firm, but it's just not that easy.

Yeah.

Well, the one thing that in addition to seeing a lot of the Legion, and seeing these normal law firms, traditional law firms opening up satellite offices in other states, I see a lot of stuff out of Arizona because of the alternative business structures where non-lawyers can have ownership interest in the firm.

There's a lot of private equity going into that space.

I wouldn't say nervous is the right word, and I'm not scared about the industry as a whole, but I have concerns about the future of the personal injury industry because it seems like a lot of it's gone away from, hey, we're here to help people, building these genuine relationships with people and getting cases that way, to now, it's like everybody's a commodity.

I call it the commoditization of personal injury.

I don't know what your thoughts are on that, if you're seeing something similar in your area.

Yeah, I mean, I think some of the people running ads are just, they might have had one office five years ago now, they got 48 offices in every state and always Arizona is always one of them, in Alaska and Hawaii coming soon, I guess.

I don't know.

I mean, there's money to be had and lawyers, we've been walled off, we have a monopoly on the courthouse because you have to be a lawyer to own a law firm and that's broke in Arizona.

I think what's happening is people are going and opening an office there, taking in money from Wall Street or whoever, and then they're not just spending in Arizona though, they're spending it in Hamilton, Ohio.

They're probably spending it in Marietta, Georgia and everywhere else, and who's going to stop them?

I don't know.

Hopefully, I am a little bit worried about it, but I also know that some of the time, the hardest parts of my firm sometimes is when I signed up a lot of cases.

Not as easy, just they're all after the cases.

When you get a lot of cases, the fund doesn't end and actually gets harder sometimes with cash flow.

So I think some of them are going to end up going bust, honestly.

There will be some winners, but I think it's a...

I hate to quote John Morgan, the biggest of them all, but he said in one of the videos I saw on Facebook the other day, it's like a gold rush in PI.

I think that's kind of true.

He said some people end up with fulls of gold.

I think there's some wisdom in what he's saying.

Some people will get a lot of cases and then not take care of them well, and that's worse than having no cases because you can lose a lot of money that way too.

Yeah, we see, you know, there's your big advertisers.

There's one out of California that opened in the Atlanta office recently.

I mean, you've got those that are like your traditional advertisers.

I'm seeing more and more of these quote small firms that are doing it.

And I'm like, why are you trying to open up in another state when you have no connection to it?

You're not going to outspend the big guys.

I mean, there are local Atlanta firms, you know, whether you're traditional old school advertisers, like the ones that people here grew up with.

They've been advertising on TV since the 90s.

Their advertising budgets are 20 plus million dollars a year.

And that's just like your local and regional firms.

The big advertisers that are coming national from out of state, like your Morgan & Morgan that opened up here, and has really gotten, I think, a decent amount of market share, but it was very, very expensive and it cost a ton of money.

So, I think that those firms that are looking, if you're a small firm, medium-sized firm, and you're looking to grow, to me, it's not by moving to a state that you have no connection to, it's by doing what you're doing.

Yeah, I think that and lean into what you have an advantage on.

And it's not kind of what I was saying earlier with the authenticity.

It's not just, don't just copycat someone else.

If you're copycatting a guy that's got 20 million a month budget or 20 million a year, and you got $200,000 a year, you've already lost, that is a losing proposition.

Yes.

You need to do something different with the money.

And you know what people will say, because I'll hear this and they'll be like, oh, I'm spending a ton on SEO.

And I'm like, well, how much are you spending there?

Like $5,000 a month.

And I'm like, that's nothing, man.

Or they'll talk about PPC.

Well, I'm going to put in $10,000, $20,000 a month.

That's nothing, man.

I mean, these advertisers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on that.

And I do think there are some ways where some people can see some progress in PPC in certain areas.

I have not found it myself.

But I mean, you hear stories of people like, oh yeah, I got this case.

We've had some success with LSAs when they first were rolled out, like that 2019 time frame.

Now it's like, I can't even get my LSAs to spend.

Yeah, I do decent with LSAs.

PPC is harder, I think, to run a brand campaign just so someone's been on your brand, and you at least bump up, that's cheaper.

I do think you need to spend on marketing, and don't get me wrong, I'm aggressive for what the money I have, but I know I can't just go on TV and go against, I could, but if I go running TV ads against people in Cincinnati, I've been running them since I was in kindergarten, that's a lot, they got more money than me, I'm going to assume, and they got a brand that's been out there longer in that traditional media.

I think I got to play small ball, kind of like, lay down, we're going to Reds game, lay a bunt down, steal base, but don't steal, do it within the rules, do everything ethically, but be aggressive, like I can do a video in Camden, Ohio, another little town known out of states ever heard of, and I can do some videos there and then run a Facebook campaign for branding just around that little town, I might be able to do that for 25 bucks in every town season, that's a good way to spend money, but you got to know the way to land, you got to be the hometown lawyer almost, or something like that, you got to be the local guy that understands the area, I understand my county, I know that there's two old towns that are old factory towns, and then I know some closer to 75 or more suburban, and more fluent and different, and I don't run the same ads in everyone all the time, if I'm going to run an ad, you got to know and be hyper geography, the local geography and get local with your ads and what you're doing, I think, but just always be out meeting people.

When I started going in some of these smaller towns where I wasn't from, I kind of got worried like I'm an outsider here, and I am, and I go sometimes the bar meeting, the old guys there like, who the hell are you?

I got to tell them who I am, but like they get to know you, and they're a little bit on guard, maybe at first too, but they start thinking out like, well, you're not the guy from Cleveland who's never came here, runs TV ads all the time, like I'm more like them than they are, I'm not from here, but I come here sometimes, and you can build real relationships, if you keep your word, do the right thing.

You know, when the bar asks for people to come be judge at the local high school for debate day, you better be there if you want to be a local lawyer in a few counties, you can't be afraid to drive, and you sign up for a long time game, you know, you can't be watching, you know, this week, just to give you an example, like I'm here with you, tomorrow I'm flying home, I've got a meeting, a podcast on Tuesday with a guy who does local wrestling stuff, so it's totally different.

Interesting.

Yeah, it happens to be one of my distance cousins, but you know, then Wednesday I'm speaking at a safety council through the Chamber of Commerce in the county I work in, and then on Thursday I'm going to the high school to talk on career day for two classes, so like, that's a busy week, you know, plus running a law firm, and none of that's gonna produce cases next quarter probably, or definitely not bottom line next quarter, but do I think it's a good thing to do?

Yes.

Do I think it will help me long term?

Sure.

And you gotta have a long timeline, but you also gotta pay attention to, when you're spending on Legion, yeah, you need to watch that.

If you're doing LSE, you need to watch that this month.

So you kind of juggle on different balls, but the outreach stuff never ends.

That's why you kind of have to enjoy it.

If you don't enjoy it, someone in your firm needs to enjoy it, and they need to be out there, and that better be a, if it's not a partner, it needs to be someone important to the firm that's not bouncing every six months.

You're doing a lot of this marketing, getting out in the community.

How do you have time to practice law?

It's tough, you know, and that's a good question, and it's not necessarily the career I thought I was going to build.

When I was, like I said, I didn't become an attorney until I was 32.

I worked in big law for two years, so I'm like 34.

I knew they were never going to let me try a case until I was probably 50, because these big government cases, they're going to let the guys that had the 30-year relationship do it.

I'm always just going to be like the fourth chair, and I did that a few times or whatever.

I wanted to get out and be a trial lawyer.

I think that's where my natural strengths are, like connecting people.

I think I would like that in Excel.

I start my firm.

A lot of other things you got to do.

Marca, you got to figure out how to get a case.

I'm doing all that.

We had a child when we were younger, me and my wife, we've been together since we were 18.

I had a son.

He's sitting over here.

He's 18, but I have a daughter who's only seven.

We had her the first year I had my law firm, and she had some really serious health issues.

So we were in the hospital four weeks at a time every year, and weeks split up in there.

At the same time, my wife lost her job.

I'm kind of like, oh shit.

I already gave up a good big law job, and most of my family makes 30, 40 grand.

I finally made it to make good money, and now I'm going all in on this firm.

You got to get out there.

Yeah, I got to get out there, so I'm hustling, but I don't want to leave my daughter in the hospital either.

So I'm basically sitting at the hospital, with my law firm and my little laptop in the floor for weeks and weeks, a lot, for the first few years.

The good news is, the marketing I was doing started working, so then it was like more problems.

That's great, I got a lot of cases now, but I can't even handle them all as well as I want to do them.

I could handle them like some people do, and just settle them all as fast as I could.

I had to hire lawyers and lean on my partner for the legal work.

So seven years in, I haven't been able to develop, me personally, all the trial skills that I would have liked.

And we got so busy, I had to just start running the firm.

I pretty much manage the firm.

We got five other lawyers, and they don't really manage the firm.

They lean into legal only.

I do hope that I can tag along with them and go do some...

I have tried some criminal cases and did some civil bench trials before, when we were early on.

But I got guys that just focus on litigation only, and they don't worry about when the cases are coming in, and I do all that.

And it's basically because there's only so much time, and with my daughter sick, I don't want to be the first chair on a case.

You're my client all the way through, and then your big depo is coming up, and my daughter's sick, and I'm leaving her in the hospital.

I just want to be with her.

And I can run the law firm with her in the hospital on my laptop, and maybe I could be a second chair, because if I have to bounce because she's sick, that's easier to fill in, but I don't want to be the main guy.

I don't think it's good for my clients.

It does kind of suck, because that's what I wanted to be, but you get some curve balls, you get some screw balls in life, you kind of got to deal with it.

And I kind of, at least in my own mind, I like at least told my story.

Marketing is similar to like jury work in a way.

Like you got to get people, you got to be your authentic self, their skills, and it's competitive.

There's people out there that are better than you, there's people more funded than you.

You got to connect with the people on the jury, you got to connect with your community to pick you, pick your side, whether they're hiring you or picking you on your case.

And then, when I was earlier, if I got cases, I felt uncomfortable that I always brought in co-counsel and learned a lot from them, or just lean on them completely and just not be greedy and split up the money and give them whatever, to make sure the client's getting a good deal.

But we've built up our litigation a lot more, so I got two attorneys focused on that, a team building up.

So I want to be a trial firm, I don't want to just mill cases through, but I don't know if I'll ever be the trial lawyer I could have been, probably not, because I spent a lot of time on running a business too.

I don't know if you can ever, I mean, there's only so much time.

If you could either be the best trial attorney you can be, or the best business owner you could be, or maybe you can be pretty good at both.

But one of them, there's a hit there somewhere along the line.

You know, I'm just leaning in that for now.

I'm hoping, you know, maybe ten years from now, I get the firm built up how I want.

I can like have trained up a team that can run the firm, and maybe I could go, you know, some of the young lawyers that I've brought up with me can teach me some things that I would have liked to know.

I think that's what I'd like to see.

But yeah, it's, you know, like you kind of got to do what you got dealt with sometimes.

And for the record, my daughter's doing great.

They told us she wouldn't walk or talk maybe, and she never shuts up.

I mean, she goes to school and has fun in the normal class.

I mean, she's still got a lot of issues, but like things are a lot better than they were five years ago.

So that's great.

That's good to hear.

At least tie that up so people aren't worried about it.

That's great to hear.

Does the Hometown Lawyer brand, does that help with attorney referrals from local attorneys and some of the lawyers in these small towns that you're getting into?

Yeah, I think that definitely in the small towns in Ohio does, but I'm actually there.

So just the fact I was there, I don't know if I gave myself a corner name, it still would work because I'm actually there.

Walk in the walk more than the name.

It does help sometimes with out of state firms too.

I mean, I've had firms from different parts of the country call me like, hey man, I didn't want to send it to a big guy, but I didn't want to send it to a true solo that has no support.

That's problematic too sometimes, but they look at us.

I'm like, how you got 15, 20 people looks like.

That's like a sweet spot for some people.

Like, you're not 200, but you're not too.

Well, I mean, I met you through that.

I think through LinkedIn and seeing you there and seeing your Facebook, your social media.

And again, there's definitely times where I'll have somebody ask me, do you know a lawyer in such and such state?

And I'll think and I'm like, man, I feel like I know somebody on LinkedIn or whatever is from the state.

But you're easy because I remember you wearing the Cincinnati Reds hat.

Yeah.

Right?

I mean, it's that, and I don't know if that's intentional like in the videos, but like to me, that's part of branding.

So now I always kind of associate that like, oh, the Cincinnati Reds are in town.

And then now if I have a case in Ohio, you're going to be the person I call.

I'm not Googling somebody that I've never heard of before.

Yeah.

It wasn't on purpose at first, is mostly I just didn't want to be in a suit all the time.

It's just not how I didn't.

I bought my first suit in law school when I was 29.

And they had the little tag on it where the brand, I thought that was supposed to be on there like a shirt and some girls like, you idiot.

Like I just not that way.

I don't dress up fancy for fun for sure.

So I did a big law every day and then I owned my law firm for like a year.

I did it every day and then I just wondered like, what am I doing?

Like I'm just sitting here looking at my computer with a tie on.

So then I just started dressing more like myself.

If I got a meeting, I'll dress up a little bit.

So but then after a while, I was like, man, I think this hat actually is kind of nice because people, like what you said, it shows that I'm local right off the bat before I even talk.

Yeah.

So I do wear that a lot or some kind of local t-shirt or something.

It's good visual reminder.

I know that there's some stuff that I will post or say or do, and people will confuse me with somebody else sometimes still, and I'll have that come up.

So the more kind of reminders that you can give people, I think is-

That's good.

That's a good point to any lawyers out there.

I think early on people were like, man, I can't believe my friend from high school hired this other injury lawyer, and they like take offense to it.

Don't be mad at them.

Be mad at yourself.

Control what you can control.

That person probably didn't know you're an injury lawyer.

And I have cousins, and I have local bill.

I don't put billboards on the highway.

I bought all the little ones in my town, so the big guys couldn't because they were getting closer.

Basically, I'm that-

I didn't want to look at their stupid billboards.

I look at my own, and I'm trying to figure out ways to incorporate that with the local stuff.

And I've kind of figured out a way I'm going to like nonprofits, bar them and stuff and make it fun on social media.

But anyway, like you have to beat people over the head with it.

And my partner Scott was kind of the other came to like one of our friends hired someone else, and he was kind of like a little bit miffed about like, man, he probably didn't know.

And then I start calling him out like our friend Wally, he works at the bank.

What's he do, Scott?

He's like, I don't know.

It works the bank.

Okay.

You don't know exactly what neither do I.

Like I think he's in trust.

I don't know.

Like people think you're a lawyer.

And I have cousins ask me, Josh, do you do divorce law?

Like, man, I've never told anyone that in my life.

I got billboards all over town, videos every day, and my own family sometimes still thinks I might do divorce law.

So if that is the case, you don't be scared to keep telling people.

What you do, specifically, over and over again, you have to, you just have to.

And stay top of mind.

You know, I think I had this happen where somebody I knew, I was in a local community organization with them, and I didn't hang out with the guy outside of it, but he follows me on social media.

I post about personal injury stuff all the time, and he called me about something one time, and it was something I totally didn't do.

It was like a trademark issue.

I'm like, when have I ever posted anything about that?

I don't know the first thing about trademarks.

I said, I just do injury law.

He's like, oh man, I wish I would have known that.

My wife had a slip and fall.

They hired some lawyer, and he did a terrible job, and I'm like, yeah, it sucks.

I will tell you, one of the things we do, so I'm a big great legal marketing guy, Ben Glass.

I started reading his stuff before I even graduated law school, I think.

I mean, I think he had stuff out there that I was reading, and I just knew I wanted to start my own firm, and he kind of fit with how I view things.

But he ever had a deposition where the client's being asked about their prior car wreck and who represented them, and they don't remember the name.

They're like, I don't remember who that was.

That happens a lot.

And so for me, I was like, I never want to be that person.

To some extent, I think Champion helps, because it's an easy last name to remember.

But we remarket to our clients constantly, staying top of mind.

But then I think also, the further you get away from the case, the less they remember you.

So you just got to beat them over the head with it.

A couple of the first clients I remember that came in before COVID.

I met every single client with a piece of paper.

Sometimes we don't even do that anymore.

I give the client the choice.

Sometimes they just want to sign the e-doc or whatever.

But I used to meet them with a piece of paper every time.

I did the same thing.

And I remember, I'd be like, you ever had an injury case?

That was one of my things.

You've been injured before.

You know, the questioner you need to know.

You know, when you get lit and find out later, and they're like, yeah, I got one.

Did you hire a lawyer?

Yeah.

Who?

Guy down the street.

So then, like, perks of my interest, I'm like, I wonder what this idiot did?

Like, did he piss you off?

Like, I think I'm going to get some good news.

Like, no, no, he was pretty cool.

I can't really remember his last name.

I'm like, man, we're not as important to people as we think.

You know, so you got to stay top of mind.

And it's hard to always wow him on a basic rear end.

I mean, we take big cases, obviously.

I take small cases too.

I'm not that picky.

If the client's nice, you know, they've treated.

I like helping them people too.

If it's just a small few grand or whatever.

And it's not the biggest deal in their life sometimes when it's like that.

And so, it's hard to wow.

I mean, you can be, you stay on top of mine and it is what it is.

Well, we have that dilemma and this is kind of a constant discussion about how to improve client referrals.

And we'll have cases where, you know, I had this happen recently.

When I say recently, it was about a year ago, but it's seared into my memory where this client got into a car wreck and we're helping her.

And it's not a big case, you know, but it's one of those things that came from a referral source.

First we'll take small cases.

We end up helping her with property damage.

We end up having to file suit against State Farm, like a first party property damage claim because they were dragging their feed.

And so we're doing all this work and it's like a $15,000 car wreck case.

And her husband gets attacked by a dog, he gets injured.

And I'm thinking, this is going to be an easy case for us to sign up.

You know, we do a consult and I'm thinking, man, this is why I take the small case for things like this.

She ends up hiring a lawyer that specializes in dog bites.

And I'm like, man, and I don't know if you're seeing that, but I'm seeing more and more.

I had another client, hired Morgan & Morgan.

And I represented this lady.

I got a personal contribution from the defendant above the insurance limits because he had money and she was seriously injured.

I went to the mediation with her myself.

She gets in a subsequent car wreck and hires Morgan & Morgan.

She ends up firing them and hiring us because they were so bad to her.

And she couldn't talk to a lawyer.

She didn't like the customer service.

I'm like, why did you hire them?

And she said, well, I saw their ads and I just wanted to try them.

I don't know if you're seeing much of that, but I feel like there's a lot of that going on.

I often wonder how many cases am I losing, like of repeat clients or referrals to the big advertisers?

Yeah, I think you definitely lose some.

I mean, the one that stuck out to me where I was already pretty set on, I was going to build a brand, but it like put me into overdrive.

I had a case, probably the best legal work I'll ever do.

And this is going to hurt you to hear it, I'll tell it to them as well.

Guy gets hit, they find him in the, it's at night, they find him in an alley unconscious, he's almost dead.

Take him to the hospital.

He's in a coma for like 10 weeks or something like that.

His wife hires me.

Why?

He doesn't know, you know, what's going on.

No one knows who hit him.

The cops don't know nobody.

Like I find, I get feelers, I figure out people.

I know the neighborhood.

I don't think any lawyer would have known people as many as I would, you know.

It's being a local lawyer helps sometimes, you know.

I'm definitely not the best lawyer, but for this case, I was the one who's going to figure out what happened.

And about two, three weeks later, we found out there was a guy like whining at the bar about him.

We found out and they told us the cops didn't know.

I went found video, you know, it was a car lot was driving cars.

They had been delivered and one of their workers had hit him.

So I took it to the detective and they didn't want to listen to me.

They finally listened to me and end up charging the guy.

So all this happens when the guy's in the coma.

He doesn't know I've done this.

I mean, I've cracked the case.

I mean, no one would have figured this out.

I'm pretty certain on that.

And he wakes up and he hires the big guy with all the billboards in the next biggest town before I can even come talk to him.

Oh my God.

And it was commercial policy and everything, I'm sure.

And then some years later, the wife called me because she wanted me to help her on the divorce because she knew how hard I worked for him.

She tried to beg him to keep with me, but the thing is I didn't have a big lien.

I'd only worked on it for him.

I didn't really put a ton of hours in it, but it was the most important hours.

So I had to send the file to the big guy, but brand's important.

They thought he was bigger.

He had more advertising.

Some people think that's important.

I kind of know better, but again, I can't want the reality I want.

I have to live in the reality I'm in, you know?

And so...

I personally feel pain.

Yeah, it hurts.

Right now.

You know, not just because I know how painful that is for you, but like, I don't know that I've had that exact situation, but like, that's the issue that firms like ours are dealing with now.

So I've pretty much in the small towns I'm in, I got all the billboards, the small ones, like in the neighborhood, and I've been starting to use like some local influencers even.

I put other people on my billboards, try to have fun with it.

Like, I got Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the local branch.

They're going to do it in the corner.

It's just going to say, sponsored by The Hometown Lawyer, and we'll do social media with that.

So I'm still doing good with it, because I didn't want to have a bunch of billboards, honestly.

But the guys from the big cities were getting closer and closer.

And I was like, man, I just buy all these small ones up.

And people see them.

And do they work?

I don't know.

But that's not going to happen to me again where, like, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't really like taking cases from other lawyers.

But yeah, you've got to learn your lesson.

At least now, you know, I know I got quite a few in my town, at least.

Yeah, it hurts.

And you're going to lose some.

Have I lost some that I'm never going to hear from, I'm sure.

But I think, I don't know.

I'm a working class kid.

I'm already like, I'm on house money.

I didn't think I'd get through college, honestly.

Like if you tell some of my high school teachers believed in me for sure, but some of them would have been like, you know, just kind of, I was on, I didn't have any passion for anything.

I was just doing just enough to, you know.

Yeah.

That's my story.

I mean, we were talking about that earlier.

I mean, I did co-op in high school for two years where I went to high school half a day and then worked at a hardware store the other half.

I was working almost 40 hours a week through high school, and I didn't really like know what I wanted to do, and it was just kind of like, well, you know, what happens after high school?

I was like, well, I'll give college a shot.

But I really liked it, you know, and it was very different than high school.

I kind of found what I was passionate about and then did well, went to law school, did well.

And so, you know, there's, I think the background that you have, though, is kind of what allows you to do what you do now, though, being that, having that working class background, working with regular people, and it works well with your law firm, you know, and every law firm needs different people in different seats.

So, you're running, you know, a lot of the marketing, you've got other people doing legal work.

It sounds like it's a really good fit.

Yeah, it works.

I mean, nothing's perfect.

Running a law firm is hard, you know, PI is hard, running a business is hard.

But I do think, like, you know, some of the things, like, to your point, like, when I was 22, I thought, you know, my dad, my real dad, wasn't around a lot.

My stepdad is a construction worker, hard worker.

I got a lot of work ethic from him for sure, a lot of good things.

But at the time, like, if you want to be a lawyer, I felt like I had a lot of disadvantages.

And even when I graduated law school, I'm already 32.

I'm behind people who have already been lawyers seven years my age.

Sometimes the things you think are holding you back can be your advantages.

Like, yeah, I was seven years behind people my biological age that went straight through, but they can never sit down with a truck driver or a guy who works in a factory that lost a hand and tell them, like, oh, yeah, I had to go to the hospital once.

I hit my head on a machine, too.

Like, they never have that story.

I do.

I used to have a pretty good burn, but it's like healed from a factory, which kind of sucks at this point.

Not to me, lawyers work jobs like that, and you got to lean into that some.

I've done videos about that, like, the factory I work at, there was literally first day, I'll never forget, there's a sign on the wall and I had a number, days without a recordable injury.

We worked in a place like that they're counting the days till someone got mangled.

It's different.

I know a lot of the guys and ladies that I represent work in places like that now, and it does give you a better perspective, I think, and know who you're fighting for.

I still remember when I turned 16 and got that job at the hardware store, one of the first things they did was they put me on a forklift.

I was not forklift, not OSHA certified, but we also didn't have, we had these huge racks in the back in the warehouse, and the way we would get somebody up there is we would put a pallet on the forks, and you would stand on the pallet and raise it all the way up to the top.

It's like a miracle I'm alive.

The other thing we would do is we would go, and we would also use the front-end loader that we had, because we also rented equipment, and we would go and mash the trash in.

It was like a trash compactor.

We had all sorts of just crazy stuff we did, and it's shocking, right?

Yeah, but it kind of gives you a good perspective.

When you have a case that maybe is some sort of an, I don't do a lot of work comp, but sometimes there's carryover for trucking cases forever.

When you get discovery and you're like, man, would a company really do that?

I'm like, oh yeah, it's almost surprising.

Oh yeah, they definitely do that.

It sounds like something I've worked before.

So it's a good perspective.

And I think just the hard work, I think I got a work ethic.

I'm used to working overtime.

And when you work overtime, you think you make a lot more.

It just seems like they took more taxes out of my check.

But I'm used to the grind and I like helping normal people.

And people that need help, people in small towns, they don't get a lot of like, you know, shine, I guess, or a lot of, you know, the news comes to a small town when something bad happens, you know.

So I like doing a lot of videos of the positive stuff in a small town, because I like small towns.

When I was out in Marietta, I walked around this morning like this is the place I can hang out.

I like downtown Atlanta is fine, but I'd rather be in a town like this or even smaller, you know.

This is where it's at, you know.

And yeah, hopefully, hopefully keep growing and doing that and see where it takes us.

You never know.

I plan ahead, but not too far, you know, just got to worry about today and tomorrow too.

You know, you mentioned you plan ahead, but not too far ahead.

That's one of the things I'm guilty of is I don't have like a 3, 5, 10 year plan.

And I feel like I should.

People tell me that.

Do you have have a long term plan or do you just kind of?

This is working.

Let's just keep on doing what we're doing.

Yeah, I read that traction book, you know, the EOS, and it tells you to do the 3 and 5.

And have I written it down?

Yes.

And do I look at sometime?

Yes.

But I I'm not caught, you know, I'm confident, but not cocky enough to know, like, I can't plan that out that far.

You know, I got to worry about, I think the little things, this daily steps are what's going to get you that.

So I have some things out there that I shoot for.

But most, you know, there's numbers involved.

But like, really, like in my heart, I just want to like, you know, I want to grow the firm, do the right thing.

I like seeing the people that work for me grow both in their skills and just in their confidence.

I mean, I have a young attorney started for me that I think she was not confident enough hardly to call a client of hers.

She was kind of scared.

And now she like, I look at her and actually she's like, oh, yes, like she's got it.

You know, she's doing really good on the pre-let and you become more confident.

And honestly, like I feel, you know, you know, when you see someone you've hired come along and take a next step, like you feel it's not like having a kid, but it kind of is like, man, it's like you feel better about than if you'd have done it yourself, you know.

So I like that.

And I want to I kind of want to change.

You know, we're talking about how quick the technology and everything and the marketing is changing in PI.

I think that's coming to all law eventually.

And small towns, you know, they're so, the legal field is behind on, you know, business processes and how they run a business anyway.

And I think some of that's good, you know, whatever, but some of it's not.

And small towns are even further behind.

So I think it ends up hurting lawyers.

A lot of lawyers have a more stressful life than they need to by trying to do to me different things.

And I want to help a lot of local lawyers in my, you know, my areas to like kind of up their game a little bit, not necessary to make more money just to have a little bit better life yourself.

Because lawyers, you know, in different practice areas, I know we're in PI., but I know divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers and probate lawyers, they just run themselves ragged.

And there's a better way sometimes to make their life a little bit easier.

And I think, you know, I kind of want to at least be a little bright light in some of these small towns, like you can do it a different way.

Even though you're in a town of 10,000, you don't have to treat law like that.

You can run it in a way like a big city lawyer, you know, take some of that, you know, take some of that small town charm and mash them together.

I think that's a good sweet spot.

So while we're talking about the future, one of the questions I like to ask everybody on our podcast is, you know, where do they see the industry going?

Or what predictions do they have for the personal injury industry over the next decade or so?

I mean, I think it is kind of scary.

I think, you know, you have to look at doctors.

You know, when I was a kid, there was a lot of small town doctors, even surgeons had their own little business like in towns, on the corner.

And there's not a lot of that anymore.

And I don't know if the money, if the rules break to where there's UBS or ABS or whatever it is, if that's in more states, I mean, more money comes in.

I don't know.

It's impossible that there's like a hospital of law in every town where we just all have credentials.

I mean, I don't know.

And there could be some benefits to that.

I'm sure the lawyers aren't the best business people.

That might be less stressful than some people that run a law firm.

But I hope that's not the case.

I hope there's still small town lawyers, you know.

Yeah.

I think there's a lot of parallels to the medical field.

I mean, one of the things, we handle medical malpractice cases.

And one of the things we see a lot of is just this consolidation away from small individual practices to everybody getting brought up by these large hospital groups.

And I mean, we've seen it here with, you know, Morgan & Morgan.

One of the things they do in a lot of the towns they go into is they buy up that local practice.

Yeah.

And it kind of merges with them.

And it's getting harder and harder for those smaller lawyers to stay relevant and get cases.

Yeah, I think that's going to happen more and more.

That's why I personally like being in the real little towns that are less sexy.

You know, like a town of 12,000 people in the middle of Ohio.

They're not going to come in there too hard and they can run some ads.

But if I'm ingrained there, I think it's, there's an opportunity to grow there.

But I think there's also protection on the back end.

They're going to be a small rural town in Georgia.

Real small is going to be the last place where they're self-driving cars in Ohio is the same.

The last place that a big firm is going to come to squeeze the last drop out of the limb if they're trying to get every case.

I think, I think, you know, things come to small towns slower.

So I think there may be protection for a little bit on the back end.

But I do think long term, if there's, there's opportunity, you know, hedge funds or wherever is going to try to find it.

And yeah, I'm sure there's some positive things to everything getting conglomerate together, but there's some negatives as well.

So I think I'm going to do my best to fight and keep our little thing going for a while.

But yeah, I can't, you know, it depends what the legislation comes through, you know, you got to, you got to adopt.

Like I said earlier, I got to deal with the reality I'm given, not the one I wish is there, you know.

Yeah, I mean, we've we had that recently in Georgia with tort reform bill getting passed.

And you know, I think I don't know that it's going to have a huge effect on your more routine personal injury cases.

It's going to have a big effect on negligent security cases, which some lawyers have developed as kind of a niche practice here in Georgia.

And so, you know, you do have these constant challenges, whether it's, you know, marketing and the budgets of those huge firms disrupting the industry or just legislation.

You do have to kind of adapt to it.

Well, Josh, thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

I'm looking forward to the Braves game tonight.

I know the Reds have some great players.

Ellie De La Cruz.

I love watching him play.

Super athletic guy.

Exciting.

Yeah.

Who's your favorite Reds player of all time?

Well, let's say right now and then we'll do all time.

I think you got to go to Ellie just because of the excitement factor.

Me and my son, we went to a game in New York when they played the Mets last year, and kids from New York were wearing Ellie jerseys.

And Cincinnati, a small town, don't always get national prominence for a small market.

So people are liking a player.

You got to love that.

It brings eyeballs to the city.

All times is Pete Rose.

Not going to go with Johnny Bench?

Johnny Bench, great.

A lot of great players.

Cincinnati, the oldest team ever.

Great history.

But I got to go with Pete Rose.

Just Charlie Hussle, him or Joe Nuxall.

Joe Nuxall was the youngest player for a long time and made the All-Star team.

But he was the announcer for the Reds for like 40 years.

He's from Hamilton, my neighborhood.

So people love Nuxall.

But Pete Rose, probably just Charlie Hussle.

I mean, he grinded it out.

Wasn't always really the best, but went full force.

I think I try to at least learn a little bit from that.

The good things, maybe not all the bad things.

But people aren't perfect.

Lawyers aren't perfect.

But definitely the hard work.

Kind of, you know, the small towns I work in, you know, blue-collar people just kind of knows the grindstone.

I don't whine a lot, get up work, whether I want to every day or not.

I don't even really ask myself if I want to.

It doesn't matter to me.

You know, I'm not telling everybody else they need to be like that.

That's how I am.

And that's how a lot of people I know are.

I collected baseball cards when I was a kid.

And one of my most valuable cards was a Johnny Bench card.

Nice.

And so, you know, Johnny Bench, Tom Seavers and Hank Aaron.

Those were like three of my big cards that I got at card shows.

Well, people want to find you.

Where can they find you?

Well, Kruger & Hodges is the law firm.

The online says The Hometown Lawyers with an S on the end.com.

I'm the hometown lawyer on, I think, TikTok, Instagram.

On Facebook, Josh Hodges.

I just I think I've always had that before I was the hometown lawyer, I guess.

You know, I always had it in my heart, I guess.

But before I became official with it, but Josh Hodges is my regular name on Facebook.

And, yeah, we're in Hamilton, Ohio, most of Southwest Ohio.

Yeah, I'd love to meet you, you know, online and hopefully in real in real life eventually, I think that's how it progresses nowadays.

But thanks, thanks, Darl, for letting me come down, check out your office.

You got a great building here.

And a great little setup with the podcast.

You got that.

But I look forward to the Reds game.

As long as we win, I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, the way the Braves have been playing this year, you guys might get us.

Thanks for joining us, Josh.

Thank you.