Seven Disciplines Every Personal Injury Law Firm Needs to Master | Trial Lawyer View Ep. 91

What separates a growing personal injury firm from one that can actually scale?

In this episode of Trial Lawyer View, host Jason Lazarus sits down with Chad Dudley, Partner at Dudley DeBosier Injury Lawyers, law firm operations consultant to hundreds of PI firms, co-founder of Orion Legal MSO, and author of Seven Disciplines for Successful Law Firms.

Chad shares what he has learned from building, running, and advising personal injury law firms across the country, including why great firms need clear direction, honest self assessment, stronger intake, smarter case assignment, case velocity, meaningful metrics, and better team building.

Jason and Chad also discuss the rise of MSOs in personal injury law, what Orion Legal is designed to provide, and how operational support may shape the future of law firm scaling while keeping attorney ownership and control intact.

Connect with Chad:
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Dudley DeBosier Injury Lawyers - Website
Seven Disciplines for Successful Law Firms, Trial Guides

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Transcript

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Chad Dudley 0:00

The phrase that has killed more firms and has prevented them from becoming great is we already do that.

Jason Lazarus 0:05

That's Chad Dudley, partner at Dudley DeBeaucher Injury Lawyers, law firm operations consultant to hundreds of PI firms across the country, and author of seven disciplines for successful law firms. He built the Orion Legal MSO to bring what he learned inside those firms to the market at scale.

Chad Dudley 0:23

You don't practice and they don't train us to do any of this in law school, right? They don't tell you how to create a great firm. They spend very, very little time on client service and how to get clients to come back and talk about you. It's about practicing law. And so very, very early on, I realized, okay, there's a lot more to this than just arguing your client's case in court or writing a demand letter or brief.

Jason Lazarus 0:44

In this episode, you'll learn the seven disciplines that every high-performing personal energy firm has in common. Why the fastest way to stop growing is believing you've already figured it out and what an MSO actually is and how it lets your firm scale without giving up attorney control? I'm Jason Lazarus, and this is Trial Overview.

When PI firm problems become operational problems

Jason Lazarus 1:08

So you've built your own firm, consulted with hundreds of others, and now launched an MSO. When you look back at that arc, what was the moment that you realized that the biggest problems in a personal injury firm were not legal problems, but really operational ones of the business?

Chad Dudley 1:31

I think everyone that that starts their own firm realizes it almost immediately, right? Start your own practice and they don't train us to do any of this in law school, right? They don't tell you how to uh create a great firm. They spend very, very little time on client service and and how to get clients to come back and talk about you. It's about practicing law. And so very, very early on, I realized okay, this is there's a lot more to this than just arguing your client's case in court or writing a brilliant demand letter or brief. And uh I really kind of dove into that early on in my career.

Why Chad wrote Seven Disciplines for Successful Law Firms

Jason Lazarus 2:08

So you recently wrote a book.

Chad Dudley 2:11

What's the title of the book? It's called Seven Disciplines for Successful Law Firms and uh trial guides is is taking pre-orders right now. And you can go on their site and get it. Worked with hundreds of personal injury firms across the country, all different sizes, shapes, jurisdictions, and you know, uh got to work some really, really great firms. I got to work with firms that were about to be great. And I noticed that, you know, there there's certain things that, regardless of the size of jurisdiction, that they did well, some common traits that they all solved for. And the book is about me boiling it down into those seven things, saying, look, obviously, there's all sorts of things that all of us can improve at our firm on a daily basis, but there's there's seven core things that I really, really believe that firms need to get right. Um, because all the great firms that I've visited and worked with get those seven things right.

Jason Lazarus 3:03

So let's work through those disciplines because I think that that's really insightful. The first discipline is that great firms know where they're going and why. Your consulting work, how often do you walk into a firm and find that the lawyers in the firm and the team had never actually aligned on a clear direction? And what did that misalignment ultimately cost them?

Chad Dudley 3:28

It's very common on walk-in. And and firms are sometimes the the default vision for the firm is just bigger, better, more. And they don't stop and go, okay, what what kind of firm am I trying to be? What are my skill sets? What do I enjoy doing? Um, what do I get excited about? And they're just kind of on this path of let's just do more, more, more, and more. And I do think it's vitally important. I think some of the best firms I've worked with, very clear picture of who they are, uh, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. How do they build on their strengths to build a great firm? Um, they know the areas that they they're gonna own. They know areas that they'll probably refer out or not play in. And I think if you don't know what you're trying to be and who and what kind of firm you're trying to build, I think uh it makes it tougher to say no to the right things. And that's an odd way to put it. But what I mean is that there's a point where we all get bombarded with opportunities the next great case or the next great marketing thing or the next great whatever. And if you don't know what you're trying to build, you want to say yes to everything. But if you have a clear vision for what you're trying to build, you can say no to the things that will be distractions and say yes to the things that get you closer to that vision. And sometimes it's just that they kind of know, but it's kind of vague. And so I try to make it clearer uh for them.

Jason Lazarus 4:55

Well, and it's so important to then articulate that to the team and get everybody pulling the oars in the same direction because without that kind of alignment, it's difficult as a business. And you know, we have a hundred people spread out all across the country and actually have part of our team internationally. And it's such a critical thing to make sure that everybody understands what is important, what they need to do, and what the direction is, where we are going as a business.

Chad Dudley 5:28

Absolutely right, because they're clear on what that vision is for the firm, attracts people with a similar vision and it also repels people that don't want to be a part of that vision. And if you say, look, um, you know, we are not here to build a mediocre law firm, we're not here to have mediocre client service. Like we want to pursue excellence in those two categories and we want to create a great place to work. And you start repeating that and saying it, and then saying what that looks like, like how does that carry itself out in your day-to-day, you know, you know what? We we return phone calls quickly because it's part of who we are. We uh make sure that our client's case doesn't sit, we make sure that we're gonna deliver you know great client service and not just trying to be great attorneys and all these things that go hand in hand with those objectives. People will either gravitate towards it, which are the people that you want, and it will also push people away that don't align with that vision. And that will that in and of itself helps you get closer to accomplishing it. People don't know what the vision is, they don't know what their role is. It can cause confusion and it can also um cause people that that really aren't aligned to stick around longer than they should.

Why honest self assessment is harder than it sounds

Jason Lazarus 6:36

So, discipline two is honest self-assessment, which sounds really simple, but in practice, that is one of the hardest things for business owners and leaders to do. What are the most common blind spots you see and why do otherwise, you know, good firms struggle to see them?

Chad Dudley 6:58

Yeah, you know, I I think when I look at all the disciplines, I think they all you look at them and go, gosh, these are pretty simple. And there's nothing on there that shocks. One thing that has contributed to our success and other successful firms is that they take simple concepts that we all know to be true, and they don't just execute them at 80% or 85%, but they're executing them at high intensity, 95%, 100%, high intensity, consistently over long periods of time. And so when firms go, the phrase that I I've heard that I always say that has killed more firms and has prevented them from becoming great is this phrase, we already do that. Because when you say, when you hear somebody talk about what they do, how they do it, and your brain goes, we already do that, you're essentially writing off and saying, This person has really nothing left to offer me and to make me better. And like I said, I've been to some great firms, I've been to some firms that aren't great yet, but um I've learned from every single one of them. I'm always trying to understand how is this person, what are the small nuances that they're doing to get better results than we're currently getting. And you got to pay attention to the details. And sometimes it's they're just executing it at a higher intensity, more consistently over a longer period of time than you have. And you got to dial into that. We got to understand and be honest as to where we are, right? And I always say if you're um, let's say you're in Los Angeles and and your vision is we want to make it to Miami, we're gonna drive to Miami. Well, if you if you're delusional about where you're starting and you're actually in LA, but you're telling yourself I'm actually in San Francisco, your first couple steps are gonna be awkward. They're gonna be missteps, you're gonna start going probably in the right wrong direction. And and so it's important to know, great, yes, you want to know where you're going. That's the first discipline. The second one is you gotta honestly assess where you are, what your strengths are. And to become the firm that you want to be, what do you have to fix, right? If you're trying to be um, you know, uh, and this is a very big exaggeration, but if you want to be a trial attorney firm that tries, you know, really, really big cases and gets referrals from other firms and gets you know recommendations from other firms and co-counseled, but you've never tried a case, well, that's just a reality that you have to face. That path looks different than someone that has a bunch of you know, multi-million dollar verdicts under their belt. And and so doing an honest assessment where you are in terms of your you know the financial health, in terms of the you know, case, you know, how you're getting cases in the door, the skill sets of the people that you have, you might have a gap. Um, for example, if you're someone loves trying cases, but maybe uh you're not crazy about the marketing aspect of your firm, that's fine. If you want to grow your firm, you got to hire somebody or bring someone in that is passionate about that piece. And if you're if you're not honest about yourself, if you say, Oh, no, I can do the marketing, maybe you can do the marketing if you don't enjoy it. And so understanding what you are and where you are currently is huge.

Why intake cannot be treated like admin work

Jason Lazarus 9:47

I saw also in the book you say great firms never take their eyes off of intake. But a lot of law firms, it seems like, treat that as an administrative function. What does it look like when a firm actually treats that as a strategic priority? And how does intake change the results of that firm when they do that?

Chad Dudley 10:11

Intake is one of the more uh sexy aspects of our business today. You'll see results tomorrow, right? If you if you improve how you do something, you can actually see very tangible real results in a very short amount of time. And so everyone's always like intake, intake, you know, you know, they buy the intake books, they go to the intake conferences, they'll hire the intake consultants, which are all good things. And you should. The firms that really, really um are great, they have either a partner or someone in their executive team that obsesses over intake all day, every day, which seems like a big ask, which seems like, gosh, that that does seem like a clerical administrative type. It's so vital. It's everyone's first introduction with your firm. There's so much happening. Uh, I've seen big cases that were missed. I've seen, you know, uh patterns that were not corrected that cost, you know, a bunch of signups to a firm. I've seen all sorts of things go uh crazy in intake. And uh, you know, people either don't put someone high enough on intake, or um they will basically say, Oh, we we got intake fixed. We're we can just set it and forget it and let it go on cruise control. And that's just not how high-performing firms work. They have somebody, again, very high up in the organization that is obsessing over it on a daily basis, and they do not let up on that process. They never take it for granted.

Jason Lazarus 11:34

Well, intake is the lifeblood, right? I mean, that is just like us, you know, we we depend on and we we measure and look at that, and we have people that are responsible for for all of that because we're no different than a law firm in that regard. What

Are your best cases going to your best attorneys?

Jason Lazarus 11:52

are the other things um you you say in discipline four, getting the best cases to the best people, which seems incredibly obvious, but I'm assuming you would not put it in the book if firms were really doing that well. So, where does the breakdown usually happen in law firms as it relates to that discipline?

Chad Dudley 12:11

If you're a solo practitioner, you're by yourself and you're handling cases, you typically you know every single case, you know, every single plaintiff, their spouse, their kids that are injured today, you get almost like it's you're you're everything, right? And so if you have a big case, um, it's very likely, at least on your radar, right? And if you're an experienced trial attorney, you're gonna know all the things to look for, and you're gonna know all the things that really would drive value in a case like that, right? If you're less experienced, there's an argument that, okay, you should, you might miss some things. But for the most part, you're pretty dominant. Well, as soon as you hire attorney number two, and now they got cases, the question becomes are they looking at the cases the same way that I'm looking at the cases and will they miss anything? And then you go to attorney number three, four, and the more attorneys you bring on board, the more complex it actually can get, because um, you have attorneys at different skill levels, and you know, they they may look at the cases differently. Um, and the results that they may get could be different. Um, you know, we've seen a bunch of times where you give a case to a lesser experienced attorney, uh, and you get a very similar case to a very, very experienced, highly skilled attorney, they're gonna get significantly different results on on average, right? And and so if I ever ask a firm, hey, do you get your best cases to your best attorneys? Almost without exception, every firm tells me yes. Yeah, of course you do that. I'm like, why wouldn't we do that? How do you know? And we talk about their case ranking, how they rank cases, or how they, you know, uh put rankings on their cases, and that there's all the sorts of you know faults and how that process works. And so they really don't have a good grip on which cases are the big best cases. And if you don't know which cases are really your best cases, then it's impossible to get those cases to the right attorneys. And the other um thing that I see very, very often is that you know, attorneys with more than one, more than one attorney don't like to talk about who's good at what. It's almost this really weird, uncomfortable conversation. And if you don't have that conversation, how do you get the cases to the most qualified attorney in the office? Um and what I mean by that is that, gosh, it's a really great firm. And they had gotten a bunch of jury verdicts in the five to ten million dollar range and had a case that they they thought was potentially worth $40, $50 million. They've never handled a case of that size before. And you know, my recommendation is like when you're going into new territory, um, bring someone that's been there. And so go find someone that has gotten a verdict or resolved a case in that range, get them to work. And I know you're gonna pay some type of you know, co-counsel fee, but it'll be worth it because then the next one, you'll be able to, you know, understand how to get there on your own. You'll understand how to do it more on your own. And and so we have the uh rating system for attorneys on one through five. And you know, five is basically uh someone that's gotten you know three first share jury verdicts of over a million million dollars in the past five years. And you know, tier one might be someone that is fresh out of law school, brand new to the area of personal injury. Speaking very honest, like, hey, where do we lie? Okay, we know what we have no tier four, tier five attorneys. If we get a big case, we should probably look at bringing someone in, or we got a bunch of tier fours and tier fives. Gosh, they're they're loaded down with really not great cases. That's that's not good. Let's get someone to come take that off their plate. And just, you know, it's again simple. Get your best cases with the highest potential to the attorneys with the most skill and experience on a consistent basis and support them with your best resources. Very simple. It gets increasingly complex with the more cases that come through and the more attorneys that you have at your firm. And so in the book, I give some very specific uh systems and processes, how to make that happen on a regular basis.

Jason Lazarus 15:57

That's what I was gonna say. The the systems and processes is what makes or breaks that. Because you know, we in negotiating and resolving liens, we look at our people, we analyze their caseloads, and we also analyze their performance to make sure that when we are assigning a new matter to a lien resolution analyst, that it's the right fit for that particular type of lien and that particular the facts. And so, because without that, it it's just you don't really know what the outcome is going to be because you're not doing it systematically and it's not repeatable and sustainable and doesn't scale.

Chad Dudley 16:37

So, I mean, all those things are are super yes, and so in the book, I provide some very systematic, scalable um processes for making sure that uh your firm is doing that across the board in the cases with the highest potential to the attorneys with the

What case velocity looks like in a well run firm

Chad Dudley 16:54

most skill.

Jason Lazarus 16:55

So discipline five, I kind of interpret as time on desk, which is something we talk about, and making sure that that cases are moving, particularly through the disbursement process where liens typically slow down. But you you talk about not letting cases gather dust. What does case velocity actually look like in a well-run firm versus what you typically see when you walk in the door as a consultant with firms?

Chad Dudley 17:23

Well yeah, a concept is you know, the the clients uh hire us because they they believe that by doing so, look, we're gonna get them a better result than they would on their own, and a better result, you know, really is is measured in in time and the actual result, right? And and I I think you know, we have a duty to just keep go on the the offense, keep their cases moving, letting them sit. And so we try to control. Obviously, you know, pre-suit, there's it's not just us, but it's the other side. We're we're trying to control what we we can control. When you get into suit, now there's three sort of, you got you, the other side, and now the court all kind of you know uh govern how quickly or how slowly something moves. But the concept is that we want to make sure we, you know, every file that we're we're touching frequently, but when we touch it, we touch it with intention. What can we do in the next you know 30 days to add value to this case, get it closer to resolution, or get it closer to a trial date? Like at all times, let's be taking action with intent to keep the case moving forward. Um when a case sits, because you know the client's done treating and we haven't been talking to them, and then all of a sudden um they're done treating, we we haven't put their demand letter together, right? Because we we're not in tune with the treatment stats, or we put the demand letter together and it takes too long to put that together, or we put the demand out and you know what, we just let it sit, we don't follow up on it with the other side, or we negotiate too long when we know we're not gonna get to um a fair number pre-suit, so we should put it in suit. So all these little things that can just add on months and months if you don't pay attention to them. Great firms, do not they don't let that happen. Um, you know, they're constantly having processes going, what's next? How do we keep it moving? Let's make sure we're adding value. Like, do not let the do not let the client sit. They hired us to keep their case moving, let's keep it moving. So in the book, you know, I talk about techniques that firms use to make sure that their cases keep moving.

Jason Lazarus 19:28

That's critical. I mean, you gotta be intentional about that, similar to us. Like we we track all that and we we are red, yellow, green for every person in terms of the files that they have on their desk, and they're the people that are supervising them go through that with their check-ins every week to make sure that there's if if something's red, why is it red? Is there something you need? Are we missing something? How can we move that forward? And without that kind of intentionality, things, you know, people generally will work at their own pace instead of what you're trying to create in terms of an outcome. So that's such a critical thing. And having been involved in my own personal injury case, you know, you want that moving along. Your your your client experience, if those cases are not moving along, is going to suffer.

Chad Dudley 20:26

Yeah, and I I think, you know, a lot nearly every firm you know I work with. I mean, everyone wants to do a great job for their clients. They want to get great results. And sometimes it's a matter of like, okay, uh this is the standard, and here's here's when we're within standard and without standard, you know, like, okay, let's, you know, let's get a demand learner together. Okay, well, it should take this many days to get medical records in. It should take this many days, you know, wherever to draft it. Obviously, with AI, it's that's even going quicker. And then if we get it out in this many days, how many days are we giving them to respond and we're staying on top of it? And then, okay, how many days do we negotiate before we consider putting it in suit? Like giving parameters to the team so that they know that, and then giving them visibility on what those, you know, compliance with those standards. I I the high performing uh firms, their team likes that. They'd rather be told, hey, this is what a win looks like, this is what a you know, a loss looks like, this is taking too long. And we define that and give them visibility to not only see it, but then control it. High performers go, yeah, I'm I'm I'm in with that, versus this vague, ambiguous, like you should do it quicker, or you know, and not clearly define goals. So that's the difference between uh again, great firms and and mediocre firms.

Which law firm metrics actually matter?

Jason Lazarus 21:44

So discipline six to me is metrics and reporting and what doesn't get measured, you know, ultimately it's impossible to hit a target if it's if there's no measurement. And and I'm sure that most firms track things. Like revenue, maybe case counts. What do you typically see firms miss in terms of metrics that actually move the needle when you get them right?

Chad Dudley 22:10

Yeah, it was kind of in a different phase right now, which is interesting. So, like when I first started doing consulting and helping firms with their data and all this kind of stuff back in 2008, 2009, uh, the challenge was that firms had zero data. They almost had no reporting, they had no metrics, no dashboards, et cetera. And then you see the evolution of the different case management systems that are out there, and then they make it easier to build reports, see pull data, see data. And now we're kind of on the other side where a lot of times I'll run with firms that they have too much information. It's like information overload, and they're, you know, they got a thousand reports, and it causes almost analysis paralysis. And the challenge is, you know, I try to bring them back almost and go, okay, look, you know, there's five monthly reports. And I put that in the book and go, okay, there's, you know, the PLs and there's a KPI tracker, attorney fee production, uh, income, I mean uh intake report and uh HR report. Start off with those five, and then okay, get that one. Let's add on the marketing report and then add on the big rocks report. Okay, cool. Those seven will you can run a whole firm off just those seven and get visibility on that. And then you know you start layering in. There's obviously a bunch of intake reports that tell you about efficiencies there and inefficiencies there. But we really build the reporting structure of a firm from the ground up and try to strip down the stuff that is just not necessary, or at least you say, hey, these are the reports that we want people looking at on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis. Here's the batch that are more diagnostic reports. And what I mean by that is like if you see on a scoreboard report that you know you're winning, and as an owner, try to minimize the noise.

Jason Lazarus 23:51

And today, you know, there's tools like chatter claw that really you can throw all of your metrics and data into and let it work for you. And I mean, it's the there's no reason to not understand where you're at when even if you have a lot of information to let it distill it for you, it's so easy.

Chad Dudley 24:57

Yes, there's really there's no excuse. It's more about how do you combat information overload. And if you're going to work with an AI you know agent, what are the questions you should ask?

Jason Lazarus 25:08

What I've done is I've I've built my own uh trained GPT that I use for just interpreting all of our financial reporting, just you know, and ask it a very specific set of questions. Hey, as my you know, CFO, what what you know trends do you see? Tell me you know what I should be focusing on as a business owner and looking at things in that way. It's so simple to build something like that for yourself now that and it just keeps getting easier and easier every day. So there really are great tools for for your people to use. So the the last discipline is building great teams. And you've run your own

Building great teams before culture breaks

Jason Lazarus 25:55

firm. So you know firsthand how hard hiring and retention is. What are the biggest mistakes personal firm leaders make when it comes to people?

Chad Dudley 26:06

Uh I think you know, a lot of owners they knew they had not addressing issues uh on a recurring basis, right? I think you know, great firms, yeah. I think it starts off like one of our core values, like our core values are you know, take care of our clients, take care of our team, do great work, have fun, give back, right? And take care of our team is so that we're committed to doing like okay, we owe it to everyone that chooses to be part of our team, that we're gonna try and create a great place to work, we're gonna try and take care of them pro, you know, financially proactively, we're gonna try and provide great benefits and create a great environment for them to work. And then the flip side of that is that we have expectations in terms of like we want to be a great firm. We want to hire people that want to be a part of a great firm. And we want people that share those core values that are important. And I think one of the biggest mistakes that firms make is not being in tune with again what their mission is and what they want to be and build. But but on this end of it, they don't sit down on a recurring basis and ask themselves, hey, does every single person I have on my team, is that, you know, Cameron Harold, who wrote the book El Bubble and some others, and he he spoke at a conference and I work with him as a uh mentor and coach for a period of time. He's he said, look, you should go through that list and say, would I, knowing everything I know about everyone that works here, would I enthusiastically rehire them, enthusiastically rehire them again for the for the role that they're in. And if there's any hesitation, if there's any concern, that's not enthusiastic. And it's not like you go fire them tomorrow, but it's like, okay, well, why? Is that because of their performance or is it because of their attitude? And you know, we always say, okay, well, perform if they have a great attitude and they live and breathe their core values and and they're they're you know getting after it, the the other part can get fixed. You can sometimes put them in a different role, sometimes you can get them training and they can work there. And but on the attitude side, if that's not right, if they don't align, if they're toxic, it 99.9% of the time it's not going to get better. And and so you got to act on it. So, you know, the the answer to your question is that when firms don't go through that process, and I recommend going through it on a quarterly basis, it's really not fair to the people that aren't great fits. It's not fair to the rest of the team, it's not fair to you because you know, mediocre employees kind of attract other mediocre employees and they kind of bring down some of the top performers because the top performers are trying to cover for them. And, you know, it's it really holds you back more than you think. And so I recommend doing that. And there's there's obviously ways you got to scale it as you get over a certain size, but you should do that on a quarterly basis so you don't have you know people that are just not a good fit hanging around your firm for long periods of time. In addition, I think I see firms that don't really invest in their in their training and making their great people even better and keeping their skill sets up to speed. I think training just looked at sort of as a nuisance in a lot of places, and it's so vital. I mean, I feel like I'm way better at all the things I do today than I was a year ago and five years ago, and I hope I'm way better a year from now and five years from now. And I hope uh our I hope and believe our team feels the same way. And so training is is just huge. And you know, the other part is is you know, your core values, and and sometimes people think, well, that's kind of touchy feeling. And is that really that if I'm really building a great firm, is that really a big part of it? And I I believe it is because again, the great firms that I see out there go, hey, this is you know, if you think back to the analogy of we're trying to get from LA to Miami and we're trying to take this trip, and we're gonna the core values are essentially, hey, these are the rules that we're gonna play by along this journey. And if you're not gonna play by those rules, you gotta get out of the car. You gotta we're you're not part of this, you gotta find another ride. And and so they're important because it it's what makes the journey enjoyable. It's what makes, you know, I love the people that I'm fortunate enough to work with. It's just amazing. And and we got to protect that by making sure that we're constantly going, okay, do we we got the right group here?

Jason Lazarus 30:19

Yeah, that core values and culture fit is something we need you for. I mean, that's that's the initial screening. Do, you know, obviously their resume has to support that they can do the job, but the the next thing is is making sure they are the right fit for the team and they're going to ultimately be a fit on the core value side, because if they're not, it's really problematic because you just can't change that. There, there's yeah, that there's nothing that's going to change that.

Chad Dudley 30:50

No. Yeah, you're right. Do everything you can to get it right on the front end. And, you know, if you be super, super aggressive in the first 90 days to confirm that you got it right, because you know, having turnover or losing a team member, you know, is never great. I'm not crazy about it. If you figure out it's not a great fit within the first 90 days, you're better off than having that person work for a year, two years, three years in just never, never getting better.

Jason Lazarus 31:17

Hire slow, fire fast. Because you know, if they're not a fit, yeah, you're you're better off figuring that out quickly and moving them out of that seat. So well, I I wanted to transition into a topic that I'm super interested in just because I think it's a

What is an MSO in personal injury law?

Jason Lazarus 31:34

uh a very interesting development, which is private equity really entering into the space of personal injury firms through MSOs. And we've seen this in in the medical field and other areas. And so I wanted to ask you about Orion Legal. And for listeners who are not familiar with what an MSO is in the model, can you explain what it is and why you guys decided that this was a structure to move forward?

Chad Dudley 32:10

MSO is a managed services organization. And you know, over our years and working with other law firms, you know, we saw a lot of firms that were great firms, and we would come on board and we'd help them sharpen some of their systems and processes. And as a result, we saw them start to get better results for their clients. We saw them grow, we saw them be able to get more profitable and a lot of good things. And the idea was okay, well, is there a way to sort of bottle this up and provide it to more firms at scale? And could we create a you know something along those lines? And then while this is all happening, there is a lot of interest from private equity firms to invest in in the legal space as much as they could or however they could. And with all that happening, we looked for the right partner and we found the right partner with with um upload investments, and just they we connected with them on the vision, the values, and decided, okay, let's go figure out a way to do this. And the idea is we created a managed services organization, just like a lot of firms already. We use a lot of third-party services to deliver representation to the clients, such as some people outsource intake, some people outsource medical record collection, some people outsource demand letter writing, and you can go pretty far up the chain. Lean resolution, lean resolution, right? I mean, absolutely lean resolution. And so, yeah, that's not an uncommon concept in our space. And so the idea was well, if we bundled all that stuff and then you know provide it not only to our firm but to other firms, and that's essentially what we did through an MSO, and then we are now finding other firms that want to become part of that MSO. And there's a way that that allows the private equity firm to invest the MSO. We're still 100% owner of our law firm, we still dictate how all representation is delivered, you know, except we're just you know paying a third party, this MSO to run all the back office, and we have a bunch of other firms that have chosen to do the same and are going to be joining the MSO in the next 30 to 90 days. And and so if you're an owner of a law firm and you're going, gosh, I'd be interested in in going down this route and seeing if what it means for you know financially, then reach out and give us a holler, and we can walk you through it in in great detail as to how it applies to your firm.

Jason Lazarus 34:34

So with this model, a law firm stays 100% attorney-owned, attorney control, while

How attorney owned firms can use outside operational support

Jason Lazarus 34:41

just getting the benefit of basically outside operational support.

Chad Dudley 34:46

Yeah, but again, the benefit of outside operations in the sense of like when I would go work and consult with firms, I'm going in looking at their citizens and processes, going, hey, look, you know, all the disciplines that I just mentioned in the book, helping them apply those at their firm. And the MSO is a vehicle through which we can deliver that at scale to a bunch of firms. And so there's law firms where the owners are like, hey, I'm in my 70s, I want to retire, and this is a good vehicle for me to retire. I have other owners that are in their 40s are saying, you know what, I just want to go do something else. I'm I'm gonna find a way to exit and and and have it managed in a way that aligns my own values and vision and my legacy that I want to leave. I have others that are like, hey, I want to do this, but I just want the I I still want to stay involved 100%, but I want to get the support of this entity to help me maybe grow my firm faster than I could on my own. There's a bunch of different applications that make sense for people in different sort of stages of where they want to go, but it is absolutely very intriguing development in the the legal industry over the past uh it's been happening. I mean, we're not the first firm to do it, but it's been happening at a more rapid rate in the past six to twelve months.

Jason Lazarus 35:59

And it seems like without this, firms may be finding it difficult to compete, particularly with what's happening with the technology evolution, with ABS models and MSO models, and firms like you know, here in my hometown, Morgan and Morgan, Dan Newland's firm. You've got really big firms that when they are that organized and have that kind of money behind them, you know, these smaller firms do find it hard to compete unless they're you know in a particular niche that allows them to compete. It just seems to me, which is why I find this whole notion intriguing that with what's going on, without these models, firms are gonna probably have some issues competing at scale if this really does become more prevalent.

Chad Dudley 37:06

Yeah, I I think yeah, I think you're gonna see the gap widen. And it is again, you know, whenever we're looking at things, we go, okay, what is in the best interest of our clients, and then everything else is gonna fall into place if we really always that's our North Star. And I I think that what you'll see is that the the gap between the can you do a great job for your clients and get great results for them without being a part of one of these MSOs? Absolutely, of course, and there's a bunch of firms that do just that. Um, what we will see is firms that that say maybe we're we we're not quite where we want to be in those two in those regards, and now we're going to partner up with an MSO, and now we can we can get there quicker. I think you're gonna see more of that. And the overall standard of what to expect when you're represented will get higher. And I think client service will get better, I think legal representation get better. I mean, in in you know, so many of the other firms I've worked with, we've been able to increase the average, you know, what they get to the client. We've been able to reduce time and desk, we've been able to improve the efficiency of the firm as a whole, all these good things. And so I think you're gonna see more and more of that occurring, which is again great for the client. And you know, for the firms that don't go down that path, they're gonna be forced to either start delivering a higher level of client service and representation, or they're gonna, it's gonna be tougher. But I I I don't think that's a bad thing, you know. So I think it's gonna generally just raise the bar. So whether you're doing it inside of MSO or outside MSO, the standard for client representation and client service is just gonna get higher in our industry.

Jason Lazarus 38:45

What specific operational features does Orion Legal handle for the firms that are part of

What Orion Legal provides behind the scenes

Jason Lazarus 38:52

the MSO? And when you say marketing, finance, technology, talent, administrative infrastructure, what does it actually look like in practice for a firm that plugs into the model?

Chad Dudley 39:02

Yeah, I mean, so a firm that wants to plug in the model, but take all their existing non-attore employees and they would become employees of Orion Legal Services. And then as Orion Legal Services gets bigger, obviously there's a lot of things that you can do at scale in terms of whether it's benefits or other things that for the employees that maybe firms cannot quite do on their own. There's technologies that you can invest in at scale as as AI is changing so much. You know, hiring a full AI development team on your own may be intimidating, but when you get a group that can provide those type of resources and guidance, it's it's attractive. Same thing with you know, marketing, same thing with some of the leadership or management, highly qualified individuals at every level that can help run different aspects of the support services of a firm better. Those are all things that you know the goal is how do we make the firms better? How do we get you know help them do what they do more efficiently? And that's the support that uh would would provide to member firms.

Jason Lazarus 40:08

What has changed operationally inside your firm once you started offloading these uh

Where the MSO model may go next

Jason Lazarus 40:14

non-legal functions to the MSO?

Chad Dudley 40:17

You know, the all legal representation is still being directed by the attorneys at the firm, right? It's just like you know, they're uh uh giving direction to the legal assistance that they're still providing them the support that they would before. And so from a practical standpoint, operationally very, very similar. The non-attorne is just simply have access to more resources than they would typical, typically under the the law firm umbrella proper.

Jason Lazarus 40:44

So looking ahead, where do you see the MSO model going in the personal injury space?

Chad Dudley 40:52

I think I continue to see like there's there'll be a couple different uh MSOs that that develop and you know consolidate a number of local brands into when I say consolidate, I uh for us, if a firm becomes part of the MSO, we're we're keeping their their local brand or keeping how they they they market, but behind the scenes, the support would be would be centralized. And so I imagine you'll see a handful of these type of entities evolve over the next you know two to three years. And I think again, generally raise the bar for what is what you what you deliver, whatever what the industry delivers in terms of representation and client service. And so I see it going that direction. Yeah, I think it's gonna get more competitive, but again, I think that competition will result in again better, something good for the clients.

Jason Lazarus 41:44

One last question. It's very open-ended. So you can answer it however you want as an experienced trial lawyer, a marketing expert, a law firm, operations consultant,

Why mentors can save you from expensive mistakes

Jason Lazarus 41:56

an author. What's your view?

Chad Dudley 41:59

My view is uh I had my conversation with my kids the other day. I said you can learn from uh mentors or from mistakes. And one is it's it's better to learn from mentors. If you're trying to do something, find someone that's done it, doing it, knows about it, or slightly ahead of you in your journey, and they can save you a lot of time, effort, energy, money, pain, heartache. But if you're stubborn, you can learn from your mistakes too. But my view is I've always taken that approach to everything that I do, and I'm always learning. And I've made a bunch of mistakes. I've gained a lot from some very uh important mentors and coaches and consultants and whatever however you want to call it. But that's that's helped a lot. And I would give the same advice to anyone else, whatever you're doing.

Jason Lazarus 42:43

Yeah, beast learning the hard way, because learning the hard way kind of sucks. It does, it does, it does. So and everybody needs a coach, no matter what you do. You know, you you can always benefit from having someone that looks at it from a different perspective, an outside perspective, different views, and helps you along the way. It's so critical.

Chad Dudley 43:04

Yeah. I mean, it's just I think Tony Robbins or somebody has a couple says something like, you know, mentors can turn decades into days. And there's some truth to that. And gosh, you know, you know, real briefly, I was I was playing tennis the other day, and the guy next to me was hitting serves on his own. And he hit, I was played for an hour. This guy next to me hit serves for an hour. And I I know that he probably thought, gosh, I've worked in my serve for an hour all, you know, and I should be better. But when I looked over, I mean, he had the wrong grip, his toss was off, doing it almost all wrong. And so instead of getting better over the course of an hour because he didn't have a coach, he actually probably got worse and he walked away saying, gosh, it's been an hour trying to get better. And so I think we do that in our businesses, we do that in in other areas of life where we think, gosh, we put in the time, but we put time in the wrong way. And if we had had someone, a coach, a mentor, a consultant, or something that had really given us guidance, that hour would have been so much better used. So I think about that a lot.

Jason Lazarus 44:02

Yeah, and graining bad habits doesn't help you at all. It just makes it harder to break that bad habit for sure. Definitely have experienced that myself. So well, if somebody is interested in reading your book that we spent the first three quarters of this episode talking about,

Where to find Chad’s book and learn more

Jason Lazarus 44:20

what's the way to get it?

Chad Dudley 44:22

Trialguides.com. You can go in there and pre-order it. It's gonna be shipping on um April 14th, or just look at anything I can help out with it. C Dudley, C D U D L E Y at Dudleydeboger.com.

Jason Lazarus 44:33

And we'll include links in the show notes to make sure everybody can navigate to find those things. And if somebody's interested in Orion Legal, still are you the right person? Yep.

Chad Dudley 44:44

Yeah, reach out to me and I'll get you the information you need.

Jason Lazarus 44:47

All right, great. Chad, thanks for joining me today on Trial Law Review, and we'll see everybody on the next episode. If today's episode gave you a new perspective on how your firm operates or sparked a useful idea, consider sharing it with a colleague and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss future conversations with leaders across the personal injury space. Trial Law Review is brought to you by Synergy, a strategic operations partner helping personal injury law firms resolve healthcare liens more efficiently. If you're looking to accelerate case flow and allow your team to focus on high-level legal work that moves cases faster, consider partnering with Synergy. I'm Jason Lazarus, and I'll see you in the next episode.