Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
I Filled Out a Case Connect Form & Did an Intake
The digital marketing landscape for lawyers has fundamentally changed, and small law firms are feeling the squeeze. Large multi-state firms have discovered a profitable formula: automate backend processes, offshore what they can, and reinvest those savings into increasingly aggressive advertising campaigns. The result? Client acquisition costs have skyrocketed to $2,400-$3,000 per case – an unsustainable model for most small practices.
At the center of this transformation are companies like Case Connect, flooding social media with deceptive advertisements promising "Harvard-level AI" that can instantly calculate settlement values while explicitly telling viewers to avoid "greedy lawyers." These misleading campaigns create unrealistic expectations while simultaneously undermining the perceived value of legal representation. What happens when a potential client fills out one of these forms? They're quickly connected with a law firm using carefully crafted intake scripts designed to sign cases within minutes – even on weekends – often charging premium contingency rates of 40% to offset their enormous marketing expenses.
For solo practitioners and small firms that can't match this "speed-to-lead" approach, competing in the digital arena has become nearly impossible. The sustainable path forward isn't trying to outspend these marketing behemoths but rather doubling down on what small firms do best: building relationships, fostering community connections, and providing exceptional client service that naturally generates referrals. By focusing on creating remarkable experiences rather than chasing the latest marketing trend, small firms can build practices that aren't vulnerable to the whims of search algorithms or dependent on increasingly expensive digital advertising. Discover how to position your firm to thrive in this challenging landscape while maintaining your professional integrity and building a practice you genuinely enjoy.
____________________________________
Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
Want to connect with Brian?
Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
Connect on LinkedIn
Happy Friday, my friends, and welcome back to Life Beyond the Briefs, the number one podcast for lawyers choosing to live lives of their own design and build the kind of practice that they enjoy showing up to on Monday. Now, if you are a lawyer, and especially if you're an injury lawyer, and you're running paid digital ads online either you're running LSAs or PPCs or maybe you're buying lead gen leads you know that every single month it is more expensive than it was last month and seemingly the reason for that is that large firms are noticing this arbitrage where they can offshore and automate some of their sequences, which makes it then cheaper for them to produce a case. And, unlike what I would do and what you probably would do when you reduce the cost, like take home more money many of these large multi-state firms who you might call an injury mill I don't know if you were feeling a little froggy you might call these guys injury mills because they don't actually seem to try cases, but, unlike what we would do and just take the money home, they are plowing the money and the market their cost savings on the production side back into the marketing side. What it is causing is an increase in the cost to acquire a case, Sturitz. He and I dive deep into what he's seeing in the multi-state size and the large regional state size firms and how they're investing their dollars.
Speaker 1:And if you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, go back and do it, because Gabriel is really really super smart and he is inside of a lot of the rooms that you and I are not right. For the most part, the lawyers that listen to this show are not inside rooms with firms that have hundreds or even dozens of lawyers or hundreds of employees who are pursuing these cases. Most of us, I think, are operating firms that are less than 50 total employees and the vast majority of us probably are operating firms that are even smaller than that, and so we just aren't privy to a lot of the discussions that are going on in the back of these rooms, which is all about acquiring clients and the cost to acquire clients and largely because they don't have the kinds of boots on the ground referral relationships that you and I have and that we teach in Great Legal Marketing, where you can build a practice and have a case acquisition cost in the low thousand and not the 2,400 to 3,000 that we're seeing if you rely heavily on digital marketing. Well, if you are relying heavily on digital marketing, it's really important that you pay attention to the message that your lead generators and the message that your marketing companies are putting out there, Because one of the ways to increase your cost to acquire a client is to have a mismatch between the message and the client, or message and the thing you're actually selling.
Speaker 1:And so today's episode, I'm going to talk to you about a company called Case Connect, and if your Facebook feed and your Instagram feed is anything like mine, you're seeing a ton of ads from these guys, and I probably have done it to myself, because I will watch every single one of these ads all the way to the conclusion to understand how the script has changed. There are more characters in these ads these days, the video content is longer these days, and if you watch any of these ads, you go like why the hell would any lawyer run them? Because, by and large, they tell you that you don't need a law firm, you don't need a lawyer, and they pretend that there's some AI bot behind their case calculator that's going to tell the end user what their case is worth. Of course, that's a complete message to market mismatch. Right, Because if you're a lawyer and you're paying this company to generate leads for you, you actually want the person who's calling or filling out the form to want to hire a lawyer.
Speaker 1:It's a novel concept, and so earlier this week, I actually filled out one of these forms. I got a call from a firm who's running this ad and I'll tell you about it in this episode. But if you are unfamiliar with these ads, lucky you. But I'm going to play a couple of them for you, just so you get a feel for the collateral that's being marketed number one to your potential clients, but number two that's being marketed to law firms, because I'm seeing both of these ads and I got some recordings here to play for you. This Harvard AI is making lawyers nervous. Here's why Let me show you something that's changing everything.
Speaker 2:This is a CaseConnect compensation calculator. It's powered by Harvard level AI technology and it analyzes over 100,000 accident settlements to determine your case value.
Speaker 1:Here's why this matters. Okay. So, number one there's some interesting stuff to unpack in that. There's an appeal to authority Harvard level unpacking that. There's an appeal to authority Harvard level. There's a hook about AI technology. I think he says AI technology two or three times during that little clip Claims to analyze over 100,000 accidents.
Speaker 1:It probably does not actually do that, Because when I filled out the form, it told me only that I qualified for a settlement and that somebody would be in contact with me. It never delivers on the promise of telling you actually what the what the settlement is worth, which, if you do this work, you know you can't do. But the number three the interesting thing and you have to see this on video to understand it is there's a lot of kind of B roll stuff going on and there's a little cash register to change and there's all these little um, the dopamine stimulating um pings that go on that the point is it's actually a well-constructed ad and it's going to capture leads and clicks and form fills, probably from the general public, in addition to from lawyers, who are interested in running and figuring out who the hell is running these ads. Okay, here's another one.
Speaker 3:That's basic info and in seconds it tells you if you qualify for major cash and the best part, it's free. And if you qualify, a case connect specialist will fight to get you paid. No stress, no greedy lawyers, no waiting months for insurance to maybe help over 13,000 people.
Speaker 1:All right Now. Bet you heard the pings that time, right Now that I pointed them out the first time no greedy lawyers, huh. And so what happens if you're filling out this form and then a law firm contacts you? I thought you told me there were going to be no greedy lawyers involved in my case and of course, the law firm on the other end of the phone call is going to say we're not a greedy lawyer, right, we're here to help. Blah, blah, blah. The next one that I'm going to play for you is much, much, much more overt.
Speaker 3:Listen if you've been in a car accident, don't call an attorney. Use this AI app instead. That's what I did and that's how I got this $140,000 check in less than 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:And of course, that's the craziest one of all. Right, because again, saying don't call an attorney, but some attorney is engaged, probably in a joint marketing agreement with these people who are now running ads that say in less than 30 seconds, I got $140,000 check and we can run down the bar rules in your state about whether the actor needs to explicitly say at the bottom of the ad that they're a paid actor or what your state's particular marketing rules are. But Virginia repealed the vast majority of the law firm advertising rules and left in place the two most important rules, which is that your advertising must not be deceptive and it must be truthful, and there's no way that somebody is getting $140,000 check in less than 30 seconds. So obviously it checks the box of being a totally deceptive ad and it's being run in Virginia. Checks the box of being a totally deceptive ad and it's being run in Virginia.
Speaker 1:And so the thing is, if you're going to engage in these lead generation companies, you have to do your due diligence and you have to either demand that you see all of the collateral that they're going to be running, which like they're putting out new ads and different style ads all the time. So that's got to be really challenging. Or you have to go back into the Facebook ad library and find the ads that they've been running and review them and see if they have these deceptive things in them. And it's not all that hard. You just Google Facebook ad library. You can type in the name of the company running it. By the way, these guys aren't actually running it under the Case Connect name, but when you see one of these ads, you'll see in bold the name of the company and then you can just put that into the ad library and you can go back and watch any of the other videos that have been out there and they're running things like, if you are a resident of Virginia, there's this new 2025 compensation program, and they seem to have been like dinged in a couple of states, because you're starting to see a little asterisk saying, oh, the new program is our calculator, right? Um, but it hasn't always been that way, so maybe bar regulators in certain states are catching up to these guys. Certain states are catching up to these guys, and so, anyway, just out of curiosity, I filled out a form, I told them that I had a broken arm in a crash and I got a phone call about four or five, six minutes later from a law firm called Monge and Associates.
Speaker 1:They appear to be headquartered out of Atlanta and they appear to have nationwide practices. When you look at their website, they're in almost every state, including in Virginia. They do have a physical location here and, as far as I can tell, although they don't actually seem to list lawyers on their website, they do have a handful of associates who are handling cases in the Commonwealth of Virginia. But here's what you need to know if you are running a solo or a small law firm and you're competing against firms like this. They're really good at intake. They are really good.
Speaker 1:I filled out the form on a Saturday afternoon. I got called again just a couple of minutes later by somebody with no accent which wasn't in a call center. It did sound like she was maybe calling from her house because I thought I could hear a cat in the background. But the script is amazing. Script is really good walking through taking control of the conversation, walking through all of the injuries that you had, and the script is sprinkled with all of these trust qualifiers. Like you know, there really are two kinds of law firms in the US. There's a first offer firm and there's a get all the value firm and that means there are law firms that will take the first offer and just settle your case. And these are the greedy lawyers, right that maybe they beat up in the ads a little bit. And then there's firms like us. There's firms like us that will take the case all the way through to trial if necessary, and they try to send you a retainer while you're on the phone with them.
Speaker 1:She did not bring up price. I asked about price and the first. It's really interesting. The first response on price is if we don't get anything for you, it's free, pause, silence, right. And I had to follow up and ask well, what's the fee if you do get some money for me? And the response is, oh, it's a standard 40% fee. If you do get some money for me, and the response is, oh, it's a standard 40%, which, if you're in my world, 40% is not standard and if it is, I'm costing myself a whole bunch of money. Standard for pre-litigation certainly is 33% and for litigation there are some firms that'll do 35, 40, 45. If it goes to trial, my firm does a straight 30, again, 33. Again, maybe I'm costing myself money and if I am, let me know.
Speaker 1:But, as I talked about with Gabe Steeritz earlier this week, my suspicion is that the only way that these firms can stomach the $3,000 case acquisition cost is by charging 40% to run these cases. And my suspicion is, outside looking in that they're dealing with a lower demographic class of clients, a less intelligent class of client, without being insulting to anybody, but the kind of client that's not doing their comparative research, not doing what law firms years ago told almost every client to do, which is call a couple of lawyers, ask who they would hire if they weren't hiring you, and do your comparison shopping and make sure that the lawyer that you hire is the right lawyer for your case, because you're going to be with this lawyer for the next 18 or 24 or 36 months or maybe longer, right, you have to have a good relationship between lawyer and client for this to work out. None of that exists anymore. It's speed to lead, it's let me sign you on the phone, and then, if the case turns out to be crappy or not worth any money, on the back end, the law firm is dumping it and getting rid of it, and so that dynamic. You have to understand the rules and the universe that you're playing in in 2025.
Speaker 1:And this is what I talk about a lot, which is, if you are running a firm like mine and you can't compete with somebody who will call you with an amazing script within three minutes on a Saturday afternoon, then you've got to figure out a way to market to these people to make them stick around just a little bit longer, right? Because the kind of client that wants a solution right now, if I can't get back to them in three minutes on a Saturday, is probably calling the next firm on the list and it's probably going to sound a lot like the script from the firm that I talked to, because this is the playbook that the heavy digital marketing firms have, and so your way to compete as the owner of a solo or small law firm is not probably is not to be number one on Google. If you can't answer the phone quickly on a Saturday and get back to somebody and sign them while they're on the phone probably doesn't make sense for you to be spending the kind of SEO money or PPC money or LSA money to be the first one on Google. That's just reality. There is a place for you to spend your next dollar and hour of your marketing budget, and it probably isn't digital. It probably is referral-based marketing, community-based marketing or doing a really great job with the clients that you currently have. And that is not do good work, and more work will come right, but it is reflecting the reality that your best referral sources are going to be people for whom you've done an amazing job.
Speaker 1:The best way to get more Google reviews is to be a better lawyer, is to deliver a better customer service experience. Right, it's not a tactic. You know there are follow-up sequences. There are ways to ask tactically. That will help you, but if you have an amazing way of asking somebody to leave a review, but your client customer service process sucks, the review ain't going to be five stars. And so here's what I'm going to leave you with, because this stuff is hard work. Right, it is hard to build a business and a law firm that's worth a damn, and a lot of people are out there trying to tell you that it's easy, because a lot of people want to buy the easy button. And so I've played you a couple of ads that Case Connect is showing consumers, that they're showing to your potential clients, but now I want to play you the ad that they've been showing to lawyers.
Speaker 2:I've built an eight-figure personal injury law firm that practically runs itself without having to pay marketing companies for leads. It's not the best law firms that win, it's the ones with the best marketing period. Listen, here's the truth. The only way to become a seven eight figure personal injury law firm is not by hoping referrals will magically show up. It's by building a fully automated acquisition machine that feeds your firm high value cases month after month. See, I've managed over $200 million in personal injury marketing ad spend for some of the largest firms in the country. I've seen firsthand what works and also what doesn't. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2:Most personal injury attorneys buy bad leads or hire a dumb marketing intern that has them dress up like a goofball to post videos on TikTok and think that's going to bring them cases. The harsh reality is it never does. You just look like an idiot and nobody will take you seriously. Here's where I come in. Click the link below right now and my team at case connect will send you 15 signed mva cases signed on your firm's retainer over the next 30 days for free. No stress, no hassle, just quality cases delivered straight to your law firm's door without having to dress up like a goofball on tiktok and make yourself look like an idiot.
Speaker 2:See, see if you're ready to get?
Speaker 1:All right, which, like, again, all kinds of ethical problems, right Signed client on your retainer, who you have not talked to, who you have not done a conflicts check for all kinds of ethical problems. When people who aren't lawyers are out there generating cases and teaching you how to market your law firm, be careful who you listen to. All right, I think that's probably enough ranting for today. Just like you have to do your due diligence on this, because your law license is at stake when you're doing these kinds of joint marketing agreements and it's easy to get into a lot of trouble because you are signing cases and not paying attention to how they're getting in the door. So if you are trying to build the kind of firm that does not rely on digital, that isn't at the whims of Zuckerberg and Google and doesn't cost you $500 to generate a phone call and $2,500 to generate a client, because that is not a sustainable way to practice We've got some great stuff for you at Great Legal Marketing. The number one thing that you should check out, if you haven't done so already, is our book, renegade Lawyer Marketing. Don't buy it on Amazon. Digital is bad. Buy it from me at renegadelawyermarketingcom for like nine bucks. I'll send you the book and I'll send you a whole bunch of extra stuff as well.
Speaker 1:Lastly, if you want to connect in person, the best way to do that is at our Great Legal Marketing Summit, glmsummitcom October 23rd to the 25th. It's going to be in the DC area this year. Fly into Dulles Airport, hang out with us for three days and big special announcement this year's keynote speaker is Dan Kennedy Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy is one of the greatest copywriters ever. He is the original renegade, he's the author of the entire no BS book line and it's going to be the only legal conference he's speaking at in 2025. Probably is the only legal conference.
Speaker 1:If you go back several years and if you're a lawyer, we don't have a lot of other opportunities to see somebody like Dan speak. Most of the speaker circuit at most conferences is the same. You will not find Dan Kennedy anywhere else. Lastly second time I said, lastly, I think if you're a member of our mastermind group, make sure you book a late flight out on Saturday or, better yet, stay till Sunday, because Dan is doing a private lunch for members of our mastermind after the conference is over and for members who joined the mastermind, either before the conference starts or at the conference. So if you are considering joining the Great Legal Marketing Mastermind, you owe it to yourself to book a late flight out Saturday. Better Yet, fly out on Sunday so you can digest all the ideas you get from the summit and have lunch with Dan Kennedy. Until next time, have a great weekend.
