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In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael talks with acclaimed commercial motor vehicle trial attorney, Joe Fried, about his journey of going from 0 to 60 in becoming a trucking industry subject matter expert.
Joe’s calling to enter the field came from some unexpected sources as he explains to Michael the barrage of signs that led him to become a subject matter expert after finishing a large book of business against the Ford Motor Company. Joe describes the evolution of his role as a lawyer and the number one fear that was used as a driving force in his success.
On a larger scale, Joe encourages others to think beyond the boundaries of a case to serve a greater good by doing what’s right not only for the families affected but also what’s right for the industry and the families that can avoid having the same happen to them.
Throughout the podcast, the topic of hyper-specialization is explained both from the positive perspectives of becoming the only person who understands such a narrow subject, but also the trade-offs and sacrifices that need to be made in doing so with your practice. Joe also emphasizes the importance of inclusivity in the industry and using that mantra as a resource instead of something to be afraid of as he gives listeners a generous offer.
Background on Joseph A. Fried:
Joe Fried is one of only a few lawyers in America who limits his legal practice to handling truck and other commercial motor vehicle crash cases. Based out of Atlanta Georgia, Joe has handled commercial motor vehicle crash cases in over 30 States and has helped recover more than $500 million for clients. He holds several record settlements and verdict.
When he is not actually handling cases, Joe is writing about and teaching other lawyers how to get the best results possible in commercial motor vehicle crash cases. He has authored books, book chapters, peer reviewed articles and a Trial Guides DVD specific to this unique field and has given over 250 presentations around the Country specific to this field.
Joe is a nationally recognized leader in trucking litigation. He is the founder and Founding Director of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, immediate past chair of the Chair of the American Association of Justice Trucking Litigation Group, and President of the National Trial Lawyers Trucking Division.
Joe brings a diverse background to each case. He is a former judge and police officer, has real world training in accident investigation and reconstruction, physics, engineering, and human factors. At the same time, Joe has hundreds of hours of training in psychodrama, neurolinguistics and story development and is known for his unique ability to find and tell the compelling human story that underlies each of his cases.
For more on Joe Fried visit https://www.frg-law.com/the-firm/joseph-a-fried/
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11 – Morgan Matson – A 360˚ Look at Legal Industry Recruiting
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In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with licensed attorney and founder of Preferred Counsel, Morgan Matson. Morgan specializes in connecting job seekers with great firms and vice versa for law firms and legal departments in companies of all sizes who are look for legal talent.
Starting as a litigator doing mass pharma defense work, then moving on to work for a smaller boutique firm handling medical defense litigation, Morgan found his purpose to be more of a “connector” than a “divider” which then drove him to start working for a recruiter and ultimately owning his own recruiting firm since 2007. He notes his enjoyment for working with small to mid-sized law firms mainly due to finding that “all the boxes that need to be checked” when those firms are looking for a candidate, become amplified when the office dynamics are much more close-knit than in a larger firm.
In a world that has taken “digital” job searches to seemingly every corner of the globe, Morgan is not only happy to be a legal “headhunter” but explains that his localized, relationship-driven recruiting tactics actually have an even greater competitive advantage in this day and age. Morgan leverages his experience as a litigator to find the needle in the hay stack for law firms, oftentimes finding the people who are NOT actually looking to make a move to be the best candidates as they are happily working … until Morgan calls with a very unique opportunity. Michael also points out from his own experience the troubles that come with having to sift through hundreds of resumes and find many with exaggerated qualifications.
For those who are looking to break into the legal industry, Morgan sites that recruiters can be an extremely good resource along with professional social media platforms, such as LinkedIn. Morgan elaborates on LinkedIn as being a fairly under-utilized resource in that there are many groups you can join and ways you can find commonalities with others who are doing what you want to be doing, at which point you can connect with them and find out if there is an opportunity foreshadowing or being hired at their firm. Michael and Morgan also discuss the need to get involved and start having conversations with those who you aspire to work with, whether that’s through attending CLE courses and starting conversations, or by simply picking up the phone and politely pursuing those who are either in the position you want to be in or who may have the ability to hire you. All of this contact, of course, should be done with respect and in search of understanding what it may take to achieve your career goals.
Morgan reveals several other tips for candidates and those looking to hire talented legal professionals throughout the podcast and ends with a striking description of his firm’s fee structure, for both candidates and employers, which is likely not how you think … remember, “relationship-driven.” Michael also uncovers a particularly beneficial reason to utilize a recruiter which ALL law firm partners can certainly relate to. All in all, Morgan is the type of recruiting resource any candidate can appreciate and any sensible law industry employer needs.
Background on Morgan Matson
Morgan is a 1999 graduate of The University of Texas School of Law. From there, he worked as a litigation associate with Fulbright & Jaworski (n/k/a Norton Rose) and later Ball & Weed, a litigation boutique where his practice focused on the defense of healthcare professionals in civil litigation matters and before the state licensing boards. In 2007, he founded Preferred Counsel, a legal recruiting firm focusing on the placement of lawyers and support staff in law firms and corporate legal departments throughout Texas on a direct hire, contract, and part-time basis.
For more info on Morgan Matson visit:
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14 – Steven Gursten – Remarkable Customer Service = Extraordinary Law Practice (and Life)
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In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Michigan trial lawyer and owner of Michigan Auto Law, along with 3 other law firms, Steven Gursten. As an early adopter of internet legal marketing, Steven has built his firm to become extremely successful in Michigan and is recognized as having the TOP verdict in the state 8 out of the last 12 years, as well as success throughout the country.
Steven recalls in the first 10 years of his practice making it a goal to be a great trial lawyer and have attorneys all over the state refer him cases. To get there, he still recommends lawyers set aside 30 minutes to an hour every day to read and study some area of law. IE: Mondays would be opening statements, Tuesdays might be cross examining, Wednesdays – closings, Thursdays – medicine, and Fridays he wanted to become an expert on the Michigan no-fault law. Even now, Steven utilizes the massive amounts of information he’s accumulated, learned from, and still references. Similarly, Michael recalls and shares a story about learning through the process of proofreading a book another attorney in his office was writing and both agree the continuation of learning after passing the bar is extremely important.
Fast forwarding from 4 attorneys in his first practice to now having 20 attorneys across 4 diverse practices, Michael and Steven discuss the two very different disciplines of running a law firm vs. trying cases, both of which they do very successfully. He also goes into detail on some of the systems he has put in place as a solid foundation, in order to handle the hundreds of cases coming through his different practices, and how much he has embraced different technologies throughout the years. Steven also brings up a great point that in today’s online society, good lawyers will now more than ever be rewarded and bad lawyers will be punished because of Google reviews, Avvo, and other similar review sites, which makes customer service even more important. Meanwhile, those same systems are the ones which help great law firms stay on top of their cases and communicate with their clients to avoid the potential pitfalls easily avoided through systematic communication. Topics such as discussing what not to post on social media or making sure the client is going to their doctors’ appointments can have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of impact on a case when communication is stagnant. Steven goes on to say that the same type of communication can also have a huge impact when it comes to keeping referring attorneys in the loop on shared cases, citing a recent case he referred to Michael in which he was extremely impressed with the follow up.
The conversation shifts when Michael asks Steven how he’s able to have the other 19 attorneys in his office use all of the systems he has in place. Without hesitation, Steven points to the culture of his firm which has guided everyone in the same direction, keeping them on the same page, regarding the inner workings of the practices. He is also quick to point out that establishing this type of culture starts with the ownership of a firm, and regardless of tenure no attorney should ever be above talking with their clients, which is something he tries to instill in each of his attorneys. Steven also shares some of the small things they do to build the culture, such as whenever they receive a great review, they send it out to everyone in the firm to further demonstrate its importance to the firm as a whole and praise those who are walking the talk.
So many great insights on running a successful firm (too many to list in this brief description) come from Steven and Michael throughout this episode, even down to the psychological testing Steven does with everyone in his firm which helps shed light on their ability to deliver a quality customer experience. Steven also shares several thoughts for those who are trying to build their practices, which any attorney can leverage to not only work in their practice but also on their practice.
The conversation transitions to traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) to which Steven again delivers a mountain’s worth of information in rapid succession. Steven is gracious enough to lay out not only the basics of how TBI cases are identified but also the more intricate and subtle ways clients who’ve suffered from a TBI are not only identified but also misunderstood, as Michael asks him questions to bridge the gap between customer service and delicate TBI cases. Steven’s view of customer service is engrained so deeply in him that even during this part of his conversation with Michael, he can’t help but note its importance when working with those who have suffered a TBI. Things like displaying a positive image online in order to be seen as approachable, being cognizant of the tremendous diplomacy it takes to work with clients who have had a TBI, and doing everything in your power to genuinely make things as easy as possible on the them. Perhaps THAT is why he doesn’t encounter many of the problems or issues other attorneys do.
Background on Steven Gursten
Steven Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top attorneys handling serious auto accident injury and wrongful death cases, and No-Fault insurance litigation. He is head of Michigan Auto Law, the state’s largest law firm handling car, truck and motorcycle accident cases for more than 50 years.Steven has recovered top-reported verdicts and settlements for car and truck accidents for multiple years, including a $34 million truck accident settlement in 2014 with Ohio co-counsel. In this capacity, Steve was named a Michigan Lawyers Weekly “Lawyer of the Year,” after recovering one of the largest truck accident settlements in Michigan history, as well four other top-reported trial verdicts in previous years.
Steven frequently lectures at legal seminars throughout the country on trial advocacy, trucking litigation, and traumatic brain injury cases. He is the annual moderator and speaker at the “Advanced Motor Vehicle Litigation Seminar,” offered through 360 Advocacy. He is the current President of the Motor Vehicle Trial Lawyers Association and a Past Chair of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Trucking Litigation Group. Steven is also the chair-elect of the AAJ Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group.
In addition, he serves on the executive boards of the Melvin M. Belli Society and represents the state of Michigan in the Taos Trial Lawyers Society, an invitation-only group of distinguished trial attorneys from around the country.
For more info on Steven Gursten visit:
https://www.michiganautolaw.com/firm_profile/attorney-steven-gursten/ -
25 – Sonia Rodriguez – Defeating Defense Medical Experts
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In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Cowen | Rodriguez | Peacock partner, Sonia Rodriguez, for another installment of TLN Table Talk to answer the questions of our listeners. This episode focuses on defense medical “experts,” or as Michael calls them, “paid opinion witnesses.”
Michael calls this spade a spade right from the get-go, in that the title of “defense medical experts” is a sham. Many times, he says, they are called “independent experts” when they are neither independent nor an expert, not to mention the fact that they are hand-picked by defense lawyers who pay them for their testimony. Michael believes it is a huge fraud being perpetrated on our clients, on the jury, and on the court system. He says, typically “we know what their report is going to say once we hear their name,” further exemplifying this flaw in the system.
So, Michael asks, “what do we do to expose this and show the jurors the truth?” Sonia believes it is critical we expose the relationships experts have with the lawyers who hired them, how often they’ve been used by that firm or the defense industry, as well as how much money they make from that business. She also uncovers what percentage of their business is spent on reviewing files for defense lawyers vs. practicing medicine, in some cases. All of which can go a long way in revealing these witnesses for what they really are, which is “paid opinion witnesses.” Michael also explains how he doesn’t like to even use the word “expert,” which gives them the mantle of that title. He goes on to discuss the harsh reality and his distain for medical professionals who misuse their degrees to go against the very oath they have taken to “do no harm,” while we represent legitimately injured clients, and they do it for money! They both agree how uncovering the financial ties and bias of these witnesses also says a lot about them because they could likely be making much more money by seeing patients, but instead are reviewing cases for a defense lawyer. Michael also talks through a real example of what he’s run into on how these medical witnesses come to find themselves making money in this way and how their path toward testifying can ironically parallel his client’s paths.
Michael and Sonia share a plethora of examples regarding their tactics on utilizing depositions, both past and present, to build their cases, ranging from networking with other attorneys and medical professionals to leveraging amazon.com in the middle of a deposition. Sonia explains how you cannot go into a deposition with a broad brush, but rather be laser-focused and able to drill down on even a single word, in some cases, to make your entire case. And to sum things up, Michael talks through the very polarizing two ends of the spectrum his preparations take him with defense medical experts, where they are likely to either be way “off the deep end” and obviously working as a paid witness, or he will focus his energies on essentially turning them to help his case. The strategies they both describe are pure methodical genius.
The conversation shifts to talk specifically about the tone and demeanor both Michael and Sonia use when deposing paid medical witnesses. They both agree the tone and demeaner you use in a paid medical witness deposition is extremely important, as it will likely be replayed for the jury at some point and jurors will also be watching to see how you handle yourself in this situation, the same way they do in the courtroom. We, as plaintiff attorneys, also need to be cognizant of how we are approaching the deposition so it leads the jury to come to their own conclusions regarding the credibility of the paid medical witness and their testimony. It also becomes reflective for the jury to feel the danger themselves of allowing these paid medical witnesses to get away with using their titles as a form of “expertness” in exchange for being paid by the defense. In other words, if we just “rip into them” it will likely backfire on us and not work at all in our favor. Not to mention, Sonia adds, that today’s juries are tired of the theatrics and enthusiastic approach of some lawyers, where the days of yelling and pounding your fist on the table are now long gone.
All in all, this Table Talk with Michael and Sonia was thorough and filled with an enormous number of real examples from their experiences over the years. As a trial lawyer, you will likely run into paid medical witnesses in trials often, and this table talk could be the one thing that prepares you most for success.
