Darren Miller:
It is amazing to me how many lawyers say that they want to be successful, but they don't have a real plan with regards to moving towards success. Every lawyer should have a docket of mass tort cases on their books. Every lawyer should.
Chris Dreyer:
Everyone talks about what's my USP going to be for my firm? What's my unique selling proposition? And I always think like, well, it's being authentic. It would be a lot easier because you'll be right for many people, but maybe wrong for many too.
Darren Miller:
If it looks just like everybody else's, why are they going to pick you over them? I'm like, "Look, I'm not changing. It's working. So get used to it because I do know that life is short and I'm going to do things that make me happy. I'm not here to please you. So, I'm sorry."
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want the rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. All right, let's dive in.
Darren Miller knows the struggles of building a firm from the ground up. He started his own practice in 2002 with just a $5,000 loan from his father. Through strategic hiring, engaging marketing, and focusing on his passion for helping clients, he has built his firm into a powerhouse. And when I say powerhouse, I mean it. When we spoke, he had 63,000 active clients. Darren learned through trial and error. Today, he shares the hard-earned wisdom he gained from the past two decades. To help your practice run smoother and grow stronger, he explains the importance of delegating tasks early on so you can spend time on high dollar activities, how to get started in mass tort cases from investing to avoiding dual rep conflicts and his unapologetic approach to personal branding. Here's Darren Miller, owner at D Miller and Associates.
Darren Miller:
I was born in London, England, and so I can tell you very specifically, 1979, I know I'm dating myself, but back in London, I watched a lot of American television. Back then, there was very few TV shows and I was always just interested in American lawyers and how much respect they had and the things they did for their clients. I was 10 years old, I didn't even know exactly what they did, but I knew that's what I wanted to be and quite frankly, I've been on the same course my entire life.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing. And your firm has really grown. And I want to talk about that journey. So you started in 2002 and you now serve clients all over Texas and even nationwide. So tell me about the firm. When you started out, what were some of the early things you were doing to land cases?
Darren Miller:
The early things we were doing to land cases, man, we were doing anything to pay the bills. I started with nothing. My father let me borrow $5,000 and I just had a dream of building my own thing. And I just knew I was going to stay broke, quite frankly until I figured out the right way to build it up from the bottom up. And so, I would take any court appointments, a criminal. Whatever came in the door, I said, "Look, this is what we're going to do to get things going. And fairly early along, I figured out, "Hey, this personal injury thing, I was pretty good at it, I liked it." And I said, "Okay, after messing around with some family law, criminal, all that stuff, personal injury became the basis and that's what we started to build on."
Chris Dreyer:
And along the way, you've really made some key hires and you built an amazing team. And so, about when was the time that you brought on the managing partner, Ramesh, and how has that impacted the firm?
Darren Miller:
One of the things that I figured out, Chris, fairly early was there's only so many hours in the day. You can't do everything yourself, so you've got to have a decent support staff. I got a couple of young ladies that are still with me, Marcel and Betsy, they've been with me 17 years, 19 years. They started part-time, me paying them minimum wage. I mean, I spent a lot of time teaching them, showing them what personal injury is all about because again, I'll be very honest with you, they came with limited education because I could not afford to pay people who had education. But one of the things I figured out early, Chris, was that if I teach these people this is how we lead, this is how we teach, this is how we do, then I can leave these guys in the office to go take care of the basic tasks while I'm out there shaking hands, making other relationships.
Because even now, one of the big things that I see, most of my colleagues, they're constrained by the fact that, gosh, I've got to manage this and I've got to do this and I've got to do all these things, and they have to do them themselves. If you can delegate it to people in your office that you can trust, then it allows your mind to think and do other things and create other opportunities for yourself.
Chris Dreyer:
And speaking of that, and the timing and focusing on what you do best and what you enjoy doing, right, when you enjoy it, it gets you energy to get out. Maybe that Saturday or that early morning call, maybe jump out of bed. What is it? What are your high value activities? How has that changed and allowed you to really excel at what you love to do?
Darren Miller:
One of the things I see when a lot of lawyers, they start making some money, they start bringing in decent sized accounts or new clients or whatnot, they lose the factors that got them there in the first place, which is you need to be beholden to the clients. You need to serve their interests. And so, the same things that I started with 20 years ago is what I'm doing today. I have what's called a weekend call list where, "Hey, client, here's my number, call me, get in touch with me." I reach out to my clients, I let them know, "This is D Miller, text me if you've got a problem. I want to be your lawyer, not just for this case, but for anything and everything you've got. Call me." I want that phone ringing.
And I see a lot of lawyers lose that as they move forward. That's the lifeblood. I love being able to assist people to provide them direction and let them know, "Hey, there's going to be hope for you and we're going to help you." And so, I still have that hunger. Even though I don't do it to every client, Chris, I mean now we have 63,000 clients, but at least every weekend, I'm talking to people, I'm creating that energy and if it starts at the top, if I'm doing it, then everyone in the organization also has to do it also.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. And that trickle-down effect, your values comes from the top and you're hiring those people and getting rid of the ones that don't have the values.
Darren Miller:
Exactly.
Chris Dreyer:
You mentioned briefly about torts, right? And we had this initial conversation before we even got started about PI attorneys, personal injury attorneys, maybe diversifying and maybe investing in torts. And I have a lot of questions and I'll represent the standard PI attorney here doing a lot of auto accidents. When should they be thinking about this? Because on my end, it seems like the cash flow is not as quick.
Darren Miller:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
There's a little bit more risk.
Darren Miller:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
Maybe the pies divided up significantly more. When should they start thinking about this area? Do they need to be super capitalized? All these questions are going through my head.
Darren Miller:
So I will start off by saying this, Chris, I think that every lawyer, regardless of whether you've been practicing for one year or 100 years, every lawyer should have a docket of mass tort cases on their books. Every lawyer should. And the reason being is because it provides for diversification, it provides for the opportunity to hit those home runs and that long-term, huge-value resolutions, that if you don't have them in that portfolio, you're only going to be reading about them online or on television. And certainly I do understand the fact that, well, gosh, these take forever, that it's the long game with regards to mass torts. So I totally get it. And because of that, what I tell people is you need to have someone in the business that you can trust. Because I see, quite frankly, a lot of dumb money going into mass torts, whereas, oh gosh, look, this case just settled for $2 billion, so let me get in there.
If you're not getting it in at the right price, if you're not with the right lawyers, there's a lot that goes along with it. So you also have to have someone in the business that can steer you in the right direction, who can provide you guidance because there's a lot of dumb money that comes into the space because you're getting a piece of something that you really don't know that much about. And I can say that because I've made all the mistakes, I've put money in the wrong places, I've associated with the wrong lawyers, I've taken the wrong risks. And so, one of the things that I do is I help lawyers consult on, "Hey, here's what I'm doing. Here's my portfolio. Let me suggest to you what you think you should do." And then learn that knowledge and then go do it yourself. So every lawyer should absolutely diversify just a little bit into mass torts.
Chris Dreyer:
One of my questions is about that diversification, even in the torts itself. So you've got some that have the good science, right, the AFFF. And then other, it's like a coin flip. So are you managing it like a portfolio, like a sock portfolio where, "Hey, the science is really good." This one, maybe it's an asynchronous bet, like, "Hey, maybe Tylenol goes great, maybe it's going to hit all those factors." How do you approach it? Because it seems like the case acquisition costs, especially once they get started, I guess they'll significantly increase after the science. How do you approach the diversification of the torts even themselves?
Darren Miller:
Okay. So I've got two answers with regards to that. The first is I've got a 90-10 strategy with regards to approaching investment in the mass torts. And what that basically means, let's just say for example, okay, my budget for this year is $2 million to invest in the case acquisition process. Whether you're talking about personal injury, whether you're talking about criminal, whether you're talking about mass torts, $2 million is that budget number. Then basically what I'm suggesting is take 90% of that money and put it into your core business to make sure you continue to do what you're doing, making your money, making sure everything goes the way that it needs to. You take that 10%, the $200,000 and okay, great, here's money I can put towards some risky ventures, the mass tort type things, things of that nature. That way, if the $200,000 does go to crap, you can still fall back on what you've got as related to your core business and you're going to be reasonably okay.
Just from a bigger perspective, I absolutely adhere to what you talked about, Chris, the stock market portfolio approach to this matter, which means I get some of this and some of this and some of this. Right now, I have about 17 different dockets of cases that I'm working on, which I know the normal person, "Hey man, I don't have the money to do this." I totally understand. And that's why, for example, you would get with someone like myself right now to say, "Hey, AFFF is a great one to get into. I think hair relaxers is a nice one to get involved in. And also right now, the sex abuse cases." Sex abuse cases, I've got over 5,000 sex abuse cases nationwide. You have to be involved in these cases just because they're going to resolve and they're going to resolve for a lot of money.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, incredible, incredible. Let me ask you this, on the dual rep side. So I've seen and heard about the Camp Lejeune, a lot of dual reps versus maybe the AFFF that's not as common. Are there certain strategies that you... When you're paying so much to acquire a case, whatever means it is, whether it's actually paying the case or ads or originated it, organic or what have you, is that a rural issue? Is that a main issue you need to be concerned about? Or is it just not commensurate with the time and maybe the capital to put into that? Maybe it's, hey, spend the time for more acquisition, do your standard client service? I'm really curious on the dual rep side.
Darren Miller:
That's a great question, and I just talked about this with my... I've got one of my attorneys, Rochelle Guiton, she's working on our Boy Scout docket. And we have about 3000 of those cases. As you know, that docket just settled for a little $3 billion just fairly recently. And so, we're dealing with that issue right now. Dual rep is a big issue. I want to suggest to you that of our docket, I think there's about 4% of our cases where we're dealing with those dual rep kind of concerns.
So one of the things that we've learned along the way is you've got to get the cases from sources that you trust. And so now, while I do a lot of social media and self engineering with regards to producing with my own marketing company internally, to really compete and to get the kind of cases, the quantity of cases that I want, I do use certain sources. And so, one of the questions I ask them is, where are they getting their cases from? Who are they dealing with? These leads that come in and do they come in only to me? So you've got to trust your lead sources, right?
And then the second thing that I think is really important is that once you sign that case with that client, because sometimes you just don't know, there's not much you can do about it, you have to be sure that you're speaking with your client, you're contacting your client, you're speaking with them on a consistent basis to make sure, "Hey, okay, I'm here. You don't have to go sign with someone else because we're here. We're contacting you. Here's a newsletter, here's a phone call, here's a Zoom call that we're going to have," so that they know that they're engaged. Because a lot of them, Chris, they get frustrated. They haven't heard from you for six months. Well, shoot. Hey, this guy on the television, he says he's going to get his clients this amount. Let me call him and sign with him. So you have the issues like that arise all the time, unfortunately.
Chris Dreyer:
Darren's website stands out by embracing his love of comic book heroes, which I highly recommend you check out in the show notes. This kind of unique, authentic marketing sets him apart, but his marketing didn't always stand out. As firms grow, marketing strategies should evolve too.
Darren Miller:
When I first started, I wanted to be some of these iconic firms that have been doing this for 20 years, that have done billions of dollars in settlements, and I want my systems to reflect theirs with regards to the results, with regards to these nice traditional type firms. And then, my wife told me one day after I'd spent $5,000 putting a site together, she's like, "Darren, that looks really nice, but it looks just like everybody else's." And I'm like, "Oh, boy". And so, if it looks just like everybody else's, why are they going to pick you over them?
And so, one of the things that I figured out, Chris, is that you need to embrace your differences and do something that I think reflects who you are, and most importantly, set you aside from everybody else. Because look, while I'm a 50-year-old, old guy with four kids and all that, I'm still a kid at heart. And I love the superhero movies. I love the Marvel Universe and DC. And so, I want people to know who I really am. Because after you get to know me, although I'm going to try and kick ass for you in the courtroom, I want to watch a good movie and have fun with you also. And so, that's kind of the identity that I've chosen for myself.
Now I can tell you, some of my lawyers that are in the practice of litigation. "Oh, I see your lawyer up there. I see your boss, and he's doing it." Really? Did you settle a case for $124 million? Oh, okay. I'm like, "Look, I'm not changing. It's working. So get used to it because I do know that life is short and I'm going to do things that make me happy. I'm not here to please you. So, I'm sorry."
Chris Dreyer:
I love that. I think that's the best piece of advice ever, be that authentic self. Everyone talks about what's my USP going to be for my firm? What's my unique selling proposition? And I always think like, well, it's being authentic. It would be a lot easier and showing that because you'll be right for many people, but maybe wrong for many too.
Darren Miller:
Yeah. I mean, look, again, you're not going to please everybody. Look, Chris, there's some people that are going to look and see my skin color and say, "Hey, I'm not doing that." That's fine. I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to be me. I'm going to try and take care of you. And if you're happy somewhere else, that's fine, because I know at the end of the day, there's going to be more people that choose our services as opposed to those that decide to go away from us.
Chris Dreyer:
I agree with all of that. And just on the channels and distribution, so you mentioned that you're being authentic and you have this superhero and you're having fun and approachable from that aspect. Your primary channels, it's still TV because we hear TV audience is declining, digital. Tell me a little bit about your just thought process because there's a lot of channels. Every day, you are bombarded by tons of marketers that all have the magic bullet. So what do you think about when you're choosing channels?
Darren Miller:
Chris, I'm of the belief that if you are not growing and building, you're slowly dying and becoming a dinosaur and you probably don't even know it. And so, quite frankly, if you're not on social media, if you're not utilizing those types of resources and starting to putting in time to figure out, "Okay, what is next? Where is this going? What am I going to do to get ahead of the game?" I think you're missing the party.
I know one of my good colleagues, Darryl Isaacs, he's the Kentucky Hammer, and he has over 200 billboards that are up there. And it works for him. He's got an empire, and it builds and it's growing and it's fantastic. But I'm thinking to myself, once that billboard goes down, it's gone. Right? I think more of that money into social media, into developing those onsite presences, developing good content that can be reused and people can reflect on and go with, man, I think that's the wave of the future. You've got to mix in these other things. And obviously, I do that too, again with that kind of stock market portfolio approach. But without any doubt, social media is the most important source for us, and we're going to continue spending in that direction.
Chris Dreyer:
This is a topic that hasn't been brought up. So you mentioned you've got your paid avenues. You could do TV, you could do ads, you could do billboards. And then you've got your owned media, which would be owning your social following, owning your email list, owning the content on your website, things like that. And then you got earned. It's what's being re-shared by the third party, the conversations and the re-shares and the retweets. I'd just like to pose this to you because I've just had this, I hear so many people, "TV didn't work for me, billboards didn't work for me." Well, when I see, just like you said and your wife said, "Injured?" And then the face on the billboard, and that's it, that's just like everybody else. So, when you're thinking about earned media and being memorable, is that where the superhero and some of these, Darryl does, the Kentucky Hammer, the Hammer, right? It makes it more memorable. How do you think of the earned media side?
Darren Miller:
Again, as far as earned media, when I think of a lawyer, I think of a hero. I think of a savior. I think of someone coming in to save, to help, to assist in addressing those particular issues. Two weeks ago, I was at a gala as related to human trafficking, and Chris, I had no idea how bad this problem was until I really got involved and just got involved in those types of things. So I've been putting out a lot of content with regards to, "This is what's going on. Guys, understand what these symbols mean, how big this problem is, how if we keep our heads in the sand, it could personally affect us. If those around us are affected by this, we've all got to do things about it." When I do things of that nature, my content gets shared more and distributed more, and people are like, "Well, thank you. We didn't think about that. We didn't know about that. And hey, you know what? I'm going to call you the next time I was involved in a car accident."
Just to give you a number, before I started doing all those things, in terms of getting hits off from my website, we'd probably get 10 or 12 leads or so in terms of, and most of them were garbage, without any doubt, cases we wouldn't sign. I think last month because of what we're doing there, the number was up to like 165. So getting out there, putting out those positive messages, not at here, "I'm your lawyer, come with me with personal injury." But spending time, giving people information that's usable, that is beneficial, things that stick out in their minds so that, "Hey, let me call that lawyer again, that assists me with that issue." That's what I think is making a big difference.
Chris Dreyer:
When you're thinking of expansion, do you hit that certain where it starts to overflow and maybe you've tapped that market? Because now you've moved into multiple cities in Texas and you're doing the nationwide torts and things like that. So when is it time, and how do you approach the expansion side of things?
Darren Miller:
Chris, I make a lot of mistakes, and one of the things that I do, I embrace failure. I fail all the time. I've had an office in Seattle, Chicago. I've had one on Wilshire Boulevard in LA, across town here in Houston. And for me, building out those models, although I was getting in cases, it was so many headaches, there were so many issues, and I realized I can't do that. I can't build nationwide from that perspective. So I said, "Okay, Texas is going to be the hub and we're going to go get these cases from all over, but we're going to manage everything here locally." So again, it's about trial and error and trying to see what works, what doesn't, how it does. I embrace my failures, learn from those failures, and then apply the things that are working and then put more money into those issues. Kind of keeping it simple.
Chris Dreyer:
And I appreciate the transparency. Most people don't talk about, "Hey, I tried these other markets and I went back to Texas, and then we started to come back to our roots," and you've had great expansion of success there. Let's talk about just the budget, the marketing budget. Obviously the bigger you get, the more you emphasize data and KPIs and your numbers. When you're smaller, it's like, "Oh, these are the dockets, I know them all." Your team, "I know the team." But then you grow and it's like you become more data. So how do you approach the budgeting side of, "Hey, this is what we're going to spend for 2024."?
Darren Miller:
And again, I was exactly the same way, but it's amazing to me how many lawyers say that they want to be successful, but they don't have a real plan with regards to moving towards success. Because when I ask, "Okay, cool. You want more, then tell me about your numbers. Tell me about the data. Tell me about your cost of acquisition. What's your fallout rate?" "Oh, I have no idea." How are you supposed to grow and know how much money you need to acquire the cases that you need, to get the revenue if you don't know your numbers. You've got to know them. And again, I got to tell you, for years, I never knew my numbers, but you asked me any metric that you want to right now, I know it. Why? Because I've wasted so much money, been inefficient, made so many mistakes, and it's okay.
It's okay as long as I admit to them and figure out this is what I need to do better next time. And so, that's what I'm doing. I know who's going to give me what type of acquisition, what the ROI. I know these different things. I take money and I move it here and toss it there, and I just enjoy playing the games and then seeing what the results are by analyzing the data and the information when it's done. So it's just a big game to me. And I shouldn't say it, but that's how I approach it.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, that's exactly how I approach it too. I was having a conversation with an attorney earlier today, and it's like, "Well, what's your hobbies?" I'm like, "Business is my hobby." It's like, I like sports, of course, but I'm not really a gamer because this is, you're playing the game. And I think it's just so odd to me. All of us have heard Shark Tank and seen maybe a snippet of it, but many individuals don't know what their numbers are, how much they're paying to acquire a case. And then, well, how do you even make a decision on which channel to reinvest more in or which direction to go because you're basically shooting blind. So just one final question, where can our audience go to connect with you and learn more?
Darren Miller:
You can call me on my cell phone number, the (832) 309-3686 number. My law firm, DMillerlaw.com is our website. This is interesting. On YouTube, YouTube just contacted me and said, "Hey, Darren, you're now monetized and now we're going to start paying you for doing what you do." It's just you can create these different revenue streams without even trying, and it's like you just have to get creative and do things differently, and what's going to get attention, and how can I do something that's going to connect with people? So that's just another way. Our Instagram @dmillerlaw.com, and then of course, Facebook, D Miller Law, D Miller and Associates. So I love talking to people. I love helping to educate, assist, share information because, Chris, even as I'm talking to you, I'm learning from you. So anyone who wants to talk, discuss these things, I'd be glad to share, and let's learn from each other.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks so much to Darren for sharing his wisdom today. Let's hit the takeaways time for the pinpoints. Delegate responsibilities as soon as possible. Hire key positions early so that you can focus on those high value tasks and only hire the talent you can afford. Getting the right people in the seats doesn't always mean spending top dollar. If you have unlimited budget, look for soft skills that align with your vision and values. You can always train up individuals who are a good cultural fit.
Darren Miller:
I got a couple of young ladies that are still with me, Marcel and Betsy, they've been with me 17 years, 19 years. I spent a lot of time teaching them. If I teach these people, then I can leave these guys in the office to go take care of the basic tasks while I'm out there shaking hands, making other relationships.
Chris Dreyer:
Talk it out. Dual reps can cut into your bottom line in a big way. Get ahead of potential conflicts by communicating with your clients. For example, Darren represents 3000 people in the Boy Scouts docket. 120 of those cases may be represented by other firms. That could be a substantial loss. While some overlap is unavoidable, let your client know that you've got them. If they don't hear from you often, they may sign with someone else. Darren suggests a proactive approach.
Darren Miller:
You have to be sure that you're speaking with your client on a consistent basis to make sure, "Hey, okay, I'm here. Here's a phone call. Here's a Zoom call. You don't have to go sign with someone else."
Chris Dreyer:
People buy from people. I know the saying is old, but it is stuck around for a reason, and it's true. What better way to let people know who you are than by sharing what you enjoy. Darren embraces his hobbies and uses them as a basis for his marketing because he wants people to know who he really is. This kind of unapologetic personal branding helps you connect with your ideal clients. It's more memorable and relatable than generic law firm marketing. Be confident in showing who you really are.
Darren Miller:
I'm a 50-year-old guy with four kids and all that. I'm still a kid at heart, and I love the superhero movies. I love the Marvel Universe and DC. I want people to know who I really am, because after you get to know me, although I'm going to try and kick ass for you in the courtroom, I want to watch a good movie and have fun with you also. And so, that's kind of the identity that I've chosen for myself.
Chris Dreyer:
For more information about Darren Miller, check out the show notes. While you're there, please hit that follow button so you never miss an episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. All right, everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I'm out.
