Brent Wisner:
Then I go all in, and I don't believe in half-assing mass torts, I think you got to be part of all of it.
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 went the rankings, trafficking cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Do me a favor and hit that follow button right now to subscribe to be the first to get every episode delivered straight to you the moment it drops, giving you the edge. All right, let's dive in.
Brent Wisner, the youngest lawyer ever to win a multi-billion dollar jury verdict, didn't achieve this feat by chance. It was a result of relentless preparation and a commitment to excellence has become the hallmark of Wisner Baum, the powerhouse litigation firm he leads as managing partner. Founded in 1985, Wisner Baum has grown to become a legal force with 21 attorneys and hundreds of dedicated staff members across seven offices. The firm's unwavering dedication to their clients has earned their recognition as one of the best firms in the United States in 2024 by Best Lawyers.
Brent and his team has secured over $4 billion for their clients attacking complex high stakes cases against corporate giants. Their secret weapon, total immersion in every scientific and legal detail of this lengthy litigation. Brent goes all in, ensuring total courtroom domination. In this interview, Brent shares his approach to mass sports from digging into the science before taking on a case to leveraging social media as a tool for pressuring change. He also offers advice to those just starting in mass torts providing valuable insights and what sets elite litigators apart. If you want to understand the strategies and mindset that propel attorneys to the top of their field, this interview delivers. Here's Brent Wisner, Managing Partner at Wisner Baum.
Brent Wisner:
I think how we grow up shapes all of us. I mean, I grew up in Topanga Canyon, in basically hippie land outside of Los Angeles. Both of my parents are very liberal and very environmentally conscious, and so the idea of big companies and big chemicals and pharmaceutical companies being against what's good for people was ingrained in me at a young age. And so when it came to the point of deciding what kind of law I want to do, did I want to represent corporations or did I want to represent people? I think that fundamentally moved the needle for me. I mean, I was groomed to be a defense lawyer. I mean, my law school, I summered for a big law firm. I clerked for a federal judge. I was slated to be a corporate defense lawyer. And for some reason something changed in my mind in my third year of law school and I met Michael Baum and the rest is history.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's dig into that. Let's talk about how you met Michael Baum and how that did shift your trajectory.
Brent Wisner:
I was looking to start practicing law after I clerked for a federal judge in Hawaii for two years, which wasn't a bad gig. I was looking to go back to big law, that's where my instincts were. And then my father said, "Hey, I used to smoke dope with this guy in the '70s named Michael Baum." They went to Woodstock and whatever and said, "Hey, you should talk to him and see what he does." And I was like, "Dirty plaintiff's lawyer, I don't want to do that. Are you crazy? But okay, I'll meet him, dad, sure," get off my back.
And so I met Michael Baum and I was wearing t-shirt, flip-flops, shorts, I was not looking for a job. I met him and another attorney at the firm and the conversation, which I anticipated being 30 minutes, lasted three hours. I learned from Michael that, oh my God, you can do the most high level complicated and nuanced work as a lawyer. You can help people, and you can change the world, and you can make money. It can all be done. And I said, "Holy crap, this is what I want to do."
Chris Dreyer:
I'm going to fast-forward just ahead. There's going to be a lot of gaps to fill in here, but you are currently the youngest attorney in American history to win a multi-billion dollar jury verdict. That statement on its own is pretty, it's mind-blowing. First of all, they trust you to take on this challenge, how did you get the opportunity? Because sometimes individuals have to work for years to even be able to swing the bat. What were the steps you took to get you in this position?
Brent Wisner:
Well, I want to say it's because I'm some great lawyer who pulled off amazing, what have yous. And I'm not suggesting I'm not a good lawyer, but truth is it's circumstance and serendipity. So Michael Baum, for whatever reason, saw in me talent, skill, work ethic, whatever he believed in me, and allowed me to start trying cases as a first chair within my first couple of years at the firm. Big cases, big pharmaceutical cases. And actually, my first one I lost. I lost badly. Two hours, defense verdict. But in Monsanto, it was really interesting. It actually was a bit of happenstance.
So the main guy who was going to try the case, a guy named Mike Miller, seasoned veteran trial lawyer out of Virginia. He had got this case ready. It was the first case going to trial in San Francisco state court, and two weeks before the case was going to go, and this was a preference case, so it had to go. The guy was literally dying, so we couldn't delay it at all. Two weeks before the trial, Mike Miller is out kitesurfing. 70 years old by the way, God bless him. And he goes 30 miles per hour into a pier and he's put in the hospital, he almost dies. His number two at the firm, this guy named Tim, who was my age, contemporary, hungry to get into trial, calls me up and says, "Mike's out, man. Will you come try this case with me?"
And I said, "Heck yeah, I've been practicing this case in the shower for the last three years. I know it inside and out." Obviously didn't know Mr. Johnson's case, but I knew the case generally. He says, "Great, let's get on a call tomorrow morning and we will go and get ready to get our trial teams together and start going." I said, "All right, great." So I get on a call the next morning and I hear a gunk. Some other person gets on the phone and says, "Brent, we'll have to call you back." Three hours goes by. I finally called him and said, "What's going on guys?"
And apparently Tim had a grand mal seizure. He had a medication complication, fell down, hit his head, and was in the hospital for seven days. So the last guy left at The Miller Firm was this guy named Dave Dickens. Great trial lawyer. I mean, good guy, smart, clever, knows what he's doing, but he hadn't been involved in Roundup, he hadn't been involved in the Monsanto case. He comes up to me and he goes, "Hey, Brent. All right. It looks like you and I are trying this case." And I said, "Okay." And he's like, "I got to ask you a question though." I said, "What's that?" And he goes, "What's Roundup?"
Chris Dreyer:
Oh, boy.
Brent Wisner:
And I went, "Oh, boy." We're going to trial in 10 days. Maybe we should, we've got to get to work. And so I got in the car that morning, and I drove up to San Francisco and effectively never left. I now live up here, so it's funny how that all comes together.
Chris Dreyer:
What an amazing turn of events. You stepped up to the plate and didn't just deliver. I mean, you had a home run right with the case. I want to circle back to that, but I want to transition to 2023, you took on the role of managing partner. I think there's serendipity in all these things, but I also think that just character and work ethic and like you said, you wouldn't continue to get these opportunities if you weren't putting yourself in the success and showing it every day in and day out. One of the early things you got to do is you got to do a rebrand, right? So just one of those very simple things. You got to rebrand a whole firm.
Brent Wisner:
Well, actually it's funny because I didn't want my name on the wall. I wanted to keep it Baum Hedlund so I could tell, and then Michael Baum still with us and so are many of the partners in the original name. But I wanted to be able to say 10, 20 years from now, all those people on the wall, they've passed away. That's how old and esteemed we are as a firm, you know what I mean? We've been around a long time. But actually the partners insisted on, they actually voted against me. I was the only single opposition vote to changing the name of the firm, to put my name on the wall.
I think that was a function of, I had been basically running the place for a bit and Michael and all the other senior partners had, it was a turning of the guard. They were getting older and they wanted the younger attorneys to lead it. And it's weird, man. I have to say, I know a have a lot of friends who hung up a shingle or left their firms to go start their own practice, and I understand that. But the idea of an established plaintiff's firm, hundreds of employees transitioning everything peacefully and amicably and everyone's excited about, it's so rare. I think it's a testament to the kind of way that we operate at Baum Hedlund and now Wisner Baum, is that we take care of each other. It is a different kind of dynamic, which is again, what drew me to this law in the first place. I've never worked at another plaintiff's firm, I've only worked here, you know what I mean? This is my only legal job that I've had, and I obviously love it.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Your firm stands on the shoulders of giants like Michael Baum and Ronald Goldman and others that you've mentioned. Now you got to think about things like marketing and positioning and peer relationships for referrals and more opportunities and things like that. So take me through just what your mindset was coming into this position and what are the high value activities that you work on maybe today in that role?
Brent Wisner:
It's interesting because at the core of what our firm is and always will be are litigators, right? The marketing and the referral process and all that, the business of law is what I call it, is very time-consuming, and very important and something that litigators hate doing. We want to go and beat up on the defendants. We want to go try cases. We want to take depositions, we want to write briefs, we want to argue things. We don't really want to have to glad hand people or explain to them how competent we are, but it's great that Baum Hedlund or Wisner Baum now is we have a great team of, we have a whole marketing department. We have an entire group of people whose job it is to create those relationships so that we as litigators don't have to spend too much time getting distracted.
That said, man, I spent a lot of time doing a lot of conferences, have a lot of meetings. I've made a lot of good friends, particularly in California Bar. And a lot of people do have, for whatever reason, trust that we'll litigate their case because one of the things that people don't realize is that our firm actually has two halves to it. One half is what I focus on, which is mass torts. I do large docket cases, usually 5,000 to 10,000 clients at a time, resolutions. We're talking billions and billions of dollars of resolution in that area.
Whereas the other half of the firm which we joke, says it pays, keeps the lights on, is we have a very, very productive single event practice that focuses on catastrophic injuries. Large value, big trucking accidents, plane crashes, helicopter crashes, things of that sort. And that half has been turning out massive settlements for decades, and they keep the lights on. I think the joke of the firm is they pay the bills and then my side pays the bonuses because when we hit it, we hit it, and when we miss it, we miss it. You know what I mean? They're big states litigation. So that's how we keep ourselves from not going out of business if we lose one.
Chris Dreyer:
The litigators typically on a whole, they don't like to market. They like their craft and to take it to court and really give it their all to get maximum value and that top 1% gets a ton of referrals. So a few things. The first is torts, like selection. Does it start when the science is established? What into the selection process and marketing to acquire these cases that sometimes you don't know how they're going to play out, and it could be years before there's a return.
Brent Wisner:
Every major mass tort that we've seen in the last, I don't know, six to seven years, I got wind of it months before anybody started doing it, right? And that's because I have a lot of connections. I have a lot of people, both scientists as well as other attorneys that usually want to get me involved in a big project like this because I dig into the science. What I do every single time I am brought one of these for opportunities is I look at it myself. I don't just listen to stuff. Oh well, this lawyer is doing it, it must be worth it. I actually go and look at all the epidemiology. I look at the animal studies. I talk to at least five or six big time experts in the field, not only to make sure I have experts, but to make sure that I agree with what my experts are saying.
If I believe in the science and I believe that there's actually a case there, then I go all in. I don't believe in half-assing mass torts. I think if you're going to be involved in a mass tort, you got to be involved in it from every step of the way, from case acquisition, case criteria, all the way to trial, appeals, and settlement. You got to be part of all of it, because that in-depth knowledge of the case is what gives you the edge on these defense lawyers who are brought in at the last minute to try cases. We can run circles around them at trial because they don't know the case like we do. They haven't been living and breathing it for, they haven't put their Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours into it, right? We have. So in that sense, that's how I do it.
And that's why, for example, we don't do a lot of torts. I did not get into the Tylenol autism case, not because I didn't think it had merit or because it was a solid case. I thought the lawyers doing it did a bang-up job. They obviously didn't do well with their judge, but I thought they did a great job. But when I looked at the science and I looked at the case, I actually, I didn't want to pursue it. But that contrasts, for example, with another litigation that I'm leading right now, that's my little quiet litigation. I don't usually talk about it too much, because it's my baby, pun intended, it involves baby food.
There's toxic heavy metals in baby food, and that actually causes brain damage in infants, which then leads to the manifestation of various neurodevelopmental issues, specifically what we call autism or ADHD. And so that's a litigation that I dug deep into and we got 5,000 clients and we have a trial this July in California and LA and very few people know about it. I mean, we're going to go in there, we're going to get a big verdict and we are going to exert incredible pressure on some of the largest companies in the world. I've been keeping that quiet because it's kind of my baby. But that's for example, another mass tort that I've gone full in on, which based upon my review of the science I thought made sense.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's stay on the pros and cons, right? You've had these incredible wins, you have amazing trial attorneys. And on the flip side, how do you think about the losses when you've got this huge docket?
Brent Wisner:
I think what we see happening right now in the mass tort landscape is two fundamental tensions. You have an incredible growth of cases. You have marketers, you have people get involved in mass torts who never would've thought to touch it. We have hedge funds putting billions of dollars into the space, funding things in a way that we've never had before. That has its good and its bad. The good being people who are injured are actually getting a chance to have their cases litigated in a way that never happened before. That in the sense that it makes the litigation is almost impossible to manage, impossible to resolve when you have 200,000 cases, that's a different conversation than 3000, right? It's a different world. But on the other side, we have the reaction to that and we see this in federal courts now.
We have judges who have taken the Daubert standard, and they've butchered it and twisted it in a way that I think is almost unforgivable, right? We've seen this in Zantac, we've seen this in Onglyza, we've seen this in the Tylenol cases just recently. And what we see is happening is that judges in an effort to, I don't know, deal with the title wave of plaintiffs coming into these litigations instead of just giving them their day in court and letting it go through the process that has historically been very effective. They've taken it upon themselves to put on the lab coat and the science hat and say, "Okay, I'm going to decide what is good science and what is not." And these are lawyers, these are people who went to undergraduate, studied English and philosophy like the rest of us, and have no basis of making determinations about science, but they're doing it.
They're pushing this Daubert standard, which if you go back and read Daubert, it actually was a plaintiff friendly decision. And yet if you talk about Daubert, it's like the ugly stepchild in our litigation. And you go, what courts have taken it and done with it is truly hard to fathom. And I think my personal belief has been, and Zantac's a great example is I abandoned the federal MDL. I've been litigating cases in state court in California, and we passed Daubert, it's called Sargon. We passed it and we're settling cases for substantial money. And we are going to trial in California, and we are trying to do the same thing in Delaware state court where courts are maybe less willing to take on and put on that science coat like they are in federal court.
So that's a huge tension that I see in the environment. And the losses hurt, man. I mean, I walk into every single state court and the first thing that the defendants do in Zantac is they wave around a 350-page order from Judge Rosenberg saying, "Look at, this is persuasive, your honor. You don't want to disagree with this federal judge and she's really smart." And she is. And look at all this great stuff she said about her case. And I say, "Your honor, yeah, in 350 pages, there's a lot of smart stuff written, but it's the weighing of evidence. That is right there, exactly what this court is not supposed to do under the law." And frankly, the courts have agreed with me so far.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing, I love that. Thank you for sharing that, that's incredible. It says, I'm a marketer, right? Wearing the marketing hat and I always, it's the science of science of science. I interviewed Bill Pintas of Pintas & Mullins, and one of the things that stuck with me that he said recently was about torts is different than auto. You said you guys have been doing it 20, 30 years, a long time, whatever that period was. And a new PI attorney listening is like, "Okay, I'm going to get into the race," that someone's already at at the end of the marathon and you're trying to compete. One of the things that's appealing is new one comes around, it's like you said, you know from the very beginning if you're going to get involved, but it's a different race. I do want to talk just briefly too, you said you have the in-house marketing department, obviously, right? The website looks great. You guys are crushing on TikTok and social. Big following, substantially larger followings than what I'd say the average firm.
Brent Wisner:
Social media is one of these things that I think lawyers don't do enough of and don't realize the power of it. I've talked to a lot of people about, we hired a company that does all our social media for us, and they're phenomenal. The Probably Agency, they're actually looking to take on at least two new law firms. So people are looking, they should reach out to them immediately because they'll book real quick. They develop, they create, do the whole thing. They show up, they film you for a day, and do all the videos that will last you for the month. I mean, they have it down to a science and they're really good. But people all say, "Why are you doing that? Why are you spending 20 grand a month on your social media? Why are you doing that?" Right? And I say, "Because having that voice can sometimes be really valuable."
And we have a great example of it just recently. So we lost our first baby food case on a technicality. Expert didn't do something, and the defendants came after this nine-year-old child looking for $600,000 in costs. I said to the defendants, "Are you insane? You're going to go after a nine-year-old autistic boy for $600,000 in costs, are you crazy? You guys are the biggest companies in the world. How dare you?" I said, "Are you sure you want to do this?" And they said, "Yep, see you in court, Brent." So we filed our motions, we got ready, and then a week before the court, we posted some videos about what they were doing. Our followers and people around the country flooded the defendants with how dare you comments. They took such a hit, we walked in the court and they've withdrawn all the requests.
That's the power of social media is you can put pressure on defendants to do the right thing. You obviously can't jury tamper, that's obviously not what we're talking about. This isn't a jury, this is about defendants. But saying to them, "Listen, there's people who are going to be watching what you do, and you got to be careful. If you're going to be a jerk, we're going to make sure the world knows about it, so be careful." I think it helps keep people in line and keep things reasonable. So I mean, that's a great example of how you can leverage social media actually help a client. It's pretty cool.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that. Thank you for sharing that. How do you think about just the age-old originating your own cases versus the peer referrals? A lot of times the litigators say, "Well, we don't pay for marketing." Well, if you pay a referral fee, you're paying for their marketing. It's like, so how do you think about that dichotomy?
Brent Wisner:
It's funny. Our philosophy on referrals has changed a lot in the last four or five years. I mean, historically, we would take referrals and we'd pay that frankly absurd referral fee. Nowadays, particularly in mass torts, we're not really doing that anymore. I mean, we think that if we believe in a case, we'll go pay for it, and go get them ourselves. We don't need to work with referrals on mass torts, mostly. Now, sometimes someone will show up and say, "Hey, Brent, I got 2000 cases, I want to get out of this. Will you offload them?" And we'll work out some sort of agreement, sure. That can happen. But for the most part, I am not out there open book, open shop taking referrals on mass torts. And I think the function of that is because not only has marketing become easier, but we have great marketers like yourself, Chris, and other people who can help us generate leads and things directly.
It's paying a couple thousand bucks a case versus 40% referral, or 50% sometimes or 30 depending on who you're working with, referral fees. It's not even close. If I believe in the case, I'm going to fund myself, which is one of the reasons why I spend so much time up front looking at it, right? Because it's a 10, 20, 30 million investment for my firm if we're going to go on a mass tort, okay, fine. And of course, now if you want to get funding, that's not too hard to do if you're a good litigator, they'll back you. Now that money's really expensive, so be careful, but that's an option. So there's that.
But I think on the catastrophic injury side where you're looking for the trucking case, the one trucking case that comes into the 500 auto cases that come in your door, we don't do regular PI auto cases. We actually refer those out to other people. But for the trucking cases, or those big pseudo product liability PI cases, but single event, we've been doing that for a long time. And for those, we still very much rely on referrals and our relationships with people who want to get a firm involved that makes the defendants give you the policy limit very quickly. I mean, those cases have a three to six month runway, right? Because once they see that we're involved and they see our expert lineup, right away, they're like, "All right, here's the policy limit. Go away." And most of the time that gets it done. I think there's a different world. I think in the world of mass torts we've steered away from referrals, and in the realm of other cases, we very much rely on them.
I will say for a new PI, so someone who's getting into mass torts for the first time, I mean, I think their instinct is to say, "Oh, I'll get a docket of a couple hundred or whatever, and I'll just give them to a Brent," or I'll give them to... And some, there are still really good litigators who are taking referrals, but people come to me and say, "Brent, why don't you take my cases?" And I said, "I don't do this anymore." And they're like, "Oh, crap. That was why I wanted to do this, because I thought you'd bring them home." I think if you're a new PI lawyer and you're looking to get in a mass torts, I think it's really important that you develop relationships with people who've been doing a long time, ask for their help and get involved. If you're just going to ride coattails, I think that's a doomed industry, and I don't think that's going to be, there's a lot of light at the end of that tunnel these days.
I think the way defendants are settling is they're settling with inventories. They're not settling with globals anymore. So you want to get in good with someone who knows what they're doing, and then develop that competency and get yourself in court, get yourself arguing motions, understand the science you develop those core competencies, you can be, you're invaluable to us, and you'll make darn good money in the process, assuming that they're successful. But it's a risk. I mean, we're professional gamblers at the end of the day, right? We're taking bets on huge, huge odds, and hoping that our own skill will get us over the finish line, which it sometimes doesn't.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, if you're originating cases for $1,000, $2,000 for certain torts or even less, if you get in super early, then it may not make sense to pay a third or 40% or some of the crazy numbers yet. It's just ludicrous, right? You got to know how to originate cases, and you got to have the right partners and all those types of things. Your firm has an incredible falling on Instagram. I mean, it's got close to 500,000 followers, and your team does a series I love called Legalese.
Brent Wisner:
Sure.
Chris Dreyer:
For those listening, I'm going to put you on the spot. Attorneys are asked to take a basic phrase and turn to legalese and just for a bit of fun.
Brent Wisner:
Oh, gosh.
Chris Dreyer:
I was just wondering if you could legalese the phrase rise and grind.
Brent Wisner:
Rise and grind. Okay. Oh, man. Okay. Arriving at consciousness first thing in the morning allows one to engage in productive and important work that allows individuals to accomplish things at a steady and methodical pace.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing.
Brent Wisner:
There you go.
Chris Dreyer:
Off the cuff. Amazing, that was awesome. So fun. Your team's going to love that one. Brent, this is amazing. I want to respect your time. For those in the audience listening, where can they go to connect with you?
Brent Wisner:
Reach out to our firm, wisnerbaum.com. Any one of our people or lawyers are happy to reach out. Send me a personal email if you want to ask me some questions. I want to answer immediately, but I will get back to everybody eventually, rbwisner@wisnerbaum.com, happy to answer any questions. And if people are looking to send us referrals, we have an incredible marketing team at Wisner Baum that to this day, people still keep calling me and saying, "Hey, Brian, what's this check for 300 grand you just sent me?" And I said, "Oh, it's a case that you referred to us six years ago." And they go, "I had forgotten about it." I said, "Yeah, I know. We're still going to pay you. Thanks." So it happens all the time and we're really good about it and really ethical and disciplined and diligent. We're a good place to put cases that you want to resolve for good amounts.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks to Brett for sharing some amazing insights. Let's hit the recap. Luck favors the prepared. You never know when a life-changing opportunity will strike. When it does, you'd better be ready. Wisner's got his chance by leading a multi-billion dollar trial due to years of dedication to honing his craft. You never know when the big break will come, so be prepared.
Brent Wisner:
A guy named Tim calls me up and says, "Mike's out, man. Will you come try this case with me?" And I said, "Heck yeah. I've been practicing this case in the shower for the last three years. I know it inside and out." He says, "Great. Let's get on a call tomorrow morning."
Chris Dreyer:
Total immersion leads to courtroom domination. Mass torts require dedication. Even before you pick a case, dig into the science and commit to litigate for the long haul. An unparalleled command of details lets you outmaneuver opponents when it matters most, go big or go home.
Brent Wisner:
You got to be part of all of it because that in-depth knowledge of the case is what gives you the edge on these defense lawyers who are brought in at the last minute to try cases. We can run circles around them at trial because they don't know the case like we do. They haven't been living and breathing it. They haven't put their 10,000 hours into it, right? We have.
Chris Dreyer:
Social media can tip the scales. Today's digital world, social media gives lawyers a new tool to push companies to do the right thing. Apply pressure where it hurts.
Brent Wisner:
Having that voice can sometimes be really valuable. And the defendants came after this nine-year-old child looking for $600,000 in costs. I said, "Are you sure you want to do this?" And they said, "Yep. See you in court. Brent." Our followers and people around the country flooded the defendants with how dare you comments. They took such a hit, we walked in the court and they'd withdrawn all the requests.
Chris Dreyer:
For more information about Brent, check out the show notes. Before you go, do me a solid and smash that follow button to subscribe if you haven't already, I'd sincerely appreciate it. And I know you don't want to miss out on the next 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.
