Ben Whitley:
You ask for the cases that you want. Collaboration is the new competition.
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 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. You'd be the first to get every new episode delivered straight to you the moment it drops, giving you the edge. All right, let's dive in. True industry leaders serve the needs of modern clients by staying agile and embracing change. Today's guest is a prime example of how a homegrown legacy firm can build on its success and accelerate growth through innovation. With deep roots in North Carolina and a family legacy and law, Ben Whitley, managing partner at the Whitley Law Firm, has a unique perspective on what it takes to build a successful practice that stands to test the time.
Founded by Ben's father, Bob, in 1974, the firm has grown to an impressive size, with a legal team of six attorneys and a staff of 50 plus. The firm has dedicated teams of pre-litigation, intake, workers' compensation, litigation case management, investigations, mass tort compensation, finance and operations, allowing them to provide comprehensive services to their clients. The Whitley Law Firm has six locations across the state but they serve the entire state of North Carolina, demonstrating their commitment to accessibility and client service. What really sets Ben apart is that he challenges traditional ways of thinking, embracing new strategies to better serve his clients. Ben's commitment to growth goes beyond marketing. He looks to other industries to adopt best practices for leadership and operations. He also is a firm believer in the power of collaboration and shares his insights with us today. Here's Ben Whitley, managing partner at Whitley Law Firm, explaining how he came to work with his father's firm.
Ben Whitley:
Hearing stories about my dad's cases, how he helped people, and back then, Chris, before all this nicheness of where we focused, a lot of times, lawyers just did everything. So he started his firm, he did criminal law, family practice. It was a general practice, and sometimes, the criminal cases were interesting because he'd get paid sometimes in stereo equipment. People didn't have money. I remember being a kid and all this new stereo equipment came because he was helping a guy with the shop, but I've always liked airplanes, Chris. I didn't know, at the beginning, that I was going to be a lawyer. I wanted to be an airline pilot. And it wasn't until college that you start seeing how you can really help people with your mind and do other things that it pulled me in a little bit closer.
Chris Dreyer:
It's funny, we're doing my research, that was one of my curveball questions I was going to ask, is about the airline pilot.
Ben Whitley:
Flying was a big part of my life, and so since I was 17, I've had my license. So at least I've been able to incorporate that both into my world and my life outside of the law, which I think is very important. You can get compassion fatigue, you're helping solve people's problems. So having some escape literally in the air has been something that feeds that little bit of my childhood soul that I needed as well.
Chris Dreyer:
Because you had that passion for it, have you had any aviation cases or something where you've had this unique experience and could speak to it? Have you taken on those types of cases?
Ben Whitley:
They're not very infrequent, thankfully. Growing up with general aviation and being involved, getting all the way up to my commercial pilot's license, I've just been around it a long time. And when you're taking a deposition about flying and something you naturally know, yeah, you definitely can incorporate that into your skill. The thing about it that really is cool for me is that with the law, I always think about, it's fun to use your mind to solve problems. I can map it out. And sometimes, cases take us so long, but with flying, I can be in my mind, I can... like, here's the takeoff, here's the cruise, here's the landing, and then it all works.
In the same way, it's fun for me for clients' cases because you think about the life of the case and you map it out. It takes a lot longer, but the same satisfaction of being able to use your mind, get to that result, it all fits together. I like to fly because it's a little bit more hands on and I can get a result. Sometimes, clients have to wait years, as everybody in the PI world knows.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. And sometimes, it's like, I guess, with the practice of law, too, it's really objective, like, did you do a good job or not? And then it's a zero-sum game when you go to court and if you're going to win or lose. So that competitive side, that's got to feel nice too. I was looking at your father's bio, and right out of the gate, it says he bleeds North Carolina. You grew up in North Carolina, you've narrowed the practice to PI. So many firms get the shiny object, or they want to go to a different jurisdiction because you guys are big advertisers and you're getting cases all over the place. What's been the thought behind staying so focused in that territory?
Ben Whitley:
The principles of our advertising has always been approachability and authenticity, so something that's a lot less energy to be yourself. We feel like being able to maintain that North Carolina roots, we talk about it in our advertising. Chris, I recently did a TV commercial where I was talking about, you're not suing type and North Carolinians just want to figure things out, and that's really the root of it. North Carolina is, typically, a rural... mostly, a rural state with pockets of urban development. But it's a purple state, so people are very middle of the road. We tend to be real down to earth, not litigious. So being able to talk to them, I get a lot of the calls, being a North Carolinian, that has helped us. But like you said, we're ready to go, I mean, potentially, to bring the brand, the authenticity, the approachability to maybe some of our other areas, but still sticking with that same authenticity message because it tends to work for us.
Chris Dreyer:
Some of the most successful firm owners I've met know their strengths and limitations. They're not afraid to bring in outside expertise to take their firm to the next level. Now, I was really impressed when I met Michael D'Angelo, your new CEO, with this extensive background in global business development, operations and finance. It sounds like he's the perfect complement to your firm. So how has he made an impact and what has he brought from other industries and applied to your firm?
Ben Whitley:
It was about two years ago, Chris, that I realized that I was growing a lot. I was getting almost to 50 employees. We had gotten an HR department. And I had this moment when I realized I don't really know what I'm doing. I did not go to business school. I'm a lawyer. As things got more complicated in the growth stage, I really felt like I needed someone to come alongside from a business standpoint. I wanted to take somebody completely out of the industry, with the model of the way that Wall Street sets up new businesses and bring in an operator.
And Mike, he comes from... he's got an MBA, he's 58 years old, he's the adult. We needed that. And he has really helped us to restructure this business in a way that is run like a business. I took him to some of the conferences, the ones that you and I always go to, and over this last year, I've had him shadow me so that I can take more of a strategic role and step back. So this year has been his year to go forward. But he was so surprised, Chris, when we would go to these conferences about how far behind the legal industry is on these ideas.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm sure he saw it quickly on tech, so him and transportation and the integrations and all the different tech components and-
Ben Whitley:
And tech and just keeping things run by APIs and then leadership KPI, because the leadership with teams and empowering the teams. For me, at least, bringing an operator in to run the firm has allowed me to have so much more bandwidth to think strategically, to think about what's new, what's coming, create more relationships, spend time on the road doing that. So it is, to me, a real game changer, and anybody that's listening, that's considering, should I bring somebody in? Should I get a business guy? And the thing about it is you don't have to do it full time.
One of the things that we're doing is we let some smaller firms use Mike. I send him out fractional type COO stuff because some people don't necessarily need a full-time person. But that's how big of a believer I am at because I want to export it a little bit. Change is coming. Consolidation is coming, and the way that the firms structure themselves now to be, potentially, attractive, to be either acquired or acquire themselves is going to require them to run these things like a business. That's the way that the investors will look at it.
Chris Dreyer:
Creating original educational marketing content is a solid marketing strategy. The talk show, Attorneys on Call, is one of the firm's most successful marketing tactics. The show consists of mock interviews featuring both clients and attorneys and has lasted for over 17 years. As user attention changes, Ben adapts his tactics.
Ben Whitley:
This has always started about, it's more informational advertising. Hey, here's how these cases are handled. Sometimes you don't need a lawyer but here's information, here is how we do things. And sometimes, the shows are boring, but people love them because... the older people, because the trust and the information, because when you create and give information, they're trusting you. Oh, wow, they're giving away free information. Oh, wow, this is how they do things? They actually can see us be lawyers and talk about cases, and that's been very successful. But of course, TV is very scattered and the demographic is really changing on that. So how have we then been able to change that same information-based advertising, the trust-based advertising into a digital format, which we're in progress doing through in-house videos, snipping down the types of interviews. And of course, everything's got to be, like, two minutes or less or even less before people are going to pay attention to it.
Again, everybody knows that marketing's all of these different things. You bring somebody in, a client, and you ask them, "Hey, how'd you find out about us?" "Well, I've always heard about you. My mom watches the Attorneys on Call show and then I saw a Facebook ad. And then the other day, I was driving down the road and saw your billboard and figured, well, I might as well give you a call." So it's five different things. And it's so hard to track that. It's so hard to track that as far as how that is converting for each of your one thing. As we all know, as you were in the business, we're trying to figure that out too. But to me, the changes that I have seen quite clearly, even in the last just two years, is going into OTT, transferring our informational marketing into digital formats so that it's shorter and they can get out there a lot quicker.
We are not the number one spender in our market. We've got others that spend more money than us, but we've been consistently able to maintain our market share, I think, based on the high level of trust and the branding, the branding that we have done so much in this area. They value our brand. And because we're asking for them to value our brand, we're also asking for bigger cases and more valuable cases. And I feel the consumer sees that and they think, well, those guys can handle that kind stuff. One of my mentors, for so long, Harlan Schillinger, can really help me truly understand that is that you ask for the cases that you want.
Chris Dreyer:
There's a lot of weight to that. And I know Harlan quite well, and I think he's one of the best at that positioning and copywriting and messaging. How is your firm experimenting with OTT?
Ben Whitley:
It can be limited and strategic. It's simply because of the way it can be placed and the fact that it can be placed on people that could be searching for particular topics on... for example, they're at home and they're on their AT&T Wi-Fi, and they're on their phone and they're searching for things that are, potentially, related to legal issues. Well, as you know, that IP address then can be pinged. And that can be set OTT TV commercials if we have people that are in that space that could be looking for those. So while you can target better, you don't necessarily have the same amount of money to try to blanket it. And then we've been able to do that within a local space, and I have found that a trusted buyer that's somebody that knows what's going on in that space, but [inaudible 00:12:35] to start slowly and it doesn't take the same amount of money that is currently required to get a audience or to ding anything on traditional TV.
Chris Dreyer:
That makes sense. I love the geofencing capabilities of it for the zip code. There's so many different ways of targeting, and I think once that code's really cracked, I think the sky's the limit. I also think, too, when you're talking about consolidation from law, it's a matter of time before these streaming services get consolidated, whether Apple buys Disney+ and Hulu or what.
Ben Whitley:
And it's all about the same price now as cord-cutting used to be. So it's all the same. Then it'll just be one thing and rearrange it. But different platforms, you can do different... the way you advertise on Hulu can be different than the package bundles that they'll put it on their other... so it's one of those things that lawyers can get tripped up in, I think, because we can be talked to by vendors and like, well, we don't know. So it's just another thing to always ask questions, learn yourself what it is so that you can talk intelligently with your vendor or whoever's placing those ads for you. And of course, being able to get metrics and measuring and making sure it works and changing it if it doesn't.
Chris Dreyer:
It's looking at the brand and how you're a part of the community. A lot of times, these individuals only have one experience in their life, one auto accident. But have you seen the impact of, oh, you helped my father, you helped my mother, and then circle back down because of that experience and because of that relationship? Have you seen the real impact, because I'd say, newer firms, whether it's, they've been in business for five years, they don't have the same opportunity to see that as your firm does?
Ben Whitley:
And it's almost like just generational clients and the stories that they tell. And speaking of that generation, and one of the things that we did this year, and I've... as I've changed this firm and we've taken a much smaller firm, and over the last several years, really grown it, part of that is also incorporating the past and a little bit of that trust history. Bob Whitley, my dad, founding partner celebrates 50 years of practice. And one of the things that I wanted to do, just because if you go Disney World, anytime they celebrate an anniversary, they go crazy about it. I mean, they make the merchandise. Every bit of their advertising is on that anniversary.
So for this year, it has been all about the 50th. We've created a seal, 50 years of trust experience results. That seal is on our taglines. It's on the new commercial. So it's on the billboard. So we're trying to create that same, hey, we're generational. We're 50 years. Your father, your kids, you've all been know about us, reminding people of that. But also, we can't rest on that too, and we have to show that we're moving, we're progressive, we're going to offer you the same good results even though we've been around for a long time.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's super smart. I went to your Instagram and right there, saw the 50 years. I thought that was incredible. Somehow, I got on your father's AVO page. I don't even know how. And it was licensed 49 years. I'm like, "Holy smokes." Just incredible. So North Carolina somehow allows the ability to do direct mail, and it can be leveraged differently, where many states have restrictions or what goes into that, does your firm do direct mail or is it oversaturated in North Carolina? Can you help-
Ben Whitley:
Sure. That was one of the original things that the firm did many years ago. We were groundbreaking. We would send out DDDs and they would explain how to handle your case and stuff. We stopped doing that, probably, about five, six years ago, just because of the saturation on it. And that is a very unique part of North Carolina, is that they will allow for direct solicitation. It has to has a lot of requirements. It has to say it's an attorney advertising. But I'll tell you what happens is that on bigger trucking cases or cases that they can tell that this is an accident, that is a significant claim with significant potential coverage, what we'll see, because some of our clients will show us, is that some attorneys around here will send them a shock and awe package, a Federal Express box of all of the ways of how they can help them. So it's interesting. And I think some of the other practice areas are limited in what they can do with it, but that direct solicitation is certainly an issue here. It helped grow a lot of practices in the beginning.
Chris Dreyer:
It's certainly unique. So I had to ask about that. It does give you a way to, I guess, hunt. But I'd imagine, just the cost that goes into that, and the-
Ben Whitley:
The cost that goes into it, and the arguments that are made in support of it, which I believe, which, every time they've tried... the legislature tried to get rid of it, or when people are [inaudible 00:17:44] about it, well, let's think, right now, what is going on, if you're in an accident and it was caused by somebody that has Nationwide or GEICO, the new move is that they are trying to get offers and information to that entry party very quickly. In fact, I'm learning now that GEICO is using AI, of course, like everybody else is, to input, very early on, data about the person's accident with... spitting out the number. Now, we've gotten some of these cases because some clients have hired us very fast, so we know how we've seen this work.
And the numbers aren't crazily bad. They've made some predictive effort here. But the point being is that the only reason for this is that they want to contact the injured person quickly before the injured person hires a lawyer. They want to get an offer out to them and they will. They'll talk to them. Nationwide even used to go to people's homes. So if you think that's intrusive, well, then the lawyer sending mail a couple days later, how is that any less intrusive? And in fact, shouldn't they also have information?
Chris Dreyer:
That's a good point. That's a good counter argument.
Ben Whitley:
And I think we're going to see more of that. I'm afraid that they're going to be doing more of those moves, where they try to jump the gun a little bit and folks are signing up for these deals and settlements not knowing how bad... not knowing the potential long-term health facts that they'll not be able to recover from should they sign these deals. So one counter argument to the whole direct solicitation.
Chris Dreyer:
In Illinois, for example, you have these guys, the tow truck drivers, signing up cases and stuff. How does that play into direct solicitation?
Ben Whitley:
So you're going to have bad actors filtering into every situation. There was a whole collision center back in the day. We used to call it Record Gate because we busted that kind of situation going on. We have these runners and people that are doing that kind of stuff. Like everything else, there's going to be abuse in the system, and I feel sorry for the clients that get suckered into it. We certainly had to rescue some folks out of those situations before. The consumers are getting smarter. There's better ways to find out legitimacy, and we just hope through that kind of ways that that's going to certainly be countered but there's always going to be... I mean, you hear the stories from the guys out in LA and the competition and all that kind of stuff. It's just going to be that thing. So you just got to stay above it best you can.
Chris Dreyer:
The worst that I've seen is Chicago. Chicago's just terrible, at least, from everything that I've heard. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about Lejeune. So being in North Carolina, has that made a big impact? You're there, there's so many... there's so much money in towards going after these Lejeune cases. Have you found that it's helped with the dual rep issue, where, like, hey, I know my firm, it's right here, it's in North Carolina? Talk to me, specifically, about Lejeune and, basically, your firm's interest in those cases, specifically.
Ben Whitley:
That's right. So being that we were established in East North Carolina, which is, I would drive by Jacksonville, Camp Lejeune when I was a kid. We were established here, so when things happen, I realized that I had to... especially when I saw what was happening with the out-of-state lead brokers and all of this, I really wanted to very quickly offer the brick and mortar option for folks. Really, by advertising, not nearly as much as the others did, but very early, we tended to get a lot of really strong cases because a lot of this population, especially the ones that had very legitimate cases, they're old school and they're older and they would prefer, one, talking to a lawyer that is in North Carolina, or two, they've heard of. A lot of them wanted to, actually, come in and visit, and some still do. So that allowed us to position ourselves. And I thought of it early in the day, the law firms that were on the Gulf Coast during the BP spill, that were geographically positioned, they had to make a decision.
They had to do something to protect their community because they had this opportunity to do so. And I felt the same way about Lejeune simply because it was in East North Carolina and I wanted to offer a trusted voice, and that was effective, and that has remained effective in the client retention and the client dual rep issues that you hear so much about, because we formed very early relationships with these clients, which is tough in mass torts. It really is because of the numbers. But because we did form those relationships, we've been able to maintain our client base and taking them through this process, which is still a little bit of a road for them. There's still some time maybe another year before we get to a grid and settlement. So that experience has been transformative for us. It allowed us to figure out ways to scale, Chris, that were very quickly that we needed to.
And I'll tell you one. One of the ways that we scaled was bringing in other... a law firm. There's a fellow that I've worked with here in Raleigh that had some more federal court experience. And so we joined our firms for the purposes of helping those Camp Lejeune clients so we could keep it. We didn't have to refer it out. And now he's on leadership and our goals and our mission on that have aligned. And I think part of that takes humility to say that I didn't know everything. I can't do everything. But I do think it's part of the reason I have been successful because I have been able to say, I can't do it. I need help. Hey, can you help? And can we all do this together, because I like this new thing where collaboration is the new competition, because if you could find people to help... there's so much work, there's plenty of work, and we can also do it better.
You can mitigate your risk better that way. But I've found that, that potential testing of this consolidation of that type of collaboration, potentially, being more of what's going to happen in the future as there is so much more mickle all coming, the ones that is going to happen. So that was transformative for me, for learning how to scale quickly, learning how to keep the cases in house, and then stacking my attorney bench with the players I needed to run the cases.
Chris Dreyer:
That's fantastic. And I think that's a real skill of yours and being transparent in that candor and hey, you bring in the people, it just speaks to just the word that I keep coming back to, is authentic. It's like, I mean, authentic. These are my strengths and I'm going to bring Michael in here. I'm going to bring this individual in here but, ultimately, we're all going to win from it.
Ben Whitley:
Right. And I had a moment in Camp Lejeune. I was talking to a retired colonel, a marine in San Diego, and he had some buddies. And so he was interviewing me to decide whether he should send his cases to me and subsequently, other cases. And it was an intense interview. And then part of it was asking me, the federal court, who's going to... and I said to him, and I remember, in my mind, I was thinking, now, if you tell him this, you're either going to get the cases or you're going to... he should be thinking, you don't know what you're doing.
I remember thinking that. So I said to him, I said, well, I did not, specifically, have the Eastern District experience that I wanted. So I reached out to Miller, and then I explained that relationship. I told him that and I said... brought him in, and then he said, well, that's what generals do. I appreciate that. They know their weaknesses. They fill their gaps with their weaknesses, blind spots with people to do that. I was like, okay. And that was a powerful lesson for me. So it's okay to be vulnerable a little bit. No, you can't be too vulnerable. But it seems that people, they appreciate that, they respond to that, and it creates a connection that they trust you.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's what it comes down to. They're bombarded so all over the place and that trust component's just more important than ever. Where can our audience go to connect with you and just learn more?
Ben Whitley:
Sure. Well, I mean, you can come to our website, whitleylawfirm.com. Send me an email. I love talking about business of law. I love talking about marketing and I love helping other people do it. So I would entertain anyone if they just want to call and pick my brain about what's been going on here, what's working, what's not working, because it really is a lot of my life of this, is thinking about this, trying to stay ahead of it because, man, what a quickly changing industry that we're in right now at this very moment. This is the moment.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks to Ben for sharing some amazing insights. So let's recap. Keep it real. Authentic branding builds trust and drives business. Ben emphasizes being approachable, which truly resonates with North Carolinians. This is a great example of knowing your target market and tailoring messaging accordingly. Effective marketing doesn't just sell, it builds real rapport. As Ben shows, coming across as relatable members of community pays dividends.
Ben Whitley:
I recently did a TV commercial where I was talking about, you're not the suing type, and North Carolinians just want to figure things out. That's really the root of it. So being able to talk to them, but still it's sticking with that same authentic message because it tends to work for us.
Chris Dreyer:
Deliver value directly to the client. Educational content establishes your firm's authority and increases client confidence and your ability to solve their problems. But you have to get them the information on the platform they already use. While Attorneys on Call started on TV, that is smartly repurposing those interviews into bite-sized digital videos. This strategy perfectly matches the rise of streaming services and consumer's use of mobile.
Ben Whitley:
Sometimes you don't need a lawyer but here's information, here is how we do things. But of course, TV is very scattered and the demographic has really changed on that. So how have we then been able to change that same information-based advertising, the trust-based advertising into a digital format, which we are in progress doing through in-house videos, snipping down the types of interviews? And of course, now everything's got to be two minutes or less or even less for people to pay attention to it.
Chris Dreyer:
Do what you do best. When your law firm is in growth mode, it can be tempting to try to do it all yourself, but here's the thing, even the most talented attorneys have their limits. Surround yourself with people who complement your strengths.
Ben Whitley:
Bringing an operator in to run the firm has allowed me to have so much more bandwidth to think strategically, to think about what's new, what's coming, create more relationships, spend time on the road.
Chris Dreyer:
For more information about Ben, 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. I know you won't want to miss out on the next episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, honored CEO of Rankings. All right, everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I'm out.
