Chris Dreyer:
When a multimillion dollar case landed in Laura's lap justmonths after opening her firm, she could have coasted. Instead, she built athriving practice by deepening the same community relationships that broughther that first big case. I'm Chris Reer, founder and CEO of rankings do io, SEOAgency of Choice for PI firms. In this episode of Personal Injury MastermindLawyer reveals how grassroots marketing can scale alongside your firm and whystaying true to what energizes you, whether that's community engagement,traditional advertising, or a mix of both leads to sustainable growth.
Laura Ramos James:
I had to start thinking, what is my passion? What do Ilove doing? What makes me happy? Because I am litigating that's what I wanted,right? And now I'm helping injury victims. That's what I always wanted.Distilling it to what makes me happy, made me build a business that isprofitable because there's really no burnout for me. I'm doing what I love. Ithink there are so many ways to make money, so many, and you have to findpeople that truly are doing this because it's a calling and when it is, thatleads to sustainability.
Chris Dreyer:
That makes me think. It's a book that I read a long timeago. It was the Viktor Frankl book. The man's Search for Meeting goes reallydeep on that purpose component and your experience is a little bit different onthe early success side too. So you landed a multimillion dollar case justmonths after opening. That's uncommon most of the time. So walk me throughthat. What was the case? How did you land it? Tell me about that experience.
Laura Ramos James:
I actually got the call for that case in the middle of mybachelorette party, and I remember it wasn't a party, it was a trip, but Ibasically cultivated that from months and even years before, the trust in thecommunity for people to know that I was competent to handle their case or thatthey could trust me. And then it led to that call. I didn't wake up and thenall of a sudden I had this multimillion dollar case. Really, it was a woman whowas in the hospital, had been hit by a driver, and that's all I knew. And thenit ended up evolving to what it became.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, a lot of attorneys, I think if they would get thatearly big check, they would go blow it. Maybe they get the car. That changedthe lifestyle. You decided, Hey, I'm going to build something. You built aneight figure firm instead. So from receiving that, how did you think about whatyou were going to do from an investment, what you were going to do with thismoney, and then how did you build the firm? Firm that?
Laura Ramos James:
Yeah. Well, at first, I think confirmed what I kind ofknew in my heart. I felt I was ready for such a case, and once we got thatresolution, I'm like, there's no reason to doubt myself any longer. I can dothis, but do I want to do it alone? The intentional choice of I'm going to be atwo or more attorney law firm rather than a solo practitioner is what led me tostart putting together a plan. I think there are just so many factors, likesome people don't grow up with wealth or whatnot, and once they have it, theywant it and they want all the flashy things. I didn't grow up that way, butthat's never been my motivation or what I'm seeking or my ultimate goal. Nocriticism to whoever that has that as a goal. It just wasn't Mine was I wantmore of these cases. I want to make life-changing impact on families and to getthose, I could handle that case. Maybe I could handle two three of thosemassive cases, but if I really wanted to make a difference, it would take awhole team.
Chris Dreyer:
I guess. Expanding upon that, did you have individuals youknew that you wanted to bring into the firm? Did you go out and get arecruiter? How did you surround yourself with this very skilled team that'skind of transformed the firm today?
Laura Ramos James:
I meet with law firm owners and business owners all thetime, and that's one thing that we have in common. We're always trying tofigure out the right formula to get that dream team in place and to get thedream team that I now am certain we have. It took a lot of failure. It took alot of trial and error. It took a lot of figuring out what is the perfectinterview that I need to be asking? How can I really figure out who wants to behere, who belongs here, who has the same drive that and passion that I do? Andright now it's going to boil down to, like I said, a lot of trial and errorbecause a lot of people, they don't know what they really want until they'reactually doing. Then they realize this is not what I want.
We work really hard, but we love it so much that they sayit doesn't really feel like work. So if it aligns, then it's a match. But yeah,I mean the first person I hired was contractor, college student that I trained.I'm like, this is not rocket science. I can train someone to help me send theseletters. Because as many entrepreneurs that you've had on your show have readthe email, and I don't know if you're familiar with that book, but basically Iwas starting to learn, I have to delegate. I can't have the one trial lawyermyself go to the post office or print these letters, even though I was doing itthere for a long time. But then I started to get those team members, and thenwith success came the ability to give better compensation packages and findpeople that are even more experienced, more talented. And now here we are.
Chris Dreyer:
I think every entrepreneur goes through this moment. Iremember the first time I picked up the ebe and I was starting to read a couplechapters, the manager, the maker, the owner, and I couldn't put it down. I wentthrough and then I was like, went to my president. I was like, now you got toread this. And it's like, oh, we need to delegate. We need to create processes.And it's interesting how things transform and you get to cast your knowledge tothese other individuals for scale. You've been a PI attorney for over 15 yearsnow. You had a personal experience that really pushed you into this path. I wasjust wondering if you could share that story
Laura Ramos James:
Very early on. When I was three years old, I was attackedby a German Shepherd. I suffered disfiguring injuries and had to get severalmedical procedures and counseling and being wronged by someone and wanting tomake it right has basically led me to become an injury attorney.
Chris Dreyer:
You've had that empathy and can share from the injuredvictim's side because you've been there. So I guess when you went to law schoolwas you knew exactly like, Hey, I'm going to be an injury attorney. I'm notgoing to do real estate law or criminal defense. Was that kind of the, it wasjust a clear path for you after this experience?
Laura Ramos James:
It actually wasn't. I have had now time to look back andthink. It's interesting that I ended up doing this because when I was little, Ijust wanted to be a lawyer. I just felt like I wanted a voice for others, woulddefend them, kind of get justice for them, tell their story, and that's all Iknew. I grew up in Mexico and I ended up deciding to go to law school. I knew Iwanted to be a litigator or be in the courtroom, so I went to Baylor Law Schooland they have this really excellent litigation program that prepares you to bein the courtroom. When I graduated, I got a job that was going to have me do alot of depositions and a lot of courtroom appearances, and that was just adream come true, and it was just an insurance defense lawyer.
The people on the other side were injury victims, and myjob was to prove they didn't have the damages they were saying they had. Itgave me an immense amount of court exposure and trial exposure, but eventuallyI did have that moment of this doesn't line up with my version of justice. Idid have one kind wake up moment of posing a widow and my supervising attorneyand my adjuster had very clear guidelines of I had to prove that she had movedon with her life and that she wasn't seeing a counselor, et cetera. And she hadmoved past it, and that was not the truth. The truth is she was a grievingwidow who was suffering daily, who thought about her husband from the second shewoke up to the second she went to bed. I decided that I belong next to someonelike her, and that's when I decided to be a plaintiff's lawyer.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's face it, being a great lawyer isn't enough tosucceed. You need to generate consistent leads. Personal injury is the mostsaturated niche. Competition is fierce, and differentiation is everything. Whenthe deck is stacked against you, you need a comprehensive resource to beat thecompetition. My latest book, personal Injury Lawyer Marketing, is your roadmapto consistent leads and exponential growth. It is a masterclass on marketingfor personal injury firms. It's packed withable strategies on where to investyour marketing dollars for maximum impact. No more guesswork, no more wasted adspend, just clear proven methods to transform your firm from good to goat. Grabyour copy of Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing on Amazon. Link is in the shownotes. Thank you for sharing that. I kind of want to transition because yousaid it like, Hey, I landed this big case being a part of the community. So Iwanted to lean into that because a lot of times PI attorneys are trying to getawareness through TV or through radio or billboards, and an exceptional way todo that is through being a part of the community, but also trying to generatebusiness for the firm. How do you think about community?
Laura Ramos James:
It has changed through the years. For me, initially, someof the groups that I ended up becoming involved with were Mexican women inAustin, and I'm like, Hey, we have this in common. There were some gettogethers and I would just go because I truly was seeking, people would haverecommendations of, my husband's a plumber or he does framing for construction,and they had all these recommendations and just culturally, we had so much incommon. And initially that's one of the groups that I aligned with, and itturned out that some of my cases came from there. Now, at the time I wasmarried, I didn't have any kids. I'm now married with two kids, and I am nowmore aware that becoming involved with those groups leads to you being able tosit down with people and telling your story and telling your story. It fits.
This is such a deep topic for me, so deep that I wrote achapter in a book about it. But basically what I feel like they're saying that,oh, you should do authentic marketing. And there's actually, what is authenticmarketing to me is telling your story and telling my story of being an injuryvictim, of being someone who came as an immigrant and did the best I could toget the best life I could possibly get and make the most of what my parents hadgiven me was something that led to people trusting me with their cases, withtheir stories. And so now there are other groups that I am able to support indifferent ways, either by speaking engagements or sponsorships or what haveyou. But that I find the same opportunity. I truly enjoy it because we havethings in common. For example, it's some are lawyer groups, some are nonprofitorganizations, or there's a group called Mamas in Austin that's basicallyattorney moms and I'm a mom, I'm an attorney. So it's easy, it's authentic, andit's genuine because it's true.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I'd imagine too. It doesn't feel like work. It's whoyou are and your authenticity when you enjoy what you do and that Monday rollsaround the people that don't are complaining about Monday, but I'm like, ifit's a long weekend, I'm ready to get back in the office. You're part ofmultiple attorney associations. How are you leveraging those networks forcases, talked about community and how you're being a part of the community andhow you go about that, but what's your thoughts on the attorney associations?
Laura Ramos James:
I initially became involved because you would getcontinuing legal education, credit and whatnot, and very quickly I discoveredthe value is just so much more than that. I mean, you get to share yourvictories, your failures, you get inside information from people who have beenin front of a judge that you maybe haven't been or someone who has discoveredcertain strategy. And so that's of course invaluable. But I think the othercomponent, at the very beginning of my practice as a plaintiff's lawyer,someone criticized that, oh, you don't want to spend too much time withplaintiff's lawyers, your competition, just go visit with other type ofprofessionals because obviously, what are you doing there? They're trying toget business the same business you're trying to get. And the reality is thatwhen I started the law firm the very first year, a lot of my cases came fromother plaintiff's lawyers who, big law firms who were too busy to handlecertain cases, and those cases were peanuts to them, and they were mylivelihood. And so I was very intentional about making those connections earlyon, making sure those law firms knew that if they sent a case my way, theclients were going to be so happy they were going to thank them for sendingthem my way and that they were going to get a referral check. Of course, that'san added value that I think some people miss by thinking or focusing on theaspect of, these are your competitors, why are you there?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I think there, there's so much here because I'veheard that statement too. In my experience with a lot of these PI firms, I askthem like, Hey, what's your biggest struggle? Most of the time or a lot of thetime I hear, well, we just need more litigators. We need great lawyers. Asopposed to, I'd think it'd be very common like, oh, I need more leads. Leadsmaybe not necessarily more leads. It's maybe I need someone skilled to work 'emup to get the value that they're worth. I kind of want to talk about just yourimpact and leadership. Austin Women Magazine named you a changemaker. Beyondthe recognition, what are you actually trying to change in this industry?
Laura Ramos James:
My law firm has a special focus in helpingunderrepresented and disadvantaged communities, but we have that special focusand we serve the Spanish speaking community. We're able to anyone who calls,it's not. We have one person who translates for all the other lawyers. We havelawyers who are Spanish speaking paralegals, legal assistance. So our system isset up to help those communities. The immediate change I want to implement isthat many times those community get taken advantage of because they receivepaperwork that's not in their native language. And so for 20 attorneys or legalprofessionals, and so the clients are calling and they're not getting callsback, and so just having equal a level playing field and giving all theresources back to those people so they can face whoever, insurance companies,the government, whoever did them wrong, and that they will get the sameattention as anyone else.
Chris Dreyer:
What small change has had the biggest positive impact onyour firm, and then where can people go to connect with you and learn more?
Laura Ramos James:
So I would say something that anyone can implement todayis at the beginning of the day, thinking what makes me happy? I'm going to bevery intentional about identifying today, what is exciting to me, what makes mehappy, what makes me giddy? What do I really want to, what am I looking forwardto that's happening today? What meeting, what gathering, what research project?And at the end of the day, revisit the question with your answer, and you'regoing to start to narrow down little by little what it is that really makes youhappy. And once you do that, it just, I think, ultimately leads to you beingable to exploit that opportunity.
Chris Dreyer:
Whether you're just starting your firm or looking toscale, Laura's journey shows that staying true to what energizes you in hercase, deep community involvement can drive sustainable growth from turning thatfirst big case into a thriving practice, to building a team aligned with your values.Success comes from knowing your why and letting it guide your path forward. Formore strategies on authentic firm growth, visit rankings.io or grab a copy ofmy book, personal Injury Lawyer Marketing from Good Togo. Thanks for listeningto Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris St. Dryer, founder and CEO ofrankings, io.
