Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. Each week, we dive into the strategies behind the most successful PI law firms in the nation. Today I'm talking with Dennis Carrion, an attorney who earned the nickname, "The Usain Bolt of Law School" by completing his degree with a near-perfect GPA in two years. But that was only the beginning of his sprint to success. Within 30 days of opening his firm, Dennis landed a $200,000 settlement and just over five years, he's built a 50-person team spanning multiple countries, all without ever working for another lawyer. Right off the bat, Dennis reveals how his lightning-fast approach to everything from client communication to hiring decisions has propelled his meteoric rise. Let's jump in as he shares the unconventional methods behind his record-breaking growth.
Dennis Carrion:
We have a team of 50 people now. You lose some, but a lot of times you find really loyal people, very happy to be here, and we make that environment. My second hire was my first international hire because there's a lot of work that a lawyer, now my lawyers who I have work for me, don't need to do. It's a lot of paperwork and a lot of things that are repetitive. I'm going abroad, but I'm getting very talented, very bright individuals. These people are bilingual, which is huge for my practice. We're a fully bilingual practice, everybody speaks English and Spanish, including myself. They're lawyers and they're doctors most of the time in their home country.
Chris Dreyer:
Communication's key when you got individuals in different countries, different timezones. What are you using from a tech perspective? Are you using Slack?
Dennis Carrion:
The tool that we use the most is actually, get this, free. And that is Discord.
Chris Dreyer:
For an audience that doesn't even know what Discord is, just a brief overview of what it is?
Dennis Carrion:
Discord actually was started for gamers, I believe. But all Discord is, is a live-streaming platform, so we can all have our own little Zooms in our own rooms and it's all live-streaming. My admins can actually drag and drop people into a room. So I can say, "Well, let me see what you're working. Let me see it, Chris," and boom, in one click, you're sharing your screen and everyone's seeing it. It's very productive and it's the hub of the firm. It's the closest thing that I found to a virtual office environment. For the culture, for me, that's big. I don't want faceless people, I don't want just the voice. I want to be able to see them. I want to be able to see them smile, see, "Hey, are you all right today? You having a bad day?" That's important, and Discord does that and it's free.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that the camera's on. It drives me nuts, I go a Zoom meeting and it's like, "Are you here?" I got to see the facial inflections, all those things.
Dennis Carrion:
Hey, it's just everything. We're human, we want to see that, we're human.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. Well, that's great though, that's great. You're having fun, I can tell you enjoy what you do.
Dennis Carrion:
That's an environment that has to be bred. It has to be developed from the top down, that culture. I always tell my team, "It's all about the culture." If somebody is a genius but doesn't fit my culture, they're out the door, they're gone. You have to fit the culture, and my culture is not very corporate. We run a different type of shop over here.
Chris Dreyer:
We all know client communication can make or break a PI firm. So, how does Dennis' team keep clients feeling heard and supported when half the staff is remote?
Dennis Carrion:
We have systems in my office to make sure we communicate with clients at minimum of every two weeks, and more importantly, we have a system that documents this, so we have a trail of that communication so that we can prove out that communication. So, when we have a client... As you know, the number one reason why lawyers lose clients is for communication. The client feels, "Nobody's going to back to me. Nobody cares about me. No one's working on my case." By even touching the client to say nothing but, "Hey, what's up, Chris? How you doing? We're working hard still. Case isn't ready to go, treatment's okay, awesome. Talk to you in a little bit. If you need me, we're here." That will decrease your attrition rate or your substitution rate drastically.
Chris Dreyer:
You try to meet the client where they are instead of making them come to you. Again, that convenience perspective, right? Who wants to drive in when they can have someone come to them, or meet at a spot that works for everyone? So, talk to me about that decision. Does that help you on the intake side? Like, "Look, we'll come to you." Who else is offering to do that?
Dennis Carrion:
Speed is your best friend on the intake side of personal injury. So, what they need is the attention, and they want to know, "I have a problem and you are here to solve my problem and start helping me right now, because I'm lost, because I'm hurt. Because my car's in the shop, my car's at the tow yard, I don't know how I'm going to get to work. My neck is killing me. I need help today." So, speed is your friend. If we're going to say, "Hey, do you want to come to one of our offices," we have three different locations they can come to. Or, "Would you like us to go to you?"
Chris Dreyer:
So, within 30 days you land and settle a case for 200K. It's kind of a pivotal moment for the new firm. How did you get the case? Tell me a little bit about that.
Dennis Carrion:
I was in Broward County Public Defenders. I'm already admitted in New York, but I'm still down here, so I start the firm and I'm like, "All right, I did this to hang my own shingle. Let's get to work." I started with digital ads. I started spending some money online. I get this case in upstate New York in a town that I didn't even know existed. She already had the surgery on her olecranon, which I didn't know what it was. Turns out this is your olecranon right here. It's a pretty bad break, required surgery, liability was clear. It was the end of her case. She's like, "Yeah, they're calling me, but I don't know if I should make a deal with them." So I said, "I can help you make that deal." She wanted me to, she was very afraid to speak with the insurance company. As she would've been, she probably would've gotten $10, that's the way these insurance companies operate, and I got her $200,000, 30 days in.
I spent about $5,000 in marketing. I got her case plus some others, and I ended up making 66,000 in about 30 days, and that was the point I said, "Dennis, my friend, you've made a good, good decision." That was it. It's definitely a marketing mix and we've also grown big enough where now we're doing things like huge radio plays. I did the studio sponsorship for a huge Spanish language radio station in New York, which is a major market. I do big concert sponsorships, I do big festivals. So, I do the big media and you need the marketing mix. And if you're not doing digital today, you are doing it wrong. Whatever you're doing, if you're not doing digital, you're doing it wrong. Your SEO, if you're not coming up on Google, it's a problem. And then when you're ready, you make the big plays, which are huge radio plays, huge out-of-home plays, buses, billboards.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm with you. The mix, they work better together. You've got the brand and awareness, and then you've got the capture component so they already know who you are, they already know unlike you. They've heard you on the radio, the concerts. And sometimes, I'll see an NIL or a licensing play on an NBA team or something, I'm like, "Whoa, that's crazy." You get a little bit of social proof and like, "Hey, they must be legit because they're in X Stadium." But I'm like, "I don't know." Some of those costs, how do you kind of measure when to do those?
Dennis Carrion:
I haven't done anything huge like that, like official partner of the New York Knicks. In my market, I don't know what that would even look like. But you'd be surprised. I'm looking to do a deal right now with the New York Mets who just signed up Juan Soto. And they're in Queens, which is my home, that's one of our main hubs. So, we're working a deal and it's actually not that expensive to be the injury partner for the New York Mets. "Today's injury report brought to you by 212 Carrion, your injury lawyers."
And now you can use that little tidbit for social proof, like you were just saying, and to increase your brand value, your brand cache, and it's actually not that expensive. But you have to be careful, because you can get sucked in and sponsorships for events are going to try to hit you over the head. Every single time, they're going to ask you for a bajillion dollars, and you take that number and divide by four, and maybe you make a deal. That's just the name of the game because they think you have all the money. Personal injury, if you wanted to sell anything, you go sell it to a personal injury lawyer. Am I wrong though?
Chris Dreyer:
No, you're right.
Dennis Carrion:
Right?
Chris Dreyer:
Talk to me just briefly about leadership talent. We've had Mike DiPasquale on and Anthony Lopez and they're like, "Hey, we like the fresh guys and gals out of law school to have that energy, to have the drive," and they're hiring on values as opposed to maybe leading with experience, differing points of views. You can be successful in a lot of ways. How do you think about talent?
Dennis Carrion:
I need to hire people who are better than me, that's number one. That's huge because you want to build those team members around you, that this person's great at this, this person's great at that. And at the end of the day, as the leader, as the steward of this ship, I'm standing behind my team. They're my shield, and each one of them is a badass at what they do. And if I build that, then I'm safe. And if I'm safe, I can steer the ship. That's how I think about it overall. Macro, right? And now when I'm looking at attorney hires, I would hire experience.
I have a lot of remote in my practice. Training is a little more difficult for that kind of role. For an attorney role, that's difficult. You're not in an office to be trained, and I think it's more difficult. Whereas if I have a more experienced person, they can pretty much run their own little pod. I'm saying, "Here, work on this business. Business, go work," and I think that that works a lot better. But first and foremost, they have to fit the culture. If they're not my speed, they're not my flow, I always like to say, "If I don't want to go out and have a meal with you and have lunch and just hang out and shoot the shit, I probably wouldn't hire you." It's just how I operate.
Chris Dreyer:
So you got this nickname, "The Usain Bolt of Law School." Completing a degree near perfect GPA, passing the bar, getting admitted in two years, and then launching the firms, how is that possible?
Dennis Carrion:
It's two programs. It never existed prior, and it's since, I don't believe it can be done because the two-year program has been removed. You would go summer to summer to summer to summer, that was the two-year program. Super quick, you're doing summers, you're doing winters. Then, New York has a special program, it's called the Pro-Bono Scholars Program. You have to apply for it, and instead of going to law school to class for your final semester, you forego that and you basically study, take the bar exam in February. So, you finish fall semester, you're off, you're studying for the bar exam, you take it in February. I worked at the Broward County Public Defender's Office, that's where I did my pro-bono. So then, when May came around, I already had my bar results back, so I actually did zero to sworn-in in two years.
Chris Dreyer:
Before law school, you were a business owner, you were in real estate. Talk to me about that and then the transition to law.
Dennis Carrion:
Yes. I didn't start as a lawyer, I went to law school late. I've been practicing six years now and I'm 43, so let's do that math, right? Yeah, I was in the business world, I was always entrepreneurial. I was always a very good salesperson, which I think is the number one attribute for a good attorney, is going to be a good salesperson. Certainly, for an owner of a firm, you must be a good salesperson. It's at the helm of everything. The last business I exited, I sold right at the end of law school and I went to law school to own a law firm. Never worked for anyone, I hung my own shingle as soon as I got admitted, and here I am six years later.
Chris Dreyer:
What was the first business that you sold? Just give me the brief overview on that one.
Dennis Carrion:
I did mortgages and real estate combined for a while. I had my mortgage broker's license, my real estate broker's license. I did that for years.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm in real estate. I'm like 99 doors, about to hit that 100th door. I'm like, it's right around the corner, I'm pumped.
Dennis Carrion:
That's what's up. That's amazing, by the way. Congratulations to you, my friend, that's a lot of doors. Then the whole real estate blowup happened, and I actually got into the photo booth business. Now, that's crazy, right? That's crazy. I was getting married at the time. We were going to go rent the photo booth at the time for like $1500, and I look at my then-fiance and I'm like, "This is ridiculous. How much can that thing possibly cost?" Four weeks later, I bought my first photo booth. I ended up owning like eight or nine at one point. Then I started manufacturing photo booths, selling them all over the world to other operators controlling the software on a licensing play. It was interesting, it was interesting.
Chris Dreyer:
Now, Dennis is licensed in multiple states, including New York and Florida, but he made a strategic choice to focus on New York and New Jersey. Here's why.
Dennis Carrion:
We could run cases in all those states if we wanted to. However, my initial plan of having a Florida and New York firm, I've pulled back on. And while I take cases in Florida, very, very few, I got to really love that case. I'm not looking to run volume in Florida. Ad dollars can only go so far, and my focus can only run so deep. So I, as the head of my organization, have to really spearhead this, and I have to move my team where I need us to go. And there's so much work in New York, New Jersey, that I feel that that's home for us right now.
And that's where we try cases, that's where we know all the courts are at the back of our hand, so we're staying there right now, New York, New Jersey. We'll take a case if it comes to us and it's the right case in Pennsylvania. We'll take the case in Florida. But really, all of our marketing dollars and all of our efforts are targeted towards New York and New Jersey. But it's important to know when you shouldn't expand. I wanted to be king of everything, and sometimes that's not the play.
Chris Dreyer:
What's the next phase of growth? If you're casting the vision out, what's it look like? What gets you excited?
Dennis Carrion:
I want an office in every one of the five boroughs of New York. Each office will have its own attorney as its own manager, and just build out cases and volume. Trying to just scale and get bigger, man, that's my goal right now, and adding more of a team. Rock-stars, rock-stars only. I actually put that on an Indeed app. My wife was like, "Really, you want to write that?" I'm like, "Yes, rock-stars only."
Chris Dreyer:
Dennis built a thriving practice by investing in remote talent, using clever systems to streamline repetitive tasks, and obsessing over culture and client communication. His story is a case study on how agility and focus can take your firm to the next level. I'm Chris Dreyer. Hit subscribe, so you never miss an episode of PIM.
