David Craig:
There was a time where 80% of my business was from referrals, and I can tell you that my business is 80% from the consumer, and 20% from referrals.
Chris Dreyer:
That's David Craig, managing partner and co-founder of the trucking powerhouse, Craig, Kelly, & Faultless.
David Craig:
I can tell you, I've not had a client not hire me after using books. I think there's less than 80 board-certified lawyers in the whole country, and in Indiana, there are four. Two of them are in my law firm. We've dominated Google in Indiana. Now, we're seeing those dividends pay off.
Chris Dreyer:
For 26 years, David has outpaced the competition, and now AI is recommending his firm over everyone else.
David Craig:
I think it's mainly because-
Chris Dreyer:
Most PI firms survive on referrals. David Craig pivoted hard. Now, 80% of his cases come directly from consumers. That shift made him the go-to trucking lawyer in his state. This is Personal Injury Mastermind, powered by Rankings.io, the legal marketing agency that delivers proof over promises. I'm Chris Dreyer, founder, CEO, and your host.
David embodies what we mean by proof over promises. He doesn't just say he's the best, he proves it. Today, he breaks down the three pillars that shifted his pipeline from referrals to consumers, and how you can build the same momentum for your firm. Let's go.
Most firms claim they're the expert. David went further. He built proof the consumer couldn't ignore. That's pillar one, proof of expertise.
Why publishing consumer-focused content builds client trust faster than referrals
David Craig:
My marketing is geared towards the consumer. You want to give consumers what they need, what they want. I wrote the first book, Semitruck Wreck, The Guide for Victims and Their families, and what I found was that consumers loved it. I would overnight it if somebody would reach out to my firm, and then my firm overnights it to them. And I want to help provide information, that makes it a good marketing tool, because I'm doing it for the right reason.
I have not lost a case. I can tell you, I've not had a client not hire me after using books. I had a semi wreck case. It was a horrible case, where their wife and mom burnt to death, and so they were trying to figure out who to hire. So, they reached out to me recently, and so I said, "I'll send you a couple of books. I would encourage you to spend time researching lawyer that you hire." Not only do you want a good attorney, but you want somebody you're comfortable with. I would interview them, and not only them, but I'd interview the entire team.
I would want to see every person that's going to work on my case. What if you have one person who's fantastic, and they die, or they get sick, or they have another trial? I go, you want the whole team. And so, the best thing was, they came in, the whole family, they sat down, and they started asking me questions. And in my book, I actually say, "Here's the questions I would ask." They didn't bring my book, but they had every one of my questions.
Chris Dreyer:
Notice what David's doing here. He's educating. His expertise becomes his marketing. For every lawyer who feels uncomfortable selling or marketing, this is for you. Make your knowledge the product.
David Craig:
They said, "We've narrowed it down to three firms. You want to know who the competition is?" I said, "No, I don't care." The fact is that you're spending the time to research this extraordinarily important decision is that I'm thrilled. I'm happy, whether it's me or someone else. I said, "Now, the difference may be that I would be very blessed and fortunate to have you as my client." And they said, "But the difference was you made us feel like you wanted us, and that we were grateful for us, and not the other way around."
Chris Dreyer:
You're a give-without-expecting-anything-in-return type of person. I think it's the perfect lead up to the, talk me about your new book, It's Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney. This book's quite a bit different. I think there's a little bit of, it might rub people the wrong way. So, tell me about why you wrote it, the process, everything you went through in regards to this book, and what it means to you.
David Craig:
Everybody is advertising that they're truck wreck lawyers, and some of them have never handled truck cases. Some of them have never tried a truck case. And so, with all this advertising, all this marketing, great companies are ranking higher, and some of them are good, and some of them aren't. Some people put themselves on billboards, some of them are good, some of them aren't.
When you get a license to practice law, you can go anywhere. There's nothing... You graduate from law school, you pass the bar, they give you this license, and it allows you to write wills, handle divorces, handle truck wreck cases, handle everything. Well, common sense tells us, well, you're probably not good at everything.
And so, I saw folks picking the wrong lawyers. They handle the personal injury case, and that was frustrating to me, and I saw, I mean, people lose tens of millions of dollars by picking the wrong attorney. I've seen criminal lawyers, where there's really good criminal lawyers, but they hire the wrong one, and they get twice, three times as much punishment. So, I started thinking, it's not just personal injury lawyers, not just trucks accident lawyers. People need to know how to go about picking a lawyer. And so, that's why I wrote the book.
Chris Dreyer:
For the audience listening, what's one big tip? Let's use me as an example. Let's say, for example, I needed to get some type of estate planning, or different niche than PIs. What should I do?
David Craig:
I think the easiest thing is, the ABA is the kind of big umbrella that most states have adopted part, or at least follow, some of the guidelines pushed out by the ABA. I would go there and say, "Okay, is there a board certification in that specific area?" I would start and look and say, "Okay, where's the greatest state attorney?" But that is, to me, the easiest for somebody who knows nothing about the area of law they're getting into. I think there's less than 80 board-certified lawyers in the whole country, and in Indiana, there are four.
Chris Dreyer:
Wow.
David Craig:
There's four board-certified lawyers that have got the extra expertise, who've passed a test, who've got a certain percent of my practice has to be trucking. So, there's four in the state of Indiana, two of them are in my law firm, so half of the board-certified lawyers are my partner. And when you're marketing, I mean, again, I market the consumer, is that something as distinguishes my firm than other firms in Indiana, or some of the other markets that I practice in, or that I have lawyers licensed in? And if I was going to a surgeon, I would pick a board-certified surgeon, because I know they've done that extra to get that board certification, and that's the same way I would, whether it's in a divorce lawyer, personal injury, or truck accident, lawyer, whatever it is.
Chris Dreyer:
The books were just a start. David doubled down with his podcast designed for consumers, not colleagues. He brought in the exact experts who would later appear in his client's cases. That kind of positioning builds rock solid trust.
David Craig:
My thought was, you know what? It makes a lot more sense, if I want to be a truck accident lawyer, to do podcasts with guests that can explain things to ordinary people that they may not know, an action reconstructionist, a financial planner, a heavy truck mechanic, another lawyer that does trucking. And so, you can get answers.
Now, the other thing is, again, when I'm competing with somebody for a case, that I say, well, the team I'm putting together will involve a reconstructionist, a heavy mechanic, and you can go on episode 14, episode 21, and you can see who I'm going to use. Those are the folks that I'm hired, and that's going to be part of your team. So, when I have guests, there are usually experts in truck accident law, but I use the podcast then, and as you know, just think about all the content, all the content I generate. Every episode is nothing but truck accident stuff. And so then I take that, and I do one a month, and I've gone on five years now. I do one a month, and then I cut it up every week. We send out a clip, a different clip, we promote it, we push it.
Chris Dreyer:
Most PR firms live and die by referrals. And for the years, David was no different. His pipeline was full, his reputation strong. But David saw a challenge coming that forced him to pivot, and that decision changed everything.
David Craig:
There was a time where 80% of my business was from referrals, and I used to try cases in every county. When I go try a case, we would present a good trial, and so the judges, the lawyers, the local lawyers, they would refer cases to me. Referral business just seemed easy for me. It was just I didn't look for it. And then the better I got at it, I started getting asked to speak at state level, and then asked to speak at national level, and I was getting a large referral, 80% of my business, over 80%.
But I looked at it, and said, what happens when the local lawyers no longer get cases? What happens when the marketers start getting all the cases, and those local folks can't refer cases to me? And what happens... Because there's already, in trucking, back then, that was before ATAA, there already were a lot of folks starting to focus in trucking, really good lawyers. And it's like, okay, there's more people trying to niche and get into that area, so there's going to be fewer cases in the sense that, because of the amount of competition. So, I thought I like the consumer better anyway. I don't mind speaking to attorneys. I like it, but I love ordinary people. And so, we shifted gears, and now I can tell you that my business is 80% from the consumer, and 20% from referrals.
Chris Dreyer:
Most firms measure value by who brings in revenue. David flips that idea. In his world, the investigator, the social worker, even the rapid response team matters much as the trial lawyers. That's pillar two, proof in performance, excellence as the standard.
David Craig:
In my group, I have 10 lawyers, and I didn't want just lawyers. What helped me build my practice was I could try cases, and I do trucking cases, but the reality is you don't get to try many trucking cases. I still take other cases, just because I want my lawyers to get in the courtroom, and get experience, and try cases regularly.
Every one of my lawyers was identified as a super lawyer by the state of Indiana. I was fortunate enough to be one of the top 50, but I got more satisfaction out of every one of my lawyers. And there's not a whole lot of personal injury firms in Indiana, where every lawyer is identified and recognized. I have a content writer within my office, a lady that has an MBA in journalism. She does research deeper into whatever subject I'm podcasting about, and then we push that out, and we distribute that as well.
Chris Dreyer:
So, talk to me about how you're doing rapid response. I think you've even done some drones, and some other just very technical stuff. Talk to me about that component of the delivery of the op side.
How adding non-revenue team members such as social workers strengthens trucking accident cases and improves client outcomes
David Craig:
Yeah, the question is, how do I provide a better quality service to my clients? And so, as I've gotten more successful, and rather than taking the money out, it is like, "Okay, let's invest. Let's figure this out." And so, I had a rapid response team.
The guy that heads my rapid response team has been with me for over 20 years. He is really good at what he does. He finds a vehicle. I have a private investigator, who was a firefighter, who was in military, and he goes out. And so, as soon as we get hired, and I've got these guys on the road, I just had a case in Florida, we flew down there, and they immediately start looking. They start doing their stuff. As soon as they get hired, I send out preservation of evidence letters, and then I put the books on the ground, to find the vehicles, to locate it, to guard it.
I mean, I had a truck that a load fell off, and the truck driver only had a million dollars worth of coverage, trailer only had a million. I mean, it was a total million, but the case was a wrongful death case. My rapid response team found the vehicle, and then they guarded, because it was just in the field, and because the other people that owned it said, "We're going to unload it tomorrow at 1:00." Well, lo and behold, at 8:00 in the morning, I get a phone call. My investigator says, "Hey, Dave, they're here, and they got a bunch of heavy equipment and cranes and stuff." And I'm like, "Okay." I called the lawyer and said, "What the hell? You told me..." "Well, I don't know. I don't understand." I said, "Well, I had an investigator sitting out there all night watching."
And so, we zoomed in. I had my experts there. I had somebody do it by one of my experts, to do a cell phone and show them what they're doing. I had my video crew there. And it turns out that the load was unsecured, and we never would've found that out, had that truck been unloaded, and we couldn't have seen the base of that truck. And so that difference, just having that rapid response team, having a group of people that got to the scene immediately. And I was one of the ones that rushed out there, and I've said, like, "Here, videotape this, do this, do that." That made all the difference in the world, because the shipper had a lot of insurance. And so, I was able to help that family out by getting to the shipper, which I never would've gotten, at least in Indiana, without that evidence.
So, rapid response team, extraordinarily important. I think that's one of the questions you should, if you're a lawyer out there, is like, how do I help my clients? And the more you focus on, how do I help my clients, then I honestly believe the more successful you'll become, not only as a marketer, but as an attorney.
I just hired a woman who has a social work degree, having a social worker, having a psychology major, which I have one of those as well. Having those type of people who can listen, who can problem solve, who aren't necessarily drafting legal documents, that's the future. And, man, tell you what? My clients love her. I send her to their house. I send her to the nursing homes, the facilities. She's an expert on governmental benefits and all that kind of stuff. And all her job is go in and listen to people, and talk to them.
And I think AI, that's going to change the way we do things, but man, it gives us an opportunity, which I tell my people, I didn't lay off people during COVID. We just kept growing and growing, and I said, you know what? It's going to let you do higher end stuff. And some of the lower end stuff can be done by other, but I need the higher end. So, I send my paralegals to the trucking seminars. I host my own Indiana trial lawyers trucking seminar. I have my paralegals there. I send them down, we'll take them down to Texas, or the ATA conference. They'll get board-certified as well. They get certified as a paralegal.
So, invest in your people, whether it's a rapid response team, whether it's social workers, but the question, and that's hard for lawyers, because they're like, "Well, that's not an income-producing position. Rapid response team, they don't generate income. A social worker going out and sitting and talking to people at their houses, how the hell? That doesn't generate income." You already got the client signed up, so just go settle the case. I don't believe that. I believe the market, to do what you do. I can help my company, that does my SEO, by just being a decent human being, hiring the right people that can help my clients get a better result, and make the process easier on them through the whole thing.
Chris Dreyer:
Hallelujah. I couldn't agree more. I think that's incredible. You're truly just putting the client first, and you're thinking about them as an individual, as opposed to the customer, the widget on the assembly line. And it allows you to see things that other people won't see, and to just go deeper, and that speaks to expertise. It speaks to your specialization.
We talked about it. There's a status orientation, it's a zero-sum game. There's a winners and losers, and I think everything you're doing is just highlighting that. I think trial attorneys are going to become significantly more value. I think the leverage, in terms of like, just what they're worth, right? Because the pre-lit stuff is kind of getting beat down with the tech, with the AI, and kind of commoditize, and where you get the more value is the litigators. How are you thinking about compensation? Is it a fixed fee with a variable after they get their return, or are you doing a pod? How are you thinking about it, securing these guys?
David Craig:
I'm very fortunate that this firm's 26 years old. One of my partners was one of my law clerks, one of my founding partners was one of my law clerks 30 years ago. I've been practicing for over 38 years. All my other attorneys were law clerks of mine, and they've been with me now 20 years, I mean, 15 years, 10 years. And I don't lose them, I haven't lost them. Compensation is only part of the equation.
And if you think that, compensation is it, then I think, first of all, you're picking the wrong lawyers, because I believe I want people who care, who want to fight the fight, and who want to get better every year. One of the biggest hurdles in a PI firm is the leader usually has a huge ego, which I have a pretty good ego, and my wife will tell you that. But at the same time, I take pride in my other folks doing better than me. I want them better than me. I don't go around bragging about my trial verdicts, because I find that that just doesn't fit me, and I don't put their name. I don't parade my clients in my office.
So, there's certain types of people who fit my firm. And so, a brand-new lawyer joined my firm. They get 50% of any referral they bring in the firm, so they get a 50% fee, because I see firms break up, because they get a big case, and hell, they can't do any better than that. I'm going to bankroll the case. I'm paying all the expenses. I'm going to help them work it up, and I'm going to give them 50% of the fee, and why shouldn't I? They're my people. And then everything else is salary, except a percentage, unless you're a partner. Well, I want everybody to be a partner.
Chris Dreyer:
Most firms guard the numbers like a secret. David does the opposite. His attorneys see the books, sharing the equity, and know exactly how the business runs. That's pillar three, proof of leadership.
The leadership framework that keeps personal injury law firm teams invested long-term and drives sustainable growth
David Craig:
So, I have a process that I stole from one of John Morgan's early books, and I took the model that he has, and I said, "Here's how we're going to value the firm. And we're going to sell the firm, based upon this model. And I'm not going to sell it to outside people. I'm going to sell it to you guys." And as the three founding partners decide they want to start selling over time, then you all will get to have the chance to start buying in, and you're going to get your referral fees up until you get above a certain percent. And so, you may want to stay at 10% or less, because you get referral fees, plus a salary, but you can just get ownership, and they'll go see all the financials.
And so, I'm a very open, anybody can walk in my office, and I'll tell you, I tell my attorneys, I'll show them my financials. I have audited financials. Years ago, I thought, "What happens when venture capital comes in?" This is 26 years ago. And so, I have a CFO, and I said, "Look, just in case I want to sell, I don't think I do, but in case I ever want to sell, where I want investors, I would like to have audited financial statements."
Most personal injury firms don't run their firms as businesses, and I have a business degree, and so I would like to run it like a business. And so, we started doing that, and so therefore, I don't have anything to hide. And so, I'm an open book, whether you own 1% or 10%, you're going to get to see all my financials. Then people can say, "Okay, Dave's not running off the Tahiti. He doesn't have the Porsche, or the Ferrari, being delivered to his house." Nothing against that. Everybody... There's people who do it in your industry, as well as mine, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it, but the people I want need to be motivated by making a positive difference in the lives of someone else, and then in their own families, and in their coworkers, and so in their clients. So, that's huge to me.
And so, compensation, honestly, I mean, I get asked that. I was speaking somewhere, and they're like, "Well, how do you handle?" I just sit down and talk to people. I mean, what's fair is fair, and I don't run into problems, because I am open book. So, compensation is purely, it's not like everybody, else where you get a percentage of the cases you bring in, you get a cost, you get a certain amount stipend for your staff. I bankroll the whole staff, except for pre-lit. And pre-lit, I have a pre-lit person who... I don't want... Pre-lit just messes up lit, so I have a pre-lit department, where I have an attorney runs that. She gets one third, I get two thirds, whatever she makes, and she has to bankroll the employees. They're still part of my team, but she has complete control. She just has certain KPIs. She has to meet with me, but everybody else is part of the firm.
Chris Dreyer:
You're publishing bestsellers, you're hosting a podcast, you're leading national seminars, and you're trying cases. What's lightening you up right now? What are you most excited about?
David Craig:
My law firm is 26 years old. It's like you're a success overnight, but in the reality, you've been working a long time, and it's exciting to see the dividends, I think, because we've done things differently. We haven't followed necessarily the same playbook everybody else has, but it's just as exciting today.
I swear to God, I get excited to get up in the morning. I love what I do. Probably the most exciting thing, though, is that I have these young lawyers in my group, and so I take a lot of pride in the group of people that we have, and all of them were law clerks of mine. I mean, they were law clerks, and I kept them. I kept the good ones, and every one of them is a hell lot smarter than I am, and I kept those, and they have really developed, and they're all hitting, just doing a fantastic job.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I got to imagine the old large language models, the ChatGPTs, when you search for your firm. I mean, that's got to be a big win, because they're putting a lot of weight behind those awards, like why they should choose one firm over another.
David Craig:
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. We've been getting cases that are... We always follow up on, "How did you get to us? How did you hear about us?" AI robots are recommending us, and that's kind of cool, because we've done well with Google. We've dominated Google in Indiana for a long time in truck accident law. Now, we're seeing that those dividends pay off in other voice-activated searches. I think it's mainly because we've been focused on delivering helpful content to the consumer.
Chris Dreyer:
David Craig shows us what proof over promises really looks like. Books to close clients, non-revenue hires that change outcomes, open books to keep a team invested for decades, that's proof over promises framework, expertise performance, leadership. If you want more strategies to dominate your market, hit subscribe. We've got new episodes every week.
