Cason Carter:
We've worked with over 550 firms.
Chris Dreyer:
This is Toolkit on Personal Injury Mastermind, where we hand you the tools to take your firm to the next level. I'm Chris Dreyer.
Cason Carter:
Over 500 of the actual firms are diversifying their practice.
Chris Dreyer:
The best firms don't try to do it all themselves and neither should you. The real edge comes from partnering smart, letting experts handle the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on what you do best, winning cases and leading your team.
How mass tort co-counsel structures work, and why choosing the right litigating firm is critical
Cason Carter:
So Broughton Partners is a mass tort marketing intake and delivery service. We have litigating counsel ready to go that allows firms to choose from top-notch litigating firms. We believe that the litigating firm is just as important as the tort.
Chris Dreyer:
Today's manual, how to break into mass torts, partner smart, scale fast. Cason Carter, founder and CEO of Broughton Partners explains how to co-counsel with the right firm, vet your vendors like they're a part of your bar card, and focus on ROI that sticks.
Cason Carter:
And so we allow firms to diversify. We allow them to come in, not need to know much about mass torts.
Chris Dreyer:
This is probably as passive as you can get in terms of allocating some capital towards this area.
Cason Carter:
That's how a lot of firms look at it. It's co-counseling, they are jointly responsible, so they're on the retainer. Has to be a law firm. But it's a great way for them to be able to not add headcount at their firm and be able to bring in more of a docket. And be working with best-in-class firms that they wouldn't have been able to get the same fee splits from if they would've approached on their own.
Chris Dreyer:
You got a PI attorney, settled a big case, wants to co-counsel, wants to break into mass torts. There's a lot of people out there getting bombarded about mass tort marketing. A ton of companies. I've heard some horror stories.
Vendor vetting for mass tort litigation: references, oversight, and ethical compliance checks
Cason Carter:
There's a lot of horror stories. When they come to work with us, they're actually co-counseling with our originating firm, which is Bob Goldwater. That's how it's ethical for us to do what we do. And so they're not coming in and buying cases, as you hear people say. They're actually coming in and co-counseling with the Goldwater law firm, who is co-counseling with a litigating firm that has preset fee splits. And I think the biggest thing that firms need to know when they're trying to break into the space is when you're working with a non-attorney, that non-attorney is an extension of your bar card. Your responsibility to oversee them, your responsibility to make sure they're doing the right things, is like they are in your office. So our ethicist is our best friend. We have to operate like we are the Goldwater law firm.
And we've been here for some time now. I would say to these attorneys, a lot of marketers from other spaces that come into this space see it as a gold rush. And what I will tell you is a lot of practices in other marketing fields are not ethical in this field. And so you need to make sure you're checking to see that they act as if they are an extension of your law office. And so the first things first is get references. See the time that they've been in the business. I can't tell you year after year how many marketers come and go in this space. And understand that half off doesn't mean you found the golden ticket. Half off actually means you may be working with something that's a lemon, unethical. Or the only space where I think sometimes people see discounts and they think, "Oh wow, what did I just find?" They really should be saying, "What's wrong with it?"
Chris Dreyer:
Mass tort ad spend was over 2.5 billion last year, like a 14% jump over 2023. And you hear all these horror stories. A lot of these are using these affiliates.
Cason Carter:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
And the affiliates are the ones that are using the crazy language, doing the things that are ... And it's like, "Oh, it wasn't us, it was the affiliate." But by extension it was kind of them being unethical.
Cason Carter:
How do you look at affiliates? Somebody asked me the other day to describe an affiliate to them and I did. I love how you described that to attorneys because it's a very interesting thing that I don't think most attorneys understand.
How PI firms can control affiliate risk and keep mass tort marketing inside ethical lines
Chris Dreyer:
I think there's an ethical and affiliate that follows the guidelines and an unethical, right? I was an affiliate, that's my background. I got started in digital marketing and I sold goods on Amazon as an affiliate and could promote their product and get a commission. I think the difference comes into play in the legal is the language, the promises, all the things that they're saying, that a lot of times when you're working with affiliate partners, they don't approve all copy and everything that they're saying. They allow them to use the gray area or the black hat type of language. So it's just you're hiring their commission only sales force essentially, right?
Cason Carter:
Right. And they can go out and get the leads however they want it to be, through a mortgage ad, and then they're asking them if they need an attorney. And I think that the co-reg affiliate space is growing so much that attorneys have to be aware of those types of practices with coming in under a different offer and them getting switched over to that attorney. And is that solicitation, right?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, there's that. And then the other big one, and I know you've seen this too, is a lot of times they find out the criteria of what it's accepted for the affiliate payment and then they'll go get the international squad, the nearshore squad to go fill these in. So you have this inventory and then you go borrow money against it with an esquire, whoever. And then it ends up being like, oh, actually we don't have a hundred cases, we've got 40. Let's talk about the amount of money to advertise or how much you need to get started here. If you're going to work with a company like yours, what does an investment look like, versus someone that's trying to do it themselves?
Cason Carter:
Somebody trying to do it themselves, I never try to tell them not to, especially if they have a good practice in another area. Put up the pages, have them come into your intake. I don't think it's smart not to do that, to be honest with you. We'll help them with some connections on litigating firms. But at the end of the day, I'm not concerned about the dollar amount of the campaign, I'm concerned about the number of retainers. And the reason I'm worried about that is, we shoot to have the best fall off in the space. We do things like criminal history check, like skip tracing. We check their doctors against the database. And we don't allow them to just give us the name and the address. And then we draw a circle around that for how close is that to the treatment facility they went to. And if they went to the Mayo Clinic, they can travel across the country.
And so we are doing things to make sure those people are real. We are making sure that we are getting the highest quality. We want the lowest fall. We're going to shoot for a hundred percent stick rate, no fall off, and we're going to keep on fighting until we get there. And the people had the best intentions, their medicals don't prove out. And so in a case type like that, I want them to typically get a hundred cases, but on a lower fall off case type that we don't have to worry about those types of things as much.
Chris Dreyer:
Like your Suboxone lawsuits and the type of claimants that you get there that maybe are drug addicts and just aren't even going to remember that they even talked to a firm. And I'm not saying that about everyone, but I would say the overall quality of the claimant, and I'm not trying to get myself into trouble there, but versus maybe the AFFF, the firefighter, the what have you.
How to allocate PI firm budgets across early, mid, and late-stage mass torts without overcommitting
Cason Carter:
You're 100% dead on. We've actually tried to tackle these problems with a program. We've started a group called the Consortium. And what the Consortium is, is we bring 25 lawyers together typically in a group, and they commit to a buy over 12 months, 12 equal payments of 10,000, 20,000 or $30,000. They're in the group for their exact percentage. And they're all on the retainer together in an exhibit on the next page of the retainer.
Why we did that was because the barrier to entry to mass tort has gotten so much higher over the last four years. And so to get 50 cases today versus 50 cases in 2017 when we started, it's like three X. And that's because the amount of firms that have come into the space. So we want that group to have 12 different buys across 12 different torts if they want. They come together once a month, we educate them, they get to buy. It's easier on cash flow because they're coming out monthly instead of all at once. And it allows them to learn mass torts instead of going all in on a tort thinking it's the greatest thing and it not working.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's talk about that, the dual rep thing, because that's always the nightmare that I've heard. I've heard like LeJeune was horrible with it, maybe I'm wrong, because it seemed like everybody and their brother wanted to get in on LeJeune. Do you just stay in touch with them? Is it that, and most companies just don't stay in touch with the individual?
Cason Carter:
There's been a lot of talks about a dual rep database. I'll tell you, there's firms that want dual reps because they get to ... Not want is the right word. They will take dual reps in my opinion. I don't know if they ask the questions. Because they've already got the lead in the door, why not monetize that? And mostly at the end of these litigations, these firms split it. We really work with our litigating firms on asking for the retainer sign date to make sure we don't get in that position. But we really try to educate the consumer on the front end, the plaintiff, that you will slow down your claim. You're not going to get paid twice. It actually could cause your case to get thrown out potentially. There is a federal statute around filing more than twice, from my understanding, I'm not an attorney.
And then the marketers, there's marketers out there who want to sign up dual reps if they can follow their traffic, if they can outbound call them, if they can solicit them. And so that does create a problem. It was happening a lot in camp LeJeune. We were getting people calling back and saying, "I've already signed up." So we got the phone number, and sure enough, we called it, and it seemed like some way this company was able to track the people across our sites and outbound direct dial them and pretend as if we were them. Luckily we did enough education on the front end to tell them, "This will only hurt your claim," and they called back into us. But it's a problem.
Chris Dreyer:
It's wild. So timing, okay, so you've got, what, Roblox, you got these different lawsuits coming in and then you've got the different drugs. Is there the opportunity to say, "Hey, this might turn into something, you get a lower cost per lead and let's get it now"? Or do you maybe have a different risk profile and it's like, "Okay, these are all ... The science is great." How does that work? How does that play into selection?
Cason Carter:
So we're talking about that all the time in our Consortium groups. And we talk about that with the firms, a lot of the larger firms we work with, auto accident firms, we really try to help them stay principle-based. Take 10% of your marketing budget, spend it on two to four torts a year. Don't get too hot on one tort. And just really stay principle-based. And we talk about it as early, middle and late stage. And early stage, no consolidation yet. Has it passed Dauber? And Dauber, or Frye if it's in state court, is really a big date. Your middle stage is kind of draft up in the MDL, the things like a trial, a bellwether trial, maybe some good rulings, some good case management orders.
And then when you get toward the end, people feel very confident in it. And so the prices, the marketing prices, and you can confirm this, it's based off of how much demand is in the market. Demand comes into the market when it's later stage, when it's more of a for sure thing. And a lot of times the pricing is based off the risk and the appetite for it. And that's what we tell firms is, "Look, largely the pricing is based off a risk in the space." And when the risk are high, you can buy retainers at a much cheaper price, but there's always the chance that it strikes out.
And so we like to tell people, "Look, keep most of your torts. Keep 50% or so in late stage." Try to be 30 to 40%, really 40 I'd prefer in the middle. And then only 10% on the early stage. Because you can afford to do that as well and get more bang for your buck on the early stage torts. But it's very important that firms not go all in on one thing. As many good stories as hearing about people who have done really well in mass torts, there's a lot of stories that you don't hear about because they're really embarrassing, of firms that struck out in mass torts. And so I think it's really important to understand, be disciplined, don't fall too in love with one project, and really stick to your principles.
Chris Dreyer:
If you had an allocation of multiple torts too, then it wouldn't be like ... You might have more action, so to speak. If you're waiting on one and it finally monetizes, starts to pay it out versus like, hey, there's different timing on these. What have you seen? It seems like the other side, that's their strategy. It's delay, delay, delay. It seems like that's their main strategy now, aside from these shell bankruptcy, fake bankruptcies that they're attempting. What have you seen on how long these last, like when a typical payout occurs, do you have any data or any thoughts on that?
What realistic timelines PI attorneys should expect for mass tort case settlements and payouts
Cason Carter:
There's some that are quicker than others. It depends if the firm got a docket settlement first. They were part of a global resolution obviously. It also depends on a lot of factors outside of a firm's control, like the defense. They obviously want the money in their bank account as long as they can because it's bearing interest. You're looking at realistically three years on average, I would say. Some can take longer, but there's some that are shorter based off of how they settled. But yes, it does get dragged out. I do think that the defense wants to drag it out as long as they can on the payment, especially once they've settled and they've cut off that firm. And the firm that settles it and the services behind the scenes have a lot of control over that, hopefully in the sense of they can negotiate that upfront if it's a docket settlement, get their cases to the final stage as quickly as possible through probate, through bankruptcy. But it is something that the defense is clearly doing to drag it out, to drag the payments out after settlement.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's talk about maybe some cases that you can talk about like, I don't know, I see the video addiction stuff. I see, I guess Depo-Provera was the last mass torts made perfect. I know some people like it, some people don't. What are some that you can say, "Hey, I like this one. I don't like this one, even though other people are talking about it"? Or are there any other torts that you can talk about?
Cason Carter:
I think social media is a real interesting one. And I think it's one that I like. I understand that people want to see some progress. But it's never going to be as cheap as it is today. And I think that there are some severe, severe injuries out there. And the other things right now that we're looking at is NEC, very expensive later stage. But anytime a child is affected for the rest of their life, there's a lot of damages related to that. So that one is something that we're very, very close to and we're paying attention to.
Chris Dreyer:
Cason, I think you guys do an amazing job. For the audience listening that wants to do co-counsel with Broughton, wants to get into mass torts, wants to ... See, I'm learning. Wants to allocate some of their advertising towards this area and look at mass torts, how can they get in touch with you?
Cason Carter:
They can get in touch with me by emailing me at cason@broughtonpartners.com. My cell number is 706 835-5124. And then you can visit us at broughtonpartners.com. I will say that if you're looking to do a campaign, I will hand you off to one of our sales team member who do a phenomenal job. They do a better job than me. Absolutely get in touch with me in those ways there and we will make sure to take care of you.
Chris Dreyer:
All right, that's today's toolkit. Here's the bottom line. You don't need to spin up a mass tort department or add a dozen new hires to get in the game. The smart play is to partner. Co-counsel with the right firm, vet your vendors like they're part of your bar card, and focus on ROI that sticks. That's how you scale fast without the overhead. This is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, CEO of Rankings.io. Hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.
