Chris Dreyer:
Hey, everyone, Chris Dreyer here. This is a very special episode of Personal Injury Mastermind. Now, look, I know it's the holiday season, things slow down, offices are quieter, schools are closed. But if you're listening right now, you and I have some things in common. We love the game and we've got that drive, the switch that doesn't turn off. In fact, the new year has literally just begun, so no better time to get it than right now.
As a holiday treat, I'm bringing you an extended conversation with someone who has been in personal injury marketing longer than just about anyone alive. The true legend, Morris Bart, a man so infamous his billboards only say IYKYK, or if you know, you know. He's one of the first lawyers to ever advertise, period, and he never took his foot off the gas. Happy holidays from one lifelong competitor to another. Let's go.
Before we dive into the history, the marketing machine that you've built, the firm, I like to start off with a win. What's something going on? It could be in the courtroom. It could be business in your life. What's a win that comes to mind?
Morris Bart:
What I'm very excited about right now, this is the end of September, 30 days from now, we have our opening game of the Pelicans, our NBA franchise here in New Orleans. I am all in on that. I'm one of their major sponsors. I have what they call the Jack Nicholson seats, where I sit front row court side right next to the players who sit inches away from me. I've actually been given a live segment on the pregame show, which is very unusual, because the NBA has a strict rule that only professional sportscasters can deliver game content on TV, which they consider the pre-game, game, and post-game show.
I wanted to do this several years ago with something I created called The Injury Report. They said, "Absolutely not. He's a lawyer. He's not a professional sportscaster." The team went to bat for me and the NBA said, "Okay, fine. He can do two of them. Send us the tapes, and if he does all right, then we'll approve him to deliver game content." Well, we did that, they approved me, and so I'm proud to say I'm the only non-professional sportscaster in America that's allowed to go on TV and deliver game content. For all those reasons, I am psyched. I'm very excited about the start of the NBA season.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing. I can't wait to see the clip. Those would be TikTok-worthy. I saw on your website you got above the fold. I clicked in that grassroots button for the tickets. I think you're giving away some tickets, you're building the hype, so I'm seeing it in action.
Morris Bart:
Yeah, there's so much we do. I sponsor certain nights, I give away hats, I give away t-shirts. The seats I have, I'm on camera throughout the entire game, so you and all the listeners immediately know the value of that. It just goes on and on what I do. So yeah, 30 days from now, that starts and actually I'm very, very excited about that.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. I want to take it back just briefly. You're one of the first PI attorneys to advertise on television in Louisiana.
Morris Bart:
Actually in America.
Chris Dreyer:
In America.
Morris Bart:
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer:
What gave you the conviction to step in and advertise when no one else was doing it at that moment?
Morris Bart:
All right. Let me give you a quick history and this will be very interesting. Let me get this. I got this in preparation for this podcast. Let's go back. 1977, the Supreme Court in a consumer-based First Amendment decision decides that it's important for the public to know about the availability of legal services because a large segment of the population is underserved. Therefore, they allowed these two legal aid lawyers in Arizona to advertise their services to provide that. Who was that? That was Bates and O'Steen to provide low cost, uncontested legal services to the public and advertise them. They were doing separations and divorce. That was the decision.
Of course, lawyers who are very concerned about precedent, particularly on something so controversial as advertising, that was all that everybody thought you could do was advertise for family law cases, low cost, uncontested separations and divorces. Here I come out of law school, which seems like an eternity ago now, 1978, and I was working for a small business litigation firm. Back then, just like today, the hardest part of being a lawyer is getting business.
I was young, I was ambitious, I was willing to work hard, but I had to get cases. I just saw that as the future, that if I could get cases, if it would work, because nobody knew back then if it would work, if it would work, then I could get the cases and I could achieve my dream of having my own firm. So I quit the law firm I was working for, went on my own, and started advertising for these simple, uncontested separations and divorces. Now, let me show you something interesting, which for everyone who advertises, this is... As far as I know, I'm the only one in America that has this. When I was in law school, there was a urban legend going around that Abraham Lincoln used to advertise. Did you know that, Chris?
Chris Dreyer:
I have heard this story. Yes, sir. I think I heard it from you.
Morris Bart:
Probably.
Chris Dreyer:
I think it was a small reference, but please tell our audience. I love this.
Morris Bart:
Yeah. I had heard that. I didn't know if it was true, but I had a friend of mine who had a sports memorabilia and historical document business in Aspen. I told him, I said, "Look, Mark, when you go around to these different conferences, if you ever come across Abraham Lincoln's legal ad, let me know." Well, about a year later, he calls me, he says, "Look, I'm in Chicago and there's someone here, believe it or not, that has the Springfield newspaper from 1857, April 1857, an original copy. On the front page is Abraham Lincoln's ad."
I bought it and I put it in a hermetically sealed frame. Let's see. I'll try and I'll give you an idea. That's the Daily Illinois State Journal from April 1857. In there on the front page, here you go. If you look down, you'll see Lincoln and Herndon, which is good old Honest Abe, running an ad for services as a lawyer in 1857, three years before he got elected to the White House in 1860. We have a very noteworthy and significant background for us advertising lawyers.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Then anybody who'll give you a little pushback and you'd be like, "Well, hey, Honest Abe, he was advertising."
Morris Bart:
Whenever I've done media interviews over the years and the reporters come to my office, I always make a point of showing them that ad so that when they talk about me... Not so much now, but it used to be in the very early years, because I was one of the first advertisers in America and I think the second or third lawyer in America to go on TV and advertise personal injury, which was very unusual. Again, nobody knew if it would work. When they would come in a very cynical way to interview me, I'd always make sure I showed them Honest Abe's ad.
Chris Dreyer:
That's great. I had a conversation with Mr. Ross Cellino. I think he attributed to getting on TV formerly with Cellino & Barnes, now at Cellino Law. I had a conversation with you, you showed him how to do it, and it was quite successful, of course, in New York.
Morris Bart:
Well, they took whatever advice I gave him and multiplied it many times and did extremely well. I'm very proud of them.
Chris Dreyer:
I got to ask you. I got to lean in into this. You had that conviction to do the TV advertising.
Morris Bart:
Right.
Chris Dreyer:
Do you see anything that gives the same feelings, OTT, programmatic, podcasting, AI, influencer, marketing? Is there anything or was that just a unique beast of its own, TV, because it hadn't been done?
Why personal injury marketing saturation rewards firms that focus on longevity instead of short-term tactics
Morris Bart:
Yeah, it's a unique moment in time. I think the lesson to be learned from that, which I would throw out to everyone watching this, is that sometimes you have to just follow your gut. Everybody said I was wrong. Several lawyers in New Orleans who I greatly respected said, "You better hope this advertising works because you'll never get a job in New Orleans again. You'll have to move out of town," which is okay. I was looking around. "Okay, maybe I'll go to Atlanta. Maybe I'll move to Memphis." Because I didn't know if it would work and I took their words to heart that I would never be able to get a job in New Orleans again. Fortunately, of course, it did work beyond my wildest dreams. I think you have to follow your intuition, and that's what I did.
I guess what shocks me today is I never imagined there would be such competition in the marketplace. I thought, "Yeah, a few lawyers might follow what I do." And I remember thinking, "Oh, man, we might have five lawyers on television one day." I never expected to have 40 different lawyers on television in New Orleans and pretty much in every city in America. Television, buses, billboards, PR, the digital space. I mean, whoever thought there'd be so much competition? Apparently, there's a lot of business out there because everybody's advertising and everybody's spending hundreds of millions of dollars collectively advertising. I didn't realize there was that much business that would support that many lawyers and that the marketplace would be so hyper competitive.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. You got everybody trying to do what you're doing down to... And I know you had some fun with the if you know, you know. I got on the TikTok rabbit hole and went down that rabbit hole and what that was about. I liked it. You got some attention, some earned media, and some viral people talking about it on social. That was quite fun. I heard and I believe this is in Michael Mogill's podcast, which is a great episode that you guys did, you said something along the lines of, "If you're not a top spender, it's tough to win nowadays." Is that because you need to get the economies from a buying power? Is it the saturation? How do you think? How do you break that down?
How branding and visibility differ in personal injury law, and why most firms confuse recognition with demand
Morris Bart:
Well, it really is just saturation. It's just getting out there. I mean, you're fighting for that front of mind awareness in the consumer and in a marketplace that's so glutted. Most consumers aren't even interested, because you don't pay attention to lawyers until you actually need their services, but yet everywhere they look, they're inundated with lawyer ads. It's a total saturation. What I want to do is I want to establish myself in the front of their mind. It's not just saying, "Injured, I fight, I get you the most money, call me," which has gotten to be so pedestrian. I mean, everybody says that. We've heard it a million times. There's nothing special about it, but it still amazes me that all these advertising agencies in America, that's all they can come up with. They're not any more creative than that.
But you have to be more creative. You have to do things to break through the clutter. Going back to what I just said about my association with the Pelicans, I'm all in on that. I don't just put, "Sponsored by Morris Bart," or, "Morris Bart is a sponsor of the Pelicans." I mean, I'm there at every game. That's a huge commitment. There's 41 home games. Those of you that have an NBA franchise know this. You have 41 home games, 41 games on the road. I go to every game. I invite lawyers we deal with, doctors we deal with, politicians, and lawyers in the office, lawyers who have done a good job on the case. Everyone sees me. I'm all in on that. It is something that personally myself and my family enjoy greatly.
But on top of that professionally, it's very important, because it gives a personality and a persona to me over and above just being Morris Bart, the injury lawyer, which they see me and they've seen me for decades. Of course I have branding, but there's got to be some unique aspect to your personality and what you do. That's what I have latched onto. I'm also very philanthropic. I give big dollars not just for marketing. A lot of it's done quietly just because I want to help my community. A couple of years ago, I gave a million dollars to the Second Harvest Food Bank here in New Orleans, which money is to be used to feed hungry children in the New Orleans area. If you've been successful, I think you have to give back. Not only it's the right thing to do, but it makes you feel good about who you are.
You start putting all those together, and there's so many things I do like that, but it doesn't flow where I look at it and say, "Okay, I'm going to do this just because it's good for business." I do it because it's a cause that interests me, whether it's philanthropic, whether it's sports. It's something I really care about doing and that provides different shades on your personality, so that when people look at you, they think of you as a local person, someone that... I've been fortunate everybody tells me, "Oh, you're the biggest celebrity in New Orleans." It's good to know that because it's hard to achieve a persona like that.
But it comes from not just being a lawyer and doing a good job, which I'm going to shock everybody and tell you right now, I come to my office five days a week and that's, I think, a very important component of being successful. But I love what I do, I love people. As you put that together, I think every one of your listeners should think, "What can I do to establish a persona for myself in a positive way in my community?" It's not just by giving money, it's not just by throwing your name up on television, "This segment brought to you by blank, blank law firm." You got to be all in. You got to be all in.
Chris Dreyer:
Well said. I think the go-giver mentality that you have, you don't expect anything in return and you receive in return. You don't expect it. You're doing it because you love the people, you're part of the community. I also like a couple of things you mentioned that just made me think, on the other side, you can't stick the gecko in a courtside chair. I think maybe the Jake from State Farm, he has that celebrity, but you, you're at the game and people feel that you're part of the community.
Right before I watched, I was prepping, doing my research for the questions I wanted to ask that weren't repeated a bunch. I got on TikTok and they said, "Well, you know you're from New Orleans if you know this." They put your picture up and they asked what the tagline was. And of course, one call, that's all. It was awesome, because they were going back and forth and they feel you're a part of the community. They're like, "You're a part of community if you know this."
Morris Bart:
Well, in a way, I guess my role model for that is Coca-Cola, which I don't think they do it as much. But when I was growing up, every year Coca-Cola in the summertime would come out with some killer song or slogan and change what they would do and everybody would anticipate that. It would be like, "Okay, this summer, what's Coca-Cola going to do on their commercials?" I'd read they did that, because even though at that time they were the number one soft drink in America, they had to keep it fresh. They had to keep it front of mind.
I changed mine not every year, but I used to say, "I'm on your side. I'm on your side." I used to do that for years and years and years. Occasionally, I'd do a throwback ad where I'll do the I'm on your side and occasionally I have people come up to me when they see me and they go, "Yeah, Morris Bart, I'm on your side." I always tease them and go, "Wow, you've been watching TV a long time."
And then I transitioned from that to one call, that's all. That one really got legs and used by lawyers all over America. But when I created that, I had no idea it would stick. It was going to be the slogan du jour. I would use it for maybe a year or two years. I never would have dreamed in the year 2025 I would still use one call, that's all.
And then I've segued, I wanted to do something more digital-related, and came up with the IYKYK, which also got legs and has been very powerful. I use that now for a couple of years, so I'm starting to think what's going to be the next one and I'll move on to something else. I think it's important to keep it fresh, particularly as long as I've been doing it. I don't want to get stale. I want to keep the ads fresh and new. I'm the spokesperson, which they've seen me on TV for, God knows, 40-plus years, so I've got to come up with interesting things to keep it fresh.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's fantastic. You have multiple of these assets that you can use and deploy in different scenarios, t-shirts, wearables. I heard with Elon Musk and he was talking about the automobile injury and how it's tough to break in, because most of the auto manufacturers make all the revenue from repairs from their existing fleet. I started thinking about the PI attorneys and their systemic marketing and their referrals and how they get a lot of business if they treat the clients right and deliver good value.
How do you think a new attorney breaks into the PI space with the market as saturated as it is? I mean, you've got six figures in the top 10 of your TV on your monthly buys and you go to radio and you've got, you said, 40 on TV, you got 10 on your urban radios and different radio stations. What's the recipe to break in if you're a PI attorney starting off?
Morris Bart:
I think you have to question, "Do I want to be a PI attorney?" Because the issue is if you're going into a hyper-competitive, totally saturated space, which is personal injury, unless you have family money or source to borrow millions of dollars, I don't see how you're going to do it. I don't have an answer for that. I don't see how you can do that. However, there's other areas of law. Maybe you'd look at Social Security, maybe you'd look at workers' comp, maybe you'd look at premise liability, cases where it's not... As a young lawyer, you don't want to get involved with, say, medical malpractice, which is going to take years for a case to come to fruition. You're going to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on experts. No, you don't want to do that.
Everybody likes PI because it can be quick and easy. It's got a short shelf life, six months, nine months, and you can turn it. You're dealing with insurance adjusters, probably the only area of law geared towards settlement versus other areas of law are geared towards litigation. But that's why that space is glutted. If you pick a niche area, whatever that area is, and try to develop that, then you can go on digital, whether it's a paid or non-paid presence. You have your SEO, you do your PPC campaign, maybe social media... I'm a little iffy about social media. I think it's not as great as it is professed to be. That's just me. Other people might have it, but I got to say I have not seen anyone in the space of personal injury that says, "Oh, yeah, because of my social media campaign, I generate a lot of cases."
Sure, you could do it if you're going to do workers' comp or if you're going to do mass tort or if you're going to do hurricane or some specialty tort. Sure, it works for that. I got it. But if you think you're going to do that on just general personal injury, particularly automobile personal injury, when in your city you've got lawyers spending millions and millions of dollars on TV and billboards to brand themselves, I don't see it working.
I guess getting back to your question, how do you break in as a personal injury lawyer? I have two answers. Number one, if you have millions of dollars at your disposal, you can break in. If you don't have that, I would encourage you to seek some sort of specialty area, build yourself up, start making money, start getting your name out with that specialty, and then you could branch off. I mean, an area that fascinates me, I haven't looked at it yet, is immigration for obvious reasons. I mean, that's a hot button issue. In every community, particularly in the Southern US, there's got to be thousands and thousands of people that need the services of an immigration lawyer that maybe you establish yourself that way, they get hurt in car wrecks, they come to you. You start slowly and methodically building up from there, and then you establish yourself. Or maybe you love immigration law so much, you decide, "I don't want to be a personal injury lawyer. I want to do immigration."
There's opportunities, but you got to be creative. You got to follow your gut and see where it leads you.
How established personal injury firms plan for the future without chasing every new marketing trend
Chris Dreyer:
I love that answer. Yeah, the niching, laser pointing, all that capital you can deploy, that intentionality. I'm going to flip it on the other side for the big dogs listening. We were joking about Mr. Frank Azar from Colorado. I've got some other big firms listening that maybe they are one of those top three big TV spenders. Do they start deploying 10%, 20% over to programmatic, streaming TV, CTV? How do you think about the shift of attention? How are you thinking about it?
Morris Bart:
You got several things here. If you're a major advertiser, if you're the number one advertiser in your market, number one, you have to keep spending to dominate the market. Your foundation is TV and billboards. Once you have dominated that, not as an alternative, but first you need to continue dominating TV and billboards, then you can look at other media. I mean, media is so diffused now. I grew up at a time when you turned on television, you had three channels: CBS, NBC, and ABC. There wasn't even Fox. There was just three of them and that's it.
Now you've got 900 channels, and those 900 channels are in second place behind streaming, which has taken over. Major advertisers, they need to just preserve what they have by dominating the traditional media in their marketplace and then you just grind it out. It's not pretty. It's a glutted marketplace. You just grind it out until the smaller players, the undercapitalized, the overborrowed players, the money catches up to them. You got to pay the piper. And then they end up dropping out, business reconsolidates in the major players, and you go from there.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's switch over and we'll move over to intake next. A lot of times, people are deploying all this money, but they've got a hole in the boat. They're not capturing. What's the tech stack look like? Are you a Salesforce, a Lead Docket, a Clio? How do you think about intake as a whole?
Why the call center determines whether personal injury marketing spend turns into signed cases
Morris Bart:
I think of it as a fishing net with big holes in it. That is the critical component of the operation. If you look at it, let's say a line, a continuum with three blips in it. The first blip is marketing. You got to do your marketing right to make the phone ring. The third blip is lawyers that are handling the cases. You got to make sure you have good lawyers. But the critical juncture is your call center, or another way to look at it would be like a fast food place. McDonald's can advertise all they want, but if you go to the counter and you get bad service and they don't care, then it's not going to convert to a sale of injury calls you want.
You should convert no less than 90%. We're around 92, 95% of all injury calls we get, we convert to actual signups. It's a person to person business. So when you say Salesforce, Lead Docket, I think we use Lead Docket. I'm not sure. And you know what? It doesn't matter to me, because what I'm more interested in is who are we hiring? How do I motivate them? Who do I have supervising them? And do we listen to calls afterwards? Either live calls or afterwards, do we listen to calls to make sure they're empathetic, to make sure they're compassionate, to make sure that they know how to close the deal? It's still a person to person visit. It can't be done by computer. It can't be done by computer synthesized voices.
You have to have a live person get on the phone and talk in a compassionate way, take charge of the conversation, do a good job for the call, do good PR on the call so that they instill in that caller that they've called the right place, because they can easily hang up and call somebody else. You instill in that caller, "This is the right firm." My screener should say, "We're going to do a great job for you. My firm handles this. Within 24 hours, we'll have your file in the hands of the attorney that's going to call you and do an in depth interview with you, which we require." And then we get to sign up and go. I focus on the people.
Now, I have an IT department and an administrator and they focus on the software and the metrics that we're going to use to track everybody and what we do. I'm not that concerned about it, although I think it's necessary to have that and they show me the metrics which are important, but I would encourage everybody to listen. That is maybe the most critical aspect of your entire operation is having a call center staffed by really good people that understand the mission, that are properly motivated, and so they will sell your firm. Think, again, McDonald's and people are coming up to the counter. You got to have people at the counter that are going to make the customer feel welcome.
Chris Dreyer:
You're one of the few firms of your size that you got 100-plus attorneys. So you're not running the pre-lit, high volume, not trying cases. I mean, you're trying cases. You've got 100-plus attorneys.
Morris Bart:
Yeah, we're doing both actually.
Chris Dreyer:
This is what I see in this space right now. You got the MSOs and referral firms that are just sending out everything and they miss out on referrals because they're not working up the cases, you got the pre-lit only that maybe just very few litigation cases, and then you got some that just do try cases. But you're the hybrid. You do the pre-lit and the lit. Tell me about the model, why it works for you, why you've leaned in this direction over the years.
Morris Bart:
Well, I guess it starts with me that, in my early days of advertising, I did everything. I've done every job in the firm. I used to get the cases. I used to answer the phone. I used to handle all of it pre-suit. I was the litigator in the firm. It used to be that lawyers... I mean, when I was a young lawyer, lawyers try cases. It's not like you pound your chest and go, "Oh, I'm a trial attorney. I'm this and that." It's like, "No, I'm a lawyer and that's what lawyers do." I tried dozens of cases and had lots and lots of jury trials I did. That was my background as I developed and so I really knew no other way. I mean, that's what I did.
As I got more and more cases, I hired lawyers that were going to emulate what I did, which is to work it up pre-suit. And if it didn't settle, file suit and take that sucker to trial. That's how I was raised professionally and that's what they did. Pretty much, that's the model today. With the number of lawyers I have, it's on a continuum. I have some lawyers, let's say at one end of the continuum, that never want to go to court. They're very happy to come to the office every day, handle pre-suit cases. They're extremely valuable to the firm. They do a great job. They make a great salary for themselves and they're happy.
I have lawyers at the other end of the continuum that never want to see a pre-suit case. They only want to see cases that go into litigation. Most of the lawyers at your typical bell-shaped curve, most of the lawyers fall in the middle, where they have a mixed caseload of pre-suit and litigated cases and they have qualified, meaning we watch them very carefully to make sure... We're not going to let everybody litigate, but if they have the wherewithal and the abilities to litigate, then, yeah, they can do both. And of course, each lawyer is very valuable. As long as they're willing to work hard and do their job well, then there's lots of cases and plenty of success everybody can achieve.
Chris Dreyer:
Talk to me about the future. We're playing the guessing game. Right now, you've got the robotaxis, you've got the Waymos over in Arizona, you've got the collision detection. I've been in the space for over a decade. I've been in the PI space. I'm not an attorney myself, but I've heard people talk about it, but now it's coming a little bit more real. You get in a Tesla, the Tesla can drive itself, not to say they won't have issues. What do you think about the future of auto?
Morris Bart:
What I would tell everybody is very simply don't worry about that. That's ridiculous. When I was in law school, I was working for a personal injury lawyer and he was handling just simple car wreck cases pre-suit. That's all he did. He was a former insurance adjuster and the guy had a great personality. I loved working for him and I was a senior in law school. I asked him if he would hire me when I graduate. I said, "You need an associate. I'm helping with all these cases." I'll never forget he told me, he goes, "Listen," he goes, "don't do what I do." He said, "Right now in Canada, they're talking about two no-fault plans they've implemented in Canada and one of those two plans are going to get adopted in America. We're going to have no-fault insurance in America in the next year or two and that will be the end of the personal injury world."
It was so real that, in law school, they taught us both plans. I still remember one was a Saskatchewan plan. I forgot the name of the other one, but they were so convinced that the law schools were all teaching these two no-fault plans because they were going to come in and that would be the end of it. Okay, here we are, God knows. Over 40 years later, thank God I didn't listen to that. Everybody thought for sure that's the end of it. I remember, oh, my good friend, Sam Bernstein in Detroit, Michigan. Sam used to tell me, "It's over. It's over. In Michigan, we're adopting no fault." They did adopt something, but believe me, his firm and his son, Mark, has taken it over. They're doing just fine. They got nothing to worry about. But this was decades ago he told me this was over.
I remember my friend Jim Sokolov in Boston. Jim was doing it way before he sold out and retired and moved to California, but he used to tell me in his Bostonian accent, "It's time to harvest. You got to harvest now because this business is going away." Here I am. My firm's bigger than it's ever been. We're doing great in the face of all these challenges and competition and everything else. Because of all those reasons, what I've learned and what I tell the lawyers here, it's going to be fine. Don't you worry about it. It's going to be plenty of business. You might have to pivot a little bit sometimes and do things a little different, but ultimately it'll be fine.
This past year, we have a very conservative governor and Republican governor, Judge Jeff Landry, here in Louisiana. His desire this past legislative session was to get the lawyers. He called me out by name. I became the poster child of tort reform in Louisiana. I had many of the lawyers in the firm, "Oh, my God, what's going to happen? Are we going to lose our job?" And I said, "Don't worry about it. It's going to be fine." And sure enough, the political process is such that by the time they get finished with it, it's molded into something that's not nearly as catastrophic as everybody thought. Certainly, what came out of the legislative session was some changes, but nothing that affects anything we really do.
Chris Dreyer:
I think I saw your post on Instagram. You had a little fun with that too.
Morris Bart:
I did have fun with that.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. I love the optimism, the half glass full, the optimist. And look, that's me too. I want to ask you just another one that's on everybody's mind. I've had different attorneys. I've had the pros and cons. Arizona's got their ABS, Utah's got their ABS testing ground, you got DC, you got Puerto Rico.
Morris Bart:
Right.
Chris Dreyer:
What do you think about that side of the business? You got the PE funding. I guess they came in through the torts and now they're swinging over to the auto and single event. What's your thoughts on that?
Morris Bart:
Right now, it's not nearly as pervasive as everybody thinks. In Arizona, I know because I went to a presentation about it from the top lawyer that does these hybrid firms in Arizona. She said that, this was in the last year, there's like 132 firms that have been approved to do a hybrid model and it's very strict. They have to have a physical location. They have to have Arizona-licensed lawyers working in that location. They have to be handling Arizona cases. They're not putting up with what everybody believes is happening, that there's some private equity firm that does a wink wink law firm in Arizona and that sets it up. That's really not happening.
Now, yes, I know there's other hybrid models, where they're setting up a shadow corporation that does the marketing and the management. And so they don't really own the law firm, the law firm owns the law firm and they own the marketing company and they can split it that way. Those, I think, are all going to go pop. I don't see those working at all, but it's out there. It could spread. We'll have to deal with that when we do.
I guess my biggest concern... And again, when I say concerns, remember, I think about it, but I'm not worried about it, because when it comes around, you then look at it, you bob and weave and pivot and you'll be just fine. What's concerned me is the dominance of Google in the marketplace. Imagine if Google comes up with their own list of preferred lawyers in every city in America and charges us a fortune to be on that list. When someone Googles best injury lawyer in Phoenix or Atlanta or Chicago, up comes the Google list.
That would be something that we'd have to pay out the wazoo to be on that list. And who knows when that's going to go? They've got something similar, of course, with now what they're doing on the Google Maps and things like that. But who knows? Again, don't worry about it now. Deal with the marketplace like it is, and when and if changes come, we'll deal with it at that time.
Chris Dreyer:
On the Google side, everyone's talking about ChatGPT and the LLM. I think it has 600 million weekly users to some degree, but I don't think people understand the ecosystem that Google has. If Google went entirely AI mode, we're not talking about 600 million. We're talking about 15 billion between Waymo, Gmail, Google, Gemini. They just put AI on Chrome. In terms of distribution, I mean, they have it once they activate it all. Yes, very interesting times. I heard an interview, you said the money stopped motivating you now. Now competition and responsibility to the people are your main motivators. Talk to me about through that and about the purpose of this for you.
Morris Bart:
Yeah. Well, it was an interesting personal journey, personal development for me, because I think, like most young lawyers, I came from a middle class family and I was the first lawyer. I wanted to make money. I wanted to be successful and I was willing to work my ass off to do it, which is really a very important point I'd like to make, and that is I wish I could say there's some easy way to success. But every single person I know that's successful, doctor, lawyers, CPA, politicians, professional athletes, NBA players, everyone that's been successful in their field of endeavor has worked their ass off. When I look back over my career, it's the same thing.
There's no easy way out. You have to work your ass off. That's what I did. I always had this naive goal in my head that, "Man, if I'm going to make a lot of money," I used to think, "I'm going to get a big freaking cruiser, some big boat and I'm just going to cruise the Greek islands and that's how I'm going to live." I was blessed. I was successful. I ended up making a lot of money. And then all of a sudden I said, "Okay, well, I guess I could do that now, but I like dealing with people. I like the celebrity status that I've been able to attain in New Orleans and helping people." I liked all of that. It almost sounds cliche like an ad, but I realized that's part and parcel of who I am. So now I do it.
Number one, I like the competition. The more competition I get, the more it gets those creative juices flowing and the more I want to just stay in the game. Just stay in the game, I think that's what it boils down to. At a certain age, there's no right or wrong. We all go through a predictable path in life. The first stage of life, we're in school, we're learning what we want to do, who we are, how we're going to make money.
The second stage of life, and I know there's exceptions but generally the second stage of life then, you're doing that. You're making money, you have a companion, perhaps you're starting a family, and that takes you through the second stage of life. The third stage of life isn't as clear. I have a lot of friends of mine that have retired and they're very happy with their choice. They're leading a wonderful life. You have some that retire from what they did and then they do something else, maybe another career, maybe something philanthropic. God bless them. That's great.
And then you have some like me that say, "No, I don't want to leave. I don't want to put myself out to pasture. I want to stay in the game." That's the category I feel and that's what makes me happy. Nobody's wrong. You have the choice at this later stage of life of what you want to do. What you think you might want to do at your age, Chris, is not necessarily how you're going to feel when you get to be my age.
Chris Dreyer:
Fair point. Fair point. I love the game. I love the game. A lot of my competitors have sold. They've sold to PE and I'm still in, founder-led. I enjoy the game as well.
Morris Bart:
And what are your friends doing now?
Chris Dreyer:
A few of them, they're working for the PE trying to hit that earn out for the next couple years. We'll see what happens, see where they go. These individuals are very talented, but who knows? I tried to do that advanced retrospective and think, "Well, what would I do after?" And for me, Morris, I couldn't figure the hell out, so I couldn't figure it out. I love what I do.
Morris Bart:
And ultimately, that's the goal in life. I mean, it's to do something you enjoy. Some people are great musicians, but they put that on the side their whole life and they practice law and they raised a family. I have a friend of mine that retired from law and now he leads one of the main Jewish philanthropic organizations here in New Orleans. Very happy with that. You can do things like that, but I'm not a musician. I play a little golf, but mainly I'm a runner. I've loved to run my whole life. I just get out and run and that's fine. That's all I need to do.
It just becomes who you are and what you are once you get past the necessity of, "Hey, I got to make a living. I got to provide for myself and my family." If you do what you enjoy, whether you make a lot of money or medium amount... You got to make money, but if you do what you enjoy, then you're going to lead a happy and fulfilled life. It's as easy as that. It doesn't matter what stage of life you're in. It's all a matter of doing what you enjoy.
Chris Dreyer:
Well said. I love that. Morris, for our audience listening that maybe have some questions, maybe they want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Morris Bart:
Well, I'll give you my email and I'm usually pretty good about getting responses out. I'm getting a few hundred email a day now. It's hard to get through all of that. Sometimes when people ask me, "What do you do for a living," I say I'm a reader because I feel like that's all I do. I read email, I read text, I read memos that come across my desk. But my email address is morrisbart@morrisbart.com. It's very easy. Yeah, sure, someone has a question, I enjoy getting that. As long as I don't get inundated with questions, I'll be happy to reply.
Chris Dreyer:
Love it. Morris, thank you for coming on the show. I really enjoyed it.
Morris Bart:
Sure. Thanks, Chris. I enjoyed it. This was a lot of fun.
Chris Dreyer:
If you're looking for a performance marketing partner who thinks the same way you do, someone who wakes up every day focused on getting better, pushing harder, and leveling up, we should talk. You can find us at rankings.io.
