Mark Breyer:
Everyone that's listening to this, if they are part of a personal injury law office, is losing money on intake. Every one of them.
Chris Dreyer:
Intake. It's the silent killer of law firm growth. You spend millions on marketing, you hire the best attorneys, but the case is lost before it ever gets to them.
Mark Breyer:
There's no room for mistakes on intake. None. You don't treat someone well in intake, you haven't developed any trust. They're gone.
Chris Dreyer:
That is Mark Breyer, co-founder of The Husband & Wife Law Team. He's gone from working with just his wife to running a multi-state personal injury powerhouse by treating intake more like trial prep, and operations more like a manufacturing plan.
This is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the elite performance marketing agency for personal injury law firms. Today, Mark Breyer shows us why he puts retirement age trial skills on intake calls, why he hired an industrial systems engineer to run his firm, and how he went viral on TikTok and amassed over 300,000 followers. But first, we talk a little about his presentation at PIMCON 2025. First of all, props to you for doing the breakdance to doing the moves on the stage. That's amazing.
Mark Breyer:
Because what I was going to say may not have been good, so we got to at least start with getting some attention. I don't know if I'm allowed to share this, but I'm going to share it anyway.
When you go to these events, any event, we've all been to a million of them, right? And some are great. I reject the idea that if you get one thing, it was worth it. No way. I just don't agree. So, we're there. It's information overload. Some people resonate with you, some people less, but you're listening the whole time. What was amazing about what you did that I have not seen done was the lights and the music, and it changes the vibe, right?
Now, when someone's up there speaking, they're just speaking. But when you can get a little energy going just by the framing of it, I really think it changes it and it breaks up things really well, and I'm totally stealing it.
Chris Dreyer:
Thank you. Thank you. That's a huge compliment. It's the show, right? It lends itself to energy. And I think when we're excited, when we're paying attention, we collect information, we see things a little differently. So, thank you for that. I appreciate you sharing that. That's awesome.
Mark Breyer:
You earned it. My team knows it. I just happened to be on with you to share it.
Chris Dreyer:
Walk me through how intake used to work for the firm and then how it's kind of transitioned to the future and where it's at now, some of the big changes you made.
How Top Personal Injury Firms Design First-Call Workflows That Convert Before They Need Follow-Up
Mark Breyer:
Chris, I'm going to do it, but you're going to have to cut me off. So, when our whole team is together or when big parts of the team are together and we're talking about the operation and we're increasing communication, I am not shy about saying that intake is the most important part of the operation, but I want to explain it. I explained it to the team, I explained it then.
Clearly, nothing is more important than the legal team producing an amazing product in two ways: getting the client's better results and treating the clients better. You can't replace that. You can see the difference. The average consumer may not know the difference, but in terms of the outcome and the experience, those two things, there's no room for mistakes on intake. None.
You take 15 minutes to talk to someone on intake, they may well be gone. You don't treat someone well on intake, you haven't developed any trust. They're gone. So, it is near and dear to my heart. I know there's a lot of people out there talking about it. I'll just say it, as an owner who's gone from just my wife and me, literally not just the only lawyers, the only employees. Now we're in two states, depending on when soon we'll be in three or four.
And so here's what intake has changed. First of all, everyone that's listening to this, if they are part of a personal injury law office, is losing money on intake. Every one of them, everyone. We are so intentional and it just helps us lose less. And it is amazing to me how often I talk to people who will put so much effort and time and money and thought into their marketing without putting at least as much into the intake.
It's like one hand clapping. Here, I have a leader of intake and I have a leader of marketing, and they have to have their own meeting every week because they are mutually dependent on each other. So, what we used to do, and I'll tell you a quick story, Chris, we had a team member who answered all the calls. Now, let me tell you about this team member. Bright as you can get, great with people. Everything about her was an A player.
So, one day on a Sunday, we used to work Sundays all the time, it was just my wife and me we're there on a Sunday. And all of a sudden my wife goes, "Let me go through these intake calls." I started listening to this employee's calls. I lost my flipping mind, Chris. We were losing money with a great employee, and here's why.
It would be things like, "I got a ticket and do you help me with the ticket?" But what they weren't asking was, "Who was in the car with you?" So, we had one of those calls from that time that literally where my wife heard, and they called the person, where the person happened to mention, "I'm in the hospital with my sister who was in the passenger seat who's badly hurt." So, it was a huge injury case from a sister who had significant insurance that she would've wanted to help her sister. So, we had a great employee, but if you are not listening in... And now with some of the tools, I don't know if we'll get into it. We have spent a lot of this year delving into AI. Right now, AI is great for some things, but for a lot of the promise, it's still promise, in my opinion.
We have dug pretty deep into this, but when it comes to intake, there are some AI tools, several, many that can play a backup role that actually can help your intake team on some of these things. So, I don't think it's ready on a number of things yet. I think it's making its way there. I think it still has tons of inaccuracies. I think if you rely on it, you're going to regret it. As of today when I'm talking, I think that will evolve.
But for intake, there are lot of ways to protect yourself. So, what do we do? Every call is recorded. As it comes in, it has an AI background that is listening in. So, it then updates you. We have a series of questions that are filled out in our program, so that you're not requiring the intake agent to know. Every call goes to a lawyer or doesn't go to a lawyer based on injuries, not liability or causation or ability to pay.
Let me explain that. In a lot of cases, people take their literally lowest paid team members and let them decide which cases we sign up, and let them decide which cases talk to a lawyer. But any lawyer on this call knows that there are exceptions to rules. Like God forbid someone has a horrible brain injury and it's five years after the event, well, their statute of limitations hold. If you start teaching that to someone who doesn't have the experience, the know-how, if you do teach them that, they start applying it to the wrong things and make mistakes. If you don't teach them that, they're making mistakes.
Why Senior Attorney Involvement on Initial Calls Increases Trust and Case Quality
Mark Breyer:
So, if the injuries are bad enough, we have a lawyer available. Another thing we do that people will think is too expensive, but it's been very helpful for us, is that we have a retirement age trial lawyer, and we have many of them because now at our size, but it started with one. Now we have a whole team of men and women who mostly are at ages... They have stood in the well, they have tried cases, they have been there, and we put them on the phone with potential new clients if the injuries are bad enough.
Why? Because when you are competing against a non-lawyer or a paralegal or a salesperson, and now they're talking to our team member, and our team member is a lawyer who's been there, there's a credibility... And we're much more likely to make the right decision as well.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm going to do some rapid fires on this because I want to go to the engineering, but so are you Salesforce, Amazon Connect? Are you doing Speed.ai, Balto?
Mark Breyer:
So interesting you should ask. Right now, we've been running RingSense to do our AI. RingSense is a side product to RingCentral.
Chris Dreyer:
Yep. Great. I got one more for you to test, it's Balto, in the future. But yeah, I think that's amazing. So, are you overlaying on Lead Docket? Is that what your CRD-
Mark Breyer:
Yeah, we have Lead Docket, which I can give you my pluses and minuses of Lead Docket. Lead Docket is an incredible program. Harlan Schillinger was hugely involved in writing it. It's great. I don't think it's built on as good of a platform as Filevine and Litify, which of course has the Salesforce advantage. But in terms of from my tech team, which is not me, sometimes there's limitations. But overall great program.
Chris Dreyer:
Great. Thank you for that. That was amazing. That was a great overview. Thank you for that.
Mark Breyer:
I will try to keep it shorter, Chris.
Chris Dreyer:
Well, look, I got to dig into this, right? The engineering move, right? So, you made a decision to hire this... and I'm trying to think of the title.
There's a massive difference between answering the phone and intake. Mark realized that a friendly voice isn't enough to capture high-value cases. To maximize your chances, you need a legal IQ. That's why he pays for retired trial lawyers to handle calls. It's an expensive front-end investment that pays off in conversion, but signing the case is just the first step. Now you have to move it forward.
This is where Mark deviates from the standard approach. He didn't hire a seasoned legal administrator to run operations. He ended up hiring someone who doesn't view the practice as a law firm, but does something closer to a manufacturing plant.
You hired like a systems engineer and basically rebuilt your operations. So, talk to me about this. First of all, this is not a common legal role. You might have an OPs person, but this is taking it to another level because first of all, you got the word engineer, and if you have a director or anything in front of it, you're talking an investment here. So, we won't say cost. Talk to me about this role, how you applied it.
Mark Breyer:
The role was not intentional. We were looking for a director of operations. Someone showed up who's an industrial systems engineer, and like most industrial and systems engineers, had worked in manufacturing environments. That's really, I think, where they're meant to be. By the way, as quick aside for any of the readers out there, there's a book called The Goal, and I'm trying to remember the name of the author. I'll try to look it up later.
Chris Dreyer:
Worst cover ever.
Mark Breyer:
Oh, so you read it?
Chris Dreyer:
Yes, yeah.
How Real-Time Dashboards Expose Intake Slowdowns That Quietly Cost Firms Cases
Mark Breyer:
In effect, that's like Systems Engineering for Dummies, which I'm the dummy, right? But it was a great book because it helped me ask more questions. But so he raised his hand and he said, and basically he said to me, "I don't know if I can help you because I've never worked in this environment, but I think I can."
And I said to him, "I don't know if you can help me either, and you might be great." So, we made a deal on a 90-day trial. He had just left the manufacturing in effect, and we said, "Let's try this for 90 days, you don't have a job. This sounds like it might work." Absolutely has revolutionized everything about what we do. So, you want a happy team, everyone... I talked to people, "Oh, I got great culture. I've got great culture." Ask most business owners, how do they know they have great culture?
"So-and-so tells me." We get to do anonymous surveys of our team, which you can do in any way. We do a net promoter score, we track our retention rate within our team, both voluntary, involuntary. We do a lot because I believe that it is an investment in people to put more into training, more into hiring, more into onboarding. It's upfront costs, but having people who stick around and love it, I believe has huge value.
Even for something as simple as the team, it's game changing. How happy are our clients? Well, we survey every client and every potential new client. You call our office for a divorce case because you see The Husband and Wife Law Team, so you just assume that's divorce, which has happened many times each week, from what I'm told. So, we send you a survey. We know how happy not only our potential new clients are and our clients, but with our potential new clients, we know who you talk to, what lawyer, if you talk to a lawyer, what intake person, if you talked to an intake person.
We track them everywhere. So, we're able to see how happy, how are we serving our clients and potential new clients. Internally, we have this team, the business intelligence team here led by this engineer, who now has another engineer on the team in addition to others he's trained. But these engineers or this group have created things for efficiency. So, everyone on my team, we've built our own platform, and obviously we doesn't mean me. I couldn't write a single line of code.
SO, everyone on the team pulls up their dashboard. They can see every single deadline in green, yellow, or red. The air managers could see every single deadline in green, yellow, and red. Not just individually, but in phases. If a case should move, we do a lot of more serious injury work, but we also do a lot of cases that aren't.
If someone's lucky, not lucky that they're hurt, but lucky that it's not serious, and they're in a typical case, then you probably want to know 90 days in, you probably want to know, "Are they done treating?" Or whatever you make up. But we're all relying on our team members to remember how much better, if we can not only show them that have it pop up, which Filevine can do as well, but in their dashboard we can track and go, "Hey, does this lawyer move his cases stage by stage in the expected amount of time?" And we can do it by case type. Because God forbid someone's hit by a tractor trailer, you know that unfortunately on average, that stage of that case, the treating stage in this example, is going to take longer.
We can track stages. We can track individual deadlines, we can track individual performers. We can just see... I had a conversation today. One of our team members in intake has had great potential new client happiness scores forever. She's great. Over the last 13 weeks, she has dropped to one of the bottom ones. So, the manager is going to go talk to her.
Now, you couldn't even see that. Now to be clear, someone's been great for you for... I think she's been here maybe three years. Someone's been great for three years. He's not going to talk to her to threaten her. He is going to figure out what's going on and how to support her, but she hasn't raised her hand. Generally, this happens when something else that's going on in their life, but it could be something here, and here's a chance to show up and say, "Hey, I care enough about you to say, "This has dropped. That's not like you. I know you're great. What do we have to do to support you?" You couldn't even go help that team member without these analytics.
I'll just sum it up by saying this. Am I saying everyone should go get a systems engineer on their team? No, but I would say this, we brought him in, I think we had about 25, 30 people. It was a risky move. I would now say to anyone out there, as you start getting to those numbers, maybe you can get a little higher now because now if you have Filevine, we use full-fledged Domo, which is a lot more than Filevine's tweaked version of Domo, much more limited version of Domo.
But now if you're on Litify or Filevine, you probably don't need what we brought in as early as we need it. But if you keep growing, I would argue you might need it. And even before that, man, if you could get somebody with that kind of background to start helping you earlier, maybe split it with three firms or bring in someone fractional... I will only say from our perspective, we have served clients better. We have our server team better. Our growth has been better. The amount of things that analytics can do when collected correctly and presented correctly is amazing.
Chris Dreyer:
There's so much here.
Mark Breyer:
Last time, Chris, I'll keep it short.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, Lead Docket... Domo is pricey, but it has the most capabilities, but it's also very challenging to use versus a Zoho or a Tableau that you can overlay. But you're right, I mean, it has way more capabilities and some of the biggest... These Fortune 100 companies use it, right? See, I can hear the professor's voice when I'm reading to myself in that book on the constraints to throughput, were there just some clear like, "Okay, we're not getting the demand out or we're..." Just clear constraints that you identified that moved your cash acceleration forward, that you're like, "Oh, boom, this makes a big impact because I can reinvest"? Is there any that come to mind?
Mark Breyer:
You get to see it, right? Because there's constraints in our system all the time. So, I don't think the speed of the case is what's most important to clients. I think clients want the best outcome, which isn't always the most money, but it's often usually the most money, and they want to be treated well.
However, I think the speed at which we move their case matters a lot to clients, to most clients. I just don't think it's as big as those first two. And so the ability to see where we're backing up has been helpful, and these tools allow it. And again, when I started doing this, we were on Needles, love Needles. There's still some things that Needles did that the newer programs don't, as interesting as that may be.
But the ability to see some of these things allows us to see constraints within our system that otherwise would just be kind of a gut feeling. And see not just constraints firm-wide, but to see individuals.
We have people on our team and their only job is to get medical records of bills. Being able to see who makes, and I'm making it up twice as many calls a day, is good. You could see that off your phone system. But who has, on average, does twice as good... And that's a big number, twice as well as someone else? And actually getting the records of bills in, assuming similar providers, and that's game changing. You can actually see and go, "What are you doing that the rest of us need to learn from?" That it sheds light on it.
So, I feel to some degree, I should probably chill on this because I know that maybe a lot of people are going, "Well, I'm in a great firm, but there's six of us. I can see everything." You know what? You can't see everything. But I agree with you. I would not go... My seventh hire, if tomorrow I started a new firm or I was advising a new firm, I would not hire a systems engineer at hire seven, but I would try to avail myself of the tools and see if I could find somebody. Do you need the full-fledged Domo? It's expensive, too. So you know-
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, what, nine, 10 grand at least, right?
Mark Breyer:
Yeah, it is. I think we have 20-some seats. I don't remember. They come in groups of five, so maybe 25 seats. And it's because I want all of my leaders to have Domo, and then I want everyone in the organization, especially my frontline people, to have the platform my team built so they can see it.
Because the thing about Domo and Tableau and Power BI and all these things is that they're really built for the owners and leaders of a company. That's great, but if I'm on the front line and it's my job to get something moved, why aren't we giving me the ability to see what's there as well? In a way, it's laid out like that, and that's why we built that program.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that. One of the things I liked about the Domo is seeing all the reps activity because it leads itself to kind of a competition scenario on the signups, things like that. But I'm by no means an expert, other than just interpreting the marketing and intake data.
Mark drives his firm like a Formula One car. He relies on that dashboard data to shift the perfect moment to cross the finish line faster. Now, you might think a guy who hires industrial engineers and tracks throughput is a stiff corporate robot, but you'd be wrong. Mark found out the best way to feed his highly engineered machine wasn't by pretending to be the perfect TV-ready lawyer. It was by being completely, unapologetically himself. It all started with a little trial you might've heard of.
We got to talk about social media authenticity. Before I even knew who you were, Mark, I was like... the Johnny Depp thing hooked me. I think a lot of people during that time period got hooked and just it was such... I mean, it was such entertainment, and just what you've been able to build. I got on TikTok before this. I'm just curious. And there's tons of accounts. You have your master account, then you have different clips, and talk to me about the impact for you from the B2C play, and then also I'm really curious just the impact overall, but I'm sure you get cases outside of Arizona and your core market. How do you deal with those scenarios and handle the messages?
Why Familiar Social Content Shortens the Decision Window Before Someone Ever Calls a Firm
Mark Breyer:
So, first of all, I need another Johnny Depp trial, and it probably won't happen. If there's ever a massive trial and you are a trial lawyer, I don't care if you have an account or not, get on it. Get on it, watch a clip and talk about it. It was amazing. We went from this tiny account to 330,000.
We had tried for years to do social media, and other than the Johnny Depp trial where it was wildly successful, if I was at the grocery store during Johnny Depp, someone would be like, "I saw you talking about Johnny. Don't you think he's innocent?" But outside of that, we never really got a lot of traction. We got some leads, not a lot of leads. We had someone at the beginning of the year came in and started working for us and he was like, "Listen, just be you, and I'm just going to follow you around and we'll see what happens."
Well, anyone has seen us on social, a lot of our social now, and this will probably keep evolving, but it's our morning meetings or now we just have fun hype meetings where we get the team together in the middle of the day and be like, "Yo, who wants to join a hype meeting in 30 minutes?" And then we just have fun together, for 10 or 15 minutes. But that stuff started when COVID happened and everyone home and everyone was freaking out. It was crazy time.
So we said, "Hey, let's just all get together on this new thing you've never heard called Zoom." On Monday, we got on, we're like, "That was pretty cool. Let's do it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday." And that's never stopped. And somewhere early on, because I'm ridiculous, I started playing music and singing along to the music, probably literally week one, but I don't remember.
Then it got posted, and then it had been posted a couple of times over the years. We didn't really think much of it. It did well, but whatever. This guy who was here started posting it all the time. So, what has it done? It has been great in our market first and foremost, because if you and I walk down the street in Phoenix or Tucson or Albuquerque or Santa Fe, you will know immediately if someone recognizes us, someone recognizes me, you'll know immediately if they know me from TV or social media.
Because when it's TV, it's, "Hey, I know you from tv." And when it's social, they come up as if they know me. It's a different tone, a different conversation, because the truth is on a dumb 30-second TV spot, you can try to be you, we try to be real, but it's 30 seconds. Social, I can be whatever idiotic version of myself I am at that moment. It's literally them following me around.
And for people are like, "Well, I don't have the time and everything else." Maybe. I can't speak to that. But if you don't care if someone on your team just comes and goes throughout the day and you can trust them to not post anything that is outside of what you would want posted, which is different for everyone, its biggest impact is in the markets we're in because now the people who already know you are more likely to watch that. And now, if God forbid, they have someone they love or someone they know well is hurt, "You know what? I've seen their social media, they're great." That's much more likely to get you hired.
And yes, we do get calls... And I'll tell you one other thing, although this may not be true for everyone. It's not just clients or potential clients, it's also people who want to add to our team. They don't know what it's like to work here, but they get a sense of who we are, and we're not for everyone. We are absolutely, in every way, not for everybody, which are the best in the social media comments like, "I quit and I don't even work here."
But for the people who would want to work for you, whoever you are, whether you're super serious, whether you wear suspenders like it's still the '80s or dress in a t-shirt, whomever you are as a fit for potential team members, and we all know that getting the right people on the team is vital, so they can actually get a sense of who you are.
So, I'm not advocating it for everybody, and I think I'm not an expert in it, I'm just told what to do. But mostly I just go, I'm just me. And then someone who actually knows what they're doing, decides how to put that into a ten second to two-minute video.
Chris Dreyer:
I guess. I have to imagine the person walking up to you that's seen you on TV versus maybe singing Jeezy Put On that comes up, starts rapping with you.
Mark Breyer:
It's the best. It is the best. Not just for that, but my wife and I are on a lot of it together. It is a lot of fun. And as someone who loves talking to people, it's good either way. If someone goes, "I've seen you on TV," that's a fun conversation. But the people who've seen behind the scenes stuff, it's just better.
Chris Dreyer:
This has been incredible, Mark. Where can people connect with you, follow along The Husband and Wife Law Team? What's the best way to get in touch or learn more?
Mark Breyer:
Listen, I'm not that hard to find. The Husband and Wife Law Teams right now... Again, we're growing, but Husband and Wife Law Team, whether you put that into a web browser ChatGPT or any of the social media platforms except, Chris, except Twitter. Outside of that, we're pretty easy to find.
And let me say this because I know a lot of the people who listen to you and a lot of us who believe that you have a lot to offer, do what I do. If anyone here is just like, "I'd really like to know it." I understand the way it's normally done, but I still try cases, I still talk to clients, I'm very involved in game planning cases. And the reason I say that is it could be easy to hear what I'm saying and go, "Well, that guy's just a mill that puts money over everything."
So, I would ask them, but it doesn't connect with me, whether you're one person by yourself or a larger firm, if you're kind of a values-based, it's more than just the money. Obviously, money and profit and growth are super important to me. I don't minimize that. I don't avoid it. But it's about something more and bigger. I'm happy to talk and bounce things around. I'm not saying I can be a value, but I'm happy to try.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Thank you for that offer, Mark, and I'm sure some of our audience will take you up on that. It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
Mark Breyer:
Thanks for inviting me, Chris. And I'm sorry I turned your total of four questions into this whole episode. But look, I'm a trial lawyer. Talking is my thing, right?
Chris Dreyer:
Love it. Mark Breyer showed us that intake isn't just a barrier to overcome. It's the single biggest place you're losing money right now. He proved that operations done correctly is about engineering a machine that exposes every bottleneck. And he reminded us that you can be dead serious about data and still be real enough to rap on TikTok.
We started this episode talking about Mark's 2025 PIMCON talk, and now it's time to book your tickets for PIMCON 2026. PIMCON is the personal injury event for voices, ideas, and connections to help you win in that crowded market. If you want to build growth that lasts, then come join us in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 4th. Get your ticket at PIMCON.org. That's P-I-M-C-O-N.O-R-G. I'm Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind.
