Chris Dreyer:
What if I told you there was a firm out there converting 98% of their wanted cases into signed contracts? You heard me right, 98%. You'd probably tell me I was lying, but today's guest has the data to back it up, and she's going to talk about the transformation her business has made over the last six years to get that incredible 98%.
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, on the show, we have Carol-Lynn Roman, chief operating officer of Roman Austin Personal Injury Lawyers of Florida. She has been in the personal injury business for over 30 years, and her firm recently hit the Inc. 5000 list, and they did it by completely rethinking the traditional law firm model. They've got a massive commitment to boots on the ground, community building, and a unique phase-based workflow that has supercharged their average case value. You are definitely going to want to take notes on this, so let's get into it.
I like to kick things off of the wind. What's something you're excited about, something going on with the firm that you're implementing, or you'd like to share?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Sure. We're real excited that we made the Inc. 5000 list last year, which was really great. We've had exponential growth. We attribute that to a lot of different things both in development and marketing and in operations, but we're just excited about the continued growth and revenue, but also in just supporting our community. That's really a touchstone for us, and we continue to grow that part of our practice as well.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Inc. 5000, it's waited on three years, so it's three years of nice growth.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
That's exactly right, yep. Our growth really kind of started in 2022 when we made a conscious decision. We had kind of a rebranding. We had a partner-lead firm, and we had a couple of defense lawyers join the firm, which made a big difference. We made some reorganizational issues or structure. We completely reorganized our team. What I mean by that is that we used to have a traditional structure of case managers, and instead now we work off of what phase the case is in. So we have a lot more teammates working on one case at one time, and they're specialists at certain phase of the case, and we found that the client just got a lot more attention, and so that really raised the value of our cases incredibly.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm going to save that one because I'm going to dig into that one. That's really interesting. I'm going to come back to that one. A lot of the audience listening, they want to hear how you're getting the opportunities, how you think about marketing. In general, how has your approach to marketing changed? How do you think about attracting the right cases to the firm?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Well, we're a pretty old school. We go all the way back to the Yellow Page days, and obviously that's dinosaur years. When that changed, then we dove into SEO, and I guess about 2010, but we didn't do it... I mean, it was just different then. It wasn't as vast, and we didn't invest as much in it, so we didn't get as much back from it. We just eventually decided in 2020 that we needed to capture our reputation when someone's actually looking for someone like our firm, and we knew that the digital presence was the only way to do that, and so we went all in heavily with SEO. I mean, we times-fived our budget and went in with a really big agency, and they brought us to the next level. We just really believe in it.
We're not a billboard firm. You won't see us on billboards. You'll see us in the community helping others, and we just find that super valuable, and that's just part of our brand. Billboards are not our vibe. TV's not our vibe. Radio's not our vibe. We just think that when someone's looking, when they've been seriously injured, they're going to do their research. They're either going to go to a professional, an estate planning lawyer or maybe their divorce lawyer or their pastor or their neighbor or a doctor or someone that they trust. And if they don't have that resource, then they're going to go online, and that's when you have to capture basically who you are online, and you have to find a partner who can do that really well. The bottom line is is I think that trust is built offline, but it's captured online, and so we recognize that and we went all in with it, reviews, reputation, all of it.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, and your reputation's stellar.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Thank you.
Chris Dreyer:
Across the board, 5-star reviews, and we're talking 1,000-plus. I didn't total them up, but, I mean, were ton of reviews, so that speaks to that.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Yeah. It's in excess of 1,000 reviews, and we are really proud. Of all six locations, have a 5.0.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, that's incredible. It's super rare. That's very uncommon. Let's talk about that top of funnel, being a part of the community. I did some research. I saw the free hats at this Safety Harbor Craft Beer event. I see other boots on the ground initiatives. How do you select which events to participate in? Talk to me about the grassroots and your strategy there.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Well, youth sports, we love schools. We're doing a lot for teachers. We bring lunches to teachers a lot. We just want to essentially brand the idea... and we're not asking for business here. We're just like, "How can we help the community?" We're at youth sports leagues, like I said, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools. We have a large initiative in the cycling community, called Not Just a Cyclist, where we spread awareness about the joint responsibility of cyclists and motorists and sharing the road, and we do events for that, and those are free. We do community rides. Everybody shows up. Hundreds of people come for these rides. Around our offices, we show up at third Friday type events and those sorts of things just so that people can meet us. And if they have legal questions, we can answer them. But really it's just about being available, but also giving back because we really feel a responsibility to do that, and it's not just about branding. We really do feel a community responsibility.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's noble. That's awesome. That's amazing in being a part of your community. On the employee side, does it kind of carry over? Do you feel like they just love these events? It gives them kind of some purpose outside of just the work. Have you seen that impact on the employees?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
100%. I know I have a marketing team that comes and puts up the tents and does all of that. It used to be where we just had our paralegals going with us. And when I made the change and said, "Oh, I don't want you guys to feel the burden of that after hours and all of that," and they're like, "Well, no, we still want to go," and so that says a lot. Right? The paralegals are no longer required to go, but they still want to go, and I think that that's because we've built in our culture the idea that giving back to the community is a corporate responsibility.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing, the values, everybody wants to do it, they're not thinking about on the clock, so that's awesome to go the extra mile.
Let's pause right here. Carol-Lynn has shown that genuine community involvement does more than just build your brand. It helps build an incredible culture inside your business. That kind of alignment is a huge competitive advantage. But you can have the best team and the strongest community presence in your market, and it won't matter if your intake process is broken. This is where Carol-Lynn really lights up. With that 98% conversion rate, you're definitely going to want to listen closely as she shares the exact metrics in a tech stack they use to close the deal.
Let's kind of move on to intake sales. What tech stack are you using?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Intake is my favorite thing to talk about. So let's dig into-
Chris Dreyer:
Let's go. Let's get some metrics. Do you mind sharing some metrics?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Sure.
Chris Dreyer:
What metrics do you look at intake, and what are some targets you're hitting for?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
We look at all of it. We look at average fee per case. We look at cost per lead, cost per acquisition. We look at all of it, and I'm really proud of all of those numbers, and we look at wanted percentages, conversion rates, all of that. And now, I should tell you that we have a partner in that. It really has brought us up to speed, and that's Legal Intake Pros. I'm sure you know Yani Smith…
Chris Dreyer:
Yani? Mm-hmm.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
We use Filevine and Lead Docket, and we kind of stumbled with Lead Docket for... I mean, we bought it, and then we tried to do it ourselves, and we just weren't doing a good job with it. I heard Yani on a podcast, and I was like, "Oh, man, I got to talk to her." Eventually, I talked to her one time. I was just going to have her set it up because I was like, "Well, I don't want to spend that every month." That's like an employee, right? But then what I realized is that's the best spend of my... I'm never letting that team go. They are going to be my partner perpetually because they have such high value. Yes, they set the entire thing up, and then what I mean by that is web hooks and all that, so we know exactly where our marketing sources are coming from or contact sources. All of it is just... it's precise. And then of course they train the intake team entirely.
But having them on board, they listen to all the calls. I don't have to do that anymore. I mean, I used to listen to all the calls literally because we have CallRail, and I would say, "Oh, we need to get together because you did this one wrong, and let me explain why this is a better sell and that sort of thing." I don't do any of that anymore. They're the experts at it. So that's been such a great partnership for sure is having them, and that will continue, and they do monthly reviews with you... oh, my gosh, it's just... and they meet with my teammates every week. They do training every week with every single team member.
And what makes us unique about our intake, I will say, is that we are 24/7. A team member from here answers the phone 24/7. My intake team is six strong. Once every six weeks, someone's on call for those after-hours and weekend calls, and they take the laptop home, and they answer all the calls, and the attorneys... There's a Slack thread. If there's a good lead, then the attorney jumps on the phone. That's another thing that makes us unique is attorneys talk to every single potential new client in our office.
Chris Dreyer:
Really? Every single one?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Every single one.
Chris Dreyer:
Wow. So you probably heard me on the pod say, "Hey, you don't need a bunch of attorneys on the intake," and you're like, "No, no, no, that works for me."
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Well, we do. It's just our vibe. It's what works for us. Attorneys are giving our clients cell numbers, and we're still okay with that, and we've scaled a lot. It hasn't gotten out of control. Now, maybe we talk a couple years from now and I say, "Yeah, maybe we're not doing that as much anymore," or maybe we have an associate who's just doing it and the partners aren't doing it anymore, but right now it works. Whoever's available, we don't have an attorney-on-call. Whoever's available jumps in to the intake thread if there's a good lead and says, "I'm available," or, "I can be available in two hours, please set up the call," or that sort of thing.
Chris Dreyer:
If you have an attorney jump on the call, then they take over that case or... I guess what I'm asking is if they're incentivized to take the calls because, hey, they're getting a bigger book of business, that's one thing, or is it just the values and they understand the importance of it?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Both.
Chris Dreyer:
Both.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
It's both, yeah. I mean, obviously, if it goes into their cash of cases, then they're going to be incentivized to... That's just the way our structure works for sure. I mean, it's not just... That's the way our partnership works, that they get a piece of the action. I will also say there's no bickering about it. It just works well. Nobody's fighting for the commercial case to call that comes in. It's not like that. That's not our values. We all row the boat together and celebrate wins that each of the partners have. It has not been competitive at all, which is great.
Chris Dreyer:
That's fantastic. I, on the other side, many of our clients say that the attorneys don't want to be involved in intake at all. Right? A lot of the clients are very resistant to that. I think there is a lot of value because, a lot of times, the consumer wants to talk to the attorney. Although it is more costly, you got those... hourly rates for the attorneys are certainly higher, but it's definitely working for you.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Well, what we have found is, when our clients have a personal relationship with their attorney from the beginning, that our average fee per case goes up, period, because they're talking to the lawyer, the lawyer's guiding them. We have case managers that manage treatment, but it's not the same. I mean, if they are hearing from their attorney about treatment management, it just has a whole nother layer of power and education. I mean, the proof is in the pudding. I mean, I don't think we'll ever change that about our firm. I think because it's so integral to who we are that the clients, potential new clients, talk to a lawyer. And honestly, our conversion rate is 98, 98% wanted-
Chris Dreyer:
Wow. That's unicorn land. That's the highest I've heard. That's fantastic, and the average fees.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
And that's because they're talking to lawyers, and they are getting the attention. And now after the call is done with the attorney, then they punt it back to intake to send the rep agreements or schedule a hospital appointment or an... I mean, it just depends. You have to determine, "What's the most important thing to that client to seal the deal?" That's the most important question during an intake call. What's most important to them? Is it that they meet their lawyer? Is it that we help them with their medical treatment? Is it that, "Oh, my gosh, they don't have their minivan to make sure their kids get to school next week, so we're going to help them get a rental right away"? You always have to capture what the very most important thing is on the intake call if you want to have a 98% conversion rate, and you address that immediately.
Chris Dreyer:
There is a ton of wisdom there. Thank you for sharing that, because it is ultimately about them, and then that builds the trust.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
That's exactly right. And then they can look online at reviews, and we have a lot of video testimonials. We send a lot of assets to them through Lead Docket, which is great. We send videos, we send photos, links about who we are, so yeah... Again, Legal Intake Pros has been great. We had great intake before. It's funny, my marketing agency last year told me, she said, "I don't think anybody does intake like you guys," because she would talk, "Well, intake is bad," or, "People aren't securing leads," and she's like, "But not you. I've heard your calls." We really go the extra mile to make sure that clients feel heard and that whatever is most important to them is immediately addressed.
Chris Dreyer:
Do you do any field dispatch? Somebody's having trouble signing up, do you get the team member in the car and go with the iPad, sign them up? Do you...
Carol-Lynn Roman:
We do not send investigators to sign up clients, not our vibe. The lawyer goes.
Chris Dreyer:
Lawyer goes? Wow, that's great. That's a unique selling proposition. That's a lot different than most of your competitors. That's awesome.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Absolutely.
Chris Dreyer:
You mentioned it earlier, we were talking about ops, your fees have increased. We talked about how, "Hey, it's the start..." You meet the attorney early, they can get them to treatment, that has an impact. What were some of the other things that you've done that you've seen like, "Hey, we did this, and then it had an impact"? It was like... What are some of the things you've done to increase fees?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
I think that to increase fee... Just generally case value is just staying in touch with the clients. Every 30 days, they have to speak to their case manager, and of course there's lots of text messages in between that, but they have, again, the attorney's cell phone number. We're very intimately involved with all of the doctors and making sure they get the care they need. We're sending to the best doctors. We're not sending to doctors that maybe other larger volume firms are sending to. Insurance carriers know that we are a trial firm and that we will litigate the case and get a big verdict.
Mark's a board certified civil trial lawyer. That really matters. He has been one, I think, for 18 years. John needs one more trial, and then he sits for the test, so we're super excited about him becoming board certified this year. And then Miles is right behind him. I think he needs maybe two or three more trials. That matters because insurance companies recognize that. They recognize board certification, and that affects the value of the case. They know we'll try the case. Even if the case is worth 100 or 200, we'll try the case. We will not take less than the full value of the case. I think that that's why our average fee per case is what it is. And by the way, I will say also, I always throw out the outlier. I always throw out the largest verdict, because I think it's unfair, each year.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, it's interesting. We do that. When we're looking at our data for our agency, we'll exclude the top three and the bottom three, and we try to... I think it's the mean and the medium. I'm trying to think of how the CFO talks got to me. Talk to me, earlier you mentioned... and I said, "Hey, we'd circle back to it," you said, "Hey, you have the different phases." So does that mean like, "Hey, you have someone that leads up the pre-lit"?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Yeah, I can tell you. I can go through it with you. When a call is in, they're talking to an intake manager. Then once they're signed up, and that intake manager does a lot of the questionnaire, gets a lot of the data, even claim numbers and all that stuff, pushes that to our file opener who does a complete insurance and liability investigation, and that person only does that. That person's working alongside... Because you got to see how big the swimming pool is, right? That's the bottom line. How much coverage is it? Because in the state of Florida, I don't know if you know this, somebody could be really injured and we might not be able to recover for them because there might not be any insurance. Bodily injury liability coverage is not required in the state of Florida. So that first phase, that insurance investigator, liability investigator, is identifying how much coverage there is for the case.
And then it moves on to... At the same time, the case manager's talking to the client and helping them with what's most important to them, which could be property damage, but it's also, of course, their injuries and making sure that they get the care that they need and helping them schedule doctor's appointments and all of that and talking to them. And that's all the case manager does. The case manager doesn't... Their whole job is to make sure that whatever the client needs, the client gets. And then it moves on to a demand preparation assistant. We go to a demand writer, and then it goes to a negotiation team, which is headed up by the attorney who leads that team, and then it goes to a settlement coordinator. And then of course, if it goes into litigation, if it is not negotiated, then we have an entire lit team, and that team has paralegals, legal assistants, and support as well to make sure that...
Bottom line is what we have found is more hands, the better. At first, we were resistant to that. We're like, "Oh, overhead. We're nervous adding people." But we just decided, "You know what? If there's a need and this isn't getting done and this is a pain point in our office, that means it's somebody's job. That pain point is someone's job." So that's how we decided to split it all up.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of businesses, they talk about the pods and the cross-functional, and it's kind of the unit. It has the benefit of the communication because there's less silos, but the downside is there's less expertise.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
That's right. These are specialists in just one phase of the case.
Chris Dreyer:
That's the thing that I constantly say. Everybody's like, "Oh, Chris, we got to do pods," I'm like, "Well, you lose expertise and the immersion and all that," so I'm with you. I think that's great. As long as you have the case management and all the inputs in the Slack, then you can maintain the collaboration.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
That's right. Filevine is really great for this type of atmosphere, and it's by phase, by the way. It's kind of by design. We built it, our Filevine, out to transition by phase. So once it hits a new phase, the new team member is added and gets the messages and that sort of thing. Interesting, what we also... I'm super excited about is that we are adding something called the client portal to our Filevine. So every time the phase of the case changes, they'll get a video, and Mark is doing all these great videos about, "This is the phase of the case and this is what you can expect." There's FAQs that they get sent. So that cuts down on comms, some, because they are able to go to this portal and get the information they need very quickly. They also can upload documentation to that. So it's really nice.
The client portal is something that we've been... it's been kind of a baby that we've been nurturing for the last year, and I can't wait to launch it. It's just about ready. I'm reviewing the last videos tomorrow with our marketing team, which we... By the way, we have a whole marketing team too. We have a social media person, a videographer, marketing director, all that.
Chris Dreyer:
Incredible, incredible. The client portal, is that native to Filevine?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
It is, yes.
Chris Dreyer:
Cool. Yeah, I'd never heard of that.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Yeah. I think that they got wind of Hona, and they basically built Hona within Filevine. We were signed on with Hona, and then all of a sudden we heard about portal and I'm like, "Oh, it's integrated. This is better." It just made more sense, so we switched back over.
Chris Dreyer:
Makes a ton of sense.
Let's take a second to highlight what Carol-Lynn just described because it tackles a massive debate in the legal industry, pod versus teams. A lot of firms push for pods to avoid silos, but they end up sacrificing deep expertise. Carol-Lynn proves that if you have the right tech stack, keeping communication seamless, you can build a phase-based assembly line of hyper specialists. This means every case gets worked by an absolute expert at the exact stage of the process. In order for all this to work, you have to have top talent up and down your business. So let's hear how Carol-Lynn recruits and retains the lead attorneys and staff needed to run this machine.
I really want to talk to about the team.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Sure.
Chris Dreyer:
How do you find, retain top talent? Talk to me about finding these excellent... You said you hired some former prosecutors.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Yes, former defense lawyers, yeah, for insurance carriers. From the top, that's what we did. That was a great decision. They know the playbook. I was a little nervous at first about that because you have to have a plaintiff sentimentality in order to represent plaintiffs really well, a lot of empathy and compassion. And so I was a little nervous about going in that direction, but, man, we nailed it. We got the best of both worlds with these guys. They're empathetic, compassionate, but they know the other side, and they push cases. They use the accelerator. They just push, push, push the cases through, get trial dates, get depositions, get the media... I mean, they're just constantly pushing. They're amazing, and they both became partners within a year each. That's how great they did.
Chris Dreyer:
Wow.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Yeah. That was great hires, and that was in '22. Then how we basically organize the rest of our team is... what I decided was is that if you want to keep people, you have to figure out what's most important to them, and that is different for everybody, but you also have to pay them more than anyone else will.
Chris Dreyer:
True.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
I don't care what anybody says. I know Fireproof's 80%, you only have to pay... They have a completely different structure, but we just pay really well and we have a quarterly bonus system based on KPIs, so they're in charge of their own destiny, and the KPIs are specific to their phase, their case phase, and they each have 12 or 14 KPIs they have to meet. It's a point system. Our bonus system is based on firm KPIs. That's 50% of it in terms of revenue, should be. And then 50% is based on their individual KPIs based on their goals. And also, we do the rocks thing too that Fireproof recommends, which is we give people certain jobs. And if they don't do those jobs in that quarter, then that's going to be points deducted and that sort of thing. But everybody carries their rock because they want those points.
I think that it's really great because even if they've missed three points, they're like, "Gosh, I can't believe I missed three points," and they really care about it. That took some time, and that was hard. And by the way, at the end of each quarter, it takes me a long time to do those evaluations, but they are so worth it, and I have finally figured out that I can delegate to the department heads those now too. That's getting some things off my plate, which has been great. And then that way too, the teams are... I guess that's a pod, I don't know, but the teams are kind of rowing the boat together and they know they have to report directly to somebody other than just me. Because let's face it, as it grows, you can't be all... everything everywhere all at once. Happy to have the department heads take on that as well.
But those scorecards have been instrumental in keeping team members happy, keeping them incentivized, and keeping them paid very, very well, and that's how you keep employees. You pay them well, and you figure out what's important to them. Maybe one person, it's important to them that they come in at 7:00 AM and leave at 4:00 because of, I don't know why, their kids or something. You say, "Okay, well, we're going to make that work," and you make it work.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's fantastic. You set those expectations and have the KPIs to make those objective decisions as opposed to subjective, which are always the tough ones, the I thinks. So we talked about something you're excited about that you implemented. What about the future, vision, any big plans, anything you want to share on the horizon?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Sure. Well, my marketing director just popped in here and said, "We're going to start Intaker. I just had a meeting with Intaker." I'm excited about that. I'm excited about finishing the client portal. I'm excited about our continued revenue growth. We're already killing it this first quarter. We're already meeting our goals. Just continued growth, but also continuing to nurture our team and to stay true to our core values, which is really serving the injured in the Tampa Bay area. We've been doing it for 30 years. We don't want to change who we are, and we're committed to those core values and not changing. Growing and using Demand AI and using all of the things that are happening, that are helpful to us to make us better, but not taking away from the true authenticity of how this firm was raised is really important to us. That's what we're excited about. Yep.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. This has been a master class. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the transparency. For our audience listening, has a question about the pod, wants to get in touch, wants to refer a case to you, what's the best way to get in touch?
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Best way to get in touch, you can go to our website, romanaustin.com. You can always fill out a little form, but you can also reach to me by email anytime, croman@romanaustin.com. I'm always available. I'm always excited to talk about operations or marketing or even legal things. And if we can help in any way, anybody who needs anything in the Tampa Bay area, we're happy to do it.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. Thanks, Carol-Lynn. Thanks for coming on the show.
Carol-Lynn Roman:
Absolutely. Thank you.
Chris Dreyer:
What a master class from Carol-Lynn Roman. There's so much to take away from this episode, from ditching traditional pods to structuring your team by case phase, to trying specific KPIs to a quarterly bonus system so that you can retain top talent. When you combine a 98% wanted conversion rate with an operations machine that runs that smoothly, you're going to see amazing results. If you want to dominate your market with the right leads, then rankings can help. Head over to rankings.io to claim your completely free audit. It will show you exactly where you stand and what it takes to own your market. I'm Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. We'll catch you next time.
