Chris Dreyer:
As your firm scales, so does your software stack. An intake system here, a case management tool there, and before you know it, nothing talks to each other.
Jim Andresen:
And so you have to make adaptations and you end up with Zapier spaghetti and you end up with spreadsheets all over the place to fill in gaps and you have copy and paste errors and sync issues.
Chris Dreyer:
That disconnected mess is costing you time, money, and cases. Today, Jim Andresen, COO of TORKLAW and founder of LawWorks, is showing us how he tore down those tech silos and built a unified AI-native operating system from the ground up. 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. Let's get into it. I guess this big picture, what is LawWorks? Give me the through line, what it is, and then we'll jump in from there.
Jim Andresen:
At its simplest, it's an AI native braking system designed specifically for law firms like ours. And it's just that it's a web-based system. It's not a generic Salesforce. We don't have licensing issues and limitations that are put on us by some of these other add-on type of systems. And so we get to imagine it from the ground up. And so we did that. We built it specifically.
As you said, I wear a couple of hats and we built it specifically for TORKLAW. And we know that there's a lot of firms that operate similarly to us or would like to. So we are going to open that up to the wider world and make it available to anybody that wants to use it. We want it to be a flexible thing, but we have some pieces in place to help you stay focused and not get lost in all the opportunities and options that are available.
Chris Dreyer:
So you've said your biggest breakthrough wasn't fixing just one department. It was recognizing the real problem, the gaps between. Walk me through that. What was the exact moment or metric that made you realize the connective tissue, the connecting your systems was broken?
Jim Andresen:
So I've been doing this for 13, 14 years, something like that. And over time, you begin to accumulate different products, different tools to achieve a result. And so if your firm, my firm, you're going to have an intake system, you're going to have a case management system, a phone system, you're going to have a messaging system, you're going to have marketing channels that are all scattered all over the place. And so which the result of that is you sometimes have disparate systems that don't connect at all. And you find that some vendors, some systems lock you in and they don't share out.
And so your data is siloed into their system. And so what you end up with is your people have to become the connective tissue and they have to do the work and they have to copy and paste and they have to migrate files over and bring it back. And then you find out that the data types don't match and that the systems, the way it's constructed doesn't work with another system. And so you have to make adaptations and you end up with Zapier spaghetti and you end up with spreadsheets all over the place to fill in gaps and you have copy and paste errors and sync issues.
And it's something that has been present, but it reached a boiling point probably three years ago. And we couldn't get our data out of our case management system in a way that we could report on what was coming from our intake system. And we were having a hard time navigating and we had people working just on building reports to be able to tell us where the problems were. And by the time that the report was ready, it was now a month out of date.
And so we thought there's going to be a better way. And we went looking and we explored a few options and we ended up getting to a place where we needed to solve it ourselves. And so we hired some very smart people and we started building what is LawWorks today.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. Let me dig into that. So there's the Lead Docket Domo, Lead Docket Filevine Domo kind of combos, pretty common. Then the RingCentrals and Amazon Connects. And then you got the Salesforce a little bit more open, maybe they're doing the Amazon Connect, different phone systems there, a little bit freer use on the API and the ability to plug into things. What was the tech stack that you were Frankensteining together and what were some of those limitations that you ran into?
Jim Andresen:
Sure. So I'm not one to bash anybody. We are still on Lead Docket. We haven't migrated away from them. We have been a CasePeer shop. And again, I think that they built one of the more intuitive systems and I think it had a lot of strengths and it's an easy one to get started with, but we did find that we had a hard time getting our data out and still did. We're a GoToConnect phone system. We've had built dialers direct with Twilio and we've built autoresponders and we've tried a handful of AI voice systems to handle different things. And it's a challenge. They've all got their strengths, but there's certainly some trade-offs with each choice you make.
Chris Dreyer:
Once you realize that Frankenstack is holding your firm back, the question becomes, how do you actually fix it? Jim realized that he didn't just need another app, he needed a single end-to-end operating system that could track a case from the first ring all the way to the settlement.
By bringing the entire lifecycle under one roof, Jim took back total ownership of his firm's data and finally eliminated that dreaded vendor lock-in. So are we talking full lifecycle? Are we talking phone rings, the operating system has AI capabilities or it's like CRM and project management? Talk to me about operating system. Is it full lifecycle end-to-end? Is it including intake?
Jim Andresen:
Yeah. So that's a great question. And the answer is what it is and what it's becoming. But today as it stands, we handle pre-litigation, litigation from end-to-end. And we're able to do a document generation AI-enabled document. So think even up, think eve. And right now the team is building out the intake side of things. So by the time that it's in the hands of everybody, the intake piece should be done. So the hope is, the belief is that from the first phone call all the way until settlement, we're going to be able to handle things end-to-end.
One of the things I think is great about what we're building is we don't want others to have the experience that we had where you are locked into a vendor. We want you to be able to come free will, go if you want to, and your data is your data. If you prefer the product that even up or eve or pick your document generation company or whatever, we want you to be able to easily push it there, bring it right back in. And for that piece, that functionality, if that's the solution that you prefer, it's your data, it's your cases, you do what you want with it.
And so we are really about providing the rails all the way across the life of the case. And we probably won't dabble into project management, but one of the things that we are doing is we built and are building out as a developer portal and so that third parties with their tooling and opportunities can build on top of our system in a fashion that is similar to like a Salesforce where you can build within the ecosystem and have your product offering available on the platform, but all the underlying infrastructures in place. And so it's going to be pretty versatile.
Chris Dreyer:
The data's becoming more important than ever because now whether you're using Snowflake or BigQuery or what have you, it's now being formed as a basis for all the AI intelligence and decision-making. I never thought in a million years that a company like ours would be talking to Snowflake. But here we are. It's a component of data housing. And so where do you see the usage of data make an impact and just the importance of controlling that and having control of that data?
Jim Andresen:
Where AI is at particularly right now is context is the thing that is shaping the quality of the output that you receive. And so when I think about data lakes, data warehouses, it's great to store it. It's great to be able to retrieve it, but you need to be able to pass it to something that can do something with it. And so for us, we want to have full control of that on our system so that we can pass that to the models that are going to be manipulating, reading, learning off of it and writing from it.
And so our intention is to, we have a structured data system. We have the ability to OCR pull structured data out of unstructured documents, place that into your record of truth and source of truth and then be able to generate documents out of that. And so that's something that we don't have now. When I say now, in recent our data, TORKLAW's data has lived on Box, which is a universal file management system. Our cases lived in CasePeer. Had a hard time getting our structured data out of CasePeer, our unstructured data from Box and then pushing it to one of these demand generators or medical summarizers or whatever the function is that we're looking for.
And so it's a manual thing where we're pushing it and we're pulling it back and it takes time. And we people are that connection and we make mistakes. And the end tool that's doing the work is lacking some of the broader context because it's missing pieces of that. And so we want to be able to control all that, be able to pass that cleanly to a model that's going to be doing that work. One of the things that we, the way we're building LawWorks is that other firms that will be able to be on the platform will benefit from the wider ecosystem.
So we'll still be passing your data as your data and it doesn't get shared with other firms, but we'll be able to benchmark and see how you are comparing compared to other firms. Or there might be elements where we can share insights where provider X or provider Y on average reduces their bills by this much and this is favorable in these situations and be able to say just how are you tracking compared to others and identify opportunities, identify bottlenecks that are common where you're an outlier, identify where you're an outlier compared to what's common. And so I think that the collective intelligence is an interesting opportunity that doesn't exist, at least not for us and the platform that we've come from. And so I think that that's an interesting thing there.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. I see all just amazing benefits and just massive unlocks for the future having control of that. And there's going to be more and more capabilities that arise every day. Just the pace at which new developments are occurring is just exponential.
Jim Andresen:
Yeah. It's unbelievable. I sit on X, Twitter, whatever we call it these days and every day there is just a breakthrough, a new product, a new opportunity that's just unbelievable the pace of innovation. And yeah, it's crazy. And so to be able to connect all those pieces together is really what we're hoping to do. And I think really going to unlock some opportunity for firms, firm owners and the future of law.
Chris Dreyer:
Once your operations and tech stack are actually talking to each other, you finally have the infrastructure to scale. And Jim knows a thing or two about scaling. As the COO of TORKLAW, he has helped lead the firm's expansion into multiple highly competitive markets across the country. I wanted to pick his brain on how they go toe to toe with the legacy billboard guys, why precision marketing is their weapon of choice and how they assemble the right teams to execute that vision. I kind of wanted to switch over to TORKLAW.
You've been COO, your background working with another big PI firm in the past. So you've had different go-to market strategies in order to acquire leads. And TORKLAW, multi-state in some big markets. So how do you think about moving into other markets? How do you think about a go-to market strategy and trying to break into these markets that have had people doing broadcast television and the billboards for years? How do you think about trying to go into some of these markets?
Jim Andresen:
I think you got two different games that get played. You got the billboard guys and they are known by name and sometimes that's a positive and sometimes that's a negative. I've always thought that the more targeted approach, paid search, organic search, word of mouth, reputation type referrals has always been the precision approach and it may be higher cost per touchpoint, but the acquisition price, as long as you can make the numbers work, it usually has benefited us. And so in terms of going to market, at least in the early days, it was really like, can we find a licensed attorney to work here and can we acquire a license?
And so we would get somebody in the firm either by acquisition or by just going through the process would get a license and pick your state and we can function, we can operate, we could do whatever the minimum thing was. We had to set up an office there or a physical location and we'd target and be precision with our marketing, see what worked there. It's interesting to see how tactics that you deploy in one market work or don't work in another and where the opportunities lie.
And sometimes you think, "Boy, that's working great in Illinois. I'm going to bring that to California." And it just falls flat and vice versa. And you get personality differences and what's compelling to the client and what they're looking for. And so you find the language that speaks to them. And so you run a very successful marketing firm and you got to kind of find all the pieces that line up. And when you find that the targeting with the messaging and it connects and your intake team is hitting on point in terms of matching the messaging, it returns well for you.
And then obviously, you got to have your team actually deliver the results in the end. But we're simple people. We don't over complicate it in terms of making something work. And one of the things that Reza and his brother, Karosh, own TORKLAW, they're not afraid to try things. And so we've always been a firm that we'll try things and be okay to fail and try the next thing. And when something works, we will write it until it doesn't work and add to the stable of things that work. And as things drop off, they drop off. Maybe we'll revisit them, maybe we won't.
Chris Dreyer:
That's great. Love that mindset. And I think you got to do the bullets before bombs and do the testing and find out what works. And you're right because you take Google Ads, Google Search, and it's auction-based. So if one market's lighter than another and it could throw off your CAC and well, it could be anything. It could be broadcast, television, radio, whatever, depending upon what's saturated, what's not saturated and your competitor's messaging, what resonates like what you said. So that makes sense to me for sure.
In regards to working in an organization of the size that you've worked at, what other common bottlenecks do you see? Is it hiring? Is it talent? Talent's always an issue. You want to get the A players, but there's different levels like finding the pre-lit attorney or the litigation attorney. Talk to me about some of the other common bottlenecks that you see.
Jim Andresen:
The bottleneck moves, I think that's the biggest thing is you solve in one spot and you just create a bottleneck somewhere else. And so my brain is limited to kind of the idea of a pipeline and you got just the visual of where the thing pinches and where it bloats. And I don't know that there's any magic bullet to solve any of these problems. What I do think, you remember the movie, The Moneyball, that came out 20 years ago, something like that?
Chris Dreyer:
Billy Bean.
Jim Andresen:
Yeah. The idea is that you go out and you acquire value. And so I love the idea of A players and they're great and they're fantastic. But you can get some high value people that maybe they don't have the right experience level, but they're intelligent and problem solvers. And maybe you got somebody who's got experience but can't get a thing across the line. They just can't get that final piece of execution. And so you find the people that can compliment each other and the high value and the things that you can coach and you bring those people in and that talent.
And it's easy to say and it's harder to actually achieve, but we don't just go for A players. I mean, that's the dream. I'd love to find the A+ people across the board. But sometimes you can find the new guy, the fresh out of college, the excited about everything, the executor guy that is willing to be a little scrappy and just get it done. And you construct a team and sometimes it's a little rough around some edges and they get things done. And so I love the puzzle of it. I hate the process of it, but constructing a team, it's a fun thing to do.
Chris Dreyer:
Well, Jim, if our audience has any questions for you and wants to connect, wants to learn more about LawWorks, what's the best way to get in touch?
Jim Andresen:
Email's probably the best. Jim@TORKLAW, if you want to talk about, I don't know, all things operations in a law firm, Jim@TORKLAW.com. Jim@lawworks.com if you want to talk about the operating system or being a part of our customer base. And yeah, it'd be awesome to connect with people on either of those fronts.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. Jim, thanks for coming on the show.
Jim Andresen:
Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it.
Chris Dreyer:
A massive thank you to Jim Andresen for sharing his brilliant strategies with us today. When you finally get your tech stack talking, your team can stop doing the manual data entry and get back to what actually matters, winning cases and driving revenue. Taking control of your data and adopting a Moneyball mindset to build your team aren't just operational upgrades, they are the foundation for serious growth.
At Rankings, we believe your marketing should be just as precise and data-driven as your firm's operations. If you want to partner with an agency where excellence is the standard and proof beats promises, head it over to rankings.io. I'm Chris Dreyer and we'll see you next time on Personal Injury Mastermind.
