Joe Vito:
The key to that is our goal is to make sure that once the referring firm sends us a client, they never hear from that client again, complaining about no contact, no communication.
Chris Dreyer:
If you want to build a massive B2B referral practice, you can't just win cases. You have to make your referral partners look like the heroes and completely remove the headache of client management.
Joe Vito:
No client text, email, or call should ever go more than 24 hours. And that reflects well for our referral relationships, because referring attorneys send you the case because they don't want to deal with it anymore.
Chris Dreyer:
But it's not just about solving a problem for a pre-lit firm. It can also be about pulling huge verdicts out of thin air and becoming one of their most valuable assets.
Joe Vito:
And we ended up settling the case for 400 grand on an original denial. The referring attorney was absolutely ecstatic because he thought it was a loser, that's why he gave it to us, and we turned it around, we turned it into gold.
Chris Dreyer:
How effective can this strategy be? Today's guests used that exact strategy to launch his firm from scratch to a thriving law firm in under four years.
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's guest is Joe Vito, founding partner of Vito & Dollenmaier Law in the Chicago Metro area. Instead of trying to outspend the massive advertising budgets flooding into his market, Joe leaned into a highly lucrative B2B strategy, becoming the ultimate referral partner. By combining relentless litigation with top tier communication, his team has recovered over a hundred million dollars for their clients since launching in 2022. Today we cover how to build an ironclad referral network, why putting an attorney on every single file maximizes your leverage, and the exact litigation strategies needed to turn $0 offers into massive settlements.
So I like to start off with a win. What's something current that you're excited about, a recent win? It could be business, could be result. What comes to mind?
Joe Vito:
Yeah, we just had a big case that we got referred from another attorney, a motorcycle accident case. And we ended up settling the case for $400,000 on a liability denial. And the whole issue was the motorcycle driver was allegedly speeding. He allegedly went on a two-lane road into oncoming traffic to pass a couple cars and then got back into his lane of traffic, and then a car turned left in front of him. So there was an initial denial, denial throughout, denial throughout. But we did a lot of depositions in the case, had a lot of fact witnesses there. I went through some calculations on Google Maps during the deposition about speeds and time with the independent witnesses that kind of started to debunk their story about how fast he was actually going, and kind of made the point that he was in oncoming traffic moot. And we ended up settling the case for 400 grand on an original denial, and it was a big win for all of us.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Look, I'm not an attorney, but that sounds like one of those cases that most people, they wouldn't even go to bat for it. And here you are and you had an amazing result.
Joe Vito:
Yeah, yeah. It was great. It was great, the client was super happy. The referring attorney was absolutely ecstatic because he though it was a loser. That's why he gave it to us, and we turned it around. We turned it into gold.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. I want to dig into this. I mean, one of the things that blows my mind is you launched your firm in 2022, and in under four years you've recovered over a hundred million dollars for your clients. That's insane.
Joe Vito:
Yeah. I mean, we've worked hard to build up our book. We have a fairly heavy volume of cases, and we settle that. Time on desk is a big deal with us, because we are primarily a litigation firm. We're primarily a firm that gets cases referred from other attorneys in the area. A lot of big marketing attorneys will send us their cases. And when you litigate in Cook County, you have to have your foot on the gas the whole time or else things will just get stagnant, especially in Cook County, which is Chicago for those that don't know, because the defense attorneys will just stall and stall and stall, the judges will let it go and go and go. And if you're not using the tools of civil procedure to keep the cases pushed and pushed them forward, then they're just going to linger forever. And we make sure that we close these out as fast as possible without sacrificing quality.
Chris Dreyer:
Talk to me about how you've developed this. And for the audience listening, what makes your firm a good referral firm? How do you treat referrals? How have you developed these relationships?
Joe Vito:
Yeah. So the key to being a good referral firm, I guess, I don't know if there's an actual term for us, but we can call ourselves a referral firm, the key to that is our goal is to make sure that once the referring firm sends us a client, they never hear from that client again complaining about no contact, no communication or anything like that. We pride ourselves on communication both to the clients and to our referral partners with almost instant responses. My partner and I are basically on every email that comes from a referring attorney or their case managers or whoever. And we respond almost immediately to every email unless we're out at some event or something. And even then, one of us will probably hit it on our phone.
And it's that communication. Clients don't go very long without a response. It's almost immediate. We have a rule for our associates. You need to respond immediately; if not, and you're busy, it needs to be within 24 hours. No client text, email, or call should ever go more than 24 hours. And that reflects well for our referral relationships because referring attorneys send you the case because they don't want to deal with it anymore. I mean, not that they just want to pone off their clients, they want you to handle the case. That's why they're giving you the fee to do it, and that's the whole point of that relationship.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. I can't remember who said this, but the top complaint to the bar is on communication.
Joe Vito:
Yeah. I heard that podcast, I listen religiously, Chris. It's a very valuable podcast. I forget who it was as well, but that's universal. That's all 50 states. And it's mind-boggling because it's so simple to just simply respond, but so many people don't. And I think the reason is, especially in the personal injury field, is there's no incentive really for a personal injury attorney to respond to a client who just wants a status on their case, because they're not billing that call like a defense attorney puts a 0.2 or a 0.3 down. And normally it doesn't advance your case at all to say, "Oh yeah, we're still waiting on X, Y, or Z." So it's easy to ignore, but ignoring that can start spiraling. And for us as referring attorneys, attorneys that get referrals, I mean, that could blow up our relationships. Now the client's calling back to the attorney that referred to us and saying, "These guys, they never talked to me, they never do anything. And then now they got to take time out of their day to call us and no one's happy."
Chris Dreyer:
Communication is the absolute foundation of a thriving referral practice. But to actually deliver those rapid updates and aggressive representation, you need the right team structure. Most growing personal injury firms rely heavily on case managers to handle the pre-litigation load. Joe took a completely different path. He ensures that every single client gets an actual lawyer working their case from day one. Let's look at how this legal ops setup allows them to file fast and keep the defense on their heels.
You've got a bold value prop here, right? It says, "Every case gets the full attention of our entire team. Every client gets a lawyer, not a case manager." In fact, I went to LinkedIn before this, I don't think you have a case manager. So the lawyers are truly on every case. So talk to me about your team and how you've designed delivery and the legal ops.
Joe Vito:
Yeah. So we have currently three associates, my partner and myself. Well, my partner and I are no longer really assigned to any cases, but the three associates are assigned to cases. It's their cases. And when someone calls or texts or whatever, they're going to get a response from an attorney. Sometimes, I mean, there will be administrative staff that can handle those calls and those cases, but the majority of time, they're going to get an attorney on their case, an attorney looking at their case, and an attorney responding to them.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. And that's a huge value prop, because a lot of these firms are just loaded up on case managers. Maybe they got one pre-lit attorney holding down the fort. And that brings me to my next question. Because you have an attorney on the case, and forgive me, I'm not a lawyer, and I've heard statements like this, and I'm saying this out of context, but do you file a lawsuit very early? How does that impact extending and getting maximum value by having the attorney on the case from the very beginning?
Joe Vito:
Yeah. A lot of times we file fast because a lot of the reason why we're getting that referral is because the referring attorney has exhausted all pre-litigation options and they're either a low offer or a no offer or whatever. So it's coming to us a lot of times for the sole sake of getting that into litigation. So we'll intake the case, talk to the client, and then get the suit filed within the next month. So that happens a lot. Sometimes there's a liability issue or whatever, and they're still treating, and we have to go through that process because the case isn't ripe and there still may be a settlement opportunity. And in those terms, we let it play out and see if we can exhaust any pre-litigation remedies. But a lot of the times, like I said, they're coming to us because they're ripe for litigation.
Chris Dreyer:
That makes a ton of sense. And I just was curious on this. I think I had Angel Reyes talking about how many lawsuits he was filing. It was such a higher percentage than most other firms in Texas. And then I've heard, I believe Farron and North Carolina, they file pretty aggressively. And it's just interesting how people move and the time on desk and how that's impacted everything in terms of that cash too.
Joe Vito:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the time on desk, like I was saying before, is not only getting that litigation filed, but what's staying on it. So there's certain tools we can use in the civil procedure code here to compel answers to discovery, to move that case into the next stage to get it ripe for settlement. And we use those and we use those quickly. Everything's kind of diaried and set out. So when that next deadline pops, we know, "Okay, they didn't answer. Time to file a motion to compel or file a 201(k) letter," we call it here in Illinois, which sets the basis to file that motion to compel and keep your foot on the neck of the defense attorney.
Chris Dreyer:
I had, I believe, John Walter on, of course James Helmsman on the show, other individuals, Dave Abels, Abels & Annes, and Chicago is kidding. It's a bloodbath of competition. There's a punch of money piling in. I think even Morgan has started to aggressively advertise more there. How are you thinking about the rising cost to acquire a case and just generating consistent cases? Is it more the B2B play? Is that what you're leaning into more?
Joe Vito:
One hundred percent. I mean, it's kind of, if you can't beat them, join them mentality. Morgan's in town, and of course, we're knocking on Morgan's door. And when we see the law brothers from California came into town, Davis, I think from Texas came into town. And anytime we see a commercial, we see a billboard, we start digging. "Who is there?" Because these guys are not litigating these cases. Well, Morgan will. But I mean, the rest of them most likely are not. They're looking to have that pre-lit model. And if it can't settle, they're going to send them out. So we're obviously looking to see who that is. And we see that competition as an opportunity for us because we are mainly a B2B business. We're probably one of the few law firms. I heard Walner podcast. He's not so happy about it. I can understand John. I get John's position on that. But for us, it's a different animal when we see that happening in the market here.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. Yeah. No. And you're taking the proactive approach and contact those guys. And since you're litigators, you have a competitive advantage there and the relationships with the experts and all the treatment and everything puts you at an advantage. The other thing I was thinking about, and again, I'm not an attorney, so this is just something I've been curious about, but the pre-lit shops, you got to imagine the insurance company has a record that they're not litigating in and they're settling. When they refer to co-counsel, do they put your name by the side of it? Is it true co-counsel where they get a credit of a higher value case that you take to trial? Or is it just pure handoff? I'm not even sure how that works in terms of how the insurance would see it.
Joe Vito:
Yeah. So most of the times, no. When they hand it off to us, we file the suit as Vito & Dollenmaier Law, and there's no other attorney on the pleadings or anything like that. If you have a good case, you have a good case. It doesn't matter if it's pre-lit or whatever. Most of the time they'll settle. But when we file suits, there's one firm that had wanted us to do it that way, a smaller referral partner of ours. We did it and it just gets messy and we don't really do that anymore. I don't know anybody that does it that way that leaves the referring partner on their pleadings and things like that when they file a lawsuit. And I'm not sure how much it affects the case value or how well the pre-lit people can settle. I think they still do pretty well.
Chris Dreyer:
I guess if they have treatment and you've sent out a good demand and everything and it's the case is the case, but I always hear the guests are like, "Hey, if you don't try cases, you're not going to get the full value." I think the last person I talked to, I think it was Sam Pond, he was talking about like, "Hey, you got to try cases and communicate more frequently," is the way to dig into the case. Actually, I think that was Digger Earls, was talking about taking his cases from loading up the case managers down to like 75. That way you can dig into the cases more and that's a way to increase value.
Joe Vito:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's something to be said for that. That's John Morgan's thing. He's got all of his attorneys have a requirement. They have to have three cases tried every year because that's his whole philosophy. And I'm Joe Vito, he's John Morgan, so he's probably right. But I think when insurance companies see us on a file, they know we're going to push this case hard. We're going to push this case fast and that we're competent. And we will try a case if we have to try a case, but I'm not sure that just trying cases, it puts it on the insurance company's radar because there's just so many different adjusters. You take a company like State Farm, it's massive. The odds that you run across the same adjuster, it's going to be, "Oh, these guys, they go to trial." I don't know. It's slim to no.
I mean, certain firms have built up certain reputations of just being top tier firms that they know, and I don't know if it's trialness or just because they're super aggressive in their litigation and understand what they need to do and what levers they need to pull to get money.
Chris Dreyer:
That makes a lot of sense. And correct me if I'm wrong, weren't you on the other side?
Joe Vito:
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer:
So you're speaking from like, hey, this is not just what we heard, you're speaking from that vantage as well.
Joe Vito:
Right. And from that vantage point, it wasn't so much these guys will try the case. It's that these guys are competent. You get something from a certain lawyer and be like, "This guy's just a sloppy mess." But you get another one from another firm and these guys are not going to leave an I undotted and a T uncrossed, and we need to make sure we are defending this case properly. And I think that's kind of the bigger issue. And taking the case to trial, I guess, goes in with all of that. You know they're going to go the full way. But I think it's more of that just these are competent defense attorneys and they're not going to just sit on this case and let us push them around at the end because now they want to settle because they haven't done anything.
Chris Dreyer:
When the insurance company knows you are a highly competent litigator who will push a case to the brink, the entire dynamic shifts. Joe spent a decade working for insurance companies, so he knows exactly how they evaluate and deny claims. That insider knowledge doesn't just help to maximize auto payouts, it actually unlocks massive revenue and practice areas that other lawyers avoid entirely. I wanted to know how Joe leverages his aggressive litigation strategy to flip $0 offers into gold.
What's some other maybe past cases that you've had where you've taken maybe a zero offer or something and you've been able to recognize and get value out of a case that maybe another firm just completely missed on?
Joe Vito:
That happens all the time in premises liability cases and slip and falls, because they're risky cases, they normally have zero or $10,000 offers on them from a commercial carrier. And we'll see it and we'll know, if we can get over that motion for summary judgment, because that's what happens in most premises cases, they file a motion for summary judgment claiming the store had no notice of the spill on the floor or the condition, or it was a natural accumulation of snow and ice, as long as you can prepare your plaintiff, your client to get over that hump and to make sure they say the right things that they need to say in a deposition, once you get over that hump, then the insurance company gets scared, and then they start offering actual value on the case. And it's happened to us time and time again in premises cases, for sure.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. I heard many Chicago attorneys, they don't even take premises cases. It's just they focus on auto.
Joe Vito:
But they're very lucrative. I mean, there's a commercial carrier on the other side, so it's not like a typical auto policy. If you can get over that summary judgment hump, you're going to get paid.
Chris Dreyer:
So I like to also paint for the future, things that you're planning on doing, excited, you're painting the path. What's something that you've kind of set for the vision for the firms, a direction that you're wanting to go, just plans for the future?
Joe Vito:
Yeah. Our vision for the future is obviously growth. I mean, we work, of course, on our own organic stuff. But like John Waller was saying, like you're saying, these bigger monies coming into town, and we're trying to prepare for that and grow with that. So my vision for the future is to have a firm that has a pretty sustainable kind of organic practice, and then a very sustainable and healthy referral practice that we continue to build upon.
Chris Dreyer:
That's fantastic. And the other thing too that I've thought about is a lot of these masterminds, whether it's Fireproof, and Crisp has coaching, and I think Ben Glass has one, and there's how to manage a small law firm. I'm just curious if, from the B2B relationship side, I mean, you get belly to belly, you have breakfast and lunch with these guys, you're in the same room. Have you considered that approach to, not only is the benefit of infrastructure and knowledge of growing a firm, but also to develop relationships? Have you thought about maybe joining some of those masterminds? I don't get anything for saying this, I'm just curious that I've always though that that would be a strong approach.
Joe Vito:
Yeah. We've looked at doing some of that with Fireproof and everything. We do a lot of research, I guess, lack of a better word. I mean, like I said, I'm a loyal listener to you, I'm a loyal listener to some other podcasts. We read your book, Morgan's books, and we try to stay up to speed on what's going on in the industry. We go to conferences, of course, PIMCO, and we try to stay focused and meet as many people as we can. But I mean, it's something I think we'll definitely keep in consideration, something we know of and something we've kept in the back of our minds.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, that makes complete sense. And I think it's easy, a lot of times these podcast guests will say, "Hey, shoot me an email," and they'll list their phone number and nobody contacts them. It's like they're saying, "Hey," and also you got the door open because you could say, "Hey, I listened to you and I like this thing that you said." It's not just a cold approach. You've already got your foot in the door, so to speak.
Joe Vito:
Yeah, for sure. I reached out to Richard Harris, the guy from Nevada.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, right.
Joe Vito:
I reached out to him after your podcast because he was talking about some lead gen stuff and I just followed up with him. He got back to me and it's great. So I mean, that's the whole point of it. Why listen if you're not going to follow up?
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. That makes me really happy, actually. Just trying to provide more value and be a connector, that's incredible. Joe, this has been amazing for our audience listening that has a case in Chicago, has a case in Illinois that they want to send it over to you. They want to connect, they have questions about the pod. What's the best way to get in touch?
Joe Vito:
Email is always the best. That's jvito@vanddlaw.com. That's V-A-N-D-D law dot com.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. Joe, thanks for coming on the show.
Joe Vito:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Chris. I appreciate it.
Chris Dreyer:
Joe Vito proves that in a market saturated with massive B2C advertising budgets, you can build a highly lucrative referral practice by focusing on elite communication and relentless litigation. By keeping actual attorneys on every file and refusing to let cases linger, his firm has recovered over a hundred million dollars in just four years. Joe didn't wait around for the scraps, he positioned his firm to dominate. If you're ready to build a digital presence that commands authority and attracts high value cases, head on over to Rankings.io. We handle the digital battlefield so you can focus on winning in the courtroom.
I'm Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. See you next time.
