Chris Dreyer:
When tort reform slashes your claims by 50%, your systems break down, either pack it in or rebuild.
Koro Khamo:
Because we never really had a client problem, we had an operations problem and we just couldn't sustain the amount of cases that we had.
Chris Dreyer:
Today's guests used that crisis to tap into an untapped demographic and build a powerhouse.
Koro Khamo:
Because, again, it's such an untapped population to where the big dogs are not, they're barely scraping the surface with it.
Chris Dreyer:
This is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, Founder and CEO of Rankings.io, a legal marketing agency for elite law firms specializing in personal injury. We help firms sign more auto and truck accident cases. Today, Koro Khamo of Khamo Law proves that tightening your operations is the ultimate growth engine. We cover boosting case values through medical provider relationships, dominating a blue ocean with targeted SEO, and some smart commercial real estate plays to slash tax liabilities that people don't talk about enough. Let's get into it.
I normally like to start off with a win but you were recently named Crisp Premier Firm of the Year. Congrats to you and your team.
Koro Khamo:
Thank you so much.
Chris Dreyer:
I want to break down how you got there because you had some adversity in 2023 and then you made some changes and you've been just plowing through it. First is take me back to 2023, talk about the changes in Michigan, and then basically how you pushed forward from there and then we'll drill down later in the convo.
Koro Khamo:
Again, Chris, thank you for having me on today's podcast. But to your question, life sometimes is not fair and life sometime kicks you in the glutes more than I care to admit. But since we started the firm, I kid you not, the only thing we saw was winning year after year, year after year, 40% growth. And this is zero marketing, this is just boots on the ground, me marketing to the masses or to specific masses. And then all I see is the money coming. We're growing. And for me, I've never seen this kind of money ever before. But then I realized it gets to a point to where we didn't have operations and I trusted people to get the job done. Having the trust without operations, it's not a good combination and I don't recommend that. The law changed, we're still making money. But because certain teams were not doing what they had to do, that literally exposed me to malpractice actually.
And I'm the type of person to where I put my heart into everything that I do and I never want to see anybody get hurt. Thank God we were able to figure out how to solve that situation. But then it made me realize in 2023, I kid you not, it was a losing year or it was a breakeven year. And that was the year that I joined Crisp. I literally joined Crisp saying, this is my last Hail Mary to really help me how to build a law firm the right way. Because we never really had a client problem, we had an operations problem and we just couldn't sustain the amount of cases that we had.
Chris Dreyer:
Can we drill down a couple of questions and then I didn't mean to interrupt your chain of though here.
Koro Khamo:
Talk to me.
Chris Dreyer:
First, I hear tort reform, but what was the change? Then I'll let you continue on what you changed on the delivery side too.
Koro Khamo:
Of course. Before 2019, Michigan had the best PIP and best BI. Right? PIP was unlimited. PIP is personal injury protection claims or benefits and pretty much unlimited medical. And for the rest of your life, whether it's a small accident or a big accident, and you can charge as much as you want. You can go to physical therapy and you can charge a million dollars for it and you can get paid up to a million dollars for it, literally. There was no cap. And because there was no cap and because it was unlimited, people took advantage of it so the tort reform came and it came very quickly. It became fully operational in 2021 and it was a slow roll until 2023. 2023, not only were my operations not there, it was the full effect of the tort reform to where our PIP got gutted by I would say literally 50%, 60%. You have to adapt to where the cases are not as valuable anymore but the expenses are still there.
Chris Dreyer:
That's insane. That's a massive change. And I hear about being a non-attorney tort reform, there's been tort reform in many states in Florida and Texas is fearful of the tort reform and they're always combating it. And California and et cetera, something like that, it's a real impact so you got to make changes. You had to adjust because on the front end you're bringing in cases but now they're worth less and you still got your expenses. You joined Crisp to clean up your operations, but what were some of those first things that you did?
Koro Khamo:
Essentially by our PIP decreasing, the value of our bodily injury claim increased. My staff does know that I expect a certain revenue amount per case and then we're always trying to push the limits to a higher case revenue per case. The reason why I say that is there's other law firms that get an average of $35,000 per case average. Right? Of course, you have cases that don't make as much and you have cases that make millions. But the average is $35,000. And I have the belief that their attorneys are not that much better than ours. I really think we're at the same capabilities but somehow they're getting the $35,000.
Then in my head, what I told my staff is find a way to get me to that $20,000 mark minimum. And if it means taking more depositions, if it means saying no to the amounts, let's do that. But it also means to where when the clients are treating somewhere, it's always important to build a relationship with the providers. Before Crisp, the clients would be able to treat anywhere. And if the providers, the physical therapy and the pain management decide to leave their bills with us, we'll make money. But back then I didn't care about building relationships with the providers so much so they always hired their own attorneys. But now I'm making a better effort to where I'm talking with these hospital systems, these pain managements, the physical therapies, whatever providers, and I'm asking them, "Hey, leave your bills in our client case and then I will do a fair distribution once the settlement is here." And that by itself has increased the value of the case because we're able to claim more compared to how it was before since the providers had their own attorney.
Chris Dreyer:
When Michigan's tort reform hit, Koro didn't just accept lower margins, he completely shifted his delivery strategy, building genuine partnerships with the medical providers to keep bills in the client's case. It's a brilliant tactical pivot that instantly boosts the average claim value and maximizes revenue per case. I asked Koro if guiding clients to certain providers created a natural relationship where those providers started sending cases back his way.
Here's the other thing I'm sure that probably happened, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you start guiding people to certain providers. Now I know there's no... They'd probably reciprocate. Right? It's a psychological thing like, "Hey, this firm is... When there's a case, they probably comes back your way." And I'm not saying... I know some people play the bad side of the game but just a natural reciprocity is probably built in.
Koro Khamo:
One thing I've realized, Chris, it's everyone promises you clients if you send them clients. And it gets to a point to where I am the one that is producing the clients now. I have the ability. My marketing right now allows me to sign a minimum of 20 clients a month. And again, we're just starting off at this point. But everybody promises you, "Send me a client. I'm going to give you a client in return." But it gets to a point to where talk is cheap. What I would rather see is you don't have to give me a client, just take care of the client. And if possible, leave your bills in the client case because that by itself, I will make more money because I can claim it in the client case. And trust me, I'm not asking for much when I say that because this is what a lot of attorneys do.
That attorney that makes $35,000 per case, that's exactly what he does. The people that he treats, the clients, the providers that the clients treat with, they leave the bills with the law firm and that's how they get to the $35,000 mark. They don't even have to give me clients. Just take care of the client, treat them well, make them better, and leave the bills with the client case and everybody wins. I swear, Chris, I'm very, very privileged when it comes to my marketing. For me, it's...
I'm Chaldean and we speak the language of Jesus, which is Aramaic. Right? In Michigan, we have the largest, literally the largest population of Chaldean people in the whole world, only second to Iraq. My market literally, in my opinion, I have Arabic SEO which doesn't... Because you can use AI to do Arabic SEO but it's not there yet so I have an in-house person that actually does Arabic SEO because the periods are done a certain way and Chaldeans talk a certain way. If you search Arabic, if you type in Arabic, we will literally come up one of the first ones, at least in Michigan and in the United States. What I do is I do my branding for Chaldeans and the Middle Eastern population.
Chaldeans are the Catholics, which I do target, and then the Middle Eastern people are the Muslims, the Arabic speakers. And for that, my Arabic SEO targets them specifically, especially on YouTube. And not a lot of people speak Arabic, not a lot of people speak Aramaic because Aramaic is a dying language, unfortunately. And my staff, more than half my staff speaks Arabic or Aramaic or both. And that's an untapped market.
Chris Dreyer:
Identifying a blue ocean is one thing, dominating it is another. By aggressively targeting Arabic and Aramaic SEO, Koro has captured a massively lucrative demographic. But to truly scale and capture that growth, your operations have to support the demand. Scaling in a niche language brings its own set of operational hurdles, especially when you need to answer the phone and convert leads at 2:00 in the morning. Want to know how he's building out his intake staffing to fuel this expansion and effectively convert those complex opportunities?
Koro Khamo:
We have two intake employees, one that does my English intake and one that does my, I guess, second language, the Arabic speakers or the Aramaic speakers. I have two people for that. And I guess to your question, at this point, it's just when they call, bring them in within 24 hours. If you can bring them in immediately, good. And again, when it comes to the Aramaic or the Arabic speakers, those tend to be the clients that get stolen the quickest. Because it's the most insane thing, even though there isn't that many Arabic speakers or Chaldean speakers, those tend to be the clients to where if you don't sign them, they're going to somewhere else. For us, if we're able to bring them that same day, I'm going to bring them that same day, even if it's after hours.
But the other complexity is there isn't a after hours Aramaic speakers. They only speak English. Right now, we just rolled out something with LEX Reception, if I'm not mistaken. They're doing a good job. They're picking up the calls after hours. But if it's an Arabic speaker, they can't really talk to the Arabic speaker or the Aramaic speaker. That's where once we get an Arabic speaker or Aramaic speaker, it goes directly to my intake for after hours. But if it goes to my in-house intake after hours, they go to sleep at 10, 11, 12 o'clock. We haven't had the hurdle to where we missed a call at two o'clock in the morning but that's something I do anticipate in the future. But there's no solution to it because Aramaic is such a difficult language to where you're not going to understand it or nobody is going to speak it. But Arabic is a language that can be adaptable with the AI or with LEX Reception down the line.
Chris Dreyer:
That's immediately where I was going. I know Crisp has Capture now, there's some other AI. And I was just curious if they happen to do Aramaic in terms of an after hours maybe solution, I have no idea.
Koro Khamo:
Yeah. One of the solutions in my head, again, it's we have to think very, very creatively. And for me as somebody that was born in Iraq, we try to hire somebody from Iraq that speaks full Aramaic, full Arabic. But the problem with that is Iraq is the type of country to where you're limited on electricity, you have blackouts or brownouts or however you want to call them so it's inconsistent. And I can't have something that's inconsistent because I'm going to assume that they're not working and I just don't like that feeling.
Chris Dreyer:
We look at these, you have an opportunity. Right?
Koro Khamo:
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer:
Not because it's not an easy solve but when you solve it, that's another big opportunity for you.
Koro Khamo:
And again, it gets to a point to where now that our operations are getting a little better, now that I am hiring a little bit more people, once I free up just a little bit more of my time, I'm literally going to go with both feet in. I'm literally diving with both feet when it comes to the Middle Eastern population and the Chaldean population. Because again, it's such an untapped population to where the big dogs are not. They're barely scraping the surface with it.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, thank you for sharing. The other thing I wanted to ask you and I'm going to sound like a Michael Mogill Crisp affiliate here, but I genuinely don't know and I think our audience doesn't know. How does our coaching program work? Tell me a little bit about it because you said it really benefited you, what's it include? And you don't have to share costs and things like that but I just generally have no idea.
Koro Khamo:
Absolutely. You know what Mike has created, it's something that's honestly incredible because it's such a monster of a program. And the reason why I'm saying that... And again, I guess you can say I drink the Kool-Aid. I see the goods of it but the coach that they give you, they make you think through all of your issues because sometimes as the visionaries of the business, your head is in a million places. The coaches are there to organize your thoughts and to make you really critically think of how you should proceed with it. Because for me, I want to do 10 million things all at once but I'm not going to get anything done. They make you think of what you should do per month and per quarter and they really encourage you to delegate it to other people and they help you see who is that person as well.
But the other part of Crisp that I really think is more valuable, this is where the coaching... This is the best part of Crisp, in my opinion, is the environment to where if I'm going to Atlanta, I'm going to Atlanta in maybe two weeks, if I have a question and I don't know the answer to it, I'm going to go to them and say, "Hey, what's your solution to this?" And it's the same thing with SEO companies, all of us ask the same question saying, "Hey, what kind of SEO company have you guys used before? Who do you like? Who you don't like? What kind of vendors are you using for AI? What kind of CRM are you guys using?" And that itself, if you're able to ask people about their experience and they give you the honest to God truth, that's going to save you money down the line. Because some people will absolutely discourage you from going to certain vendors and some people will encourage you, and that's the kind of information that you really need.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Yeah. And it saves you a lot of time, it's speed of decision and money and pain that other people have experienced and opportunity too. And those that are really good, you got to really pry it out. But once you build a genuine relationship and you have some friends in the group, they're more willing to share some of those top vetted vendors.
Koro Khamo:
And for me, I genuinely, genuinely believe that you should be very open and honest with people because, again, one thing that really bothers me, Chris, is there's a lot of people that are selfish and they only care about themselves. But we're in a field to where we're changing people's lives and if I can teach somebody how to make their operations better, they're going to do better work for the clients and that's the ultimate goal. When it comes to Crisp, one thing I've realized is people are more honest. But for me, even outside of Crisp, if someone literally asks me how much money am I paying for this or what do I think about this vendor or who do I use? I'm literally going to be an open book to them because the more details I can give them, I want them to learn from the mistakes that I've made before. Because again, at the end of the day, we're trying to change the world for the people out there.
Chris Dreyer:
And you're putting out good karma and it comes back, and I think people want to genuinely help other people. I think there's a lot of good in the world. And I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. That's amazing. What's the future and the vision? What's it look like ahead?
Koro Khamo:
I've been thinking about that more and more. The more AI that I've been using, I've been doing a lot of forecasting myself. I forecasted for the next 11 years. Don't ask me why 11 years and not 10 but I'm like, "Screw it. I'm just going to do 11." The goal for me is to be top three in Michigan. And what I mean by that is two of the biggest law firms in the United States for PI, 2 out of the 10, are in Michigan. That's Mike Morrison, that's Sam Bernstein. Morgan & Morgan is number one in the whole country, everybody knows that. But 2 of the top 10 are in Michigan actually. And right now with the trajectory that I have, I'm going to be in literally the top three hopefully in the next 15, 20 years.
But for me, I love real estate too. As we expand, I want to get the buildings. And once we get the buildings that I own, that I renovate, that we can expand on, down the line, hopefully that's going to allow me to sell my firm, not only just for the firm but the real estate attached to it.
Chris Dreyer:
Now, we're talking my language. I rarely get to nerd out about this on this show but as someone with over 100 doors, I'm incredibly passionate about real estate. So many personal injury attorneys get trapped into a terrible cash acceleration cycle, paying a premium to lease office space while missing out on the hardest asset of all. Owning your commercial space isn't just about the optics, it's a masterclass in leverage, tenant income, and tax strategy. I asked Koro why more personal injury attorneys are blind to this opportunity and how he approaches the real estate side of his business.
All right. You just opened up a whole can here because I'm a real estate guy. I got about 100... I don't know, 100 plus doors right now.
Koro Khamo:
Nice.
Chris Dreyer:
And I've always thought about this. There are so many components to this. Right? Everybody goes and gets a Regis or whatever and pays their lease, and then we know the cash acceleration cycle for PI attorneys are terrible and typically leverage is needed. Why don't more PI attorneys look at these commercial spaces that already have tenants paying for the mortgage? It's a hard asset for leverage. What's the deal there? Maybe they don't see it. Obviously, you do. Are you looking for fives and six cap rate? Talk to me just a little bit, let's nerd out on the real estate side.
Koro Khamo:
I got you. I swear, Chris, I'm the type of person to where I do a lot of research. And you know the saying that a lot of millionaires own real estate? Well, I believed in that. For me, I have 90 plus doors and it's a combination of manufacturing, mainly multi-tenant, and we have offices. I think it's three buildings for offices. And not everything produces money and sometimes management companies don't do what they're supposed to do. Again, it's like I'd be in shit and I've seen money from it too. But the one thing I've realized for me, if you're going to own the real estate... And again, this is how I explain it. The next project I'm going to get is I want a building around the Southfield area, maybe around 30,000 square feet. Get something that's maybe $2 or $3 million and I can be the sole tenant in it because I genuinely want to expand in 20,000 or 30,000 square feet.
Right now, currently we have about 4,500 for our main office. But if we're going to expand, I want 20,000, 30,000 square feet like Mike Morrison does. But don't forget, it's the law firm that pays the holding company, the real estate holding company. And you can do payments of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a month. And by the law firm paying $20,000, $30,000 a month, that reduces your tax liability at your law firm but you have to show it on the real estate side. But when you show it on the real estate side, you have accelerated depreciation, you can do cost segregations. But people don't know that. At the end of the day, not only do you have a hard asset but it also allows you to save on taxes because, again, attorneys pay a lot of money on taxes.
To your question, why not get something at a five or a six cap? For me, if I own the building, I'll be happy. But if there's tenants, it literally reduces your rent at the end of the day.
Chris Dreyer:
But I've also thought about in Arizona, one of the components of the ABS is non-attorneys can have ownership.
Koro Khamo:
Correct.
Chris Dreyer:
I've thought, "Well, if you're doing an expansion, wouldn't it be nice to reward key employees equity in your real estate assets as part of the holding company to reward them for their tenure? And they can't have equity in the firm but they could have equity in the real estate." It's an interesting component. I don't know the exact details of that. I'm not an attorney. But I've thought, "Well, okay. Well, here's maybe an opportunity." But super interesting. I'm with you there. And trust me, I've taken it to the chin as well big time and we get stronger from that. And that's like anything with business, with our agency, with real estate. For audience listening, what's the best way to get in touch with you? If they have questions about the pod, they want to refer a case to you in Michigan, what's the best way to get in touch?
Koro Khamo:
For me, it's if you want to give me a call. Because for me, when I tell you that I work all the time, you literally have access to me. I want my clients to really have access to me. And again, there's people that still call me on Sundays at night time. But I'm still going to pick up most of the time, at least. And literally, if you have any questions, Khamo Law, go to the website, K-H-A-M-O, Law. Or just send me an email, koro@khamolaw.com. And literally just reach out, man. Don't hesitate.
Chris Dreyer:
Koro, amazing. Thank you for coming on the show.
Koro Khamo:
I appreciate it, Chris. Thank you so much for having me.
Chris Dreyer:
Koro Khamo proved that legislative hits don't have to be fatal. By tacking operational bottlenecks and engineering higher case values, he transformed a massive setback into explosive growth. Add in his commercial real estate plays, and we got an amazing model for a highly profitable machine.
That's it for today's episode. Personal Injury Mastermind is powered by Rankings.io, a legal marketing agency for elite law firms specializing in personal injury law. If you want more auto and truck accident cases choosing you instead of the competition, book a complimentary growth audit at Rankings.io.
