Transcript
Mike DiPasquale (00:00)
Number one thing I’ve ever done, by the way. I love billboards because anecdotally, in public, that is the number one thing people mention this summer, because it’s you 250th birthday of America. We ran a bunch of like happy birthday America billboards. Number one thing I’ve ever done, by the way. I’ve gotten more people call me out of the blue. I love it. So if you’re listening, do a little bit of different stuff.
Al Ludwig (00:18)
if you can. Mike Di Pasquale, thanks for joining the Law Firm Brand Builders Podcast.
Mike DiPasquale (00:22)
Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Al Ludwig (00:25)
So about a year and a half ago, you said you had sleepless nights over your rebrand, going from D Pesqually more to DM injury law. And that if it didn’t work, you might switch back. Yeah. Th this morning, actually, because I knew we were we were meeting on this, I pulled some search data and saw that DM injury law now gets searched more than D Pasqually more, which is good, you know, with the rebrand. So sounding like it’s beating your own name, in your opinion, did it work overall?
Mike DiPasquale (00:52)
Still don’t know, right? You know, you don’t know. I’d say you know what you know what’s funny though, the top thing that surged still to this day for us is my first name. You know, it was Mike, like Mike’s got this or Mike the lawyer, whatever. Yeah, everyone’s gonna go conquest me now that I said that, but the smart guys already knew that. But that’s still that’s the one thing that I’ve come through this whole process from the brand perspective is you know, when you have a last name like Deep Asquale, okay? It I love my last name, right?
Al Ludwig (01:16)
Fun to say.
Mike DiPasquale (01:17)
It’s really fun to say, right? It’s hard to learn how to spell as a kid, but
But it wasn’t fun probably for my intake department to say, right? Just like fumbling over, mispronouncing it, all that. But i is that at the end of the day, like DM injury law, you know, deep as squally more, whatever it might be, the stickiest thing we’ve done ever, and we’ve done it from day one, is Mike’s got this, right? As simple as that is, that’s a thing. I mean, every single place I go, hey Mike, you got this, you know, boop I mean, that is that’s the best thing we’ve ever done.
And you know what’s funny, that the the reason we came up with that was I was I was shooting my first T V commercials as many years ago and the agency I was working with, really good agency, they had a a similar you know, a tagline that they were using for everybody. It’d be like insert your name and then the their little slogan. I s and I said, Well, I don’t like that. We’re like, Well, everybody does it. Everyone likes it. And I said, Well, I I like it, I just don’t like it for me because I think in marketing you have to be authentic. And I was like, What you guys are proposing just like isn’t me.
So we c me and my wife, like on the fly, came up with Mike’s got this. And by the way, it should be known that pretty much everyone in my life except for my dad calls me Michael. But Mike just worked because Michael’s got this doesn’t work as good as Mike’s got this, right? Could we agree on that? So there lies the
Al Ludwig (02:37)
I absolutely
one out there. There’s numerous people I know that have kind of changed the name for that. Me on LinkedIn, I’m Al Ludwig. Yeah. The reason I’m Al Ludwig, ’cause if if you search Alex Ludwig, it brings up the actor everywhere. If you search if you search Al Ludwig, you get my LinkedIn profile on Google and all my information.
Mike DiPasquale (02:58)
Well well my my Mike D Basqually guy, he’s he’s like the lead, he’s the main sports anchor in Miami, like W S something something. And we’ve actually become buddies. He’ll like tag me and stuff and I’ll tag him. He’s a great guy ’cause two Mike D. Pasqualis and he’s like a he’s like the guy in Miami. In fact, one time I was getting some I had to call into a I was in my car and I need like an update and I called in the ladies like on the phone, like, Hey, I just gotta ask you.
Is this the Mike D. Basqually? And I started getting like real cocky. I was like, wow, this is amazing. The lady at the customer, you know, she’s and I’m like waiting for her to butter me up. She goes, my God, I love you on the news. And I’m like, damn, wrong Mike D. Basquale, but I get it. So you
Al Ludwig (03:41)
Yes.
Mike DiPasquale (03:42)
know, I don’t know how to this day, and now we’re gonna do another, we’ve done numerous studies and everyone can tell you something different. we’ll probably do another research project at some point. But at the end of the day, as long as I don’t change my name from Mike, I think I’m good.
Al Ludwig (03:54)
Yeah, and and we coach a lot of our clients and prospects on that aspect of the branding that that you kind of intuitively picked up on there, where it’s I want your brand to be something that that you own. Ideally, it’s a per in in our in this field, personal injury law, it’s a it’s a person, it’s a name, it’s a call and response. You know, injured, Mike’s got this. It’s it’s an answer to something, which is one reason
I love it. And I’m working on one right now with one of our clients. There’s the same thing. We’re creating that call and response. Very simple and easy. It has his name in it. And so no one else can hijack that in the market. Or you’re not going to go to three markets over and hear, you know, one call, that’s all again. Right. Done by someone else. And it sound really weird to you because you’re used to the attorney in your market saying it. Right. Yeah. So I was actually going to ask you a little bit about Mike Scott this because we talked about
You know, th that brand change from the Pasquale Moore to DM injury law. But in your opinion, is Mike the actual brand and DMs just kind of the container for the work that is done?
Mike DiPasquale (05:00)
Absolutely. If you were to like you know go down the line of like what the brand is, it’s it’s it’s Mike’s Mike, Mike’s got this, okay? Then it’s like, you know, me from here up, right? My face. And then it’s and then it’s always been the firm name or DM injury law. And you I thought about it, I’m like, hey, like why why are law firm names last name, last name? Well it’s ’cause that’s the way it’s always been done.
I’m looking out my window here and there’s a law firm out there with a big their names on the building. It’s it’s just all last names. And I I I don’t think that’s I mean, you know, I don’t think it’s for everyone to be your firm name be your brand. I think it I think it can be dependent on who you are and what your you know, for some firms that’s the that’s the way to go. For us, it wasn’t. I I when I got into this, I was I was when I well s you know.
had my own law firm for many years. When I started marketing, I was like, I gotta be different than all at that time it was pretty much just T V. I think I did a T V commercial before I ever ran a digital ad, which is crazy ’cause it wasn’t that long ago. And it was like I gotta be different. I I s I feel bad ’cause I’m now turning into this guy. I gotta be different, although I have no law books behind me. I got I can’t be the old guy sitting in front of a bunch of law books. You know what I mean? Like sitting like this and like I I was like, I gotta di I didn’t have as much money. I had to differentiate myself.
So we kinda came out swinging a little bit with, you know, the mic’s got this and really leaned into it. And I think from the get go and whether it’s you know, the chicken or the egg, for us that’s worked. Yeah. For other people it’s different.
Al Ludwig (06:36)
It’s simple, it’s memorable. And if you put the media dollars behind it even and I I I I I tell many law firms this if you put media dollars behind anything, it’s going to have some type of impact. Absolutely.
Mike DiPasquale (06:48)
Absolutely.
Al Ludwig (06:48)
Now, could you have made it better? Maybe, right? But the point is getting started with it and finessing it over time and learning and evolving it, which which you’ve done over the 13 years, right? Yeah. And the version of it now is probably feels a lot different than that.
That first iteration of of my
Mike DiPasquale (07:07)
Absolutely. It was uncomfortable. It was like, what am I saying? My buddies would, you know, make fun of me, which it’s fine. I’m fair game. I I’m okay to be made fun of. I’ll give you a great example. You know, we’re in, you know, multiple markets, and Kans City is our our oldest market, right? And in Kans City, I mean, we’re the we’re the in a in my opinion, at least, the dominant brand here. Okay. And so I can’t go anywhere without somebody saying something ever I go, right?
I was in Oklahoma City recently. We have an office there and we did a backpack giveaway. It was a resounding success, by the way. I was worried that no one’s going to show up, to be honest. We got all these backpacks ready to go. We get there and there’s cars lined. I mean, whatever. So we gave away a thousand plus backpacks. People could not have been nicer. And what I noticed was, had I done that in Kansas City, every single car that drove that came up to get a backpack, they would have wanted a picture. They would have said, Hey, Mike, you got this, whatever. Okay. They would have had a story about me.
In Oklahoma City, it was about ten percent of the people. The other people were just like, Thanks for the backpack, dude. Who are you? Right. And so as you know and as well as anyone, it takes time to build a brand. I don’t think our brand in Kansas City truly became sticky and like really good until we were doing about eight seven or eight years. That’s yeah, my opinion. Okay.
Al Ludwig (08:25)
Seven seven or eight years in.
Mike DiPasquale (08:27)
Came
really like like every you know, I had you know, till everybody was
Al Ludwig (08:32)
And it and it makes sense. I imagine over that seven or eight years, you were taking your wins, investing a little bit more into marketing each quarter, each year. Yeah. And you you probably weren’t the top spender in the market in the that first year, two or three, right? It took time to get there and then it starts compounding at a ever growing rate once that happens. And I assume you started putting some billboards into into the the rotation as well at some point. Yep.
Mike DiPasquale (08:57)
That’s what I’d say when I started running billboards though, and I love billboards ’cause that is the the anecdotally now, of course I’ve never had a a lead say they came from like my intake department.
Al Ludwig (09:08)
Every
now and then you got someone that says it, but it’s if you look at the attribution, it’d be the worst platform that you can do.
Mike DiPasquale (09:15)
Of
course. But I’ll say this though. Anecdotally, in public, that is the number one thing people mention. And we we do also, we kind of commit like 15, 20% of our inventory to like weird, like interesting stuff. This summer, because it’s you 250th birthday of America, we ran a bunch of like happy birthday America billboards. Number one thing I’ve ever done, by the way. I’ve gotten more people calling me out of the blue. I love it. So if you’re listening, do some cra do a little bit of different stuff if you can’t.
But billboards of the day my CPA forever rose and never went back down. I’ll say that though.
Al Ludwig (09:47)
Yeah.
Mike DiPasquale (09:47)
They just went up and never came back down. And unfortunately they’re still going up, you know that.
Al Ludwig (09:52)
And what what you were saying there, you know, I I call that the brand moments. I I want my billboards to to to do to perform on what I call the face diet, which is if you’ll follow me on LinkedIn, I you you’ll probably write a little bit about that. But you know, the the who I am, what I do, how how to contact me, why to contact me, very quick, very easy, very bold. But then ten, fifteen percent of the inventory have brand moments, fun ideas, creative ideas, things that you’re into that the general public might be into as well.
Cultural moments, all that. You know, y have fun with it because those are the ones people talk about, but you still you don’t want that to be most of your boards because you don’t want to miss the thread of still why to call polite.
Mike DiPasquale (10:33)
I agree with you too.
Al Ludwig (10:34)
Yeah. And
Mike DiPasquale (10:36)
Base diet. Yeah, like
Al Ludwig (10:37)
and the the more it’s billboards are are the interesting thing where it’s once you hit the pure kind of marketing metric numbers, like okay, this is a
Goodbye, right? This checks all the boxes on on what we need. Billboards are one of those places where double that and the the impact grows phenomenally for this space for for personality law. There’s there’s something about having so many billboards that it it creates more impressions outside of seeing it because now people are just talking about the sh the pure amount of billboards you have in the market.
Mike DiPasquale (11:13)
I totally agree. And I I’ve even thought about trying in a market, not in can’t see, but a new market and going all billboards and digital and just seeing no TV. See what happens, right? You know, I came up in the television business. So I worked in the television business for about five years after law school. And I grew up in the tele my dad was in the television business and so I grew up in it and so I love T V and biased, but at some point, I don’t know when, you know, it’s gonna be the next I
I don’t want to totally be the yellow pages, but at one point a lawyers plaster their faces on the the back page of yellow. I’ve never spent a dollar doing that, right? Yeah. And so I grew up in the business and I believe, like you said, like you just gotta like to stay in it. You gotta keep doing it. I I billboards always fascinated me. Kansas City’s a pretty good billboard town. Probably not as good as some of the more southern cities where they’re just board after board after board after everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. Everywhere. I’m actually glad we don’t have that here. Then I to buy double them, right?
Al Ludwig (12:08)
Yeah, and on on the T V side, what’s interesting, aga again, it’s it’s all about the area in which you practice, personal injury, motor vehicle accidents. It’s it’s one place where I’ve talked to numerous law firms, I work with numerous law firms, and there’s even some recently over the last three years who’s who finally started investing there and are spending top three and they’ve seen more growth in those three years than they’ve ever seen, and it was on the the back of
building their brand through a lot of broadcast T V ’cause it still does a lot of things within the PI space that is hard to mirror in other places. I think you you need to ever expand and T V does not work like it used to ten years ago. Absolutely not.
Mike DiPasquale (12:48)
But it didn’t work ten years ago like it did ten years ago.
Al Ludwig (12:50)
Ten years prior to that. And it it just doesn’t yet have a equivalent to it in terms of the pure reach frequency CPN, loc local visibility and attachment to things like the news. And so yeah, I I anytime I work with a firm that wants that’s like, I want to dominate. I’m like, okay, well, if
Mike DiPasquale (13:10)
Yeah.
Al Ludwig (13:11)
you don’t like broadcast TV, I got some bad news for you, especially if you want to build the brand.
Mike DiPasquale (13:16)
I I agree.
Al Ludwig (13:17)
I I did want to ask you a little bit about that. What’s the downsides of Mike Mike’s got this being the brand?
Mike DiPasquale (13:24)
The downside is I know there’s probably everywhere I go and especially in K the markets we’ve been in a little bit longer, so we’ll talk focus on Kansas City. Everywhere I go, I see the people look and look away, or I’ll see the guy getting his cell phone out, snapping a picture. And I got a sixteen year old daughter, thirteen year old son. So they were, you know, six months old and two years old, two and a half years old and we started, you know, the mic’s got this right. Well now they’re very aware of it and especially my daughter
You know how embarrassing it is for a sixteen year old to have your dad be, you know, Mike’s got this. Like I’m a dad just like anyone else. I coach him in sports. I you do all that stuff. But at the end of the day, like, you know, they get some flack from their buddies, trust me. And and my son’s really into sports and he’s getting older. You know, there’s some kids in a football game that’ll seek out, try to hit them a little harder and say, Hey, hey, you got this, right? So that’s some of the downside, right? but you know, listen, I embrace it. I never s I never
Did this to be like, you know, because we’re not celebrities as lawyers, because we pay for this, right? Celebrities get it for free. But, you know, you do make yourself a pseudo celebrity in your market if you are a dominant brand. And so I embrace it. I listen, I got thick skin. So if someone makes fun of me, I’m like, hey, whatever. They’re like, hey, nice haircut or whatever. I’m like, hey, the hair God gave me, right? But you gotta be able to do that. And you know, you gotta you gotta make sure though, like everywhere you go, you always got a smile on your face because everybody you know, everywhere you go, whether you’re buying a cup of coffee or
On your car wash, they know who you are. Okay. In fact, we had a someone put a post on one of our our TikTok or something recently. The guy was like, Hey, Mike’s a bad tipper. And I’m like, he he was I used to work at such and such car wash and Mike’s a bad tipper. I’m like, well, hey, I was a bad tipper then because I wasn’t making any money then. If you go to my current car wash, I’ll tip you better. You work there. But back in those days, I was making zero dollars and I have a lot of money to tip you. But I I thought that was funny. I’m a good tipper now though.
Al Ludwig (15:20)
Yeah, it it provides the y unique opportunity to do a little bit of that belly to belly marketing too. Because some some people will come to you and say something, right? And yeah and you’re having casual conversation. what what are y’all going to? I’m bringing my son to lunch, blah, blah, blah. You just had a good interaction. You’re like, Well, here, you know, here’s a hundred dollars cash. Let me pay for your lunch. Thank you for being a fan. Thank you for for your positivity. And the next thing you know, you know, you got that very easy marketing interaction.
Mike DiPasquale (15:47)
made a ton of fans right there by doing that, right? Yeah. I tell my young lawyers all the time, although they don’t have, they’re not, you know, like I said, I’m not, this is not an egotistical thing, but they’re not Mike Scott this. Okay. But what they are is they’re really good lawyers who’ve been trained really well and they work for the Mike Scott this firm, right? So I’m like, hey, anytime you guys are in an Uber, you go out to dinner, you go to a bar, you get a beer with your buddies after work, tip the tip the bartender a little bit more. Give them your card. Let them know what you do. Tell them where you work.
‘Cause you we pay our lawyers a really hefty origination fee. I have lawyers here making a zillion dollars because they’re hustlers with the business card and an extra couple of dollars on a tip. Then I other lawyers who make zero dollars and I guarantee they don’t tell anyone where they work. They never tip extra. That’s their f I mean, I guess it’s my b that hurts me too, but it really hurts them.
Al Ludwig (16:37)
Yeah, and and and from w working with a lot of different law firm owners, I’ve I’ve come to understand that is if you’re a PI attorney in in most functions and you could bring in your own caseload, typically you’re getting a higher, you know, commission on the back end from from that.
Mike DiPasquale (16:53)
They’ll make more money on that case than I would. Yeah.
Al Ludwig (16:55)
Yeah.
So I know if I was a PI attorney I’d be trying to hustle all day ’cause I’d want all my cases to be personal referrals.
Mike DiPasquale (17:01)
Yes. Yes. I don’t wanna be like, hey, sorry, I can’t take any more of your cases you’re giving me ’cause I’m full to the brim with my own cases, right?
Al Ludwig (17:09)
And then you and then you love that guy because those yeah that revolving door of cases that’s coming in and getting assigned to all the attorneys. Now you have one less attorney in that in that rotation. You hire another attorney and you get more and more in. Yeah.
Mike DiPasquale (17:22)
For sure, for sure. Well,
Al Ludwig (17:24)
Well
y y you mentioned your dad being in the T V business. I I was looking up some other interviews that you did. Tell me a little bit about furniture stores and and while your dad’s lessons around that stuck with you.
Mike DiPasquale (17:37)
So all your clients should hear this and I’ll I’ll I’ll tell you buy me a beer next time you see me, th anyone ever wants to cut their advertising or they’re scared. You know, I remember I was driving around with my dad one time, I was a little boy, I don’t know, twelve years old or something. We drove by a furniture store and I grew up in I was born in Buffalo, New York, but I moved to Wichita, Kansas for my dad’s job, I grew up in Wichita. And we’re driving around and we drive by, you know, the furniture store’s got the big go not a business sign.
And my dad told me, he’s like, Hey, that storage is like, Do you why they’re going out of business? And I, you know, I’m young. I’m like, I don’t know, like, is the furniture uncomfortable? Is it bad product? He’s No, they’re bad advertisers. He goes, They’ve been on and off the air with us at hit the TV station he worked at and witched off for years. Six months on, it’s not working. Then they go off, then they come back, then off and off. Whereas the other furniture store that sold the same damn furniture, right? Because they’re all probably built the same factory.
was consistent advertisers. And the other furniture store it had a brand, okay? It had a the guy, I forget his name, but he had a dog. I remember the dog’s name. The dog’s name was Ruggles the Dog. Okay? And then Ruggles died and they got another little puppy that looked like Ruggles and it was like Ruggles Ruggles’s son or it wasn’t, but we all believed it, right? They had a good brand and they were consistent advertisers. The other furniture store had no brand and
I they had a brand, but it wasn’t as good as Ruggles, and they were on and off, starting stop, starting stop. Doesn’t
Al Ludwig (18:59)
Inconsistency.
Mike DiPasquale (19:02)
work. You know this better than anyone. You gotta stick it out. It is expensive. It is very expensive. I tell people when we went into new markets, I am taking and I in Kansas City was a little more guerrilla warfare. It was we the way we started Kansas City. Well, I had the law firm before, but the way the when we started marketing, the way we did it, that would not work today in twenty twenty six.
Okay, so the way that we if we expand into a new market today, I’m taking a wheelbarrow full of cash into my front yard and I’m burning it for several years before there I walk out and then there’s there’s no money in the wheelbarrow, but at least I’m not losing it, right? That’s my break even year. And then I start bringing a little bit of we start making a little bit of profit, right? But it you know takes a long time.
Al Ludwig (19:49)
Taste consistency, a lot of that same lesson during COVID. I worked with a lot of different businesses during COVID and the but the the businesses, particularly law firms, that just kept advertising during COVID. They decided we’re just gonna stick it out, see what happens. They grew a lot in two years because a lot
Mike DiPasquale (20:08)
We grow four yeah.
Al Ludwig (20:09)
of people pulled back. And then next so next thing you know, they were just absolutely killing it out there.
And they got they reap the benefit three or four years later, right?
Mike DiPasquale (20:19)
Totally. It to you know, during COVID, we I talked to my dad. I was like, What do you think we should do? ‘Cause like hey, like listen, like everybody, I was really scared. Okay. Yeah. Life was good. We’re starting to do okay. We had about sixty ish employees. We’re like almost three hundred now, so we’ve grown a lot. And my dad was like, Listen, he goes, What’s gonna happen is I knew this I’d worked with them, but my dad did it longer than me, right? His his whole career was in in television. We also owned some digital marketing companies as well. But he’s like, Here’s the deal.
A lot of your competitors and a lot of other businesses are gonna just they’re gonna kill their schedules immediately. All of it. They’re gonna go off the air. He’s like, so you’re gonna have some really good opportunities with those stations to get some really cheap inventory. Yep. And to really grow market share. And he’s like, this might be the only time it ever happens to you. He’s like, you’re faced with perhaps a once in a lifetime. And I believe it. I hope that that doesn’t I hope there’s not another pandemic, you know.
event that that just you’re never expecting that’s on the horizon. Yeah. And it was an opportunity for us to really gain market share because we were had access to cheap inventory. I did not cut my advertising. I actually increased it. And it didn’t you know, there weren’t as many cases.
Al Ludwig (21:33)
There weren’t people on the road, yeah, for
Mike DiPasquale (21:36)
But people were sitting at home watching, consuming more T V, seeing my ugly face all day. And then when things got back to normal a year or so later, guess who they were gonna r call up, right?
Al Ludwig (21:47)
They
were consuming more media than ever. But
Mike DiPasquale (21:50)
Absolutely.
Al Ludwig (21:50)
more more people were pulling back on it. So the prices were extremely cheaper. And there were many firms I worked with when you look at the pure numbers, you look at 2020, 2021, you’re like, why’d you cut your budget so much in 2020 and 2021? But the reality was, like, we didn’t. We just negotiated very heavily, which you were saying. And we got the same schedule as this 2019 and 2018. But
Mike DiPasquale (22:13)
We paid less.
Al Ludwig (22:14)
the stations and the billboard companies and the others.
Like they they did not want us to go away, so they gave it to us for a fifty percent discount, right?
Mike DiPasquale (22:22)
Yep. That’s exactly what we did. Yep. Exactly.
Al Ludwig (22:24)
J
it built some market dominators a little quicker than it otherwise would have, for sure.
Mike DiPasquale (22:30)
It was definitely fuel on the fire. It was listen, a time I don’t wish to ever go through again. I had a yeah, first grader and a fourth grader and I’m trying to teach at home and it was not ideal. But from a from a from a purely from a branding perspective, it was good and a growth perspective, it was good for us.
Al Ludwig (22:46)
It’s it’s refreshing to hear you talk about growing the brand, how long it takes the consistency. You mentioned in like it took seven, eight years for it to become that a mic is completely ubiquitous. You can’t go anywhere. You know, people are taking pictures and and all of that. And you know, there’s there’s some firms that’s they start onto broadcast TV, billboards or or whatever their marketing their marketing channels of choice are, particularly if it’s if it’s brand focused. And like three months in, it’s well, how many cases did we get from it?
This that’s part of the goal for sure. And we definitely are monitoring those those metrics for are we seeing brand lift? Are we seeing more stuff coming in? But it’s definitely a long game for it, especially in today’s world where the the the PI industry is in its own little upheaval with the the outside dollars coming in, all of that. Or ha has anybody approached you about doing it any of that?
Mike DiPasquale (23:41)
Yeah. And I like to tell you if you run a TV commercial, you’re on a billboard, you rest assured someone’s called you about that. So I know that every single person in every single market is at all the same phone calls we have. And I’ve worked in private equity backed businesses before. The the company I worked at, so graduate law school, I work insurance defense for a couple of years. Okay. And then my dad calls me and he he what my dad did, he he he basically flipped TV stations.
He would buy underperforming assets, okay, and we would make them better, and then we would sell them to someone else who wanted to hold them for a long period of time. That was my dad’s MO from the the the 80s through 2012 or 13 when we sold our company. So dad calls my dad calls me and he’s like, hey, we’re gonna buy clear channel communications TV assets. He’s like, You wanna come work with me? Well, we were we owned, my family owned a big chunk of it, but it was majority owned by a large private equity firm. And so
I worked at I worked for five or six years of my life. I was one of the vice presidents’ operations there as well as one of the attorneys working with outside capital. And so I’m not as I read what everybody says and it’s evil and this is gonna happen. And I disagree with that. And I’ll tell you why I disagree with it. It’s that I think in our business, think about the law business, how does a lawyer put more money in their pocket? Okay, because it’s a professional, but it’s also a business.
You get your clients more money, right? That’s the only way that I know of, unless you’re going to do something nefarious, but to is to get your clients more money, because we work on a contingent fee. So we’re going to get more money. Well, what do we think that, you know, private capital into the space, whether it’s through an ABS, an MSO, what do we think they want to do? They want to make money. And so therefore the clients will do better. So I do not as someone who’s actually worked with a massive
thirty, forty billion dollar private equity firm that owns some of the biggest brands in America. Who so I’ve actually done it or most of the naysayers out there have no idea what they’re talking about. And I yes, so we’ve been approached and I’ve not done anything, right? but it’s gonna happen. And it’s it and I’m I unless I’m completely wrong, it will be good for the clients. It will turn most of these law firms that just operate as cush, you know, they’re just
There most law firms are are easy, cush places to work. They’re not oper that people are lazy. People leave work early, they come to work late. They don’t operate their firm like a business. Well that’s gonna change. And when that changes, the world’s gonna change. So the l the world will change for lawyers. You have to start operating your law firm like a business. But yeah, I think it’s coming. I think it’s gonna be a good thing. there will be mass consolidation. Firms like I don’t believe firms
I believe you know you got obviously got Morgan and Morgan up here, right? And then you have all the solo practitioners, and then you got everybody in between. Firms two through call it a hundred of the advertisers. Firms two through a hundred, I do not believe will exist in their exact current state in the next seven to ten years. There will be con they will be cobbled together. My dad first got in the TV business, they had one T V station. When we sold we had forty five or something. We were big.
Now the big broadcasters, Nextstar, Sinclair, they have hundreds of TV stations. Okay. It’s got to happen here. There’s going to be people trying to look like Morgan and Morgan. Now I’ll say this a lot of the the the noise I’m hearing that’s against it are from solo practitioners. They’re going to be just fine, in my opinion. Okay. They are going to always be in need for great lawyers, some of my best friends, solo practitioners. What we do is gonna get harder. And it is getting harder. Okay. You know that. Yep. That’s good.
Al Ludwig (27:29)
Are you looking to to go out there and acquire anybody?
Mike DiPasquale (27:32)
Yeah, I would love to acquire the right law firm. So if you’re listening, you wanna you wanna partner up with I say acquire, I wanna partner up with people, okay? Mm-hmm. And you wanna work with someone who, from a lawyer perspective, really understands marketing, who understands how to operate a business and can and can make your law firm, you know, give give you an opportunity to kind of, you know, part I would love that. So give me a call. Yes, I would love to acquire law firm.
Al Ludwig (27:56)
Have you done that at all to date as you go on into more and more markets, or has it been purely going in as DM injury law?
Mike DiPasquale (28:04)
Yeah, I’ve not done that. Purely DM injury law. And where I’m at today is that I would expand into other markets as DM injury law. So I I differ from like what what Morgan position is, which is building a national brand. Obviously, John and his his whole team, and he’ll tell you it’s not just him, it’s his whole team there, right? Obviously the the best in this industry. There’s no way to s there’s no other way to argue it. They’re phenomenal.
They want to build a national brand. I n I never really I don’t necessarily believe in national brands. I think they’re really hard from from our space. I think people still want like the local celebrity type guy as their lawyer. I I really genuinely do. So would I expand DM Injury Law as DM injury law into another another market? Yes, they’d have to be the right market and probably a smaller market. Otherwise, I would rather partner up through acquisition.
another fern, keep that brand and just try to make it a little bit better, modernize it. I’m like if someone spent thirty years building this phenomenal brand, why would I flush it down the toilet, right?
Al Ludwig (29:11)
Yeah, exactly. If they had some money in marketing and they grew it quite a bit, it’s you don’t want to go in there by them and just slap DM on it. No.
Mike DiPasquale (29:20)
That’d
be foolish. I’ve yeah. I know some people have done that, and maybe I’m wrong. But also, like that legacy brand, I think it’s a great opportunity for that person who built it to see that brand keep going on, and when he or she maybe steps back a little bit. You know, I’m 46 years old, so I’m getting up there, right? But I would be this is you know, I started this law firm as just me, and then I grew it and other people came on. I would be sad someday when I’m you know riding off into the sunset.
And it will happen when someone turns the lights off on it. It will may it’ll be a part of me that’s that’s sad, right? I walked out of our T V company, just me and my dad were the last two people to walk out. It was a really sad deal, right? It was my dad’s entire career, from when he was twenty years old till he was sixty five, I think, was working in that business and then one day, defunct and someone else owns it, right? Yeah, but that’s the nature of the beast
Al Ludwig (30:15)
Maybe
maybe you you grow it into such a beast it becomes impossible to turn it off and and they they they keep it for generations to come as DM injury law, right? And you already rebranded it where it where it’s not specifically your name, right? And the
Mike DiPasquale (30:31)
They get to look in the AI version of me, right?
Al Ludwig (30:34)
future Mike Mike Mike’s got this can mean Mike’s got a hundred plus attorneys that put their combined knowledge together together to give you the best settlement that you’ll ever get.
Mike DiPasquale (30:45)
Yeah. Exactly.
Al Ludwig (30:47)
And you know, that’s there there’s a ways to to tinker with Mike Scott, this to make it more about the firm and not absolutely.
Mike DiPasquale (30:54)
And that’s what we’ve done, by the way. Absolutely. Like, you know, we got about sixty-five, seventy lawyers, and that’s exactly what we’ve done out. Because you know, we got to the point where I didn’t want any confusion with people. Like, if you c if you call my law firm, the odds are, again, I’m one of sixty five, seventy lawyers. I’m not gonna be handling your case, right? And so we make that crystal clear to people. Our contract says it, our marketing’s about our team, it’s we, et cetera. Okay. Mike Scott, this is more about like you said.
Mike’s got this team of lawyers and they’re well trained. They’re gonna get you a good result. Mike’s you know, we educate them, we do all that. So that’s very astute point.
Al Ludwig (31:29)
Yeah. And you know, you you’ve gone into a bunch of markets now. Uhhuh. Is there one or two that sticks out as gosh, that was just a real hard time going in there and it may still be one you’re in right now? All
Mike DiPasquale (31:42)
of
them, right? I mean, I still I told you I got I was talking about that wheelbarrow full of cash. That wheelbarrow still leaves the the the garage every day in several markets and still incinerating cash. You know, again, I I I I feel like I’m telling this guy who knows all this you what you already know, but maybe someone listening doesn’t know.
Al Ludwig (32:03)
Definitely got some people listening.
Mike DiPasquale (32:04)
Yeah. And so I learned it the hard way. You know, each market it takes period the smaller markets, you can, you know
Become profitable a little bit quicker, medium-sized markets a little longer than the small ones and the big markets. You know, we’re in St. Louis, Missouri, right? Well, guess who’s in St. Louis, Missouri? So you have phenomenal, phenomenal legacy brands. I’m gonna leave some of these guys out and they’re gonna get all mad at me because I’m friends with some of these guys. Brown and Krupin’s there, Goldblatt Singer’s there. It’s just numerous really good low that there’s several others. I’m just like playing off the top of my head.
There. And then you got Morgan and Morgan’s there, right? So what idiot would go in there the same month that Morgan and Morgan did? This guy, okay? And it was just kind of like whatever, right? So that took a long time to and I still owe myself a bunch of money from opening that market. I’ve I’ve not used any debt or any finance, I’m the debt, right? Or I’m the bank. But now, you know, things turned, right? You start looking at okay, like what we’re doing’s starting to work, right? We’re not setting the world on fire there. we’re spending a lot of money, but
But you know, we’re competing with, you know, really good operators, right? I’m from I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, right? same thing in Wichita. Some really good operators down there. You have a Devon James law firm, really good guys, friends of mine, really know what they’re doing. You got Brad Postotnik, who’s a legacy. He was the first guy to do he was the first guy I ever saw a lawyer TV commercial when I was a kid, was Brad Postotnik, okay? Other firms down there too, they’re all good. That’s a hard slug down there, right? Yeah. But just is what it is. That’s why.
I think that if you can do it, you’d be better off acquiring for a large sum of money up front, which you should finance some of it, a legacy brand, and then trying to grow that brand, right? That’s why, ’cause it’s so expensive and it takes so long to become profitable.
Al Ludwig (33:53)
Yeah, trying to find someone who’s just who who wants the payday or is just in the sunset of their career and yeah. Just trying to to not have to deal with the operations and all that of the law.
Mike DiPasquale (34:05)
Yes, absolutely. Yes. And if you do it, you still get to be the brand and you still get to go to the your favorite restaurant and they got a table for you. You then but you get to go to your house in I don’t know if you’re in the south, like thirty A or somewhere, and then we’ll do all the heavy legal stuff behind the scenes for you.
Al Ludwig (34:21)
When when you were going into new markets, did you analyze them based off of let me get the ones closest to me first or did did you analyze them in a different w way, like media efficiency based off of the size and number of advertisers?
Mike DiPasquale (34:34)
Yeah. And as I say that, two of the markets I went into are inefficient markets, St. Louis and Wichita. But I said to myself, I’m not gonna be this Kansas City based law firm. So I’m in two states basically, Missouri and Kansas, and not be in the con you know, adjacent contiguous market. Okay. Yeah. That being said, we done we have a a a I don’t call it a Bible, but a a guide of basically every T V market in the country, okay?
So we know everything that’s being spent in those markets. We know all the well, everyone there. And certain markets, I’m never going to LA. So I mean it’s interesting ever, but it’s not happening, okay? I’m also not going to to Glendive Montana or Wyoming, market size two two. I’m not doing that either, okay? But we know the types of markets we would want to go into, whether it’s from an organic expansion or from an acquisition.
There’s certain states I would not want to participate in the legal community for a variety of reasons. From a personal comfort level, we were in the television business. We were in a lot of s places such as Wichita, Kansas, Little Rock, Arkansas, Mobile, Alabama. Those were all places we felt comfortable in. Our biggest markets were Cincinnati, Salt Lake, Jacksonville. We were not in sexy markets. We weren’t in Miami. We weren’t in New York. We weren’t in LA. We weren’t in Dallas. We did just fine. So
Those are the kind of places I like to be. And I would tell anyone listening, like, you know, be comfortable where like operate a business, whether it’s this business or not, somewhere that you are comfortable at. Because as you know, these markets are all different beasts. And it’s not just from an advertising perspective. It’s from the local bars, from the laws, all that stuff.
Al Ludwig (36:14)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it and if you happen to be in a market that is less desirable to people coming from the outside, whether that’s because of the state laws or just the propensity of wrecks and the the action of the the the general populace, but you’re there and you’re comfortable there, double down, right? Sure, the cases might not be as valuable there, but double down there that way the eventually when
the bigger law firms and the private equity and they they they start looking at those markets now that they got their their top tier markets checked off, it’s a little harder for them to say yes to moving in because you got a dominant longtime player out there.
Mike DiPasquale (36:51)
Yep, I agree with that. Very good point.
Al Ludwig (36:53)
You you had mentioned something about brand versus non-brand when when we were kind of leading up to this conversation. So I wanted to get your your take on that. Brand marketing versus non-brand marketing. A lot of people put it in two different buckets. I’m always talking about the the cross section of brand and direct response, but non-brand’s a little little different. So when when you talk brand versus non-brand, what’s your general philosophy around that?
Mike DiPasquale (37:19)
So I’m a huge believer in brand, obviously, from you can see where we spend a lot of our dollars. We spend more money on digital than I do traditional. Okay. Of my of my digital spend, and I’m embarrassed off time that I don’t know. A lot of that is is, you know, brand, but a lot of it is non brand. We’ve also we’ve tested some markets where we just do non branded. We’ll run a limited brand campaign just for like I call it the Google Tax ’cause one of our clients wants to get our phone number or something like that. So you know.
what’s Mike’s cop this phone number, whatever. But on the on the the non branded stuff, what we’ve determined from an evidence perspective, not anecdotal, is there’s obviously way less loyalty with the clients. Okay. Draws in worse cases. They’re just the the the the CPA looks fine. Yeah. Okay. But when you but that’s the other thing too. A lot of lawyers only look at CPA.
But you really should look at your true CPA after you wash everything out. But you also got to go beyond that, look at your gross profit. Because you could get a bunch of think about it. You could get a bunch of like I’m gonna say, at least in in where we operate, the workers’ compensation cases are worth less due to state laws that have damaged worker rights in Kansas and Missouri, are worth less than the than a motor vehicle accident is. Okay. So you someone could you could be all excited, you’re you got to sign up all these cases. Well, if you don’t look at what
type of case it is, and then look at like, well, what how much you make on that case, you don’t know really your gross profit. So I think too many firms don’t look at gross profit. And on our if you look at our CPAs in our market where we just do non branded Google or other tur means, our CPAs are good. It’s our gross profits that aren’t as good. They’re just not
Al Ludwig (39:07)
And and that’s a story as old as time.
Mike DiPasquale (39:10)
Right.
Al Ludwig (39:11)
You know, I I see it across a every single market for for pretty much every single legal type. And there there’s still a you know, a place for it, right? I think w one thing I always encourage people to look at, even on that non brand stuff where you know your take your your want rate’s much lower, your conversion rate mu is much lower, your dump rate is much higher. So you know the the and and the average case fee is much lower.
If you do it for long enough, this is where consistency comes in, right? Because some things you just you have to do long enough to get this part two. It’s over time, what percentage of people that come in through that medium refer a case down the road? Right. Is it is it five percent? Is it 18%? Is it more, right? Because if it’s the higher that is, well, okay, we’re average
Mike DiPasquale (39:56)
A little bit more then. Yeah.
Al Ludwig (39:57)
case fee from from this bucket is 50% less than my my normal average on everything else. But
When I factor into lifetime value, it’s still an acceptable amount. And then the the snowball effect of that. And and I’m a huge fan of taking as much as you can in the door, providing a good experience. And even on those ones up front where you’re not sure if you’re gonna be able to take the case or not, if you can operationalize that conversation, like, hey, listen, we’re gonna look at your case. We’re not sure if it it if we’re gonna be able to do anything, but within 30 to 90 days.
We’re gonna do everything we can to understand. But I just wanna let you know that there’s a chance that nothing happens with this. Totally. And then ninety days later, you know, some of them will still get mad, but many of them will be really, really happy with you that you spent the time and you gave them a little more attention and you made no money off of it. And so down the road.
Mike DiPasquale (40:50)
In a lot of cases. You you you order police your point
Al Ludwig (40:52)
Yeah,
you well, you definitely lost money off of it. Yeah. And but
Mike DiPasquale (40:55)
Well in that particular case.
Al Ludwig (40:57)
but you’re n you’re now that that person’s client for life. I mean that person’s attorney for life. And they’re gonna refer people to you. And I think one of the big advantages of the brand side that we’ve been talking about is the word of mouth from brand, from people that never worked with your firm. I’ve never seen so much word of mouth than if you’re like the top player in the market where people will just go, Yeah, you should call Mike. Yeah.
No, Mike’s got this because they’re used to hearing it. They never needed the service, but their friend got in a wreck and you’re like, Hey, Mike’s got this. Why don’t you give him a call? And
Mike DiPasquale (41:27)
Right.
Al Ludwig (41:27)
work word of mouth from people that that don’t truly know you. And that does happen. I think that’s also one reason why that branded side is always a better cost because you you’re you’re the first call in those, not the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth call.
Mike DiPasquale (41:43)
yeah, I know we know when we got we know when we go to new markets, we’re definitely the fifth or sixth or seventh call because the cases come in okay and then you you look start looking at the average fees and they’re here, but then over time, even though we’re handling them the same way, they just get a little bit better. I still haven’t figured that out why if I get a case that I’m the fifth call on and it’s a viable case, why is that case worth less than if that guy if I was the first call? But it it
I I s do you have an answer for that? Because I don’t. We’ve never been able to figure that out. Some
Al Ludwig (42:17)
I I think
Mike DiPasquale (42:18)
suspicions, but no
Al Ludwig (42:19)
Yeah, my my biggest suspicion is probably the same as yours, where it was a viable case, but there’s still it’s not the most viable case, right? There’s still holes in it. And so the first few people they call decided there’s gonna be too much work for us. This actually isn’t going to be a a high value case because you know, you know as well as well as I do, there’s most of the guys in your market are turning away the lower value cases.
Right. Because they they don’t have the time, money, resources, operations really set up to to make those work for them. Whereas the the guys that become the market dominators, they built out those systems where they can better take those cases. And so I think that’s a big part of it. It gets turned away from a lot of people just ’cause they don’t want the headache of dealing with the cases isn’t worth as much.
Mike DiPasquale (43:06)
Yeah, and you bring up a really good point, Al. I think there’s a lot of people out there that will go advertise on television or billboards, radio, digital, whatever it might be, thinking that all of a sudden all these it’s a bad thing, but unfortunately really catastrophic cases are gonna roll in the door and they’re not. Yeah. Okay. And you have to be ready and be skillful at handling really small cases and getting a really good result. When I say small cases,
I I actually feel bad saying that because I don’t mean that. If you get in a car wreck and you’re injured, you have a soft tissue injury, that’s that stinks. It’s terrible. Okay. You’re you’re you’re not going to work, your back hurts, your neck hurts, whatever it might be. But the firms that I think can make the advertising game work these days are the firms that know how to take those cases and properly and efficiently handle them and deliver a great result for the client. Whereas there’s other firms who might get that same case and they’re gonna inefficiently handle the case, take
Two years on it, okay. Go and sp spend a ton of money that they don’t need to spend to get the result. And then the client’s mad and the clo we got the client the same amount of money, if not more, in a shorter period of time than another firmware. I had a guy work for me one time that we years ago we got out of it. We were doing some employment law and which I I’m not a big employment law fan. Used to do it my on myself, but my own. But he he was he was
Came in the office, say, I’m getting out of here. I’m going to South Carolina. I’m like, what are you going to South Carolina for? I got a deposition. I’m like, and w like, what are you talking about? He’s like, I have a deposition in this case. And I said, Well, okay. What’s this deposition going to do to the case? Like how much value is it going to add to the client? It’s going to be about I could add a couple thousand dollars. I said, A couple thousand like like two thousand dollars or like twenty th he’s like, about I think two thousand dollars and we get this. It’s they’re gonna pay two thousand more. I said, Well, you’re flying to South Carolina, you’re staying the night in South Carolina.
You’re deposing someone, you’re paying for court reporter fees. How much is all that gonna cost? That’ll be about, I don’t know, maybe about maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand. And I’m like, I told this guy, I’m like, so best case scenario, you’ve netted five hundred dollars for the client, or maybe a break-even, or maybe you spend the two thousand and your offer doesn’t go up, you cost the client two thousand dollars. I said, That’s a terrible idea, right? Well, lo and behold, I I said, Why don’t you before you go, why don’t you go call the other attorney?
And just see if you can get that other two thousand dollars. I never thought about that. I said, Go try. Guess what? He called the other guy and the other guy’s like, Yeah, I can get that. I don’t really want to go down there anyway. So here’s two thousand.
I’m like, dude, come on, man. But so so like I said, if you’re gonna spend a bunch of money on advertising, you better know how to handle cases, handle them efficiently and give your client great service. Yeah. Don’t don’t take two years to sell a case you take six months, because I know all of our clients, they want to get better, they wanna put a little bit of money in their pocket, and they want it to be done yesterday.
Al Ludwig (46:01)
Yep. Right. And and when it comes to the catastrophic cases that you were talking about earlier where someone starts spending a bunch of money on marketing and they think they’re gonna get a bunch of new catastrophic cases, my question for you is where do an outsized portion of your catastrophic cases come from? Source.
Mike DiPasquale (46:16)
Well I know. See seriously. Personal c connections and it’s a terrible thing ’cause when you have a catastrophic case from a personal connection, you have that you have both the the lawyer hat that you wear where you’re representing them, but you also have the friend factor. Those are where an overwhelming majority not all, but a overwhelming majority of our catastrophic cases come from a personal connection that that
Al Ludwig (46:41)
I’m gonna.
Mike DiPasquale (46:42)
somebody else at our firm had to that party, unfortunately.
Al Ludwig (46:45)
And I I always hear that personal connection referrals, former client referrals. Yeah. That’s
Mike DiPasquale (46:51)
Absolutely.
Al Ludwig (46:51)
the vast majority of them. And the thing is, if you bring in more clients, you get more outcomes, you have to hire more people. And you’re sure Morgan, you have more more connections. You now have sixty attorneys that all have connections. Yes. And that would that was built through a lot of of of taking of volume, right? And now y’all are getting all these catastrophic cases, not necessarily because the tit for tat marketing brought it in.
But it was just a compounding effect of the marketing to the business operations to the result.
Mike DiPasquale (47:21)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Al Ludwig (47:24)
Well you you so you I think you said you had sixty about sixty lawyers?
Mike DiPasquale (47:27)
I i yeah, I think we had about sixty-five. We got a couple, I think we four or five starting in the next month. They just took the bar. What they’re just probably on some vacu they’re probably in Mexico or somewhere phone. When I took the bar, I I passed the bar, took the bar, woke up the next day, and me and my now wife, my girlfriend at the time, we were going out of town, we’re going f to upstate New York to visit my sister. And the my phone rings at like eight a.m. and it’s my boss. He’s like, Hey, where are you? I’m like, Well, I I took the bar yesterday. He goes, Well, yeah, but you’re not you’re starting today, right? And I’m like, John, I’m like
I can. I was like, just be up front with you though. I’m just planning to go to town and see my sister. He’s like, when do you get back? And I’m like, You know, on Sunday is I’ll see you Monday, right? We give our people like, you they get their it’s easy today. I think they start after Labor Day, right? But yeah, so sixty five, seventy lawyers kinda depended on the day.
Al Ludwig (48:12)
Okay. And I saw somewhere you said that that hiring lawyers was the single biggest challenge. Yeah. So
Mike DiPasquale (48:18)
Yeah, absolutely.
Al Ludwig (48:19)
what’s what’s your plan for that, especially as you know, in talking to you, it’s just it feels like growth is inev inevitable and if you grow you need more lawyers.
Mike DiPasquale (48:28)
Yeah. So you need more lawyers and you know, just from I think human nature factor, you know, we’re based in Kansas City, but we’re in, you know, like I said, Topeka, Kansas, Columbia, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Wichita, and Omaha, right? So kind of scattered through this area. And we have lawyers and, you know, offices and great lawyers in all those markets. But for instance, let’s talk like our we’re talking catastrophic injury cases. The core of that team sits in Kansas City.
Now they’ll work on a case in St. Louis or Oklahoma City, but most of those people are right here. So what I was getting at is we probably by default think about bringing more lawyers to the mothership. I think that’s tough because at least in our neck of the woods, the law schools are shrunk. When I was in graduated law school University of Kansas twenty years ago, I had about a hundred and I think a hundred and seventy people in my graduating class. They’re now down to about a hundred and twenty. Now I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing because where I believe the law profession’s the
the total law professions going. I think we’re gonna need less lawyers. But it’s harder to hire people. Okay. Yeah. And so I think that one of the things that we should all think about in our profession is, does it really matter where you’re you’re you’re sitting when you’re a lawyer? Like honestly, like I I tell our lawyers, I’m like, hey, listen, if you’re doing a good job for your clients and you’re in Barbados 247, 365, I’m fine with that. If you’re doing a bad job for your clients and you’re in the office,
twenty four seven, three sixty five, then we got a problem. Yeah. Okay. And I’m obviously, you know, taking some creative license and some liberty with my little joke there, but I’m I’m serious. And so I was talking the other day, I you know, we need to you know, go recruit all fifty states and all across the world for for the best lawyers, right? Who can who can help our clients out. They really genuinely don’t care where you’re sitting, as long as you are, you know, able and willing to handle our clients’ cases and do a good job for Very hard, hard people.
Al Ludwig (50:21)
And I think that’s becoming I
think it’s becoming more of a norm too for especially as many firms grow to try to be more natural reach and and you also have the MSOs and the and the private equity money and all that coming in. It is trying to find well, we need the talent and the talent’s gotta come from somewhere and if there’s not enough concentrated talent in this area where your office is, we’re getting it from somewhere else.
Mike DiPasquale (50:43)
Exactly.
Al Ludwig (50:44)
Because our goal is to grow and to get more revenue, which means more revenue in the our
more money in the client’s pockets as well. The win win for everybody. Well last question for you, Mike. and what is what does DM entry law look like in five years? Great.
Mike DiPasquale (51:01)
Question. and I it’s and I’m not I’m not deflecting it ’cause I’m gonna try to answer it, okay? I have never been able to you know, people say they got a five year plan, ten year plan, fifteen year plan. I guess they could say that I loosely have those types of plans, but I don’t have the type of vision and I don’t think anybody really does say exactly where they’re gonna be five years ago. I was talking to some friends today and I was we were talking about COVID was effectively six years ago, right? And
How much in my per my life, my personal life, you know, still married to the same girl I met when I was fourteen, okay? But my kids are now, you know, sixteen and thirteen, right? Instead of ten and six or seven, right? Our firm had sixty people then, it’s got almost three hundred now. I don’t know how many lawyers we had then, but we have a lot more. I never s I promise you, I never set out when I opened this law firm to to be where we’re at today. It just happened, okay?
And I like to build I like to build Legos when I was a kid. I like to build stuff, but I never set out to do it. So I don’t know exactly where we’re going. Okay. How how about this though? I’ll give you a I will project what I think is going to happen in our industry and I hit on it earlier. I think that the Mike’s got this is the world. You’re already seeing it like with what Chad Dudley’s doing your neighbor down Bat Rouge, okay? Is that there’s going to be a mass scale consolidation because you have a lot of
attorneys in our world who are gonna be wanting to go to their beach house on 30 A, keep their legacy going, and maybe be able to take a step back and and be rewarded for the work they’ve done over all those years and and therefore sell their law firm to either another law firm, okay, or enter into an arrangement with an MSO to manage the services of their company while obviously keeping their law firm. And so I don’t
Where I would like to be is I would like to grow our law firm. I have fun doing it. I would like to do it through acquisitions. So I will still be here. and so I hope that I can get there. That’s the goal. Who knows what the future holds exactly? And yeah.
Al Ludwig (53:04)
Well, a lot. I guess one more question. Yeah. I I was reading somewhere that in the UK, since like two thousand seven when they changed some laws, there’s been a lot of consolidation. Yes. And basically what was what we’re seeing happening right now and over the last, you know, almost twenty years in I think it’s two thousand fo two thousand twenty four or so, that fifty pr fifty three percent of the cases were handled by like the top twenty plaintiff law firms in the UK. Do you see a s a similar thing like that happening here when we look ten, twenty years down the road?
Mike DiPasquale (53:34)
I think it’s gonna be slower. I think that what needs to happen, I actually think that’s a good thing. If we consolidated the skill sets within, you know, you don’t have to have more of those firms here, but just say the ten to twenty firms, I think that would actually be a good thing, right? ‘Cause in order to grow to that level, you’re gonna have to have a certain level of training, quality control over your lawyers. So I think that would be you’d have you’d be able to finally, you know, have similar strength. Not not totally, but you’d get closer to some of the people you’re going up to war against, right?
Yeah. So I do think that’s gonna happen. I think that in order to it to go that fast though, there’s gonna have to be law changes that make more people comfortable with with the world. And by that, I I think that it ownership restrictions of law firms would have to change. As you know, an MSO has no control and no ownership over a law firm or a lawyer or anything to do with that, okay? They’re they’re merely handling the the the
Back office services, which are massively important for a law firm. I think that rules would have to change. And we got how many states, you know, 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all these different bar associations. Puerto Rico now is following Arizona’s. You know, DC, of course, been doing it for years and no one figured it out until Arizona did it, right? I think that it’s going to take an entity like the ABA making a recommendation to the states to follow a path like in Arizona’s.
in order for that to go that fast. But I think it’s gonna look more like that than it does like it did today or five years ago. And I think that’s to the benefit of the client and to the benefit of the lawyers, which is a good thing for me and for all my clients, in my opinion.
Al Ludwig (55:16)
Well, I I think at a minimum is going to be exciting to watch and exciting to track and already has been exciting to to pivot as we need to, whether you’re a law firm or a law firm adjacent business like mine.
Mike DiPasquale (55:28)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s
Al Ludwig (55:30)
It’s it’s been crazy to kind of watch from from the outside looking in and work with some of the firms, both that are doing these MSOs and some that are are, you know, continuing to just operate under their same solo ownership structure.
Mike DiPasquale (55:42)
Yeah, no, I told I again I totally agree with you. And you know, I open up I I read all the legal rags I’m on LinkedIn more than ever. And I l I love reading it. You know, I I I love reading. I I know friends with all the guys that have that you’ve known have have actually that announced that have that have, you know, entered into either acquiring firms on their own or through an MSO structure and managing the services of other firms. And I’m happy for because I think that things change, exciting times in our industry. And I think at the end of the day,
You will end up with a better product for the client than there is today. And that’s the end game and that’s how everyone’s successful.
Al Ludwig (56:19)
Love it. Well, Mike, Mike Di Pasquale with from DM injury law, continuing to to build and expand and looking forward to the the next five years, man. I appreciate you for for jumping on the podcast with me.
Mike DiPasquale (56:31)
Yeah, I really appreciate it, man. Thank you very much.