Transcript
Patrick McEuen (00:00.066)
I think the best advice I could give any law firm owner right now is to complete an audit of your firm. Do you own your CRM and your CRM’s data? Does your CRM data back up? Can you leverage it? Can you access it? Is it an open API? All of these things are very important as more agentic work starts to be instituted with in law firms
Al Ludwig (00:16.374)
This is the Law Firm Brand Builders Podcast. I’m Al Ludwig, CEO of Practice Made Perfect. And today I have Patrick McEwen on. Patrick, before anyone hears your title or the firm that you work for, I want to put a couple numbers on the board that you said to me. And that was 58% of our cases come from AI right now with attribution. And y’all have had 400% growth since 2023. So you coach football.
and broke down film, so I’m gonna ask you to run the tape on that. How did that happen?
Patrick McEuen (00:48.952)
To be completely honest, we had a really great infrastructure set up with a good SEO foundation. And when we really just decided that we were going to go all in on the idea of AI as like an emerging space, we were in invested heavily in SEO already. So being able to kind of pivot and start pulling those strings in different areas and what becomes kind of the geospace that’s built on top of SEO, that was really this the the strike. And then me being an an enthusiast in the space, we were able to kind of quickly identify ways that
we could help, you know, bet you know, promote our firm and have more authority in the in the topic to really surface in those AI answers. And that’s really been the foundation of it all. and being able to build and expand on top of that. We’ve we’ve built some in house tools that made it more possible too.
Al Ludwig (01:34.476)
Yeah, we’re gonna talk about those tools for sure. see fifty eight percent of cases from AI right now with attribution. what does that attribution look like?
Patrick McEuen (01:44.462)
So we run a blended attribution model here at the firm where we like to do, you know, a 40% to first touch, 40% to last touch, then we go 20% to brand. so with us, we use a various different, you know, offline and offline conversion tracking tools to help us kind of in the ad space. but simultaneously we also do the same thing as everyone else. We ask our clients. And we’d like to think that the combination of all those tools really give us an edge in being able to identify really where these leads came from. And most people aren’t aware though, you can also export a lot of your website logs.
Those queries that the agents are using to get to your website are really, really informative and sometimes can marry up with some of that attribution data you have on your set.
Al Ludwig (02:22.966)
Okay. And when it comes to the client, so c just more like the subjective data, right? Always have a love I love having that data set in there because I’ve I can tell you many times in the past, you ask someone how you know, why’d you contact us or how’d you hear about us? And they’ll say something that you know just can’t be true. But you’re like, but you’re trying and you’re trying to figure out what was that journey that that got them to to say that, or they think about a different law firm. but I’m I’m curious how many of them are
are themselves saying AI or the Google AI overviews or ChatGPT or any of the other LLMs.
Patrick McEuen (02:59.448)
So I would say honestly, you know, for us it’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s almost like a breadcrumb trail. Well, sometimes we’ll have someone come in, they indicate on the web form that they found us via AI, but they converted in a paid ad. And the attribution for us for the UTM is organic. And they might have visited Google Business page. You’re like, my gosh, like where and what is getting credit here? And to your point, you kind of have to like reverse breadcrail trump back, breadcrail crumb. Breadcrumb trail back to really see, okay, this person was in a chat GPT session.
got regurgitated our firm as an answer, then searched us up, found a Google business page, then converted on the ad that was for the brand that was sponsored up at the top of the page. So for us, it’s also marrying up that that testimony from the client to really say, okay, that makes a lot of sense. And like many other firms, I think we’re experiencing an influx and hey, my case is a locked in, amazing case. Here’s here’s everything Chat GBT and Claude told me about why, you know, we’ve got a slam dunk winner for you. And that usually confirms the
Al Ludwig (03:57.25)
Yeah. Well let’s talk about the the firm. What d you know, what what’s the firm? What’s the practice areas? Do you feel like it’s working better because of the practice areas you’re that you’re going for? And what’s the difference compared to maybe some other practice areas where it it just might come across differently with AI overviews?
Patrick McEuen (04:15.704)
That is honestly a great question. And the one that I usually have to cover with our clients even on the Esquire engine side is that because my rules and warning, we operate in a very small niche, which is, you FINRRA and securities arbitration. And our lawyers, there’s not that many people that really operate in this niche. But what makes it unique is we can market to all fifty states. So with my marketing budget and a s a firm of our very small size of about fifteen, sixteen people, we’ve got to try and compete nationally.
So for us, dipping into the AI and leaning on that was really a priority because ad spend in that space is obviously gonna be a little a little difficult from a budget perspective. So for us, with us already being a niche, I think that that benefits us to to lean into the AI more simultaneously. I think our average client being either a high net worth individual or an elder elderly person who has worked their whole life, a retiree whose ma’s been scammed by a broker or advisor.
they’re usually gonna go to something like an AI tool for extra insights and help trying to navigate the questions that they have. It’s not necessarily the same as getting in a car accident and, you know, the first brand or the first search you’re gonna do. It’s more like, hey, is my broker actually allowed to do this? And really building our website around those types of, you know, top of funnel queries to try and make sure those clients, when they’re searching for those answers, they find our our confirmation and and our support.
Hopefully they then follow, you know, the the model all the way back to us and get it directly from the source. So I definitely think your practice area really influences how much AI can really drive case generation for you right now.
Al Ludwig (05:43.852)
So say the practice area again, just so everybody has a clear understanding of exactly what it is.
Patrick McEuen (05:48.46)
Well, it is securities arbitration and litigation. So we there’s a lot of different phrases for it. We also call it investment fraud litigation. but it’s it really is under those two buckets primarily.
Al Ludwig (05:59.832)
Okay. And so much longer probably discovery phase within that practice area than as as you mentioned, being injured in a in a motor vehicle accident or looking for what to do when you’re when you’re injured at work or need social security disability. would you would you say that’s the case on it? I’d
Patrick McEuen (06:18.41)
I definitely. And it’s very unique too in that it’s it’s an arbitration. So it’s usually, you know, it’s with a panel, it’s not with a court. it’s not in federal court either most often. So we really have the benefit of a mu it’s almost like a different arena, I would argue, versus even our class action cases and our mass tort cases here at the firm.
Al Ludwig (06:35.232)
Okay. So when looking at the the total marketing breakdown for the firm for for that particular practice area, what what does that look like f from you? Go in as depth in depth as you want or, you know, keep it top level if you need to, you know, in terms of what you can put out there, what you can’t. it’s completely up to you. But at least maybe percentage wise, so what is a a marketing for for that look like?
Patrick McEuen (06:56.428)
I would say honestly for us, we’re able to lean heavily on almost entirely the budget goes only for the investor claims practice area. I mean, for us, we just believe in the idea that in this age of the internet, a lot of the hyper specific stuff is a little bit less impactful. So just continuing to build our brand and build our authority over the topics that we already have, a rich history covering, is really just the power of emphasis there. So we’re really just trying to make sure that you know whether it’s Google or it’s an L L or whomever.
If you have any type of question that relates to the subject area, you need to come back to us. And that’s what we really try to prioritize.
Al Ludwig (07:30.296)
Yeah, and you know, I I want to pick your brain regarding the SEO prior to AI, right? And being able to attribute back to AI because one thing that I found very helpful when I was in house five years at a large personal injury law firm and we did a lot of good SEO for years. Granted we had a large brand, but we did we basically did good marketing for a very long time, got mentioned a lot.
everywhere, especially in in our local footprint that we wanted to be in, which was primarily one state. and so when the LLMs came along, when AI search and all that came along, we were doing fantastic in it. without having an initial focus there. Now obviously we were working to to kind of hack some of it a little bit, so so to speak. do you feel like y’all had those
Kind the blocking and tackling in place. You had eighty five, ninety percent of it there already from what you were already doing. And so when it came along, it was just, you know, Meyer Wilson was the the one that got the benefit of it because you already had everything for the most part laid out compared to maybe some of the other com other competitors across the country.
Patrick McEuen (08:38.134)
say yes and no. Yes and that our brand. We’re definitely one of the largest brands in our niche. I’d consider us, you know, top three, top five for sure. So I think that’s a benefit, an immense one. You know, David David has the largest jury verdict in Ohio history. You know, I think some of these things really I think it was two hundred and sixty two million. but it was later reduced on appeal, but we don’t put that anywhere on the website.
Al Ludwig (08:52.216)
How much is that effort?
Al Ludwig (09:00.13)
You know, you it it all has to go through that. where I was, I think we had like a two hundred and nineteen million dollar one and it was it was safe that’s like, well, let’s talk about that a little bit, right? And we we should have and and and humanize it a little bit too, because there’s some bad things going on behind the scenes if if that’s if a jury is willing to come back and go, Yeah, this is fair.
Patrick McEuen (09:09.952)
We talk about it in the market.
Patrick McEuen (09:23.118)
No, I I think another thing that’s missed a little bit with with AI search is just how much, you know, the SEO principles and foundations, as important as they were, I don’t necessarily think all of it worked really well in kind of the hybrid model most law firms had of hey, marketing is the agency. And th and a good example of that are like directories, where I think directories now in a in this age age of search, you know, Google has to rely on some of these external trust indicators for that authority.
So if you don’t have very active directories that you know are up to date with your attorneys and their profiles and their years, you know, those trust indicators that both Google and these LLMs rely on, that mismatching data can really just be the difference between what, you know, the inch between you and competitor two. And that’s all the difference. And in our world, you know, one conversion is a big deal. And and so we really try to optimize for the the the best possible percentage across all of these queries of hey, hopefully you get it get your way to us.
Al Ludwig (10:20.088)
So you say one one conversion is a big deal. that tells me that, you know, one case carries a a high case value. What does it typically look like in in your field?
Patrick McEuen (10:30.562)
Well, we i it it’s tricky, obviously, I would say. I think every ver every case varies based on like the losses from the client typically. but we can end up, you know, pursuing group cases where if one, you know, financial advisor in Topeka, Kansas has been engaging in fraud and we talk to a victim, they likely know other people at church who were you know impacted by this affinity fraud scheme that this individual ran. So one call and one client can quickly become thirty.
Where, you know, we’re now we have a group case and this is almost like a mass action versus a singular case. And that’s really the opportunities that we try to tackle, which is why that nationwide presence is so important because we do wanna know and we think there’s any client that doesn’t make their way to us when they have a case like this, we think is in a in a worse position for sure. So I go all out for
Al Ludwig (11:15.726)
Do you do any niche advertising when a a a opportunity comes like that? Maybe you ha you have a client that got affected by this one thing and it makes you realize, there’s possibly dozens or hundreds of these. Or in another way, you know, you know something’s happening regarding, you know, a a a certain situation out there. And so put together maybe a a a marketing strategy to create the demand about it because people who don’t know that they potentially have been defrauded or have a case or
They can’t search for it because they don’t know to search for it, right?
Patrick McEuen (11:49.23)
And that’s where to your point, like I don’t think any law firm in this era can nail themselves down to just one avenue of marketing. You know, you can’t just be SEO, you can’t just be paid ads, you can’t try to be leaning into geo and not, you know, drive referrals also. We absolutely dip our toes into a little bit of the geo specific targeting, try and run, you know, retargeting ads and things like that to try and funnel traffic back. Admittedly, I’m I’m obsessed with call rail. I’m a very big data attribution guy. So
I’ve I’ve got hundreds of call rail numbers that we use to really try and trace back all of those leads, whether it’s from a direct mail piece, an advertising billboard, whatever it is. That way we know exactly where that call’s coming from and we can route it back all the way to a fee.
Al Ludwig (12:32.2)
one of my least favorite things was the once or twice a year where I would jump into call rail to do an audit and cleanup. because I like I guess I I I had hundreds of them, right? And and it’s just it get it can get messy quick, right? And new new tactics, new ideas, you’re you’re constantly creating these new campaigns. And so you need
the hundreds, if not, I mean in some cases thousands, right? of numbers going on all at one time. But then, you know, the larger it gets, the more unwieldy it gets. And then and then you start if you’re anything like me, you start thinking about like, do I just need someone to always be in call to be managed.
Patrick McEuen (13:15.374)
I think Colrail is the most underappreciated and underutilized marketing asset in most in house law firm marketing departments and in collaboration with their vendors. And that data that’s lost, it’s so important for actually being able to deduce what’s happening because in most law firms their marketers get half the story of just what the impressions and the things that they’re doing are. But the firm knows which ones are converting to clients, which paths are actually, you know, tracing back to a conversion. But
Usually no one’s integrated call rail into the CRM. So one of the most impactful things we were able to do was set up an LLM number pool to try and track all of those conversions coming in via CallRail. And then being able to start when we set up a data lake to start it marrying up a lot of those GSC queries with our Google Analytics data and then pulling that together to really try and path how are these leads converting into cases and which ones are most impactful that drive the outcomes we want.
Then you add in f a little bit of financial forecasting, a little projected acquisition value, a little cost per acquisition, you can very efficiently see, you know, which of your marketing vendors are driving the outcomes that your firm cares about. and that made me a really a big data guy. Cause I’m I’m by nature, I don’t think I’m a marketer, to be honest. A little bit too much of like a numbers and tech guy, but having really talented marketers to handle that while I handle the data is is a good dynamic duo, I’d like to think.
Al Ludwig (14:36.052)
I I like that you brought up the people. because you you had one LinkedIn post, so I’m pulling a quote here. so f f well for me, you’re one of the most aggressive AI adopters that I probably know just from my research on you, our general discussions, how you’re implementing it from a data set within within the firm. But you have the post on your on your LinkedIn built around your people, not the fancy features.
And you talked a lot about, you know, when people ask you how do you do it all? Right. And you’re like, Well, it’s it’s not the it’s not the AI, it’s the people. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and how it integrates all together?
Patrick McEuen (15:13.866)
Absolutely. I think this is the thing I I might be most passionate about. I’m a little I’m a little a crazy guy a little bit. I saw I post memes about it, it would be in the Charlie Day thing. But I’m so passionate about the idea that most law firm owners, I think when I talk with them, have an idea that AI might be able to supplement or replace people either that are external vendors currently or or people they’re considering bringing in house someday. and my my advice is always that is a terrible idea. I do not think we’re there yet. But I do think AI right now in the right tools.
can take, it’s like an Ironman suit where that person that might have one task that they’re good at that they usually do. And by augmenting them in this way, they can suddenly do a lot more things and are a lot more capable in in in cross and upskilling into other areas. That’s really what I think is most important is I think too often tech tools and the priorities of the technology come before the people. And here we we build our and take intake page layout based on what the paralegal wants, based on practice area.
You know, we just try to be that specific and make the technology work with the users, not the users work with the technology. It’s a big ethos of mine of, you know, I I I say this sometimes and it comes off a little derogatory, but I swear it’s not. But end users are like water. Where at the end of the day, like our paralegals, they don’t care about my checklist about what you’re supposed to be doing in the CRM. They care about their client and their cases. And I want them to. So that means it’s on me to work with our team to design a system that makes it as easy as possible for them to do their job.
‘Cause they’re like water. When they’re when they’ve got a deadline, when there’s a big filing that’s coming up, they’re not thinking about, Hey, can you save this over here and name it this way? You know, I gotta make that a requirement.
Al Ludwig (16:48.78)
Yeah. And and I feel like in in many fields, and I think pr the legal space is one of them where, you know, the you’re working for you’re working for and with people. And so th those relationships are super important. You know, I think people are getting scared that AI is going to replace a lot of the work that’s there. And sure surely it will. but for me it makes things quicker. It lets your people do more things at one time. It
lets them focus on the things that that the AI can’t do, the maintaining of those relationships, the talking to the clients, the the things that might have been very hard for a paralegal to do on a regular basis as often as they want it, because they were too busy with the the admin work that goes on behind the scenes and all the paperwork and keeping the the CRM up to date with every single little nuance, right? That now is kind of getting
Being able to get automated through the connections of the of the email and reports and being able to for me, you know, the the biggest time saver has been just being able to dictate so much. Yeah. Because my I can’t keep up with my brain. And so I hate like I hate I type a lot, right? But I hate typing. And I’d rather just say things in my in the way that I mean for them to be interpreted.
Patrick McEuen (18:00.855)
Completely.
Al Ludwig (18:12.94)
or listen to and and get the nuance of every little stumble I have, right? Every little pause I have where I can’t do that when I’m when I’m typing, right? Because when I’m typing it’s gonna come it’s gonna come across a lot more polished, maybe a little more thought out. but I like capturing the journey of me thinking it out all the way to that last bit and being able to dictate and use that to build systems, to, to build tools, to work with the team internally. I mean, it’s been a
Just an absolute game changer on my end.
Patrick McEuen (18:44.536)
C I can’t agree more, honestly. I for us one of the biggest impacts in using AI in different ways is using our voice. ‘Cause to your point, the way you talk and all that nuance that’s lost between my polished perfect thing that I gave the L L or the AI is where you lose its ability to kind of understand exactly where your head was going, potential pitfalls you ran into even when articulating what you wanted. it’s more in in line with what you really need. And you get better results as a result. So I mean I’m I I can’t
Al Ludwig (19:14.19)
I’ll stop myself halfway down a rabbit hole and go wait. No, no, no, let’s let’s back up. Let’s reverse. But you see where I was going with that one, right? But let’s go now in this direction. And that’s all captured and
Patrick McEuen (19:24.46)
And it’s great. It’s great context for the model to be able to expand on why you might have diverted away from the rabbit hole and you’re encoding strategic elements of your thought process. And when we’re talking about these modern orchestrator models, like that’s everything. In terms of then, you could prompt to say, Hey, save that as a skill file. You know, there’s a lot of really cool things in progress.
Al Ludwig (19:45.406)
And you know, my my team has told me numerous times, they’re like, We’ve we’ve come to understand you talk your way through things. And so initially in a meeting with me, if someone’s not familiar, they may think like, I am just rolling, dictating, telling them what to do, where we need to and then they start realizing, no, no, he’s just working himself to a destination that he knows there that he hasn’t quite got to yet.
Patrick McEuen (20:09.966)
I that’s the best way to describe it.
Al Ludwig (20:12.414)
And and you know, with AI I’m I’m able to just do that nonstop. Right. And and absolutely love doing it. But I I wanna jump onto a couple other things. one’s a very simple quote that I pulled from your LinkedIn. Firm owned, period, all caps, firm owned, period.
Patrick McEuen (20:30.208)
I can I can dive into this a little bit. I so this is just a personal story from our firm. So when I joined the firm about five years ago, I came in originally as David’s assistant. so I was like getting coffees, I was picking up lunches, and I was just trying to be a sponge and learn everything I could to help him. And primarily at that time it was tech. You know, the firm post-COVID, like everybody else, we suddenly had to figure out eSign, Zooms, all that. And it was a little bit a little crazy there for a minute. But David at that time, we were going through a marketing transition and our previous vendor owned our Google Adams account.
And long story short, millions of dollars in Google Ads data we lost when we transitioned. And you know, having to start an ads account over and and you know, retroactively you can’t reach back out like, hey, actually, could we get a copy of that? You know, it doesn’t it doesn’t really work like that. So experiencing that and then going into meetings with potential escoring clients where they really don’t own anything. They don’t really know where their directories are managed, they don’t know where their Google business pages are.
They’re not aware of their tag managers, their analytics accounts, their call rail accounts, even. You know, all that data in this era of AI is how you’re able to then capture and and build upon what’s functioned and worked inside your firm. I I jokingly say it’s like your operating memory. Like you have vendors who are extensions of you and you have outcomes that you get to absorb. But the how is in this era of AI is how you can, you know, internalize some of those resources and leverage AI yourself and and not have that gap.
But if you don’t have the data, that’s not an option for you. And that’s where, you know, when I meet with firm owners and I find out they have you know seventy percent of their stuff and not really aware, they don’t even know, and even their in house marketers don’t know, makes me panic. ‘Cause I’m just like, you don’t know what you’re dealing with here.
Al Ludwig (22:12.696)
Yeah, and you know, and a at a minimum just just being aware that you know, I I I need to have the access to to all of these items and knowing that somebody has it. You know, is it’s better than most. You know, w when I when I was in house, one the first things I did was I audited everything that we had working with anybody externally. So I wanna know own everything. And we spent millions and millions of dollars every single year.
And with with one of the vendors, it was, well, we don’t really do it like that. I’m like, well, we are gonna do it like that. Right. Like we’re gonna do it like that now. Otherwise, like I’m gonna have to start finding other solutions. And you know, so they were like, okay, no, absolutely. We’ll we’ll do it that way, right? like I I’m not looking to get in there and kick y’all out. You know, I’m I’m looking to get in there and just make sure that the firm has ownership of the things that they need, that we have access to and everything’s transparent as possible.
and so, you know, I think not every agency out there is gonna is gonna do that, right? But if you spend the most enough, a lot of them will will make some concessions. and I’m I’m a big advocate of that transparency. I I want them to have access to everything. I want them to be able to look at it whenever they want, if they decide they want to. because if ultimately if they don’t, then
There’s probably a little less trust there because it it is black boxed a little bit. And you know, when they do dec when they do decide to shop around, I have no idea because, you know, there no one has their team doesn’t have access to it, right? And so it’s it’s it’s a it could be a catch twenty two for some agencies, but I I’m a big advocate of just I want the firms to be, you know, as knowledgeable and equipped as possible.
To to know what’s going on with their law firm, with the marketing, because I want them to look at at me as a true partner, right?
Patrick McEuen (24:16.472)
For sure. And I think most agencies, especially the really good ones, they’re excited when you bring up these questions. When you start asking these types of questions, like, okay, someone internally now can start closing some loops for us too. And I mean, I’m speaking from experience. A lot of our growth comes in in working with an agency. I I like to tell people, sure, I have a horror story about one, but you know, David Meyer, he’s the investor protector. We get hundreds of calls every single month from people who’ve been defrauded by brokers and advisors. But every single one of us here has a broker and advisor because
It’s same way if you in the emergency department, you probably think your kids should never go to a park ever. there’s very much a a an experience where because of the sample size, you can give you an idea that you should never do that. But I think the best agencies get excited and a lot of our growth has come from working with our agency for how to integrate our strategy and tr use them as a true extension of us. And I think that gray area of a lot of law firms thinking it’s the agency’s job, the agency kind of being like, We can’t do everything, is where that friction comes in. But if you’re
If you’re replacing your agency every year, you’re never gonna make any momentum or progress because you don’t have consistency either. And that’s where you d I think a lot of firms end up in a recyclical cycle of they’re both not committing themselves or investing in equal resources that the agency can so that the both can meet in the middle and and find success together.
Al Ludwig (25:31.278)
Yeah, and it’s it’s it’s crazy the the makeup of so many different law firms, right? And and they’re they’re gonna be completely different because there’s different different sides, different practice areas, different interests, right? Some of them just don’t wanna be involved in any of the marketing ever, right? And they’re okay with being in a black box because they’re just like, as long as the results are happening, fine, right? And if they’re not, we’re just we’re gonna go somewhere else. from the from the agency standpoint.
Very much when there is a someone internally who is owning it from the bringing everything together, it’s better for every agency you work with. and that that was one of the conversations when I was in house that I had even with when I was talking about the agency, a couple of agencies I was working with. It was if if they’re good at what they do, they’re just gonna be better now that I’m here. Right. Because they’re gonna have more direction. They’re gonna they’re gonna have more access into what’s really happening behind the scenes. They’re gonna know what.
What I’ll hold valuable, what I don’t, because they will never have full access to the complete nuance of all the clients coming in and what’s happening in intake and what’s happening in legal ops and in operations, because they can’t, right? It’s just that they’re a separate, they’re a separate business, no matter how much you integrate your agency in. but we do work with some firms that, you know, we we we are their marketing department and their marketing agency. but a lot but trust has to come with that with in order for for that to happen, right?
Patrick McEuen (26:56.27)
I think to your point, like that bridge is so important. being able to bridge what’s going on inside of the firm with what the agency is doing and marrying those things together because one side knows the outcomes and the other side kind of is implementing strategies. So the bridge is really important. One of the biggest things we felt like helped us was providing like a neutral place to share data even. To where to your point, I’m not giving any agency access to my CRM. And if that’s my system of truth, how can I provide them that access?
It’s one of the reasons why we made a data like as a neutral place to be like, Hey, here’s your v data vendor, here’s your data vendor. You can see how many of these were turning down, why are disqualification reasons and that can help inform either your ad strategy, your SEO strategy. And it just goes a long way in helping produce better results for everyone.
Al Ludwig (27:40.908)
Yeah. And and ultimately what what I’m hearing there is that there is a very clear here is your metrics and here’s how I’m judging you. And so make sure that you’re operating through that lens. And whether the agency or the or the or defender or the third party partner agrees with that or not, they know that’s how they’re being judged. And if they don’t agree with it, you can have those conversations. I’ve I’ve had many of those conversations where I was like, well
Maybe we shouldn’t be judged off of that thing because here’s some of the you know the for me that’s the the advantage of having been in-house too, because I’m I’m still always thinking from that that in-house standpoint because I had to do what you did, right? Had to share lots of data in a way that made sense, vendor by vendor, client agency by agency. And there were lead-gen vendors, there were true agency vendors, there were freelancers, there’s a lot.
Yeah, they’re all all all all in one place to try to go up and to the right.
Patrick McEuen (28:41.462)
I I do think one of the most difficult parts for me is also making sure like what matters to us when I’m working with the marketing vendor and what is important to strategy is not what the firm owners are necessarily worried about. So like to your point, it’s like translating the marketing results that like we care about, the firm owners don’t necessarily care that much about. and and then also simultaneously the things the firm owner wants me to pass down, maybe sometimes not letting it distract away from the good things that we got in.
Al Ludwig (29:07.426)
Yeah, you’re you’re you have to be a buffer, right? Yeah. You don’t you don’t always want the you don’t want the team to be stressed out by the owner’s stress because the the owner’s gonna be stressed in a different way because it’s it’s their operation. And if they’re anything like me, I I I had the tendency to operate under the the world is always burning. Yeah. Things are going up and to the right, and I’m still like, but what if?
and so I know a lot of operators, a lot of owners, you know, they they also think like that because they have a large team that is counting on them. They have these personal relationships and they don’t ever want, you know, things to go south. They want everybody to to eat, so to speak. And a lot to care.
Patrick McEuen (29:52.174)
Especially a contingency fee firm. I mean, it’s you’re it it really is. There’s so much variance in knowing when cases are gonna settle, which ones are gonna get thrown out. Like f you know, financial forecasting, even in the best case scenarios in most contingency fee firms, is it’s got like a really rough estimate. And it ’cause it’s just the reality of the business. but the
Al Ludwig (30:13.206)
The larger you get, the more volume you do, the easier that gets.
Patrick McEuen (30:16.952)
Sure. Yeah, definitely. Larger samples.
Al Ludwig (30:19.56)
But I mean you’re a you’re a one to ten million dollar firm, much more difficult.
Patrick McEuen (30:25.614)
That’s what the the peace of mind has to come from. you know, the consistency in the processes and in the reporting and in the trend that you can hopefully see in the data of of being confident in kind of what you’re building towards. Cause I will admit, and this is something I’m very candid with people, we started our AI journey in in 2022, where we first started, you know, we had a crawler that we were using that was really the the the or origin of the idea of what became our tools. But when ChatGPT comes out, it’s like, okay, we spend
you know, twenty-three and twenty four really building the foundation of both the tools and our strategy. And it wasn’t until twenty five and twenty six that we really started to see those efforts pay off. Now I think that’s two things. I think it’s us kind of actually getting our arms around it. But the second thing being that more people are using AI for more stuff. I know Google announced last year, last month that they’re pushing everything into AI mode now.
I think you’re gonna see more social media platforms push LLMs into their integrated search features. So a lot of these agent to agent handoffs between platforms, you know, that optimization layer is just getting a larger surface.
Al Ludwig (31:25.562)
Yeah. I mean, and even this morning, I was watching a YouTube or I found a YouTube video by searching for some some stuff that I wanted to de do a deeper res research on. And when I got there, I clicked the little button that does the AI summary of the video that that Google and YouTube now have in there. And I went and I quickly read that because I didn’t want to watch the video. I just wanted to know what their what what those takeaways were. and I that’s a space where the tool is pretty interesting to me because it’s
It’s almost taking a away from the reason why you you would go to YouTube, but I personally love being able to just click that button and and see it, right?
Patrick McEuen (32:05.408)
I do too, honestly. And I personally, when I’m looking for a business, if they do have a bunch of bad Yelp reviews or Reddit reviews online, I want to know too. And yeah, I I’m glad that Google’s alerting me of that in my Google business page. No, I’m glad that if there’s negative sentiment out there, it gives me that warning when I’m on something like Chat GPT. I think as a consumer, it’s just the reality is that AI is is is putting a lot it’s democratizing a lot of knowledge and making the consumer far more informed.
Example I have is I I was getting quotes for new gutters on my place and I was actually able to, based on the quote I was sent by the gu the contractor, identify the actual SKU model from which he was buying the parts from. And I asked him if he’d be willing to just pay the labor. I’ll buy the parts myself because I was able to see his exact margin. He didn’t respond, but I I mean that that type of process is what I th I think that type of process is what is is going on across the whole industry.
Of whether you are a landscaper or a gutter guy or a lawyer, there’s now another place where a a consumer can hopefully be a little bit more informed coming in those conversations. And for some instances that’s a problematic thing or not ideal. But in some in cases for us, like the the conversions that we do get from AI are people that are very basically qualified. By the time they get to us, they’ve spent so much time with this chat bot that we really are the best choice for them. And
That to me is the is the coolest signal of AI is that when you do get these cases, you know that they’re good. You know, in terms of our our our we have an internal case rating system that we leverage and they are consistently our our best value proposition cases so far this year. And that’s very exciting to me as it’s an expanding kind of search area. So
Al Ludwig (33:46.798)
Curious question for you. when you when you bring on a client that you know came through some type of or at least there’s some research through AI, have you’ve ever asked that particular client to send you, if they’re willing, their AI research so that you have the full scope of exactly everything that they were looking for, so you can best serve them as their lawyer?
Patrick McEuen (34:12.408)
We’ve not actually requested the, you know, logs or anything like that. There’s also a bit of a nuance I would say also in how much they’ve shared with the chatbot that we don’t want them to be doing. So there’s a piece of that too that it makes us a little nervous. Yeah. but we we basically asked, Hey, how did you get here? Can you walk us through that process? And what we found actually is we’ve seen a rise of it’s people’s children or their you know, their son or their nephew.
that is doing additional research as well on their situation. And it was the you know, the kid in college that was like, Hey, actually grandma, I’m gonna run this through. I’m gonna see which Hat G P T says who you should go with versus, you know, the more more legacy forms of of reaching out and trying to find someone.
Al Ludwig (34:52.408)
Patrick, so your AI score is low. Do you want a free audit?
Patrick McEuen (34:55.406)
My A score is very low, according to SEMRush and Narf.
Al Ludwig (35:01.006)
I I I saw your post about you know kinda constantly getting hit up with that, right? what’s what what would you tell someone who’s who’s being approached with a a a LinkedIn DM or a vendor that’s just, hey, your AI your AI score is low. Do you want a free audit?
Patrick McEuen (35:17.414)
I would take it with a j a ju a mountain of salt. Just from the lens of me personally, and and I I’d like to say I like you said I’m a little bit of an optimist in this space and and trying to optimize for it. I would say that those are just anxiety dashboards right now. even the highest volume of testing that you can really do for L L Ms, you’re getting such a sliver. It’d be like trying to estimate the population of deer in Ohio based on how many salt on your neighbor’s trail camp last night. I mean, it really is such a shot in the dark. I but
I I think the broader thing that it’s opening up people’s eyes to is there’s a lot of stuff that agencies or or your your internal marketers could be doing that could be helping. I think as much as a lot of the SEO industry likes to dunk on these geo guys, they are pointing out some of the things that could be better, you know, structured data on websites. You know, I’m not a big LLMs.txt guy, but I will say your directories are very important. Having an active Google My Business page is very important. You know, all of these things.
Some of those tips and tricks there is some nuggets of value in there. So I wanna at least give the give credit still.
Al Ludwig (36:18.062)
Yeah, and I and I’m with I’m with you there. I I typically, you know, if if Google says something’s important, you know, well, no matter what we think, we might as well just do the housekeeping of that thing. you mentioned LLMs, TXT files, where it’s like everybody kind of says it does nothing, and then all of a sudden, even Google says it pretty much does nothing, and then they put it into their guidelines that where where like when you run an audit, they’re checking for it. It’s
Patrick McEuen (36:47.244)
It and to me there’s also a piece I’ve always felt like with Google where sometimes some the their in their instructions aren’t always what’s accurate to what would be best overall for your firm. I definitely think an LM L L L dot TX file, there’s no harm in putting that on your website by any means. but I wouldn’t say that just doing that, you’re gonna suddenly see this huge influx in AI traffic in cases. And that’s where I think the the misalignment comes in with some of the LinkedIn DMs I get.
Al Ludwig (37:12.366)
And especially firms that they have a four point three rating and seventy-six reviews, right? They have ten bad Yelp reviews and four good ones. The the LLMs are gonna be hard pressed to ever say that that you’re the go-to one unless you’re a very niche firm in a very small market and there’s just no competition around you, which is gonna rarely be the instance in the in the legal space, especially
as we continue building and getting more money into legal marketing and we get into PE back firms, we’re getting the MSO, ABS, all of that. how how do you feel like that’s affecting your world right now?
Patrick McEuen (37:56.802)
We’re lucky enough that we are niche enough that I don’t think there is as big of a private equity, you know, ad margin collapse situation. But I’ve worked with firms that, you know, a year ago were getting three times as many cases for a third of the cost that they are right now. And in the paid ad space, depending on your metro, you know, so one of these private equity back firms could back up and overnight if sixty five, eighty five percent of your cases come from paid ads, that margin collapse is real.
Yeah, I I feel very fortunate that we’re not as much you know concerned about it in our our position. But I do think it’s opened up the door for a lot of us marketers who aren’t who aren’t getting into that space, either soliciting or competing. The more we can all be sharing notes and helping each other out, I’m all for helping cultivate that community. I really appreciate through Crisp actually in some of these coaching programs you can meet and connect with other marketers and and and try and help hold the line a little bit together.
Al Ludwig (38:51.0)
I I like how you brought up kind of if if you depended on one thing like Google Ads, right, it’s just getting more expensive. And the more money flowing into the legal marketing space from the out from the outside, the more expensive that’s gonna get. And it they’re they’re doing things that I w I was doing without PE backing. Yeah, I I had happened to work at a firm that was just very successful, had a lot of cash flow, had great budgets, and so and and did complete marketing ecosystem.
marketing, right? To where if any one channel didn’t do great, it you didn’t necessarily see it in the end result of the number, right? Because that all worked worked together. And so when I looked at say Google Ads or, you know, pay-per-click, it was I already know that these are going to be probably my most expensive cases to get because it’s bottom of the funnel peop people with the search intent. It’s auction based. We’re in a highly competitive field and a highly competitive markets.
And so it became well, can this just be a place where we’re generating cases, but not worrying so much about the ROI within this specific channel? And so that channel became hey, let’s squeeze people out. Let’s make it hard for people to play in in Google ads in our markets because we’re willing to bid so high for for at least this the bottom of the funnel intent search phrases. And it’s it’s definitely what I saw over the years is.
lot less people played in our markets because ’cause we did that. Now we s we spent a pretty penny doing it. You know, and yeah, it may have brought in a case for eight thousand dollars that we only made nine thousand dollars off of, but then we also had that person in the pipeline. We had that person as a a case referred down the line. And, you know, twenty five percent of people from that channel referred people down the road. And now the lifetime value of that person is much much higher, even though we didn’t necessarily see the ROI on them.
Patrick McEuen (40:21.422)
Defensive marketing.
Patrick McEuen (40:26.281)
But it worked.
Al Ludwig (40:47.902)
on paper that particular year. and so that but that makes it hard for s you know smaller spenders, smaller players because, you know, they they need that those three cases that come from Google Ads that month to give them a three X, a four X ROI and not a one point one.
Patrick McEuen (41:11.852)
Which is and and to me the defensive marketing, that’s a genius idea of of being able to like and to your point, the lifetime value is they’re gonna refer more cases even if that one case, you know, doesn’t end up being the the marker. But I think defensive marketing, you know, there are firms that you know they’ll buy all the billboards in their metro, not because, you know, they’re putting call rail numbers on it and they’re getting cases, but just so someone else can Exactly. All the billboards. Give me all of them.
Al Ludwig (41:31.69)
There’s only so many of right? Yeah.
No, I I think for the firms that can afford it, it can and are continuing to be privately owned. it’s still a good play, even with the money coming from the outside, because these firms are going to be very much focused on general business principles, right? They’re gonna be focused on a cost per acquisition. And if they’re not getting that cost per acquisition out of a specific market, they’re going to lower their bids. They’re gonna maybe get out of doing that particular thing in that market.
Because they’re looking at it from the straight business lens. the finance. And so it’s a it’s another way, yeah, defensive marketing. I once you’re at a certain place to be able to afford it, it’s a it’s a good play, especially in a field like in may maybe not every legal field, but if it were if it’s personal injury, it makes sense because there is, you know, so much margin there and the potential for even greater margin if you’re able to get the big cases.
Patrick McEuen (42:32.374)
And there’s so much competition. And and to your point, if there’s only so many cases and there’s that much competition, being able to be defensive really is beneficial of just depleting the opportunities of of what are your competitors in the open market. Even if sometimes they’re your friends. You know, that is that is the unique part I think about legal is a lot of the people you’re hanging out with at the BBA is, you know, the guy you’re competing with in Google Ads. That’s
Al Ludwig (42:55.906)
That’s that is a fun aspect about the industry because everybody thinks everybody’s enemies from the outside looking in. we when I was when I was in house, we worked with another prominent law firm that was a a large competitor of ours on some some things that we had both had an interest in. And we brought their clients to our studio and the client that they didn’t realize they were going to our studio. When they showed up, they’re like, wait.
This can’t be the right place. It’s like, I thought they were mortal enemies. And then they they show up and they’re joking around, they’re chatting. And it’s like, no, it’s it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s like minded people that do, you know, a similar thing that just happen to have competing businesses and ultimately, you know, there there’s enough to go around. and mo and a lot of them are friends. Yes.
Patrick McEuen (43:46.414)
That’s a and that’s definitely true for the attorneys at my firm. I would say both David and Courtney and Matt, they all most of the people that you would think are, you know, the biggest competitors that we’re, you know, w we just can’t stand them. They are they’re some of their closest friends that they’ve worked with for fifteen, twenty years and they’ll co counsel cases together. It’s I think it’s one of the coolest parts of legal. Is it’s very much it’s kinda like the NBA. We’re in a game, the guys look like they hate each other and afterwards they’re all dapping each other up and they’re gonna go get drinks after.
Al Ludwig (44:11.77)
It’s just the smartest firms out there are building those relationships even with their competitors. And in some kind times, as you mentioned, bringing them them in to co-counsel, especially on the very large cases, because in many instances, it’s better to have that third or fourth opinion and do a fee split with them to make sure that everything’s going right and we’re getting the best value out of this for our client or the best verdict.
than it is to try to just keep it all in house, even if you have a team that’s fully capable. Because you know, someone who’s been doing it for 30 years, that’s a competitor of yours, they’re gonna bring in a a perspective that maybe you didn’t have. And the firms that realize that a partnership like that is more advantageous than adversarial, or firms that win big
Patrick McEuen (44:59.346)
And to your point, I think it comes back to so much of this industry is built on relationships. I mean, it legal itself is so social proof and and peer-driven because of the relationship aspect of it, that I do, I genuinely believe that it’s one it’s very unique in that sense versus many, many other industries. I mean, I’m I’m not gonna pretend I’ve worked in a ton of them, but just from the outside looking in and my personal experiences, I would say it it’s very unique to us. I I I personally enjoy it a lot.
Because you can go to these conferences and see these people and it and it’s much more tangible and interactive than a lot of the corporate experience I had at larger larger institutions.
Al Ludwig (45:36.622)
Well guess but before we wrap up, tell me, you know, exactly what is Esquire En Engine? Who does it help and and how does it help them?
Patrick McEuen (45:42.914)
Yeah, so working here at Mire World S Morning, I’ve been very impassioned by. I feel like a lot of law firm owners, as I mentioned, they don’t necessarily understand how much right now with what’s happening with AI is is opening up new opportunities for firm owned infrastructure and really trying to arm law firm owners for this next era of of what’s coming within legal as things shift and move around. So we’ve developed some tools in house that we’re starting to share with other law firms to help them bring in the AI search components and try and help.
have a little bit more of of of autonomy in the driver’s seat and the marketing side of the house. So we we do a little bit of consulting and we’ve really just tried to help through other firms of David’s friends of his and other people we’ve met through Crisp just really help other firms out and and get a handle on those things.
Al Ludwig (46:26.41)
And this is something that you feel can help a a law firm of any practice area? Yep.
Patrick McEuen (46:31.662)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. we’ve worked with clients that are what you know as large as hundred plus, you know, individuals, six plus offices. we’ve worked in multi different states, you know, personal injury firms, defense firms. we can we can help you out, definitely. And I think that the one of the most unique things about what’s going on right now is how much of it isn’t necessarily just strategy. It’s that ownership piece and that ownership conversation of infrastructure and planning for the next wave.
Al Ludwig (46:57.75)
Love it. All right. Well, last piece of advice you want to give to all the law firms out there in the current state of of the legal world, legal marketing, legal operation.
Patrick McEuen (47:07.864)
Take an ownership test, kind of like what you talked about. You said when you first got in there, you took you took stock of exactly how many accounts we had, how many vendors, and who owned what. I think the best advice I could give any law firm owner right now is to complete an audit like that of your firm, of your infrastructure. Do you own your CRM and your your CRM’s data? Does your CRM data back up? Can you leverage it? Can you access it? Is it an open API? All of these things are very important as more agentec work starts to be instituted within law firms. It’s the best advice I think I could give right now.
Al Ludwig (47:37.684)
Marketing. I think it’s great. It’s great advice. A little mix of marketing and operations and just bringing everything together.
Patrick McEuen (47:44.886)
It’s all data, right? All flows together. Marketing to fees.
Al Ludwig (47:49.383)
I appreciate everything, Patrick, man. I don’t want to hold you up any longer. Let you get get back to doing the good work you’re doing. But thanks for so much for coming in and sharing everything.
Patrick McEuen (47:57.794)
Thanks for inviting me on. This has been fantastic. Love nerding out. And you know, look forward to seeing the episode up. Thanks for having me on.