Why PI Firms Waste Budget on Software Their Paralegals Won't Use ft. Ralph Pillinger | Trial Lawyer View Ep. 94

Litigation paralegal operations are the hidden engine of every high-volume PI firm, and most owners don't see it. Personal injury firm leaders who invest in software without first getting buy-in from the paralegals and production staff who must use it are burning budget on tools that quietly get abandoned, and Ralph Pillinger, Production Lead at Feller and Wendt, knows exactly why. With 22 years on the production floor of catastrophic trucking and TBI practices, Ralph lays out the pilot-and-rubric process that generates real ROI, explains where firms silently leak case value between intake and resolution, and makes the case that senior paralegals are strategic operators, not back-office staff.

At Feller and Wendt, Ralph helped scale the firm from under 50 to over 105 employees by embedding a checklist-driven production system directly inside the case management platform, making every box mandatory before a file advances. On trucking cases, that means securing the ECM black box download and preserving video before carriers sell the vehicle, identifying every insurance layer across broker, shipper, and carrier because the federal minimum coverage sits at only $750,000, and seeding the adjuster relationship early so reserves are set correctly within the first 30 days. Ralph also flags that human document review on records over 2,000 pages runs at roughly 65 percent accuracy, while AI-assisted review reaches 85 to 95 percent, freeing the team to focus on the remaining interpretive work.

Listeners leave with a clear sequence for closing the gaps Ralph identifies. First, confirm your team understands how adjuster reserves are set within the first 30 days or your early case work is invisible to the carrier. Second, run a pilot-and-rubric process before buying any technology, collecting feedback from the staff who will actually use it. Third, assign a production lead function to own cadence across the case lifecycle so momentum does not depend on one person's memory. Fourth, treat lien identification and reduction as a case cost rather than a staff task. The firms pulling ahead are the ones treating throughput as a discipline, not an afterthought.

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Feller Wendt, LLC

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Transcript

Coming up...

Ralph Pillinger 0:00

Most firms that don't specialize in that area, they treat it like a big car accident. And it is so different. I used to rely all the time on a checklist that I was given to by a Beryllian attorney out of Georgia. I would go down this checklist all the time and I always treat it like if I was a pilot. They go through their checklist and then they keep checking some of those things as the flight takes off from Florida to Utah. Otherwise, they're going to end up in Mexico or Canada if they don't continue to stay on course.

Jason Lazarus 0:27

That's Ralph Pillinger, litigation paralegal and production lead at Feller and Went. He helped to scale Feller and Went from under 50 to over 105 employees. He believes many firms treat trucking crashes like fake car accidents. Their system makes sure that never happens.

Ralph Pillinger 0:45

Firms, what they do is they overinvest in products that the teams, the people that are the boots on the ground, the ones that are actually supposed to use them, either never had any input, they didn't test it prior to, and they didn't have or receive genuine buy-in. Like the firm owner or the managing partners didn't receive buy-in from the team before they actually got it. Get different teams to test them all out, get a pilot going for every single one of them, and then get feedback from everybody, and then have them fill out a rubric, if you will, based on all the criteria that the firm uses, and then everybody get together and say, This one no, this one no, this is where we're going to be headed to.

Jason Lazarus 1:22

In this episode, you'll learn how firms waste software spend when production staff had no input, and how to pilot and rubric process help senior paralegals function as strategic operators. I'm Jason Lazarus, and this is Trial Law Review.

What an unconventional background brings to a law firm role

Jason Lazarus 1:41

Ralph, welcome to Tri Law Review. Thank you for being with me today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Jason. So we were just talking about this before we got on the podcast, but your background is a bit unusual for someone sitting in your seat. You've spent more than two decades as a litigation paralegal, and you've led sales training across the country, worked in financial services, fitted runners for sneakers. You still coach endurance athletes. What does that mix give you that a typical person in your career path does not bring to the role inside of a law firm?

Ralph Pillinger 2:17

I kind of thought about how I could relate that. And I think, you know, all of those prior and some of them are still relevant today activities are always, you always start with the end in mind. What's it going to look like at the end? And I think that's kind of how my approach has been in, you know, in the in the legal uh realm, both as a paralegal, as a case manager, trial work, uh training and coaching, you know, the the the uh teams from you know very basic from intake to case setup specialists all through all the way through associate attorneys, um, you know, focusing on the things that uh that you can control. Because in every one of those endeavors, you know as well as I do, there's so many things you can't control. You can't control the weather, you can't control the stock market, you can't control what you know Congress is going to put in play or not, you know, take out of play. You can't control any of that stuff. So you need to make sure that you have a playbook and you run it no matter what.

Jason Lazarus 3:16

Yeah, great point. Because the world of personal injury is very much well, every case is different, as you said, a p particularly like a practice like you guys, where it's multi-jurisdiction, there's a lot of things that vary state to state, and you know, having that ability to adapt is is critical for high-functioning teams as well.

Ralph Pillinger 3:39

I agree a hundred percent with that. And and sometimes, you know, I obviously there's a lot of things that are the same no matter what the jurisdiction was. I'd say, hey, listen, you know, it's not rocket science. It's, you know, there are specific laws, and a lot of times it's just the the statute number changes, and in some jurisdictions, the statute number hasn't changed, right? Um, but the the processes are still gonna always be the same. Uh, you know, how you how you get to the end result may may change a little bit. You know, you you know, you're not gonna always leave, you know, like my home is in Tennessee, even though I work for firms in, you know, Utah, Arizona, uh, and Idaho. And, you know, if I'm gonna take a take take a ride out to one of our Idaho offices, generally I'm gonna get in a plane. I'm not gonna drive a car, right? Um, takes too long, and uh, and and I may uh I may not ever get there because I may see a lot of things along the way that I want to stop at a little too long.

Jason Lazarus 4:32

Yeah, 100%.

What does a production lead actually own inside a scaling firm?

Jason Lazarus 4:33

So you are a litigation parallele and production lead at Feller and Went. It's a multi-state firm focused on catastrophic injuries. Most personal injury firms don't have a production lead role. What do you actually own day-to-day in your role? And why does a firm at scale need someone sitting in that seat or performing that function?

Ralph Pillinger 4:57

That's a great question. Um, I think, you know, with uh with with Feller Went, number one is that they wanted to scale up. They wanted to grow. And if you take a look at just uh a year ago, we had just under four uh just under 50 employees. Now we have over 105. And, you know, looking at expanding the the amount of teams per location um to be able to maximize how many people that we can actually get you know complete justice for. Um the the I think the differences are is that I, you know, as a case manager, I would naturally work with my team to, you know, make sure that they could get the best out of their own abilities, make sure that the right person's in the right chair. Sometimes you put the wrong person in the right chair, right? And so you need to make sure that they're in the chair that they're most comfortable in. That way I can utilize their strengths the most. And the difference between that and the production lead was we saw not all the teams were operating at the same level. And so our director of operations, Jeremy Jan, he said, Hey, look, you know, I think you're a natural coach because we had talked a lot about my athletic endeavors and what I still continue to do on the coaching side. And he said, What's your thoughts on doing that here? What you know, being able to take both of your natural skill sets and being able to do that. And I thought it was like what I always wanted to do, but never actually, you know, broach the subject with you know, management or leadership or the owners of the firm and and just uh our conversations that you know, he's super intuitive and and uh he kind of has a military background. And so he's always looking at operations from that standpoint. And and um, you know, we the firm believes you know that we you need to build infrastructure uh based on our core values, and our core values are dedication to every client, advocates for uh community safety, uh generate incredible work product, have real work-life balance, and then you have loyalty to the firm. And that doesn't mean you know, loyal to feller and when it's loyal to your teammates, loyal to the to the to the direction we're going in, loyal to the process, and ultimately loyal to the clients that we serve. So when you put all those things in, we're looking for people that fit that, that are looking for those type of values, do those values match up with them? And when they do, uh, you know, good things can happen.

Jason Lazarus 7:13

Great point. You know, hire for culture fit. We do that first and foremost. And then secondarily look, well, does their profile, whether it's predictive index or disk or some other profile fit within the position that they are looking to join the company and perform? Because you need both. You you otherwise you you run into problems with building the kind of team that you want to build, especially a high performing, high-functioning team and working on the types of things that you guys work on, same with us, it is critical, you know, that people buy into the mission, buy into the work, understand the importance of it. And all those things are are such an important part of the being able to scale and grow. Because if you don't have that foundationally, it becomes very difficult.

Why trucking crashes are nothing like big car accidents

Jason Lazarus 8:06

So, you know, you guys handle catastrophic cases, trucking crash cases, traumatic brain injury, which those are all very document-heavy and timeline sensitive. Can you walk through what the production looks like since that's what you oversee for that type of work and perhaps what firms underestimate about managing all that well?

Ralph Pillinger 8:30

I think, you know, if you relate it to I and one of the reasons, Jason, that I was drawn to the traumatic brain injury was through trucking crashes. Um, unfortunately, they kind of go hand in hand, right? But what I see the that a lot of firms that don't necessarily specialize in it, and I have gone out of my way to get myself around the smartest people uh in the country when it comes to that particular uh area. And when I first came to Feller Went, Matt Feller came into the office when I was there for orientation. I flew out to to Utah and he sat in front of me and said, What do you want to do? What interests you most here? And I told him trucking crashes and you know and traumatic brain injury, and he said, Anything we can do to help you support that. And one of the things that, you know, over the last 15 years that I've noticed is that the difference between firms that can really deliver for a client on that, and and you can tie all those together, it could be medical malpractice, could be, you know, uh wrongful death, uh, could, you know, could be certainly the traumatic brain injury, is that if you if you take a look at a simple example with a truck crash, most firms that don't specialize in that area, they treat it like a big car accident. And it is so different. I used to rely all the time on a checklist that I was given to by a beryllient attorney out of Georgia. I would go down this checklist all the time and I always treat it like if I was a pilot. You know, they go, they go through their checklist and then they keep checking some of those things as they're as as the flight takes off from Florida to Utah, right? Otherwise, they're gonna end up in Mexico or Canada, right? If they don't continue to stay on course. And there are so many things that disappear early in a truck crash case. Number one uh thing that you want to be looking for is you want to be able to get um the um, they call it the black box, which is kind of a misnomer, but the black box download in a uh tractor trailer uh crash because that data will disappear. A lot of times the carrier will sell that truck immediately. You need to get an investigator out there. You need to make sure that you're looking for video right away. Um if it is a if it is a um fatality type of a crash, you need to make sure you start all of those things on that side on the probate end so that you're not stymied in the middle uh and and not being able to make a decision for the family. You know, some of the other things that you want to have is that there are so many areas where or layers of insurance, um, because unfortunately, with the Federal Motor Car Safety Administration regulations, the um mandatory uh amount of insurance that they're they have to carry is still only $750,000, which is an absolute joke, in my opinion. Okay. Um, you know, they really need to address that. And then I know that there's a lot of um groups that are really trying to move that, but that's where the specialization comes in, where you need to dive into that, find the layers of insurance, whether it's the broker, the shipper, the carrier, and all of the other layers that that could be in there, so you can possibly, you know, get maximum justice for your clients. Because imagine someone having two or three million dollars worth of uh medical bills and then future because it's a catastrophic injury and there's only $750,000 on the table. That is an absolute travesty. So it's strategic, it's very much cadence-oriented. Um, I go by the checklist so nothing falls through. And now within our case management system, I've now actually had that checklist that's actually in the system. You you can't even move to the next thing unless you check off the box, yes, no, or it's in play. And um, you know, I I wanted to make it as simple as possible for everybody. So those are the things I think timing, what the steps are next, don't guess is the real key. Um, and uh, you know, delays can be catastrophic both both on the evidence side and on the treatment side. And whether it's traumatic brain injury, whether it's a catastrophic medical type of a deal, getting early diagnoses, getting early treatment, getting the right experts uh, you know, aligned for treatment providers to for the client is critical in what their long-term outcome is going to be.

Jason Lazarus 12:46

Yeah, system and process is so key.

The most common operational breakdown firm owners never see

Jason Lazarus 12:50

I'm curious, that leads me to something else I wanted to explore with you. You've worked inside of multiple firms over your career from boutique med mal to your current multi-state personal injury catastrophic shop. What is the most common operational breakdown with paralegals and people in your production role see clearly that perhaps the personal injury firm owner or the partners in the firm just miss and don't see?

Ralph Pillinger 13:24

That's a great question. And I think I think not really dialing into a a conversation with the client. And I think sometimes because the the firm owner, perhaps, the managing partner, whoever is in charge of that case, ultimately didn't really have that initial contact with the client. They weren't the ones that necessarily met with them. It was the net tech specials, or maybe it was the case manager. Um, and then the attorney comes in at the back end because they're doing so many other things. And I think the attorneys that really dial in, spend the time with the, with the with the clients themselves or debrief with the case manager paralegal. Diana was very good about that in Florida. She would always, if I was the one that was working with the client early on or first, she would always debrief me on it and say, okay, this is what do you think? She would ask me, what do you think we should do next? And then she would be totally involved in that. And I think that's one of the reasons for her success. That's the one of the reasons for her success at Feller Went because they're looking, they're looking for that community safety advocates, you know, end of things, you know, where, hey, listen, if we can change something that affects everybody, then we certainly want to go ahead and do that. But the only way you'll do that is you have to dial in on what do we have right now? How does it affect our client? How does it affect the community at large? And I think if you don't connect all those dots, number one, you're gonna miss opportunities to save people a lot of issues down the road. Um, but the you're not gonna be able to maximize the the value of the case for the for the client. And ultimately that's who we

Where case momentum quietly dies across hundreds of files

Ralph Pillinger 15:04

serve.

Jason Lazarus 15:04

I'm curious about where in the case lifecycle you see the most um inefficiency and loss of momentum. Um not talking about you know dramatic mistakes, but you know, those small repeated drag points that compound across hundreds of files. I mean, I would insert a little bit of selfishness here and talk a little bit about lean identification, verification, and resolution being one of those those you know, places where it's probably inefficient for most law firm staff to be doing that. But I'm curious, you know, well, and maybe you'll point to that too, but you know, where where do you see that happening in your own production and like how have you addressed those sorts of things?

Ralph Pillinger 15:56

One of the things, again, that comes it comes back to systems, right? And if you develop the system up front, which you guys have done an awesome job at Synergy, and you have relieved one of the biggest pain points on the other end. I'm gonna come back to that because it's super important, I think. Um, but early on, I think it's there's a lot of case managers, a lot of paralegals, a lot of legal assistants. They don't understand how the real life cycle of a motor vehicle crash works, how uh reserves are set, what moves the needle in those reserves, what do you have to do to dive into the psychology on why is the adjuster and andor the carrier, why are they making certain decisions or why are they not making certain decisions? And I think, you know, like one of the biggest ones is most people don't understand, even coming into the firm. I was even working with some case managers that had been in the industry for several years. And it's like, do you guys realize that the the reserve is set within the first 30 days of the file? And they're like, No, I didn't know that. And and and Jason, I don't know where this mentality came from on the plaintiff side, where they want to wait to hold everything until they're ready to put a demand together. That doesn't make any sense to me because if you give them nothing, then their their response is gonna be close to nothing, right? Like, I I to me, I think the breakdown is in the simplicity of all that complicated jargon that I just gave you, right? It boils down to this. The insurance company has money and we need money for our client. But for them to justify giving our client the money, we've got to give them documentation, i.e., medical records and bills, to prove, to justify to their bosses, whoever it is that they report to, why they need to give a certain amount of money, whether it's a policy tender or whatever the the amount may be. Now, how do you get to from from that point to that point? Number one is in your letter uh uh of uh representation, if you know the client was transported and they had a hospital stay and they had they had some imaging happen, you need to drop that right in the middle. Do not surprise an adjuster down the road where you don't be surprised that you got a little to no offer based on the fact that you didn't even let them know that they had imaging, they had, you know, particularly if you go back to that truck crash, right? Could you imagine not sending an adjuster anything for a year and then you send them a demand and they that's the first time they're hearing about that you have a traumatic brain injury? What are they supposed to do with that, right? Because there's still processes they have internally that they have to, you know, that they have to follow, right? So and I I I think I think that is one of the biggest problems. And and I was always so curious as to why all of a sudden I'd get a letter that there is a, and when I was learning this process, where all of a sudden I would get a letter that there was a new adjuster assigned. And I just figured, oh, well, that guy or that gal left. No, we exceeded the threshold of authority for the first person, right? So then I had to go backwards and say, okay, how did I do that? And then once I kind of observed enough of those things, I sought out the brightest attorneys in the country and said, is this why it happens? Give me your thoughts on how that works. And and then act in in accordance with that every single time you deal with an adjuster. That adjuster on the other side isn't, you know, the a lot of them they get, you know, a bad rip, right? They're a bad they're a black hat, they're whatever it may be. They're still a human being, right? But if you if you make sure that you get them what they need to justify giving your client money, then everything will flow exactly like it needs to be because a leopard doesn't change their spots. If they know what they can expect from you, all they will have to do is pick up the phone. That will not be an adjuster who's avoiding you, right? And so to me, I think that's the biggest breakdown. They don't understand a the cadence of how you move a reserve from what the initial offer is uh or from what when the occasion initially starts, and they send their letter of acknowledgement. Yes, we understand that we have uh, you know, a claim with your client, all the way through potentially litigation. Okay. And and I know some adjusters that are still in the industry and those that have retired that have explained to me in ad nauseum uh the process that I I I felt that I uncovered and they filled in gaps for me. Um, and some of my still, you know, hit for for updated information and things. And guess what? It hasn't changed. It's still the same. The processes are still the same. The only difference is now is that it's not just like, are you familiar with uh the uh software colossus that Allstate has been using? Now it's colossus, now it's colossus with AI. That's what that's what's changed, right? So now it can read or take a view of the pictures that you're sending where previously it could not, right? It was just an algorithm. So if you're dealing with a lower-level adjuster who couldn't take it out of the algorithm, none of the no narrative and no pictures did you any good, right? You had to get it out of their hands. And the only way to do that, by the way, is send them enough bills so it moves out of their authority threshold or file the suit, which moves it to a litigation adjuster, and then that's that's how you that's how you move. But I think that breakdown um and the some firms just don't don't I guess they assume that that a lot of case managers of legal assistants know that that's the process and they never dive into it. I I don't leave any of that to chance personally. I want to make sure everybody's on the same page and everybody has the same information I have.

Jason Lazarus 21:52

Have you noticed how most conversations about law firm growth stop at intake, marketing, and trial results, but rarely addresses what happens. After resolution. That's the gap Synergy focuses on. We partner with personal off firms to manage the operational side of healthcare lean resolution and compliance, bringing structure and clarity to one of the most overlooked but costly parts of what your team does day in and day out. If you're thinking more seriously about operations beyond the courtroom, you can explore Synergy services through the link in the show notes or by scanning the QR code on the screen. Now back to today's conversation.

How insurance reserves are set and why most firms get it wrong

Jason Lazarus 22:28

Well, and particularly like you said, with what's going on with AI, I I've written a couple articles on that subject in terms of addressing that through your discovery. And because, you know, there there is all sorts of nuance that's happening because of that in terms of what's being offered. And you're such a identifying such a critical issue. Just really uh that's that's an incredibly timely and astute insight in terms of making sure the team understands that part of what's going on.

Ralph Pillinger 23:07

Well, what the the next level to that is when you eventually get that money and then you we're trying to get the the uh the funds dispersed to our client, having somebody like Synergy on our side, where essentially this is kind of how I viewed it. And where we can hire another firm that we don't actually have to pay, okay. We're hiring more employees who, by the way, specialize in what I need done. And I, it's not my wheelhouse. I'm pretty good at getting at getting a reduction, but I don't like it, number one. And number two, since it's not my A wheelhouse, it takes me five times as long as your guys do it. And at the same time, I can go help five other clients negotiate, get an offer to settle out, whatever it may be, get their treatment where it needs to be, work with them. All while in the background, I have synergy working to get our clients the best, best possible outcome. It is a no-brainer, and anybody who's not using Synergy is, in my opinion, this is my opinion, insane. Okay.

Jason Lazarus 25:01

I'm just saying. Yeah, I mean, look, the I think anything within a law firm that today is repeatable, that is not high-level legal work, that's administrative in nature, whether it's this, whether it's medical record retrieval or other functions within the firm, there are technology solutions and there are you know business process outsourcing groups like ours that can take those tasks off the plate of the team to allow the team to focus on either more client touch interaction, which improves client experience, which gets you the five-star Google reviews, or enhances the value of the case, which again enhances Google reviews, also enhances the firm's bottom line. I I mean, I don't understand why any firm is doing some of these administrative tasks that they're not getting paid for, that they can pass along as a client cost to improve bottom line, to improve operation efficiency, uh profitability, and allow the team to focus on what they do best, which is securing justice for people that are injured. It's just that simple.

Ralph Pillinger 26:15

I agree 100%. If someone, you know, with with a with a firm like yours, you know, I had somebody was questioning me at one point a while back, and they and I said, Well, let me ask you a question. Would you ever put the reason you would come to XYZ firm is because we do the best lien reductions? Yeah, and they're like, no. And I was like, okay, well, then it's number one, it's because it's not true. And number two, it's it's not your wheelhouse. Why would you do that, right? You can't be a generalist in law anyway. It's not possible. It's like being a generalist in in medicine. You're not going to be very successful. And for us to be able to maximize, and I would say it's not even passing it on as a client, it costs. For for our experience with synergy, is our clients get a better return on investment because the the lien reductions are so big, right? Uh, in most cases, that it, I mean, it's a complete no-brainer. And then your team is like, hey, listen, we got it reduced from this to this, but we think we can squeeze a little more out of the orange. Do you want us to do it or not? Let me check with our client. The client happened to be there. I was out in Arizona. This was like a month and a half ago, and the guy said, uh, yeah, let them keep going. Two days later, you guys dropped it another like $2,400, which actually more than paid for what the what synergy got paid. And so he had net net net dollars. He was so excited, let me tell you.

Jason Lazarus 27:40

So the only reason I mentioned case costs is because I think some law firms don't think about it in the term in those terms. But as you said, typically the the like in our area of expertise, we're paying for ourselves because we're getting better reduction than most law firms can get, because our team are all from the other side, Rawlings, Conduit, Optum, Equian. They've come from all the recovery vendors. So they know the inside baseball and they can they can do things that you know law firms could do if they spent the time training their teams to do it. But again, that's not what you guys are there for. You're there to secure justice and litigate personal injury cases to get the right outcome for the injured party. So uh don't want to I don't want to belabor that point because I I I believe it's a bit selfish. But I, you know, before we got on the podcast, we were talking a bit about our uh experiences in endurance athletics,

What endurance coaching reveals about managing complex case loads

Jason Lazarus 28:41

me being a cyclist, and I I over the years from when I started at age 13 till I quit racing competitively a few years ago, I continually had a coach that helped me with my training plans and built in these, you know, hard hard training blocks with recovery. And you as an endurance coach, you build those kinds of training plans for athletes and balance load with recovery. And I'm curious if any of that sort of mindset carries over into how you manage case production within your firm and how you think law firm leaders should be thinking about pacing teams that carry complex caseloads.

Ralph Pillinger 29:30

That's a good question. And I'm I'm kind of a I'm kind of a picture guy. So I I tell stories that create pictures because when most people are more visual. Um, and if they're not, the weaving of the story generally will help them. But the here's the coaching analogy that I use with all my teams, okay? I say, Jason, number one, I'm gonna treat you like you want to become the next rising star out of this office until you prove different. So I have permission to speak to you that way. Right? And they always say, Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me. I want to be the rising star. I said, okay, great. I said, now I'm gonna give you a little bit of an analogy on how I coach, okay? Because there's two things, Jason. If I was coaching you right now and you said you stopped competitive cycling for a while, but if I was gonna take you from the couch to a 50K in the trails, um, which is which is like my preferred distance to begin with, by the way. Um, and uh um, but if I was gonna do that, I'd say there's two primary things that are going to um lead to your success. Number one is do I believe Ralph knows exactly what he's talking about? Do I believe that he actually has the information? And does he believe it? Okay. So if do you you know, do you understand? Do you do you think that I have enough knowledge to be able to pass on to you? And the answer is, you know, the oh yeah, absolutely. I said, okay, great. The second one is gonna be when you have that, if you say yes, and you say, B, will I follow the play no matter what? Because if there's 160 days in a training cycle, every single one of those is not gonna be a great day. It's impossible, right? 160 work days don't go great, 160 days with your family doesn't go great, 160 days at school doesn't, not every single one is perfect, right? And so if you can bring those two things together, the the other part of that is that you need to understand how you're coached, how do you like to receive your coaching? So some coaches like to give their athletes a swift kick in the butt, okay? I personally responded best to that type of coach, okay? Although I didn't need it because I was very individually motivated and very goal-oriented. But if you were going to call me out on something stupid that I did or something that I didn't pay attention to, or I thought I knew better, and I didn't even have you, I didn't have a problem with you calling me out in front of the team. Some people want you to coddle them. I gotta put my arm around Jason's shoulder, okay, bud, this is how it works, you know, where where are you? And then other people you have to really kind of go into really soft sell, right? And so my question to you is what kind of athlete are you, Jason? And then that's how I coach you. I said, Great. Do I have permission to coach you that way? Yes. And then so anytime that you are then working with the team, I would always tell any of the leaders. And so we have a a step, if you will, in in in processes. So you have intake, then you have case setup specialists, then you have legal assistant, case manager, senior case manager, and then attorney, and then general manager of the location. And so what you'd have is I'd say, okay, how do you like to be coached? And in during the process, number one is you should know a little bit about the position below you and a little bit about the position above you, so you know what a case is supposed to look like as it comes to you. And if it isn't, if Ralph keeps sending you cases, Jason, and there's a piece missing or two pieces missing, it's a training opportunity for me. So then you'll start to develop some leadership skills, giving me feedback, even though it's not your job to necessarily train me, I report to somebody differently. Um, but if I repeat that, then you go to my manager and say, hey, Bob, you know, Ralph is missing this repeatedly, even though you gave me some uh additional coaching. Then you need to know what a case is supposed to look like as you pass it off to your case manager. So that number one, if you want to become that rising star as a legal assistant and move to case manager, you need to know what everything's supposed to look like that way. But then you'll all obviously know how to prep a case, what everything is, your questions will be driven that way, your activity will be driven that way, your mentality will be driven that way. And to me, that has been super successful for the firm because everybody really understands then that a rising tide does raise all ships, right? A rising tide does when everybody, none of us is as smart as all of us. And if we all collectively move in that direction, we're already better for it, as will our clients who ultimately are the people that we're serving.

Jason Lazarus 34:00

100%. Yeah. Great, great points. And I I as a follow-up, you uh have spent years giving runners what you call the Lexus experience of being fitted, where

The Lexus experience and what it means for client communication

Jason Lazarus 34:12

the goal was getting it right for that specific person. I'm curious, does any of that translate into how a personal injury firm should be thinking about client communication and case experience and experience with the firm?

Ralph Pillinger 34:27

100%. And and and one of the things I I the that I look at, the Lexis experiences is that they treat every customer, Lexus, that is. Lexus treats every customer as if they're the only person there. And I had a sales mentor a long time ago that said, if I'm sitting in front of Jason and I put a box around me and Jason, and nothing gets in it. No overt noise, no telephone calls, no other customer, nobody on my team that happens to come in, hey, can I get a second? Nothing. Because if I dial in to Jason and I really find out what his concerns are, then I have the ability to adjust them. Part of that Lexus experience at Fleet Feed is I really need to dial in to know where you came from, how did you get this injury, why is it repetitive? Okay, and then we'll address it. And I may need to bring some specialists along the way. I may need to bring in an ortho, I may need to bring a bring in a podiatrist, maybe a physical therapist. And together we'll all move you towards that same kind of thing, right? You know, rising tide raises all boats. And like if I was you know coaching you, one of the things I would say is, I'm not gonna coach you like a runner, I'm gonna coach you like an athlete that happens to specialize in running. So you're gonna be a little more well-rounded than the average runner. The average runner only they get hurt because they only run. And that repetitive motion without developing any strength is gonna hurt you. So my philosophy is prehab is better than rehab. And in context to a personal injury firm, prehab is that initial conversation with the client. Finding out, hey, is this their first crash? Is this their first foray in anything legal, right? They're gonna have some nervousness related to that. They're gonna have some nervousness and apprehension with relation to how it's gonna affect their job, how it's gonna affect their family, the medical maze of trying to navigate, you know, uh treatment and such, the bills when they come, what am I supposed to do with them? All of those things. And then how long is this process gonna take, right? And so dialing in on that and to get into psychology, uh, you know, maximizing the the psycho the psychological end of it, both from the um medical standpoint, the actual psychological standpoint, because a lot of people are pretty traumatized by some sometimes the crashes and such, and then impacting the claim for full compensation, you know, whatever that number may be.

Jason Lazarus 36:58

Yeah, having been the unfortunate victim of you know, one of these instances, I was struck

Why meeting clients on their worst day changes everything

Jason Lazarus 37:05

by a car while cycling back in 2016. Yeah, that experience taught me a lot about what it feels like. Well, exactly what it feels like to go through a case like this. And you know, I was very thankful. A friend of mine handled the case, and their firm was great in the way we interacted and my experience and you know, with personal injury being quite personal, you know, when when you are injured, it is it is a very personal thing. Uh it's so critical to have that that feeling that you're heard and people understand what you're going through, and you've got the advocates on your side and you've got the firm doing everything possible to help you. Because even for me, it was daunting, and having been you know in the industry for you know almost 20 years when it happened still was not easy navigating at all.

Ralph Pillinger 38:08

No, no, and I and I think you know the the one thing I try to get through to newer people is that chances are we're meeting the the client on their worst day. And so we need to try to navigate that to where they are as close to 100% as they were prior to this unfortunate incident happening to them. And so it's it's our job to go, you know, work through that process. But the the way to do it is to develop that relationship with them, have them understand, and in a softer way, find out how they want to be coached, right? That's you know, without asking them how they want to be coached, because you have to you have to kind of bring it down a little bit to their to their level, find out what they like, you know, find out about their family, find out about their job, how long they've been doing it, how much they like it, how much they dislike it. And when you find out all those things about them, number one, they're gonna know you care about them, right? Um, and then number two, they're more apt to, you know, be open to you know, becoming, you know, getting evaluated by a different specialist that they've never, you know, had to had to sit in front of before. And then as you can talk them through the process, they will come back to you because they trust you. And that's super important.

Jason Lazarus 39:21

You hit on something, and I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the podcast, but you know, I I do think I was probably the worst version of myself post being hit by that car and ultimately wound up in counseling because you know, it had to do with the anger that I felt around what was taken from me by that careless driver that morning. You know, my I identified as a cyclist, it was my community, it was you know, and I went from training at a super high level, being in the best shape I'd ever been in. Thank God, because that probably helped me avoid getting infections and you know, really having problems because I was on a ventilator for almost two weeks. Uh but you know, like even the people around me finally said, Hey, you need to go see somebody. You are not and I say that the the being struck was the best thing that ever happened to me because it reset a lot of things for me and priorities. But but that point that I was not, I was definitely not at my best. And that was that was definitely you know one of the worst things that's ever happened to me. I mean, there's been a few other things, uh, you know, we all have our our stuff, but that that point is a really good point for any lawyer paralegal that you know has not experienced this, it's hard to understand and know that, but I I can definitely tell you that that that is for most people a very, very challenging and difficult thing to get past.

Ralph Pillinger 41:10

I agree with you. And I think that's even a greater reason to develop that rapport with the client. So that if I suggest Jason, I'm I'm thinking you, you know, I I sense some PTSD type of things, you know. Um, you know, whether it's it's legitimately PTSD or it's just anxiety that you've never had before, never experienced before, your lack of ability to sleep. Um, we should address that, okay? Because you don't want to have that down the road after we settle your claim. And you certainly don't want to have that being like groundhog day. Every day feels like another reset to you, and you're right back to where you started from. And so we need to make sure that we work with them. And I think another area where people miss it is with kids. Kids physically will are super resilient, right? And but you know, I think a lot of parents, they kind of don't address the psychological end of it for their kids because the kids bounce back physically so fast. But they're very traumatized. If you actually dial in with the kids, I have had those conversations where all of a sudden they're in the conference room with me and I'm talking, and you know, they'll confide in me. I don't like to be on the highway anymore, I don't like to be loud noises, I can't handle sirens. And then I have those conversations with the clients, you know, you know, the the guardian um or the parent, and and that completely changes the case. And so that always needs to be addressed up front, and I let them know right away. I let I anytime there's a miner involved, I let them know right away. I said, look, you may have the same thing, but they will definitely have it. They just won't tell you that.

Jason Lazarus 42:45

So switching gears, yeah, there is a massive shift in what's going on in the practice of law

Where firms over invest and under invest in legal technology

Jason Lazarus 42:52

due to implementation of technology. Uh, we recently built for our own internal use and uh are now launching it for customers to use technology that is AI-driven, that helps with identification and verification of liens because we know that that sort of solution can help law firms in terms of um eliminating waste and time that their team spend on administrative tasks. So I know integrating technology is one of your specialties. I'm curious where do you see firms either overinvesting or underinvesting in terms of technology in the workflow that supports that workflow today?

Ralph Pillinger 43:41

Well, I can tell you it's been a big difference between every place I've been prior to and then the difference between fellow and went. But let me give you like kind of the overview. Um, because it could have potentially been the same thing, but they're just so open to investing in their people and investing in things that will make everybody's job more efficient. Um, and then make it obviously repeatable, right? Okay, so you know, repeatable processes are going to be something that you get you need to have. But I think firms it what they do is they overinvest in products that the teams, the people that the that are the boots on the ground, the ones that are actually supposed to use them, either never had any input, they didn't test it prior to, and they didn't have or receive genuine buy in. That like the the firm owner or the managing partners didn't receive buy in from the team before they actually got it, right? And it's like if you if if I was gonna use something on a day to day basis and I'm just gonna be buying it for myself, well then hey, you know, if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. But if I'm expecting other people to use it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to go. And bring out something that you know there there are you know maybe three or four other very similar products, just as, and you happen to get this one and it's missing a whole bunch of things. If everybody had a wish list, right? Hey, I wish I had this. Oh, oh well that product does, right? And so so I I think that's probably the biggest ones. And I think the ones where they underinvest are things with like medical chronology. You know, and some people are actually um a little paranoid when it comes to the medical cron, right? You know, they will say, you know, um, I I don't trust AI or you know, it's not reliable or whatever. Well, you know, in just documentation, uh review, doc review, human doc review, uh, over a 2,000-page document has about 65% efficacy, right? So you're you have a 35% gap. Now, depending upon what model you use, you're between 85 and 95 with AI. So I would rather spend my balance of the time, you know, on the the the 5%. And and the the analogy I use with with technology is anything that you can do that's a repeatable um admin type process, let AI do the 92% because the rest the art is the last 8%, right? And that's where you come in, that's where I come in, that's where the teams come in, where they can go ahead and do that. But you know, a a lot of a lot of firms will invest in stuff that doesn't do the 92, and and even if it does 62, it's not doing it well. And they're you know, just look, my suggestion is get buy-in from your team. Say, hey, these are the three products we're looking at, get different teams to test them all out, you know, get get a pilot going for every single one of them, and then get feedback from everybody, and then have them fill out a rubric, if you will, based on all the criteria that the firm uses, and then everybody get together and say, this one no, this one no, this is the this is where we're the this is where we're gonna be headed to. So everybody understands the pluses and minuses of all of them. And uh, you know, the the people that are gonna be using it are the ones that made, they're not obviously paying for it, but they're the ones that are gonna make it go and they're gonna make your investment worth it. So you get an ROI on that investment instead of it being not used and eventually falls to the wayside.

Jason Lazarus 47:10

So if there's a firm, managing partner, CEO, COO

What to do when your firm is one resignation away from chaos

Jason Lazarus 47:16

listening to this that feels like their operation is one resignation away from chaos, where would you tell them to start to make sure that they don't feel like things will completely fall apart if they lose key people and key positions?

Ralph Pillinger 47:33

That is a unique question, my friend. My first thought is if you're one person, one resignation away from chaos, do you really have a business, right? You've probably created a job for yourself, right? That you never knew that you actually wanted. Okay. And so I think what you wouldn't want to do, some of that's fear, because some people don't want to let go of things, right? They, you know, they they have a hard time delegating things. And to me, the the delegation of it, you know, being able to give it to somebody else is is a huge thing. So I always go look to try to hire people better than me. Delegate real responsibilities to those folks. And if you have some key people that you're you have fear of losing, do the same thing with them. Right? Give them real responsibilities, put them in the right position to win. Maybe they don't belong in this chair, they belong in this chair. So move them over there and then hire somebody to fill that one, right? Train them well, pay them well, and then, you know, obviously in that first in that previous example where I gave you put them in the right chair, because then you're maximizing their ability to win. I would also say, and this is kind of maybe a little self-serving, if you will, kind of something I always wanted. And I and over time I did have this with with several mentors at firms that I that I worked with, and I was very blessed to be able to have it. Is that getting that permission to how I I wanted to be coached, I look at it right now the way that I am here. It's like I have I have told the teams that I eventually I want to duplicate myself so that if someday you guys have my job. So that we need to have a production lead in every location, every state, if you will. And then maybe there's somebody else, because at some point, right, I'm I'll be 62 in July, okay? At some point, I will want to be, you know, uh chasing my grandkids around at the beach somewhere. And if we're gonna do that, you need to make sure that you can duplicate yourself. The first question I ask myself, am I worth duplicating? Am I too complicated? And do I have some gaps that I need to go fill in, right? So, you know, if I attended me, would our firm be better or worse? Right? You know, kind of kind of those things. And and and and I guess it wasn't a you know a direct answer, but I think it that's not an easy, that's not an easy question because you're gonna find answers in that in in that question when you ask yourself those questions that you may not want to hear the answer to. You know, it's like I uh a while ago I ran a chat GPT search and I said, tell me what I need to work on that I don't see myself. And it was tough. It was tough, right? You know, what's helped me not get my goals? And of course, you know, there's some other things that you have to do, you know, before that, it it needs to know you a little bit. You had better have introduced you know, chat GBT to yourself, you know, by having a master prompt that tells all about Jason. Otherwise, it won't, you know, won't come out to you, it'll be just general. And uh, and and it was a tough answer for me, you know, and uh, but but I'm a voracious reader, and so I I went down that rabbit hole and and went every way I could to improve in that area. Um, but that was not an easy thing to do. And you know, I I bounced it off my fiance and she's like, yeah. So sometimes, you know, you don't see uh, you know, the the things that that that maybe other people need to see. And that's why you need to have counsel, right? You know, have have have your inner circle, if you will, and make and don't have anybody on your inner circle that's a yes man or a yes woman. You want to have people that challenge you because if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Jason Lazarus 51:24

100%. Uh you've been very generous, time. Uh, a couple of questions to wrap up. Um if you look ahead to the next three years, what is the operational shift do you think that most

The AI shift personal injury firms cannot afford to ignore

Jason Lazarus 51:38

personal energy firms will be forced to make whether they want to or not? Because things are, you know, with AI and just the landscape seems to be changing very rapidly.

Ralph Pillinger 51:51

I think look, I'm I'm a self-taught guy as far as technology is concerned, but I have a lot of very tech-savvy friends, and they they've been dialed into AI, and I was super intrigued by it. So I dove into tools and then I would go back with them and do all that. And I have some that are like super on the edge, the cutting edge of all that stuff. And you know, one of the things I heard from Mark Lanier, um, and this is kind of how I looked at the use of AI, and I think it's gonna be adoption into the and their usages, uh usage of AI in various areas in their in their um processes, whether it's intake or customer follow-up, um, certainly medical chronology, uh, you know, things that they can go ahead and and and collapse the time frames on is gonna be super critical. But getting buy-in across the firm and having everybody use it. Uh, you know, we just had uh a conversation with our CEO, uh Thaddeus Went, and he was talking about the fact that he wants everybody to become AI savvy, and and he has encouraged everybody to do that. And so we're constantly looking at tools to make everybody better. But one of the things that, you know, I've had people ask me since chat became like a thing and was, you know, everybody is, oh, now there's, you know, Claude, and then there's Grok, and then you know, what's going to be best? And I said, listen, don't get, don't get, you know, uh days glazed and amazed by the 2,000 products that are coming out per year. Dial in on one, find one, dial in on it, hone in on it, because where everybody was saying, do you think that wood will ever be replaced by AI, meaning paralegals and and attorneys? And I love Mark Lanier's answer to that because I asked him it uh two years ago in uh at his uh trial academy at the 8.0 trial academy in Houston. He said, nope, attorneys and paralegals are not going to be replaced by AI. But attorneys and paralegals that embrace and use AI will replace the ones that don't. And I think that's relevant in almost every industry that you can think of. But where it comes again, Jason, is 92% can be done by AI of everything that we do, drafts, all that other kind of stuff. The art is the last 8%. And that's where you come in, that's where I come in, that's where our fabulous attorneys and case managers and legal assistants, even our brand new case setup specialists, all come in. The art is going to be in the talent that you hire, and then how you encourage them to use their creativity and how that can move your entire organization forward.

Jason Lazarus 54:37

Ralph, if you could talk about how Synergy has helped make Feller and Went more efficient

How Synergy helps Feller Wendt move cases faster and clients get more

Jason Lazarus 54:45

in terms of day-to-day operations by relieving them, the team, from having to deal with some of the nuances and tough lean issues.

Ralph Pillinger 54:56

Well, Jason, thanks. Uh one of the things that we pride ourselves in is efficiency. And one of the things that we also pride ourselves in is doing the best job for the client. And I think part of that is that number one, uh being able to disperse the case as as quickly as possible after the settlement date. And then the other side of that would be to be able to reduce liens uh and financial exposure as much as possible to the client to maximize uh you know the end value to them. Um, that the dollars and cents that we put back into their hands. And the utilization of Synergy, it's it's kind of like, I don't know if you ever remember that that rotisserie chicken guy. Set it and forget it, right? You know, that that remember that guy, that rod or rob or whatever his name was. To me, that's like Synergy, okay? It's like set it and forget it. You go ahead in and you get it, you get a letter of acknowledgement back from, you know, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or Blue Cross or VA or TriCare or a hospital. And as soon as you do that, you upload that and you send that off to Synergy. They will let you know every 45 days or sooner uh where what the status of the lien is. And then your next communication with them is to say, hey, we're negotiating this case, get this one reduced as far as you can, get it reduced, whatever the level may be, if it's a small, if the settlement's tight, right? Where they need to go after maximum dollars. And the communication is fantastic. We leave personally, Jason, we leave the feed open all day so I can see kind of what's going on in there and see what's going on between the teams, uh, your team and our team, and you know, jump in where I need to. But it has helped our case disbursement specialists disperse cases so much quicker and have the client so much happier, which obviously leads to five-star reviews, which is what you want.

Jason Lazarus 56:47

Last question. I always ask it. It's very open-ended, so you can answer it however you want to close out today's episode as a paralegal and production leader within a personal injury firm. What's your view? I think.

Ralph Pillinger 57:05

Yeah, I I I I kind of do. And I think, you know, if if there's a firm out there listening and they're thinking, okay, how do I how do I tie in my production team to my litigation team, um, you know, taking the case to trial eventually, uh, you know, the the model that we use, we know we have a we have a litigation uh team. And one of the things that I think is super important is that there is communication constantly on what the expectations are and what a case should look like. Again, if you're going from a case setup specialist to a legal assistant to a case manager, if I'm that legal assistant, I have to know what it a case looks like as it came to me and what it's supposed to know as it's handed off to my case manager. And it should be the same way from the case manager to the litigation team or the or the trial attorney, however, your your firm is structured. And having certain expectations, having communication that's dialed in both with the client and then with everybody that's within that firm, I think, is something that you know a lot of firms miss. But you know, if you go back to one of the earlier questions that you asked me, what is the the difference with you know, uh traumatic brain injury cases or catastrophic cases or trucking cases, it's all how you start the process out, right? Make sure that your processes are tight, make sure that wherever wherever one ends, the other one dovetails right in. There are some connectivity to the two, so that it's not like the the old uh iPhone plug to the new C, right? And you're trying to put the wrong plug into the in into that hole. You want to make sure that everybody's on the same page and everybody knows what what the expectation is, and that is serving our clients as best we possibly can, getting them complete justice for you know negligence of some other party, and then making sure that we all um work towards uh you know that community safety advocate. And then, you know, like I said, I I love our you know our core values at our firm. You know, I and and the and the key read is is that if you guys have uh core values, make sure they're they are uh out front and foremost because there's where you're gonna attract the people that are in aligned with those core values because if they're actually even on our website. And we when we hired a couple people that said, hey, we went in and took a look, man, those core values, that's exactly how how I want to live. That's exactly how I want to work with my clients and my and my you know fellow teammates. And to me, that that is a great place to be. So I guess I would just say that do things with intentionality and then do things where everybody um can have a chance to succeed.

Jason Lazarus 59:50

Beautiful. Ralph, if anyone has questions about anything you talked about today or has a case to refer to Feller and Wend, what's the best way to get in contact with you?

Ralph Pillinger 1:00:02

Well, my direct line number is 865-895-4020, or you can certainly email me at Ralph R A L P H at fellerwent.com. That's f-l-l-e-r, w e-n, d-leg David, t-tom.com.

Jason Lazarus 1:00:21

And what what states does Feller and Went practice in, just in case someone out there listening has a case that they need to refer in one of those cases, uh states. Excuse me.

Ralph Pillinger 1:00:31

We have offices in in Leighton and Salt Lake, Utah, uh, Boise, Idaho, uh, Mesa, Arizona, and we also uh do uh try cases in Washington uh and Florida.

Jason Lazarus 1:00:43

Great, beautiful. Well, Ralph, thank you again for joining me today, and we'll see everybody on the next episode of Trialore Review.

Ralph Pillinger 1:00:50

Jason, thanks so much. It was a blast. I really appreciate it.

Jason Lazarus 1:00:53

If today's episode gave you a new perspective on how your firm operates or sparked a useful idea, consider sharing it with a colleague and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss future conversations with leaders across the personal injury space. Tri Law Review is brought to you by Synergy, a strategic operations partner helping personal injury law firms resolve healthcare liens more efficiently. If you're looking to accelerate case flow and allow your team to focus on high-level legal work that moves cases faster, consider partnering with Synergy. I'm Jason Lazarus, and I'll see you in the next episode.