Billboard or TV advertisements from big law firms often boast major wins and exceptional attorneys. But what are you really getting from a big law firm compared to a smaller one?

The truth is, bigger isn’t always better. Many times, the billboards and TV advertisements from big firms are just smoke and mirrors. They may boast a $250,000 win, but how much did they leave on the table? Was it a four-million-dollar case?   

Big law firms may have some great attorneys on their team, but when you reach out, you don’t know which attorney you’re going to get. With smaller law firms, you’ll know exactly who you’re talking to from the get-go. And with smaller firms, attorneys often give you their cell phone number, giving you the personal attention you deserve.

When you’re looking for an attorney, you want someone who’s tried a case before. It may be surprising, but some lawyers at big firms have never tried a case before. When this is the scenario, you often end up with a smaller settlement because these lawyers aren’t prepared to face insurance companies. 

By nature, insurance companies are not fair. If they see that they’re working with an attorney who does not typically try cases, they’ll use it to their advantage and offer a low-ball settlement. And, because the attorney doesn’t have much experience trying cases, they’ll likely accept the first offer — even if it seems unfair to you.

Learn more in this episode of the David vs. Goliath podcast with elite personal injury lawyers Matt Dolman and Stan Gipe. They talk about the differences between big firms and smaller firms, why you should always choose an attorney that has tried cases before, and how to steer clear of misleading advertising. 

In this episode: 

• [00:49] Matt Dolman introduces his guest, Stan Gipe
• [01:46] The importance of working with a firm that tries cases
• [04:11] How insurance companies trick you (and some attorneys) into leaving money on the table
• [07:34] Digging into the details of misleading advertisements and billboard firms
• [11:53] The differences between smaller and larger firms
• [16:43] How some attorneys could go several years without trying a case
• [19:07] The characteristics of a great attorney

Transcript

Welcome to the latest episode of the Dolman Law Group Podcast. This is my new partner. I want to introduce our new partnership in the practice.

Yeah, my name’s Stan Gipe. I’ve been on a couple of these podcasts in the past when we’ve discussed some different legal issues, but now our partnership’s official. I’m coming on board and we’re going to be doing these podcasts more often, on a weekly basis, hopefully.

Stan’s a board certified civil trial lawyer.

Yeah.

What does that mean? That means you can call yourself an expert as a trial attorney, by The Florida Bar right?

That’s it. The big benefit is I get say I’m board certified. I get to call myself an expert and not many attorneys get to do that. Very few attorneys are actually board certified, somewhere between 2 and 5% of us. And you have to get 15 trials under your belt before you can take the test. That’s the stumbling part for most people, because a lot of attorneys don’t go to trial.

And what does it mean to a law firm that actually takes cases like our firm and even over the years, when we take cases to trial on a regular basis, what does that do to the case?

It’s like anything else, okay? The insurance company is the bully. If you never punch the bully, you continue to get bullied, okay? If you’re going to be the one that punches the bully, if you’re the guy that’s going to take them to the mat, you’re not going to win every time, you’re going to lose some of those fights. It’s just going to happen. But when you win, you hit them so hard and they have to pay so much, that they have to take you seriously on all claims-

They even have to pay a lot on the ones where they lose.

Yes.

Or the ones that they win, rather. Insurance companies hate one thing, I’ve always said this. It’s just spending money. You’re forced to spend money. You could be the world’s worst trial lawyer, not that you are, you’re a good trial lawyer, but you could be the world’s worst trial lawyer, you’re still more effective than 99 guys down the block who do not try cases.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because what happens, and its pretty phasic. Before we get to the courthouse, a lot of things are done with actuaries, they’re people that swim in this water, adjusters, people who do this for a living. When we get in the courthouse, you’re talking six people, and anything can happen. If you’ve got the guts to stand up there, try the case and ask the jury for the money, a lot of times they’ll give it to you. A lot of times they give you a lot more than you were thinking. And sometimes you lose. But it’s that dynamic, it’s that way you present risk to the insurance company that makes them pay you.

Yeah. Insurance, by its nature, is risk management.

Exactly. And if you’re not going to trial, you don’t present any risk. If you’re an attorney that they know at the end of the day, you’ve got two choices, it’s either accept the last offer or go to trial. If they know you’re not going to trial, why do they care what the last offer is? Why do they need to make that last offer fair? They know you’re going to take it.

That’s a scary proposition, is there’s a lot of lawyers in this town and just Florida in general and all throughout the country. It’s the nature of the beast of personal injury and you see these billboard in South Florida, more often you see over here where this firm, I don’t want to say the name of the firm, got me $430,000. And they showed the settlement draft with the happy client and the lawyer hugging them. How much money did they leave on the table?

I think we actually said this last night, I was talking to you in the car, we were on the way to dinner. And I said, “There’s a difference between being billboard certified and real board certified attorney.” Anybody can buy a billboard, anybody can throw something up there. And you’re right, it’s just like anything else. If I told you, “Hey, I bought a car for $50,000. Can you tell me whether that was a good deal?”

I would just be wary of selecting a lawyer solely off of the billboard television commercial. A lot of its fluff. You’re seeing just a static image of a settlement amount. But what does that settlement amount tell you? How much money did they leave on the table? What could the case have been worth if a really solid trial lawyer or a firm that regularly litigates cases that has a reputation for taking cases to the mat. There’s so little you know when you see that.

And that’s what I say, it’s information in a vacuum. It’s nothing that really tells you anything about a case. There are cases out there that may be worth $4 million and someone’s holding up a sign saying, “I got 250.” They were happy for that day, they’re happy for that week and probably that year. But once that money runs out, that’s when the problems arise. That’s when people tend to come back. And a lot of times with clients in their settlement, you’ve been kind of without for a couple years. You need that car or you need these things, and there’s a pressing need for the client. So they sometimes even want to consider these lower numbers. “Hey, I know I’m supposed to get all this in the future, I know I’m entitled to all these things. But boy, I really need $50,000 today.”

And when I run into that situation, that’s almost the most problematic, because the insurance company benefits off its own situation. They have delayed this claim for two years. They have created an extreme financial hardship for my client because they haven’t been able to work. He hadn’t been able to do these things for two years. And then we’re going to dangle a carrot. We know this is worth 250,000, but we’ll give you 50 today. And you got someone who is desperate, who’s behind on their rent, staying on someone else’s couch, hasn’t been able to work, and $50,000 seems like $10 million at that point.

Perhaps you have a law firm also that needs to settle so many cases a month to pay for the big advertising.

You do have that. And that’s something else that… And I don’t even want to say just to pay for big advertising. There are small firms out there that struggle.

Oh, of course. Yeah.

You never know how much that attorney needs the money. And you, if you happen to be in a situation, you’re sitting there as a client, you can kind of tell. If it’s setting off your spidey sense or you’re sitting there going, “Man, my attorney seems like a wimp,” or, “My attorney’s not really got my…” You’re probably right, because it’s not as unusual as you think.

It’s not. Attorney making decisions for their own financial means rather than the client’s best interest, it happens all too often.

And don’t hesitate to ask, “Hey, if my future matters, why would I take such a small amount?” Ask that question. The attorney should be able to explain it to you. A lot of times, it may be, “Well, because there’s a questionable aspect of the claim,” or, “This aspect’s not really solid,” or, “The defense hasn’t found out this yet. But once they get deeper into discovery, there’s a sort of a time bomb sitting there.” So there’s a number of different factors that need to be taken into consideration. But if when you’re talking to the attorney, you’re feeling from talking to the attorney as this guy’s wimping out, this guy doesn’t have the guts to do it, you may be right.

While we’re talking about puffery and advertising and hype. Let’s talk about the elephant in the corner of the room and I’m not taking any shots, certainly do not want to get into a war with John Morgan and Morgan & Morgan, okay? Brilliant marketer. They have some great trial lawyers. Is the advertising misleading though when they talk about what the settlement offer was and what the verdict or resolution of the case was? Are they showing us all the cases that they’ve handled, that didn’t go well?

No, it’s misleading. You got a few different things. I saw a commercial last night, which I had not seen before, which was it appeared to be that Morgan was making it look like a shady attorney was signing someone up in a hospital. And I had the volume off on the TV, so I hadn’t seen it before. I was like, “What is this?” And I saw Morgan & Morgan at the end. Okay, I don’t want to bash Morgan & Morgan either. I know a lot of attorneys over there, but I can tell you, going to Morgan & Morgan for an attorney’s like going to the hospital for a doctor. How is that doctor at the hospital? Well, the answer’s which one?

Exactly.

Okay. Morgan’s got some fantastic attorneys. He’s got some top shelf attorneys. But not everyone is the same. When you’re going over there, you don’t know really what you’re going to get, which piece are you getting out of that box of chocolates? You don’t know whether you get-

I think in a catastrophic injury claim, they’re as good as anyone. They have some top shelf, top flight guys. I think Morgan is a brilliant marketer, there’s no two ways about it. I guess I get offended more often, one is, there’s no guarantee which attorney you’re going to get. And there’s a, I wouldn’t say a huge disparity, but there’s a disparity in talent in that firm among some of the lawyers. More troubling is the comments that he makes in his commercials. He disparages lawyers that work for his firm. There’s often two sides of that story. But worse, and I know you’re ready to say something, but he had a commercial recently where he says that these lawyers who claim to have been at trial, but only did a portion of trial, it’s like being a bat boy in the 1927 Yankees. Have you ever seen that one yet?

Yeah.

Well, John Morgan, when was the last time he picked a jury and tried a case? And I’m not holding myself under the trial lawyer. I haven’t tried a case in a while. Now I run the firm and I have trial lawyers like yourself, not that I hired you, you are a partner in this firm. But our firm has always been a firm that actively takes cases to trial. And that’s fine, John Morgan can say that. But what he says is, he makes that a statement, but then how are you any different? Are you not riding the coattails of Keith Mitnik and all the guys at your firm that are trying these cases or are you the trial lawyer?

Well what’s interesting, and I hear this anecdotally, so I don’t want to throw this out as fact. But when I speak to some of the insurance adjusters, they say some of what you’re saying, where when you show up to a Morgan trial, they’ll have four attorneys in there. They’ll have five attorneys, for a relatively standard case. And someone told me that’s because they have to have a certain number of trials to get their bonus each year. So they find anyone who’s going to trial, and can I sit in and do a piece of this so I can check off the box that I participated in this trial and therefore get my bonus at the end of the year-

I’ve heard that. Again, I also don’t know if that’s true or not. That’s out there.

But what you see is there’s four attorneys sitting in on their trials too. Everybody’s first trial is typically not first chair. First chair’s your lead attorney sitting in there. Typically, that’s the way you learn is being second chair to a really good attorney. And then you show up and you start picking that up and you move forward.

But oftentimes, it’s the individuals sitting second chair and we have a third attorney there. They’re doing a lot of the bench briefs. They’re doing a lot of the arguments, a lot of sidebar motions. They’re doing plenty of work themselves. They’re also preserving the case for appeal. It’s not just the lead attorneys doing work on the case. A lot of times, they’re the individuals taking half the expert depos that worked the case up in line with the main trial turning on the case. So to disparage lawyers out there who are claiming awards or claiming verdicts, John, how are you any different?

You’re right. That would be, I guess if I was to say one thing I have a problem with this advertising, a lot of it doesn’t center on how good he is. It centers on almost like an inference that the other attorneys in there, other people you might call, wouldn’t provide new-

Yeah. Find another attorney better than me, hire them. Otherwise, go to Morgan & Morgan. Is Morgan & Morgan a good firm? Yeah. Would I refer cases there? Have. I’ve referred some mass tour project. They’re a good firm. I’m not going to say anything special that would be untrue. They have good lawyers there. The point is that, are they better than some of the top guys out in Tampa, some of the biggest names that we know of?

No, they’re not better.

Are they better than Florin|Roebig? Are they better than Steve Barnes? They better than Tom… No.

Are they better than Sibley, Dolman, Gipe? I can tell you, no. Here’s the issue. What it boils down to is when you go to a firm like ours, and not to make the comparison. You see me sitting here talking, you say, “Hey, that guy sounds intelligent. That guy, I like what he’s got to say.” I’m actually the guy that’s going to be on your file. Okay. The guy you hear, we’re not passing it off to someone. You actually get those attorneys that you’re hearing talk. You get the people whose names-

Yeah. I’ll say that if you call me during the day, you’re going to get me on the phone. All my clients get my cell phone number, the managing partner’s number. I don’t know, are you the managing partner? Am I? We haven’t discussed that. They get my cell phone number. Are you going to get John Morgan on his cell phone, eight o’clock at night, to discuss what he would consider to be a moderate case, not a humongous case where every case is treated the same way at our office? We don’t have tons of billboards. We have a couple billboards. We don’t have TV commercials and radio spots, ad nauseam where we can rely on that to get our next client. Our clients based on reviews and Google, based on word of mouth advertising. It’s how I built up my business. Even the small cases are treated like their big cases here because we can’t afford to upset anybody.

Okay, the smallest case can be a big referral source.

That’s it. They have been some of my biggest referral sources.

And I’m going to tell you what the smallest cases… You kind of say that, when you walk into an attorney’s office and say, “Look, I got hit by the Coke truck, broke my neck,” they got a million dollars in coverage, you, as a client know every attorney’s lining up for your claim. You don’t really appreciate the fact that someone’s willing to come in and I’ll effectuate this settlement for you. When you got that smaller claim, when someone’s told you to pound sand, and it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s important to you, when they see an attorney that’s willing to get involved, help them with that small claim, they’re aware of what an attorney’s time is worth. They’re aware that it’s expensive and they see you willing to devote that time and effort to the small claim. That almost means more to him.

I agree.

Sometimes you get a better review from the guy who you put 3 or $4,000 in his pocket than the guy who got the half million, he was already expecting.

Now there’s an art to the big cases. Some guys that consider what they’re known as damages lawyers. They’re capable of taking a case where, a normal lawyer would settle up for 3, $400,000, they can make it worth a million. That’s an art to it. There’s no two ways about it. But I call those cases low hanging fruit, because anybody could handle those cases, some will do it better than others, no question about it. But it’s not low hanging fruit when you’re looking at the moderate impact, maybe $2,000 in property damage. It’s musculoligamentous, so it’s muscles and ligaments that have been injured. No real huge disc injuries, not surgical, but this clients can be dealing with pain for a long period of time. That’s not the easy case to resolve. Those are the hardest ones.

Those are the battles and are the ones that lawyers are not lining up for. And I don’t think you’re going to get the lawyer calling you back at eight o’clock at night or texting you or returning your cell phone call, ever. You’re never going to get these lawyers on the phone, for the most part.

A lot of times that’s the case. And you find that at firms with a large, large client base, it’s more difficult to get noticed, as like anything else. If you are in a classroom full of 150 kids, the teacher may not know your name. If you’re in that classroom with 20, she probably knows what you like for lunch.

Sure. Of course.

That’s the difference. When you’re at the smaller firm, it doesn’t mean necessarily there’s some special thing we’re going to do that they did, that other people don’t know how to do. There’s not special things, but you’re getting our attention, we’re there. You know you’ve got a competent attorney, you know who you’re dealing with.

Bigger isn’t always better. And we made the slogan last night, it might be our next billboard. Bigger isn’t always better. Law firms is not the bedroom. I like that slogan by the way. I don’t know if The Florida Bar will care for it. But point is that being the bigger firm, if you have the resources that we have, we have a huge credit line, we’re able to take on biggest cases, what is a bigger firm going to be able to do that we cannot do ourselves.

There’s nothing. I’m going to tell you there’s nothing because when the defense is looking at a firm… As a plaintiff, if you go there, you see Morgan & Morgan. When the defense looks at it, they see the actual attorney on the phone who may or may not be impressive. And it’s that individual attorney that’s arguing your case. It’s that individual attorney that’s making the points for you to that adjuster. And it’s not John Morgan. It doesn’t have to be John Morgan, but it needs to be someone competent. It needs to be someone who’s been through it, who’s gone to trial and can say, “Okay. Yeah. Well, that’s fine. We’ll take you to trial and here’s how it’s going to go.” You got to have some credibility when you say that.

I agree. Any other comments you want to make about lawyer advertising? I would go further as saying like Jack Gordon, for instance, Maney Gordon, that’s a good firm.

Yep.

They try cases. Jack’s got a hell of a reputation in Tampa. I don’t know him very well, personally, I heard he’s a good guy. But that’s a guy who will take a case and go try it. And they have a good reputation. A lot of these law firms, and Morgan has a good reputation, they have good trial lawyers. A lot of law firms you see on these television commercials advertising ad nausea, there’s one that was actually, and I’m not going to say the names, but was called out in a newspaper article several years ago where John Morgan took shots and it was a former Morgan employees that they’re trying their first case, about seven years into their firm and the guy’s father came down from Tallahassee to go try the case for them.

This is, I would say the norm. There’s a lot of big, I don’t want to use the word settlement mill because you’re generalizing, and that maybe that firm is better than what they’re made out to be in that article. That’s what allegedly goes on there. I can’t speak from firsthand experience, but there are a number of firms that I know personally, that advertise heavily that do not often take cases to trial, or if they take cases to the mat, it’s a disproportionate low amount of cases as compared to the amount of cases they’re signing up in a given year.

And now I’m going to quote John Morgan, because this is one of the things he said, it was either him or Keith Mitnik at a group meeting we were at once.

And by the way, Keith Mitnik is with Morgan. He’s probably one of the nation’s preeminent trial attorney. The guy’s phenomenal. Go on.

But it’s very, very, very succinct and true. If you don’t try a certain number of your cases, that’s essentially, in order for that to be the correct way to operate, in order for that to be an effective way to operate, you have to assume every one of those offers your insurance company made was fair.

Yeah. And John Morgan himself, and I agreed with everything he said, I couldn’t say better myself, said that in that article about those law firms. Because they said they manage cases so well and the medical treatment has done… That they get the best settlement offers in all their cases. Well, insurance companies by nature are not fair. They don’t make fair settlements. You have to actually force them to make fair settlement offers by litigating cases regularly.

Yeah. And that’s it. If you are sitting there going, “Hey, I get a fair settlement offer on every single one of my claims without filing suit,” you don’t know what a fair settlement offer is.

That’s what Morgan essentially said in that. He said that it’s not possible. Insurance companies, by nature, are not fair.

It’s impossible. It’s true, it’s absolutely true.

A firm like Morgan & Morgan, they’ll get decent offers on their presuit cases because they drive so many cases in a given year. That’s kind of the nature of how we operate here.

Yeah. And that’s part of it. Part of it’s knowing how to do it and being able to build the house, so to speak. Hey, I know these plans like the back of my head. I can tell you exactly what I’m doing. Part of it’s having done it before so that the person goes, not only does he know how to do it, he actually does it. He’s willing to put in the work and the hours. Makes a big difference. If anyone knows an insurance adjuster, if anyone knows anybody who works in the insurance industry, they’ll tell you, the claims are handled very differently based on who’s on the other side.

Correct. I agree with everything you’re saying. Any closing thoughts? Any other information we put out there?

No, I think we’re pretty good on this topic. We’re partnered up now and obviously we’re one of these smaller firms, well not one of the smaller firms in there. We’re just not quite a Morgan & Morgan type big, attorney firm.

I would say for Clearwater, a decent size firm. There’s not many firms that have eight lawyers. It’s not a volume shop, it’s not a settlement mill. When you get a lawyer here, that’s your lawyer, that’s the attorney who you’re meeting, is going to handle your case all the way through, or at least as far as they can take it and you’re going to have their cell phone number and you’re going to be able to get ahold of them.

And I’ll tell you what, it’s the kind of service you’ll appreciate if you’ve ever experienced something else. If you’ve ever been to a firm where you couldn’t get attention, you couldn’t feel like you ever got the sort of the eyes on your case that it deserved, you’ll definitely appreciate the attention you get from us.

I take it as a compliment, because you just joined the firm and I love having you Stan. I’m Matt Dolman. I was going to say it wraps up another episode of the Dolman Law Group Podcast. But now, as our first episode, the Dolman Law Group Podcast. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you all.