2025 Predictions for Georgia’s PI Industry
What will 2025 bring for the personal injury industry in Georgia? Here’s my predictions.
1. Expansion of High-Volume Advertising Firms
The use of advertising is expanding, both in traditional and digital media (online, social media, etc.). The arms race among advertising lawyers will continue.
Morgan and Morgan’s national expansion and massive investments in marketing are a huge factor in this. The influx of private equity money into the personal injury space, particularly through alternative business structures based in Arizona, is another factor.
Like it or not, more and more people will continue to hire high volume advertising lawyers when they need a personal injury lawyer. I think the proliferation of high volume advertising firms will continue, and we’ll see more consolidation among law firms as the landscape becomes even more competitive.
2. Rising Case Acquisition Costs
Constantly increasing competition and the continued marketing arms race makes cases more expensive to acquire. This will be true in both traditional media (billboards, TV, radio, etc.), as well as digital marketing. SEO, PPC, LSAs, and online lead gen will all continue to get more expensive and will be increasingly dominated by high volume advertising firms with massive marketing budgets.
3. Growth of Outsourcing
More and more firms will continue to outsource tasks that were traditionally done by in-house employees. This will take two forms.
One, firms are going to continue to look outside the country for overseas virtual assistants. Many firms now have remote work policies anyways, so they will see hiring remote assistants in other countries as a way to save money.
Two, more firms will look to outside vendors to outsource tasks that were traditionally done in-house by the firm’s own employees to save on their fixed overhead costs.
I see a growth in outsourcing for two reasons:
- The rising cost of salaries and benefits for in-house employees.
- Rising case acquisition costs. Rising case acquisition costs means more money going into marketing, which means cuts to operating costs. Outsourcing is going to be a tool that firms use to cut operating costs to invest even more money in marketing. Also, higher case acquisition costs=thinner margins.
4. AI and Technology Tools Will Continue to Expand
Improvements in AI and technology, coupled with a desire to save overhead, will cause even more law firms to look to tech tools as a way to gain a competitive edge and improve profitability.
5. Tort Reform is Coming
There will be changes to the tort laws in Georgia. What those changes will be remains to be seen, but expect changes to get passed.
What trends in the personal injury industry do you see continuing or developing in Georgia, or your own state, in 2025? Join the conversation with me on LinkedIn.