The following is a transcript of Episode 23 of Championing Justice. You can listen to the full episode here, or watch it on YouTube.

Darl:

Thank you for listening to the Championing Justice podcast. My name is Darl Champion. I’m the founder and owner of The Champion Firm. We’re a personal injury law firm in Marietta, Georgia, which is just right outside of Atlanta. This month’s guest is Josh Hodges. Josh is a partner at Kruger and Hodges in Hamilton, Ohio with various satellite offices in the area. 

And Josh has a brand called The Hometown Lawyer that’s been great for marketing and it’s something that has really drawn my attention I want to talk to him about and how he’s grown his law firm. So thanks for joining us, Josh. Thanks for having me. So tell us a little bit about your firm and what you do.

Josh:

Well, we’re personal injury firm predominantly about 90%-95%. We do have a criminal defense attorney just because my partner had done a lot of criminal defense previously before we started the firm and we get a lot of calls for it. When you’re in a small town, you don’t want to turn away people that you’ve helped in the past. 

So we have one criminal defense attorney. She actually went to law school with me, does a great job, shout out to Bridget, but the rest of us do personal injury and the run of the mill person injury, a lot of car accidents, dog bites, slip and falls of that nature. We don’t do med mal or product liability with people on those. I get calls from ’em, obviously. Same with work comp. I don’t do that.

Darl:

How many attorneys do y’all have?

Josh:

Six attorneys including me total. We have about 24 people, I believe. 24 or 25.

Darl:

Awesome.

Josh:

Yeah. Yeah. Hamilton, Ohio, it’s similar to kind of situated with Cincinnati, how Marietta is to Atlanta. Yeah, a little bit further maybe, but it’s about 63,000 – 64,000 people. Nice little town of its own. That’s where we’re headquartered, kind of focused on small towns. The Hometown Lawyer has a small town vibe more and kind of lean into that and that’s the website and all the marketing and branding, but it’s also boots on the ground. You got to actually live up to the name. So me and my partner both kind of always agree on that, give more than we take.

Darl:

And your social media presence is pretty big, right? I mean you have a lot of followers.

Josh:

Yeah. Yeah, I do. And it’s funny, I was in law school, I went a little bit later in life. I talked about, I was 29 when I started and I missed one of the first happy hours. I was like, man, I didn’t get an email about that. And the kid next to me was like 21 was like, dude, I was on the Instagram or Facebook group or whatever and that’s how I needed to get on there. And I didn’t really get active until I had a law firm. So I was in my thirties and felt like I was way behind the time, but I just felt like I needed to do it, started getting after it and doing TikToks and then you start putting a lot of work in, you see some success. And then I just found a way to almost, I wouldn’t say I love it, but I’d say I don’t mind it. I like it. 

And you meet a lot of good people if you go into it. It’s not just fake people online, you’re dealing with it’s real people. I’m sitting here with you from social media and I’ve done that with mean dozens and dozens and dozens of people in my hometown in round Ohio. You meet real people, make real connections. You can do that on social media if you’re doing it right.

Darl:

And to me, one of the things that’s lost, people will try on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram to do lead gen and there might be ways to do that, but especially when you’re in a saturated market, not just geographically but personal injury, just saturated everywhere, you’re not going to stand out and so you can make these connections and you’ve done that with The Hometown Lawyer brand that you’ve kind of developed on social media. And so now people know you as The Hometown Lawyer. And I know you’ve told me before, people will see you out be like, oh, that’s The Hometown Lawyer, right?

Josh:

Yeah, they do. A lot of people knew me from school, just they see me on there. It definitely helps. I would say the lawyers that are kind of hesitant, I know a lot of lawyers we’re conservative, not necessarily politically, but just scared to do new things. And then I was kind of scared to start doing some videos too. What are the judges going to think? One of the bailiffs came up to me one day. He is like the judge, we watch your videos, they like it. And I was like, I felt a little bit better. Do something you’re comfortable with, be authentic to yourself. But I would say a lot of attorneys are like, oh, I like in-person networking. I’m good at that. I don’t want to do this social media BS or whatever. And I was kind of maybe more of that too. I was trying social media, didn’t think I was getting a lot of positive, anything good coming from it really.

And then one day I just thought it’s network. It’s in the name. I mean, how dumb do I have to be? It’s a social network. It’s just networking. I like networking. I like people. It’s just a different way of doing that and it really took a while for me to fuse that together. I still think a lot of people think it’s different. There’s some different techniques, but it’s really if you’re, like you said, it’s not legion, it’s meeting people. Real people do the same thing you would in a regular networking. I think a lot of people worry so much about what they’re going to post. That’d be going into a networking event. Just the stories that I’m going to tell. I’m not going to listen to your stories. I’m not going to comment on your stories or listen, I’m just worried about my post. And a lot of people do social media, even the people that are trying hard do that, show up in the comments of other people, share other people’s posts, help them out.

It’s a give and take and it’s just like networking. It’s just on the computer and if you treat it that way, I think the world’s kind of fuse those together. You need to get with the times. It is not two separate things. I think a lot of the same rules that you would, I think older lawyers that are great at networking, they could be good on a social network if they blended some of those skills. And I think if you see a young person, a young attorney that’s got a really good social network, there’s a reason for that. They’re likable, they’re good for some reason people are interested in them, you could probably carry that over into real life too. So it goes both ways. Good. Also, we haven’t touched on, it’s a great place to find people to work for. I found three of some of my best workers I’ve found off of line.

Darl:

Interesting. Have they reached out to you because they see your stuff and they’re like, man…?

Josh:

I’ll tell one story. Ashley, my young attorney’s doing great. She’s been with me over two years now. Her dad followed me, so I think her dad’s about 50. I was about 40 at the time, so she’s late twenties, so I’m in between the two. And she was studying for the bar finishing up law school and her dad was watching all my little food videos and he was forwarding it to her like, Hey Ashley, look at this guy. He’s just right down the road. And she’s like, dad, leave me alone. I’m studying all this stuff. She’s like, well, then I took the bar and passed it and I was like started watching, well maybe I should reach out to him.

So I met her through that. Great. I’ve got two other people I’ve met on social media through other people who are doing content. I’d put out like, Hey, I’m looking for a new fill in the blank. And someone who is on there, Hey, my friend does that. I mean it’s powerful stuff. It’s like networking with gasoline. If you do it right, if you’re on there looking for cases, not going to work as well. Just like if you go to the bar meeting, I got to find cases today. It’s just so stupid. You’re not going to get anything that way.

Darl:

Well, you mentioned networking, right? I mean, what other venue could you network in where you might have access to thousands, tens of thousands of people?

Josh:

Nowhere. But you just got to come over that mindset. I think people think they’re separated. They’re not separated, they’re the same.

Darl:

Some of it’s generational too. I mean you’re going to be 42 this year, be next month. I’ll be 43 this year in July. So we’re about the same age. I remember when there was no Facebook, I mean I remember sitting in law school and there were people that were like, there’s this new thing called Facebook and they were pulling it up and they were showing it and I’m like, I have no idea what this, I had a flip phone. There were no smartphones then I think blackberries were around and even then Facebook was only open to people at that school.

Josh:

College students.

Darl:

College students, yeah, and you had to be at that school and you could only connect with those people. I think MySpace was around. I think that’s the original one, but I was never on MySpace. So I think for some of us, we really, because we didn’t grow up with it, it’s not as intuitive for us, but people that are growing up with it, it’s absolutely intuitive for them and they can do well with it. What type of content do you post and what do you find has the most success?

Josh:

I think I do a blend. I do legal content. Those don’t do as well, but over time because of my other content, people kind of watch that more than they would’ve otherwise. I do a lot of local food content. I do videos with my wife while she’s cooking. I just show her hands. So she’s like, you’re not always going to show my face.

Darl:

Has her face ever appeared on the video?

Josh:

Yeah, a few times, but I got okay with her thing is she’ll be cooking. I’m like usually like, honey, what are we having today? And she’ll be in a good mood usually sometimes she’s not and then she’ll be like, it’s like husband, wife banter, people like that.

It’s kind of funny. We get a lot of comments. We’ve been together so long since we’re 18, so people are like, man, you guys, people can just tell we’re super comfortable with each other. We kind of grew up together. So that shows us in a good light. I’m not just some lawyer that’s like this all time fight, fight hard or whatever. It’s just character, true or whatever. I think those do good.

And then I’ve branched out, I’ve leaned into it, I’ve hired a videographer. He goes, we call it the round town minute. We go do highlight videos. They’re about a minute or a minute and a half of other people’s businesses. I’m not even in it. We’ll just be like, Hey, where are we at? We’re dog groomer. Awesome. We will shout them out. And then I put that on my platform, get them views and some of their followers might see my stuff.

So just a lot of interaction, give a lot of highlights for other people more so than us. And then I think I’ve almost done too much of that. That seemed impossible. I’m starting a new one. I’m going to call it the hometown or the home team highlight. I’m going to highlight people on my team. They’re really, I’ve only shot one. They’re really happy to do that. They’re really not, but I’m going to make, but they need highlights too. I got a lot of good people work for me, young people.

Darl:

Well, it expands your reach too, right? I mean because then you’re not having to be the one that’s doing everything.

Josh:

All of it is. You can have other people for sure. And I got a lot of young people work for me that work hard, that are smart. And a lot of times we’re talking about generational. A lot of times older attorneys grumble about younger people and I don’t think all the things they say are untrue, but as kind of we’re in the middle ground between Gen Z or whatever. And boomers, I think some of the things they may say are true. I think some of the things are just hearkening back to the eighties when they were young and they liked it better and everything wasn’t perfect back then. I’m going to tell you. And some of these young people were really smart and hardworking. I got some for me. And whether they are or not, these are your workers. So you got to figure out how to deal with them.

And some of they might not have to be tied at the desk in the office every day as long as they’re doing their work. Sometimes I think some of ’em work better from home. I think they chat less depending. So you got to set clear goals with ’em, make sure they’re doing a good job, and once they prove to you they can, you got to get with the times a little bit whether you like it or not. That’s just how it is. They’re going to work for somebody that does allow them a little bit more freedom.

Darl:

Absolutely. I mean we run into that. I mean I was kind old school when it came to the in person versus remote thing and then covid hit and we’ve always used an electronic case management system, been largely paperless where everything’s scanned in and you could access the documents electronically.

But when Covid started and people went remote and then kind of gradually phased back in, what I realized was you can’t recruit people if you’re not willing to offer flexibility because one of the first questions they ask is What’s your work from home policy or your remote policy? We’re not fully remote. We’re a hybrid. We do three days in office, two days remote, and we find it works for us. But having that flexibility is key. We’re talking about The Hometown Lawyer brand. Did you trademark that?

Josh:

Good question. I did not. Early on, I mean I’ve done it in the state of Ohio. I tried to look into it doing nationally and there’s people who’ve used close variations in other states I didn’t even know about. They were probably not worth it, but I have a state they call a service mark, I believe in Ohio. So I don’t think people in Ohio could use it. And I’m not trying to grow all over the world anyway. I think Ohio keeps me busy enough.

So I mean hopefully people don’t do it. But honestly I think if I had to change, if someone came in and stole it, some out of of towner, I think I could just switch it to more, I got a falling and people know me, I could change it. Something different might hurt me a little bit, but I’m not so worried about honestly because it’s more than just the website. It’s how you treat people and always show up. So if someone comes in and out Hamilton’s me, I’d almost tip my hat to ’em. I probably wouldn’t be mad about because it, it’s not just Google ads and videos. It’s actually being out in the community all the time.

Darl:

What’s the personal injury market in the Cincinnati area? I mean, do you have, I mean, we’re in Marietta. So I mean we say Atlanta because if I went out of town somewhere and let’s say I’m at the beach in Florida and I run into somebody and say, where are you from? Most people aren’t going to say, oh, I’m from Smyrna, I’m from Marietta, whatever. They’ll say, oh, I’m from Atlanta.

Josh:

It’s easier.

Darl:

And I don’t know if that’s kind of a similar thing with Cincinnati, but we’re in Marietta, but we still get a lot of that competition from Atlanta that’s marketing to cases everywhere in the metro area. And do y’all see something similar in your market?

Josh:

Yeah, I mean I think in the last year or two you’ve probably seen this too. I see people running ads in Hamilton, Ohio that are from Atlanta or originally or from Texas or from places. They might not even be lawyers half time, to be honest. I don’t know. But yeah, it’s competitive. I think Atlanta’s more saturated than most places. But Cincinnati’s competitors, there’s old firms, been running TV ads since I was a little kid. So I mean that’s why I’ve kind of just focused on the small towns around. I’m not trying to take over Cincinnati, but I’m going to build a little mode on these little small towns.

Darl:

Yeah, one of the things you do with The Hometown Lawyer is you’ve got these social media channels. Which social media channels do you focus on the most?

Josh:

I mean the one that I blew up on originally, which has been the one I would’ve bet the opposite I thought I’d be worse on was TikTok. I started doing those in 2020. My wife had it during the lockdowns and were just stuck at home. And I like most people my age looked like that’s dumb kids dancing around, whatever.

And then I started looking at it more and I started, the algorithm was feeding me things I was interested in. I was like, oh, there’s some smart people in here. So I started doing videos. I was probably one of the first lawyers on it, maybe not nationwide, definitely the first one in Ohio. I kind of blew up fast on there. I am asked a good following, doing stuff about law but doing other stuff too. Shouting out local mom and pop businesses, restaurants, coming home and asking my wife what she’s cooking.

My wife stays home now. I could get in the whole thing about my daughter. My wife had a job and we had a second child and she had a genetic disorder. So when I started my firm, all this happened. So I thought my wife had a government job with benefits and I’d be at least not starving. But then she lost all that to take care of our daughter. So she stays home and she got really serious about cooking and all that.

So I do videos coming home from her, which again, I think there’s perception of lawyers, we’re all jerks or we’re all money hungry, but if I come home, Hey honey, what are you doing? And then she gives me crap and puts the husband, I’m not so big and bad and tough or scary to talk to. I think it makes you look like more of a person. And that’s our real banter.

Sometimes we play it up a little bit more just taping, but we do those and those videos, some of those have went viral. Are they helping me get cases all the time? I don’t know, but I know it does help me. So I do a lot on TikTok, but then I put the videos on YouTube, Facebook, I’ve leaned in more Facebook recently because the TikTok maybe is going away, but I think you kind of have to try to be everywhere. It takes a lot of work. I mean it’s not easy.

Darl:

So when you started doing TikTok, were you just on TikTok or did you put ’em on other platforms as well?

Josh:

At first I was just on TikTok. I mean I had a Facebook but I didn’t do much on it. We had a firm Facebook page, which never did a ton. We kept it busy more than most people for sure. But it was just on TikTok and then I was like, okay, I kind of got a thing going. So I started putting ’em on YouTube too. In other places I prefer TikTok myself. I think it’s just easier to work with and a lot of eyeballs are there still, but I do realize I don’t want to lose all this content.

Darl:

Is that where you get most traction with your following is on TikTok?

Josh:

Yeah, I think it’s TikTok broadly. More views for sure and more people all over the country. I mean, I’ll get people from Texas or random places reach out to me on there sometimes. And locally too, I have a good local following, but Facebook, because you’re connected with your friends, most of my friends and people I know are more localized. So I do I think better with the older crowd on there. So I think I need to be both places, but a lot of the content’s similar.

It’s either the same content, but I’ll write up a little blurb on Facebook. The videos I do for the local businesses where I highlight just them, I call it around town with The Hometown Lawyer I put, and I’m not in it, it’s just like a minute video of the new bakery or whatever. And I post that up there with our branding or whatever. Those do better on Facebook than TikTok. The videos I do just BSing around or talking with my wife do better on TikTok. It’s like the opposite.

Darl:

Now when you started, was there a long-term plan with this or was this just like, Hey, I’m going to go film some videos?

Josh:

Yeah, I mean I kind of knew that this is about 2018, 2019. I was like videos is where it’s at now and it’s just going to get more, people aren’t reading as much. I could see these elaborate blogs I paid for wrote myself sometimes early on you could see the bounce rate. People stay on ’em for 4.2 seconds and all that work, all that beautiful language you put together, it’s like nobody’s reading it.

So I started doing videos. I didn’t like doing ’em. The highlights on your phone from how it brings up memories. I brought some up the other day of me in my suit trying to look serious, talking about uninsured motors giving great advice, but no one gives a crap about that. They don’t. And so the long term, I just knew I needed to be out there and I just kind like anything else.

The more I did it, the better I got. And I started realizing what worked. And it’s not a whole lot different than becoming a trial lawyer. You can watch people, you can learn some skills and tools, but you can’t implement exactly what some other lawyer guy does.

You kind of have to find out what works for you. So I like saying off the cuff kind of funny things. I’m not too stiff, I’m more relaxed. That’s how I am on the videos. Those do better If I try to prepare something I’m going to talk about, those are not going to be as good. And you kind of have to get over the ego of like, yeah, it’s okay to sound a little stupid sometimes or even say something wrong. I think people relate to that more than just stiff lawyer with books in the background sounding all smart people already think we think we’re smarter than them anyway.

So why are you going to try to sound smart? I want to talk to the people I grew up with. Just be myself, be comfortable, shout out more other people than talking about us. I think give more. I think you get some, but for a long time I couldn’t track if I got anything. I still remember the day because I’d been doing videos every day for about a year.

And one of my older paralegals, one of my first ones who’s now retired, I could hear on the phone is Pam. And she said, you heard him, you’re hiring us. Why? And then she closed her thing. They saw you talking about tacos and she rolled her eyes because she knew my head was growing was like it worked. I mean you feel like you’re yelling into the void. I mean doing a podcast,

It’s not like people just call you the next day. Correct. It’s like you’re yelling into the universe. And I did that every day for probably a year until I tracked I got a case. But then you kind of build and now, I mean there’s not like a celebrity in town, but there’s definitely people know me that don’t really know me, they know me from videos and they say, oh, that’s the home. I went to the doctor with my daughter one time. It was like the podiatrist and the guy’s like that’s The Hometown Lawyer. He pointed out to his daughter, ask me. It’s kind of weird, but it was kind of funny. I mean

Darl:

Who was doing the production of your original videos? Was it just you and a cell phone?

Josh:

Yeah, cell phone.

Darl:

And you were doing the editing as well or did you send it off to somebody?

Josh:

I didn’t even edit them. The ones I do, I don’t edit. I mean I might write a little word on it or whatever on TikTok. I’m not an editor. I don’t even try. I just send it out and sometimes they’re not that great a quality, but I think that works because I’m not, I’m a lawyer and I’m running a law firm. I don’t have time just to be a Google or whatever expert YouTube editor. But then as we’ve grown, I hired a videographer who does do TikToks where he’ll edit ’em a little bit different and he’s the one that does the highlight videos for the other people. I want their little commercial for their business to be more high quality so he does those. So it’s a little bit of both.

If I’m doing it, it’s on my phone and it’s not going to be too edited, but people know that’s my style. It’s just quick. I just did one down the road shaky, whatever, but I’m just talking as I go. The ones I do, my camera guy’s name is Josh, he shoots those, he edit them well. So I have a mix of those two.

Darl:

When did you kind of transition away from doing these pure legal videos where you’re stiff in a suit talking about legal topics to going this different direction and focusing on local businesses?

Josh:

Yeah, I mean just you run out of thing. I mean personal injuries. Yeah. Is it uber complicated? Sure. Could you spend the rest of your career getting better at the nuances? Yeah, but you can’t get in that with normal people. They don’t even know where to start. So when you’re talking to laypeople, how many things can you talk about? Is there a list of a hundred? I don’t know. I mean you could start rehashing. I will do a video about uninsured motors about every month. That important. I want ’em to listen to me.

At least people in my family, I don’t know if they have always, but it was about 20, about 2020. I did a couple local food videos and they did a little bit more views. The algorithm will tell you if it’s working or not. It did better than me talking about whatever rule a Robinson v Bates, that’s the case in Ohio where they get to show the bills that were paid, not the actual bills. Not every state has that. So I hate that case obviously. So talking about that, it’s not going to get a lot of views with regular people, but a low local coffee shop down the road did. And I did a donut video that kind of blew up bigger than any other. I was like, oh, people like food. And then I did a video of my wife cooking. I like donut. Yeah, people fight about donuts. They’ll start saying who’s best. Those videos always do good. They’ll have a place that’s bad.

Darl:

I got to get that local donut.

Josh:

Yeah, donut, yeah, they’re good. But then I started doing the ones with my wife cooking, so that was food too. And those were blowing up and honestly became something fun amongst us to do. She was staying at home during 2020. Our daughter’s medically complex. She’s really scared during all that we all are because she really had a rough go of it. So I’d come home, it was something me and her could do. She didn’t get to leave that much and they were blowing up and the food was still mixed in. So people were either saying she was doing it wrong or they’re wanting the recipe and it showed banter between me just being a husband dad. I think it became fun.

Those videos are the best videos. They’re the biggest ones and I think people will comment and it literally, I’ll have comments every now and then. I hope I never need an injury lawyer, but if I do, I’m hiring you just because your wife cooked this meal and it’s cool and I’m going to use it. That’s awesome. I mean it’s not that hard and those are not edited at all. Just off the cuff.

Darl:

You mentioned one of the questions I’ll get for any marketing strategy, and I’m sure you get this as well, I’ll say, well, does it work? Do you get cases from it? And that’s a complicated question because a lot of things that we do are not lead generation. I mean we’re not putting up an ad trying to get a direct response to that ad. It’s building a brand, it’s building relationships.

So I would imagine that’s a lot of what you’re doing with these videos. You’re making connections with people developing relationships. I would imagine one way you could get a case of somebody just seeing your videos. Another way might be you developing that connection with a small business owner and then they put it out and then you kind of are marketing to their group. I mean, what are you seeing in terms of how these videos are working for you?

Josh:

Yeah, it is hard to track and I still think they probably helped me a lot more than I could ever prove. I kind of know that in my DNA or whatever, but I do have instances where I do a video for a cafe and then I forget about it and six, seven months later the same cafe on their Facebook or TikTok account will message me like, Hey, you did VO for us however long ago. It might just been one I just did off the cuff while I was there. I didn’t even meet ’em, but they saw I tagged ’em and they were appreciative and they say, Hey, my dishwasher’s got rear-ended on the way to work. I’ve gotten cases like that where it’s direct, so it shows you no, people do appreciate it. Also, I actually like doing it. So I think that’s one point people need to know.

And I kind of compare it to the gym. If you like running, I’m not going to put you on just always lifting weights and nothing more than that. If you tell me you hate doing that because you’re going to do it for a while and you’re going to stop. So if you hate doing videos, I’d push you to maybe try to overlook and get through it and see if you could like it. If you actually hate doing a type of marketing, you’re not going to do it on the long-term. If you’re going to do video marketing outreach, this is a long-term game. This is like a lifestyle change, eating healthy or something. So I like doing these. I going out to a small town, I’ll go to Leesburg, Ohio. No one’s ever heard of that in Georgia, but it’s 1500 people live there. They got one little strip with about five businesses and some of ’em are kind of young people running it.

And I drove through once I guess a cool little strip. So I took my video person and my outreach person, we did a whole day and we did a video for every one of them and it was a big deal in that little town, tiny town. But they all got behind it. They all shared each other’s videos and now they all comment on all my other videos I do for other small towns, they’re on my team. Are there a lot of cases in a little town like that? Probably not. I hope not, but I know I’m their guy, those five businesses because no one else is going out there doing anything. And I spent maybe two days out there in a year

And I drive by, I might stop, get a coffee and it makes you feel good. I know I do help small businesses and do I think I’ll get some cases out of that? Yeah. If I don’t, I look at it this way: When I’m old and regretting things in my life, will you regret, “Oh, I did a bunch of videos for these small town people helping their businesses out and give them a shout out when other people might not be, and I can’t prove I didn’t get a case?” Or will I be thinking about I spent $20k on LSAs. I mean I think I’ll be regretting that more.

Darl:

If you’re able to spend 20 grand on, you’re lucky because we can’t even get our LA budget to spend.

Josh:

Why didn’t my LSAs work? But it just is not going to be something I am going to regret I don’t think like, oh, I shout out a bunch of people in my small town. It’s fun. I like doing it. I do think it gets my name out there in a positive way and it’s really getting good now because now early on it’s hard because you’re shooting content to keep up all the time. Now I’ve shot so many videos, I have a bank roll. I posted one the other day from 2020 and my aunt was like, you’re looking better looking today than normal was like, yeah, I was like five years younger. That made me feeling worse almost. She’s trying to make me feel good, but the point is I can take a couple days off now. I got old videos I can just repost. People forgot I did it already. So now I got like a safety deposit box of old videos I can just toss out there. So it gets a little bit easier with time to keep the ball rolling. It’s hard to do every day.

Darl:

So Josh, your brand, The Hometown Lawyer, really speaks to me because it represents a lot of things that I like about the personal injury industry and it kind of goes against the grain of what’s happening a lot. And I’ll give you a great example. I posted about this on LinkedIn the other day. I was on Facebook and I see an ad for a Georgia law firm and it talks about how they got this best of Georgia honorable mention. And I had never heard of this law firm and I’m pretty plugged in the personal injury community, even though Atlanta is a big city, you still know most of the people.

And so I started doing some digging. I go to their website, these guys are in Florida, they’re not even here. Their Georgia office is a temporary Regis suite, like an office share type arrangement. And I’m like, these people did not win an award because they have some genuine authentic Georgia connection. They probably paid people to vote or did something. Most of the Google reviews are either fake or I think they’re out of state people that they drove to that page. And I see so much of that where lawyers are opening these satellite offices in other states. I think you mentioned you’ve got people in California advertising.

Josh:

There’s people running ads in Ohio. I don’t even know if they’re lawyers half the time or especially on social media. Some of the lead gen, I mean they’re promising you free AI lawyers that’ll get you two 50 grand in the next 30 days. I almost wish it was true myself. I mean I’d hire some for the firm, but it’s just not that easy.

Darl:

Yeah. Well the one thing that in addition to seeing a lot of the legion seeing these normal law firms, traditional law firms opening up satellite offices in other states, I see a lot of stuff out of Arizona because of the alternative business structures where non-lawyers can have ownership interest in the firm. There’s a lot of private equity going into that space. And I’m a little, I wouldn’t say nervous is the right word, and I’m not scared about the industry as a whole, but I have concerns about the future of the personal injury industry. It seems like a lot of it’s gone away from hey, we’re here to help people and building these genuine relationships with people and getting cases that way to now it’s like everybody’s a commodity. I call it the commoditization of personal injury. And I don’t know what your thoughts are on that if you’re seeing something similar in your area.

Josh:

Yeah, I mean I think some of the people running ads, they might’ve had one office five years ago now they got 48 offices in every state and always Arizona is always one of ’em in Alaska and Hawaii coming soon I guess. I don’t know. There’s money to be had and lawyers, we’ve been walled off. We have a monopoly on the courthouse because you have to be a lawyer to own a law firm. And that’s broke in Arizona. And I think what’s happening is people are going and opening an office there taking in money from, I don’t know, wall Street or whoever. And then they’re not just spending it in Arizona though they’re spending it in Hamilton, Ohio. They’re probably spending in Marietta, Georgia and everywhere else and who’s going to stop? I don’t know. Hopefully.

Yeah, I am a little bit worried about it, but I also know that some of the times the hardest parts of my firm sometimes is when I signed up. A lot of cases not as easy just they’re all after the cases. When you get a lot of cases that’s not, the fund doesn’t end, it actually gets harder sometimes with cash flow. So I think some of ’em are going to end up going bust. Honestly, there’ll be some winners. But I think, I mean I hate to quote John Morgan, the biggest of ’em all, but he said one of the videos I saw on Facebook their day, it’s like a gold rush in pi. I think that’s kind of true. And he said some people end up with fools of gold. I just think there’s some wisdom in what he’s saying. Some people will get a lot of cases and then not take care of ’em well, and that’s worse than having no cases. You can lose a lot of money that way too.

Darl:

Yeah we see there’s your big advertisers. There’s one out of California that opened an Atlanta office recently. I mean you’ve got those that are your traditional advertisers. But I’m seeing more and more of these small firms that are doing it and I’m like, why are you trying to open up in another state when you have no connection to it? You’re not going to outspend the big guys. I mean there are local Atlanta firms, your traditional old school advertisers, the ones that people here grew up with, they’ve been advertising on TV since the nineties. Their advertising budgets are $20+ million dollars a year.

And that’s just like your local and regional firms, the big advertisers that are coming national from out of state like your Morgan Morgan that opened up here and has really gotten I think a decent amount of market share. But it was very, very expensive and it cost a ton of money. So I think that those firms that are looking, if you’re a small firm, medium-sized firm and you’re looking to grow, to me it’s not by moving to a state that you have no connection to. It’s by doing what you’re doing.

Josh:

Yeah, I think that and lean into what you have an advantage on. And it’s not kind of what I was saying earlier with the authenticity, it’s not just copycat someone else. If you’re copycatting a guy that’s got 20 million a month budget or 20 million a year and you got $200,000 a year, you’ve already lost. That is a losing proposition. You need to do something different with the money.

Darl:

And you know what people will say because I’ll hear this from ’em, they’ll be like, oh, I have this. I’m spending a ton on SEO. And I’m like, well how much are you spending? They’re like $5,000 a month. And I’m like, that’s nothing man. Or they’ll talk about PPC, well I’m going to put in 10, $20,000 a month. That’s nothing, man. I mean these advertisers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on that. And I do think there are some ways where some people can see some progress in PPC in certain areas. I have not found it myself, but I mean you hear stories in people like, oh yeah, I got this case. We’ve had some success with LSAs when they first were rolled out like that 2019 timeframe. Now it’s like I can’t even get my LSAs to spend.

Josh:

Yeah, I do decent with LSAs. PPP C is harder. I think a run a brand campaign just so if someone’s been on your brand, you at least pop up. That’s cheaper. I do think you need to spend on marketing. I mean don’t get me wrong. I am aggressive for the money I have, but I know I can’t just go on TV and go against I could. But if I go running TV ads against people in Cincinnati have been running them since I was in kindergarten, that’s a lot. They got more money than me. I’m going to assume. And they got a brand that’s been out there longer in that traditional media. I think I got to play small ball, lay down going to a Red’s game, lay a blunt down, steal base every now and then, but don’t steal. Do it within the rules. Do everything ethically, but be aggressive.

I can do a video and Camden, Ohio, another little town knowing out of state’s ever heard of and I can do some videos there and then run a Facebook campaign for branding just around that little town. I might be able to do that for 25 bucks and every town sees it. That’s a good way to spend money. But you got to know the way of the land. You got to be the hometown Louis Romos or something like that. You got to be the local guy that understands the area. I understand Mike County, I know that there’s two old towns that are old factory towns and then I know some closer to 75 or more suburban and more fluent and different. And I don’t run the same ads as everyone all the time. If I’m going to run an ad, you got to and be hyper geography, the local geography and get local with your ads and what you’re doing I think.

But just always be out meeting people. When I started going into some of these smaller towns where I wasn’t from, I kind got worried I’m an outsider here and I go sometimes to the bar meeting the old guys. They’re like, who the hell are you tell me who I am. But they get to know you and they’re a little bit on guard maybe at first too. But they start thinking out like, well, you’re not the guy from Cleveland who’s never came here and runs TV ads all the time. I’m more like them than they are. I’m not from here, but I come here sometimes. And you can build real relationships if you keep your word, do the right thing when the bar asks for people to come be judged at the local high school for debate day, you better be there If you want to be a local lawyer in a few counties, you can’t be afraid to drive and you sign up for a long time game.

You can’t be watching… This week, just to give you an example, I’m here with you. Tomorrow, I’m flying home. I’ve got a meeting, a podcast on Tuesday with a guy who does local wrestling stuff. So it’s totally different. Interesting. It happens to be one of my distance cousins. But then Wednesday I’ve speaking at a safety council through the chamber commerce in the county I work in. And then on Thursday I’m going to the high school to talk on career day for two classes. So that’s a busy week plus running law firm and none of that’s going to produce cases next quarter probably or definitely not bottom line next quarter.

But do I think it’s a good thing to do? Yes. Do I think it will help me long term? Sure. And got to have a long timeline. But you also got to pay attention to when you’re spending on Legion. Yeah, you need to watch that If you’re doing LSA, you need to watch that this month. So you’re kind of juggling different balls, but the outreach stuff never ends. That’s why you kind of have to enjoy it if you don’t enjoy it. Someone in your firm needs to enjoy it and they need to be out there. And that better be if it’s not a partner, it needs to be someone important to the firm that’s not bouncing every six months.

Darl:

You’re doing a lot of this marketing, getting out in the community. How do you have time to practice law?

Josh:

It’s tough. And that’s a good question. And it’s not necessarily the career I thought I was going to build when like I said, I didn’t become an attorney until I was 32. I worked in big law for two years. I’m like 34. I knew they were never going to let me try case until I was probably 50 because these big government cases, they’re going to let the guys that had the 30 year relationship do it. I’m always just going to be the fourth chair. And I did that a few times or whatever. So I wanted to get out and be a trial lawyer. I think that’s where my natural strengths are connecting people. I think I would like that in Excel. So I start my firm, a lot of other things you got to do market. You got to figure out how to get case.

I’m doing all that. And we had a child when we were younger. Me and my wife, we’ve been together since we were 18. So I had a son, he is sitting over here, he is 18, but I have a daughter who’s only seven. So we had her the first year I had my law firm and she had some really serious health issues. So we were in the hospital four weeks at a time every year and weeks split up in there. So at the same time my wife lost her job. I’m kind of like, oh shit, I already gave up a good big law job and most of my family makes 30, 40 grand. What am I finally made it to make good money and I’m going all in on this firm.

Darl:

So you got to get out there, hustle.

Josh:

Yeah you got to get out there. So I’m like hustling, but I don’t want to leave my daughter in the hospital either. So I’m basically sitting at the hospital with my law firm and my little laptop in the floor for weeks and weeks a lot for the first few years. And the good news is the marketing I was doing started working. So then it was more problems. That’s great. I got a lot of cases now, but I can’t even handle ’em all as well as I want to do. I could handle ’em like some people do and just settle ’em all as fast as I could. I had to hire lawyers and lean on my partner for the legal work. So seven years in, I haven’t been able to develop me personally, all the trial skills that I would’ve liked and we got so busy I had to just start running the firm.

So I pretty much managed the firm. We got five other lawyers and they don’t really manage the firm. They lean into legal only. I do hope that I can tag along with ’em and go do some, I mean I have tried some criminal cases and did some civil bench trials before when we were early on. But I got guys that just focus on litigation only and they don’t worry about when the cases are coming in. And I do all that and it’s basically because only so much time and with my daughter’s sick, I don’t want to be the first chair on a case. You’re my client all the way through and then

Your big depo’s coming up and my daughter’s sick and I’m leaving her in the hospital. I just want to be with her and I can run the law firm with her in the hospital and my laptop and maybe I can be a second chair if I have to bounce because she’s sick. That’s easier to fill in. But I don’t want to be the main guy. I don’t think it’s good for my clients. It does kind of suck what I wanted to be, but you get some curve balls, you get some screw balls in life and you kind of got to deal with it. And at least in my own mind, I at least told my story. Marketing is similar to jury work in a way. You got to be your authentic self. There’s skills and it’s competitive. There’s people out there that are better than you.

There’s people more funded than you. You got to connect with the people on the jury. You got to connect with your community to pick you pick your side whether they’re hiring you or picking you on your case. And then when I was early and if I got cases I felt uncomfortable, I always brought in co-counsel and learn a lot from them or just lean on them completely and just not be greedy and split up the money and give them whatever to make sure the client’s getting a good deal. But we’ve built up our litigation a lot more. So I got two attorneys folks on that, a team building up. So I want to be a trial firm. I don’t want to just mill cases through, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be the trial lawyer. I could have been, probably not because I spent a lot of time on running a business too.

I don’t know if you can ever, I mean there’s only so much time. It’s tough if you can either be the best trial attorney you can be or the best business owner you can be. Or maybe you can be pretty good at both. But one of ’em, there’s a hit there somewhere along the line. I’m just leaning in that for now. I’m hoping maybe 10 years from now I get the firm build up how I want. I can have trained up a team that can run the firm and maybe I could go, some of the young lawyers that I’ve brought up with me can teach me some things that I would’ve liked to know. I think that’s what I’d like to see.

But yeah, you kind of got to deal what you got dealt with sometimes. And for the record, my daughter’s doing great. They told us she wouldn’t walk or talk maybe and she never shuts up. I mean she goes to school and has fun in the normal class. I mean she’s still got a lot of issues, but things are a lot better than they were five years ago. That’s great. That’s good to hear. We’ll at least tie that up so people aren’t worried about it.

Darl:

That’s great to hear. Does The Hometown Lawyer brand, does that help with attorney referrals from local attorneys and some of the lawyers in these small towns that you’re getting into?

Josh:

Yeah, I think that definitely in the small towns in Ohio does. But I’m actually there. So just the fact I was there, I don’t know. Maybe if I gave myself a cornier name, it still would’ve work actually there walking the walk more than the name. It does help sometimes with the outstate firms too. I mean, I’ve had firms from different parts of the country call me like, Hey man, I didn’t want to send it to a big guy, but I didn’t want to send it to a true solo that has no support. That’s problematic too sometimes. But they look at us and they’re like, oh, you got 15, 20 people. Looks like that’s like a sweet spot for some people. You’re not 200, but you’re not two.

Darl:

Well, I mean that’s how I mean met you through that I think through LinkedIn and seeing you there and seeing your Facebook, your social media. And again, there’s definitely times where I’ll have somebody ask me, do you know a lawyer in such and such state? And I’ll think, and I’m like, man, I feel like I know somebody on LinkedIn or whatever’s from the state, but you’re easy. I remember you wearing the Cincinnati Reds hat, right? And I don’t know if that’s intentional in the videos, but to me that’s part of branding. So now I always kind of associate that like, oh, the Cincinnati are in town and then now if I have a case in Ohio, you’re going to be the person I call. I’m not Googling somebody that I’ve never heard of before.

Josh:

It wasn’t on purpose at first. It was mostly I just didn’t want to be in a suit all the time. It’s just not how I bought my first suit in law school when I was 29 and it had the little tag on it where the brand, I thought that was supposed to be on there, a shirt and some girl’s like idiot. I just not that way. I don’t dress up fancy for fun for sure. So I did a big law every day and then I owned first my law firm for a year. I did it every day. And then I just one day, what am I doing? I’m just sitting here looking at my computer with a tie on. So then I just started dressing more like myself. If I got a meeting I’ll dress up a little bit. But then after a while I was like, man, I think this hat actually is kind of nice because people like what you said, it shows that I’m local right off the bat before I even talk. So I do wear that a lot or some kind of local t-shirt or something.

Darl:

It is good visual reminder. I know that. I mean there’s some stuff that I will post or say or do and people will confuse me with somebody else sometimes still. And I’ll have that come up. So the more kind of reminders that you can give people I think is good.

Josh:

And that’s a good point to any lawyers out there. I think early on people are like, man, I can’t believe my friend from high school hired this other injury lawyer. And they take offense to it. Don’t be mad at them. Be mad at yourself. Control what you can control. That person probably didn’t know you’re an injury lawyer. And I have cousins, and I have local—I don’t put billboards on the highway. I bought all the little ones in my town. So the big guys, they were getting closer basically I’m that I didn’t want to look at their stupid billboards. I look at my own and I’m trying to figure out ways to incorporate that with the local stuff. And I’ve kind of figured out a way I’m going to nonprofits bar him and stuff and make it fun on social media. But anyway, you have to beat people over the head with it.

And my partner, Scott was kind of the other came, one of our friends hired someone else and he was kind like a little bit m about. I was like, man, he probably didn’t know. And then I started calling him out like our friend Wally, he works at the bank. What’s he do, Scott? And he’s like, I don’t know, he works the bank. Okay. You don’t know exactly what. Neither do I think he’s in trust. I don’t know. People think you’re a lawyer. And I have cousins ask me, Josh, do you do divorce law? Man, I’ve never told anyone that in my life. I got billboards all over town, videos every day, and my own family sometimes still thinks I might do divorce law, so if that is the case, don’t be scared to keep telling people what you do specifically over and over again. You have to just have to

Darl:

And stay top of mind. I think I had this happen where somebody I knew I was in a local community organization with him and I didn’t hang out with the guy outside of it, but he follows me on social media. I post about personal injury stuff all the time, and he called me about something one time and it was something I totally didn’t do. It was like a trademark issue and I’m like, when have I ever posted anything about that? I don’t know. The first thing about trademarks and I said, I just do injury law. He was like, oh man, I wish I would’ve known that my wife had a slip and fall. They hired some lawyer and he did a terrible job. And I’m like…

Josh:

Yeah, it sucks.

Darl:

Yeah, and I’ll tell you one of the things we do, so I’m a big Great Legal Marketing guy, Ben Glass, I started reading his stuff before I even graduated law school. I think I mean he had stuff out there that I was reading and I just knew I wanted to start my own firm and he kind of fit with how I viewed things. But you ever had a deposition where the client’s being asked about their prior car wreck and who represented ’em and they don’t remember the name, they’re like, I don’t remember who that was. That happens a lot. And so for me, I was like, I never want to be that person. To some extent I think champion helps because it’s an easy last name to remember, but we remarket to our clients constantly staying top of mind. But then I think also the further you get away from the case, the less they remember. So you just got to, its so true. Beating them over the head with it.

Josh:

Yeah. A couple of the first clients I remember that came in before Covid, I met every single client with a piece of paper. Sometimes we don’t even do that anymore. I’d give the clients the choice. Sometimes they just want to sign the EOC or whatever, but I used to meet with a piece of paper every time.

Darl:

I did the same thing.

Josh:

And I remembered I’d be like, you ever had an injury case? That was one of my thing. You ever been injured before? The questionnaire? You need to know when you get lit and find out later. And they’re like, yeah, I got one. Did you hire lawyer? Yeah. Who guy down the street. So then perks my interest. I’m like, wonder what this idiot did? Did he piss you off? I think I’m going to get some good dirt. I’m like, no, no. He was pretty cool. I can’t really remember his last name. I’m like, man, we’re not as important to people as we think. So you got to stay top of mind and it’s hard to always wow him on a basic rear end. We take big cases. Obviously I take small cases too. I’m not that picky. If the client’s nice and they’ve treated, I like helping them people too. If it’s just a small few grand or whatever her, and it’s not the biggest deal in their life sometimes when it’s like that. And so it’s hard to, wow. I mean you can stay on top of mind and I mean it is what it is.

Darl:

Well, we have that dilemma and this is kind of a constant discussion about how to improve client referrals and we’ll have cases where I had this happen recently. When I say recently, it was about a year ago, but it’s seared into my memory where this client got into a car wreck and we’re helping her, and it’s not a big case, but it’s one of those things. I came from a referral source. We’ll take small cases, we end up helping her with property damage. We end up having to file suit against State Farm, like a first party property damage claim. They were dragging their feet and so we’re doing all this work and it’s like a $15,000 car wreck case, and her husband gets attacked by a dog. He gets injured and I’m thinking, oh, this is going to be an easy case for us to sign up.

We do a consult. And I’m thinking, man, this is why I take the small case for things like this. She ends up hiring a lawyer that specializes in dog bites and I’m like, man, I don’t know if you’re seeing that, but I’m seeing more and more. I had another client hired Morgan and Morgan and I represented this lady. I got a personal contribution from the defendant above the insurance limits. He had money and she was seriously injured. I went to the mediation with her myself.

She gets in a subsequent car wreck and hires Morgan and Morgan. She ends up firing them and hiring us because they were so bad to her and she couldn’t talk to a lawyer. She didn’t like the customer service, but I’m like, why did you hire them? And she’s like, well, I saw their ads and I just wanted to try. I don’t know if you’re seeing much of that, but I feel like there’s a lot of that going on. I often wonder how many cases am I losing of repeat clients or referrals to the big advertisers?

Josh:

Yeah, I think you definitely lose some. I mean the one that stuck out to me where I was already pretty set on was going to build a brand, but it put me into overdrive. I had a case, probably the best league of work I’ll ever do, and this ist going to hurt you to hear it. I’ll tell that might as well. Guy gets hit, they find him at night, they find him in an alley unconscious, he’s almost dead. Take him to the hospital. He’s in a coma for 10 weeks or something like that. His wife hires me. He doesn’t know what’s going on. No one knows who hit him. The cops don’t know nobody. I get feelers, I figure out people. I know the neighborhood. I don’t think any lawyer would’ve known people as many as I would. Being a local lawyer helps sometimes. I’m definitely not the best lawyer, but for this case, I was the one that was going to figure out what happened.

And about two, three weeks later, we found out there was a guy winding at the bar about him. We found out and they told us, the cops didn’t know. I went and found video. It was a car lot was driving cars. They had been delivered and one of their workers had hit him. So I took it to the detective and they didn’t want to listen to me and they finally listened to me, ended up charging the guy. So all this happens when the guy’s in the coma, he doesn’t know I’ve done this. I mean, I’ve cracked the case. I mean no one would’ve figured this out. I’m pretty certain on that. And he wakes up and he hires the big guy with all the billboards and then the next biggest town before I can even come talk to him.

Darl:

Oh my God.

Josh:

And it’s commercial policy and everything I’m sure. I mean, I don’t even want to know. Then some years later the wife called me, she wanted me to help her on the divorce. She knew how hard I worked for him. She tried to beg him to keep with me. And the thing is, I didn’t even have a big lien. I’d only worked on it for, I didn’t really put a ton of hours in it, but it was the most important hours. So I had to send the file to the big guy. But brand’s important. They thought he was bigger, he had more advertising. Some people think that’s important. I kind of know better, but again, I can’t want the reality I want. I have to live in the reality I’m in. And so I personally feel pain. It hurts.

Darl:

Yeah right now. It hurts not just because I know how painful that is for you, but I don’t know that I’ve had that exact situation. But that’s the issue that firms like ours are dealing with now.

Josh:

So pretty much in the small towns I’m in, I got all the billboards, the small ones in the neighborhood, and I’ve been starting to use some local influencers even. I put other people on my billboards, try to have fun with it. I got big brothers, big sisters, the local branch, they’re going to do it in the corner, so it’s going to say sponsored by The Hometown Lawyer and we’ll do social media with that. So I’m still doing good with it. I didn’t want to have a bunch of billboards honestly. But the guys from the big cities were getting closer and closer and I was like, man, I just buy all these small ones up and people see ’em and do they work? I don’t know, but that’s not going to happen to me again where, and I don’t even taking cases from other lawyers, but yeah, you got to learn your lesson at least now.

I know I got quite a few in my town at least, but yeah, it hurts and you’re going to lose some. Have I lost some that I’ve never going to hear from, I’m sure, but I think, I don’t know. I’m a working class kid. I’m already, I’m on house money. I didn’t think I’d get through college, honestly, if you tell some of my high school teachers believed in me for sure, but some of ’em would’ve been like I didn’t have any passion for anything. I was just doing just enough to not be in trouble.

Darl:

That’s my story. I mean, we were talking about that earlier. I mean, I did co-op in high school for two years where I went to high school half the day and then worked at a hardware store the other half, I was working almost 40 hours a week through high school and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and it was just kind like, well, what happens after high school? I was like, well, I’ll give college a shot.

But I really liked it and it was very different than high school. I kind of found what I was passionate about and then did well, went to law school, did well. And so I think the background that you have though is kind of what allows you to do what you do now though being having that working class background, working with regular people, and it works well with your law firm and every law firm needs different people in different seats. So you’re running a lot of the marketing. You’ve got other people doing legal work. It sounds like it’s a really good fit.

Josh:

Yeah, it works. I mean, nothing’s perfect. Running a law firm’s hard, PI’s a hard run. The business is hard. But I do think some of the things, to your point, when I was 22, I thought my real dad wasn’t around a lot. My stepdad’s a construction worker, hard worker. I got a lot of work ethic from him for sure, a lot of good things. But at the time, if you want to be a lawyer, I felt like I had a lot of disadvantages and even when I graduated law school, I’m already 32, I’m behind.

People have already been a lawyer seven years my age. Sometimes the things you think are holding you back can be your advantages. Yeah, I was seven years behind people my biological age that went straight through, but they can never sit down with a truck driver or a guy works in a factory that lost a hand and tell ’em like, oh yeah, I had to go to the hospital once I hit my head on a machine too.

They never have that story. I do. I used to have a pretty good burn, but it’s healed from a factory, which kind of sucks at this point. Not too many lawyers work jobs like that. And you got to lean into that some. I’ve done videos about that. The factory I work at, there was literally first day, I’ll never forget, there’s a sign on the wall and I had a number days without a recordable injury. We’ve worked in a place like that. They’re counting the days until someone got mangled. It is different, and I know a lot of the guys and ladies that I represent work in places like that now. And it does give you a better perspective I think, and know who you’re fighting for.

Darl:

I still remember when I turned 16 and got that job at the hardware store, one of the first thing they did was they put me on a forklift. I was not forklift, not OSHA certified, but we also didn’t have, we had these huge racks in the back in the warehouse and the way we would get somebody up there is we would put a pallet on the forks and you would stand on the pallet and raise it all the way up to the dock. It’s like a miracle I’m alive. The other thing we would is we would go and we would also use the front end loader that we had because we also rented equipment and we would go and mash the trash in. It was like a trash compactor. We had all sorts of just crazy stuff we did. And it’s shocking, right?

Josh:

Yeah. But it kind gives you a good perspective when you have a case that maybe is some sort of, I don’t do a lot of work comp, but sometimes there’s carryover for trucking case forever when you get discovery and you’re like, man, would a company really do that? Oh yeah. It’s almost surprising. Oh yeah, they definitely do that.

 It sounds like something I’ve done before. So yeah, it’s a good perspective. And I think just the hard work. I think I got a work ethic. I’m used to working overtime and when you work overtime you think you make a lot more, just seems like they took more taxes out of my check. But I’m used to the grind and I like helping normal people and people that need help. More people in small towns, they don’t get a lot of shine I guess, or a lot of the news comes to a small town when something bad happens.

So I like doing a lot of videos of the positive stuff in a small town. I like small towns. When I was out in Marietta walking around this morning, this is the place I can hang out. I like downtown Atlanta is fine, but I’d rather be in a town like this or even smaller. It’s is where it’s at. Hopefully keep growing and doing that and see where it takes. I don’t plan, I plan ahead, but not too far. Just got to worry about today and tomorrow too.

Darl:

You mentioned you plan ahead, but not too far ahead. That’s one of the things I’m guilty of is I don’t have a 3, 5, 10 year plan and I feel like I should. People tell me that. Do you have a long-term plan or do you just kind of, this is working, let’s just keep on doing what we’re doing?

Josh:

Yeah, I read that traction book, the EOS, and it tells you to do the three and five and have I written it down? Yes. And do I look at sometime, yes, but I am confident but not cocky enough to know I can’t plan that out that far. I got to worry about, I think the little things, the daily steps are what’s going to get you that. So I have some things out there that I shoot for, but there was numbers involved. But really in my heart, I just want to grow the firm, do the right thing. I like seeing the people that work for me grow both in their skills and just in their confidence. I have a young attorney who started for me that I think she was not confident enough hardly to call a client of her. She was kind of scared and now I look at her and Ashley, she’s like, oh yeah, she’s got it.

She’s doing really good on the pre-lit and you become more confident. And honestly, I feel when you see someone you’ve hired come along and take the next step, you feel it’s not like having a kid but it kind like man, it’s you feel better about than if you’d have done it yourself. So I like that and I kind of want to change. We were talking about how quick the technology and everything and the marketing’s changing in pi. I think that’s coming to all law eventually and small towns, the legal field is behind on business processes and how they run a business anyway. And I think some of that’s good, whatever, but some of it’s not, and small towns are even further behind. So I think it ends up hurting lawyers. A lot of lawyers have a more stressful life than they need to by trying to do too many different things.

And I want to help a lot of local lawyers in my areas too, up their game a little bit. Not necessarily to make more money, just to have a little bit better life yourself. Because lawyers in different practice areas. I know we’re in pi, but I know divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers and probate lawyers, they just run themselves ragged and there’s a better way sometimes to make their life easier. And I think I kind of want to at least be a little bright light in some of these small towns. You can do it a different way even though you’re in a town of 10,000, you don’t have to treat law like that. You can run it in a way like a big city lawyer, take some of that of that small town charm and mash it together. I think that’s a good sweet spot.

Darl:

So while we’re talking about the future, one of the questions I like to ask everybody on our podcast is where do they see the industry going or what predictions do they have for the personal injury industry over the next decade or so?

Josh:

Yeah, I mean I think it is kind of scary. I think you have to look at doctors. When I was a kid, there was a lot of small town doctors. Even surgeons had their own little business in towns on the corner and there’s not a lot of that anymore. And I don’t know if the rules break to where there’s, is it UBS or a bs, whatever it is in Arizona, if that’s in more states, I mean more money comes in. I don’t know. It’s impossible that there’s a hospital of law in every town where we just all have credentials. I don’t know. And there could be some benefits to that. I’m sure the lawyers aren’t the best business people that might be less stressful than some people that run a law firm. But I hope that’s not the case. I hope there’s still small town lawyers.

Darl:

I think there’s a lot of parallels to the medical field. I mean, one of the things we handle medical malpractice cases and one of the things we see a lot of is just this consolidation away from small individual practices to everybody getting bought up by these large hospital groups. And I mean we’ve seen it here with Morgan and Morgan. One of the things they do in a lot of the towns they go into is they buy up that local practice and it kind of merges with them and it’s getting harder and harder for those smaller lawyers to stay relevant and get cases.

Josh:

Yeah, I think that’s going to happen more and more. That’s why I personally like being in the real little towns that are less sexy. A town of 12,000 people in the middle of Ohio, they’re not going to come in there too hard and they can run some ads, but if I’m ingrained there, I think there’s an opportunity to grow there. But I think there’s also protection on the back end. They’re going to be a small rural town in Georgia. Real small is going to be the last place where they’re self-driving cars. Ohio’s the same and the last place that a big firm’s going to come to squeeze the last drop out of the limb if they’re trying to get every case. I think things come to small towns slower. So I think there may be protection for a little bit on the back end, but I do think long term, if there’s opportunity, hedge funds or whatever’s going to try to find it. And I’m sure there’s some positive things to everything getting conglomerate together, but there’s some negatives as well. So I think I’m going to do my best to fight and keep our little thing going for a while, but I can’t. Depends what the legislation comes through. You got to adopt, like I said earlier, I got to deal with the reality I’m given. Not the one I wish is there.

Darl:

Yeah, I mean we had that recently in Georgia with tort reform bill getting passed and I think, I don’t know that it’s going to have a huge effect on your more routine personal injury cases. It’s going to have a big effect on negligence security cases, which some lawyers have developed as kind of a niche practice here in Georgia. And so you do have these constant challenges, whether it’s marketing and the budgets of those huge firms disrupting the industry or just legislation. You do have to kind of adapt to it.

Well Josh, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. I’m looking forward to the Braves game tonight. I know the Reds have some great players. Ellie de La Cruz, I love watching him play. Super athletic guy.

Josh:

Exciting.

Darl:

Yeah. Who’s your favorite Reds player

Josh:

Of all time?

Darl:

Well, let’s say right now and then we’ll do all time.

Josh:

Yeah, I think you got to go to LA just because the excitement factor. Me and my son, we went to a game in New York when they played the Mets last year, and kids from New York were wearing Ellie Jerseys and Cincinnati, a small town. Don’t always get national prominence. We’re a small market, so when people are liking a player, you got to love that brings eyeballs to the city all times. Is Pete Rose, whether the

Darl:

Basketball not going to go with Johnny Bench.

Josh:

Johnny Bench, great. A lot of great players. Cincinnati, the oldest team ever. Great history. But I got to go. Pete Rose, just Charlie, the Hustle, him or Joe Nal. Joe Nal was a player, the youngest player for a long time and made the All-Star team, but he was the announcer for the Reds for 40 years and he’s from Hamilton, my neighborhood. So people love Knuck all, but Pete Rose, probably just Charlie Hus, he grinded it out. Wasn’t always really the best, but went full force. I think I tried to at least learn a little bit from that. The good things, maybe not all the bad things,

Speaker 4:

But

Josh:

People aren’t perfect. Lawyers aren’t perfect, but you definitely the hard work, kind of the small towns, I work in blue collar people just kind of knows the grindstone. I don’t whine a lot, get up work whether I want to every day or not. I don’t even really ask myself if I want to. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not telling everybody else they need to be like that, but that’s how I am and that’s how a lot of people I know are.

Darl:

I collected baseball cards when I was a kid and one of my most valuable cards was a Johnny Bench card. Nice. And so Johnny Bench, Tom Seavers and Hank Aaron. Those were three of my big cards that I got at card shows. Well, if people want to find you, where can they find you?

Josh:

Well, Krueger Hodges is the law firm. Online: The Hometown Lawyers, with an S on the end, dot com. I’m The Hometown Lawyer on I think TikTok Instagram, on Facebook, Josh Hodges. I think I’ve always had that before I was The Hometown Lawyer. I guess I always had it in my heart I guess, but before I became official with it. But Hodges is my regular name on Facebook and yeah, we’re in Hamilton, Ohio, most of southwest Ohio. Yeah, I’d love to meet you online and hopefully in real life eventually. I think that’s how it progresses nowadays. Awesome. Thanks Darl for letting me come down. Check out your office. You’ve got a great building here. Great little setup with the podcast. You got the video on that. Look forward to the Reds game as long as we win. I’m really looking forward to it.

Darl:

Well, the way the Braves have been playing this year, you guys might get us. So thanks for joining us, Josh.

Josh:

Thank you.

 

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