How to Add Six-Figures of Value to Your Practice With the Clients You Already Have 510

What are some ways to add to what you are already doing? Client intake form, listening to their story and asking questions are some ways that Josh talks about how to add more value. Not only to your practice, but also to your clients life! In today’s episode, we’re sharing Josh Rohrscheibs’ presentation from MaxLawCon 2022. Where Josh shares the reason why he is doing this, what he is doing and how all these slow down details are making a difference to his clients. Listen in.

Episode Highlights:

00:43 Helping clients and having a serendipity moment – connecting to referral fees?!

05:33 Ask what else is going on in your clients life? – add a client intake questionnaire

09:06 Focus on how and your clients can be of value to each other

12:50 Creating a referral hub

18:52 Q and A

Watch the full video here

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Transcript: How to Add Six-Figures of Value to Your Practice With the Clients You Already Have

Becca Eberhart
In today’s episode, we’re sharing a presentation from Max law con 2020. To keep listening to Joshua SCHEIB as we share his talk, how to add six figures of value to your practice with the clients you already have, you can also head to the maximum layer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Now to the episode

Speaker 2
run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome, Judy show.

Speaker 3
I’m Josh, it’s really a pleasure to be here with you all. I want to start by telling you a story that changed how I thought about helping my clients. I have the privilege of representing a community leader in my hometown, a really inspiring lady who unfortunately was in a terrible car accident, she was hit by an uninsured drunk driver and a hit and run crash. But the one kind of curiosity the the crash ended up being a blessing in disguise that actually saved her life. She had chest X ray at the hospital, and then the imaging, they found a small, rapidly growing form of lung cancer. So in the the weeks that followed, I’m trying to negotiate a settlement with her insurance carrier for her case. And there was a particular day when I had been going back and forth and battled with this insurance adjuster. And it was on my mind nonstop. And that day, I had lunch with a lawyer in my community who’s an estate planner, we had about a two hour lunch I walked along, had a great conversation. And on the way back, I kind of took a different route back to my office. And on the street, I ran into a friend of mine who is an asbestos lawyer. And that turned out to be a incredible moment of serendipity for me, because we just talked for a little bit, I complained about this adjuster. And we talked about what we were working on. And I told him about my client. And then you know, I’m talking to him his bestest lawyer, she just found out she had lung cancer, there wasn’t any obvious she wasn’t a factory worker, there wasn’t an obvious reason to think there would be an asbestos claim. But I asked him about it. And he said, Sure, we’ll take a look, we’ll see if there’s a claim. And I’m really glad I did that it turned out there was a hell of a claim the asbestos claim will be worth more than 10 times what her PII claim was, just because there was lack of coverage. So we managed to get our PI case settled. And the asbestos case is still ongoing. But I know that the asbestos case is going to make a huge difference in our life. And it will make a difference to our firm as well. We have a we have a referral fee interest in that. So it’s it’s kind of a win win for us and the client. But the thing about this case, that really shook me up, I kept thinking about this moment of serendipity that that I ran into one of the only two asbestos lawyers I know on the planet. And if I would have not taken a two hour lunch, I mean, we just ran from on the sidewalk, if I would have not walked to the office that day, if I would have had one more iced tea, if I would have taken a different route back to my office, I would have never intended the sky. And I hate to say it, but I would not have caught this asbestos case. It was just the dumb luck that I ran into one of the only two asbestos lawyers I know. And I thought about like if that hadn’t happened, what a different outcome. It would be for my client, our firm to but especially our client, and I gotta say that really shook me up. It made me think well, you know, I got really lucky here that we found this case for this very deserving client. But I thought, What could we be missing. And in the weeks that followed, I went back through my case list for some of my active cases, in cases we’d recently closed. And I don’t do much estate planning, but I did an estate plan for Lady and I looked back at my questionnaire. And she mentioned she had non Hodgkins lymphoma. And I remembered when I talked to her, she did a lot of gardening. And we found that she had a roundup of case that we could refer, I had a motorcycle accident for a veteran called me that hearing loss. We send them a three MK site and I found another asbestos case just in a few weeks, just because I made myself take a step back and really look at the whole board and try to see if there was a case beyond the one that we were hired to address where the client may have additional leads. And in each of those I don’t know. I mean, I think most lawyers are aware of this in most jurisdictions. As a personal injury lawyer, a lot of my cases come from other lawyers, who will give me a car accident case to handle maybe there’ll be co counsel, and then I’ll pay them part of my fee. So we refer out medical malpractice, asbestos workers comp, and we handle car accident cases, mostly in house and some other PII cases. But referral fees could be an incredibly useful way to supplement the revenue that you generate practice. So part of this first strategy is really in part related to referral fees. All right, just wanted to kind of backup and break that down. So I guess I would just challenge you to try to look at the whole board and, you know, you got to expect that if someone He comes to us for a divorce case, it may not come up that their aunt has a medical malpractice case. If someone you know has a a DUI, they may never mention that their dad was diagnosed with mesothelioma. But if you slow things down, and they do, the Mesothelioma case, could radically change that family’s life. And it could bring in 300,000 Plus and referral fees to your firm. So I encourage you to try to just slow down a little bit because we all tend to laser focus on the problem we’re hired to solve. Take some time to ask, what else can we do to help? What else is going on in your life? There’s a magic to the phrase, what else? In fact, in the aaj deposition college, one of the things that they stress is using what else instead of anything else? And if you have a really good Starbucks barista, like, if you’re at the drive thru line, they will get you with this. So if they if they say, what else would you like? What else sounds good? Your mind just wanders to like cheese cake pop, let’s do that, you know, but if, if they say do you want anything else? It’s way easier to say no. Anything else defaults to No, what else defaults to searching for an answer. And, you know, it’s still worth asking if you’re a family lawyer, if they need help with an estate plan, because even if you don’t do that, you can be a hub, you can always have the attitude that look, if we can’t help you, we can find someone who can help you. And that can be a way to generate a lot of referrals back to your practice. So then, you know, it’s part of it’s just active listening, or paying attention. I had a case come in to me once, where it’s a sad situation, but a guy’s neighbor’s dog attacked his dog, and they wouldn’t talk to a lawyer about it. They came into my office and his wife was in a massive hard cast. And it never occurred to them to call a lawyer about his wife getting hit by a bus. But they thought about the dog case, clients are crazy, you don’t know what they’re not not going to tell you. So one tool that I developed recently, is this legal needs questionnaire. And I think if I have one big idea in this talk for you, it’s this, consider adding like a legal needs questionnaire, to your intake process or right after your intake process. I’m part of a general practice firm in central Illinois, I have partners who are great at several different areas of law. And so the top part of my questionnaire is mostly geared to see if I can find, you know, criminal work for my partner. And my partner is Andrew, Andrew and Courtney or an adoption case for my partner drew or other work other people in our firm. So I asked if there’s anything apart from what brought you and that you need help with. Now, the bottom half is all like mass tort cases, asbestos cases, cases that we could refer out, and cases that might come up in an industrial town like ours, and cases that honestly might not be on our client’s radar, like, we have found several asbestos related referrals from people who smoked and work in the factory, and they blame their lung cancer just on being a smoker, and then we’re able to maybe recover, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars for their family, that wasn’t at all on their radar. So and when you do that, for someone’s family, it can make a huge difference, especially when, with all the stress they’re going through related to their, their health issues. An example of my questionnaire at this website that please download it, adapt it, maybe it’s part of your intake packet, maybe it’s just a discussion you have with your client, you have like a staff person call to see if there’s anything else going on. And I’ve used it twice in the last week or so with new clients. And one they identified that they also need in the state plan. So I found some work for a partner, and then another something similar med mal case and we found a lung cancer referral case. And they also needed an adoption case that I’m gonna be able to refer to a referral partner of mine. So it really it cost nothing to give this to your clients. There’s there’s no added cost, and it may generate some added value. Now, I guess one other thing I should mention, I think a lot of folks may reasonably say, Well, what if I get a Parkinson’s paraquat case, I don’t know what the hell to do with that there is a great resource in the maximum law space, the maximum referrals page. So if you have a case you don’t know what to do with, I’d encourage you to visit that because you can find a lawyer to help you. The kind of second topic I wanted to go over with you is how you could really focus on the ways that you and your clients can generate value for each other. And there are probably three primary ways your existing clients may need you again, they can also be a source of referrals of their friends, family, their network, and they can also give you reviews. So in the spirit of trying to generate more revenue from your existing books of business, these are kind of the most logical ways. I’ve been part of the Maxwell guild since its inception. And I adore Jim hacking. I think he’s changed my life and the way that he thinks about marketing was so eye opening for me. And then countless guild calls and and hot seats. Jim would say the same thing to people. He would tell them to get their list together. And then the thing about the way he uses his list though, he’s authentic, and he’s as likable as anyone could ever be. And he’s true to himself. And you know, the way he conducts himself just makes people like In all the more so I would encourage you to follow Jim’s first principle, get your list together, and then use it in a way that you’re not being a stuffy lawyer that you’re letting people in letting them know you and who you are, and be memorable. I use a newsletter, I send out a monthly newsletter, I have pictures of I have a goofy looking like ugly old dog with a tuft of white hair that his like dog groomer dies, all different colors. I’ve lots of pictures of like with my kids playing with Legos. And since I’ve started doing it, I usually have a legal tip or a free thing or something. And I highlight my partner’s wins and, but since I started doing it, I’m getting a lot more repeat calls, I’m getting a lot more referral business from past clients. It’s just the way to stay on people’s mind. We’re starting a new newsletter for our firm and one of the things we’re gonna do there is ask for a net promoter score, how likely are you to refer our firm to your friends and family and the people who give us a high rating, we can follow up and ask for review. So that’s another useful way to you can use your list. One thing I learned from Morris Lilienthal, who was so smart, one of the great things about the Maxwell guild is we’ll just call other people for help. Moe is in a general practice firm. He does PII. And he’s adding like all their firm’s practice areas to their business cards to their emails, because if a lawyer does your Will you think of that firms and estate planning firm, if they handle a traffic ticket, you might think of the whole firm as a traffic firm. And we’re going to adopt that as well in hopes that we can generate more work for our partners from our existing clients who may be thinking of us for only one thing, and we do lots of things. I wanted to share another resource. I was thrilled John Fisher can make it here. After getting an enormous verdict, John, in terms of getting reviews from clients, the best thing I’ve ever read on this topic, is a newsletter that John sent out. And if you I have a link, there’s a short link to it here. I also have a link to it on that Resources page I mentioned. If you want to like a best like five minute read for how to get lots of reviews, I would highly recommend you go with John’s approach there. One other thing that John mentioned that really helped me was streaking and I’d been stricken by every single day ask for a review. And that helped me I wanted to get to 100 reviews and both of my kind of locations. I asked review every day and it really helped me get there

Becca Eberhart
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Speaker 3
mentioned earlier the importance of being a hub for referrals. So even if your client or past client or current client comes to you with a need if it’s not something you do, you can build a big network of other professionals and you can take care of your clients by getting to the right people. And they that’s one thing they call on us for I was referred a PI case by a friend of mine a lawyer named Brian Garwood in Peoria, I’m sorry, in Bloomington and his client told me that she doesn’t sign anything without talking to Mr. Garwood. And I mean, what a blessing to have a client who thinks that highly of him, I mean, my dress, she may drive a little crazy at times. But that’s one way we can really help people and serve people is letting them know who they can trust to work with Jordan Ostroff, who’s always in a Hawaiian shirt, and always helpful and funny and kind, and built out this incredible spreadsheet of different professions that you can use for building a referral network. And he gave one of the best mac saw talks I’ve ever heard a few years ago called running a referral based practice. So I would encourage you to watch that and ask Jordan for a copy of his spreadsheet, which he’s very likely to just give you and start filling it out. You’ll be able to better refer your clients other people and get referrals back from it wouldn’t tell you one other story. It’s kind of related. It’s also about another just fortunate kind of moment of serendipity bit of good luck. I was settling two different cases around the same time. One of the cases was for lady who had had a really hard life and like hardly anything was going right for my staff really liked her. I really liked her she was hit by a driver insured by Country Financial, which is one of the best carriers we see in central Illinois. And she had terrible coverage. She had like a substandard carrier. That’s awful to work with. And fortunately, we were able to get a good settlement the at fault drivers carrier because it was a good company to work with. At the same time. I’m suddenly another case for a lady’s really got our act together, who happens to be the office manager for a country financial agent. And even though you know I can miss a lot of things when I’m working on settling these two cases. At the same time. It was really clear to me that the first client had terrible coverage and the second client could help her. So I talked to the first client I say why don’t we give country a little bit of their money back and get you better insurance to protect you and your family. And she thought that sounded fine. How After I’d just given her a big check, so she could afford to buy insurance. So I made that connection. And I’m really glad I did. Because like six weeks later, the first clients driving and an uninsured driver blows the light and T boned her. And she ended up having a policy limits case. So if we hadn’t made that connection, she would have had, at most 25,000 of coverage available, but she had 100 of coverage available. So we got her medical bills paid, we’re able to get her a nice settlement, and do her a lot of good because of dumb luck, because I just happened to be suddenly these two cases at the same time, okay. And it worked out for just fortunate timing, I would not have thought about it. But that again, kind of shook me up, I’m like, Well, I don’t want to miss this in the future. So the third tip I have for you, I think can apply across all practice areas. And that is when you have one of these like serendipitous moments, deconstruct it, and see if this way you can build a system around it. So what happened here we had a client with bad coverage, we were paying her a lot of money, and she wanted to be able to protect herself and her family. So in this example, we had, we just had good timing that we got our coverage like six weeks before she really needed it, it benefited her and her family, it benefited our firm, we had a $33,000 fee instead of an $8,000 fee. It also created a referral partnership with that country financial agent that we sent her to She subsequently sent me a great case and you know, it’s a good carrier, we know that she’ll be treated right. So how do we systematize that. So my staff went through my client list, and we flagged all of our clients with terrible insurance and low limits, and we’re going to send a letter we’re going to try to like intervene earlier with a lot of the folks have bad coverage, we know they’re not going to be able to magically have a bunch of money to get better coverage. So we’re going to make another moment, at the end of our case, we’re paying our clients to take another swing trying to connect them with a better carrier, so they can protect their family. But I think this kind of idea of trying to build a system whenever something really fortunate happens, can apply across practice areas. So like if you’re a family lawyer, when your divorce is done, your client may need an estate plan. So it can be you know, maybe you add a state planning like Elise’s to your service offerings, you may have a client come to you for an expungement maybe, because they realize it’s as soon as they could apply for it. So maybe you think, Gee, why don’t I have like a law clerk go through my inventory of past cases, find the offenses that can be expunged, and create a calendar for when we should send people a letter, like you can build systems around these just fortunate moments. And that can be a great way to generate a lot more revenue from your existing clients. So I guess in closing, I’ll just say that the three tips I have for you for trying to generate more money from your existing book. And this really has in truth made are like Ross came up with the title for this, he’s next door, about adding six figures to the clients you already have. But it truly has in my practice, just these few little simple things. So try to see the whole board tried to like take the time to find cases you can refer and find cases you can you know, one either for referral fees, or just to make sure your folks are taking care of look for the ways you can maximize the value of those relationships both ways. And then when you have something really fortunate happen, that works out well for you and your client, don’t just write it off to lock, take a step back and try to think of how you can build a system around what happened for your clients. So you can benefit from that in the future. That’s all I’ve got for you. I do have a link to the resources that I mentioned my state planning questionnaire, my like legal needs questionnaire, a link to Jordans talk and John Fisher’s post about reviews. So if any, that’s helpful, please reach out. I’d love to talk to you. Thank you. Happy to take any questions, Jordan

Unknown Speaker
were you.

Speaker 3
So it probably varies a lot by practice area. With the questionnaire, my case manager does a lot of my intake and she has been emailing out the questionnaire. When I sit down with someone in the office, I’ve asked I’ve just put it in front of them. And you know, I don’t know if other lawyers using something like that. But it doesn’t seem that wildly different from when you go to the doctor and you, you know, check no a bunch of times, hopefully on different conditions. So I haven’t had any pushback or clients who’ve felt it was terribly invasive. So I think it’s just whoever, like you do it at different phases in the process. It wouldn’t have to be the intake, but that’s when I’ve done it. So it’s been really whoever signing up the client has handled it.

Speaker 3
I think the best answer would be to have like a one answer. But in truth, I think I’ve been thinking about it in a more adaptive way. Because sometimes the goal is with the injury clients is just to get them signed up, you know, and then to revisit that Later, I think that’s probably what the intake gurus like Falco would probably say is get them signed up and then deal with that later. I think if you’re having a long conversation in your office, and he kind of naturally is like, Well, what else, we just give you this and see if there’s anything else going on, where we may be able to give you a resource to help you. And so that’s how I’ve been doing it. But I think your mileage may vary. A couple of my partners who are here have been sending the questionnaire out with their with their new client intake packets, and I haven’t had any pushback yet with that. So I think just see what works best for you.

Speaker 4
subject matters, you want to actually prefer? Yeah, well, so

Speaker 5
nothing. General thing, specific types of cases that you really want to carry out there and bring you back.

Speaker 3
Okay, so there’s a little bit of a learning curve. Not a great big one, though, when you consider the added value, with no real added overhead to your practice. All right. So like pie cases, it seems like there may be liability, and they’re real damages, and there’s coverage, a PII lawyers going to be happy to send you a third of their fee, or whatever the norm is, in your jurisdiction. For that case, a medical malpractice case, it’s I think, largely driven by damages in most jurisdictions. And you’ve got to find like a network of lawyers, you can refer those to on my personal bias, if you want to refer out medical malpractice cases is there’s a lot of danger. And I think in referring to solos, because if something happens to that guy, a case can come back to you years later, and you don’t know where it is. And it’s with a solo, it’s harder to know that they have the resources to adequately fund the cases. So I tend to try to refer to top tier firms with the benches and vast resources. The other cases, I mean, you could go to like something like the or you’re saying, how do you find the lawyers or fewer the cases? Like, I never would have

Speaker 5
thought of a smoker, and you say you’re talking about?

Speaker 3
Well, I’m in a kind of a blue collar, industrial town. And I mean, I think a lot of this will depend on geography, but in where we are, I mean, the asbestos cases seem to be increasingly expansive. What is become a viable case? And I’ll tell you what the asbestos cases like. I think it almost all the ones we found, it wasn’t on the client’s radar. And we’ve told them, there may be a claim that frankly, sometimes surprised that we can connect them to a lawyer who recovered a lot of money for their family. So I think it’s going to depend on your geography and seeing what other lawyers are in your market and surrounding markets. And the same with mass tort cases. I think that’s kind of geography dependent to Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer but stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

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