In today’s episode, Jim and Tyson chat with Neal Goldstein! They dive into the journey of his new book and personal injury law. If you’re interested in learning more about his new book, the shift to a more co-counsel role, and the PI trend, check out this week’s episode.
Neal has devoted almost 30 years to helping victims of personal injuries navigate a challenging maze called the legal system. It has always been his goal that every one of his clients feels respected and attended to. No client should ever pass through the doors and feel isolated or ignored.
He lived the first half of his life near the beach in Far Rockaway, a small community in Southeastern Queens. Currently, he lives in Long Beach, another beachfront community in the Southwestern part of Long Island. Obviously, Neal loves living near the ocean. He has been very involved in the Long Island community and, in 2000 was asked to join the Board of Directors of the Friedberg JCC and a few years later, he was elected to the position of President of the Board.
Neal has always tried to stay active in the communities where he lived, whether it was being involved in youth groups, working in the area, or just keeping in touch with old friends or making new ones.
1:20 the world has changed, and so have I
4:39 maybe I shouldn’t have said that
9:20 how we’ve evolved into who we are today
12:11 why the shift
16:07 I always maintained some kind of relationship with a client
20:35 finding out what you like
Jim’s Hack: Leave a legacy for your kids. Think about different ways to memorialize your journey in life to leave for your kids.
Neal’s Tip: Check out the Steve Jobs commencement speech on YouTube.
Tyson’s Tip: Send a text to at least one friend a day letting them know that they’re awesome!
Watch the podcast here.
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Transcript: Labor of Love with Neal Goldstein
Speaker 1
Hi, this is Neil Goldstein, personal injury lawyer from Long Island, and you’re listening to the maximum lawyer podcast.
Speaker 2
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast. Podcast. I’m your host, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m Tyson metrics. What’s up, Jimmy?
Jim Hacking
Oh, Tyson, I’m really excited about the show today we have a guest on it’s so great, because I don’t need to read a bio. I don’t need to look up who he is. You know, sometimes we get people on here. And we’re like, Who’s this guy? But this is our old friend. Neil Goldstein. Neil, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you. It’s been a while. And I’m so glad that you invited me back. And I could see you guys. At least I could see your face. Well, not your January your you know, but I could Oh, there you go. I could see your face. And thank you for having me back.
Tyson Mutrux
So Neil, I normally ask people to tell their journey. You can do that if you want. But what I really want to know is what’s been going on since the last time you came on the show?
Speaker 1
Wow. Well, the world has changed. Right? Tyson, the world has changed. And so have I mean, the firm is still here, we’re still practicing our personal injury, we’re kind of pivoted towards doing a lot of of counsel work and CO counsel work. So we’re working on that. But on a personal level, I’ve pivoted, and I’m just just finished my book, which means it’s in publication, which means it will be out this fall. And so I’m really excited about that.
Jim Hacking
Well, let’s talk about the book because we know that it’s been a labor of love for you. I know that I have and I think Tyson did to get to read a chapter of the book. And I know you and I were talking about it before you even started on the book, when we had that wonderful dinner in Long Island. Why don’t you tell everybody? Why did you write the book and what is in the book.
Speaker 1
So, you know, like Tyson wanted to fly all his life and did it, I have wanted to write a book, I don’t know, for as long as I could remember, but I just, I didn’t get to it. And I and I really couldn’t find that I found an excuse one one excuse after another. And then about two years ago, right before the pandemic, coincidentally, I decided, Okay, I’m going to write a book. And I really wanted the book to be a legacy for my kids. And that was the original intent. And that really is was the focus. And then somewhere along the line, I said, this really isn’t with my whole mission of trying to you know, teach people about life and about relationships. So I said, you know, what, if I can help a few people out, besides my kids, that would be really good. And so the book really, in a nutshell, is it’s relatively short book. It’s not it’s not long, it’ll be about 140 150 pages. And it’s stories about my life, and the lessons that I learned, and ways that you can apply that the lessons that I’ve learned, either in your own personal life or even in your business life.
Tyson Mutrux
So Neil, tell me about the process of making the book and not the actual like, okay, finding the publisher, and right now, I want to talk about, like, the soul searching part of this. So where did you find those stories? I mean, tell me about that process.
Speaker 1
You know, I got to say, Tyson, it’s emotional, even as I’m going to talk about it. Now, I can tell you, it’s tough. It’s not like I’m writing a mystery. Or I’m writing, you know, a factual book that has to do with something everybody knows about. Or I’m writing a book, like the 10 things to do when you’re in a car accident, all good books, but not something that is so part of your life. And so, in the beginning, Tyson, it was really easy, because, you know, these are stories that I knew nobody else knew. And so it’s easy to write that you it’s been locked in my brain, or somewhere else for who knows how long and I got that, you know, and I got the ability to just, you know, verbally, or to write, you know, not verbally, but I was able to just extrapolate it from my head and put it on paper was relatively easy. I didn’t really have to go research anything. But then it became a bit more difficult. As we got into some areas that were a little darker. What do you put in? What don’t you put in? And then when you reread it, when you edit it, you say, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe I should say it a little bit differently. How is it going to affect this person or that person? So you can imagine the challenges?
Tyson Mutrux
I do have a follow up, Jim. So Neil, about that part of it. That is actually one of my major questions about this. How do you make the decision as to whether or not to offend this person in a And that person and whether or not to leave it in or whether not to leave it out, because I’m assuming some of these things might hurt some feelings. So how do you make that decision? That’s tough?
Speaker 1
It is. And, you know, you try to stick to you try to go back to the reason that you wrote the book. You want to be honest with everybody. I’m not looking to directly offend anybody, but I’m also not looking to hide things. Yes, I was discreet in some areas, because, you know, there are people that, you know, that I’m trying to be somewhat careful with. And mostly that has to do with my children. But for the most part, the truth is, most of the hard stuff is about me in in some dark areas. It’s not necessarily offend other people. The question is, do I want to tell the world that I just did this? Or that I did this, you know, how many years ago? And the answer was, yeah, I do. And yeah, might some people might be offended about something I might have said, Maybe yes. And, you know, that’s just too bad. I mean, I, I’ve also said some very nice things about lots of people. And that’s really what the book is about. It’s not really about me, it’s really about other people,
Jim Hacking
the name of the book, or at least the working title was who’s in the waiting room. And I know that you spend a lot of time talking to me and other lawyers about the importance of personal relationships. Can you talk a little bit about the title and relationships? Yeah, who’s
Speaker 1
in the waiting room? Is it’s really, you know, it’s fairly straightforward. It’s about how do we, in our lives, and I’m not going to separate personal life and work life because it’s 24 hours a day, it’s one life, it’s not two calendars, it’s one calendar, stuff you do at home with your wife and your kids is going to have a direct impact at work. And stuff that goes on at work has a direct impact on your personal life. It’s imperative that, you know, I believe, let’s start at the outset, I believe that everybody has a right to succeed. And I think the way we do that, is we create genuine and authentic relationships. And I believe that unlocks your true self. And I hope that my book takes people through the process of understanding how do we create authentic relationships, not Facebook friends that, you know, you like this, like, not how many people follow you, who’s really in it to be in it? Who’s blowing smoke up your ass and who’s not? And yeah, that’s not always easy. But most of the steps that I go through are things that we all know about, I didn’t invent anything new, that these are things that your mom probably taught you to do. But somehow we forgot. So I’m hoping that you know, the book really takes people a little bit of a ride some stories, and they get something out of each one.
Tyson Mutrux
So I’ve always thought Jim, like, he’s always way better at me that like really, like being in touch with himself, you know, emotionally and internally. And I’m working on getting better at that. And I wonder if you’re going through this process one, and maybe you’ve already, you’ve always been sort of like Jim more like Jim than me. But I wonder if part of going through this process, if it’s sort of unlocked anything in you that you didn’t really know, was there before?
Speaker 1
Well, it’s definitely a cathartic process. I mean, when you’re writing a book about your life, there are moments that you realize, you know, things that you did, how strong they made you feel, how weak they made you feel, you realize, at times, you know, your weaknesses, for sure. And then and more importantly, you realize your strength, most of us look back at things that we did, and we saw maybe, you know, in my case, I saw a kid that was, you know, was shy and was not not even shy, I was lost, truly lost. I mean, I grew up with no relationships in my life. And I saw what life was like, back then. And then I found real relationships. And I saw what life would be like, could be like, with relationships. So yeah, I mean, when we look back, we can look at the journey in a very different way. And when we’re, and we’re right, when we are writing a book, or was sharing the story, we can truly see how we’ve evolved into who we are today. And so yeah, I think it does, it does bring us back to a sense of awareness of who we are, what our purpose is. And for me, of course it is to try and help other people see the same.
Jim Hacking
Neal, the first chapter of the book has to do with your family of origin. And I can’t think of a time that I’ve spoken to you that we didn’t talk about your mom and your brother, can you talk to our listeners, as law firm owners and as human beings, like the importance of working through the issues related to your family of origin
Speaker 1
100% In fact that at the end of every one of my chapters, I asked I go through some actions steps that people can take, to really take a moment to think about their early relationships. My mother, who was a wonderful, wonderful human being, but was going through our own personal journey of hell, for many years while I was younger. So, you know, I had to really grasp what I went through, to figure out what I’m going to do in my life. And, you know, when we look back, whether we’re lawyers, or doctors, or whoever we are, we’re able to connect the dots a lot easier, we’re able to say, Oh, I understand why I had to go through this to be where I am today. And if you can reach back and look at those moments, there is no question in my mind, you will have the ability to open yourself up to better relationships, real relationships, relationships with clients, that will be much better people will come to you because they know something about you that makes them feel good. There’s something about you that they like, you may not be the best immigration lawyer, I know you are. But you may not be the best immigration lawyer, but they want to be with you that because they like Jim, they want to be with Tyson because they like Tyson. I’m certainly not the best lawyer in the world, but they want to be with you and there. And there are ways to genuinely do that. There are ways to look back at your life and say, hey, you know what, I’m a strong person. Here’s where my strengths are. Let me share that with my clients. Stop trying to be who I think I should be, what the world tells me I should be.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s great. I am going to shift gears a little bit now. And I want to hear about this shift to a co counsel slash of counsel model business model. I have heard of other attorneys doing this, especially in the personal injury realm. Tell me about this new experience for you. I’m I did not know that you were shifting to this. So this I’m really curious to see how this is going, why the shift and tell me more about it?
Speaker 1
Well, the why the shift is I just I’m doing this 35 years, I’m tired of doing the day to day legal stuff, let’s just say that. And, you know, I have always had even when I was doing wasn’t working in the firm doing full time litigation. You know, I always would refer a case out. And then a year or two later, get back a check for 50 $100,000 and say, Hey, that’s pretty good. And then at some point, I said, you know, let me just start doing this a little bit more and see how that works out. Now, keep in mind, Tyson, when I work of CO counsel or of counsel to somebody, I’m involved, I’m not just one of these referring attorneys who say, Okay, here’s a file, here’s a case, I want you to handle it, and just send me the check whenever it’s ready. I don’t do I stay in touch with the client, I stay in touch with the lawyer. I’m involved in conferences, to the extent that I need to I’m not looking to micromanage, that’s what I want to get out of. But my my See, we go back to relationships, my relationships with the clients remain the same. They want to call me they can they know them watching over their case very carefully. I have great relationships with the attorneys that I work with, because they know they can count on me, especially if there’s a difficult client deal with the client because the client likes me and they know I have relationship with them. So that’s off their back. If they need some assistance or advice, I give it to them, I try to share whatever my years of experience have taught me. And so it really does work on all those levels and quite frankly, less overhead for me a lot less overhead for me less hours working on the cases. That’s nice. I what didn’t always feel that way. But it’s nice and it allows me to pivot and do other things. So it’s worked out, I’m still trying to kind of polish it up a little bit. I’d like to be the best co counsel the best referring attorney, anybody could ever want. So we’ll see how that works out.
Jim Hacking
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Tyson Mutrux
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Jim Hacking
You’re listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. Our guest today is Neil Goldstein. He’s the author of a new book called who’s in the waiting room. He’s a very successful plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer from Long Island, New York. Neil, following up on that, can you walk us through from idea when, like when that idea first came in your head to start moving towards more of a co counsel role to the actual process of doing it, and then sort of how you felt on the back end?
Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, when you’re young, and while you’re in the prime of your career, you don’t like referring cases out because you don’t want to lose the potential client, right? Because you think, okay, if I refer this case out, I’m gonna lose a client. And that was the way I was taught by my predecessor, who’s been gone a long time. And I’m sure people before him. And I always felt that way. It changed when I realized some clients started calling me back as opposed to the referring attorney, if there was a new matter why, because I always maintain some kind of relationship with the client. Not every client, but many. And so as I got older, and as I got a little bit more burnt out of doing the day to day things, in the personal injury world, I said, Isn’t this a good exit ramp? Isn’t this a good way to kind of pivot and think about exiting, and so I started doing, you know, increasing the amount of counsel or CO counsel work, literally, you know, all over the country. And, you know, it really is working, but if you have, for me, it’s sticking to the the basic values of making sure the client is always happy. Never letting the client’s hand go. Yes, I’m not again, I’m not looking to micromanage. But um, you know, I’m looking for the client to have a really good experience. And if that good experience is with another lawyer, no sweat. And if they go back to the other lawyer, that’s fine with me to really, I don’t have a problem with that. I want the client to have a good experience. And if I can make some money doing that, well, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.
Tyson Mutrux
So Neil, I’m gonna ask you a question. That may seem a little odd. But so I’ve heard like that in its heyday, Pi was just amazing. I it’s always been good to me, right? It’s been really good to me. But with your you’ve been doing this for quite a while now. I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how, you know, personal injury and 20 years is gonna start to go away with with autonomous vehicles and things like that. I just wonder when it comes to trends? What are you seeing that same trend? Or just curious what your thoughts are on that?
Speaker 1
No, I remember a Tyson when I was applying to law school. And back then they said there was a glut of lawyers, right? And I said to my brother, I said, You think I really should do this? And he stopped for a moment. And he says, Let me tell you something. I’ll repeat what I’ve been repeating. If your clients like you, you’ll always do well, there will always be personal injuries, there’s no season for personal injuries, there’s no better economic times when people decide they’re going to get hurt, or fall or get hit by something. So you know, yes, automobile accidents down probably serious accidents. Yeah. But then there are cases that we never even thought about. So for instance, we’ve handled a lot of sexual assault cases, all of a sudden, in the last, you know, 10 years, that’s become very, that’s become a trend, a lot of increasing amount of sexual assault cases. And we’re we I mean, we’ve handled plenty of them. I’ve handled personally plenty of bullying cases. Now. They’re not all cases. Some are many aren’t. But nobody would have thought that 25 years ago, 20 years ago, so yes. Is there a trend that maybe they’re going to be less auto accident? Yes. But there’s always going to be something going on a lot of construction going on a lot of building going on, more and more of those cases are popping up. So I don’t know, I think if you’re, you know, if you’re if you do what, what I, what I keep on talking about and you know, you get involved and your clients like you, I don’t think you’re going to have a bad career in personal injury. Nia, we
Jim Hacking
have a lot of members, especially in the guild, who are really pushing themselves hard. They get frustrated when they’re not growing as fast as they want. They might not be seeing the financial successes or the personal successes that they want. From your perspective. What advice do you have for those people that are just grinding real hard and sort of upset with the way things are?
Speaker 1
Well, I would say a few things that I’m probably people are going to complain about.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, let’s hear it. I want to hear it open.
Speaker 1
I’ll tell you the things that bother me. And then, you know, there are answers to these. So one, I always tell young people especially forget about the Bar Association’s forget about, you know, trying to get clients from a civic org As ations, or whatever you’ve been told to do in terms of joining networking groups, you know, traditional networking groups, forget about it, if you want to join it, because you like that stuff, by all means go do it. But that’s not where you’re going to build a long term client base. That’s not where it happens. That’s one thing. You want an answer to that one? Yes, let’s hear Sure. Well, the answer, in part has to do with finding out what you like, what do you want to do? Right? What is it that Tyson really likes? Tyson joins a group where all they’re interested in is flying around St. Louis, he’s probably going to find more clients that way than any other way. Why? Because they know he’s not just joining just to, you know, try and, you know, pick up clients he’s joining, because he really likes it, join things you really like. So if you like nude sunbathing, go join that group. That’s Tyson’s group. Join the group that people are going to look at you and say, You know what, he’s really cool. He’s really interested in this. He’s not really pushing his shit, you know about being a lawyer and all this, we like this guy. Forget about the other stuff, do the other stuff. If you want to learn if you want to learn things professionally, okay. But that’s not where you’re going to build a long term client base, long term client base, you could go two ways. You know, get building a practice for clients, you could spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars on Google every month. And there’s a place for that if that’s what you like. But if you want long term investments, start now start small. Start with the things your mother told you. Right? When you meet people. Be kind, be respectful. Ask them how they are when you meet them the next time. Ask them how their kids are, be authentic. Don’t be Makka Deleon, we’re not doing anything underhanded here, be authentic. Stick to those things, and you will find your way out of frustration. It’s not an easy, short term, go fix here, it takes time to love
Tyson Mutrux
it. I think that’s a good way of ending and wrapping things up. So we’re going to begin wrapping things up. Before I do I want to remind everyone to join us in the Facebook group, we got a lot great activity going on there. And lots of members. If you want a more high level conversation, go to the guild Max law guild.com. Join us there, we’d love to have you. And while you’re listening to the rest of this episode with our tips and our hacks, please give us a five star review. We would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what’s your hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
So from my neck of the week, I think the inception of this book by Neil Goldstein came about because he was trying to think about what kind of legacy does he want to leave for his kids. And I think about that a lot. I know it sounds strange, but I know that someday in the future, my kids are gonna watch my videos, they’re gonna listen to the advice that we give on the podcast, and they know that they’re gonna listen to it. So I think you should all be thinking about ways to memorialize the journey of your life, not necessarily creating things, but just sort of telling stories as you go along. Because now that my dad’s gone, I know how much I appreciate just the limited amount of stuff. We have footage of him.
Tyson Mutrux
I love that. I like that a lot. I’ve thought about that quite a bit. Jim. I think it’s cool that we’ve and someone talked about it whenever we just celebrate or what is it six year anniversary, I think is what it is, I call it a Maxwell day. But the it’s just cool to like think about like and be able to go back and listen to those early episodes from six years ago and just watch the progression. So I think that that’s really, really neat. But Neil, you know, the routine, what is your tip or hack of the week?
Speaker 1
While I was really thinking about this, this, this part actually gave me more thought than everything else. And I want you to figure it out. Let me let me give everybody something different to do. And maybe some people have seen this already. So if you have seen it again, if you haven’t see it now, because it’ll only take 16 minutes, go on YouTube, and type in Steve Jobs commencement speech. And I know a lot of people may not be a big fan of Steve Jobs. But his commencement speech is riveting. It’s real. And if you’re having a tough time in life, that what you’re doing about what to do, I think you might feel a little bit better after seeing it.
Tyson Mutrux
It really is a great commencement speech. I forgot all about that. I need to go back and watch that so great. Really good now.
Unknown Speaker
Yep, yep,
Tyson Mutrux
this might backfire on me. But Jim, do you remember what text I sent yesterday?
Jim Hacking
He told me I was awesome or something.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, you’re I sent you a text and said you’re a badass. I just want to let you know. And here’s my tip. Send a text like that to your friends and one a day and just lighten up their life right pass on some positivity. That is my tip of the week. I am trying to pass on more positivity to people spread there’s so much negativity in the world. rolled, like to spread liberal more positivity. So that’s what I did. So I like to do that more often. Love it. Love it. Very, very good. Yeah, wait
Jim Hacking
real real quick before we wrap Tyson make sure to ask Neil how people can get the book.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, Neil, let us know how you get the book,
Speaker 1
easy truth in success.com truth in success.com, put your name on an email address, you’ll get the book. And if you type forward slash truth, you’ll get a free PDF cheat sheet on some things I talked about today. And thank you again, guys for having me. I’ve watched your journey. I met you got both you guys a while back with John Fisher. And your journey has been really cool. Thank you for having me.
Jim Hacking
Thanks, Neil. This was great.
Tyson Mutrux
Thank you so much. Now really appreciate you share. Love it. Thanks, buddy. Bye.
Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content content, go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.
