The Referral Revolution: Transforming Legal Tech One Connection at a Time With Chris Rose | EP 65

0:00Chris Keller: Welcome back to First Light, the show where we shine a light on the people and principles of driving transformation, leadership, and legacy. Today's guest is someone who brings energy, humor, and strategy to everything he touches. Chris Rose, a Las Vegas-based attorney and founder of LegalFlare.com, a game-changing legal referral platform. From billing cards in a casino to now dealing connections between clients and attorneys across the country, Chris has got a reputation as the referral attorney, helping firms grow through relationships and accountability, but established his journey, the power of standing at and how to create something for a traditional industry and spark real transformation.

0:39Chris Keller: All right, Chris, I want to welcome you to First Light. And I know you went from casino dealer to law firm owner to tech founder. So can you take us back to kind of the origins of where you got your start and LegalFlare?

0:53Chris Rose: Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you having me on, Chris. This is a big honor for me. Yeah. I'm really excited to be here.

1:00Chris Rose: So yeah, I live in Las Vegas. It's only natural that most people get run through the service industry in one form or another. I was a casino dealer for 11 years. I used that to go back to college, get my degree in poli sci, and my original idea was to go into politics. And then through law school into politics. Once I got into politics, it was 10% really exciting and awesome to see the sausage being made. The 90% was sitting in boring assembly meetings, taking notes, like punch me in the face.

1:37Chris Rose: So then after that, I got into sales and marketing for a legal services company. And that's really how I expanded my network, got to meet as many people as possible, just traveling the conference circuit. And as I was going around, people got to know me and I was getting text messages, emails all the time. Hey, do you know someone in this state that does med mal? Do you know a personal injury attorney in Washington? And I referred out a case just not even thinking about it. I could have gotten a $10,000 referral fee if I just stopped to think about it for a moment. And then it gave me an idea. Like, I don't really want to practice law, but I do want to make a lot of money. So how can I implement this? And then from there, it just came into like facilitating referrals. And it's just grown.

2:27Chris Keller: I know you branded yourself as the referral attorney, you know, and you talked about where that idea came from, but how have you kind of, to take us through like starting your business and the business model and where the early roots to where you're at now?

2:42Chris Rose: Oh, yeah. Okay. Love this question. So originally my idea was I would be a business to consumer model. I would market to consumers and say, because they're always asking, everybody calls, do you know a good wills, trusts and estates attorney, criminal defense attorney, PI? And so I would use my expertise to help consumers find a better attorney for them. But the problem was I was still marketing against all of the other, the largest guys in the room, and they just take up, they make so much noise that it's hard to be heard.

3:13Chris Rose: And as I was calling around, meeting more firms, meeting more attorneys, I started to hear that there were firms that were actually having a hard time referring cases in between themselves because, you know, a lot of these large marketing companies, sometimes they're overloaded or, you know, they don't have the resources or capability to move a lot of those cases. And then I just really, I just listened, listened to my clients. And the more they told me about what they needed, I just started saying, yeah, I can do that. I can do that. And then it went from moving cases from pre-litigation to litigation to helping firms that get too many leads or get leads out of their jurisdiction or practice area and taking those leads and moving them to firms that can actually handle them and then setting up fee split agreements.

4:00Chris Keller: You know, I think many attorneys struggle with referrals, you know, either giving them, receiving them, and tracking them. What do you think is really broken in the referral ecosystem today? And how do you solve for it? The legal player.

4:15Chris Rose: Yeah, great question. Oh, these are good. So I'd say that one of the biggest ones that I see is violations of the rules of professional conduct. And, you know, it's not a thing until you get caught. That's just what it's like. So a lot of the arrangements I see, they're not, it depends on every jurisdiction, but the model rules require either an assumption of responsibility or proportionality of work. It has to be disclosed to the clients, all of the parties and the percentages. And a lot of attorneys just aren't disclosing that. It's a handshake agreement. And it's fine until it isn't. That's probably the biggest one.

4:55Chris Rose: And then, you know, cascading from there is the administration of moving the clients, you know, so there's no drop in the handoff, as well as making sure that the partners that they're sending these cases to are maximizing the value on those cases, treating their clients well. There's so much coordination that most people just don't realize. It's not just a phone call and a handoff. You've got to have status updates, because if there's the assumption of responsibility and somebody blows a filing deadline, well, now you can catch a malpractice suit. So it's constantly updating, constantly watching these deadlines that there's so much work. And then, of course, making sure everybody gets paid the amount that they're supposed to get paid. So it's, there's a lot more than even I suspected there was as I started building it out.

5:44Chris Keller: Yeah. So take us through building this platform. I love thelegalflare.com. I love your branding. And so take us through that.

5:54Chris Rose: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So building it all out. Originally it was phone calls and emails because I've got a massive network. Or so I would get these emails, this is the case, or this is the lead. And then I would just call around if it was in an area that I didn't really know someone, I would call my friends. Hey, do you know someone that does this? You know, someone that does that in this area and making those introductions. And one of the things I ran into the most is I would get all the time firms that would tell me, Hey, you know, we don't, referrals are referral fees are unethical. Just have them call my, call my phone line. Like that makes no sense because there are people, there are firms that have put so much into marketing to get those leads. And then just to hand it off to someone who doesn't appreciate the business of law.

6:45Chris Rose: And so it went from, you know, Excel spreadsheets and emails. Then I hired my executive assistant, Kirsten, and that's, she really allowed me to scale because then we went into better tracking with a lead management software. And then we incorporated in a referral platform so that we could bring on our entire network. And so now we can bring in these leads. We can properly attribute the source. We can send them out to our partners. We know when they're receiving them. We know when they're reviewing them, if they accept them, if they decline them, all those status updates are done automatically. And really I'm just trying to scale this as efficiently as possible. That way everything is just done immediately. And, you know, the less I have to do the better off it's going to be. So it's more of just a matter of, you know, monitoring the system and making sure that everybody is living up to their part of the bargain and being the best attorneys that they can.

7:42Chris Keller: Yeah. I love it. So much of, so many of us, I should say we have, sometimes we have a great idea to fix a solution or fix a problem. And we have a big idea, but we don't make any, we don't take any actions. So here you saw a problem, took some actions. That's awesome. Number two, you know, what you said was amazing where you talked about your executive assistant and bringing on this assistant, how that really kind of helped take you to another level. So understanding that we can't do it all. And sometimes we need some help. So that's awesome as well.

8:13Chris Keller: And then a lot of us are, you know, good attorneys. If you're an attorney or maybe you're, you know, whatever business it is, you're good at that thing. You're a doctor, you're accountant, you're good at being what you're at, but the business side of it's hard. And so I know that I struggled with that for many years is, you know, how do I, you know, how do I track when I give a referral? How do I follow up to find out how that case went? Most referral relationships, I believe, and still, unfortunately are, you give a client a phone number of another law firm, maybe you made the connection, maybe you reach out and then two, three years later, you get a referral check in the mail and there was nothing in between. So, I love what you're doing. So, appreciate that.

8:59Chris Keller: And let's talk about, you know, it looks like you're always evolved. You're always growing, you know, where did that mindset come from to be this entrepreneur, to have this big vision, then to go take this action and take that risk to create this, to solve this problem?

9:11Chris Rose: Yeah. You know, it probably at the root, at the heart of it all is just imposter syndrome. Like I'm constantly trying to do more, to accomplish more, just to prove, you know, to myself and anybody that's watching that I'm not, you know, that, or at least to stave off the realization that, you know, I'm not as great as, you know, all of these accomplishments make it seem, but really, I just love the challenge of it. It's figuring out, it's looking at a system and understanding where those gaps in the system are, where the inefficiencies in the system are, addressing those problems, creating a solution, and then trying to make that solution better.

9:57Chris Rose: So it's, I probably all goes back to video games. Like as a kid, I just loved solving video games. And then when I'd solve it, it's like, what, can I solve it faster? And I do it without dying, you know? And so now that I'm looking at this business, it's almost like a video game. How can we do this better? And when someone asked me, can you, can you do this? Can you make this happen? My first impulse is always to say, yes, I can do that. And then I go to Kirsten and I say, okay, this is what we have to do. How can we do it? And then when it works, how can we make it better?

10:29Chris Rose: And it goes back. I was just referencing an article that Paul Graham wrote. He's big in the startup culture and it's called Do Things That Don't Scale. And the whole idea is just accomplish things that are tough at first. You got to do them manually. And then when it works, look to automate it, look to make it more efficient, look to scale it. And the legal industry largely doesn't do that. So it's ripe for innovation. I'm just happy that I'm very fortunate that I came along at this time.

11:02Chris Keller: Yeah. A couple of things, you know, it's funny you brought the, kind of the playing game. So I brought that up in a recent podcast that I felt like I'm playing Tetris. You know, as you know, you're, when you start out your business, you're in a level one, everything's a little bit slow moving. The pieces kind of fit together a little bit better. Then all of a sudden, as you begin to scale, you know, the, it's, you know, and the level goes up, things move a little bit faster. It gets a little bit harder to make those pieces in, you know, you keep, have to go up that cloud, those levels. And it is so funny.

11:32Chris Keller: So it's funny that you said that, but whether you're an attorney or you're in legal tech, I know you've talked about, you know, standing out, being memorable, being memorable. What advice do you have for lawyers or entrepreneurs for that matter about kind of standing out, not be, you know, without being gimmicky and being, you know, being a brand like LegalFlare?

11:52Chris Rose: Yeah. Oh, these are good questions. I love this part. Not only because it's just me, I have to build this and then sell it as well. And so it's a matter of getting in front of people, being around people, talking to people, understanding their problems. And the first thing is show up, just show up, go to conferences, knock on doors, go into law firms, go to galas, go to, if you see two attorneys on a corner, like go up and start talking to them. That's you got, you have to interact. That's the first thing.

12:27Chris Rose: And then once you take that first step, it's a matter of being authentic. I mean, if you're not a nice person, like you gotta like find a way to like make that work for you because inauthenticity, if people recognize that you're trying to be something you're not, it's such a turnoff and it pushes people away. So lean into getting in front of people and then find yourself and be comfortable with yourself. And more than anything, get those reps in. It's just like going to the gym. The hardest part of the gym, 90% of it is just showing up and then getting your technique down and then just getting better at it over and over and over. That's really what it comes down to.

13:14Chris Rose: So I started showing up at conferences. Some of the first ones, like I felt so awkward. God, I remember my first conference, it was a San Diego consumer, something like that. I didn't know anybody. And so I knew the most important part was to look like I belonged. So I would just walk around and say, Hey, what's going on? Hello, how you doing? And shake hands and then walk off before people were like, who was that guy? You know, so that people would see me when I went to like my first Mass Torts Made Perfect in Vegas, I didn't know, I maybe knew like four or five people. So I made sure to sit in a thoroughfare where people were moving through just like a billboard. And so I just sat there so that as people were moving, they recognized me. And then when I would meet them at a later conference, they'd be like, Oh, I see you. I know you, you show up to everything. I'm like, yeah, yeah. You see me everywhere. And then it's that familiarity that breeds comfort and then from comfort goes to trust. And when someone trusts you, that's when you can approach them to ask them about their problems or offer solutions because now they recognize you and just being yourself.

14:25Chris Keller: Well, you know, you can learn a lot in textbooks and reading business books, but you learn a lot through experience too. How do you think those early experiences working in a casino for 11 years helped shape some of this for you?

14:35Chris Rose: Yeah, that's probably where I got all my confidence from because when I went into the casino industry, I was, I may have had confidence, but I wasn't great at interactions. And when you have to stand at a table and anybody can walk up and just start talking to you and I can't run away. And on top of that, I have to entertain them while actively taking their money. Like it's like diametrically opposed. And so right away, I got really good at not only talking about any subject. You bring up anything I can do at least a shallow dive into it. But what's most important is finding out, recognizing what people want to talk about. And so that's the easiest way to move in through a conversation. And it goes back to the old adage, if you want to be interesting, be interested. And so I would just, Hey, you know, I would, I would like scamper across all of these topics and see whatever one resonated with them. And then like, that's the one I would zone in on and just talk about that. And that's, you know, I mean, really as a casino dealer, we lived off of tips. So that's, that was the best way, like be entertaining, get those tips, make that money.

15:52Chris Keller: Well, let's talk a little bit about legal tech. Cause you know, I've talked about on some other podcasts, law firms tend to be about 10 years behind the curve in tech. So talk about how you've broken into the law firm space with legal tech and then kind of the future of legal tech, but more importantly, the future of LegalFlare as it relates to legal tech in the industry.

16:15Chris Rose: Yeah, this is a tough subject. And I'm really, I'm glad you brought it up and I love like, you're already showing it, like being into a podcast, you know, you know, being on some of these referral platforms, like recognizing the people that are going out there and making, you know, the strides and innovation that are necessary. The biggest, it really runs the gamut in terms of lawyers, because I say it all the time, lawyers want a lawyer. And that often means that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And sometimes even if it is broken, they don't fix it. Like fax machines are still a thing. I know attorneys that have their assistants print off their emails, you know, and give them to them to read.

17:04Chris Rose: And so there are developments in terms of, you know, better case management software, better lead management software, better referral platforms, referral tracking, there's a communication software. And then of course the biggest thing, everybody talks about AI and everything is AI these days. So that like nothing is AI that we will begin to see those differentiations in terms of what those AI personalities and capabilities all look like. But at the moment, AI is just, everything is AI. And so it doesn't really mean anything right now, but what we will begin to see is more of these small tasks being automated and whether that's, you know, intake, intake is a big one because a lot of firms have terrible intake because someone doesn't answer the phone or, you know, their intake specialist had a bad day or they're, you know, reviewing the case, you know, and they miss some facts. They don't know what to ask. That's a big one. Those are dropped cases.

18:07Chris Rose: And then once you take that lead and you move it through and they, the attorney doesn't call them regularly, the client, you know, they need those updates. Keeping them in the loop because so much about this is not just the goal of resolving a problem. It's the experience throughout. I know so many, you know, mediocre attorneys that have great reviews because they're actually really, you know, nice people. And that's part of the experience.

18:34Chris Rose: Then we're going to start getting into things like, you know, document review. That's fading so quickly. I don't know what defense firms are going to do. And, you know, honestly, I don't have care, honestly, but, you know, those hours of sending, you know, first year associates into the bowels of their building to do document review. It's not necessary anymore and you can get better document review. And then even more than that, when you really look at AI, it's not, a lot of people use AI as a tool. It's not a tool. It's a resource and being able to ask it questions and bring out, you know, new ideas and use it for, like, you know, understanding, getting a better, you know, how can I say this? A better view of not only the case that they're working on, but the entire legal system around that, like a new partner.

19:32Chris Rose: And as lawyers slowly catch up, because this is a business, you're going to see much more competition. We already see it. We already know who the biggest players are in the market. You know, they're coming in using sharp elbows and the law firms that refuse to be competitive are going to go by the wayside. We're going to see more consolidation in this space. And a lot of that is going to, going to be through innovation and efficiency. So what's it going to look like in 10 years? I think we're going to see a lot less mom and pops. I think we're going to see, you know, a lot of the biggest players coming in and it's just like in all of the major industries, consolidation, inefficiency, and then, you know, 20 years. Well, who knows what that will be, but it's exciting times.

20:19Chris Keller: Yeah. You know, it's funny, you know, I never thought I would say this, but I think I've said it a couple of times lately. You know, Google is obsolete to me. You know, used to Google is where I went for everything. And now there's so many other options and better options, frankly, than Google. And so I rarely, if at all log into Google anymore, it's all ChatGPT, Grok, you know, pick one, Gemini, whatever you want to go to there. They've all got their, you know, pluses and minuses, but so much, so much to do in ChatGPT or, you know, right now I'm training for a full Ironman and it's my coach, you know, make sure that I'm on track to hit my goals. It's telling me what to eat. It's helping me put my rest recovery days and what to do is stretching. It's giving me routines. It's just, you know, it tells me what a great job doing. It gives me that pat on the back. I mean, it's amazing what you can do with AI. So, you know, Google for me is kind of, is obsolete, which crazy to say.

21:13Chris Keller: What does success look like for you? How do you define success in both your personal and professional life?

21:22Chris Rose: I do tell, I do tell a lot of people this, success for me is owning a yacht. Like I, and I joke about it on my vision board. I have a captain's hat. I tell everybody I want to own a yacht. And do I like boats? I mean, not really like it's a cool idea, but if you own a yacht, it means you've got so much money that you can just throw away because they're expensive to upkeep, to park somewhere, to have a crew, like just to get from A to B is like ridiculously expensive. So what does success look like? It means I can just throw money away on something that I only like.

22:06Chris Rose: So like that's like, you know, the, what I, the simplest way, but really success is for me is to build something that makes a tremendous impact on this industry. Something that improves, not just the client experience or the law firm experience, but contributes to making things faster, simpler. And that's when, you know, when they're closing the casket on me, I'd like to think that I made a contribution that almost no one could have in that moment. And that will be my self-satisfaction. The yacht is to flex on everybody else. But for me, just to have, you know, taken my brain, the, my blessings and put it towards something. And I think that that'll be it. That'll be real success for me.

23:16Chris Keller: Lastly, you know, my son, for example, he's a ways off from it, but he's all into software engineering and design developments, all things technology. I mean, that's the, you know, that generation is going to be so much different than that generation when it comes to technology, but not necessarily my son, but when you're speaking to entrepreneurs or business owners or someone who is wanting to start a business or getting into legal tech, what's the best piece of advice that you give and offer?

23:46Chris Rose: Best piece of advice. You know, they say the worst vice is advice. I can only say what's worked for me and it's always going to differ, but listen, just listen to people because so often I see, you know, new businesses that spring up because they're, you know, AI or, you know, medical records retrieval, you know, medical chronologies or it's, they're like riding a wave and they're looking at what other people are doing and trying to, here's the worst thing you can do. You can look at what someone else is doing and make that better. If your differentiation in the market is we do this except better, that's a terrible business model. Instead, go and talk to the people in the industry, whatever that is, whoever they want to service, just ask questions, learn about what their day to day looks like. And when you begin to see those problems begin to recur over and over, that's when you can address those and just try to make that a little bit better. Pinpoint those problems.

25:12Chris Rose: And for me, what I did was the referral process because it's, you know, it, if you're an attorney, you're on some listserv where everyone says, Hey, does anybody know an attorney and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, you get like four or five different people and like, invariably I look at one and I'm like, Oh, don't call that person. Why would somebody suggest that person? And so it's incredibly inefficient and you can't track that. And it was just something that I noticed over and over again. And to me, connections are what come naturally and facilitating those connections is what I wanted to do. Once I pinpointed that, I just began to build on that. That was like the small particulate of matter. And then, you know, build that chrysalis around it as it expands. And that's what you got to do. Just listen and then just pick that one thing and just go from there.

26:13Chris Keller: I laugh because it's so true. I mean, I don't know how many emails I've seen like that over the years go back and forth. Does anybody know? Does anybody, can anybody recommend? It's just every single time. And I just laugh, you know, it's just, it's so true. That's how it happened. But, you know, fortunately you've created this better mousetrap. I know it really helps facilitate, you know, referrals and has done an amazing job. So again, thank you so much for your time, for being a First Light, sharing with us your innovation. I always love talking to innovators and people that are out front at our firm. We try to be innovators, but at the very least we want to be early adopters. So thank you for what you're doing in space and what you've created.

26:53Chris Rose: No, I can't thank you enough. Thank you for having me on. Like it's, you know, as I'm really starting to build this up and move into this space more, the people that recognize me and help me get my voice out there. Like those are the people I'll forever be indebted to. So Chris, like, thank you a lot, man. It really means a lot to me.

27:13Chris Keller: Sounds good. Thanks, Chris.

27:18Chris Keller: Chris, thank you for your insight, your honesty, and for showing us what it looks like to lead with boldness and intention in the industry that doesn't always reward innovation. Remember, no matter what industry you're in, the best way to stand out is to stand for something. Until next time, keep shining your light.