Chris Rose: Finding Gold in Every Declined Case

0:00Narrator: Welcome to the Traffic to Leads podcast with Ted DeBettencourt, the podcast for people who want to learn the secrets to convert traffic to leads from the top marketers in the world. Now, here's your host, Ted DeBettencourt.

0:18Ted DeBettencourt: Welcome to the Traffic to Leads podcast. I'm your host, Ted DeBettencourt. Today, I have the pleasure of having Chris Rose from LegalFlare on the show. Chris, thanks for joining me today.

0:27Chris Rose: Yeah, thanks for having me, Ted. I really appreciate it.

0:30Ted DeBettencourt: Yeah. And Chris, we've been to a bunch of conferences together. I see you always walking around there and had the pleasure of having dinner with you a few times. So I don't really know, though. Tell me more about LegalFlare. What do you do? How do you help your clients?

0:43Chris Rose: Yeah. So my clients, for the most part, are law firms. Every time a law firm declines a lead, they lose value. What I do is I take those leads and sign them, turn them into cases and create a fee split, just like that. It all stems from the idea that, I mean, from the fact that no law firm's intake is perfect. They're always going to miss something. And I create a layer of review so that those cases that slip through or they can't handle for whatever reason, I have my attorney sign those. We create a fee split and that way they retain value.

1:14Ted DeBettencourt: Awesome. So when you say your attorneys, is it a partnership of attorneys or is it like a firm that you have?

1:21Chris Rose: No, sir. So everything goes through my firm, but I have a network of attorneys that I work with to review all of these cases, all nationwide.

1:28Ted DeBettencourt: Gotcha. So let's say I'm a law firm in Texas and I get 100 leads a month and I sign 15 of them. So how do they work with you to get value out of the other 85?

1:41Chris Rose: Absolutely. Good question. So every time they hit decline on that lead, it moves right over into my system. And then I send those leads out based on jurisdiction, practice area, and the attorneys in my vetted network then review those. If they want, they can reach out, ask questions from the client and essentially just kind of pick at the strands that an intake specialist might not know to ask or to pull on. And we find cases all of the time. And so then we create a fee split. The firm that essentially signs that case and handles that case, they take the bulk of the share. I take my percentage, and the firm that sent that decline lead over to me, instead of losing out on anything, they get a percentage.

2:22Ted DeBettencourt: Nice. Nice. And what percent of leads would you say? So if a firm sends you a thousand leads, what percent of those are you able to get some fees out of at some point?

2:33Chris Rose: So I have to take it in terms of, you know, the overall average, because I do work comp, work injury in Texas, personal injury, med mal and employment law, the contingent fee cases. And across the board, it's, our numbers are currently at three point one one percent conversion rate.

2:52Ted DeBettencourt: Oh, wow.

2:52Chris Rose: Yeah. It's higher than you'd imagine, especially when you consider that med mal is so hard to sign and everybody thinks they can sue their doctor. Yeah. And then even worse than that, employment law, everybody wants to sue their boss. But so if we exclude employment law and med mal, that number jumps up. I think it was just over 11 percent, which is surprising. It shows you how many cases are really slipping through the cracks.

3:19Ted DeBettencourt: Are these all out of state leads? Is that why they're getting declined, or still viable for the state that the attorney's in? But someone on the intake side might have missed something, or maybe it's a case that isn't a huge case, but it's worthwhile for a smaller firm. Is that the majority of them, or what do they look like?

3:36Chris Rose: Yes and yes. So the majority of them are typically smaller cases that are declined, but they're also usually in state. We do get the occasional out of state, out of jurisdiction, that we move those. But the vast majority are just, are still in state, that were declined for whatever reason. We get a lot of decline for practice area, especially employment law, med mal, you know, work injury, work comp from firms that only want personal injury. But so that's essentially... did I miss a question in there?

4:05Ted DeBettencourt: No, that was exactly right. I answered it perfectly. Are the firms feeding you rejected leads on their end? Are they mostly PI firms, or are they mostly non-PI firms that don't want to handle the PI stuff?

4:20Chris Rose: Okay, help me out. So when you're saying the personal injury firms that are sending me the declined leads?

4:26Ted DeBettencourt: Is it personal injury firms, or is it like criminal firms, like, hey, sometimes we get a PI firm. Chris, if you can find someone for it, great. Or are the most of the firms feeding you rejected leads, are they PI or the other practice areas?

4:36Chris Rose: Yeah. So the firms that are the recurring firms, my largest clients, those are personal injury and employment law. But I do get those cases from other law firms that simply know me, something landed in their lap and they can't do anything with it. Or they want the administrative benefits that come with sending a case through LegalFlare.

4:55Ted DeBettencourt: Gotcha. And what's the fee split that you offer to your clients sending you leads?

5:00Chris Rose: Yeah, great question. So standard for personal injury, the firm that handles the case, they take 60%. I take 10% for mine. And the firm that sends that declined lead, they get 30%. And that's for personal injury, work injury, Texas work comp and other jurisdictions. Employment law, it's 10, 10 and 80, because the margins are necessarily smaller in employment law. But so yeah, 30% and then 10%.

5:26Ted DeBettencourt: And these aren't leads that they're, these are their unwanted leads that they've already looked at, determined they don't want it internally. So this isn't your team determining that they don't want it. This is their team telling you they don't want it. And if you can make some gold out of it, go for it.

5:40Chris Rose: That's exactly right. Consider me, you know, standing outside their window with like a trash can. And they're just like throwing it out the window and I'm grabbing it and moving it to my partners as quick as possible.

5:50Ted DeBettencourt: That's awesome. So why wouldn't the firm want to do this?

5:54Chris Rose: I've been asking that question so many times, and I've had to ask for me, and I've always thought like the best possible service you can have is one where people go, why wouldn't I do this? Why wouldn't I? And so some of the objections I get, that there's, in certain jurisdictions, the malpractice insurance has to attach in order to take a percentage of attorneys. Those are the states that follow the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. You know, certain states like California, Nevada, for one, assumption of responsibility is not necessary. But like Texas, Illinois, some of my biggest markets, it is required. So some firms feel uncomfortable attaching their malpractice insurance to cases that they're discarding or not handling themselves.

6:37Ted DeBettencourt: Now, that's really anytime they do referral. Isn't that true for those cases as well?

6:42Chris Rose: That's exactly right. And really, it's a very shallow objection. Yeah. And the other part of it is, how many lawyers do we know that have really been sued for malpractice? Like, it's always going to be like the larger cases. It's the boogeyman under the bed. And quite frankly, I kind of take it as an insult, because I've vet all of my partners. Yeah. We run them through the paces and then we have accountability meetings every month. So I know, you know, they are doing exactly what they should be doing. And we fire firms all the time for not meeting our standards.

7:09Ted DeBettencourt: Yeah. All right. So that's objection one. Like, you're taking trash and turning into gold for firms. So I haven't heard a good objection that would make me say, I don't know, Chris.

7:17Chris Rose: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And I would love to hear it. If someone can reach out and say, this is what you missed, please, like, let me address that. One of the ones that I get often is, well, our intake doesn't miss anything, so we don't need you. And that makes zero sense, because for one, they lose nothing. Like, send it to me. If we never sign a case, it never costs them anything. Like, they don't know. My services are invisible until they get the revenue, the mailbox money. I think part of it is that law firm owners sometimes want to delude themselves into thinking that they are running, you know, the best optimal ship. And then I come back and say, hey, yeah, we signed, you know, five of your cases this week. And then it's like, well...

7:59Ted DeBettencourt: Do they ever come back after you sign them? And they're like, oh, shoot, how did we miss these?

8:03Chris Rose: Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Some are aware. Like, I'm working with a firm that doesn't take work comp, work injury cases. And so they send them to us, and they know that they can't handle those. Yeah. So funny.

8:15Chris Rose: God, I was on a Zoom call trying to get this one firm to come over, still wrestling with this one firm. And so I said, how about this? Go into your decline leads, and let's go through everything. And we'll just see. And, you know, if it's spotless, great. But let's see if we can find something that maybe would warrant investigation. First case at the top. Nice. Wait, why was this turned out? I don't... And then she pulls out the phone and, like, calls the person. Like, why did we turn this down? Oh, well, I didn't think that we should handle this. This doesn't seem like, you know, something. And, like, told you. Told you. Love them so much. Still waiting on them to pull the trigger.

8:53Ted DeBettencourt: Yeah. That makes sense. And tell me about the review process. So how are you getting, let's say, you know, a client gives you 100 old leads. Will they just send you a CSV with all their rejects from Lead Docket, for example?

9:06Chris Rose: Yeah. Yeah. However they want to send them over to us. The real name of the game is speed to lead. Yeah. So the faster they can get those over to us. If they want to wait a week, I mean, I'll still send them out. But come on. Like, what game are we playing here? Yeah. So I do get them in CSVs sometimes at the end of the week. And those, the conversion rates are going to be super low, because they've already called someone. Yeah.

9:25Chris Rose: The ideal situation is either through an integration, I run all of my leads through Lead Docket. Yeah. Or we also have basically an email that they send the leads to. That email, press decline in their workflow, takes the contact information after they've gotten consent. So we're not running into any non-solicitation issues. And press decline, that gets emailed over to my inbox. And then we have an AI that automatically takes all that information, puts it into Lead Docket and sorts it and sends it out. So that way, you know...

9:54Ted DeBettencourt: And by you mean send it out, you mean your AI determines if it's something worthwhile listening to your partnering firms. They take a look at it. If they want to take it, then they sign it.

10:03Chris Rose: No, no, no, no. I'm not. My AI simply extra... So AI, I'm saying that for everything. Really, it's just scraping the email and putting it into the fields where it is. That's it. So anybody can just send us an email and the AI recognizes the contact information without the necessary fields.

10:22Ted DeBettencourt: So what happens after, let's say you get a, you know, working with a partner, they send you a lead, you get it in real time, you scrape it, you put it in Lead Docket. What happens next to that lead?

10:31Chris Rose: So that lead is then sent. We are currently using Lexamica, the software referral platform, to send those leads out to our partners to review. And so what Lexamica provides is essentially a portal where they can receive those leads. So we're not sending them into like inboxes or something. We're trying to create integrations with every single possible, you know? And so that way they get a ding in their inbox. It says you have a lead to review. They open up Lexamica. They can see the information. They can decide if they want to contact the client, you know, based on the facts, or they can just take a look at it. More times than not, they can see from the facts, like, this, you know, no damages, you know, or whatever. They're just mad at their boss.

11:12Ted DeBettencourt: So they're making that determination if they decide to call them.

11:16Chris Rose: That's exactly right. It's always my partners. We don't stick into anything, because I always want, you know, the lawyers that want to take those cases to be reviewing, because they're the ones who are most motivated to sign that case. And so that's exactly what it looks like.

11:31Ted DeBettencourt: Are those leads going to multiple firms? Are they going to one firm per region? Or how do you divvy them up?

11:36Chris Rose: Yeah, great question. So in terms of, so we have multiple layers of law firms for review. We typically decline a case after it's been rejected three times. So we will send it to one firm. Sometimes we are doing a round robin as we prioritize who are the best firms. Other times we've got the firms already prioritized, and then we have it in a bit of a waterfall. But we send those leads to that firm. And if they decline it, then it moves on to the next one. And then the next one. So we're not like just blasting it out there for people to... yeah, exactly. And that wouldn't be fair to the client.

12:10Ted DeBettencourt: And then after a few firms have rejected it, that's the end. So you don't keep showing it to firm six, seven, eight. If three have rejected it, that's the end of that case, that lead.

12:19Chris Rose: Sorry, nobody's taking this one to prom. You got to stay at home. Like, yeah, that's exactly right.

12:24Ted DeBettencourt: Awesome. So everything for you guys is on a per signed retainer captured basis. So you're only collecting money from their garbage when you collect from it. And then they're getting paid just like a normal referral. So I'm going to take a little while for you to get paid here, Chris.

12:42Chris Rose: I know. I know. But I mean, that's how it works. It's contingent. And to make this most appealing, one, it has to go through me, a lawyer, and my law firm. So I have those same ethical obligations. And two, it's contingent. Like, we don't get paid unless we can make this happen. The same thing that everybody else models their practice off of, that's how I wanted to mirror my service. Send it to me. You know, if we win, you get paid. If we don't, you owe us nothing. And so that's, I just really think that's the best model for this industry. Yeah. For success.

13:18Ted DeBettencourt: That makes sense. And well, and you said you run a law firm. So how'd you get along?

13:24Chris Rose: So I was originally a casino dealer here in Vegas for 15 years. Yeah. Played a bit of professional poker for a minute. And then once I was, you know, into my 30s, that's when I decided I should probably put on my big boy pants, become an adult.

13:39Ted DeBettencourt: Mom, did you get a real job?

13:40Chris Rose: Pretty close. Yeah. Kicks me out of the basement. You know, put down the weed and Halo and get out there and get a real job. So yeah, I decided to go to school. I got my poli sci degree. I really thought I wanted to be in politics. I still love politics. I went into law school with the intent, the purpose of becoming either a lobbyist or a politician. I found out that politicians don't make enough money until you get to the highest echelons, and lobbying, same thing, only less fun.

14:06Chris Rose: And so surprisingly, and then I searched around for a bit. I went into sales and marketing. And so that's really how I exploded my network and just spent so much time like talking to people. What do you need? What are your issues? What's going on? And just listening. And I knew that I would get back into like practice of some sort, of like, I don't want to talk to clients. Like I hate talking to clients. You know, I would rather go around and talk to lawyers. And I was thinking, how do I improve on this system? How do I make it more efficient? And referrals just seemed like the natural fit for me. And so as I just began building this out and understanding where the shortcomings were in terms of administration and compliance and, you know, and some of the costs that the other, you know, services charge up front. And so it was really just listening. Like, what do you need? What can I do? And anytime somebody said, I need this happen, I would always say, I can do that for you.

15:00Ted DeBettencourt: Nice.

15:00Chris Rose: And then just like figure it out.

15:02Ted DeBettencourt: Awesome. That's awesome. And are you Vegas through and through? Is that you went to college out there? Law school out there as well?

15:07Chris Rose: I did. Originally from Alabama.

15:09Ted DeBettencourt: Okay.

15:10Chris Rose: Grew up in Alabama. On my 21st birthday, I went to my mother and said, can I borrow 500 weeks for a one-way ticket out to Vegas? Threw away my overalls, pissed all my cousins goodbye and flew out. I've been out here ever since. I'm very much of Vegas.

15:26Ted DeBettencourt: Yeah. Nice. Nice. All right. Well, if people want to learn more, and actually I want to ask you some more serious questions here, Chris, but I mean, this sounds like a no brainer. So like the objections you gave me weren't very strong. No offense. Like I can't see why any reason, any lawyer shouldn't do this, take their trash and have you turn into gold for them. So where can they go and what's the signup process look like?

15:50Chris Rose: Yeah. So, I mean, first and foremost, just send me an email, you know, slide into my DMs on like Instagram or LinkedIn, just, you know, chris.rose at legalflare.com, or, you know, find me on LinkedIn, Chris F.N. Rose on LinkedIn. The people who know me, they know I swear. My maiden name is a swear word. And yeah. And like reach out and ask all the questions. If somebody can come up with a good reason why this is a bad idea, I'm here for it. Cause I'd love to pick that right now. And so, yeah.

16:17Ted DeBettencourt: I thought you were going to say you make the determined, the fact that the law firms are making the determination of the lead they don't want. It just, there are some companies out there, I know in my world, in the chat side, where they make a determination that a firm doesn't want to lead. They sell it to other firms. I've always kind of thought that was a little bit shady. Like that should be a firm decision, not a third party decision, but it sounds like you've solved that completely, where you're leaving it completely up to the law firm whether or not they tell you they didn't want it. And you're then only taking action once they tell you, and then you're turning it into money for them. So it sounds like a no brainer, Chris. legalflare.com. I'll put a link in the show notes here and into your email. But do you mind, before we go, if I could ask you some more serious questions?

16:57Chris Rose: Let's go, let's go. Throw it at where you got. All right.

17:00Ted DeBettencourt: You're on death row for a crime you didn't commit. What's your last meal?

17:04Chris Rose: Oh, chicken masala, basmati rice, garlic naan bread with some asparagus, maybe some broccoli. Absolutely. I love Indian food. And you know, me Ted, make it hurt, because I'm not going to live tomorrow. So I'm not going to have any of those consequences.

17:18Ted DeBettencourt: No consequences of the hot food with their, going out tomorrow. So a weird fact about you that maybe you shouldn't share.

17:25Chris Rose: Shouldn't share. Oh man. I'm an open book. I share everything. I don't know. Everything's shouldn't share. I don't know. I don't want to get back to you. God, I'll come up with something. Like there's gotta be a dead body around here somewhere.

17:38Ted DeBettencourt: Best television show in existence.

17:40Chris Rose: Oh, Breaking Bad. Like I love The Simpsons, but I mean, for one, that horse has been dead for a long time, but Breaking Bad. Oh man. Right in the fields. And they went out at the top. Yeah. Like I was like traumatized. How about you? Like, what do you think?

17:55Ted DeBettencourt: It's, they're one of my top three. I also like Better Call Saul, which is a continuation from Breaking Bad. It's lower, but hits a little bit different. And like that scene in the end, I won't ruin it, but there's a scene in the end where he gets what's coming to him and it's, it devastated me. I thought he might have a good outcome, but it didn't, but it was...

18:12Chris Rose: I know exactly what you mean. And it really appeals to lawyers too. Yeah. Someone on that writing staff is a lawyer. They know what they're talking about.

18:18Ted DeBettencourt: In legal marketing too. Like there's a lot about him marketing, which is cool.

18:21Chris Rose: Yes. Yes, exactly.

18:22Ted DeBettencourt: Favorite exercise workout. When was the last time you did it?

18:25Chris Rose: Oh, I worked out this morning. Favorite. I mean, I'm on a upper lower split. I work out six days a week. My favorite exercise. You know, I do love tricep extensions. Yeah. And like, I pull it all the way back to, you know, stretch mediated hypertrophy, for those of us that work out. And like, I can just feel my triceps exploding. And the best, the way I know it's working is when I'm like walking through the club on the dance floor and just like girls touch my triceps just as I'm walking by.

18:55Ted DeBettencourt: Yep. Yep. It's working then. Dinner with anyone dead or alive, even non-fictional, who are you doing it with and where are you going?

19:02Chris Rose: Dead or alive. Oh, Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. Like, I mean, the man had charisma and personality and was eternally six years old. Like, I just want to like hop on his back and ride around with him. Yeah. He was awesome.

19:15Ted DeBettencourt: He gave a speech after he had been shot, with a bullet still in him, for the campaign. So, you know, he was a pretty dedicated politician there.

19:23Chris Rose: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the man, like what could stop him? Like he nearly died on safari at like the age of like 55 or something in the Amazon. Yeah. And still made it back. Like that's incredible. He was cool.

19:36Ted DeBettencourt: The bull moose or something like that. The moose. Yep. Yep. Awesome. Well, Chris, I look forward to keeping up with your career. LegalFlare.com. And I'll put your email in the link in the show notes. But thanks for being on the show today.

19:48Chris Rose: Ted, you are awesome. And looking forward to going out to dinner again in Vegas sometime.

19:53Ted DeBettencourt: Sounds like a plan. And Chris, good chat with you.

19:55Chris Rose: You as well.

19:56Ted DeBettencourt: I'll see you soon.

19:58Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Traffic to Leads podcast with Ted DeBettencourt. Make sure to subscribe and follow to be notified when the newest episodes go live. You can find Ted's contact information and important links in the show notes. Stay tuned for the next episode.