AI Disrupts Mass Torts, Social Posts That Stick, and The Case for Hiring Claude Cowork on Your Legal Marketing Team
Plus: Gina Zapanta and Mike Alder on Building a Brand That Wins Before You Walk Into Court
👋 Good morning. Chris Dreyer here. AI is starting to reshape how firms screen and fund mass tort cases. Firms that move now will process more claims, screen out weak ones faster, and do it all at a lower cost.
This week I also make the case for rethinking how your firm relates to AI. Most PI firms consult it. The ones pulling ahead hire it. I break down what that distinction means and why Claude Cowork is the tool that can support a legal marketing operation.
And later, a nonprofit newsroom with three million YouTube subscribers offers a masterclass in social content that actually moves people. PI firms can take a lot from how they work.
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Better Call Claude: The Case for Hiring Claude Cowork on Your Legal Marketing Team
I keep having the same conversation with PI firm owners about AI. They tell me they use it. When I ask how, it’s usually the same answer: They go in, ask something, get an answer, and leave.
That is not a strategy, and it is the reason so many firms feel like they are using AI without getting much from it.
Let’s go back to what I said last week…
I shared findings from a survey of more than 300 personal injury firms. More than 60% are already using or scaling AI. Most spend less than $5,000 a year. Only 8% report no use at all.
The numbers look like adoption. But adoption and integration are not the same thing.
The data actually describes a lot of firms consulting AI the way they used to consult Google. They reach for it when they need something, get what they came for, and move on. The tool never becomes part of how the team operates.
That distinction matters more than most firms realize. Clayton Christensen’s jobs-to-be-done framework makes the point well:
The question is not what a tool does. The question is what job you hire it to perform.
When you hire someone to run your marketing, you do not expect them to wait for you to ask questions. You give them responsibilities. You integrate them into the workflow. You expect output without being in the room. Most firms have never thought about AI that way.
There is also a category difference worth understanding. Generative AI thinks with you. Agentic AI works for you.
Generative tools answer questions, draft copy on request, and respond when prompted. Agentic tools take on jobs. They move through tasks, produce finished work, connect to the systems your team already uses, and keep running while you focus on something else. That shift from thinking to doing is not a feature upgrade. It is a different relationship with the technology entirely.
Anyway, I have experimented with Cowork, and it has changed how I think about this. If you are a legal marketer who wants to hit reset on how AI works at your firm, this is the tool I would reorient around. You don’t need a bunch of AI tools. Just one.
A few things worth thinking about:
Scattered AI use produces scattered results. Firms bouncing between five generative tools for five different tasks never build momentum. Each session starts from zero. The AI tool develops no institutional memory, no compounding output, no workflow that gets faster over time. Committing to one agentic tool and actually integrating it into how your marketing team operates changes the economics of what AI can produce.
The job description is yours to write. Cowork functions like a member of the team, but every firm will define that role differently based on where the biggest time drains and execution gaps actually live. A recent Harvard Business Review analysis found that most brands are unprepared for the shift from generative to agentic AI, and that the ones moving forward effectively made that decision deliberately rather than reactively. It’s really about onboarding a capability and deciding where it fits in your operation.
Context separates output that sounds like your firm from output that sounds like AI. Load your brand voice, past campaigns, messaging strategy, and firm identity into the working environment. From that point forward, Cowork produces from within your context, not from a blank slate. That setup investment is what makes everything downstream faster and more usable.
The firms that pull ahead will not use the most AI. They will use it with the most discipline.
The shift from generative to agentic is not something firms need to wait on. The technology is available now. The only question is whether your firm treats AI as something you consult or something you employ.
This Claude Cowork Playbook (link below 👇) was written for DTC brands and creative agencies, but the operating principles translate directly to legal marketing. It is a useful place to start thinking about how to structure the role around agentic AI.
Also, this lawyer’s post about building his entire practice around Claude got 7 million views over the weekend. Worth reading before you decide how serious you are about this.
🔗 The Claude Cowork Playbook →
How to Create Social Posts People Remember
Many prospective clients encounter a law firm for the first time on social media, yet firms still emphasize consistency, visuals, and production output. Those things matter, but they do not answer the more important question: Does your social presence clarify what you stand for and how you interpret the problems your clients face?
Rachel Karten recently interviewed Georgia Parke, the director of audience engagement at More Perfect Union, one of the fastest-growing news channels on YouTube, and the conversation reframed how I think about social media entirely.
More Perfect Union has nearly 3 million subscribers. They built that audience by being substantive and specific, and by treating every post as something worth a person’s actual time.
PI firms can use that playbook.
Relevance beats production value. Parke puts it directly: No matter how long something takes to produce, it needs to be relevant to the current moment and give people something substantive. A post about what to do in the first 48 hours after a truck accident, published the week a major crash makes local news, will always outperform a polished evergreen post published on schedule.
Each post needs to be complete. More Perfect Union does not tease content to drive clicks. They deliver a full idea in every post. A person who watches for 90 seconds should walk away with something useful. For PI firms, that means a carousel about insurance tactics should actually explain the tactic, not point to a blog post that does.
Carousels drive follower growth. Parke is direct about this. Multi-slide posts that break down a complex issue consistently bring in more followers than single-image posts. Case timelines, rights explainers, and insurance breakdowns are natural fits.
Build for each platform separately. More Perfect Union’s Twitter presence feels different from their Instagram presence because it is. The same message reformatted is not a platform strategy. Injured people on TikTok need something different from referral partners on LinkedIn.
Outrage moves attention, but direction moves people. This is the sharpest thing in Parke’s interview. You cannot just surface a problem and expect people to act. They need to know what comes next. For PI firms, that means every post about a wrongful denial or a lowball settlement offer should end with an actionable next step. What to document. Who to call. What their rights actually are.
The firms using social media well are not posting the most. They decided what they stand for in their market and use every post to reinforce it.
🔗 How to Create Posts That Move People →
AI Tools Reshape Mass Torts as Firms Push to Cut Costs and Weed Out Weak Claims
AI is changing how firms screen, staff, and finance mass tort cases. Attorneys, litigation support companies, and funders tell Bloomberg Law the technology can sort through large document volumes, flag incomplete plaintiff files, and help allocate resources more efficiently in high-volume litigation.
The volume of documents and plaintiffs that makes mass tort litigation expensive is exactly what makes it well-suited for AI. The timing matters too. Firms are competing in a saturated market where payoffs take years to materialize.
Discovery is the first place AI earns its keep. Elizabeth Koenig, senior vice president of litigation consulting at ILS, a plaintiff-only eDiscovery and litigation support company, says AI lets firms cut through large volumes of corporate discovery and identify connections across documents that manual review would miss. Mass tort discovery runs asymmetrically. AI helps level that imbalance.
Routine case preparation that once took days now takes minutes. Asim Badaruzzaman of Sbaiti and Co. told Bloomberg Law that medical chronologies used to require outside consultants and extensive manual review. Firms now generate medical chronologies quickly with AI. Voice chatbots also handle common client inquiries consistently, though Badaruzzaman cautions that broader use remains limited.
Startups are building predictive tools to assess claim quality before firms invest. Theo AI uses large language models, including Google’s Gemini, to detect patterns in plaintiff files and flag incomplete files. The system identifies fraud indicators like identical signatures across multiple files and reports 95.6% accuracy. Theo has partnered with Mustang Litigation Funding, which uses the tool to evaluate case exposure before committing capital.
Tighter screening redirects dollars toward stronger claims. Samir Parikh, a law professor at Wake Forest University who researches mass torts, puts it plainly: Firms that screen more rigorously protect the claimants who actually deserve recovery.
“Every dollar that goes to a non-meritorious claimant is one that’s taken away from a meritorious claimant. Over time, less of these non-meritorious claims will plague the system.” — Samir Parikh, Wake Forest University
High-volume injury practices need to evaluate where AI fits into their discovery, intake, and funding decisions. Firms that improve screening and case selection protect margins and focus resources on stronger claims. Firms that rely solely on manual processes face higher costs and slower case assessment.
“We Feed the Beast”: Inside One Insurer’s Case Against Modern Plaintiff Strategy
In a recent Travelers Institute webinar, Rich Ives, Senior Vice President of Business Insurance Claim at Travelers, walked business leaders through what he described as a decade of rising liability losses driven by plaintiff advertising, shifting juror attitudes, and litigation economics.
The data he presented tells PI firm owners something useful about how insurers currently read the legal landscape:
Plaintiff advertising scale now shapes cases before they reach an insurer. Plaintiff attorneys spent $2.5 billion on advertising in 2024. Today, 69% of small-business liability cases already have attorney representation at first notice of a claim. Both figures, Ives said, point to plaintiff strategy starting well before litigation formally begins.
Juror expectations now extend beyond legal compliance. Research from Decision Quest found that 89% of jurors believe businesses should always do more than meet government safety standards, 72% believe it is a juror’s role to send a message to corporations, and 58% believe businesses carry some responsibility for injury even when a customer misuses a product. Ives paired those figures with a case example: A 20-year-old Wabash trailer that met every safety standard at manufacture became a $462 million verdict in 2024 after plaintiff attorneys reframed the question from whether the company followed the law to what more it could have done.
Nuclear verdicts are accelerating. In 2024, 135 verdicts against corporate defendants exceeded $10 million, a 52% increase over 2023, totaling $31.3 billion, a 116% increase year over year. Verdicts exceeding $100 million reached a record 49 in 2024, up from 27 the year prior. Industry estimates suggest 2025 numbers will climb further.
Most of the cost lives in the shadow effect of litigation. Actual trial verdicts account for roughly 2% of liability costs. Attorney-represented cases that settled without reaching trial account for 60%. Attorney-involved cases that never filed suit account for another 30%. Ninety percent of liability costs come from the threat of litigation rather than its outcome. When insurers pay more than what is reasonable to avoid trial risk, Ives warned, they reinforce the cycle.
Four structural forces drive the decade-long trend. He pointed to four contributing factors: legal system changes that expand damage awards, shifting public attitudes toward corporate accountability, the economics of litigation funding, and technology enabling faster outreach and narrative building. Industry liability losses climbed at 7% annually for a decade, a 70% cumulative increase reshaping insurance pricing, coverage availability, and business exposure across the market.
“If we buy into the plaintiff narrative… we feed the beast.” — Rich Ives
Ives identified tort reform efforts, caps on non-economic damages, and litigation funding restrictions as part of the insurer response to these trends.
Supreme Court Revives Baby Food Case Against Whole Foods: The U.S. Supreme Court sided with a couple who sued over baby food sold at Whole Foods and sent the case back to Texas courts for further proceedings. The dispute centers on whether federal law shields the retailer from liability tied to allegedly contaminated baby food. The ruling allows the couple’s claims to move forward in state court.
Alberta Startup Launches AI “Lawyer’ for Personal Injury Claims: An Alberta startup launched an artificial intelligence tool designed to help consumers pursue personal injury claims without hiring a traditional lawyer. The company said the platform guides users through the claims process and aims to reduce legal costs. The rollout highlights growing efforts to use AI to automate portions of the legal services market.
Bayer’s $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement Faces Early Court Resistance: Bayer’s proposed $7.25 billion settlement aimed at resolving future Roundup claims encountered early pushback in court. A federal judge raised concerns during initial proceedings as the company seeks to limit future liability tied to its glyphosate-based weedkiller. Bayer continues to face thousands of lawsuits alleging that Roundup causes cancer.
Washington Supreme Court Allows “Suicide-By-Amazon” Lawsuits to Proceed: The Washington Supreme Court allowed lawsuits to move forward against Amazon in cases alleging that the company supplied products used in suicide deaths. The court rejected Amazon’s effort to dismiss the claims at an early stage and ruled that families may pursue their cases under state law.
OpenAI Debated Reporting Canada Shooting Suspect Before Attack: OpenAI employees raised alarms months before a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, after Jesse Van Rootselaar described gun violence scenarios in ChatGPT conversations last June. About a dozen staffers debated whether to alert Canadian law enforcement, and some urged leadership to report what they saw as potential real-world threats. After the February 10 shooting that left eight people dead and at least 25 injured, OpenAI said it contacted the police and is supporting the investigation.
Florida Appeals Court Tosses Med Mal Suit Over Boilerplate Expert Report: Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal dismissed a medical malpractice suit after finding that the plaintiffs’ presuit expert affidavit was “vague, conclusory and boilerplate.” The court held that the report failed to satisfy Florida’s statutory presuit investigation requirements and affirmed dismissal of the claims against the hospital. Judges said the statute required more than what the plaintiffs provided and left the court no discretion once plaintiffs did not meet those requirements.
OpenAI Hires OpenClaw Creator Peter Steinberger: OpenAI hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of the developer tool OpenClaw, according to Sam Altman. Steinberger built OpenClaw as a tool developers use widely, though security experts and several tech companies have raised concerns about the tool’s unpredictability and potential cybersecurity risks. He will now join OpenAI as the company expands its technical leadership. The hire comes as OpenAI continues to compete aggressively for top engineering talent in the artificial intelligence race.
$60 million is what Lawhive just raised to accelerate its U.S. expansion. The UK-founded legaltech startup launched in the U.S. last year and now operates in 35 states, with plans to expand nationwide. Mitch Rales, co-founder of Danaher Corporation, led the Series B round with backing from GV, Balderton Capital, TQ Ventures, and others. It comes less than a year after Lawhive closed a $40 million Series A, and annual revenue has now passed $35 million following sevenfold growth over the past year.
Lawhive is already active in personal injury and scaling fast in the U.S. market. The company operates a personal injury practice in the UK through a network of more than 450 SRA-licensed solicitors, handling serious injury claims with AI-assisted intake, research, drafting, and case management. An AI paralegal called Lawrence supports lawyers across day-to-day work. The company launched in the U.S. in mid-2025 and ramped almost immediately, with offices now open in Austin and a new headquarters opening in New York.
The business model targets the gap between what legal services cost and what clients can afford. The U.S. consumer legal market generates roughly $200 billion in annual revenue, yet research Lawhive cites suggests legal needs worth up to $1 trillion go unmet each year. Lawhive’s pitch is transparent pricing, faster access, and lawyers who spend less time on administration and more time on actual legal judgment.
For U.S. PI firms, the competitive signal worth watching is intake speed and case volume. Both the U.S. and UK PI markets operate on contingency, so Lawhive does not remove a cost barrier that traditional firms have not already removed. The threat runs deeper. Lawhive calls its platform an AI operating system for consumer law, automating intake, research, drafting, and case management at a fraction of traditional overhead. That means faster client onboarding, more cases accepted, and a cost structure that makes high-volume, lower-value cases economically viable in ways they are not for traditionally staffed firms. The firms most exposed compete on accessibility and speed rather than reputation and referral networks.
Gina Zapanta and Mike Alder on Building a Brand That Wins Before You Walk Into Court
Mike Alder has argued over 100 jury trials and handled 10,000 cases. His wife and partner Gina Zapanta built ZA Lawyers into a firm that has recovered more than $3.1 billion for clients. On this episode of Personal Injury Mastermind, they break down what most firms misunderstand about personal branding: It is not a marketing function. It runs through every interaction, every courtroom appearance, and every piece of content you put into the world.
Your reputation arrives before you do. Every action signals what kind of lawyer you are. Show up late, tolerate opponents waiting you out, and opposing counsel reads you immediately. Mike pushed pre-lit cases into litigation early and consistently. Seventy percent settled within the first month or two. Not because he won anything in court. Because the other side learned that delay would not work.
The first deposition sets the value of the case. Mike calls deposition skill the single most important factor in litigation, more important than trial work. Defense counsel adjusts reserves after that first depo based on how they feel about you, not just what you accomplished. Mike credits half-and-half instead of powdered creamer for settling one case at half a million dollars more than expected. Every detail in that room sends a signal.
Authenticity is the one advantage a billboard cannot buy. Gina built ZA Lawyers’ social presence in a market where competitors spend millions monthly. Her leverage was being real. Mike’s chicken and goat posts generate more engagement than produced content ever has. Big firms can copy the format. They cannot copy the person. Gina’s advice: Identify what is genuinely yours and own it.
Social media belongs in-house. Gina made this point directly. A videographer who travels with you and captures real community moments will always outperform an agency reconstructing authenticity remotely. The goal is not content volume, but genuine human connection.
Love it. Here’s the full convo:
🎧 Personal Injury Mastermind: Episode 273 →
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Disclaimer: Personal Injury Mastermind takes all reasonable steps to ensure accuracy in the materials we share, including articles, newsletters, and reports. These materials are intended for general informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. They may not reflect the most current laws or regulations. Always consult a qualified attorney for advice on a specific legal matter.
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