👋 Good morning. Chris Dreyer here. People see billboards and TV spots because they can't avoid them. What if your marketing was something people chose to watch? Today I make the case for episodic marketing, and newsflash: Some PI firms are already doing it.
Also: How do you grow your firm on a meager budget? I've got five moves for you, starting with the cases the big firms turn down and ending with the one number that tells you when to scale.
And a heads-up: Your phone system could cause you to lose cases. Let's get into it.
🎥 Video Has Two Halves. Firms Keep Buying One.
The first half is production. A crew shows up, an attorney goes on camera, and you get footage back. Plenty of vendors do that well.
The second half is what happens to the footage after the shoot. Someone has to post it organically and turn it into paid ads across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. That’s how it reaches potential clients.
The people who made the video can’t do that part. And the people who could didn’t make the video.
That’s the gap I’ve seen. On Oct. 1, I’ll tell you what we’re doing about it.
💡ONE BIG IDEA
Forget Traditional Marketing. Make a Show People Can't Get Enough Of.
OK, hear me out: NBC's Dateline, but for personal injury stories.
Built for the 5 billion people who still can't admit they're addicted 🙋 to true-crime dramas. (I mean, why do they keep making the stuff?)
A regular Jane gets into her Subaru toting a Grande Matcha latte, and two minutes after she gets on I-95, a drunk driver hits her head-on.
Keith Morrison walks us through the life-changing moment and the months-long legal fight for justice. And the guy burning the midnight oil for Jane?
A personal injury attorney at a badass firm who's quietly earned a reputation as a no-nonsense bulldog. Hat tip to my good friend James.
It sounds absurd until you see one California PI firm with a YouTube channel clocking 48 million views, much of it built around what I want to discuss today…
…the power of episodic marketing.
I'll be straight with you…
The next marketing edge for PI firms: Creating a show people choose to watch.
I didn't say "forced to watch" (billboards).
I didn't say "had no choice but to watch" (TV ads).
I said choose to watch. Because they can't get enough of it.
Jay Acunzo, host of the Unthinkable podcast and founder of Marketing Showrunners, has preached the good news about this since 2019, maybe earlier:
"Marketing is no longer about grabbing attention. It's all about holding it."
It's no longer just about reach. It's about resonance. (I touched on this before.)
I love a good billboard. But in a business this crowded, you don't stand out doing what everyone else does.
A show or series built on a premise so compelling people come back for the next episode because they want to—whether or not they need a lawyer—could be a game changer.
I'm not telling you to sell your firm and go make TV shows.
I'm saying the best marketing strategy needs less me-too and more meaning.
At Rankings, we try to live this. And one way we do it is by treating even outlandish ideas like gold.
In fact, this Dateline idea isn't mine.
A team member pitched it at our monthly Purple Cow meeting, named for Seth Godin's book on being so bloody outrageous you wind up being remarkable.
Want to give episodic marketing a shot? Here's what to know first:
Find the premise in your own case files. A trucking crash that turned on the black-box data. A product that kept failing after years of complaints. Jane's story sits in a file at your firm right now. Acunzo's test for a great show is simple: Does it explore a focused concept audiences adore and can't wait to share? The clients who lived it and the experts who worked it, from the reconstructionist to the treating doctor, can carry the episode. Get each client's written consent first, especially where medical details come up, and run every episode past your bar's advertising rules.
Study the firm that already does it. Michael Joe Silva studied theater before law school, and his firm, Silva Injury Law, launched Silva Studios last year with plans for a new episode every month. His shows are comedies. In Thunderclap, an '80s wrestler hires the firm after "a tragic puddle incident," and the firm says the first episode drew nearly 7 million views. The channel now has more than 480,000 subscribers, and it picked up a Webby nomination this spring. "We're not trying to make commercials. We're trying to build connection," Silva said.
Let your billboards send people to the show. Silva told the Turlock Journal that some viewers found the channel after seeing the firm's billboards. So the billboards kept working. They just pointed people to something worth coming back to. (Fair warning: Those views measure reach. The one intake result Silva shared was a client who found the firm through the videos.)
Count who comes back before you count cases. A view total can't tell you who returned or where they live. So cut a pilot and show it to people in your market who don't need a lawyer. If they ask when episode two drops, budget the next episode and the ads to promote it. Then check that the people coming back live where you practice. Log the show as its own lead source in your CRM, and have intake ask every new client where they heard about you.
Want proof the format has legs? Well, Dateline is doing some numbers, my friend.
Nearly 35 years in, it was the No. 1 Friday newsmagazine this past season among adults 18 to 49 and 25 to 54. Its podcasts have passed 2 billion downloads, 156 million of them last season alone. And NBC now streams a 24/7 Dateline channel on 12 free platforms, TheWrap reported.
Same format. Same kind of story. A new case every episode, on every screen people use.
NBC's Liz Cole summed up the strategy: "We want to be anywhere people want to consume this kind of journalism and storytelling."
Your version starts smaller.
But if you manage to get to a pilot, I'd still go for Keith Morrison. 😁
♟️STEAL THIS PLAYBOOK
How to Grow a PI Firm on a Small Budget
A couple weeks ago, I asked our newest subscribers: What's the one thing you most want PIM to cover this year?
"I'm trying to figure out how to grow a PI firm from small time to big time with a small budget. I would love to see more on how the small guys can grow fast!"
First, thanks for reaching out. I touched on some of this before, so I'd encourage you to start here:
Now, here's your weekly dose of bitter marketing truth…
Fast is the hard part. That said, if I've learned anything about this PI business, it's this:
When you can't spend money, you spend time.
That means you invest in meeting people. Take your community relationships seriously, and soon enough, you'll start to earn referrals.
Here are the steps I'd take:
Ask the biggest PI firms for the cases they turn down. You know who they are. Their faces are on every bus bench in town. List the five firms in your market that spend the most on ads, and ask each one whether it refers out the cases it declines. If they'll send you some, set up any referral fee under your state's rules, with the client's written consent. Then report back on every case they send, so they keep sending. As I put it on the show, I'd dumpster dive for those cases.
Buy a lot of coffee. Start with those five firms, then the chiropractors and physicians who treat injured people near you. It's slow, and a handshake doesn't scale like an ad budget. But people trust you more once they've sat across the table from you. Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone is the playbook here. Earn referrals with good work, and check your state's rules before any money changes hands, because they vary.
Own the cases nobody chases. Carve out a small niche the big PI firms skip, and get known for it. The declined files you collect show you where the gaps are.
Put your first ad dollars into LSAs, then Facebook. Once you have enough reviews, start with Local Services Ads. Facebook comes next. Both run on a low budget, so you learn what a case costs you before you scale. You can also buy leads from an outside vendor if your intake team is ready to work them. Keep it small. Bought leads build no name for your firm, and some vendors advertise in a gray area.
Scale only what returns 3 to 1. Add up what it costs to sign a case, marketing and intake together, and compare it with the fees those cases bring in. Track how long a case takes to pay, too. When a channel brings in at least $3 in fees for every $1 it costs, feed it. John Morgan compares it to an ATM that spits out $100 bills for every $10 you put in. Who stops feeding that? Just don't borrow to grow until someone who knows the math, usually a CFO, has checked yours.
Until a channel returns 3 to 1, guard every dollar. Pick the cheaper conferences. Do social and content on your own time, but be patient. These channels take a while to bring in cases. And give this episode a listen. 👇
Heads Up: It's Time to Audit Your Call Routing
When was the last time you checked call routing at your firm?
I mean every phone number you pay for. The one on your website, your Google Business Profile, each ad campaign, your LSAs, your billboards. What number rings where?
I'm asking because we just caught a problem at not one but three firms we work with. Calls meant for intake went to the wrong desk—and nobody at the law firm noticed.
Think about who's on the other end of that line. Someone who just got hurt and is finally ready to talk to a lawyer. If intake doesn't pick up, they don't wait around. They call the next firm.
Your call report won't always catch it, either. CallRail, the call-tracking service, spells it out: "A call answered by a phone system outside of CallRail is considered an answered call." So when someone at the wrong desk picks up, the call can look fine on paper.
The fix takes an afternoon and a phone.
Here's the audit I'd run this month:
Put one person in charge of the log. Pick someone outside intake, so intake doesn't grade its own calls. Before the first test call, they record the number, the time, who picked up, and how long it took to reach intake. If a call misses intake, they flag it that day to whoever owns that number.
List every number and where it forwards. Write down the destination behind each tracking number, then dial that destination directly. CallRail's routing guide tells customers to run that exact check before they call support.
Call each one like a new client would. Use a phone outside the firm and ask about a new case. Stay on the line until someone who can take the case details picks up, whether that's your intake team or an answering service trained to do intake. Then do it again at lunch, after 5 p.m., and on a Saturday, because schedule rules can send calls somewhere else after hours.
Fix it, then retest under the same conditions. Change the forwarding number, the phone menu, or the after-hours schedule behind any call that missed intake. A Saturday failure gets a Saturday retest. Then tell whoever set it up, the agency or the phone vendor, so the next campaign doesn't repeat it.
Listen to the calls marked answered. Every month, pull a sample of answered calls from every active number. For each prospective client, check that the call reached a real intake conversation. That catches what your test calls missed.
Then put the test calls on the calendar once a month, and send the log to whoever signs off on the ad spend.
It's a lot cheaper than even one case walking to the firm down the street.
Let's get to some PI news.
📰 TOP OF THE NEWS
California Bars Investors From Steering the Law Firms They Fund
A new California law keeps investors out of the case decisions at firms they fund.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2305 on Sept. 20.
The law makes it the unauthorized practice of law for a "corporate legal funder" to interfere with a lawyer's litigation decisions. That covers any business built to raise or manage capital tied to a firm through an ownership, service, financing, or management deal.
It applies to contracts signed on or after Jan. 1, 2027, and takes aim at management services organizations (MSOs) and alternative business structures, the two main routes outside money takes into law firms, Bloomberg Law reported.
The law also limits what nonrecourse litigation finance, money repaid only if specific cases succeed, can pay for.
That funding qualifies for the law's fee-sharing exception only if it pays for cases the firm already has, and the contract bars using the money to solicit clients, buy leads, or pay for referrals.
The long list of protected decisions includes which clients a firm takes, the financial terms of a representation, settlement decisions, how the firm budgets cases, and who manages counsel. The law voids any contract term that hands those to an investor.
The Legislature wrote its reason into the bill: so lawyers keep those decisions free from investors "whose primary interest is financial return rather than the interest of the injured individual."
The exception also requires caps. To qualify for the nonrecourse fee-sharing exception, the finance contract must state a fixed or maximum funding amount and limit the return to a multiple or an interest rate.
Clients can sue both sides. A violation exposes the attorney and the funder to $10,000 per violation or three times the client's actual damages, whichever is greater, plus attorney's fees. It also creates grounds for State Bar discipline, though it doesn’t make a violation a crime.
Not everyone expects a big change. Philippa Balestrieri, an M&A partner at Holland & Knight who structures legal-industry investments, told Bloomberg Law the law restates rules MSO deals already follow. "I don't see this as being a kind of watershed moment for the MSO market in California," she said.
The law covers California funding and MSO deals signed on or after Jan. 1, 2027. Earlier deals fall outside it.
🔗 Bloomberg Law →
🚀 QUICK HITS
Private Equity Backs Another PI Firm Through an MSO: Uplift Investors, a Connecticut private equity firm, signed its sixth law firm deal through a management services organization (MSO), this time with Arkansas PI firm Rainwater, Holt & Sexton, Reuters reported. Uplift's Orion Legal will handle administrative, finance, marketing, and technology services, and the firm's attorneys keep ownership. Orion launched in January and already serves PI firms in six other states.
Jury Awards $164 Million to Trafficking Survivor in Suit Against Georgia Motel: A federal jury awarded $164 million to a trafficking survivor in her suit against Lincoln Bancorp, LLC, operator of a Super 8 in College Park, Georgia. She says traffickers brought her to the motel repeatedly in 2020 and 2021, starting when she was 15. The award includes $44 million in compensatory damages and $120 million in punitive damages. At trial, she testified that a hotel employee refused to help her escape, and a former housekeeper testified that some employees were paid to act as lookouts.
Georgia Justices Question Dismissal of PI Solicitation Suit: At a Sept. 22 hearing, Georgia Supreme Court justices questioned an appeals court's dismissal of a class action that R. Shane Lazenby and other Georgia attorneys brought against rival PI firm Cambre & Associates. The suit alleges the firm monitors vehicle crashes, collects victims' information, and contacts them directly to solicit them as clients. The Court of Appeals ruled in November 2025 that the attorneys hadn't shown they were the intended victims, and some justices questioned whether Georgia's racketeering law requires that showing. The court hasn't said when it will rule.
Morgan & Morgan Takes Personal Injury to New York Fashion Week: The firm showed The Slip & Fall Collection on Sept. 10, a five-look runway collection at Sony Hall during New York Fashion Week's opening-night programming with Runway 7. Designer Lawrence Cooper built each look around an injury: Hospital Gown, Dog Bite Denim, Ember, Black Ice, and Gauze. Partner Dan Morgan said the firm wanted to convey "that an injury can happen to you, but it doesn't have to define you."
Traffic Deaths Dip 2% in First Half of 2026: The National Safety Council estimates that 18,460 people died in motor vehicle crashes from January through June, down 2% from its revised count for the first half of 2025, even as miles driven rose 0.8%. Thirteen states saw declines of 10% or more, led by Hawaii (30%), Illinois (24%), and West Virginia (24%). Ten states and the District of Columbia saw increases of at least 10%, including California (14%). The figures are preliminary.
🎙️ FROM THE POD
Thaddeus Wendt on the Two Numbers That Keep His Firm From Becoming a Mill
Thaddeus Wendt uses two numbers to keep his firm from becoming a mill.
Thaddeus is co-CEO of Feller & Wendt, a firm of more than 100 people across Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. And he has to, in his words, "feed the marketing beast." The firm approved a $1.68 million marketing budget for the second quarter, in-house marketing salaries included.
A budget that size can push a firm to churn cases. He wants the growth without becoming "the big mill." (No offense to the big mills, he adds. He just never wanted to run one.)
That's what I wanted to dig into when Thaddeus came on the show: how you spend like that and still don't run a mill.
Here's where he sets the bar:
The policy-limits rate. Feller & Wendt aims to settle more than 60% of its cases for policy limits. It has missed once since it started tracking, with one quarter at 57%. I love that one as a signal. If the rate drops, maybe the carriers have stopped respecting you, and it's time to try more cases.
Time on desk, before and after suit. That's how long a case stays open. The pre-suit target is nine months or less, and the firm was at 8.3 when we talked, down from close to 13 when it started measuring. In litigation, he wants a jury within 18 months. The numbers only work because his team logs each step in Filevine, the firm's case management system.
Two other things he told me stuck with me.
The first is what the firm calls fast-track pain management. A client starts with a telemedicine visit with a doctor in the firm's provider network, and the doctor decides whether the client qualifies for pain management.
Those who do get an MRI and see the pain management doctor. Everyone else goes to a chiropractor or physical therapist. It costs more, Thaddeus says, but it closes the treatment gaps insurers use against clients. When carriers push back, the firm files suit, which he calls quick lit.
The second is his plan to quit buying leads. The firm still buys them, and he calls lead generators his "greatest competitor," because he pays them to compete against him. He has told his in-house marketing team that ending those purchases is the long-term goal.
"You've got to really have an idea and a sense of what that time on desk is, and you've got to be honest about it too, because if you're not, then your predictions and your modeling is all off." —Thaddeus Wendt
If you don't know your own policy-limits rate or time on desk, start there, and make sure your team logs the steps behind them.
Thaddeus will walk any firm through fast-track pain management and quick lit, and he'd like the whole plaintiff bar to use them.
Here's our full conversation:
🤖 AI SEARCH TIP OF THE WEEK
A Cloudflare setting meant to block AI training can also block Google's search crawler.
Cloudflare announced that under its Sept. 15 changes, a site set to block AI training would also block Googlebot, Applebot, and Bingbot, because those crawlers collect content for both search and training. Customers could opt out of the new defaults before that date.
That matters for AI answers, too. In a survey of more than 130 experts by Cyrus Shepard of Zyppy SEO, crawl access and snippet eligibility ranked as the top factor in Google's AI results.
The action this week: Ask your web team two things. Does your Cloudflare AI bot policy block Training? And do Cloudflare's security events show it blocked verified Googlebot requests on your site? A live URL Inspection in Search Console helps, but it uses a separate Google tool, so it can't settle the question alone.
🛠️ TOOL OF THE WEEK
Claude Opus 5.5 Writes Clearer Drafts. You'll Still Need to Edit Them.
Claude Opus 5.5 is a strong new option for drafting and planning. Those were two of its best areas in a review by Every, a newsletter that tests AI tools.
Its testers spent seven days with Opus 5.5 before launch, on coding, design, writing, and consulting work. Anthropic released it Sept. 22.
It writes the most readable prose Every has measured from an Anthropic or OpenAI model. Its drafts read at a 6.95 grade level, and it builds on the notes and material you give it.
It plans at the level of Fable 5.1, Anthropic's larger model. On consulting tests, it picked the same three training priorities the tester would have, and it held a 12-round simulated negotiation until both sides agreed.
Its drafts still bury the main point. Staff writer Katie Parrott had it draft an essay opening, and it took 37 to 39 sentences to cover what she wrote in 21. Every's fix: Draft at high effort, give it your own examples, then put the point first yourself or hand the draft to an editor.
It runs long and can miss a deadline. When a tester asked for a client training schedule in 10 minutes, it wrote handouts and extras and ran out of time with no schedule. Every's advice before a long task: Define "done," set a budget, and set a stopping point. For work that has to be right the first time, Every recommends staying on Fable 5.1.
Through Anthropic's API, it costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, 60% less per token than Fable 5.1. That's developer pricing. It doesn't change what a Claude subscription costs.
Anthropic gave Every early access, though Every says Anthropic had no input on the review. Its tests covered coding, writing, and consulting, not legal work.
Anthropic also published a customer assessment from LexisNexis. Min Chen, its chief AI officer, said Opus 5.5 "identified highly relevant citations consistently." Anthropic attached no methods or error rates.
If your firm already pays for Claude, give Opus 5.5 one drafting job with a deadline this week. Revise a practice-area page using two of your best pages as examples, or turn a de-identified intake script into practice scenarios for new hires, with no client names or case details.
Set a time limit, then check whether the main point comes first and whether every fact matches your source.
🔗 Every →
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.
Thanks for reading. Quick ask…if you know someone who’d benefit from this content, please forward this to them. I’ll be back next week. - Chris
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