Becoming a Great PI Lawyer

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I'll be your host. Step one, get a billboard. Step two, get a nickname. Step three, do TV ads. Step four, put millions into it. Step five, retire the end. Okay, seriously though, we're talking about how to become a great personal injury lawyer today. So I am passionate about this topic. I love what I do. Not everybody in the world loves what we do, but I do. And I strive to be great every single day for my clients. And I know 99% of other personal injury lawyers do as well. 00:51 Speaker 1 And I want to give you some tips and tactics that I've seen some of the legends follow that I consider great trialers and great personal injury lawyers that hopefully you can find helpful. Step one. Okay, decide. Is this what I want to do in my soul, in my bones and my gut and my instincts, in my head, Am I excited to come to work every day and help my clients? If you are not, then you need to go find a different practice area or just be okay with being mediocre because I've yet to find someone at anything really that may becomes great if they're not striving for greatness because they want to do it and or it makes it very difficult and it feels like drudgery work. Okay, next you need to have a plan to become great. 01:37 Speaker 1 That sounds simple but like just starting with a piece of paper, my plan to become great. And then you want to start making a list of what you need to do to accomplish it. Okay. And you want to visualize what is it? Where am I going? What's the roadmap? An easy way to look at it is to see who else out there is doing what I'm doing at a high level. Who am I targeting? Who's my. Who are my idols? Who do I think is amazing at this so you have a vision for it and make a list of those lawyers that you admire that you want to be like. 02:15 Speaker 2 This podcast is presented by Zynda Law Group, a nationwide personal injury firm. For over 10 years, the experienced lawyers at ZLG have been partnering with outside counsel across the United States on all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases. With over 30 attorneys, Zynda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zynda Law Group, please email us at referralsyndalaw.com we'll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case. 02:53 Speaker 1 Next, think about what it is they're doing that they're becoming great at. It doesn't have to just be the practice of all. Maybe you're really impressed with their business acumen or their speaking style or the types of cases they're getting. So just start brainstorming, what are they doing to get those cases? And you'd be surprised at what you can figure out if you start doing that or what are they doing to become a great lawyer? Or what are the things that they. Where do they go? Who do they interact with next? Figure out what parts of our practice that you love the most and start there as a way to become great at it. I personally think depositions are one of the most critical parts of being a trial lawyer. So I've. 03:28 Speaker 1 That was an area I started with, is how to become great at taking depositions and come up with a plan to master that part of a case. Go to cles, read books, but get immersed in this one subject matter. So when you're done with your topics, you feel like, I am awesome at this. I am really good at taking depositions and get tons of reps in. It could be dealing with experts, it could be trying cases, it could be going to mediations, it could be dealing with clients. Next, try to figure out what type of niche or practice are you really love doing. Do you love premises cases? Dog bite cases? Do you love car accidents? Truck accidents, Gas explosions? Ignore the money for a minute and just think about what do I like to do. 04:11 Speaker 1 I've seen attorneys make a ton of money in cases that you would be shocked people would even take. I know an attorney that makes a fortune doing vaccine injuries because he's passionate about it. I know an attorney that makes a fortune do premises liability cases which are really tough because she loves those cases. And you know what? She's a subject matter expert. And if you get a tough premises case, maybe send to the case dram shop cases. Figure out what you really love to do. You want to dedicate at least one hour per week to honing your skills. Find a mentor to work with. Maybe two mentors that are at least one step above you, maybe two, maybe three. You don't have to go find your hero. You just want to find someone that's a little ahead of where you're at. 04:49 Speaker 1 Offer to help them in their cases. Work with other lawyers that are more experienced on cases with you. I jv ed a ton of cases when I was a young lawyer. And, and it was very beneficial because I was able to learn from the best. It didn't cost me anything. I shared the fee with them, obviously, but I didn't have to pay them anything. And they really, they'll be good at the depositions. They let me see the experts, they introduced me the experts. And then the next time I was able to handle that type of case on my own. And people love to do that. If you don't have any cases to refer out, go volunteer to help. Say, hey, you know, Jessica, I would love to help you on your personal injury case. I will, you know, go to the inspection. 05:28 Speaker 1 You don't pay me a penny. I just want to help and learn from the great. Most people say yes if you offer to do that. So just to summarize, before you decide you want to go do all these steps, make sure in your heart of hearts you really want to be a great personal injury lawyer and you're willing to commit the time. This is not easy. In fact, nothing in life that you want to be great at is easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it. And a lot of people forget that. And when I see people don't achieve their full potential, the first thing is they don't really want it. They're not really willing to put in the work. And hard work leads to great results. 06:04 Speaker 1 If you have any questions or want to talk about this topic further, please feel free to reach out. I love talking to people about their journey in life and professionally, and happy to give you tips or tactics that I have along the way. Thanks. 06:20 Speaker 2 Thanks for listening today's episode of the Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com as always, we'd appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. 06:32 Speaker 1 Thanks.