Better Case Intake Strategies

Jack Zinda: 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. Today we want to talk about signing up cases. If you don't have a client, you don't have a case, you can't be a lawyer. Without clients, we don't get to work. Convincing someone to hire your law firm over someone else is usually the most important step of any case. And in our profession, if you're doing personal injury law, it is really competitive. I can't drive more than half a mile without seeing five competitors that are trying to get the same clients that I am. When someone comes to my office, it's important that if they talk to myself or they talk to one of our attorneys, that they're convinced that we are the best law firm for their case. I want to give you some tips on how to do that. It starts first with making sure you're the best law firm for their case. Doesn't mean you have to be the best lawyer in the world, but you have to be one that is going to get a great result for your client. If you don't do employment law, you're a personal injury attorney, don't take that employment law case unless you think you can do an amazing job. Number one, be confident. You're meeting with a personal injury client or any type of client, you got to be confident. People can pick up on if you're not. Now I'm going to tell you how to become confident in a second. Number two, be empathetic. If someone just told you that their mom was killed in a truck accident, don't jump to the contract. Say, "I am so sorry that happened. That is awful. How's everybody doing?" You need to think about what they're going through. Speaker 2: This podcast is presented by Zinda 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, Zinda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zinda Law Group, please email us at referrals@zindalaw.com. We'll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case. Jack Zinda: Number three, before the initial client meeting, pause, go to a room, take a deep breath, think about what you're going to say. Get in the right headspace. If you run from a deposition or another client meaning to the next one, without giving the right headspace, you're not going to be confident, you're not going to be empathetic. Number three, slow down. By talking slowly, you show the client that you're confident in what you're saying. People that talk fast are usually trying to sell you something, so you need to slow down and talk confidently. Be empathetic. You need to believe and actually be the best lawyer for their case, so you need to have examples of how you've helped similar clients in similar situations and explain how that's going to help them in their situation. If you've noticed, I haven't told you what to say yet. This is about how you say it and the approach you take with dealing with people. Next, make sure you think through any objections ahead of time. What are the sorts of objections that people give you? If you've done a lot of these, you're going to know what those are. Write those out and come up with a script. That's the next step of how you're going to handle those objections, and think through those responses. Now, you don't want to memorize them or sound like a robot, but you need to know how you're going to respond to each objection. In the final step, practice, practice, practice, practice with your spouse, practice with your buddy, practice with your brother, but make sure you practice with someone who's going to give you honest feedback. Practice with the camera. Just turn on your camera and pretend like you're going through a meeting with an initial client. When I first started doing this, I would practice once, twice a day just to make sure I had my reps in. If you do those steps, if you follow that process, odds are you're going to get just about every case that you want to get, but you don't want to overlook it. I see a lot of people that don't sign up the case that they need or they want to make their [inaudible 00:04:41] successful, and it's because they're not putting work and effort into it. You need to take ownership of that result and not blame it on the client or not blame it on circumstances. Figure out what I could do to sign up that case. If you have any questions about this or would like tips or more help in signing up clients, please feel free to reach out. We're here for you. Thanks. Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to 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. Thanks.