Clienting by AttorneySync

In this episode of the Clienting podcast, host Gyi Tsakalakis interviews Trey Harrell, founder of a Trey Harrell Law Office, LLC, a South Carolina personal injury and auto accident law firm.

They discuss:

Intake Philosophy: Marketing oversees the intake department, which Harrell considers the most critical operational component next to client service . He remains committed to using human staff rather than AI chatbots for initial intake to maintain personal client connections .

Budgeting: Harrell targets spending about one-third of firm revenue on marketing, scaling incrementally based on revenue trends and case cycle forecasts .

Market Competition & Lead Gen: Harrell observes that national firms and out-of-state practices are increasingly entering South Carolina due to population growth . While out-of-state entities often rely on digital lead-generation tactics, Harrell notes that third-party lead buying is heavily frowned upon under South Carolina's strict legal advertising and ethics rules .

And more!

n this episode of Clienting, host Gyi Tsakalakis interviews New Orleans personal injury attorney Lee Rudin (founder of Get Rude) on legal marketing, scaling, and brand strategy .

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Firm & Operations: Founded in June 2023 after Lee left insurance defense, the firm has 4 lawyers (including Lee and his wife/partner, Skyler) and a 20-person total team . Two-thirds of the staff are offshore, supported by an embedded fractional COO .

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Barbell Marketing Strategy: Lee combines high-spend digital video with grassroots community presence, bypassing costly traditional TV and billboard buys :

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Digital: Meta and YouTube, focusing on video to merge direct response with brand awareness .

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Analog/Grassroots: Merch giveaways, local independent pro wrestling sponsorships, and youth sports team branding using the tagline "Stop being polite. Get Rude."

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Vendor Accountability: After spending 18 months on an underperforming campaign, Lee advises law firms to demand upfront clarity on the budget needed to actually succeed rather than accepting vanity metrics like impressions .

In this episode of Clienting by AttorneySync, host Gyi Tsakalakis interviews Zack Port, partner at Betz & Port, a personal injury law firm based in Bloomington, Minnesota .

Key Takeaways & Episode Highlights

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Firm Overview & Transition: Zack joined his partner in 2017 as a student intern . After gaining experience in the public defender's and county attorney's offices, he joined his partner in 2022 to launch Betz & Port . The firm has grown from a solo/two-lawyer practice to four attorneys and six support staff (including nearshore team members in Colombia) .

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Approach to Artificial Intelligence:

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The firm leverages AI for back-end efficiency, such as automating online investigative work on defendants and insurance policies using Claude .

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They strictly avoid client-facing AI, prioritizing human connection, high-touch communication, and white-glove service .

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Marketing & Growth Strategy:

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Growth is driven largely by word-of-mouth referrals split roughly between former clients, other attorneys, and medical providers (chiropractors/doctors) .

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Instead of heavy PPC or billboard spending, the firm focuses on value-driven outreach, such as informational brochures for chiropractors, writing an educational book for crash victims, and maintaining personal relationships .

Lightning Round Responses

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Tech / Tool Recommendation: Notion (paired with Clio) for tracking incoming referrals and setting automated outreach reminders, and Claude for internal content creation and research .

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Key Growth Metric: Average Case Fee Value . The firm keeps attorney caseloads low (around 40 cases max) to deliver attentive service while maintaining high average settlement values .

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Resource Recommendation: Traction by Gino Wickman . The firm follows about 70–80% of the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) model to structure business operations .

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Hot Take: Skip reading business books ! Zack prefers learning directly from peers, asking experts, and attending CLEs over reading business manuals (unless summarized by Claude) .

Connect with the Guest

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Website: https://betzandport.com/

Building a Law Firm "Herd" & 50:1 ROI Newsletters with Chuck Boyk

What does it take to sustain and grow a successful personal injury firm over four decades? In this episode of Clienting, host Gyi Tsakalakis of AttorneySync, sits down with Chuck Boyk, founder of Charles E. Boyk Law Offices. Chuck shares his journey from starting out as a criminal defense attorney to building a massive personal injury practice with a 13,000-square-foot main office and 10 satellite offices across Northwest Ohio and Southern Michigan .

Chuck breaks down his most effective, low-cost marketing strategy: print and email newsletters . He shares how maintaining a monthly newsletter for a list of 27,500 past clients and over 2,000 attorneys has generated millions in cases and delivered an extraordinary ROI—up to 50:1 on attorney referrals .

With shout outs to Ben Glass and Ron Latz!

In this episode, you'll learn:

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The Power of Newsletters: Why physical print newsletters outperform digital-only strategies and how to build a loyal "herd" of past clients and referral partners .

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Attorney Referral Growth: How spotlighting local peers and sharing practical legal tips creates a win-win strategy for high-value case referrals .

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Diversified Local Marketing: Balancing community involvement, charitable programs (like giving away 1,000 bikes to kids), and digital marketing (Google Ads & LSAs) .

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Key Firm Metrics: How Chuck uses the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to track cost per acquisition, case tiers (from A to Double-A), and sign-up conversion rates .

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The Importance of Reviews: How 1,600+ five-star Google reviews drive local trust and why qualifying how clients found you matters more than raw data .

In this episode, Gustavo Munguia, Senior Director of Marketing at Custodio & Dubey (CD Law), chats with Gyi Tsakalakis, President at AttorneySync about how they use a paid and organic strategy to earn clients. They discuss how the firm uses content to serve the Spanish-speaking community. They go deep on social media strategy and what types of content and platforms have worked best for CD Law. Get inspiration from CD Law's socials here. As always, Gustavo answers the four Clienting lightning round questions. Tune in and subscribe! If you're interested in being a guest on Clienting, don't hesitate to reach out!

In this episode of Clienting, Chris DiBella, Founding Partner of DiBella Law Injury and Accident Lawyers, joins Gyi Tsakalakis, President at AttorneySync to discuss how to run a law firm like a business. Chris shares what he's learned over the last two decades in growing his firm and taking an MBA mindset approach. They discuss a variety of topics including diversifying marketing investments and balancing direct response legal marketing with branding. Learn how this Boston personal injury law firm is staying competitive in an increasingly crowded market.

More law firms are sending out requests for proposals (RFPs) to marketing agencies. But most RFPs we see are extremely problematic. In fact, they're likely to lead law firm owners and marketers to making poor decisions about which marketing agencies are likely to be a good fit for them. In this episode of Clienting, Jeff Berman and Gyi Tsakalakis break down some of the issues they see with law firm marketing agency RFPs and a couple solutions to improve their value in vetting legal marketing agencies.

"Strategy beats budget 90% of the time." - Ross Gordon Director of Marketing at The Thumbs Up Guys.

This week, Clienting welcomes Ross Gordon, Director of Marketing at The Thumbs Up Guys.

Gyi Tsakalakis chats with Ross Gordon about how The Thumbs Up Guys compete in a market filled with legacy personal injury law firms.

They chat about the impact of trade names, setting growth objectives, and budgets.

They also discuss how dancing on social media may not actually be moving the needle for law firms as much as influencers might want folks to believe. 🍿

OpenAI just updated their guidelines to allow U.S. law firms to advertise on ChatGPT. What will ChatGPT impressions look like for these law firms? AttorneySync's Jeff Berman and Gyi Tsakalakis discuss. Also, Jeff asks Gyi to react to a variety of questions from inbound AttorneySync sales calls. In other words, what are the issues lawyers are asking about when they contact a a digital marketing agency?

Hey, it's been a minute (more like 3,339,360 minutes). But Clienting is back! We'll be exploring new formats and inviting guests. Have questions about how law firms are getting clients? Don't hesitate to reach out wherever you find Clienting and AttorneySync.

In this episode, AttorneySync Co-Founders, Gyi Tsakalakis and Jeff Berman, discuss how firms can compete in the age of consolidation, national law firms, MSOs, AI, and private equity.

We also answer questions that from actual AttorneySync prospect conversations. We figure if they have, others do too.

Let us know what you want to hear more about!

Kay Van Wey is a board-certified personal injury trial lawyer with over 30 years of experience. She is the principal owner and founder of Van Wey, Presby & Williams, a Dallas, Texas-based personal injury litigation boutique firm. When Kay isn't managing her firm or practicing law, she advocates for patient safety. Kay is a big believer in finding your "why", which is one of the things she credits for her ongoing enthusiasm for her work.

Getting more news coverage- how do you take 1 high-profile case and get more than 15 minutes of fame?

Publicity - high profile cases and were stories that needed to be told and developed relationships with reporters.

How are you keeping up those relationships? Capitalizing on them?

• Dr. Death/Dr. Duntsch

• high profile case and got lots of PR
• spent lots of time & money on that case
• Dr. Duntsch reached out to Kay to threaten and ask for a job.
• Dr. Oz show - thought she'd get tons of clients from that and didn't
• Dallas news organizations

• Attorney At Law magazine articles

• Small but Mighty article: https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/kay-van-wey
• "Standing up for the little guy"

• Marketing has been hard over the years and has involved a lot of patience and learning.
• When it comes to picking a marketing agency, Kay has been really picky about content, which makes the cost high from her time and her associates time perspective.
• 10 years prior to Dr. Dutch, Kay's firm represented a similar case and was on 60 minutes. Unfortuantely with no effect or results of getting clients. It just shows that big PR cases don't necessarily lead to more clients in your firm.

Discussion of ways lawyers can be there for clients (and potential clients) in the uncertain COVID-19 environment. We also say congratulations, farewell, good luck, and until next time to Kelly as she embarks on her new venture.

This episode of Clienting is with a lawyer and podcasting powerhouse, Morris Lilienthal.

Mo is a lawyer at Martinson & Beason in Huntsville Alabama. The son of a judicial assistant, Mo is a passionate lawyer, advocate for March of Dimes and a passionate advocate for life & sports in Alabama.

Podcast: The Mo Show (Live) on FB Live and then YouTube and then podcast - podcasting for 2 1/2 years

We talk about Mo's Podcast process, the equipment he uses (it's easy and inexpensive), how Mo finds guests, and what he does once the podcast/Facebook Live is recorded.

• What do you do with the podcast once it's recorded?

• Blogs, links, repurpose content, eNewsletter

• Personal Brand --> pushed through the firm

• Share your Why?
• March of Dimes, Family team,

• TV Appearances

• Building an interest base in Alabama

• Rotary, MADD, sports

• Trash Pandas

• Local links/SEO

• Rocket City Moms

Other shows that you can hear Mo talk about his "Why's" and marketing efforts.

• National President of Mother's Against Drunk Driving: http://bit.ly/MoShow-MADD-FB

• National President of Rotary International: http://bit.ly/MoShow-Rotary-MarkMaloney-FB
• Former NFL & Alabama & Auburn FTBL Players Tony Dixon and Courtney Taylor: http://bit.ly/MoShow-Dixon-Taylor-FB
• Madison Mayor Paul Findley: http://bit.ly/MoShow-PaulFinley-FB
• UAH Basketball Coach John Shulman: http://bit.ly/MoShow-CoachShulman-FB
• Voice of the Trash Pandas Josh Caray: http://bit.ly/MoShow-TrashPandas-FB

Megan Zavieh focuses exclusively on attorney ethics, representing California attorneys facing State Bar disciplinary action and providing tools for lawyers to defend themselves through ethics investigations and prosecutions. She also provides resources to practicing lawyers to structure their firms to minimize their ethics exposure. She writes about ethics at CaliforniaStateBarDefense.com and AttorneyatWork.com. Megan is a mother of four, an avid Spartan racer, and a distance runner. She earned her JD from Boalt Hall of the University of California, graduating Order of the Coif. She is admitted to the United States Supreme Court, and the state courts and several Federal district courts of California, New York, New Jersey and Georgia.

This episode covers tools for ease in Client Development, getting more out of marketing, making sure your firm is using the right technology, and ethics changes in reform - but where to start?

CONTENT

• Content repurposing; write a blog and turn that into a podcast, then break that down into social media posts.
• Take 3-5 questions people have and turn each one into a blog post, a LinkedIn article, or social media posts and videos.

Technology & Ethics

• What server are you using?
• How secure is your client data?

Ethics Changes in Reform

• Mental Health Discipline
• Social Media- lawyers are no longer as scared as they have been in the past

• Transparency in Information - lawyers need to be more transparent in marketing and client interactions becasue the internet can give some of the answers of cause mistrust.

How are you marketing your law firm/services?

• Start implementing:

• Content repurposing: content blog to podcast to social media posts in bite-sized form.
• Take the top 3-5 questions people have and turn them into blog posts

• Podcast - Lawyers Gone Ethical
• Speaking engagements
• Social Media

Will Hornsby - Attorney At Work - What didn't happen in legal ethics reform in 2019?

Marco Brown is the lead attorney at Brown Law, a Utah Family Law Firm focusing on providing affordable, flat-rate divorce services. Marco is a husband, father, and divorce attorney in Salt Lake City, Utah. Nothing makes him happier than cooking, eating, and traveling, except maybe reading.

This episode focuses on capturing the low-hanging fruit of more money without necessarily spending money.

We talk about creating a flywheel - the cyclical process of client experience.

As a small business owner, Marco also shares how he has been able to find and have money to market his firm AND learn how to attract the clients that his law firm wants to serve.

• Automation- what can you automate to help create less friction and more money.
• Following Marco's rules:

• Setting up systems, especially payment.
• Fire your worst client this week. Get rid of that person, you will make more money.
• Specialization in one area of the law.

Marco's technology to use:

• Google suite,
• Clio,
• Scheduling,
• Zapier

Josh Gerben is a trademark attorney and founder of Gerben Law Firm, PLLC. The law firm was created by Mr. Gerben to help small and large businesses alike have access to trademark lawyers who are affordable and responsive to their needs.

Mr. Gerben represents a wide range of clients, ranging from small start-up businesses to large multinational corporations. Since beginning his practice, Mr. Gerben has represented clients in over 4,000 trademark matters.

Marketing your law firm vs. the business of law

What to ask a marketing agency:

• What budget is necessary and is needed to move the needle and get results. Without understanding what the time and budget investment are, honestly, you may not spend enough or get results?
• What kind of work will the agency do? Content, on-site work, types and amount of link-building (and links are super important),
• Monitor your agency and make sure you get reports on the things that are important to your law firm's growth.

LinkedIn

• Great for building a network and increasing visibility in your field.
• Haven't gotten clients as of yet but Josh is working on getting there!

Direct Mail

• Josh and Gerben Law have tried to incorporate direct mailer boxes to increase their network but those haven't panned out thus far.

Positioning yourself against commoditized legal services.

Try not to sell the unsellable.

• Competing with LegalZoom, quality and pricing, managing pressure on fees

Business of Law

Using this aspect to get referrals, speaking engagements, create a public image and PR

Josh has been featured on Fox News, NPR, New York Times, Wall Street Journal - how are those things happening?

• Leads that go unresponded to and why- practical daily business
• Understanding who your clients are and how to attract them
• Selling to someone who isn't going to buy- how to manage this when feeling 'desperate'

• Templates for responses?

Gyi and Kelly are here for their 3rd Annual Legal Marketing Trends episode.

• Voice Search - any updates here?
• Influencer marketing - Lawyers as Influencers https://www.instagram.com/iamcaez/
• https://www.aimclearblog.com/wave-bye-bye-to-these-digital-marketing-trends-pubcon-speakers-speak-out/
• https://marketinginsidergroup.com/marketing-strategy/2020-marketing-trends-you-need-to-know/

Who are Ryan McKeen and Hailey Rice?

• Ryan is the CEO of Connecticut Trial Firm, LLC. In 2019, Connecticut Trial Firm was ranked #15 on the Law Firm 500 list of fastest growing law firms in the United States. Ryan is also a co-author of the best selling "Tiger Tactics: Powerful Strategies for Winning Law Firms". He speaks around the country helping lawyers build practices that transform the way law is practiced.
• Hailey Rice is a Connecticut-based personal injury attorney, zealous social media participant, and host of the Woman on Top podcast. Hailey approaches content generation and marketing through the lenses of leadership, modernizing law practice and the unique challenges faced by women in business.

How is your law firm getting clients?

• Organically grown - slow and steady growth, which allowed them to build strategically over time.
• Blogging since 2007
• Working with a digital marketing agency:

• This has become table stakes for a personal injury firm. Ryan discusses how it has become essential to the firm to have someone who is dedicated to understanding the chnages on Google and focus on link-building to keep their law firm top of mind with all of the algorithm changes.

• Content Marketing

• Web pages
• Book (Tiger Tactics)
• Social Media

• Local link-building

• movie rental

• Videos
• LinkedIn for Lawyer referrals
• Lead tracking and Data

• Lead docket
• Get FIrm Flex(social media management)

Hailey:

• Woman On Top (iTunes)
• TikTok (@thehgr) - Hailey is experimenting with this social media platform to see how lawyers can leverage it by staying up on trends.

Links:

• Ryan's blog
• Connecticut Trial Law Facebook Page
• Ryan's LinkedIn Page
• Tiger Tactics
• Ryan - 5 Point Friday

In a first for Clienting, we're bringing a guest back for a second episode. Erin Gerstenzang is a practicing Criminal Defense attorney based in Atlanta. We discuss future-focused law firms who are looking at where clients are going to come from tomorrow, not just today.

In our last episode, we focused on how speaking engagements can build up your referral network and boost your online presence through links, videos, and more. Today, we're going to talk about how to look outside of traditional means to inform your client development, marketing, and your law firm as a business.

• Revamped and updated your website:

• Why?
• How did Erin decide on and work on the new look and feel- what informed her choices?
• What was the process?
• We discussed how the new version of the law firm website shows much more about the process of working with Erin and better reflects her as a lawyer.

• Added Hemp Law:

• How does someone go about diving into a new niche?

• Forecasting your practice area

• Where and how to market those services differently?

• Erin's Online DUI Course:

• Leveraging specialty knowledge in the law for marketing and client development,
• Adding alternative revenue streams in the practice if you're not "all law all the time"
• How lawyers are learning the business of law, beyond CLE's

Who is Erin Gerstenzang?

Erin Gerstenzang is a trial attorney with a law practice in Atlanta, Georgia. She provides concierge-level service to clients facing drug and alcohol-related offenses. In addition to running her boutique criminal defense law practice in Atlanta, Georgia, Erin Gerstenzang is dedicated to helping other attorneys succeed in their practices. She is a regular speakerat CLE events across the country and helps lawyers understand legal ethics in a technology-enabled world. She also lectures on women mentoring women, design-thinking for law firms, and using social media to build a legal brand

Allison Shields joins Gyi and Kelly to discuss the 2019 ABA Marketing Survey.

We've deemed this episode "Random Acts of Marketing" because that's what the data shows are happening in the majority of small law firms.

Allison C. Shields is the President of Legal Ease Consulting, Inc. where provides practice management, productivity, marketing, business development, and social media coaching and consulting for lawyers and law firms. As a former practicing lawyer, law firm manager and partner herself, Allison understands the unique challenges faced by lawyers today in trying to juggle practicing law, handling clients, and managing and growing their businesses. Allison is also the co-author of the brand-new book, Make LinkedIn Work for You: A Practical Handbook for Lawyers and Other Legal Professionals, now available on Amazon.com.

• Introduction to the survey and survey methods.
• Marketing Methods in use:

• The leading channels for marketing across all firm sizes are email (41%), Facebook (30%), and direct mail (19%).
• Solos are more likely to use Avvo, with 25% of respondents reporting that they use the platform.

• What are solos doing for marketing?

• Solos most often use email (40%), followed by Facebook (26%) and Avvo (25%).
• Facebook was the most popular channel for lawyers from firms of 2-9 lawyers at 39%, followed by print at 33%.
• In firms of 10-49 lawyers, respondents reported using email most often (47%), followed by print (41%).

• Law Firm Websites

• 86% of respondents have a website.
• Only 57% of solos have a firm website
• Over 90% of respondents in all other firm sizes report having a firm website.

• Who is doing the marketing?

• 9% of respondents, (60% of solos), said attorneys do the marketing.
• 31% of firms overall have internal marketing staff, 17% use outside consultants, and 16% report that administrative staff performs marketing functions for the firm.
• 13% of respondents say "no one" is responsible for marketing in their firms, including 30% of solos and 13% of respondents in firms of 2-9 lawyers.
• in 2019, more solos and firms with 2-9 lawyers report using an outside consultant (34% and 41% respectively) for their firm website than they have reported in previous years.

• Larger firms rely more on marketing staff, IT staff, or a firm webmaster for managing their sites.
• 30% of all respondents report that their firm uses an outside consultant or agency for search engine optimization (SEO).

• Website maintenance:

• 25% report their website is primarily managed by an outside consultant, 22% are managed by one lawyer within the firm, 18% by marketing staff, 12% by firm IT staff, and 9% by firm administrators.
• (51%) and firms with between 2-9 lawyers (34%) were most likely to report that one lawyer was responsible for maintaining the firm's website, which has remained steady since 2015.

• What are the agencies doing? - Mostly SEO over Adwords/PPC

• 7% of all respondents indicated that their firms were using AdWords, but 9% report using an outside consultant or agency for AdWords or pay-per-click advertising (PPC).
• 80% of firms are participating in some sort of social media, only 26% use an outside consultant or agency for social media.
• 59% of respondents report that their firms do not use a consultant for SEO, AdWords/PPC, or social media.
• In firms of 2-9 lawyers, 40% of respondents reported using an outside consultant for SEO, 23% for social media, and 15% for AdWords/PPC.
• 35% of respondents from firms of 10-49 lawyers reported the use of an outside consultant for SEO, and 32% for social media.

• How effective is law firm marketing?

• ANALYTICS: 38% of respondents say they have access to analytics or reports to monitor the effectiveness of their website or blog. 41% do not have such access and 21% do not know.

• Do agencies provide analytics? only 17% of respondents indicated that they work with external agencies who provide them regular reports on marketing performance. Another 11% use these agencies but do not get regular reports, and 48% do not use an external agency at all.

• Lawyers confidence in their marketing efforts was a 2.9 out of 5.
• Blog effectiveness: 49% have gotten clients as a result of blogging and another 34% do not know whether they have gotten a client or not.
• Social media effectiveness: 31% report having gotten clients as a result, 44% say they did not, and 24% did not know.