Maximum Lawyer

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE


In this high‑energy live session from Max Law Con 2025, attorney, coach, and intake expert Gary Falkowitz shows law firm owners exactly why they are bleeding qualified cases at intake and how to stop it fast. Drawing on two decades of experience as a lawyer, call‑center owner, consultant to 200+ firms, author of “The Complete Guide to Law Firm Intake,” and host of The Intake Playbook podcast, Gary breaks down the real reasons your phone rings but your sign‑ups stall.


You’ll hear why “one shot” thinking changes everything, how to reset your qualification standard from “is it likely a case?” to “could it be a case?”, and the simple shifts that can push your contact, qualification, conversion, referral, and advocacy rates toward true maximums. Gary also shares a deeply personal story about losing his son Ethan to a drunk driver, and how that tragedy revealed the power of convenience, speed, and empathy in every client interaction.


From CPR in 15 seconds (Compassion and Proactive Reassurance) to the “three Rs” you must communicate in the first three minutes, Gary gives you a playbook you can take back to your intake team today. He closes with a candid look at AI voice bots, why traditional call centers are killing your numbers, and how culture, and genuine appreciation for your intake team, ultimately decides whether you win or lose.


00:00 – Live from Max Law Con 2025 and why firms are losing qualified intakes
03:00 – Gary’s background: lawyer, intake operator, consultant, and podcaster
07:30 – “One shot” mindset and what it means to truly maximize intake
12:00 – Contact and qualification rates, “maybe cases,” and drop‑client myths
18:30 – Referrals, warm transfers, and turning non‑cases into found money
24:30 – Ethan’s story and sacrificing quality for convenience
32:00 – After‑hours calls, speed to lead, and “be first or be forgotten”
38:30 – CPR in 15 seconds and the “three Rs in three minutes”
47:00 – Watching game film: KPIs, untouched leads, and bad rejections
1:04:00 – AI voice‑bot demo and why tech‑driven intake wins the future


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Creators and Guests

Host
Tyson Mutrux
Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

What is Maximum Lawyer?

Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.

Gary Falkowitz 00:00:01 Do me a favor. Raise your hand right now. If you want to break your sign up records next month, let's go raise them, I like it, I'm going to be loud. Now keep those. As a matter of fact, drop your hand. You can shut the music now. Thank you guys. Drop your hands if you lost at least one qualified intake last month. If you lost. If you lost at least one quality. Drop your hands. Where do my hands go? They're all gone. Because that's the reality of our industry. The reality of our industry is that all of us drop and lose qualified, potentially qualified clients every single month. And I got to tell you, for most law firms, as they get larger, it happens more. So what I'm going to do in the next 45 minutes now you might be saying, oh man, 45 minutes of this loud guy from New York. Yes, yes. But it's going to go fast and I'm going to be direct.

Gary Falkowitz 00:00:56 I'm going to tell you what is stopping us from hitting our maximum numbers from hitting our highs. I'm also going to tell you what's working and what's not working. So when I look at let me just go over there. When I look at something over here. We'll see you in a second. Do you guys see a change in the. No change in the presentation. Right. There we go. All right. So I look at Eminem's question. Thank you Eminem. Right. If you had one shot or one opportunity, seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or let it slip? Here's what I need you to understand. When someone reaches out to you. You may only have one shot. And if that's the assumption you go home with after this week, after today and tomorrow, let it be. Let it be that we may only have one shot to speak with somebody, one opportunity to convert them, one opportunity to convince them that either we are the right law firm for them.

Gary Falkowitz 00:01:57 So. I need you to understand. That I know who is in this room. I am just like you. I've sat in your seat. I'm an attorney. I've been practicing for 20 years. I manage my own law firm. Get Gary calm. 800. Get Gary. I also owned and operated the largest outsourced retention department in our industry, known as Intake Conversion Experts, which was ultimately acquired. So I had the chance to not only interview, hire, manage, oversee, intake specialists. I also had the chance to see what works and what doesn't work. I've advised more than 200 law firms nationwide on intake. I've walked in the offices. I've sat down with the intake specialists. I've listened to the calls. I've looked at the intakes and the CRMs. I could see where the holes are. I literally wrote the book on intake entitled The Complete Guide to Law Firm Intake. And do me a favor. Go to the Captcha now booth. I'd love to sign a book for you. when the day is over, I also built and host the Intake Playbook podcast, where I share real conversations about the issues that folks like you are having on a daily basis, whether it's why isn't my marketing working? And by the way, I should before I should.

Gary Falkowitz 00:03:34 Before I even started, that last presentation was impeccable. So thank you very much. Yes, really. If we're not, if everyone in this room is not using AI ChatGPT on a daily basis, you're leaving money on the table. So please reconsider it. Use it more. I also created the Intake Playbook Masterclass, the only mastermind focused on intake in the industry, where we sit down once a month and we discuss about the discuss the issues that are that our teams are presented with. And lastly, I created Captcha, now, an AI dependent voice bot that ensures that every single call is answered on the first ring. Now, this is coming from someone who previously had a call center, and I think the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I heard a call and I could hear not not. One of my staff members, but someone's outsourced staff member at a call center. Literally tell a caller, give me one second. I just want to see the end of the scene right here in this movie I'm watching.

Gary Falkowitz 00:04:42 I'll come right back to you. That's what's going on out there. And I wanted to remove that gamble. So yeah, I've worn a few hats. Attorney. Coach. Podcaster, Consultant, and I want you to know that I am going to be very direct with you over the next 40 or so minutes about what I've seen. And I want to start by agreeing on something that I think we all understand. And that's our goal. Our goal is to win. We want to win. We want first place. We want to wear the gold medal and we should not be humble about it. Not only should we not be humble about it, we should understand that if we don't win, our business dies. Second place does not get us clients. So we've got to be okay and confident and comfortable saying that we want to win and we want to win as often as possible. So how do we win in our industry? It's in the name of the the organization that we're at here by maximizing maximizing every aspect of our business, especially at intake.

Gary Falkowitz 00:05:57 And let me talk to you about some specifics here. We have to maximize our contact rate by show of hands. Who here knows their successful contact rate? Almost no hands. Maybe I'm blind. What does that mean? I mean, people reach out to us in many different methods. How successful successful are we in actually speaking with them? On average, it's about 81%. Gary. That's crazy. Look at your numbers. The goal should be 97%. We should be speaking with 97% of the people that reach out to us. Now, granted, there are our outliers, right? If we're if a third party lead generation company is getting us crappy leads, then obviously the the contact rate is going to be lower. But we got to maximize the contact rate because when we maximize the contact rate, we have the ability to now maximize the qualification rate. Now with respect to qualification And I gotta. I want everybody to take this leap with me. One of the major issues that law firms have with qualification is that they're using the wrong standard.

Gary Falkowitz 00:07:02 We've become so entitled and so profitable and so successful that we use the standard of, well, is it likely to be a case that I'm going to make money on? Is it likely to be a case? Can you imagine using that standard coming out of law school? Is it likely to be a case? Okay. Another exercise, for you personal injury law firms out there. Do me a favor. Raise your hand if you ever signed a maybe case. Meaning at intake. It was maybe a case. Maybe it wasn't a case. You signed a maybe case, and you earned a fee. Raise your hands. Okay. See a few hands. Anyone out there sign up? Maybe case and earn a fee in excess of $100,000. Same hands went up. That's why we sign maybe cases. Because when we tell someone that we want to represent them, what we're telling them is that we want to begin an investigation on their behalf. We're not guaranteeing them a certain result. So change the standard from.

Gary Falkowitz 00:08:00 Is it likely to be a case to. Could it be a case? And when you do that, all of a sudden you qualification rate goes higher. And that's how you maximize your qualification rate. Wait. There's an objection I hear it, I hear it, guys. But, Gary, if we start signing more maybe cases, that means we're going to have to drop these clients. And you know what happens with drop clients? We get negative reviews. And that's not true. That is a fallacy in our industry. And let me clarify for you. Let me clean it up. Let me correct it for you. We get negative reviews reviews not reviews. We get negative reviews from poor communication. That's what we get negative reviews on. We will not get a negative review from Mrs. Johnson, who we represent for the last two weeks. And we told her for no cost, we were able to order her police report, and it turns out that the police said that she was the one that made the mistake and she's liable.

Gary Falkowitz 00:08:55 And due to the law as it's written, it's not something we could do anything for. However, we want you to know, we tried. We hope you get better. We hope you consider us in the future. We're sending you a shirt, whatever it is. Mrs. Johnson just became an advocate because within two weeks, we'll let her know why and what the next steps were. Now, if you decided to wait six months to tell Mrs. Johnson that you couldn't help her out, and you sent her correspondence telling her why you can't help her out, well, you might get a negative review, so loosen up your criteria, and don't be so nervous about the drop client situation. It's just not true. All right, so we maximize our contact rate. We maximize our qualification rate. Now we got to maximize our conversion rate. And by conversion I mean what percentage of the claimants that we send an agreement out on are we getting back. Guys I've worked with law firms that are signing 500 cases a month and have a 99, 99% conversion rate.

Gary Falkowitz 00:09:49 Not exaggerating. I'd name them, but I don't think they'd be happy because they don't like to share, like they keep the good things to themselves. 99 so if your conversion rate is at 76 or 80 8 or 92, bring it up. And that's what today is going to be about. There's going to be a lot of things I bring up today that have something to do with conversion. All the Little Things is a great quote. There's a great quote that I love that I wasn't planning on sharing, but the last presenter reminded me, don't judge your day by how much you've harvested. Judge your day by how many seeds you planted. Remember that for our business. All right, let's keep talking about maximizing. We also want to maximize our referral rate. Had a brief conversation with somebody earlier today. I know law firms that are generating more income through referrals than they are through their own internal fees. That is real. I don't care what you practice. You should be maximizing your license by figuring out.

Gary Falkowitz 00:10:55 Even if it's not a case you could work with. Is it a case that another law firm you know, or could be introduced to could help? And they're going to honor a referral fee to you for what? That's found money for almost everybody involved. They'd be happy to pay you. They didn't have to spend it marketing and gamble. And by the way, if you're going to refer, do it the right way. There's a new way to do things. Guys, we can't just send an email and forget about it. That's how we leave money on the table. Use the phone. Warm transfer. Remember one of the first questions I asked thanks to my buddy Eminem is if you only have one shot, what are you going to do with it? Well, if you only have one conversation with a client or potential client and it's a referral, we're not going to say someone's going to call you back. We're going to say, Mrs. Johnson, because I pick on Mrs. Johnson a lot. Mrs. Johnson, hold on one moment.

Gary Falkowitz 00:11:44 I'm going to bring this other law firm who focuses on that practice area on the call right now to see if they can help you out. That's how we capitalize on that conversation. And then we want to maximize our advocacy rate. I like to look at advocacy as unexpected acts of kindness. What are we doing with our potential clients, whether we reject them or whether we sign them? What are we doing with our staff throughout the day? What NPS scores are we getting? Net Promoter score. Are we receiving to ensure that everybody likes us? And the best way to get someone to like you is by doing something unexpectedly kind for them. I'll give you one very brief example. Someone calls up. It's not really a case we can help out with because there's no real injury yet. But you decide. I'm going to schedule to call this person back in a week to see how they're doing. Sure, it might become a case, but more importantly, I'm going to solidify that this person is going to become an advocate.

Gary Falkowitz 00:12:51 So you call up in a week. Hi, Mr. Johnson, I know, I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson. Hi, Mrs. Johnson, I know we spoke last week. You reached out to us. I just wanted to see how you're doing if everything's still going okay. Actually, my back started hurting, and I've been going to the chiropractor. Well, we could help you if you want now. But even if she said I'm doing great, she's going to appreciate this unexpected act of kindness. The how are you feeling called? Put that in your realm of intake or as a law firm. So in order to maximize that intake, one of the most important things we have to do is understand what our clients or potential clients are thinking. Well, what do we think when we're thinking about buying something? Let's think about Amazon for a moment. What's the you know what? Raise your hand if you purchase something from Amazon in the last three days. I bet the same hands would go up if I said in the past three hours, but that's neither here nor there.

Gary Falkowitz 00:13:56 we want to know whether it looks like something we like and whether we can get it fast. Those. That's the decision making. Those are the factors that we're thinking about and whether we like it or not. I know we like to put ourselves on a pedestal. Guys, I get it. We're attorneys. We went to law school, and we and we, you know, we had to take the bar exam, and that was really tough. I get all that in reality, though. We're just another product that's being shown on Amazon, and we better look good and we better be fast. And I'll talk about that in a moment. But right now I'd like to talk about something even more personal. So as most of you know, my life took a turn in a manner that I can't even explain. About two and a half years ago, just under two and a half years ago, my oldest son, Ethan, who checked every single box you would want your child to check. And some that I can't even describe.

Gary Falkowitz 00:15:06 He was killed by a drunk driver 14 years old. Even saying that makes no sense. I hope that this isn't real. I'll wake up tomorrow. Is all a bad dream, and I'll tell you about it someday. Or maybe I won't. And I have to live with that. My wife, my two other children. We have to live with this when I. I will tell you. I will admit to you that I thought I lived a a strong enough and positive life. And I gave so much back that there is no way that something like this would happen to me. And regardless of what I think about myself, I promise you, Ethan was 100 times better than me. He was tremendous. He was a role model to other kids. He was a role model to his parents, to adults. He did everything by the book. He was diligent. Wanted to go to Cornell. Like his mother, he was on the tennis team as an eighth grader, as a on the varsity high school tennis team.

Gary Falkowitz 00:16:03 I got to watch him that night. He went to go celebrate with his friends and then some driver going the wrong way 95 miles an hour. Alcohol and drugs in the system killed two kids, one of them being my son Ethan. It doesn't feel real. It doesn't seem real. I gotta deal with that for the rest of my life. But I bring him up a lot. I have Fridays with Ethan on social media. I talk about him, I bring him up a lot, and I bring him up on the stage a lot, too, because there's so much that we could learn from Ethan. And for the rest of my life, I will continue to learn from Ethan. And let me give you one story. One morning I was waking him up just a couple of months before the tragedy and said, hey, you got to get up for school. He said, dad, I want to go see the new screen movie. I go to the screen movie. Have you seen all the other ones? Because the first one came out when I was your age.

Gary Falkowitz 00:16:53 I saw them all. I said, okay, I love you know me. You know, I love spending time with my family and I really love going to the movies with my family. So I said, you tell me when you want to go. I'll get the tickets. We'll go this weekend. Two days later, I wake him up for school. He never got back to me. When do you want to go? See you scream. He goes, no, no, no, don't worry about it, dad. I watched it last night. Don't worry about that. As if something was an inconvenience to me, right? And I said, what? What do you mean? You watch this. You had tennis, then you came home and studied. I remember you saying good night to you because I couldn't sleep. So I went on the phone and I found that someone recorded the movie. So I just watched it on my phone. I said, okay, let's remove the illegality aspect of this.

Gary Falkowitz 00:17:28 I said, what? The version of that movie must have been terrible. He goes, it was awful. I could see people's heads and the volume on this, you know, and the phone was just really bad. It's bad quality. I said, let's go to the damn movie theater, man. Where we're. recline. We got popcorn, soda, candy, big screen. You know it. That's okay. Again, as if he's letting you know he wants to make sure I don't ruin my time. Okay, you got it. He. But here's the thing. Ethan did something that we all do. And we have to understand for our business. Please understand this. Ethan sacrificed quality for convenience. Ethan sacrificed quality for convenience. The whole instant gratification thing. The reason why Amazon is absolutely crushing it. I understand that all of you are probably quality attorneys. I love this group. I have the utmost respect for what Tyson has built and and Jim and everyone in this room because it's a teamwork environment.

Gary Falkowitz 00:18:27 I love it, but please don't let the thought of the quality that you offer become the number one thing that you think that potential clients want. They want convenience. They want it now. Let me share some statistics with you. Not to look down because I didn't memorize them. 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious and emotionally driven. We need to be able to answer what transformation our potential clients will receive when they sign with our firm. Is it peace of mind? Is it financial? Is it flexibility? Whatever it is, we've got to be able to answer that for them. 68% of people say that their decision to hire a law firm was influenced by how they were treated on the first call, and only 25% of law firms answer calls after hours. Yet over 35% of our leads come in after hours. So I want you to remember that scream story. And I want you when you go back to the office and you think about intake. I want you to think about whether you are the most convenient option for your clients.

Gary Falkowitz 00:19:58 If there is anything inconvenient within the process, you're going to leave a lot of money on the table. Okay, let's I want to dive into something that we tend to overlook. Speed. Another statistic for you. 42% of legal consumers hired the first firm that responds. Wait a second. That sounds familiar. You mean all you have to do is show up? Yeah. All you have to do is show up when you're being beckoned. You've got to show up. You've got to be the first one. Be. I'll give it to you. Be first or be forgotten. It's that simple. Now, let me talk about speed for a moment. Because it's so easy to say. Gary. Come on. I get it. You want to be fast. But let me give you the examples of what you have to be fast at. Here's the obvious one. Right. Web lead comes in. You've got to be really fast to call that that claiming back. And I'm not talking 8 minutes or 15 minutes.

Gary Falkowitz 00:21:03 I'm talking 1 to 2 minutes. Jason Hennessey, who's in the room or was in the room, did a tremendous report on what law firms, how fast law firms were responding. Some law firms didn't respond at all. How do you expect to win? If you're not responding? Some law firms responded the next day. We can't win that way, guys. I get it, there's a difference. Or at least we thought there was a difference between being a lawyer and being a law firm owner. The latter is business. The former is litigation. It's practice. I know we were forced into the business side of it, I get it. Buy into it. Buy into it. If you look at some of the reasons why we lose clients, our parents would be very disappointed in us because they'd say, what do you mean you didn't call someone back? What do you mean you tried once? What do you mean you couldn't answer their questions? What do you mean? You told them you'd call them back? What are we doing? Right.

Gary Falkowitz 00:21:57 We're so much better than this. And we've got to think about this. When we have our processes, when we talk with our team, we've got to be convenient. We've got to be fast. What else am I talking about with fast? How about. And if you're in any of my if you're in my masterclass, if I coach you, if you're just in my world, you know what this means. You've got to convey CPR in 15. Anybody want to scream it out? What CPR stands for? Oh, no one knows that. You'd better sign up to something. I do CPR in 15. Compassion and proactive reassurance in 15 seconds. That's all we got 15 seconds to convey the following. Mrs. Johnson. Here she goes again. Mrs. Johnson, I am so sorry to hear about what happened. But you did the right thing by calling. Because we do. We handle that every single day. That's how easy it is. Because when somebody hears that, they go, great. Let me tell you what happened.

Gary Falkowitz 00:22:55 That's what reassurance does. And let me tell you why it's so important to give reassurance. Raise your hand. Because I love to see everybody's hands. Raise your hand if anyone in here ever needed a personal injury lawyer personally. Anyone need a personal injury lawyer? It's like one, two, three, four, maybe 4 or 5. Raise your hand if you ever needed a personal injury lawyer. At least twice, maybe one. Two. What's my point? My point is that anytime someone calls your firm, it's likely the first time they have ever needed your services. They have no idea what to expect. They don't know what qualifies. They watch TV and they think, oh, he can give me $8 million. No, that's not how this works. They have no idea what to expect, which means we've got to reassure them immediately that they did the right thing by calling that they could share their information, that you're speaking with someone who's going to give you a decision, and everybody wants to speak with someone who's compassionate.

Gary Falkowitz 00:23:54 CPR in 15. Write it down. Print it out. Put it on the ceiling. Make sure your team knows about it. How about the speed to communicate a decision? I hate this story, but I gotta tell it to you because it's the truth. I can't make this stuff up. I heard a call recently and it was a great call. Qualified lead. Everything was perfect. And at the eight minute mark, the claimant said, okay, I got to go back to the office now. I'll give you guys a call back later. Hung up. Why? Because the intake specialist never, never communicated a decision. And I guarantee you I'd bet everything I have that had the intake specialist said earlier on in the call. By the way, Mrs. Johnson, that wasn't her name, but I'm giving that to her. By the way, Mrs. Johnson, this is exactly the type of case where we can assist you with. And I'm going to tell you how you can become a client today on this call.

Gary Falkowitz 00:24:41 There's no way that Mr. Johnson or that claimant hangs up at the eight minute mark. She will stay on and become a client. We have three minutes, three minutes to communicate a decision. I'm not saying you have to get it signed in three minutes. I'm not saying you gotta get their Social Security number in three minutes. I'm saying you've got to communicate your decision about whether you want to represent that claimant or not within three minutes. Which leads me to another point, another gallery ism for you. You need to communicate one of the three yards in three minutes. What are the three yards? You want to yell them out? Your interest to retain or you can't retain your interest to refer. You can't refer. Retain. Unfortunately, you're going to have to reject. Now, what's the fourth are that I want you to stay away from. Someone's got to be. I know you're all smart. Someone really impressed me. What's the fourth? Are you. You hear how I'm speaking? You see how aggressive I am? What's the fourth, though? I want you to stay away from.

Gary Falkowitz 00:25:41 Under review. Do not review cases. Do not put them in this silly status of. I'll put you in under review, and then we'll look at it and talk about it for a few weeks, and then I'll follow up with the lawyer, and hopefully he'll get back to me soon. Stay away. Stay away from under review. You got three minutes to make a decision. Yes. Now, you might be thinking, how is this lawyer, this guy Gary, just telling me some of this basic crap? He's not even telling me any legalese. Because this is a business. Because this is a sales business, because you are competing with some of the I mean, there's probably private equity in this room somehow. Are these connected? You are competing. Okay, let's accept that and let's win. Okay. What else do we have to be fast at? Fast at escalating to an attorney? Raise your hand if you have any attorney involvement at stake in your firm. About half the room. I'm going to tell you why it's important.

Gary Falkowitz 00:26:35 And I fought. I wrestled with this one for a while. So here's your analogy. You go to a car dealership, you feel really good about your your negotiation skills with the salesman, right? And you're like, oh yeah, I got $8 off my wife's. Me so happy. I've been there. I've done that. Now you tell the car salesman, thank you. I'm going to go talk to my wife and I'll come back tomorrow. Now, the car salesman knows that you're likely to go right down the block, take the numbers you just negotiated, and try to get it. Better numbers down the block. So the car salesman says, wait, Mr. Falco, before you leave, allow me to come on, introduce you to our manager. Wow. For me, Mr. Falco, how nice of you. Why? Because they don't want me leaving without a set of keys in my hand and a check in theirs. And they know that they only have one bite of this apple. Like Eminem said that they may not get a second shot.

Gary Falkowitz 00:27:29 They want to leave it all out on the table. And that's how attorneys should be used. If you have a hesitant claimant on the phone and they qualify. Warm transfer to an attorney immediately. Not call back. Not send a text. Not see who's available. Figure out the process internally. Get the attorney involved and get it signed. And make sure the attorney knows what their role is in that situation. And please, I beg you, because I know I can come across with the New York accent, very aggressive. But I beg you, please don't take anything, I say lightly. This is how to win. I've worked with some of the biggest law firms in the country. I've also worked with some of the smallest and hungriest and most talented lawyers in the country. This is how you have to win. Please don't ignore it. Okay, let's keep going over here. I want to move on to something that often gets forgotten. For all of you football fans out there, what does every professional football team do.

Gary Falkowitz 00:28:31 The day after a game. Thank you. Thank you. Watch film. And we're trying to move things here as well. Hold on. There we go. Watch film. That's right. Because the only way we improve today is by looking at how we did yesterday. That's it. So we should be constantly addressing and reviewing our KPIs and our accountability checklists. And here are the two questions that football coaches and football coaches think about all the time. Number one. Did everyone do what they were supposed to do? And number two, is there something we didn't do that we should consider doing? Number one, did everyone do what they were supposed to do? And number two. Is there something we didn't do that we should be considering doing? How many people are asking that question every day? Looking at reports. Let me give you some KPIs to think about so that you go back and you can say, wait a second, I didn't know those numbers. Why are we doing that that way? Why is that number so low? For example, leads that have gone untouched for too long? Do you have some type of alert system in your CRM that says this particular lead has not been called in at least a week, or in at least six hours? Whatever you're looking at based upon the status it's in, you need to have that.

Gary Falkowitz 00:29:53 How many leads fall through the cracks because you thought someone else was handling it when no one's been calling it for weeks? And let me bring up another story for you. Maybe you've heard my webinar. Okay. After the tragedy, I also needed an attorney, and I know many attorneys. I had my selection, and I had the owners of a very well-known law firm walk into my house and sit at my dining room table with a picture of Ethan right next to me, and they thought the flex was having these named partners Come to my firm. Come to my house. Sorry. Shake my hand and tell me about their firm. We left. I didn't sign anything. You know, the next time they followed up. They didn't know follow up. Zero. They know who I am. Forget about the case. They know my relationships. I know what happened to. It wasn't nefarious. It was that they were these two partners who had no idea what to do with this potential lead. Maybe they didn't give it to intake the right way.

Gary Falkowitz 00:31:01 No one put it in the right way. Maybe intake thought the partners were going to follow up with me. Not a text, not a call. We've got to be looking at our CRM the right way. We've got to know when there's a smoke alarm going off. How about our response rate to digital leads? We just talked about that. The time between the agreement that went out and when they come back in. Attorney availability. Who's available and what are their results? Because we all know and could agree in this room that there is some attorneys we don't want touching intake because their bedside manner is not what we want to convey to potential clients. They might be amazing attorneys, but I don't think they're going to sell anybody. And we got to make sure those folks are staying away from intake, whereas there might be some attorneys that are not very good lawyers, but they're personable and they're likable. I because we all get these stupid deals on our phone every day. A great one my wife shared with our family was about who is the most likable person, what makes the most likable person in the room so likable? And they said, you guys may have seen this one and said, is it looks.

Gary Falkowitz 00:32:11 Is it intelligence? Is it athleticism? And the answer was according to this study and I and I buy into it was how much this person liked others. And the more you liked others, the more you were the first one to say, hey Bobby, what's up man? I haven't seen you in a while. The more likeable you are, those are the folks that I want on the phone. They have to be likable. And if they're quiet and shy or they're not likable, they should not be touching my potential clients in the verbal sense. Okay, how about the feeder? I never heard of that one. First conversation. Decision rate. Ooh, that's a good one. What percentage of our first conversations end with a decision that was communicated? We have to know that. Are we leaving? There are some folks in this room that I've coached that one of their biggest issues was we ended the call without conveying a decision. Once we made that change, that turned everything upside down in a good way.

Gary Falkowitz 00:33:18 First conversation decision rate. What's our follow up cadence? Think about three by three by three for the first three days. Three methods. Three times each. Right. You know the methods. The email. Text call. Three times each. First three days. Gotta do it. We gotta be aggressive. Hey, but, Gary, I don't want to be too aggressive. Yes you do. I'd rather you lose a client or a potential client because they said you're too aggressive. Then you lose a potential client because you said I don't want to be aggressive, so I'm going to stop. And then lastly, we gotta review our losses and our rejections. I think I know, but I'll say I'll think I think. I believe that our qualification rate could be much higher if we looked at our rejections and realize what we were rejecting accidentally. There's one law firm that I consulted with early on, and I listened to this call that we rejected, and the reason that we rejected it is because she told the caller, sorry, because it was raining outside.

Gary Falkowitz 00:34:35 We can't hold the other person responsible for the accident. It's a lack of training right there. This person wasn't doing something to lose money for the firm. It's a lack of training. But because we didn't listen to that call on time, because we didn't look or review this summary and the reason for the rejection in the CRM, we have no idea. And that's why we watch game film. That's why football coaches want to watch game film, because you got to see what's working and what's not. And what can you try that you're not trying. Okay. So now let's move on to something that really segues really well with the last presentation. And that's technology. Allow me to make it very simple for you. If you're not leaning into technology, you will be pushed out of the industry. If you're not leaning into technology, you'll be pushed out of the industry. We may not. We cannot compete in a race. Riding a bicycle when our competitors are driving a sports car. And that's the problem with many law firms right now.

Gary Falkowitz 00:35:35 We're so nervous about using technology or modern technology in our in our firms that we end up completely out of the race. So just like phones with cords are no longer a thing. Let me tell you some other things that are no longer a thing. Voicemail, missed calls, long ring time, or any ring time for that matter. Hold time using outsourced untrained call center representatives asking claimants to repeat their story, collecting or sharing inaccurate information. And I'm reading this whole list here, paying for long calls that should have lasted a fifth of the time and relying on rigid scripts or not having calls integrated into our CRM. If you're guilty of any of those things. And unfortunately, there are some law firms that are guilty of all of them. But if you're guilty of any of those things, then we've got to make some changes. Now, whether it's my company capture now or any of these other AI companies, you need to know what's out there. Because when you work with an AI product such as Captcha, now you pick it where it picks up the call on the first ring, whether it's reception, whether it's intake, whether it's night's overflow on weekend.

Gary Falkowitz 00:36:45 Then you never have to worry about missing calls due to no due to the long rings. Think about what we do on Friday night, right? Your spouse and you are thinking about going out for dinner. Say, okay, let's go to Trattoria de Mayo. Right? Great restaurant near me, I call. I wait for rings. If they don't pick up, I go find another restaurant. No matter how good their food is, I'm going to find another restaurant. That's what's going on with our firms. People are hanging up because their ring time is too long. That's one of those reasons our parents would be disappointed with us in our business. Right? That is not acceptable anymore. Now I'm going to do something here that would not be advisable in any other situation. And that's doing a live demo to give you a sense of what it sounds like. So if it doesn't go well, I'm going to blame Wi-Fi. Just throwing that out there right now. Okay, hold on one second.

Gary Falkowitz 00:37:43 Hi, this is Amy.

Gary Falkowitz 00:37:44 I'm a virtual assistant with Captcha. Now, how can I help you?

Gary Falkowitz 00:37:48 Hi, Amy. I think I need a lawyer. I was, I was in an accident.

Gary Falkowitz 00:37:57 I'm sorry to hear about your accident. I'm here to help. Could I have your full name just in case we get disconnected?

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:03 Yeah, my name is Sean Parker. And actually, I was just, I just got engaged to my girlfriend, so the timing really isn't so good. By the way, Sean did just get engaged. He's back there.

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:14 Congratulations on your engagement, Sean. I understand this must be a challenging time with everything going on, just to make sure we can stay in touch. What's the best phone number to reach you?

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:24 (917) 226-4833. You know what? Let me give you my house number two. Because I don't always pick up my cell. It's (516) 723-4167.

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:36 Thanks, Sean. I've got both numbers noted. I just need to get a few details so our attorneys have the full picture. Could you please describe how the accident happened?

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:44 Yeah, I was driving, and I was coming to the red light.

Gary Falkowitz 00:38:48 And as I always do when I come to the red light, I put my I start to look through the rearview mirror to see the car behind me is going to stop in time. And of course, I realize it's not stopping, and within a second they ended up rear ending me.

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:03 Thank you for explaining that, Sean. I'm really sorry that happened to you. Were you injured in the accident?

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:09 So right now, my neck hurts. I haven't gone to the doctor yet. I don't know if I should go to the doctor. What do you guys think?

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:20 I'm really sorry. You're in pain, Sean. It's important to get evaluated, even if you haven't seen a doctor yet. Sometimes injuries like whiplash or soft tissue damage don't show up right away. So having a medical record can really help both your recovery and your case. Would you like me to continue gathering the rest?

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:36 Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:41 Of course. Just a few more questions so we can get everything over to the legal team.

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:44 When did the accident take place?

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:46 It was yesterday afternoon, probably about 330.

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:54 Got it yesterday, around 330 in the afternoon. And where did the accident occur?

Gary Falkowitz 00:39:58 It was in Nashville, Tennessee. But I don't have the streets on me. Do you need me to get them for you right now?

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:05 No need to worry about that right now. Sean, we can get more specific details later if needed. Was law enforcement called to the scene?

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:11 Yeah, I didn't call them. Someone else must have called them. But yes, I saw them there.

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:18 Thank you for letting me know. Do you know who law enforcement determined was at fault for the accident?

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:23 I'm pretty sure the other driver I saw, someone told me that they got a ticket for speeding, so it was definitely their fault.

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:33 Thanks, Sean. That's helpful. Could you please tell me which car insurance company covers you?

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:38 Yeah. Give me one second. Let me try to find it. Hold on one second.

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:44 Take your time, Sean.

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:47 Okay. Got it. Right here. I have Geico, I have Geico.

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:53 Great. Thank you. Do you know the insurance company of the other driver involved in the accident?

Gary Falkowitz 00:40:57 Oh, man, I don't. Is that going to be a problem? Do I have to get that for you right now?

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:04 No problem at all, Sean. We can work on obtaining that information later if needed. Were there any other passengers involved in the accident?

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:11 No. Just me.

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:15 All right. Thank you for sharing all of that information. Shawn. May I have your email address so we can send you any necessary documents?

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:22 Sure it is. Sean Parker is engaged at gmail.com.

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:28 Thank you. Sean, I've got all the details I need for now. You should expect to hear from our team shortly. Thank you again for calling, and I hope your neck feels better soon. Have a great day. Goodbye.

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:38 Bye. So that was three minutes and 40s. Thank you. here's the thing. It didn't ask me to repeat myself.

Gary Falkowitz 00:41:50 It didn't tell me. Need to watch the finish. Watching a scene in the movie. That recording is sent to the law firm. The complete question and answer transcript sent to the law firm. It's all transparent. It's all predictable. It's all immediate. Why would we ever rely on an outsourced call center with people that we have not trained. And this isn't about Captcha. Now forget captcha. Now go find ten other companies. This needs to be part of your solution for your business. Or are you going to lose to the firms that do use it? So let me talk about something that we don't discuss nearly enough. And that's culture as aggressive and loud and and fast as I am a speaker. I love intake more than anyone else, and I love the team and the people that we give the responsibility of intake to. But I don't like the revolving door that we've created in our industry. I don't like that most intake specialists and I've met with Hundreds. Hundreds. I don't like that. I could see through their eyes that a lot of them don't love what they're doing.

Gary Falkowitz 00:43:21 And I think it comes from a lack of appreciation, a lack of love, a lack of rewards, a lack of emails that go out to the whole firm recognizing how great our team is or what a good job they just did with somebody, or the patience that they had to display with someone who is really high maintenance. This is the lifeblood of our firm. I get it from most firms. They get paid in the bottom quadrant, but they've got to be smiling. They do something that none of us could do for two hours a day. And I've done it right. When I had the call center, I need to make sure that every new intake specialist that we hired saw me do it. I had to train them and I was exhausted after doing it for a day. They got to be exhausted. And culture and attitude and the removal of the revolving door come from making sure that our team is happy. That is the priority for all of you. You want to ignore all the metric stuff that I gave you.

Gary Falkowitz 00:44:28 You want to ignore the Gary isms, the one liners? That's fine. But please put a smile on your intakes faces. Otherwise, you're going to have the same problem every single year. So I want to wrap this up. I told you before, but for me 45 minutes went pretty quick. I don't know about for you guys, but if what I shared today struck a nerve, if you know that you're leaving cases on the table, take out your phones. Guys. Seriously, take out your phone. Scan this QR code. Let's see what you're going to do with this QR code is you're going to schedule a call with me. My normal hourly rate is $5,000. This is free. A free 15 minute call where we could talk about your biggest intake issue. And I'll give you my answers. I'm not going to sell you on a damn thing. Now, if after that call you, whether it's my coaching, my, you know, my my playbook masterclass, now, whatever it is, we'll have another call for that stuff.

Gary Falkowitz 00:45:24 But capitalize on my time, because this community, the maximum lawyer community, means the world to me. Tyson has he's become a really good friend of mine, and I have nothing but admiration for what he's created here. So if you're here, scan this, call me. Schedule a call. I'd love to help you out one way or the other, and then stop by the caption, our booth. Get a copy of my book. Bring it back to your team. Have them review it a little bit. Maybe they'll get some ideas. Please stop working with call centers, but I just want you all to know that advocacy begins at intake. Thank you all so much for your time today.