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Leadership In Law Podcast
Are you a Law Firm Owner who wants to grow, scale, and find the success you know is possible?
Welcome to the Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins! Cut through the noise. Get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears - your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership.
In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful law firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom.
So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.
Your host, Marilyn Jenkins, is a Digital Marketing Strategist who helps Law Firms Grow and Scale using personalized digital marketing programs. She has helped law firms grow to multiple 7 figures in revenue using Law Marketing Zone® programs.
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Leadership In Law Podcast
S02E87 Bootstrapping & Referral Networks for Growth with Chuck Panzarella
Ever wondered what happens when legal expertise meets entrepreneurial spirit? Chuck Panzarella embodies this powerful combination, forging a unique career path that spans courtroom advocacy and business development. In this enlightening conversation, Chuck shares his journey from Peace Corps volunteer to successful consumer advocate, revealing how he built a thriving law practice while maintaining his entrepreneurial edge.
Chuck's story challenges traditional notions of legal career trajectories. Rather than following his father's footsteps into the judiciary, he carved his path through criminal defense, bankruptcy, and ultimately consumer protection litigation. What makes his approach distinctive is his parallel development as a business leader, having co-founded a marketing agency, launched an interior design company, and created innovative business models that complement his legal work.
The most compelling insights emerge when Chuck discusses the deliberate rightsizing of his law firm. After rapid growth during the housing crisis (expanding to eight attorneys and twelve support staff), he made the strategic decision to scale back to three attorneys and six support staff, a structure that maximizes both profitability and quality service. This counterintuitive move highlights how sometimes smaller can be better when building a sustainable practice.
Marketing strategy stands as another highlight of our conversation. Chuck pioneered direct-to-consumer digital marketing for his firm, transitioning from referral-based acquisition to sophisticated SEO and pay-per-click campaigns. This approach generated so many leads that his firm developed an extensive nationwide referral network, creating additional revenue streams while ensuring consumers receive specialized representation regardless of location.
Reach Chuck here:
https://consumeractionlawgroup.com
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Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
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Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, chuck Panzarella, to the show today. Chuck is a lawyer and business leader who combines legal expertise with marketing and business development skills. He co-founded Think Tank Marketing Agency and is a partner in Consumer Action Law Group, where he's been advocating for consumers since 2010. His career spans both legal and business roles In law. He's been advocating for consumers since 2010. His career spans both legal and business roles In law. He's worked in bankruptcy, criminal defense and civil litigation. In business, he's held leadership positions at companies like General Electric and Hire Council, where he focused on sales, growth and business development. As a founder and entrepreneur, he's launched several successful ventures, including a marketing agency, an interior design company, a media company focused on crowdsourced advertising. I'm excited to have you here, chuck, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you, marilyn, so great to be here Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the diverse background. That's exciting.
Speaker 3:You know, when you read the bio it sounds like I've done a lot of very divergent things.
Speaker 2:Isn't that interesting? And your brain goes wow, I know, reading is just so interesting. Well, tell us about your journey.
Speaker 3:Well, it started. I graduated from Boulder and I did have a sort of a wanderlust. I went into the Peace Corps and I was teaching in Africa and I remember being most I was drawn to the law. My father was a judge and I have a brother and sister that are both lawyers and I gravitated towards the two lawyers that were in my Peace Corps group and spent a lot of time with them and came back and went right to law school. So from there it was more a matter of wanting to do public interest type work and I really, you know it took a while to figure out what the path would be.
Speaker 3:But I spent some time at DOJ right out of law school and I knew I didn't want to follow in my father's footsteps.
Speaker 3:He was with, he was a federal judge and and I just felt like moving in on you know, a different direction, just kind of on my own, having my own compass.
Speaker 3:You know I did teach in Mexico city but then really, you know, I got my license in 98 and decided to join my brother doing criminal defense, as you mentioned, and really carved out a path of being more of an entrepreneur, having my own practice.
Speaker 3:I did join other firms but finally ended up doing my own thing. I had a design company, which you also mentioned, which I started with my partner at the time and she and I we really figured out by bootstrapping how to go into startup mode and something and I steered away from wanting to just run a company to wanting to run a more successful, more deliberate venture that eventually it did bring me back to law, and so I see myself as more of an entrepreneur lawyer than a practicing attorney. A practicing attorney and so you know a lot of what we've done in the last 15 years in my firm and also in the marketing company really really is a synergistic fit between the two, where we do a lot of online marketing direct to consumer and helping other lawyers also and other companies to navigate the SEO and pay-per-click world.
Speaker 2:That's definitely a lot to navigate, absolutely so you're doing so. Your consumer action law group is where you're really focusing most of your law firm attention right now. And is that are you looking to when we're talking about, say, growing your business? Are you happy like that, as like a lifestyle business? That's the way we want to keep it. Are you looking to make it big and exit, or you know, doing the marketing? What's your dream?
Speaker 3:Well, initially I had a lot of drive and energy when we started this in 2010. And part of it was being called into this particular practice area at the time. It seems like so long ago. But we were in the midst of a massive recession and the housing bubble burst and everybody was either filing bankruptcy or just, you know, getting evicted, foreclosed and losing their homes or just basically walking away. That was the more common scenario. People just said I don't need six houses.
Speaker 3:I you know I got 100% loans on all of these houses. They had no real vested interest and I'm generalizing. You know there were a lot of people who legitimately ended up underwater and you know, on their primary residence and we tended to focus on those cases where people were losing their homes and wanted to stay and we ended up moving from transitioning from a bankruptcy practice which was my background when I first started practicing into civil litigation. We started filing lawsuits to help people save their homes and taking on lenders. It was your very kind of classic David and Goliath scenario where we're assuming Bank of America, wells Fargo, bank of New York, chase, every lender. At some point we sued probably every potential lender and servicer that was out there and so we grew very quickly.
Speaker 3:That was a high demand, high intensity practice area and I think at our apex we were somewhere around eight lawyers on staff and maybe 12 support. And then when we transitioned out of that, luckily the economy improved and that was not a forever practice area. We moved into vehicle like car cases, lemons, manufacturing defects and dealer fraud, and that's really been our focus. And so, to answer your question, I don't see it. I did not initially see it as a growth and exit, but that was our model. What we did was we right-sized and we've been at about three lawyers and six support for about five years right around COVID, and I feel like that's about where we should be Nice yeah.
Speaker 2:Nice Got a sweet spot of the customer service that you like. So when you talk about entrepreneurship, that's something that a lot of attorneys struggle with in getting started, getting set up. How did you come basically downsized? Because things changed, economy got better, but how did you determine that where you are is comfortable? I mean, you obviously have a good team.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And everybody's doing what they should be doing in a good spot.
Speaker 3:Right. So, yeah, I mean, there's the advice that you give to others who are trying to figure it out, and then there's the reality, right, right, I almost feel like it's do as I say and not as I do, because a lot of what we've done is bootstrap reaction. We always do, every year we do a marketing and growth plan, but our growth has been more about, particularly in the last five years, quality cases, wanting to help our staff to really go deeper and understand, you know how to you know issue spot and how to really move cases forward aggressively. Obviously, we're a plaintiff's firm. We work on a contingency basis, so it's in our best interest to set up a case, spend more time on the front end and make sure that we can go the distance.
Speaker 3:And you know we always aim for a jury trial. But the reality is very few cases go all the way to a jury. So you know our job is to push as hard as we can with that goal in mind. And then, if there's an offer made at some point, you know, in the client's best interest, we we tend to settle these cases somewhere between day 60 and, you know, two years in. That's sort of how, yeah, but yeah, I think you know in your question it's more about what is the deliberate strategy, and it's so difficult for a small firm to take the time to step back, work on the business and not be in it all the time. And exactly, yeah, yeah. So I still, I still struggle with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we all do at times, cause, yeah, you, you do get caught up in, you know a growth pattern or you know, then you can grow and you get new cases or whatever. Now you're catching up and then, yeah, as the, as the head of the, the firm it is, it does make it a bit more difficult to to find that non-negotiable time, so you can't work on the business, that's true yeah and I and you know you do the marketing for your, your firm, as well as for other firms.
Speaker 2:So what? How are you getting new clients or getting you?
Speaker 3:yeah, we've, we were. We were sort of early adopters and we went all in with online marketing really from the inception of the firm we started out. A lot of what came to us initially in the first year was referrals. We had a lot of referral partners but we gravitated toward straight direct-to-consumer marketing and focused at that point. We started with a pay-per-click budget and we very quickly so year one referrals, year two pay-per-click, but really building the site and the content so that SEO eventually eclipsed our pay-per-click results.
Speaker 2:Cool. So when you built the consumer, the lawyersforconsumerscom, you built it with SEO in mind in the beginning.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it took a while. It takes quite a while.
Speaker 3:It's not fast, right, but eventually it's one of those be careful what you wish for. We ended up being ranked on page one for quite a few keywords Nice. And then we were so overwhelmed with calls for a while that we actually started to send those cases out to other lawyers. We had calls from all over the country mostly car cases, but lemons and fraud claims all around. So we started to develop a network and we have now a referral network and so I'm also in a consumer advocacy organization. It's called NACA and we meet once a year but there's a lot of active. You know email listservs and groups and you know people, so it's a tight network. It's it's a great way to compare notes and results and you know it's a great way to meet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so talk about your referral. Now this is one of the things that I've talked to other attorneys about and they seem to be hesitant about not knowing where to start, like setting up a referral network. So you know, for instance, you know your marketing does you know like you're doing meta ads? It used to be you could set the ads to say I only want my ad to show people who live in this location, and now they've changed it to live or recently in. So if you're in a location that perhaps has tourists or that sort of thing, it could be that someone saw an ad while they were there and then they went home and it's in a different state. So if they have a valid case, you need to somebody that you can refer that to and hopefully get a referral fee for it or something. How did you build your referral program so that somebody else might can take a little bit of direction from that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were very, you know again, at first it was a reactive strategy where we, within NACA, there is a directory, and so it was very easy to find other consumer lawyers, if you know, even if we had never met anyone in Montana who does car cases or lemons. So we relied heavily on the directory within the organization and then we started to really just get to know some of these lawyers. Like, hey, Joe, you're in Montana, we haven't met, but we've got someone who's looking for a lemon lawyer. Will you talk to them? So it was a lot of warm intros, handoffs, and then over time, if we had 10, you know 10 calls in Montana, we'd talk to Joe about like, hey, you know, should we? You know, do you want us to send everything to you? You know, are you looking for new cases? Part of the referral strategy is making sure that the lawyer that you're referring to wants to take the cases and has the capacity and has capacity.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:So it has to be warm and that's been our biggest roadblock. That's been our biggest roadblock. You know we, particularly in the early days when we were overwhelmed with calls, we had real difficulty finding other lawyers that had the capacity. We're set up to handle a lot of incoming calls and do a lot of intakes and to you know, really kind of vet cases. But there are quite a few lawyers, particularly consumer lawyers, who are just solos maybe one paralegal. They just don't have the bandwidth to handle a lot of that.
Speaker 3:So it does take time to find a good referral partner, but it's worth it. We've had some who are really now with us immediately. If we get a call in Pennsylvania, I know it's going to go to Bob Coco. If we get a call in Chicago, it's going to go to Dan Edelman. So it takes time to make those relationships, but these are people that I hadn't really spent time with at the conference. I just got to know them by way of saying, hey, someone's looking for Someone in your area, are you interested? And then you know we take it from there.
Speaker 2:I love that, so your association was very helpful. So then other attorneys can look at your bar association or something like that and just start reaching out to people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because referral business is incredible. You want the case to be taken care of and if you can benefit and the client gets taken care of, that's a win-win all around.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah. Benefit and the client gets taken care of. That's a win-win all around. Yeah yeah, we're adopting more of that model now, even more so where we are partnering and co-counseling with more lawyers now than we ever have in the past. So that has become a key part of our operation.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. That's a great idea. That's excellent. And are you finding that the lemon law and that there's really a lot more problems as we're going into so many vehicles on the road? Is there a lot of problems there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean basically all the cars that have been made in the last 10 years or longer are computers on wheels, and even more so with evs. And there's a lemon lawyer in phoenix who says you know, in the summer all of the the cars melt, and so you know these are essentially chips and and very sophisticated systems that, whether it's heat sensitive or cold sensitive, I know like EVs that catch on fire, are like a nightmare. They don't work very well in extreme cold or water Right, yeah, water. I mean all sorts of problems, even with parts and supply chain issues, and you know this was a big problem during COVID. And bottom line is if you can't drive your car, you know if it's in the shop more than 30 days, it's a lemon. If it's been in the shop three times, it's a lemon, you know. So it doesn't take much to you know, it doesn't take much to figure out that your car is a lemon. The hard part is to then do something about it and get the manufacturer to buy it back.
Speaker 3:So that's the real struggle and the other frustrating part of what we're seeing, at least in California. I take cases in Arizona myself, but most of what we've been doing through the last decade is California claims and the docket is so jammed with lemon cases. It's going up by thousands of claims every year. So there's a real issue here and they just changed the law in California recently this year and now they're basically doing forced mediation and arbitration on prior to filing a lawsuit. So we'll see how that plays out. Keep it out of the courts, yeah yeah, which I think most people agree. It's a good idea. The dockets are just so jammed now Trials are set out for two years or even longer when you file a case now in LA.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, and you're without a car that whole time, unless you can afford to get a second Another car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. A lot of people just yeah, they'll garage this, they'll keep making their payments, you know they'll buy another car and they'll have two payments for two years. It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that is crazy. Wow, well, this has been great. Let me ask you a quick question about the growth of your firm and your team and marketing. If I can wave a wand and solve any problem in your firm right now, what would that problem be?
Speaker 3:Consistency in the quality of calls that we're that we're getting. It varies and we're really struggling to figure that out. You know, with avatar analysis and we've done our sort of model client, but the the calls that we get range from. You know, if it's someone who's out of state, that's not an issue, but assuming that they're in our geo and they have a claim, it takes an enormous amount of effort to vet a case, to qualify someone, to get the documents. So we put a lot of time into screening to you screening and yeah, that's that's our number one challenge is is really we don't do a lot of funneling. We we tend to move people through to intake to a live person, because that's what I prefer if I were to call someone.
Speaker 2:So. So instead of doing like a survey on the landing page that asks more questions to weed them out, you want somebody talking to them right away.
Speaker 3:I think so because we can pretty quickly figure out what's the issue and can we help. But we do spend a lot of time on the phone with and we also have set up I mean we do as much as we can to help people that we can't take on as clients, people that we can't take on as clients. So part of what we do probably spend in every week 10 hours on the phone with people, coaching them on how to file a claim in small claims or how to write a demand letter, how to kind of help themselves with the idea that if they hit a brick wall later they could circle back to us. But most people just want to know if they've paid, you know 5,000 down and they run into a transmission issue in two months. You know that's going to cost $5,000 and the dealer says no, you know how.
Speaker 3:That's all small claims, right, these are claims well under the $12,500 limit. Most states have a $10,000 threshold. So a lot of it is just coaching people on like well, you know, small claims is a great place for you to take your case to the dealer. It's like Judge Judy. I'm sure you've seen it. You know the people's court is pretty easy. You just get in there and you explain it and within two months, hopefully you'll get a check. You know, or something.
Speaker 2:Take all the evidence you can, though We've learned that from Judge Judy right.
Speaker 3:All the documentation, all the documents. That's right, but yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 2:Well, have you thought about, with those, maybe, instead of so many leads coming in, if you've got the calls about using an AI bot that was educated in that coaching so someone who you know and capture those calls? If they're, if they qualify to a degree, it feels like you're talking to a real person. Then they said they transfer them to your intake If they qualify. If not, they continue the education track and send them on their way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we've been experimenting with AI. I will confess that I am not anywhere near even intermediate AI adopter. I use it primarily for writing, you know, drafts and research and things like that. But we've done some experimentation with AI reception and lead reception and lead funnel intake. I base most of it on my own experience and so I'm biased towards talking to a real person, which, of course, is a luxury. But I do believe that if we can qualify a good case right out of the gate, it's going to be a much easier setup and a much more efficient move toward filing that case. So that we can. You know, I want to remove as many barriers as possible to entry. But yeah, if you have a reputation on a good AI tool or intake, I'm all ears. I'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 2:I've been testing several of them and there's a couple out there that are really good and you know they don't sound like a robot, but they also there's enough thinking on the fly that stays within your parameters. So, by teaching and keeping the parameters, there's not a lot of, there's not hallucinations. There's limited time, things that they can talk about and advice they can give. So, yeah, we'll have to chat about that, but it's it's interesting direction that the AI receptions are doing to catch those phone calls, qualify, book, those kinds of things. So right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which, like this. This has been super interesting. If any of our listeners want to connect with you or chat with you further about your entrepreneurial journey or what you're doing or your referral network, where would be the best place for them to reach out for you?
Speaker 3:The best way to get me is email or find me on our website, which is Lawyers for Consumers or Consumer Action Law Group. My email is chuck at calgrouporg and I'm happy to talk to anyone and I'm happy to talk to anyone. They can call me. Number's 818-254-8413 and easily reachable and happy to chat. Especially if it's marketing. I'd love to geek out on different marketing strategies and intake and all that.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll make sure that that's on the show notes. This has been exciting. Thank you so much for having the conversation. I'll make sure that that's on the show notes. This has been exciting. Thank you so much for having the conversation. I'd love to listen to your journey and chatting about your systems and processes.
Speaker 3:Thanks, marilyn. It's been really great getting to know you and chatting with you as well, yeah.
Speaker 4:Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.
