World of Marketing Podcast with Tom Foster
Interview with Personal Injury Lawyer Jason Schultz
Tom Foster: Hello everyone and welcome to the World of Marketing where I, Tom Foster, talk with legal leaders about marketing, mindset, and the growth of law firm businesses.
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Today my guest is my friend and longtime client, personal injury lawyer Jason Schultz out of Atlanta, Georgia. Jason, I've known you for years and years, and I wanted to get you on here because you're just the greatest guy. You're one of our best clients because you're such a great person, such a good human being. I wanted to introduce you to everybody because you can be an inspiration. This is what the podcast is about - I want you guys to be inspired by these people, and Jason is somebody that you should be inspired by. Tell me exactly what you do right now.
Jason Schultz: I am a small firm, intentionally, and we like to have not a ton of clients. We're very selective. I learned that through you all and Ben Glass about 15-17 years ago. I learned a lot - I was somebody that thought I knew everything. I'm always the smartest person that walks into the room until I open my mouth!
Legal Background and Family History
Tom: So you've set up your business, your practice, the way you want it. Tell me a little bit about why you wanted to get into law in the first place - what drove you to get into law?
Jason: Well, my great-grandfather was the Northern District of Ohio Federal prosecutor, and I used to hear stories about him. He was on the edge of prosecuting the Red Scare back in the early 1900s. My grandmother used to tell us stories about bombs and how she couldn't open mail and all this other stuff - it was fascinating to me.
My dad was a criminal defense lawyer. He was brilliant and loved the law but hated the system - the way that if anybody exercised their right to a trial by jury, they were usually punished more severely than they would be if they entered a plea. He was somebody that fought against the machine. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but he was definitely in there with his 8-ounce gloves, not the 16-ounce ones.
I followed in the footsteps of those who came before me, but I stepped off in a different direction. I had gotten into a wreck with my mom's car when I was in high school at 17. The lawyer involved thought the way I handled myself showed this was my thing. At that point, I'd already known I wanted to be a lawyer. I'm one of the few people - I'm 58 years old - who's actually doing something that I thought I was going to be doing when I was 17 years old. Fortunately, I enjoy it.
Learning from Experience
Tom: You were inspired by your father, this great lawyer that fought for the people. That's really what it is, and you do that too, right?
Jason: I do. I always said my shoulders weren't broad enough to do the criminal defense stuff because you have to have pretty broad shoulders. Everybody's entitled to a defense, even the worst of the worst, and that's the way he looked at it. A lot of people just can't understand that mindset - but you're defending the constitution. He was a True Believer.
The challenging cases are the ones you learn from the most, especially the ones you lose. I remember one distinctly - I didn't actually lose it, I got a verdict for my client, but it was inadequate to say the least. It was a rear-end case where the guy had a herniated disc but hadn't had surgery yet. It was an "I need surgery" case, which is not as good as an "I had surgery" case.
Throughout the case, I was feeling very confident. During a settlement conference, the judge told the defense lawyer and adjuster, "Mr. Schultz tried a case in front of me 30 days ago, and I'm telling you, he's going to eat your expert alive." I felt so good about myself, thinking they would definitely pay me now. They offered the policy limits, but I refused because I had already invested all the time and money.
I tried what I thought was a great case, and the defense lawyer even said afterward, "You kicked my butt. You did an excellent job." But when the verdict came back, it was just for the medical bills - $1,932 or something. Two weeks later, that same defense lawyer tried a case against an inexperienced personal injury lawyer and got a $75,000 verdict, even with substantial impeachment material against the plaintiff.
The defense lawyer called me and said, "Jason, I know you feel really bad about that verdict you got the other day, but none of it makes any sense. There's no rhyme or reason to it." The more you do it, the more you understand that it's about the 12 people in that box, and we don't get to pick them - we just get to deselect them.
Philosophy on Personal Injury Law
I love helping people, especially good people who deserve it. Very frequently in the personal injury world, nobody really gets fairly compensated. I tell people up front that nobody can really step in your shoes. We can do our best to try to get people to come into your world, but many jurors think, "My back hurts every day, nobody's paying me."
We as lawyers haven't done a great job with how we advertise - "Turn your wreck into a check" and similar slogans are painful to see. I try to separate myself from those people. That's why I came up with what's probably the only original thought I've had in my entire life: "Small enough to care, experienced enough to win."
I differentiate myself through my smallness, which is crazy when you've got firms like Morgan & Morgan stomping everywhere. But there are enough people out here who don't want to be just another case coming through the machine. For me, I wanted to do something different, something I could control. I've had friends with bigger law firms who say they don't know whether the firm is running them or they're running it.
Building a Practice and Personal Life
I decided years ago that I wanted a different path. I had a young family and wanted to coach them in baseball, football, and basketball - really just spend time with my family and have more control over my day-to-day life. Foster Web Marketing allowed me to do that.
Now at 58, I feel like I'm 28. I keep myself in good shape and I'm still excited every day to help people. I have a great paralegal who loves people, which is very helpful while I'm doing the legal work. When people are significantly injured, many are living paycheck to paycheck, and it can be devastating when they can't work.
I help people get reasonable loans, not from loan sharks, and try to get their cases resolved quickly, understanding that quicker settlements often mean less money. When dealing with insurance companies, it's all about them settling for as cheap as they can get it. They don't care about your loyalty or how long you've been a customer - they only care about how much they're going to pay on that claim.
The Importance of Perception and Truth
I'm a true believer in the truth - I want the truth to come out. But the bottom line is you could be telling the truth all day long, but if you're perceived differently, whether it's being perceived as someone who doesn't tell the whole truth or someone who might be exaggerating, that perception is already there. We have to do everything we can to alter that perception and show we're different.
I can do that credibly because I don't have billboards or advertise on TV. There's nothing wrong with that approach, but this is what I consider to be the credibility battle that gets you over the hump to get jurors to look at you differently than what they see out there on TV.
Closing Thoughts
Tom: Jason, it's been wonderful talking to you today. There are so many lessons in your stories for everybody, and for me too. Thank you so much for sharing those things.
Jason: Well, thank you all for being great too. You've got a great team there at Foster Web, and you guys have been great to me for so many years - I think it's 17 years. I appreciate that and I'm super thankful. If you're out there and you want to change the trajectory of your life and your law practice, then Foster Web Marketing is the place to go. They will give you as little or as much as you can handle, because most of the time they're making suggestions to me and I'm like, "That's a great suggestion, but I'm good."