Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You get into trouble and it becomes problematic when you go all in and you don't check your cases, you don't look at each paper in the discovery, you don't attack the case. You know, the old school way. You still have to do that. But I do think that AI can get you pointed in the right direction. I do a lot of appellate work. I deal with, with transcripts sometimes that are 2, 3, 4,000 pages. Why not pop that in and just get an idea of things to look for? I'm still going to read every pa.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Most firms survive, the best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin Daisy. Let's jump in.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Hey.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Hey everyone.
What's up? Kevin Daisy here. And I'm excited to be on another episode. I think we're over 500 plus episodes. I'm not sure at this point, but love having these conversations with lawyers all across the country in different niches, different areas, different mindsets, running their firms. I have Jason Goldman on the show today and first we'll learn a little about his firm, what he specializes in, where he's located, and then talk a little bit about the business of law and what he's doing with AI in his practice.
And we're just going to chop it up and, and have some fun. So, Jason, welcome to the show.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me, Kevin.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Appreciate it.
Cool. So, yeah, introduce yourself as far as your, your background, how you became a law firm owner and tell us a little bit more about your practice, what you're focused in. Yeah, your geographic area that you're, that you're also focused on.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I started off as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York that was out of law school, prosecuting, you know, starting with low level crime, working my way up to homicides. After that I departed and worked for another criminal defense attorney for a couple of years and then started my own practice about four years ago. Based primarily out of Manhattan. But I've taken cases all over the country at this point. A little bit of work down in Florida, some cases out in California. So, you know, look, when it comes to trial law, I, I think I get tapped into cases that can take place anywhere. I tell clients sometimes that it's advantageous for them to have a lawyer that's not in their market. You know, depending on the case in my market in Brooklyn or Manhattan or Miami, I tell them the opposite. I say, look, it might benefit you to have somebody out of town on a case like this so we could talk more about that, but I do primarily criminal defense.
There's been some related civilization litigation with those criminal cases. Sometimes whether it's a lot of the time we see those with sexual assault or rape cases, we see that with financial crimes. You know, I've taken on some civil litigation as well. And again, really heavily focused on cases that are actually in court, potentially going to trial and, and kind of coming in for those phases.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, well, yes, some of those kind of uniquenesses with you as far as the out of state, maybe talk about that more. I'd be interested to, to know how that's, you know, come about and worked out for you.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think that there's a small pocket of cases and sometimes they tend to be, you know, these high profile cases or cases that are a little bit more sensitive where I, I truly think that the client benefits from having a lawyer that's ultimately not afraid to go in guns blazing, maybe burn some bridges.
I've certainly had some cases in upstate New York where I don't.
We're not afraid to file certain types of motions, have certain type of language within those motions, or with the media or with the prosecutor, with the judge, quite frankly. And I think we're all guilty of when we're playing in our home court. Right. I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn, and if I have a case in Brooklyn, look, there's, there's, you know, I go very, very hard for my clients, obviously, but there's, you know, certain established relationships that we have and you know, in the best of both worlds, if the client can afford it. Sometimes I say, look, in a local case, bring me in. And you might want to bring in someone that you, you're already talking to someone out of town and we can, you know, tag team things and vice versa. You know, I'm not afraid to burn bridges and file, you know, aggressive motions in any county, including the ones in New York. But I think there's a little extra juice when you're in a jurisdiction in Illinois or Florida or somewhere else where I'm never going to be there again, probably. And you just attack a case kind of in a different way. So.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that makes sense. It's an interesting point of view on that. That's pretty awesome.
I know we mentioned AI, that's obviously a hot item right now as I travel around, talk to people, go to conferences, workshops, and AI stuff is kind of infiltrated everywhere. But a lot of smaller firms, solar firms, for the most part, this is bigger firms too. A lot of them are scared about it, don't know what to use, how to use it, where to use it, should they use it at all. Then you have the other ones that are like all in, you know, like so, yeah, yeah, replacing everything and intake and all of it. So it's. Yeah, it's interesting to learn what you're doing because just like everyone listening, I haven't had this conversation with Jason yet, so I'm excited to kind of learn what he's doing. I think.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: I think there simply has to be a middle ground. I don't think you could be all in and I don't think you can ignore it. And right now it doesn't need to be made any more complicated than it is in my mind. I tell the lawyers that I work with and even my clients, I say, look, it's helping us get 50 to 60% of the way there. I think when it comes to legal writing, there's no reason to sit down like we're in 1950 and, you know, put pen to paper and spend, you know, precious hours where we can get a head start on a template, on emotion, on even identifying issues. Absolutely.
But you get into trouble and it becomes problematic when you go all in and you don't check your cases, you don't look at each paper in the discovery, you don't attack the case, you know, the old school way, you still have to do that. But I do think that AI can get you pointed in the right direction. I do a lot of appellate work. I deal with transcripts sometimes that are 2, 3, 4,000 pages. Why not pop that in and just get an idea of things to look for. I'm still going to read every page, but now could flag for me.
Pay extra attention on page 600. When you're tired, look at this page because it's going to have an appellate issue. Why not use that? Of course. So I think it's an exciting space. I think that trial lawyers, especially at boutique, smaller or even mid sized firms, can really take advantage of strengthening their practice and again, not, not at all replacing it, but really just strengthening, you know, how they prepare for trials, you know, what they might do at trials or what they might look for and just, you know, evolve with it. In a few years, maybe it moves the needle even more. Maybe there's a few steps back and we have to kind of be more cautious. But it's an exciting time and I think that there's ways to structure your practice around it. I think there's ways to be more efficient. I Think clients are going to want to see, you know, efficiency as well. So it's, it's just something that's, that's kind of evolving day to day. But I think that anyone that takes a very drastic viewpoint of it is going to get themselves in trouble.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good point. If it improves the client experience and the timeline and the results, you owe it to them to do that. Right. So it's, I think there's somewhere in, like the aba, the ABA is like, you should be using technology to better your, you know, your practice. No one's going to pay if you, if you build hourly. I mean, I don't know. I know you don't, but probably. But it's like that's. If I was a client, like I have a business law firm that charges a thousand dollars an hour. I'm expecting them to use AI to technology to.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I think at the hourly firms and at the bigger firms, you're going to start to see CL clients demanding more efficient product because they know, and some of those clients are very savvy and they'll go to the firm. I've even had some clients approach me and just say, you know, why'd you spend four hours on this? You know, pop this into whatever. And I tell them kind of how it works. But I think at the bigger firms, I'm not trying to put, you know, big law associates out of business, but there's going to be some demand to move the ball, you know, move the ball along. Because a lot of what they do is, is, you know, going to be replaced to a certain extent.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But no, so.
But, you know, I love kind of what you said, you know, playing that middle ground, always reviewing everything, playing it safe. But, but yeah, if, listen, people are. Their attention spans, they're getting shorter and shorter. Yeah. We have, you know, as just a consumer, we have access to everything we want. We. We're used to instant gratification. If I order a pizza, it tells you when it's going to be here, what step. Step. It's in.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: You know, and so Uber, your Uber is five minutes away now. It's pulling up now. It's here now leave them a tip now. Leave them a review.
Like your law firm used to be starting to operate very similar to that, because that's what people are going to start to expect.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's going to be transparency during that, that process. Litigation, motion practice, discovery practice, to a certain extent. And then I think the beauty, at least with trial law and boutique firms. And what I do is knock on wood, you know, the robot's not standing up yet. You know, to, to make the opening statement and to, to be. It's such a human experience to pick a jury. So, you know, I haven't used AI necessarily in the actual trial practice of like crafting my scripts and things that I've done forever because I like doing that. It makes me understand the case better. But up until that point, it, it, it should definitely be used in preparation.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I think lawyers being replaced or not, that's not, probably not ever happening. It's not going to be allowed to happen. But you want to be. I heard someone say this today. It's like how to remove all the crap that you don't need to be doing so that you can actually, you can do your art form. Right. Your, your art, whatever that is. And so the faster you can get all of your team, no matter what their position is, to not have to do the crap like just say, hey, what do you, what do you do all day that you feel is not worth your time?
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: And have AI automations replace that if you can.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean a five page season desist or demand letter, you know, things that I do often for people. Sometimes it used to take hours, it shouldn't. And you're just trying to be a hero or just have an ego. If you're spending that amount of time doing it, you know, plug and play and then again review it, put your own touch on it obviously. But it gets you 70% of the way there. Of course you should be moving things along. So.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing is, you know, you're feeding these programs and we'll talk about that in a second. Maybe what, what you're using, you can take what you've done, your work. It's not like it's, it's pulling from, and it can pull from what you've done. So it's like it understands you and how you operate to take some of the stuff you've done in the past.
And so, you know, I already have a library.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I have a library of, of templates and work product from the pre AI days. And I like those templates. So I do exactly what you just said. I use that, I plug it in, I say, look, work off of this boilerplate and here's the more specific nuances that we want to include. And it's a great product.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So what are you using?
[00:11:38] Speaker A: So I use a platform, it's called Our Firm AI it was founded by a very good colleague of mine who's a litigator. He's a criminal defense and civil trial lawyer. And he made it for people in our universe. Right. People with a practice that is, you know, one to three to five to 10 lawyers. And, and quite frankly, it's scaling up even more right now, but it's geared towards litigation. Incredible platform, our firm AI. And, and I'm integrating and look, I, you know, I'm a tech dinosaur. It took me a while to come around to it and once I did, yeah, there's no going back. It's, it's really useful.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Excellent. So that was, was that our firm AI?
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah, our firm AI.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Sweet. Plug for his buddy. Sounds like a great platform.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Not a paid sponsorship, but, but, but a daily user for sure.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: So, hey, dude, I like hearing about new to software technologies.
If someone's doing good work out there, that's, that's what we want to hear about. So you also personally, your employees are using any other platforms like ChatGPT or Claude or.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Not really. Again, I think you have to be careful.
There's some horror stories there. So again, we're not overusing it, but again, our firm does have kind of a library of templates at this point. It's just only for litigators. Right. Chat and CLAUDE are for everything. So I think there's something to be said about the specialty focus of IT and it just think it produces better products.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. We'll go check that out. Anyone listening? If that's your area of expertise.
I think right now people are just.
I've had plenty of folks that are like, man, there's so many AI vendors and things popping up and they don't know what to do and trust.
And there's a couple of big players that are out there that people are trying out too. So I would say explore and do some demos, check it out, see what it can do for you. If you're not using AI at all, you need to start looking into what it can do. Talk to some other attorneys that are using it, like Jason, is there any other areas in your business that you're using AIs, intake or marketing?
[00:13:59] Speaker A: No, I'm really not.
I believe in the old school for that. I don't have an AI answering the intakes, things like that. I like to speak to clients on my own. I'm going to start using it to help just kind of like take notes during longer consultations, things like that. But, but no, I like, I like to keep Things, you know, person to person as much as possible.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: So that's, that's a kind of a hot topic too. It's like, I know some attorneys that are like, oh, we've already gone 100% AI. You call my firm.
And I know plenty of attorneys that are like, hell no, I'll never do that. And then there's some that are in between.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Like, I think it depends on. Yeah, I think, I think it depends on the firm. I mean, I think there's. There's probably very large personal injury firms where it's a different type of intake volume, It's a different sensitivity. That's not my practice. My practice is, you know, for the most part, people that, they're finding themselves in law enforcement's crosshairs and they're calling me at midnight and freaking out, and I can't have them speaking to a robot. I need to have like a real conversation and be a therapist and talk them off the edge and, and do all of that. So I don't plan on having somebody else have that conversation.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's, I think it's making that decision for what, what you do. I think there's a time and place for it. If I'm calling a lawyer and I'm in a shitty, maybe the worst situation in my life and I knew it was AI, I probably wouldn't be very happy about it. So I'd probably call someone else. But I think there's opinions out there. I think they are getting better. And I think it may be, you know, stages. If I was already a client, if I was already a client, say a personal injury case, and I just wanted to get updates on my case or maybe call in, I probably wouldn't care as much.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Because at least it will get what I need.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: But if I'm calling like the first time and I'm freaking the hell out, I, I want a real person. Totally. It's just me personally. So. But if I was going to call ATT because I had an issue with my phone, give me AI because it'd probably be quicker.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: And I don't, I don't really care to talk to someone in some other country right now. Yeah, definitely A lot of, like, debate on, on that. And I think it's a good call.
I think the firms that can stay efficient and go into the future with AI and technology, but also keep the human element alive, I think those are going to be the ones that win the day. At the end of the end of the day, same with marketing, I could do a post right now with AI and it's got M dashes and it looks like AI, it's not going to perform. People aren't going to relate to it. They're not going to connect with it. Right? Anyone out there listening right now? It's like, if you want to do good in marketing right now, digital marketing, all that stuff that we do is your brand.
And what other people think of your brand is way more important than you. Automating posts and blogs every day, it's really uncovering who's real, in my opinion. So choose your, your use of AI carefully, I guess.
Well, Jason, I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing, you know, what's, you know, say there's a solo out there listening, just about to start their firm, or maybe they just started their firm and they're trying to find their way in this, this new era. What, maybe what's like a pro tip you, you would share?
[00:17:19] Speaker A: I mean, there's a lot. But, you know, I, I think, I think starting slow and, and starting the old school way, I really do. I mean, for the first couple years before I even started it, it was all about relationships, networking, referrals, and that's always been the way of the world. And really any business lawyers, for sure, and they always say, right, there's nothing more powerful than an actual referral. And I kind of built my practice by, you know, having relationships with five, 10 lawyers, you know, more than that, but really five or 10 that were kind of strong ones. And I said, look, I'm starting my practice. I'm starting from the ground up. You know, your trash is my treasure. Send me the call. And then I meant it. And I did. And for the first, you know, year or two specifically, and even now, but really in the very beginning, you got to say yes to a lot of stuff. You really have to kind of open the umbrella.
And, and I've always said this. I say it to myself every day, say it to my partner every day. Nickels make dimes, right? So, you know, I had a couple of cases my first year that looking back on very low money, wasn't happy to be doing it in the moment, whatever, you know, two or three years later, those became major referrals sometimes to me. So you don't know, you know, what phone call you have or what email you have, that even a consultation, at least to nothing. That person has your number now. They have your name. I've gotten so much feedback from people that don't become clients, that say thanks for listening to me. I'm saving your number, you know, Glad to have you. And a year later I get a call from somebody else in their neighborhood or a cousin. So you have to really treat everybody, you know, whether you're in criminal defense, personal injury, or really any other area of law, you don't know where it's going to come from.
So that's, that's my piece of advice. If someone were starting a firm right now and saying, where do I get clients? It's, it's just old school, it's organic, it's boots on the ground, it's handing your card out. You know, I'm not a huge fan of going to big events because I don't think the connections are that strong. I like to just have a one on one coffee with somebody or small lunch and have a real conversation. Never been a fan of, of the bigger group settings, but I know that some people enjoy those.
But however you do it, you know, you can't just sit around and twiddle your thumbs. You can't sit behind a computer. You really got to get out there a little bit. Put yourself out there. You got to give your car to, you know, the guy when you're getting coffee or the waiter at lunch, you know, whoever it is. And, and it'll come back. It will come back. So that's my piece of advice.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. Yeah, my whole company was built on referrals. When I just did this locally, I started this podcast so I could get one on one with folks like yourself and yeah, and to your point, go to a big conference or a big meeting.
You know, everyone's trying to just shuffle around and you don't really get that, that personal time.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, those are good for, you can meet a lot of people quickly. You have to follow up though. That's the biggest thing. You're not going to come out of that with like a strong conversation where you're gonna instantly get gratification. But you can meet, you know, five, 10 people in an evening and then the next day you gotta call them up and set up the one on one. I think that's where the bigger events are helpful because you can just, it's kind of a numbers game there. But yeah, otherwise like you said, it's just, it's just boots on the ground. It's, you know, old school in the beginning and kind of having the trust and faith that, you know, if you build it, it'll start to, to come to you a little bit. So.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's sometimes it's just putting in the time, you know, it's consistency showing up, you know, and
[00:20:47] Speaker A: yeah, it's, it's consistency. It's a numbers game. It's being creative.
It's, you know, sticking your neck out there a little bit, being aggressive, you know, trying to, you know, get in front of people, have those conversations, kind of knock down doors, you know, cold email lawyers that you think might not get back to you and then they do get back to you and then you, you know, you know, you get something from them later on. But it's a long game. You can't be transactional. You can't be greedy about it. You know, I've, I've met people five years ago at this point that nothing's come of it. And that's fine. That's fine.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Jason, anything else, Final words, best way to get in contact with you for folks that are listening, that want to reach out and maybe have a one on one with you.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah, always happy to speak.
My law firm itself is jasongoldmanlaw.com kind of run my business through my website, Obviously my email jgasongoldmanlaw.com and yeah, look, I help people in all sorts of criminal situations, a lot of non criminal situations where they need sort of a boutique lawyer that can, you know, do things maybe that a big firm's not willing to take on or even a midsize firm kind of operate in those spaces. Always happy to have a conversation, whether it's a someone starting their own firm, whether it's a potential client or someone that knows somebody or someone that just wants to establish a relationship. So yeah, that's my information also.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: I appreciate you offering that. But yeah, reach out to Jason. Have one on one virtual coffee if you will, unless you're in New York, maybe you can connect up with them in person.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: So, yeah, thanks so much for having me.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you everyone so much for joining and we'll see you on the next episode.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Thank you.
