Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign 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.
What's up? What's up? Hey, welcome to the show.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Mike.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Cely, man, nice to see you. Gotta have you on the show. Mike was actually referred to me by Will over at leduc Entertainment. Great guys, great crew over there. Work a lot in the legal space and connect with Mike. Mike is in an interesting niche. We are area and excited to have him on the show to kind of talk about really what he does and how he helps firms with kind of a unique service that he offers, but also just learn more about his business, what he's done and, you know, how we can learn from what he's doing in a very niche area.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: So, Mike, we're certainly, we're certainly. We're certainly a niche, you know, product. I appreciate you having us on. You know, it takes a lot of eyeballs to in our business and getting exposure to, you know, people that we don't know and people using our names and rooms that we're not in isolation. All part of the game. So I appreciate time. Let me be here.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, just looking at Mike and added him on Facebook and he knows a lot of folks that, that I know and it's in some good circles. I saw him with Bob Simon the other day hanging out in Austin, and.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: I don't know if that's necessarily good or not, but I was definitely there.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Might not be a good thing hanging out with Bob or me.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely. Well, I'll take it. Guilty by association.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: And then also, Mike just told me when I jumped on the show here that he's going to be going to Law De Gras. So if you're not going to Law De Gras, I am. You better get a ticket because I'll be there. Mike will be there, Bob will be there. All the great people will be there. So.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: That's right. It's going to be fantastic. Never been before. I'm looking forward to it.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: We will have a good time, 100% and we'll meet some good people.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: I'm pretty much sure that's guaranteed. It doesn't say it in writing, but I'm pretty sure that's part of the guarantee it's guaranteed.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Well, Mike, just tell me, tell us a little bit about your business, Spear Investigations.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: And.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: What's that about? And how. How do you help firms?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So we. Business called Spear Investigations. And we kind of operate, it's a digital investigation product or suite of products. And we operate outside of the normal discovery process. We have four main products that we, that we kind of specialize in. First of those being former employee searches. So we're able to, through our resources, we go through and we're able to collect former employees based on their position that you're looking for within the company, their employment time, the tenure that they were there and location. And then we provide a verified contact information, bundle that all up into a package for attorneys. It allows them to have some kind of insight into the company they may have litigation pending against, into, you know, corporate training and culture and all sorts of anything. If you've ever done a case where you're like, hey, I wish I had somebody on the inside, this is your opportunity, really give you a chance to invest in an insider. That's kind of the tagline that we have. So get this list. We turn it over to the attorneys. If they want to make these phone calls themselves to these verified numbers, they can do so if they want us to help them. We also have trained investigators or sorry, interviewers that go through the list and can make these calls guided by usually five to 10 questions that the attorneys want worked into the conversation. I know it comes to a real shocker. Not everybody wants to talk to an attorney over the phone. So we kind of act as a, as a middleman to kind of, you know, kind of softly bring them into the fold with the ultimate goal of them agreeing to talk to the attorney or a member of their staff. So we feel like we bring some value in that place. And then the other products that we offer are a social media collection in a court admissible format. And we offer corporate structure, research. So if you've got a company, you're like, hey, that something doesn't seem quite right here. We can go through and break that company down by its LLCs and partnerships to identify recoverable assets and, or hidden insurance monies that may be out there as well. And the final thing that we do is a individual deep dive. So if you're, if you're wanting to, maybe there's somebody on the defense, maybe it's an expert. You're like, hey, I'd really like to know everything there is know about this guy or this lady. We can go through and do a complete search on them and give the attorneys a, basically a list of their digital footprint. If they have something that's, that's online, it's in a public record, we can Collect this and basically create a file on them. Maybe whenever they were a resident, they wrote a paper that says this, and now they're saying that on the stand. Well, why is there a difference? Give you a chance to impeach somebody on the stand maybe and have that big aha moment. Wow. And that's. That's kind of the. The four products that we. That we do that are wrapped up kind of in a nice bow. That's what's on the brochure. We have some other things that aren't on the brochure, including finding people. We. We find people also. So if you're having some problems with any of these or like some insight into some people that you have cases against, give us a shout. We'd love to help.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Sometimes you can't find people.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It is. It is. You know, people. People start to get real quiet whenever you say what you do, and they're like, damn, I wish I wouldn't have given you my last name.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Wait, you have my information now?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: I do, but it's. I only use it for good.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: I'm easy to find. It's funny. I have a quick story. I had a personal injury attorney client of mine on me, call me a few months ago. He's like, hey, how's it going, Kevin? I'm like, what's up, man? He's like, pretty good. Hey, I know you're from this area, you know, small hometown. I'm like, yep, yep. Cool. I'm looking for some, you know, looking for someone he kind of described. He kind of just started to give some descriptive things, and I said, is it this person? And he was like, how the hell do you know that?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Well, it's like, this is my hometown, baby. I know everybody here.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Plus, it made sense, you know? That's funny.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: That's funny. Now I will tell you that most of the times when we come across one, it's not quite that easy. You know, we're looking for somebody that's a real kind of outlier. You know, I've had people that have, you know, had people served out of state different. Different places, and they're like, the. The server showed up and this guy clearly doesn't live there. So we've had to go back and do a little bit more deep digging and actually find out where these people are so they could get, you know, legitimately, you know, served in some cases.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I'm sure some people are a little bit legitimately trying to. To elude or not be found 100%.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: They are, yeah.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: This person I'm talking about would be pretty easy to find. Visit local bars and find them.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: That's funny. So Is it spear investigations.com to check.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Out your spear investigations.com like a spear, like you're throwing.
We wanted something that sounded, you know, a little bit aggressive, so I think that's what we ended up with.
Business has been growing, as my wife says, directionally. Correct. We're in our third year of business right now and we are, you know, growing our social media presence, you know, making connections. I'm based in Texas. My business partner is in Atlanta, Georgia. Right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We cover the country nationwide, east to west, north to south. I even do a few cases down in Mexico and some of Canada as well. So pretty nice footprint. Yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a great journey so far and really enjoying being part of it. So.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Well, congrats on, you know, jumping out, doing your own thing and also, you know, pretty niche area and, you know, me and you talked before a little bit, but, you know, how did you, how did you get into this? How did you know this was a need? And how did you. Yeah, I could go work with these attorneys.
Thank you for tuning in to the show today.
I have taken things to the next level and I've started the managing partners Mastermind. We're a peer group of owners looking for connection, clarity and growth strategies. So if you're looking to grow your law firm and not do it alone, please consider joining the group.
Spots are limited, so I ask for anyone to reach out to me directly through LinkedIn and with the set of a one on one call to make sure it's a fit.
Now back to the show.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Sure.
Let's have to start that. Maybe going back a little further. I was sold spinal implants and orthopedic devices, pain pumps for about 25 plus years. I had my own distributorship, had a great deal of success in that field. Loved it. But I was constantly kind of picking up products and losing them because I was kind of a small shop and I had a recruiter call me kind of on one of those days when we were kind of in a down turn and say, hey, I've got this opportunity working for a medical funding company. We need somebody that knows the medical side. We'll teach you the legal side. So I had lots of relationships and knew lots of folks. So I took a job with a funding company that was kind of a startup, worked there for a few years, had some success and Then the company just kind of up and decided they didn't want to be in the space anymore, so they pretty much closed shop. I went to work for another funding company and had a great experience with a company called HMR Servicing. Still have some great connections there and some great friendships with those guys. And through my time going to legal conferences and, you know, attending different webinars and stuff like that, made some relationships. Ran into my business partner, who's a young guy, and we started having some conversations about the space and what was needed. There was a company that was doing something similar in the space. We thought that we could add some value to that and have a better product, and that's what we did. We took our relationships that we knew that we've been cultivating over the last few years, and we. We started a new business and turned ourselves into Spear Investigations. Now, neither one of us are private investigators. We work with licensed investigators nationwide that are contractors for us. We own and manage the relationships with those. Those investigators. A lot of times people say, oh, you're PI And I'm like, no, I'm not. Those are. Those are different folks than. They're credentialed. I don't have that type of credential. What I do have is the relationships, and that's what I'm trying to grow.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And the data side.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Exactly.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: That's. That's awesome. I mean, I think. Well, yeah, for. For any business, I mean, you. You look at the landscape or for anyone listening that's going to start a law firm in a local town or area, there's always room for you to come in and to do something different and to. To be better or provide a better service and have a different brand and serve a different type of clientele. So, you know, law firms are starting all day, every day, too, in the legal space.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Exactly. You know, people, there's some very niche attorneys out there, too. You know, I would never thought that there was guys that just did X type of cases, but they're out there. You know, there's people that just. That just work on certain types of, you know, automotive manufacturer cases, like a small niche, like, manufactured for like X amount of years, and that's. That's where they operate. But they are. That. They are the 100% expert in that area. And that's what we want to. That's what we want to try to try to be as well.
You know, we want to add value to these cases. We want to bring something to the table. We want to have a powerful Statement for attorneys that we want to help you win. We're on the same side. You know, attorneys tend to get a bad rap. I didn't know that coming into the space, but now I see this side of it, and attorneys are the hardest working people. They work hard for these injured people and, you know, they stick up to these big companies, and it gives us a great deal of pride to be part of that, too. Now we're a smaller part. We're a wheel in the cog, and they're the whole cog, but we're still. We're still a part of it. And I think that's valuable 100%, the same way we.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: I feel. And we're just a small part. We get, you know, maybe someone to call the firm or find out about the firm.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Just make that connection with an attorney.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: That can help 100%. I had a. I had a. I had a friend of a friend call me about a case last night. It's very rare that I get to call another attorney that I know and send them something and refer them something, man. It was a great feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I've known this guy for eight years, and he's done me several.
He's done me several solids. But to give him to call him up, say, hey, man, I've got a case. You want to take a look at this? He's like, yeah, of course. I said, I don't know much about it, you know, if there's anything there, but you're literally the first call. You are in this. You're in the town where these people are, and you'd be a great help for them. So that was, that was. That was gratifying to me.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's all. Every once in a while I get those calls like, hey, Kevin. You know, it'd be like a client saying, hey, do you have a client attorney in Florida or Georgia or whatever, and just connect them and they do their thing. I don't, you know, usually know what comes of it from there, but if you're using it. Yeah, I got somebody, of course.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you get the chance to kind of use your relationship capital to pass that along to somebody else, and that's a good feeling. I don't even want anything for it. I just want you to be like, hey, man, thanks for thinking of me. I really appreciate that. You know, and if I can. If I can help you out in any way, I'd be happy to. You know, I'm a big believer in kind of all ships rising in A high tide. And I do that for my other legal service provider partners. You know, I'd like to send them something if I can. If I hear something that may be in there kind of in their wheelhouse, and I want to jump on that because that's such a good feeling. And vice versa. If somebody sends me something that's the highest priority for me, you know, I want to. I want to make sure that I don't waste that opportunity, that I follow through with that and give them an update and let them know how appreciative I am.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, you know, for me, and this might not be for you or for others, but I don't really care about referral fees and stuff like that. So if someone's like, hey, Kevin, I can, you know, if you refer me some work, I'll send you a fee or I will pay you.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: You know, if I'm going to refer you, just take care of them. I don't really care too much. And then same like if they were. But if they refer me, I'm happy to pay them, but I don't really care to. To receive back. Just if you give me a referral, like, that's. That's the biggest thing you can do for me.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: I don't really care to exchange cash or money for it. You know what I mean?
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Sure. Usually, like, I try to. I try to repay that either with, you know, something in kind, or I do a little. I do a little woodworking on the side as a hobby. I usually try to send them, like, I make these charcuterie boards with their name on them, you know, laser engraved. I usually try to do something like that. You know, maybe if. Maybe a bottle of whiskey shows up at your house, something like that. Something personalized that you. That you. That you can't go out and pick up for yourself.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: You know, I'd really get some surprise like that any day, Right? Of course, man. I need to get some whiskey and.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Absolutely, man. You should see some of these things. I do some. Some pretty good stuff now, I only work in two dimensions, right. So nothing with legs on it like tabletops, coffee tables, charcuterie boards, cutting boards. If you want legs, something with legs, you got to buy your own legs. Yeah. So just. Just metal legs. I have two dimensions is. Is my. Is my space, my wheelhouse.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I do some woodworking. So that's cool to know that. So I've built a bunch of.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: So I do like the. I do like the live edge, the big Live edge tables and stuff like that. That's kind of my.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah, I've only done it for like our own stuff and, and properties that we own. So I've built some tables, some islands and stuff like that.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: That's a good time. I like to kind of zero in on that. I guess that, you know, tickles a certain part of my brain that I need simulating and I, I enjoy it, that's all.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: My dad was a decoy carver. Made like ducks that look real cool. So I grew up with a wood shop and a paint shop and I have a wood shop at my house here. I don't have too much time to mess with it. Anything in the, in the garage or the shop, if mechanical or wood.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yep. Okay.
Now I, I feel like in my mechanical starts dropping off pretty quick. You know, I can kind of run into limitations. You know, I have better ideas than I have skills and, or tools to accomplish. So I'm kind of an idea man. That's why I probably stick to more two dimensional type stuff. But my wife has said, seriously, like no more wood stuff in the house, dude. Like, no more like, we're done. I don't need any more cutting boards. I don't need any more tables no more, you know, so now I'm like, make them and just like stash them out in the garage. And I'm, you know, we need a gift or something. She's like, I need it. She's like, I need a gift or something. I'm like, oh, I got you. Let me go ahead and check the, check the stock room in the outside.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: See, you're resourceful.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: When you, when you're needed.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. Within a certain, within a certain frame, I guess.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Well, you know, love the, the business model you have and the niche that you have within it. Hopefully word catches on and people for sure.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: So we go to like, we go to legal conferences. We have a, I have a pretty decent presence on LinkedIn.
Yeah, I'm up to about 5,000 plus followers now, which feels pretty good. You know, I started about two years ago growing that up. Of course I was using like everybody else for job announcements and hunt for jobs occasionally. But then I realized it was so much bigger than that. I really leaned into the online legal community and I've tried to try to grow my brand there and try to help others grow theirs as well with varying success.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean LinkedIn has been amazing.
And you know, it's funny because I'll see like a post by like a Lawyer that I know and I look at the LinkedIn kind of shows you who you might know that's liked or commented. And it's like the list is huge. I know every one of these people and there's a client of mine, there's a friend of mine, there's a client of mine, it's for lawyers. If you're anyone that's listening, if you're just not a business lawyer, but I can sumer like a plaintiff.
This connections you can make with other attorneys that can send you referrals, make connections, help you with your business.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: It's and it's a great place to spend some time and I think, you know, most people think you know, the video base or Instagram or TikTok it's like that's where you can get clients. But LinkedIn spending time connecting with lawyers.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's where I always see too. Whenever I see it, I was like, oh, this is, you know, this is a client based, you know, kind of post or you know, video and you know, like you said like a Facebook or an Instagram or a TikTok is really to me seems like the best place to gather clients. I'm not going to LinkedIn to look for an attorney if I need one.
But the business to business, I don't think it can be beat. And that's where I, that's where my customers are. You know, I don't need to do this giant shotgun blast where I'm showing up on your fake page with my business posts. You know the pace the Facebook page is, you know, for me is more kind of entertainment and Instagram as well. I don't really do too much on Tick tock except probably spend too much time there looking at, you know, fantasy football videos. But you know, oh, I won my week this week.
Nice. So that's another thing. I've got a, I'm doing a, sponsoring a law firm versus law firm nationwide fantasy football league right now. Yeah. So it's firm versus firm. You can have up to two managers on your team. So we've got, I literally have guys in California, I've got guys in Ohio, Louisiana, Texas. They're kind of all around the country. We're going to do a, of course we're going to do a, you know, a trophy for bragging rights with their name on it that'll travel. The name of the trophy is the nuclear verdict trophy. So we're going to be competing for the nuclear verdict trophy traveling trophy. Like I said, championship rings. And then we're we're making a. A charitable donation to the winners charity of choice.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: And then most importantly, bragging rights. So what I've had somewhere, we've got like group takes.
Maybe they have to, you know, go back to be a doctor for a day or something. I don't know, something humiliating, I guess. Maybe you got to like, you know, dress up as your favorite surgeon, Dr. Shaky Hands. I don't. I don't know, maybe something like that. We'll see.
We haven't integrated a punishment yet. You know, after the. I got so many questions regarding the draft order, I was feeling like I was going to be served at any moment. You know, over the order of the draft. It's like, you know, this is not the group of people you want to, like, upset. But yeah, it's been pretty fun so far. You know, a lot. Most of the guys didn't know each other and now we're two weeks into a, you know, a group text chat thread and these guys that don't even know each other talking smack on each other and, oh, I've got this. Or I should send you this case. I've got this. And so, so it's really been. That was my hope that would be something that we could have and do some, some networking off of a little fun, donate a little bit of money to charity and, you know, make some connections. That's what I'm about. I'm a big connector.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Excellent idea. I love it. Anyone listening? Lawyers out there? You might want to get in the line for next year.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's. That's what we talked about for a punishment. The bottom four people are out, and we bring in four new people next year. So we'll see how it goes. But it's been so far. It's been so far so good. It's the, it's. Yeah, 100%. It's the motion to Tackle fantasy football league. So everybody's got a, A great legal football name and a great theme for the league, and it's. It's been pretty fun so far.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm in the. I'm in a group with some lawyers and Armando and Will over at leduc.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: And it's been fun so far, so we'll see how it goes.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: I had to cap it this year at two leagues, you know. You know, if you get too many going, you're like, you know, kind of competing against yourself, you know, like, I've got this guy on this team. But I'm playing him on this team so I don't really know who to cheer for. Um, so I'm avoiding that by only having two leagues this year and I'm actually not in the attorney league. I'm just, I'm on one of the teams because you have to be in the league to be the commissioner, but I'm just, I'm just the commissioner, so.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Nice. You're just moderating.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. Which is, which is, hasn't been that too, too terribly difficult so far.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Good tip right there. For folks, if you're into fantasy football, if you want to like get all your referral partners, your, all your lawyers that refer you business in your state or town or whatever, good idea to get everyone together and do your own kind of thing like that.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. We're posting about ours on LinkedIn so everybody can kind of see it. I was like, hey, if you do good, if you do bad, we're going to post about it. So I hope you do good because I'm going to trash you if you didn't.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: I was supposed to lose the first week like by a lot and I ended up right winning. So we'll see.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Accidental, accidental success. I like it.
As you know, there's a huge degree of luck that goes into it.
Yeah. Somebody gets hurt, so who knows?
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Especially on all luck at this point. Well, Mike, thanks so much for joining me on the show and unique business. I love when some people, when people find a niche area that they can go into and it's always just interesting to learn like how they came about that and how that's going and very success, a lot of success in niching niche has been huge for me. Of course.
Yeah, no, it allows you to build that.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: We definitely want to jump in there. We for sure. I mean we definitely want to jump in there and help folks and I think we can make a big difference in some of these cases, add value to cases, increase your verdicts and help you win. That's the ultimate goal is to help you win and get the most that we can get for these injured, these injured clients. It matters to regular people. And that's what, that's what I love seeing about from the attorneys. Man, these guys, they fight hard. They fight hard and they care about these people. So anytime I'm around somewhere, a bunch of non lawyer folks and I hear them, you know, kind of dogging on attorneys about that or somebody sees one of these ads where you know they got $10 million, I'm like that's not the way that works. You got $10 million. You wouldn't take that $10 million for what these people had to go through. Usually, you know, this isn't. This isn't a lottery winner. This is somebody that got seriously injured and. And somebody got something from them or some companies, you know, egregious acts.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: So well out there playing a. Fighting a good fight, man. I appreciate it and meeting you. Great learning about to see you in person and a lot of.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah, man, it sounds good. Sounds good. We'll see you out there. Okay. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate your time, man.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Stick on with me for a sec. And yeah, everyone have a great day. Thanks for tuning in. Check out Mike, check out his company, connect with him, and we'll see you on the next episode.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Sam.
