Marian I. Kelly: Turning Trusted Relationships into a Personal Injury Referral Engine

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, joined by my co-host Rebecca. Here’s a number that should get every solo and small firm attorney attention. According to the Legal Trends report, the average attorney converts fewer than half their prospective client consultations into actual matters. That means every other conversation walks out the door. Today’s guest decided to do something about that, and the results speak for themselves. Marian Kelly is a plaintiff personal injury attorney and managing partner with Popjoy and Kelly LLC in Borhees, New Jersey. She’s been practicing since 1992. Has three published appellate decisions and has built a firm that runs entirely on referrals, no advertising. And last fall, she went through the Pollen Performance 12-week rainmaker program alongside her business coach Chuck Pollen, and she’s here today to tell us which what actually changed? Welcome to the show.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, thank you so much, Ron and Rebecca, for having me. I really appreciate it. Well, welcome. We’re happy to have you. Before we get to the first question, I want to kind of set the table for our listeners a little bit. Marian is the rare attorney who wears two hats simultaneously. She’s actively working on her own caseload for PI, but she’s also running the business side of her firm as the managing partner, and that dual role is exactly where this conversation is going to live. With that, Marian, let’s start with your story. So

Marian Kelly: I have been a personal injury attorney for about 30-three years. I’ve always been representing the plaintiffs. I started practicing in a 20 attorney firm for about 18 years or so, and then I did move to a larger firm where there was 200 practicing attorneys. And about 15 years ago, I started my own practice with my partner Bill Popjoy, and it’s just he and I and our assistant who run our personal injury practice, and my business partner Bill. He also does criminal law and municipal court, which is the traffic tickets in New Jersey. But between the two of us, we run the whole practice. And as you said, I’m also the managing attorney doing the daily, you know, business, paying the bills, you know, getting all the checks out, any pay, just anything at all, from the phone bill to the copier bill, I do

Ron Bockstahler: it all. It sounds like a lot on your plate. Practice since ’92. You built the firm that runs entirely on referrals. I know you’re a provisor’s member, so networking. You’re out there talking in the community quite often. Now you’re the managing partner on top of running the full PI caseload, can can you walk our listeners through what it’s like on a day to day basis?

Marian Kelly: So really, the key, and I think one of the things the Pollin performance program taught me and reinforced is that you have to have a plan. So most mornings, I would say three or four mornings a week, I do a networking meeting from seven a.m. to nine a.m. They are mostly Zoom meetings through my networking group provisors, but sometimes they’re a local if they’re local people, you know. And these are attorneys and business people throughout the country, and so I do spend, I would say, at least two hours a day prospecting, meeting new people. Whether that’s in a formal meeting with like providers, or if I’m simply you know doing a one-on-one Zoom call. Mostly everything’s done by Zoom these days, which is so convenient. And I’m trying to meet other attorneys who do not do personal injury, as well as local business people who you know? Whenever their loved ones, family, or friends happen to be in some sort of accident, car accident, slip and fall, dog bite. Hopefully, I’m the first person who comes to mind because I am competing with all the attorneys who are on the billboards around the country as well as on television. So that’s really my competition, and I am marketing myself individually to people on an in-person basis, whether it’s literally in person or on Zoom.

Rebecca Bockstahler: That’s interesting. I love

Ron Bockstahler: that you’re setting aside two hours a day. And that’s one of the things

Marian Kelly: that the Poland Performance Program, you know, really taught me. I’ll be honest; before that program. I was not necessarily doing that, but you know when you do the program, they they have a plan set out for you versus the organization. But secondly, it is you know figuring out who your referral sources are and actually you know putting yourself out there and meeting with them, whether it’s these one-on-one Zoom meetings, but even going through your contacts, your LinkedIn contacts, your old clients, or old you know associates that you’ve met throughout your business, whether you’re an attorney or not, and just reaching out to them and reminding them that you’re here and connecting with them, you’re not selling them. You’re simply reconnecting with them, asking them how they’re doing, and also learning what’s new in their life and building upon that in that relationship.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right. Well, it’s interesting because you said that before you went through the program, you didn’t necessarily allocate that kind of time. And there’s something that I think sort of ties to that that is interesting to me and probably to some of our listeners, is that before you went to law school, you were a communications major, and so you don’t have the formal business training, and yet here you are running your law firm. So, at what point before you took this program did you decide that focusing on the business side of your firm was something that you needed to spend some time on.

Marian Kelly: Well, I really realized in a post-COVID world when the world shut down, personal injury cases went away because, at least in the Northeast, you know, people were not going to work, people were not shopping, everyone was shut down. So that created, you know, a problem for personal injury attorneys because there was no work to be had. We were all, you know, still settling cases we already had in our pipeline, but coming across new business was difficult for a couple of years. And so, with that reality of what happened to all of us, you know, during that time period, it really forced my partner and I to focus on well, how are we going to market ourselves now that we really need more business than we’ve ever had before to kind of make up for that loss, and that’s when we started looking into what should we be doing differently, and that you know led us to the Pollin program eventually through networking. That’s how I ended up meeting Evan and his father Chuck, and so they provided this opportunity for us to learn from them. And as you said, I am not a business major. Nobody ever told me how to run a small business at all. I had just been doing the best I could, trying to keep up as best I could, and so this was really the first formal training that I did have, and I really, really gained a lot of insight and knowledge. Some things I kind of was stumbling along and was doing right, but most of it really needed refinement and tailoring, and that’s really what the Pollen program provided for me.

Ron Bockstahler: You know, one thing when I because I went to the class also, and you one thing that stuck with me is I know I’ve done this a lot where I just show up and throw up. I think Chuck actually hits on that quite a bit.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: and I’ve heard so many attorneys. I always say, especially when in the networking groups, when I talk to attorneys and they give me their list of 12 things they do, like here’s the 12 areas of practice has did the program change your approach to how you present yourself? I know they call it an elevator pitch, but even besides the elevator pitch, just how you talk about what you do,

Marian Kelly: it definitely did, and that’s really one of the great things about the program. So not only are they teaching you a plan of action, so to speak, but as you know, it’s interactive. They tell you, you know, they instruct you on what you know the principles of sales and things like that. But then they actually permit you to put it into action in a really great amongst a great group of people where you get their feedback. And the elevator pitch is something that they specifically work on and that you practice. And it totally changed how I present myself to people, because as I said earlier, I’m competing with the people on the billboards and on the television ads that most people are actually offended by, and so it it it forced me to take a look at what I do differently in my small practice and what makes me an asset to people is that you know they can work one on one with me. For example, for me, my clients actually have my cell phone number, and while I have a wonderful assistant that I work with, I’m the one that 99 of the time they’re interacting with, and you don’t get that with a larger practice. And so it made me realize that things like that that I was already doing really should be the focal point of my marketing efforts.

Ron Bockstahler: Before we kind of jump into too many things, I want to you give us a chance. Like, what’s the? Do you have a specialty that you’re that you’re looking for

Marian Kelly: in terms of the type of cases that I work?

Ron Bockstahler: Yes,

Marian Kelly: really. For me, I I travel the state of New Jersey. I don’t practice in any other state, only New Jersey, and I do the car accident cases, the slip and falls, the dog bites, wrongful death cases, injuries on the job, anything where someone is injured, and how they tend to come to us in the first instance isn’t necessarily because they’re injured, but it’s because they have an unpaid medical bill from an emergency room that they think somebody else should be responsible for, and how is that going to get paid? And that tends to be often why people reach out to us. It’s not really necessarily because they’re interested in suing anybody. It’s because they don’t know what to do with that medical bill, and they actually do feel like, well, it wasn’t my fault. Why should I pay for it? And so that’s also something that we’ve incorporated into our elevator pitch and how we can explain to people what we can do for them.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right, they were seeking help. They needed help. So did you find that when Evan spoke about moving to, I guess what I just think of being more of a consult consultative sort of a position was that a very natural movement for you? Were you already doing that, or did that take a little bit of a shift for you?

Marian Kelly: Well, I think one of the things that they really focus on teaching you is how to be a trusted advisor, that you can educate people, that you can support them in a difficult time in their life. Obviously, you know they like I said come with unpaid medical bills, but they do have physical pain, emotional pain. It is a hard time, and you’re walking them through that process. And so again, it’s something that I almost just took for granted that I did for people without necessarily like asserting the value that that can provide to people and potential clients. And so even when I’m discussing, you know, even other attorneys don’t necessarily understand what my day to day looks like if they’re a corporate attorney or a tax attorney or something like that, where they’re not necessarily dealing with people on a day to day basis like I am, and so it’s really helped me highlight those things that I am doing, and that is definitely part of what I worked on with the elevator pitch, and part of what Evan’s program reinforces in terms of being that trusted advisor to people.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right. So 12 weeks long commitment. So was there a moment where like something just clicked, and you thought, “I’ve never thought of it that way before. I’ve been doing this wrong.

Marian Kelly: So some of it is like, oh great, I’m happy to hear that because that is what I’m doing. But you know, the majority of it, because like I said, I’m not business trained, was eye opening and definitely, you know, Evan and his dad Chuck bring so many years of experience, and they’re giving you scenarios that you find yourself in, and how to, you know, walk people through a process. You know, you obviously want them to hire you, but you don’t want to be the pushy person. You know, you want them to respect you and realize that you practice with integrity, and so they do walk you through how to be that person to your client, and it is a long commitment. I would say that the nice thing about their program is, of course, you can attend it live where you’re interacting with them as they’re teaching you. But if you do have a meeting or something like that, you can certainly, you know, get it as a playback as well on your own time. But I personally, I think there was only one time where I had a court appearance where I couldn’t attend it as it was being presented live. And for me, the live aspect, the interaction, was really where the value was for the program. Because, like I said, you’re getting the tips and tricks, but you’re being able to put them into action with people that are going to say that’s not really the best way to do it. How about you try this? And they give you concrete examples and opportunities to do that.

Rebecca Bockstahler: I can I won’t credit because that role playing aspect can scare a lot of people away very quickly. So I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Ron. But that’s the first thing I thought of and all that.

Ron Bockstahler: You know, and over my 30 years of you know working with lawyers, I never thought about where your clients come from. As far as and no one’s ever said this to me that they don’t actually initially intend to sue, but yet they got a medical bill, and then they’re coming. You’re like, “Gosh, here I got this bill. What can I do? Was that happening already? That was already happening, and that’s kind of like your whole practice prior to.

Marian Kelly: Yes, that was already happening. That’s generally, I would say, you know, my clients come to me either from other attorneys who don’t practice in the same area, and also, you know, clients who send their friends and family. We also find that now they’re finding us on Facebook referral. You know, Facebook chats, our names being, you know, offered around, which we really appreciate. But it’s definitely word of mouth. But it’s usually like that’s the thing: like they were just rear-ended, their car needs to be repaired, or it’s a total loss. So of course, again, at first, it’s not the idea that they’re injured and they want to sue because. They’re injured. It’s that they have the unpaid medical bill and they don’t have use of their vehicle, so it’s either being fixed and they need a rental, so they can get back to work and pay their bills. So it’s really not the idea that people want to sue because they’re injured. It’s because they’ve had a financial consequence that they immediately need someone to to answer, like how is this going to be fixed for me, and how soon can it be fixed? Because I need to get back on my feet, and so when you you know work with people in that context, it really has you approaching personal injury in a different manner.

Ron Bockstahler: Oh, for sure. I mean, as me actually just sitting here thinking about how different that really is, and that’s actually a really good thing. And I’m sure, like of all of our clients, that many of them do that, but that’s never been communicated. Like we’ve never really thought about it that way. So that’s a great perspective.

Marian Kelly: And and the program had me reflect on that is actually what is happening, and how can I explain to other attorneys or other business people that I’m networking exactly what it is that I do and when to refer someone with me, and you know to make sure to go through my contacts, go through my LinkedIn, and you know reach out to people and and connect over coffee, connect on things we have in common. You know, don’t do the hard sell to people. That’s not what you’re do. You’re trying to build the long term relationship. And like I said, I can’t say it enough times. Be that trusted advisor.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s it’s interesting. So they one thing that got me. So we get most of our business in my company from referrals of other attorneys, but I’ve never asked for like a referral, like my Google Business page, or, and that was one thing that I was like, you need to ask for those. In fact, he actually did it for us, which I was happy to give him. I was excited because I thought it was a great class, but that got me thinking. It why don’t why don’t I overdo that? Well,

Marian Kelly: that is one of the things that I definitely was not doing. I was not asking for referrals. For example, they even said to me, like, who is in like as the managing attorney? Who are you interacting with? You’re interacting with your CPA. You’re interacting with your banker. You’re interacting with you know the person who you know you get your internet provider from. Your IT person. Ask these people to refer to you because you’re doing business with them already, so you can tell everybody what a great person they are at their job. But say to them, you know, please think of me when you know somebody that is in an accident, and I actually did that with my banker, with my CPA, etc. And it feels strange to have to ask. You know, you’re sometimes embarrassed to ask, but they also teach you how to ask it in a non-offensive way, if you will.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, the natural, and and there is a natural way to do it.

Marian Kelly: Correct.

Ron Bockstahler: And so it makes sense. It’s interesting. We’re in the same boat. We weren’t asking for those things, and that make a lot of sense. I don’t.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah, I think it’s hard because you, I guess you want to just think that if when people see value in your work that that will just come automatically, and trying to reconcile not being pushy with asking for business can be tricky.

Marian Kelly: And it’s funny because my CPA and my banker actually both became clients of mine because they were both. One was in a car accident, and one was in a slip and fall accident, and they came to me, which I greatly appreciated. But now I had to say, okay, can you please, you know, think of me and send other people too? And so having to ask that specifically, you know, was hard.

Ron Bockstahler: Let’s see, the solo attorney or small firm partner who knows they need to get better at business development, but doesn’t know where to start. What’s the first thing you tell them to do?

Marian Kelly: Well, they need to get they need to get with the program and go to the poll and performance program. I mean, I really think like I think most attorneys are not business trained, and also I mean the poll and performance program you know works for any any person who’s in a business, not just attorneys. There happens to be a lot of attorneys who do attend it, and that’s a lot of the the clients that they work with, even in their one on one coaching sessions, and that’s the nice thing too. Although there’s a 12-week program involved, you know, you still do have access to Evan and his father Chuck. If you have any questions about anything at all that they are teaching you that you’re not sure about, I mean, I remember. I think I wrote. I can’t tell you how many elevator pitches I sent to them for them to take their red pen to. I mean, I think I must have sent. I don’t know five to 10 of them, and honestly, they were not impressed with my first few. And then we kept refining it and refining it and refining it. So they will spend time with you beyond the program itself to help you. You know, kind of gain. The success that you want to get out of the program, but also you know feel good about what you’re presenting and how you’re interacting with potential clients and potential referral sources, because it’s all about figuring out who’s a good referral source for you, and then you know chasing after it, so to speak, but in a professional manner that isn’t like a hard sell, where you’re not being offensive to anyone while you’re politely trying to, you know, ask for business. But it’s really more about the relationship that you build to gain their trust and their respect. And it’s also mutual. You know, there’s certain good partners that you can work with, and then there’s other people that might not be the best suited partner for you, and they do try to how to figure out which is which. You know who’s worth you know pursuing, so to speak, in a positive way, and then who you might not be the best fit with, and that’s okay too.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right, that is something to learn. Now, were you able to take some of the information that you learned and sort of filter that to your partner, so my partner is able to use it as well, or is he going through the class as well now?

Marian Kelly: He did it the same time as I did. Okay,

Rebecca Bockstahler: oh that’s brilliant.

Marian Kelly: We both signed up at the same time, and then we would kind of compare notes and you know talk about the lesson of the day, so to speak. So I think it was definitely important for the two of us to do it together to get a full understanding. And I think it’s like anything, you know. I might have taken a specific example or specific lesson, you know, to heart versus he might have already been he might have already had that skill, you know, accomplished for himself. And so we do have different strengths and weaknesses, of course, and we did take different things from the program, but we always ended up sharing with each other and talking about it to better our firm because that we are doing together.

Ron Bockstahler: That’s awesome. Now, did I read that you’re also like using Chuck as a coach?

Marian Kelly: Yes, I do. So, my partner Bill and I both use Chuck as a coach. We’ve been working with him for a little over a year. We had started working with him before we did the Pollens Performance Program, and of course, you know, was suggested that we do so because the coaching is great, but this specific sales training, you know, there’s just not enough time to do that in the basic coaching sessions that you have with either Evan or Chuck, and so that was really an opportunity to gain a lot of literal sales training that neither of us had had before. I mean, my business partner was a chemistry major before he went to law school, so you know, like me, no idea, you know, how to run the business part of being a lawyer.

Ron Bockstahler: Wow, that’s very interesting.

Rebecca Bockstahler: So, give your younger self, fresh out of law school, a piece of advice about building a practice from scratch. What would it be? What would you tell yourself?

Marian Kelly: Well, I I will say that for me personally, I still think it would be advantageous for a young attorney to work in a law firm. Now that could be a small law firm or a bigger law firm, but I feel like you it for the people who open a practice right out of law school, I give them a ton of credit because I’m still not convinced that’s the best practice. Because lawyers essentially are trained by other lawyers. You have mentors. You learn by working in law firms, seeing how other practitioners practice. So I think that’s like a fundamental basis that you probably still should have. But definitely understanding that the legal practice is a business, and that you do have to network and market yourself. So, if I had to go back in time, though, I would have started networking as soon as I was out of law school, and you know, learned that from some mentors that I had, versus you know, just being the associate in a law firm that is handed the brief to write, and you’re focused on your one task, and you’re not really involved in the business of the practice. So if I could go back and learn the business of the practice much earlier, I think that would have been phenomenal for me to have done. And when I see young attorneys out now doing that, I give them such credit, and it was really nice. In at least the Pollin program that I sat in on, there were a lot of younger attorneys and business people who were learning that right out of law school, and that would be a huge benefit, I think.

Ron Bockstahler: But kind of makes me think, kind of off subject. Are we changing? Because if you go back 20 years ago, you you got a law firm. Most of your work is coming. Almost all your work is coming from referrals. No advertising. No marketing. In fact, I don’t think it was even legal at that point. So you didn’t see 500 billboards, attorney billboards, which is kind of what lines our streets today. Fast forward to today. Is that how much has that changed? So how much would you say attorneys are getting their work from? From you know, I used to tell everyone it’s about 80% was getting your attorney’s work is coming from other attorneys. I think that number is changing. Where? How do you see that?

Marian Kelly: I think so too. I mean, I definitely think it’s changing because of the advertising, and you know, the advertising. At least, you know, I’m in the Philadelphia area, so to speak. I mean, it’s everywhere. You can’t escape it, and we do feel the impact. As a smaller law firm, we feel the impact of the you know firms that constantly advertise and on TV, on the radio, on the billboards that you cannot escape. Whenever you land in any city and you’re leaving the airport. That’s what you see first. So it’s definitely something that I think has really changed and really requires us to, if we’re not doing that, which most of us probably cannot afford, you have to get out there and market yourself. And so the networking is more important than ever to be able to maintain your referrals, and especially amongst other attorneys, because now the public can just look at the billboard. You know, they’re not necessarily going to call an attorney that they know and ask. They’re just going to call that billboard or you know listen to that television ad, which they didn’t have as many options like that in the past. So they would call the person who wrote their will and asked them, you know, who can I talk to about my car accident? But now they don’t even have to reach out to us, and then they can just Google as well, right? And if they Google, there’s a million people out there. So it’s really getting your name out there so that when something happens, you are top of mind, not just to the local attorneys, but also to the local business community.

Ron Bockstahler: Bring it back to your point earlier that a lot of clients don’t like those attorneys that are on the billboard. Many of them actually don’t practice law; they’re more of a marketing firm, and they bring in and outsource a good portion of the cases they bring in.

Marian Kelly: Absolutely,

Ron Bockstahler: and yeah, we’re. I think I only know of one national firm that I don’t think outsources their work, but I think almost all the others are sending most of that work away.

Marian Kelly: Yes, there’s the the ones that I’m thinking of in the Philadelphia area mostly are the marketing machines, and they send it out to like local people. There’s no actual firm, yeah, you know, and that that’s definitely changed. I think the way and and people say, you know, who’s calling those, you know, those firms. But I did work for a firm that was on the billboards locally several, like maybe 15 years ago for a short period of time, and what was so interesting to me about that was the billboard only had like one 800 injured or something whatever their thing was did not have the name of the law firm on it and that was because the law firm had personal injury practice and a business practice and the business practitioners did not want to be associated with the personal injury people on the billboard, so their name was not on the billboard, and I can’t tell you we would sit in at lunch every day if you were a smart associate, so you could catch the calls of the new clients coming in and call, and they were all calling that number on that billboard without knowing which law firm they were calling, so it does work. I mean, people are calling them, of course.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s crazy, but not the way I think it should be. So, correct. Glad that you’re out there and you’re taking care of to your clients. So, well, I’ll leave you. Any last words? Anything you wanna?

Marian Kelly: I I really can’t stress enough what a wonderful wonderful opportunity it is for attorneys to learn those sales skills in that performance program. It’s not normally something that most attorneys I know were not business majors, and this is in a 12-week, you know, accelerated course. You’re able to get all that information from professionals that have worked with attorneys for decades, and so that’s a no miss opportunity for me.

Ron Bockstahler: Awesome. Well, Marianne, it’s been you’re exactly the kind of conversation that listeners we want to talk to. We want people to understand. Want attorneys to understand that this is something you really need to do. I think having a coach is just. I think it’s great. Yeah. It’s like you go through school and you have someone helping you all the way along, and all of a sudden, you you get into the what I call the real world is what I tell all of our kids, and then you don’t have one. It’s kind of crazy. You need someone to help you keep going. So I think what you’re doing is just proof of that. So

Marian Kelly: absolutely, it’s been really invaluable to have the coaching, which, like I said, we’ve only really been doing for a little over a year now. So you know, I’ve been practicing for 33 years. My partner is about 35 years or so. So you know you can teach an old dog new tricks, as they say. And we have really, really enjoyed doing that.

Ron Bockstahler: Well, thank you for coming on the show. I know it’s short notice. Thanks for talking highly about Evan and Chuck. They appreciate it, but honestly, they’re just great. More people need to reach out and talk to them, work with them. So, if you can find if you can find you can find Marion at Pop Popjoy Kelly P O P J O Y K E L L y.com and connect with her on LinkedIn. We’ll have the links in the show notes, and if you want to explore Rainmaker program that she went through and I went through, we’re going to have the links also for that in the show notes. A lot of clients, if you’re listening, you do get 25 discount on the program, so we’ll have that up there for you. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague. You could use it, Marian. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We’d really appreciate it, and we hope we’ll see you again soon.

Marian Kelly: It was my pleasure. Thank you both.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Thank you.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer. If you like the show, tell a friend, and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to hear more about Ron, Rebecca, or Amata, go to amataoffices.com. That’s amataoffices.com. All the links are also in the show notes.