When Lawyers Break the Rules: Protect Yourself from Ambulance Chasers

Travis: Hey there. I'm Travis Patterson, and welcome to Driving Change. Here, you'll find unfiltered insights and hard hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law and in life. As a personal injury attorney in Fort Worth, Texas, I've seen firsthand how challenges like distracted driving, family safety issues impact our community, but I refuse to accept these problems as inevitable. In this podcast, we'll dig deep into real world problems, bringing you practical solutions from my experiences in law, in a parenting, and in entrepreneurship.

I'm not here to preach. I'm here to start conversations that make you think differently and provide actionable advice that you can use right away. Welcome to Driving Change. Let's get to it. Alright.

Welcome to another, episode of the Driving Change podcast. I'm excited today. We got Tom Carrson studio. Tom, I'm excited for you to be here. I'm also joined by my law partner, Tennessee Walker.

Tennessee will be, on the podcast on the podcast pretty frequently, when he is not too busy over at the office to help provide some color commentary on whatever it is that we're getting into. So, Tennessee, thanks for joining me.

Tennessee: Glad to be here.

Travis: Alright. And Tom, thank you as well.

Tom Carse: Glad to be here as well.

Travis: So, Tom, what's your story? I you are a personal injury lawyer by by trade, just like Tennessee and I, but you are well known, in this neck of the woods for your work in Bear Tree. So tell us about how you got into Bear Tree. What is Bear Tree, first of all, and, tell us about working on it.

Tom Carse: Well, the law is a second career for me. I spent twenty years in corporate America and decided after nineteen and a half that it just wasn't a good fit. Okay. And so while I might be a young lawyer by most standards, I'm a much older person, at that because having spent virtually half my career in corporate America and been practicing law since '96. And and I would add that Baritree found me.

I didn't find Baritree.

Travis: Yeah.

Tom Carse: And I thought long and hard. I happened to be attending a, a three day seminar, and I had three days to think about the case that landed in my lap. And I thought, well, if not me, then who? Right. So I pulled out the statute.

I looked at the rules, and I thought, this looks fairly straightforward.

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: You follow the rule, you stay out of the weeds. Mhmm. You break the rule, there's a consequence. And the more I looked and considered every single angle, it was fairly simple and straightforward. And so that's how I got started with Veritree.

It found me. Right. And then some of the pleadings that I filed were apparently entertaining enough that people pass them around, and I've been invited to an insurance, a Texas Department of of Insurance meeting, where I wasn't a speaker. I was just invited. Mhmm.

And lo and behold, someone got up and started talking about this pleading that they had run across.

Travis: Right. There's Tom in the back. He's the the new Berry Tree guy.

Tom Carse: That's that's the guy you wanna talk to. Yeah. Well, it there's nothing special about what I do.

Travis: Yeah.

Tom Carse: It it is very, very straightforward. We call it bear tree because after all, in the law, we have to have a fancy word for things Right. Such as ambulance chasing and solicitation Right. Which is exactly what it is.

Travis: So bear tree, for the regular people listening, that is just good old fashioned ambulance chasing. Of course, they don't literally chase ambulances, anymore. Maybe they do somewhere. I I I don't know. But, you know, thinking about this episode and getting ready for it, I thought about, like my cousin, Benny, you know, the opening episode where he gets the phone call, and he's the attorney, and he's literally driving by an ambulance and someone's like, what are you doing?

He's like, I'm working, you know, so you think of that ambulance chasing thing and obviously all personal injury lawyers, you get called ambulance chaser in your career. It's just part of it. You don't really worry about it. Because we know what ambulance chasing actually looks like. And nowadays they're doing it digitally.

I call it digital ambulance chasing. So so what so why should folks care about this so much, Tom? I mean, what what's the concern here?

Tom Carse: Here's the concern from the victim's perspective. I I talk to at least two or three new potential clients a week. Oh, wow. It's that prevalent. And what I've seen in the last twelve to eighteen months, I've seen not just one solicitor focusing on one client, I've seen multiple solicitors focusing on a single client.

So you multiply two or three calls per solicitor times three or four, in some cases, maybe even five different groups Yeah. The client's cell phone is blowing up. Yeah. Know, and typically, they'll shut it down and say, no. I don't need any help.

Thank you. Goodbye. And, occasionally, I'm presented with a more savvy client who says, you know, I'm just gonna play along and see where this leads.

Tennessee: Right.

Tom Carse: And they do, and they identify the law firm or lawyer that the lead generation company, I refer to them as lead gen companies. They divulge who they wanna refer them to, and I've even recently been presented with not just a chronology, but tape recordings Mhmm. Where the savvy client records the solicitation end to end. Yeah. That's hard for the offender to refute Right.

If not impossible.

Tennessee: Yeah. It it's like sharks, you know, to chum right now. We we deal with it. It's probably about once a week now. At least once every two weeks, have something that it

Travis: because our clients report it. They they let us know, like, someone else is calling me.

Tennessee: Correct. And I wanna back up a little bit and, you know, kudos to you that, you know, you said there's nothing special about what you do, but Baritree finds all of us in this profession, you know, very often. But, you know, tip of the cap to you for for taking it, running with it, and actually holding people accountable, which I think the lack of accountability is really what's allowed us to get here, is there hasn't been enough to hold these people accountable. And so I think you're making the most inroads of anybody in this area, so thank you for that. Yeah.

And I think, you know, there's there's more to be done on the criminal side and possibly with the state bar, and we'll talk more about that later. But kind of to the victim's perspective, one one question or one thought that I have is, and this is recently we had a client who we had signed up, and they got hit with a call and then a text message and then assigned this. And the client was just a blue collar person, and they mistook that communication is coming from our office because it wasn't specific as to what law firm and signed it. So we had to call and get on that. And I think we actually may have referred that one to you.

But what caught my eye, and I've seen this a couple times recently is when we traced it back to the law firm that was behind it or bought that lead, it was an out of state law firm, an out of state lawyer with absolutely zero presence in the state of Texas. And, you know, that's a problem for me because on top of the baritory issues, those people don't know our laws. They're not able to provide the representation that someone injured in a wreck in Texas deserves, and I'm seeing that more and more where it's these out of state law firms coming in using baritry as an entry into Texas cases. You know, that's

Tom Carse: I'm glad you brought it up. I saw out of state for the first time six months ago, and they have a stable of out of state lawyers working for the out of state lead gen company. They've taken it a step further, however. They have included a network of physicians in Texas along with a stable of lawyers who pay them significant significant amounts of money for these leads, and they have this readily available network of physicians that they can refer these people to. And what's interesting to get back to your original question about why should the ordinary citizen or the the car wreck victim as as I refer to them, why should they care about this?

Yeah. If they are duped, it's not if, but when. When they are duped, they find out oftentimes too late that they have been roped into representation by nothing more than a settlement mill. It's hurry up. Let's get this settled.

Let's put some money in your pocket to heck with how you're feeling. And at the end of the day, they do they, the law firms, do what's best for them, not what's best for the client. Yeah. So the client has zero say in the outcome because they then once they've signed up and they've they're in this mill, they're just a number. Yep.

They're not a person.

Travis: Yeah. And that firm's obviously I mean, they're breaking rules to start the representation. They're gonna break rules throughout the representation. They're gonna settle the case without authority and just tell the client, it's done. Here's here's what's left of the of the the settlement and send them on down the river.

So, I mean, the hope let's let's back up. Like, what is Bear Tree, Tom? And correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding of it, and I know we we were talking about the statutes before we came on, and we won't get too deep into the weeds here. But basically, a law firm cannot contact somebody.

We're, you know, we're personal injury lawyers. Someone's in a wreck. We can't pick up the phone. We can't go to the wreck. We can't make contact with those people.

That's the the essential rule. They have to come to us either through a referral, through someone they know, or just, you know, looking online, reading reviews, that kind of stuff. The whole purpose of the rule is right. Someone's at a very vulnerable state. I mean, the their world has just collapsed.

Everything's been flipped upside down. They're in pain, all this stuff. Then they get a phone call saying, hey. You know, like the one the other day, someone called our client and I called them back and they were offering $20,000, if they went to eight therapies. And I was like, where the hell do you get this information from?

But you've got someone in a vulnerable state getting promised all this stuff, and it's very enticing to someone who's never been in this process before. But what we want and the whole purpose of the rule is, hey. Let's let this dust settle. Let's let the person explore the market, shop the different lawyers in town and and and and have those meetings when it's the appropriate time so they can make the best choice for them and their family. You know?

Because that as as lawyers, like, that's all we want. We want a level playing field. And if somebody goes and hires another lawyer in town after they meet with us, so be it. Like, we're not the right lawyer for every single client out there. But we want the chance for people to explore their, their options and not be forced or tricked into making the decision within days or minutes of getting in a car accident.

Tom Carse: It's interesting that you start with the phone call. The the basic premise of solicitation is, first of all, the call. We're here to help you. We're a nonprofit. Whatever ruse they want to elaborate on, we'll never send you a bill for money.

We're here to tell you about your rights. You're upside down suddenly with a car that can't take you to and from work Right. Or take your kids to and from school. You're missing work. You're in pain, you probably haven't been to the doctor and need to go see the doctor, you may or may not have health insurance, we're here to help you with all that.

Right. It sounds so inviting Right. That it's easy pickings for these people that I refer to as openers. And oftentimes, and of late, the opener will say, oh, you've got so many questions, and I know just who you need to talk to that's a little more, educated and versed on your specific questions. If you'll hang on for just a minute or two, I'll get them on the phone and let them address all that.

Well, what they don't know is that they are about to talk to a closer. What's the closer's role? To close the deal.

Travis: Sign the contract.

Tom Carse: Absolutely. And they will text the fee agreement

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: To the client. It's a DocuSign. Mhmm. And they check off those boxes, and they're done. So the opener and the closer go on to their next potential victim.

Travis: And the closer in that situation, is that even an attorney, or is that just another lead gen kind of person?

Tom Carse: They're all lead gen. Right. I have yet to see an attorney on the phone closing one.

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: Haven't seen that yet.

Travis: Okay.

Tom Carse: Now I've early on, the the baritry began door to door, face to face. As recent as eighteen months ago, I found an outfit still doing it. I haven't run across

Travis: Showing up at the house or the doctor's office or something?

Tom Carse: Showing up at the, at the home. Uh-huh. And in this particular circumstance, they showed up at the home of the registered owner of the vehicle because they started with that crash data from TxDOT, and that's the source of all the information.

Travis: Yeah.

Tom Carse: TxDOT is the repository for all of the reported crash data that gets uploaded from the responding police officer at the scene using his mobile data terminal and uploads it. It hits Austin, and there's some initial raw data that is captured. And whatever loophole they've discovered, they have truly, truly exercised, a feeding frenzy Yeah. Amongst the lead gen companies of downloading data, presumably with some legal reason to be able to do that, whether it's for research or some sort of educational study purpose, what have you.

Travis: Yeah. I saw there was one I was talking to you yesterday and, like, if you click a button, like, I'm using these reports to analyze data, then that's one of the loopholes. It's like, well, there you go. Okay? They're analyzing the data.

Tennessee: And that's what I was gonna say, as well as if you go on and you're you're playing everything heads up, if I wanna find out, you know, for instance, how many wrecks have taken place in the last six months at this intersection out here, I can do a freedom of information request for that. I'm gonna get redacted reports that don't have names on it. To get to something that has identifying information on it, you have to make a representation. But there's no nobody's checking that, obviously, and it's just going out. And my question was gonna be, and you kinda got to it is, you know, how are how are these lead gen companies getting that information and getting contact information?

And then just kind of a, you know, spitballing aside, not at all to victim blame, but I do think that the nature of society now where information is so prevalent, you know, where bank documents are being signed by DocuSign, that culture that we're living in, I I think it's adding a little bit of, you know, unwarranted credibility to this because people are just used to things happening quickly and electronically. And so I think that allows those lead gen companies, like you said, to just feast on these victims and the victims to be a little bit less skeptical because, you know, they're getting a lot of you know, they're getting robocalls all the time, all the or every day. Legitimate transactions are being handled on their smartphones, and so they're just less critical, I think, of the person that's calling. How'd you get my information?

Tom Carse: It's not a question many people ask. And to pick up on that, it's pretty typical for people to answer the phone not knowing who's on the other end. In fact, I had a call before I walked in here. Somebody from a local, cable company wanting to talk to me about business cable service. Well, that's a classic example.

No harm, no foul. Ask them to take me off the call list. You're not gonna be taken off a call list when it comes to a solicitor. They may they may hang up and say, okay. We won't we won't do that, and hand it to their associate sitting right next to them or someone that, you know, that could be in another state and they just shoot shoot them a text saying, okay.

You you need to call this number because they wouldn't talk to me. Well, let's start the conversation from the data because that's what's driving this business. Yes. It is electronic, and, yes, it still is baritry. The data can be obtained by lying to TxDOT.

Right. I caught an individual representing himself to be, the equivalent of possessing a media exclusion. In fact, so much so that, the lady at TxDOT who have come to call her by her first name and she refers to me by my first name because I've talked to her so so many times, I ordered this individual's history for ninety days, and what I got back was media exclusion for 290 crash reports in ninety days.

Travis: And TxDOT gave him the actual crash reports? Yes. Unredacted. Unredacted.

Tom Carse: Why? So they can facilitate their baritory operation. And they call out or have someone call for them, which takes me back to the earlier conversation about the lawyer making the call. A lawyer can't do it. We we cannot do that.

The three of us are prevented, and we know and understand that. Likewise, we can't have someone on our behalf call like the lead gen or Paralegal or associate. In this particular instance, it was a law firm employee who was in it for a piece of the pie. Mhmm. He had incentive, and that was his incentive.

And so that's what he did.

Travis: I mean, why can't text dot c that there's someone someone in here claiming to be media, and they're downloading crash reports every single day? Like, no media person needs crash reports that often. Like, shouldn't that trigger some kind of red flag?

Tom Carse: You would think it would, but it's a bigger problem for TxDOT than we realize. For example, a recent baritory case involves a 75 year old man, pickup truck crash, and he lost his hearing aids in the wreck. He's called, according to his call log, six times one morning within each call within two or three minutes, and he's not taking the calls. They've come from the same phone number. Call number 6, he took.

He didn't hear very well. And long story short, it was the opener. He gets transferred to the closer. The closer then transfers him to the law firm. Once I get ahold of it and I start digging, I ask TxDOT.

Tell me who downloaded the crash report. Lo and behold, it's exactly who I thought he was. It was the lead gen person. Mhmm. They used his name, and he used a credit card because they they record the method of payment.

They don't give you the credit card. I wish they would. Could have a lot of fun in discovery with that.

Travis: Sure.

Tom Carse: But it begs the question, what do you do with that information? Well, it just becomes evidence. And you can also go back to TxDOT and say, this particular individual shows up on my radar. I'd like to know how many crash reports on a monthly basis he's purchased by whatever credit card method.

Travis: Have you I'm curious. Have you deposed a TxDOT representative in these cases? Nope. Okay. Curious what they would say.

So the guy the other day, he he called our clients, and I told you I called him back. And I was, you know, white lie never hurt anybody. So I was just telling him a a little ditty about getting in my own wreck. He was offering me all this help. But and I said, curious, how'd you get my number?

And he said, oh, the lawyer gives me a list of all accidents within the last three days. And I'm not, you know, my jaw dropped to the floor. So I I don't know if he has crash reports. You know, he bluff. He said, yeah, I can I can see your crash report right here?

And it says you're on your Unit 2, which means you're not at fault. Right? But obviously, he didn't actually have my crash report. There was no crash. It was all made up, but he did say he has a list, and then he goes down the list making the calls.

And so I don't know if he has crash reports or not, but he's definitely got the data. Right? And so these backdoors through the text, know, it's called the CRISPR crash report Information system. Information system. Yeah.

It's just got it's got too many holes in it, obviously, that could be cleaned up. Right?

Tom Carse: I I agree. I I've scratched my head for so many years trying to figure out the source and in every single instance, now it comes back to TxDOT. And if TxDOT knew the extent of the abuse, perhaps they might look at it. As an example, the one the, the 75 year old client who was duped, Once I got the report from TxDOT and and I saw the individual as number one, the very day he bought the reports, the same day the client was hustled, and then I looked at the second person who got the crash report. That was unusual because it was a name I didn't recognize, and I wondered why that person might be obtaining that report.

The next two who got the report were employees of Nexis Lexus. They've got a legitimate reason to get that. And then the very last one was an insurance company, claims handling. So all that makes good sense.

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: So there was an email address for the one that I was puzzled about. I shot him an email. Right. And I left out one important point. The clients were referred to me by their lawyer, and that's how I got the case.

Sure. So I circled back to the referring attorney, and I said, here's what I found out, and there's another name on this report, and I just wanted to alert you to it. He said, oh, well, that's one of my employees. After we signed up the client, we went to Chris and downloaded his crash report. Sure.

And they were authorized to do that. Right. Just like the three of us can

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: When we have a client and you want After

Travis: we after we represent them. After we

Tom Carse: represent them. Right. Now maybe they were referred to us. Maybe they saw some advertising or they saw a website. All of that is legitimate marketing and advertising.

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: What we're talking about is not legitimate.

Travis: So, I mean, this is risky business for people who engage in this unethical behavior. I think we have, what is it, $10,000 a pop if you get caught, in the statutes, I think in the government code for any person involved in the Berry Tree. Right? And so, you know, you and I have had this talk, and it doesn't just say for the lawyer who authorized the Berry Tree or just for the opener or just for the closer, it's it can be $10,000 a pop plus attorney's fees. And so these can be decent sized cases and decent sized penalties if you get caught.

You know, the question is how often do these guys get caught?

Tom Carse: Great question because, there are guys that I catch frequently and I refer to them as frequent flyers. They may negotiate a settlement, they may not. Of late, they've decided to litigate. And so we are before the court in a number of counties, and some of the newer filings are going to be particularly thorny to defend because I've got an audio recording that I sent out to my court reporter who transcribed it. It's now certified as true and correct.

It's attached to the pleading. It says what it says, and it identifies who it identifies. And as as luck would have it, I called it poor lawyering on the part of the defense attorney defending a law firm by handing me the identity of the individual who had ordered the crash report in a particular case. So much so, he told me that my case was going to be over, and we're gonna take this fellow's deposition, and we're gonna show you how your client called them. They did not call your client.

Okay. I'll be your huckleberry. Yeah. So we sit down and we

Travis: Come and take it. Come and take it.

Tom Carse: We have that deposition, and the individual says, and I can throw a loose quote to his words and say that I understood him to say, we don't call clients. They call us. Okay. That's your story. You're gonna stick with it.

Fast forward ten days, get a call from another referral source, come meet this client. We're sitting in, an office. The client pulls out his phone, presses play, and I asked him to pause it, and I said, I think I know what the rest of that recording's gonna say, and I proceed to identify who the next person on the audio is going to be. And I saw a jaw drop. Like, he thought I was some kind of Yeah.

A mind Exactly. And it just so happened. It's the lead gen company owned by the individual I had deposed two weeks earlier who denied his people call call prospects when in fact that's exactly what he did.

Travis: Time for a motion to take a second deposition. Oh, yeah. We're gonna talk about this.

Tennessee: In your in your lawsuits, are your your primary defendants, are they nonlawyer lead gen employees? Are they attorneys buying the leads or a combination of both generally?

Tom Carse: All of them. Because as Travis mentioned, the statute, there are three words, any other persons. So when you seize upon those three words and you look at the entirety of the solicitation, you can have employees at the law firm, you can have, which I do, have on the pleadings. And and Yeah. I've even had I've even had doctors on pleadings.

Travis: And and what's the definition of person?

Tom Carse: A human that can fog a mirror.

Travis: Yeah. Okay. So there a lot of people on those phone calls. So okay. So if you're an individual and and you do get solicited, meaning a law firm or an opener or a closer or any Tom Dicker Harry calls you about your accident, what what should the person do?

If if if you if you had a magic wand and we can get out in front of this and everyone here was listening, what what what's your advice to somebody who gets solicited?

Tom Carse: Take the call. Answer the questions. Uh-huh. Uh-uh. Yeah.

Just like you would in normal conversation. Mhmm. Because you want one goal in mind. Be vigilant. You want one goal.

The goal is identify who they want to refer you to for legal representation. Right. Because that's the key in the statute. They can call and offer a crash report. They can call and offer, a free estimate on their property damage.

Yeah. It's not baritry.

Travis: That's just going right up to that line and not jumping over it. Exactly. But it's when you try to get the economic gain out it, of when you try to get a contract signed. Yep. So play dumb, take the call, get a name of a law firm, and then call Tom.

Tom Carse: Or call your lawyer who's representing you on your car wreck.

Travis: Right. Right.

Tom Carse: Start Nine times out of 10, your lawyer knows who I am

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: Or has heard of me. Right.

Travis: And Texas, am I correct? It's a one party consent.

Tennessee: Correct. Recording state.

Travis: Recording state. So it's funny because I I recorded the phone call when I talked to the opener the other day, and he started the call, but he he was also saying, this call may be recorded for quality assurance. Just I'm, like, laughing. I'm like, I know you're not recording the call, but I'm recording the call for quality assurance. So, yeah, obviously, if you can record these calls like your client did the other day and you turn it into a transcript, which is now attached to a public pleading somewhere.

So look up Tom Carr's cases, I guess, if you wanna see an interesting transcript. So, yeah, take the call, see who's behind it, and then know that you have rights there against those people because we are trying to rid the profession of this, this evil. I mean, it is an evil practice that we're dealing with here.

Tom Carse: I've even coached law firms to educate their staff to be vigilant and educate their clients and approach it this way. And it's useful for this podcast as well. If you're involved in a car wreck or you know someone who is, they will be called. It's not a question of if, but when.

Travis: Yeah. Advise your clients to look out for this.

Tom Carse: Be on be vigilant. Be on the lookout. Call comes in. You take it. In the back of their mind, they ought to be saying, oh, boy.

Let's play.

Travis: Yeah. We have, where it really pisses me off is in the wrongful death context. When you have a family that is literally in the midst of grieving their loved ones and planning a funeral and dealing with all of it, and they're getting calls, and they're getting crap in the mail. Like, we had the other one we had one the other day who called us, or one of our clients who had just that tragic loss. Lost two family members in a crash, and they were getting, like, blankets and grief books and, like, all this stuff from this law firm.

You know? And they weren't asking they're they're just making that introduction. Like, we're so sorry for your loss. We're offering you these things. And by the way, here's our phone number.

You know, that kind of thing. And it's like, come on. Like, have some decency. It's really sad.

Tom Carse: You see that, occurring at local funeral homes all across the nation. You've got one particular lawyer who, went to Las Vegas for the Morticians Conference. Why? Well, he has a former mortician on staff, and he can talk the talk, so to speak. They go to the Morticians Conference, set up a booth, and therein starts the dialogue of let's work together.

Tennessee: Oh, owe owe the money.

Tom Carse: Here's what I can do for you. In fact, maybe it would depending on what state they're in, how busy that particular funeral director is, Would it be of some assistance if I, mister Lawyer, prepaid for a dozen or so caskets? Would that help your business?

Travis: Oh my gosh. It's I need to

Tom Carse: It's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Travis: I need to go take a shower after this podcast. Yeah. That's disgusting.

Tennessee: And that's the I I had that thought last night as I was kinda thinking about coming in today is the thing that really bugs me is I know we spend a considerable amount of our time every day pondering what's in the best interest of the client, what's the best strategy decision here, you know, how do we address this so that we're putting the client's needs in front of the the law firm's needs? That's the way that we try to do business every day. I know there's a lot of other people out there that do that, but you realize just how morally bankrupt another side of our profession is and is extremely frustrating. And like I said, they're you know, not only are they breaking the law, they're taking advantage of people, and they're putting their their needs before the client's needs. And part of me thinks how do they people how do they sleep at night, but then you just realize it's kinda where we are.

And there's a lot of people if it's the ones that are doing it now, if they were to stop somebody, come and fill that void until there's that true deterrent. And I don't know what that looks like, but until it's there, it's gonna keep happening.

Tom Carse: I would like to see the civil penalty increased to a 100,000. Yep. Yeah. Because that stings. And once that civil penalty is increased, I think you'll see some people back off.

I would also like to see the state bar spend some potentially. I would like to see

Travis: the state bar frequent flyers. Certainly.

Tom Carse: Spend some money on a PSA, a public service announcement, a program. We're gifting to them the podcast. We're gifting to them the idea. There isn't any reason why they can't say, okay. We spend a million dollars a year.

I pull that number out of thin air. We spend a million dollars a year sending out the bar journal in print form. And maybe we could just send that out digitally, and let's spend that million on an anti baritry

Travis: Yeah.

Tom Carse: Program. Let's clean it up. You've got lawyers who are now advertising as including in their advertising radio, for example, one locally here in Fort Worth who has, I think, a fifteen, a 30, and maybe even a forty five second spot. And he says he tells listeners, it's criminal. It's called baritry, and it's wrong.

Mhmm. I don't want a criminal handling my car wreck case, and you shouldn't either.

Travis: That's a Matt's, Matt's spot. Yeah. That's a good that's a good message. I'm glad he's doing that. On the other side of that coin, there's billboards in town where it says personal injury lawyer, offering cash advances.

It's like, woah. Woah. Woah. Doesn't it literally say you can't offer prospective clients advances in the Beirutree statute?

Tennessee: I took a picture on Sunday. I was stopped at a red light. Don't use your phone while driving, but I was stopped at the red light, and the car in front of me was wrapped with this guy's advertisement. And the primary the biggest text on the whole advertisement is cash loans. And he's just driving around with that.

I've seen the billboards as well and, you know, and looking at it.

Tom Carse: Yeah. It's just per se illegal. So let me let me use the current example, for that particular individual.

Travis: Tom see, Tom knows everybody.

Tom Carse: Yeah. I almost Here's the current ruse. Lead gen employee calls car wreck victim, so sorry to hear about your accident, softens them up a little bit, and says, I've got I've got the answer for you. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to put me on hold and dial this number, and they do.

The automated answer on that on the end of that second number that she's he or she is calling says press 1 if you've not been solicited. Well, what does that mean Yeah. If you've not been solicited? Solicited, how? Why?

Well, they press 1, and they get someone who may be in Costa Rica or Nicaragua or The Middle East. And the reason I say that is, one of the people identified in the call has a name that I would associate with a a Middle Eastern culture. And I haven't found that individual's name on the attorney's website, but I have found at least two dozen, which leads me to believe these are off-site remote call centers that are taking these calls. And as luck would have it, they texted this client a fee agreement, which is almost as big as a Lands' End catalog. 43 pages

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: Complete with a loan agreement, a transportation agreement such that if they need transportation, it will be provided, but they're gonna be billed for it, Mhmm. And they don't even know how much they're gonna be billed. There's a loan repayment schedule in in those documents, but if there's no recovery, they don't have to pay it back.

Travis: Oh, so they get away with usury.

Tom Carse: Absolutely. Right. It it's it's an amazing

Travis: They're just bundling all the scams into one.

Tom Carse: All into one.

Travis: One stop shop.

Tom Carse: And it's amazing. It is quite a study, that 43 page the content of those 43 pages.

Travis: So if you are TxDOT or State Bar people and you're listening, please know how serious this is. This is a huge problem, and we've got to fix it. Tom, question for you. So if somebody has signed one of these contracts and been represented by some law firm and their contract was a result of bear tree, meaning it all started with solicitation. You know, one of my favorite parts of the law is the old fruit of the poisonous tree kind of idea.

So how does that apply here? I mean, what can people do if they suddenly realize, oh, crap. I got this contract. I got the settlement, but it was because I was solicited and it started with, you know, an ambulance chaser, bear tree. What are people's options there?

Tom Carse: First thing I would do, and I always use this term, create a a chronology, and and I'll date myself. I call it a Polaroid snapshot of what happened. Start with the date of the wreck

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: The date of the solicitation, and then any documentary evidence you have to prove it by way of text message, so on and so forth. You put it on one page before you forget it, and then you talk to a real lawyer of your choosing. Mhmm. And, again, lawyers who are familiar with this epidemic of baritry know of other lawyers who pursue these cases. Oftentimes, that's how I'm referred cases.

That's what they can do.

Travis: Can they void their contracts?

Tom Carse: It's voidable. It's voidable. Absolutely is voidable, and a demand to the lawyer that they disgorge their fee Mhmm. Is certainly appropriate. Yeah.

As is a lawsuit if they refuse. Right. Now, can the client prove that they were solicited? That's That's the key.

Travis: And and this is why so there are I mean, I get an email probably once a day from a marketing company, a lead gen company. I mean, of the big players in the legal industry are now in the lead gen business, as you know. And so I don't do it because A, it just seems like a waste of money, but B, I don't know how the lead got to them. And so that always would make me nervous if I was a lawyer buying leads, because you know, what's shocking to a lot of people is that the rules for lawyers allow for us to buy leads. Is that correct?

But then you ask the marketing companies, these non lawyer lead gen companies, how do you get your leads? And what do they always say? It's proprietary.

Tom Carse: Proprietary. Which

Travis: is code word for, you don't want to know.

Tom Carse: It's a little black box that we're not going to let you look into.

Travis: Yeah. And so if you just think about it for a second, if you're a legit law firm, and if you're buying leads and let's say, you know, a great case comes through the door through that method, well, what happens if that case was signed up as a result of what you're talking about here? And now you have a contract, and you've worked your ass off and maybe you did a good job, but your client wises up and says, well, I only got to you because of Bear Tree solicitation from this lead gen company. Can that client in that context hypothetically void that contract?

Tom Carse: Yes. And I'll give you a a couple of examples. Lawyer a hires a lead gen company without asking how the leads are obtained so that he can do some due diligence and make sure that they're not running afoul of the state bar rules or even the Texas penal code.

Travis: Say Lawyers asked that question. How are you getting the

Tom Carse: leads? How are getting the leads? He got the black box response. And the lead gen people are used to they are accustomed to hearing that question, and they might even go so far as to say, our methods have been approved by the state bar of of Texas, Arizona, Missouri, so on and so forth. Well, if you have, then you wouldn't mind sharing that letter with of approval.

Mhmm. And, generally, that's met with dial tone.

Tennessee: Yeah. And question I had, I guess, on that front, and to Travis's point, I checked last night that I thought this would be the case and found exactly what Travis just said, which is, you know, the statutes, they don't use the term lead gen. It's become very, you know, popular. We all know it. We use it all the time.

It's part of our everyday life. But the statutes don't address it. The disciplinary rules go that, you know, lawyers are required to abide by in Texas, on my computer last night. It's a 118 pages PDF for all the rules. The term lead gen showed up three times.

It was all in the same comment to one single rule. And the way it was phrased was, in essence, it starts off, you can buy leads as long as x y z, which we know x y z is not being complied with. It's my question kinda going to that is, to me, that's that's just wrong that we have it phrased in an affirmative to begin with with the way that it's come and and or what it's become. But to his ignorance on part of the lawyer, a defense that you're seeing, and is it a valid defense? If the lawyer simply doesn't ask the question of how did you get these leads, does that absolve the lawyer from direct responsibility and liability?

Tom Carse: I'll answer that from personal experience having dealt with that defense in response to the state bar grievance. He got off the hook.

Travis: But what about for a civil lawsuit? No. That's not a defense of that.

Tom Carse: That dog will not hunt.

Travis: Yep. And and for getting the contract voided, I mean, that's not I mean, if it's a poisonous contract, it's poisonous. And If it's bad, it's bad. It's bad. It's bad.

Tom Carse: Now I have lawyer b. Actually, let me back up. Lawyer a is in the middle of his contract, his buy, if you will. And he's introduced to me, and we're talking just not necessarily about Baritree, but we're talking. And some way, somehow, lee the the lead gen or the the marketing term was raised, and quite naturally, my antenna went up.

And I said, well, who who are you using? What how are they getting the leads and so on and so forth? And, of course, I knew who he was speaking of, and my comment was run as fast as you can. Ethically, what I would do if you've signed up any any of those leads, I would notify each client that you believe that they may have been contacted and directed to your firm in violation of the state bar rules, and we don't condone that. We will give you two options.

Mhmm. One, we will release you from our fee agreement because there's never a wrong time to do the right thing. So lawyer a put that message out there and gave the clients the option Mhmm. Of considering maybe go talk to another lawyer, or and 99% of his clients said, oh, no. You're doing a great job.

Yeah. I wanna stay with you. So True. The lawyer has done his due diligence. He's made the his current client aware.

He's been transparent, and the clients are fine. And then later on, that particular lead gen fellow becomes, embroiled in litigation because he won't give any of the money back. So he's gone down a rabbit hole, so to speak. It's just you have to be from a lawyer's perspective, you have to be vigilant about who you're doing business with.

Travis: So the state bar obviously regulates lawyers. And I mean, they can send like, I guess, cease and desist letters to non lawyers if they're at like practicing law, unauthorized practice law, that kind of stuff. By and large, the state bar doesn't regulate non lawyers. Right? So so if the state bar wanted to help on this, couldn't the state bar just say, hey, lawyers, no more buying leads?

Tom Carse: They could, but it's probably unconstitutional. Because if you think about the case that that originated in Arizona back in the seventies, which that was my earlier career, I was a Yellow Pages salesman back when Yellow Pages was a really good viable advertising alternative. Mhmm. Well, Supreme Court overruled the Arizona Supreme Court and said, yes. Lawyers can advertise.

Now you can control the content. You know, it's kinda split the baby, if you will. And, all of a sudden, we Yellow Page salesman and sales ladies had a new a new untapped market to go pitch PI lawyers, and we started selling full page ads. We started selling the cover on the back of the directory, and some lawyers became wealthy from that that advertising. Sure.

And it's gone completely away, and now you're dealing with the Internet has replaced the yellow pages. I mean, we all have a phone book, aka a cell phone

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: Where you can talk to that phone, and it'll give you the phone number of who it is you wanna call and give you directions on how to get there. So it's become convenient, and the lead gen people know it. And so they drill down on that technology. And earlier you said, that the caller said this this call is being recorded for quality assurance. I can assure you that more likely than not, your sophisticated lead gen is recording the call.

Now whether they will admit to it or not is another story, which takes me back to the active case where the lawyer says, I'm going to gut your case. Your claim is going away. Here is a recording, partial recording Uh-huh. Of the handoff from the closer to the intake person at the law firm. Okay.

Bad lawyering. Yeah. I mean, what a gift.

Travis: Right. So you don't see the State Bar stepping in because of constitutional concerns. I get that. But if the lawyers can't at least verify that the leads were obtained legitimately, I just feel like there's an easy fix there. The state bar could chisel away at this somehow.

Tennessee: And is there a way to, you know, split the hair, so to speak, on the difference between constitutionally projected direct right to advertise, which even if a lawyer were to post a Google ad or, you know, advertise on the Internet, if the lawyer is the one directly behind that as opposed to buying leads from a non lawyer. I mean, in essence, we've got lawyers advertising for legal services, and we've got non lawyers advertising slash soliciting for legal services and then passing those along. You know, do you see any way to split those hairs or are they just too too intertwined? And then follow-up question. As you trace back these lead gen companies, are you finding that there are lawyers in the ownership, groups for those companies, or are they primarily non lawyer owned?

Tom Carse: They're primarily nonlawyer owned, but they have lawyers who are clients and are spending such an enormous amount with them, whether it be monthly, semi annually Mhmm. That they might as well own it because they're getting what they want, and they're and they're paying for it.

Travis: I mean, the the issue is that, you know, lawyer advertising, like, yes, we have the right to advertise, but we can't say anything we want. Right? Like, I can't make comparisons. If I display prior results, you got to talk about how much were the attorney's fees and the expenses. I mean, there's rules and and there should be rules because the whole idea is we don't want to deceive the public.

We want to be honest with everybody. Non lawyers, when they go out to advertise, they don't have those rules. They just can say whatever the hell they want to say. And so if a consumer finds that website that says all this like fancy stuff and all these promises and guarantees, which we can't do. But then my website just says, you know, we're going to work hard and be honest with you.

They're going to weigh those two things and they might be tempted to go to the first one because it sounds a lot sexier and more guarantees, more money. So I'm gonna go with them. It looks like a law firm too, but of course it's not. It's a non lawyer lead gen company. And then they are selling that lead, of course, for $500 to a law firm.

$3,000 a lead. Yeah. Goodness gracious.

Tom Carse: And that's your ordinary garden variety car wreck case. Commercial cases can be five, ten, fifteen, twenty, depending on fatality or non fatality.

Travis: But I mean, this is the problem. If because if the state bar doesn't do something, what we have is this game of whack a mole, right? Where it's like, yeah, Tom Carr's can go out there and go after them one at a time. But, you know, this stuff changes so quickly. I remember you probably remember this too.

Couple years ago, suddenly on Google Maps, if you looked for a law firm on Google Maps, all of a sudden you were seeing law firms all over the place on Google Maps. And they were stuffed with SEO, search terms. So they were popping up like first on the on the Google searches. And the name of the law firm, you know, it wouldn't be like a Patterson Law Group. It would be best car accident law firm in the world, whatever.

And they're all over Google Maps and had a PIN and a phone number. And, of course, these were just non lawyer legions.

Tennessee: One was located out my window at the office In

Travis: our parking lot.

Tennessee: Across the street.

Tom Carse: Like I

Travis: mean, they were popping up all over the place. And so you, like, click it and report it to Google. This is misleading. It's abuse. It's it's fraudulent.

And Google would, you know, six months later might look at it and take it down or wanted to finally, I think enough people complain about it, and that's been shut down as far as I know. But then the next thing pops up. And like you said, it's just whack a mole. You know, so why can't the state bar come in and say, hey, lawyers, if you're gonna buy leads from non lawyer lead gen companies, then you've got a issue you gotta have some kind of certificate of compliance with the ethical rules.

Tom Carse: I don't know why they don't. Frankly, it's so simple. What you just said is get approval just like the lawyer who puts up a billboard has to obtain approval from the state bar. They submit that layout, that artwork, pay a $50 administrative fee. It's either approved or disapproved, and they'll ask you to make some changes to it.

Then you can put it up, and you're in compliance with the rules. The same thing ought to be true for lead gens, that they submit their protocol. And the protocol may be as simple as them saying that they are advertising using Google clicks, pay per click, when in fact they may not be.

Tennessee: No.

Tom Carse: They may say that they are, and they put that out there as the, the framework, the legal framework for their business and they get approved, well, the next thing they're gonna do is they're gonna tell every lawyer prospect, here's our approval letter, our certification from your state bar saying that what we're doing is correct. Now it's up to guys like me who catch a lead to go back to, okay, how did this client find their way to that lawyer? Did they go on Google and hit a pay per click ad, or does their phone, their call logs say that it was an incoming call or an incoming text? And what complicates things, you've got lawyers in other states who know that there can be you know, Texas is a big state. There can be as many as a thousand car wrecks per day Mhmm.

Reported to TxDOT. That's 300 that is a pool of potentially almost 400,000 car wrecks a year that they can fish for using the improper lead gen.

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: And they're doing it. They absolutely are doing it. You I've caught I've caught three different out of state law firms. One, as a matter of fact, is currently in the, Dallas Court of Appeals, and their argument is that they have First Amendment free speech rights. Well, that's a head scratcher.

Right. Oh. You're a lawyer first. You're a citizen second. When you have a bar card, you have to play by the rules.

Right. And, yeah, you have certainly free speech rights, but not when you're offering professional legal service Do you get to pick up the phone and solicit or pay someone to do it for you?

Travis: Yep. Let's, let's talk politics for a second. You know, there's not much anymore that you see it and like, this seems like a bipartisan issue. You know, so if the state bar won't fix this, you know, what about the legislator? Because to me, I see the plaintiff's bar, obviously, getting behind a fix for this because no good plaintiff's lawyers like this, right?

It's it is harming the profession and it is harming the clients, more importantly, and we all know it. But on the other side of the docket, the insurance industry, the defense bar, shouldn't they disprove this practice too? Because these people are, you know, these these good folks are getting to CD law firms and they're not getting good representation it's turning into settlement mills. You know, from my experience, good defense lawyers like good plaintiffs lawyers and vice versa. It's productive.

We can get outcomes that are good for the people. We can move cases along in the right way. But wouldn't the other side like, wouldn't the the insurance industry approve of fixing this?

Tom Carse: They absolutely would. And, without naming names or identifying a particular insurance company, they have a they have a an investigator who is all over it, and he does what you suggested earlier. He follows my pleading statewide, and, it will occasionally ring me up and wanna know, you know, anything new on this or that or the other. And, basically, I just tell him, look at the pleadings. Look at what's on file, and he goes with that.

And frankly, they, the insurer, can look really, really hard at a frequent flyer and see how much money they've paid and to see if any of those cases were the result of baritry. They're they're in a perfect situation. Let's say, for example, that their insured was the not at not at fault party. Right. And they filed a claim against the at fault party who happened to be insured with the same insurer.

We all have had those happen. That's not not unusual.

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: They can go to that, and they can find out how did you come to to hire the lawyer you did. Mhmm. And that's perfectly within the realm of possibility. And I I have it on good authority that that's their their end goal. And

Tennessee: It almost turned into, like, another, you know, subrogation angle, so to speak.

Tom Carse: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Tennessee: And go recoup their money.

Travis: Tell tell hold on. Tell people what you mean by that.

Tennessee: So subrogation, basically a right to claw back a payment you've made initially. We see it a lot if your health insurance company pays for treatment that you needed because of a wreck that was caused by somebody else. If you recover money from the person who caused it, your health insurance company has the right of subrogation to get some of that money back. Contracts gonna dictate the terms of that. But in this instance, I think if the insurers start to follow the, you know, the trail of crumbs and and find the cookie of the frequent flyers here, you know, going back to the contracts being voidable, you know, if they can get enough people to realize they were duped when they were hired, there's another legal claim to be made, and there's money to be recouped by the insurance company.

Tom Carse: Well, not only not only that, but from the from my view, from my side of things, when I run across documents that suggest that during a ninety day period, one lead gen company sent a frequent flyer 80 cases, and during that same three month period sent another law firm client of theirs, 65 cases. Well, you can better bet that that document is gonna find its way into the court's file because I would love to have the court weigh in and approve that lawsuit as a collective action such that I can say, I want the name, the address, the email, and the phone number for every one of those clients so that we can send them an opt in notice and let them decide for themselves whether they wanna pursue it or not. Looking at it from my perspective and talking to the state bar, I had a state bar investigator from their enforcement section tell me he said, I don't know if anybody's ever taken the time to explain this to you, and they hadn't, because I was really frustrated with filing the grievances, sending over deposition transcripts, and discovery responses to help them do their job, if you will.

And the investigator said, if there is litigation, we won't touch it until the litigation is resolved. Well, they don't even touch it after the litigation is resolved. Case in point, one particular lawyer, I stopped counting how many grievances I filed. They have yet to conduct an evidentiary hearing involving that individual. And frankly, that's shameful.

Yeah. I mean, it is super frustrating for lawyers out there who are playing by the rules,

Travis: you know, and, you know, that my message to lawyers like that, like, if you feel like your intake has slowed down over the years, look into this issue. Right? Because it's it's kind of invisible. Right? You you don't know all the clients you miss out on who were run out from underneath you, but it's happening a lot.

I mean, them getting these lists of every accident in the state of Texas within the last three days. I mean, they're taking a huge percentage of the market right there and sending them to these lawyers buying these leads. It's it's hurting people's businesses. It's it's hurting the individuals. It it it needs to be it needs to be dealt with.

Tom Carse: It's really harming the the reputation of the profession because those individuals have have become the underbelly of the profession, and we shouldn't have an underbelly. Right. We shouldn't.

Travis: Right. Our job is hard enough.

Tom Carse: Yeah. It's hard enough playing by the rules. Right.

Travis: You know, one thing I did, you know, at our firm, we've got 10 lawyers and quite a few case managers and paralegals. I just shot an email to my entire firm and I put Tom on it. I'm saying, hey, guys, when our clients call and say they've gotten these phone calls, here's Tom. Just send out everything to Tom and Tom will deal with it. So that's one tip for attorneys out there.

If you run a law firm, introduce your entire staff to Tom. So as soon as this happens, they can get on it. Tom can jump on it and tell the client what to record. Like you said, take that polarity picture of all the events, the logs, all that kind of stuff. What what other advice do you have for good lawyers out there listening to this who who wanna help in the fight?

Tom Carse: I have offered what I call a lunch and learn.

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: You give me access to your staff for a a one hour, lunch in your office, and I will come equipped with three things. The statute, because they need to understand what the rule is. Right. And the next two things are going to be active pleadings. Current public record active pleadings to demonstrate what it is you're gonna teach your client to do and how simple it is.

In fact, you can download an app on your phone that will record every call you get. There's one particular app, and I the name escapes me, but it doesn't require you turning it on or off. When you're on a call, it's actively recording and storing it to the cloud. I had a client who did that.

Travis: Oh, wow.

Tom Carse: That's a Every single call. Her husband's calls, my calls, everything was recorded. I thought that is ingenious. Right. If you ever needed it, there it is.

Right. It costs nothing. Those apps are free. It's all part of that handheld computer that we all own and rely upon. Yeah.

But back to the lunch and learn, I can I can absolutely give them enough information to where they walk out of there and say, wow? I didn't know that this was as bad as it is. And then they've got they've got a piece of information that they didn't have, and they're looking at a transcript. This is what that individual said. Look at those promises.

Travis: Yeah. We so your that transcript, that's a public exhibit?

Tom Carse: Yes. It is.

Travis: Let's put a link to it, on the show notes on the podcast and so people can if you're listening to this podcast on, on the Apple on on Apple Podcast or on Spotify, you can just scroll down and click on Tom's Fleeting so you can kinda read for yourself. I think that'd be really interesting for folks.

Tennessee: In that it's legislative year, are you aware of is there any scuttlebutt about possibly upping the penalties or anybody looking at the baritory statutes to give them some more teeth?

Tom Carse: A group that I'm a a participant in has approached a legislator, but from the TxDOT perspective thinking, okay, that may be a fix. But, you know, I I don't know the identity of the legislator who got the current statute approved or whether or not they're still a state legislator or not. But I would start there because that what a great start. I mean, it's it's already on the books, and there's certainly enough information to convince the legislators to consider this. Look.

It's it's wrongful conduct. But Yeah. It's it's not a serious enough penalty, and it needs to be.

Travis: Yeah. And and what what would be the argument against increasing the penalty to a $100? Yeah. Like, there's no defense to it. If you're caught in a active baritory, it's pure evil and needs to be penalized appropriately.

Tom Carse: Well, one thing we haven't discussed is the sister statute that's in the Texas penal code.

Travis: Mhmm.

Tom Carse: 38.12 is a mirror image of the government code, the civil statute, the civil baritry statute as I call it. It's a third degree felony if convicted.

Travis: Yeah. Go to jail

Tom Carse: for this. There's not enough prosecution of baritry. And frankly, I have escorted clients, one in particular to, the Dallas police department, the intake desk, you know, and you get the obligatory, how can I help you? Well, we'd like to file a baritory complaint. And there are two officers that are looking at each looking at each other like, what's that?

Right. Okay. Go go talk to your sergeant. Pull the penal code section 38.12 and then come back, and we wanna file a complaint. They come back and tell me it's a civil matter, and I need to take it up with the district attorney.

The district attorney accepts complaints and decides whether or not to accept for prosecution or reject the complaint, but the complaint has to come from the police department. They don't get it No. Or they don't want to get it. I've had that I've had that happen in Plano and in Dallas and in El Paso.

Travis: I mean, have you ever seen Bear Tree prosecuted from the criminal side?

Tom Carse: I know of one individual who I think may still be in prison. Uh-huh. His prosecution involved, roof claims. Yeah. I remember this.

You remember that? Well, he had a he had a mill in West Texas and a mill in El Paso and caught him regularly. And the lead gen company had an office directly across the hall. Right.

Tennessee: Yeah. And I think that's, kinda going back to your state bar. You know, if you're prosecuting a civil case, they're not gonna touch it probably while it's going on for sure and probably not ever. It kinda runs hand in hand on the criminal side. You know, I've I've actually been, one of our cases, conversing with an ADA, not in Tarrant County, but locally here.

There was a significant ticket written for the situation at hand. We've got the civil piece of it going. And, you know, the the criminal side, they don't they're just waiting and hoping that we reach resolution civilly, and they're gonna dismiss the ticket just because they view it as a civil matter. It's not a big deal for them. They've got plenty on their plate, and I understand that.

But I think it's, you know, it's kinda the the civil statute maybe a bit of a blessing and a curse because everybody's looking at that saying, well, there's your remedy that should matter. And it's it's there. Like you said, it's a great start. It just doesn't have the teeth to be a full deterrent

Tom Carse: Right.

Tennessee: Or a meaningful deterrent. Right. So I think that, again, probably raising that amount is the best possible way to go with this because the state bar, the criminal side, they're just gonna look at that statute and say, here's really where you should be focusing.

Tom Carse: And I think to lawyers, as a part of your audience, should view baritory cases as a source of revenue for their law firm. As an example, there's not a lawyer that I know of who will reject a car accident case on a minimum limits policy, which is $30.60. Happens all day, every day of the week. You've got a lot of people with minimum limits policies. You have a baritry case come in the door.

For it to be worth 30,000, there needs to be three violators, $10,000 each. Well, just so happens that I represent a young lady that we just resolved, a case for, and her proceeds, I don't know if it's appropriate or inappropriate to mention, but she's gonna pocket $80,000. Now the settlement was significantly larger. Mhmm. But her car wreck case is probably a 3 to $5,000 result for her.

Oh, wow. And so she's looking at this baritry as in, oh my goodness. They have no idea. Yeah. But she does now.

Tennessee: Yep.

Travis: Yeah. Use that. And that's not uncommon.

Tom Carse: That's not uncommon to have much bigger potential than just 10,000 per. Because when a lawyer tells me, I don't do that because it's just 10,000 per, that tells me they haven't just hit the pause button.

Travis: Right.

Tom Carse: And and done some oh, you have to do some math. Yep. It's 10,000 times each individual. You said let's say you have a law firm's got three lawyers in it. That's $40 right there.

Travis: Doesn't doesn't the definition of person somewhere include, like, entities?

Tennessee: I think there's some different

Travis: codes that define can get creative with this. Yeah. Go after the law firm itself. Go after the lead gen company as well as the person. I'm sure Tom just sues everybody.

Tennessee: Get to every individual within those units, then it's that's the better angle anyway.

Travis: You go. Every single person.

Tom Carse: Yep.

Travis: Yeah, I mean, so if not if right, but when SPI lawyers, when your clients report, I got this call, I got this call. Don't ignore it. Like, look into that and either file that bear true claim yourself or get Tom Carst to do it or someone else. I mean, Tom can't do all these himself, but Tom can do a chunk of them. But yeah, look into starting that practice if you're trying to grow your law firm in different practice areas.

Because not only is it a revenue source for your law firm and you, like you said, you get more justice for your clients. If they got in a car wreck and, you know, there's not a lot of insurance or something to go around, then, you know, they might need that other money and you can get it through the baritry claim. But not only that, it not only is it a a good thing for your clients, it's a good thing for the profession. You will be cleaning up the profession through that work that you're doing for your client, and you'll be making a difference. And hopefully, that will deter that those bad actors from doing it again.

Obviously, there are repeat flyers. But sometimes, like you said, there could be legitimate lawyers just buying leads because they're desperate for business because the lead gen guys have have taken all the leads. Right? And so we gotta buy the leads from them. And so, you know, this is a way to kind of get help get rid of that kind of stuff.

And so that that that's important work to be doing. Yep.

Tennessee: And I think, you know, one lesson too is if you are that lawyer that needs a lead to ask questions, like Tom said, it's cautionary tale. So if they can't provide you documentary documentary proof that they're doing it the right way, run for the hills because the consequences

Travis: are Yeah. I mean, the last question we ask in every single intake meeting is how did you get to our law firm? And there's a lot of reasons we ask that question. Right? You wanna track where your business is coming from and that sort of thing.

You wanna thank somebody for, you know, referring them to you and that sort of thing. But if they said, oh, because I, you know, we don't buy leads, but if they did and some client if we did and a client said, oh, I saw some websites saying, you know, I'm guaranteed this and that. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Like that, you stop right there and say, we can't do this because I know that this contract is voidable, and you do not want a voidable contract, when you're an attorney, doing things the right way. You happen to be that thing

Tom Carse: to them.

Travis: But even like just going back to that, even if that non lawyer legion company in that example says, it's black box, it's proprietary. I can't tell you how we do our business. Right? I can't give away the secret sauce. Well, I've asked my own client, how did they get to y'all and then to us?

And they said, you know, through this website that that doesn't look good. Then now we know. And and now we know we we have an issue.

Tennessee: Yeah. And one thing you hit on too is if if you are that correct victim and you're being solicited, like Tom said, you know, play along with the ruse because these people need to be caught. But as you get into it, if anybody's making you any promises or guarantees on the front end on the phone, just know that they're not the person to hire, and almost certainly what they're doing is illegal.

Tom Carse: Yeah. Good advice.

Travis: The only guarantee we can make is there are no guarantees. Correct. And we'll just do the best we can.

Tom Carse: In fact, I would imagine that all three of us have that language in our fee agreement. There are no guarantees.

Tennessee: 100%.

Tom Carse: Yep. Yeah. And anybody that calls up a prospective client that says, like, you had the experience. Well, this is this is gonna be worth $20 to you. Or even If I go to eight therapies, Tom.

Travis: Whatever whatever that means. Eight therapies, specifically eight. Not seven, not nine.

Tennessee: Particular body part or injury required, just eight therapies. Whatever

Travis: I get. Well, Tom, thank you for the work you're doing out there. Thanks for coming on here. I think it's been really interesting. And I hope this leads to continued conversations in Austin or in our local bar associations, here in Tarrant and Dallas.

But, yeah, thank you for coming on. Is there anything else? If there's lawyers out there and they and they have, something for you, they wanna talk more about Berry Tree, how can they reach you?

Tom Carse: One of two ways. Uh-huh. Email Tom@CarseLaw.com or dial (972) 503-6338.

Travis: Okay. Let's take it a hold of Tom and check out the show notes for Tom's, infamous pleadings, and we can see, what this transcript has to say. T Dub, anything else?

Tennessee: That's all I've got.

Travis: Alright. Thanks, guys.

Tom Carse: Thanks for having me.

Travis: It's pleasure. Hey there, listeners. I hope today's episode has been enlightening and inspiring. As we dive into these important conversations about safety and community, I'm reminded of why I became a personal injury lawyer in the first place. Every day, I see people whose lives have been turned upside down because of some accident in one shape or form or another.

It's a confusing, overwhelming time, and it can feel impossible to know where to turn. If you or someone you love have been in an accident and you need honest guidance, visit pattersonpersonalinjury.com to schedule a free consultation with our team. We'll get to know you, get to know your story, and answer your questions, and we're gonna help you understand all of your options, all with no obligation and no pressure. At Patterson Law Group, we've helped thousands of people rebuild their lives and find closure with honesty, transparency, and integrity. You deserve an advocate who will fight for your rights and for your future.

So don't wait. Visit patersonpersonalinjury.com today, and let's start driving change in your own life.