Ashley Rawlins:

He always used to say, “Ride your tigers or they’ll eat you up.”

Chris Dreyer:

Follow your passion. Pursue what sets your soul on fire. The success will follow.

Ashley Rawlins:

That’s what makes a good attorney is taking on hard cases, not just the slam dunks, not the ones that are the eight figure catastrophic cases, everybody wants those, but to really uphold the oath that you took as an attorney to be able to help people. And I want to help people if their case is an average personal injury case or a catastrophic one.

Chris Dreyer:

You’re listening to Personal Injury Mastermind, where we give you the tools you need to take your personal injury practice to the next level.
Ashley Rawlins is an attorney with dreams as big as her tenacity, a dog fighter in the courtroom and relentless advocate for her clients. Car Crash Ash aims to make her firm Rawlins Law a household name. On the road forward, she leans into her values for guidance and she ramps up the speed by marketing with intention.
I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, Founder and CEO of Rankings.io. We help elite personal injury attorneys dominate first page rankings with search engine optimization.
Easter eggs aren’t just for Marvel films. Stick around till the end for a surprise from Car Crash Ash.
Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people. So let’s get to know our guest. A fighter from the very beginning, here’s Ashley Rawlins, Founder at Rawlins Law.

Ashley Rawlins:

I’ve always had a passion to advocate and to fight for justice and to stand up to the bigger people and it kind of carries over to what I do now. I’ve just always loved the law. When I was younger, I really loved to argue, so that’s where it started, and that’s really what you think law is when you’re six years old.
As I got older, I would get in trouble and I would write my parents these letters of why I should not be grounded. I still have them. They were so convincing. It was like a page front, a page back. My parents would read it and then they would end up taking back their punishment because I was so convincing.
So I think it was just part of my nature and I think God made me to be an attorney and I really have felt that since my childhood.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s amazing. I would love to see some of those letters. We might have to pin that to the transcript.
I also heard that you played sports. You’re super competitive. What sports did you play? Where did that come from?

Ashley Rawlins:

I played basketball, soccer, softball. I was the boy my dad never had. I was the jock, the first born, the oldest child. Basically any sport. There was times I remember sitting there on the tennis court and he was like whacking balls at me 90 miles an hour and I’m like, “I hate this.” It was a part of my childhood. It was always me and dad playing sports. Some of my greatest memories were going to UMass basketball camp, traveling soccer, traveling basketball, AAU. My whole childhood in life really revolved around sports.
I always tell this funny story and it makes my dad seem like he’s a stickler and very, very strict. Growing up, basketball was my sport. I was not allowed to come in and eat dinner until I shot a hundred follow shots. I had a journal and I would stand outside in the paved driveway in shoe, and I was not allowed to come in until I shot my follow shots and recorded them. And then I would come in and, of course, he would assess my percentages and that would be a whole other conversation.
I just have always had that tenacious, gritty, fighting, competitive nature. I love everything about athletics, and I think it really translates to the practice of law as well.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s fantastic. I have a feeling that your father and my father would get along really well because it was similar. I had to go to the gym. I had to shoot so many shots before I came home. It builds discipline. It builds character though too.

Ashley Rawlins:

It does. When you’re young, you don’t really understand it. I remember I would play in high school games and if I didn’t score, I would come home the next morning and on the radiator, the old school radiators, the printed paper would be there with a highlight “zero points”. “Dad, I couldn’t. I tried.”
He did that with my report cards too. It was always any grade below a 92, always some sort of commentary. Why? Explain? I mean people would die to get As and Bs, and it was like any grade slip below in 92, I had to have a justification or a reason of why my grade fell.
And it was funny because my sister would come home and she would get Cs and get praised. We actually still joke about it to this day. I say, “Dad, I don’t understand and I never really got it. Why were you always like that with me?” And he said, “I always knew you had it in you since the beginning.”

Chris Dreyer:

Oh, that’s amazing. I would love to hear what your sister would say about that too though.

Ashley Rawlins:

It’s really funny because my sister was never great in school. Tried really hard but was never great. And ironic enough, she’s a very successful physician assistant. She’s worked at some amazing hospitals, including Columbia. It’s just funny now to watch everything come full circle because I was the one since day one sports. It was literally eat, sleep, sports, school, everything, perfectionist type A, that’s me. She was so lackadaisical, messy, but tried really hard at school. But until she found her niche of what her passion was, that’s when she excelled. It’s funny how every kid is uniquely different.

Chris Dreyer:

I want to jump forward. After law school, you took the leap to move from Massachusetts to Southern California and you worked for a handful of firms. What kind of experience did you draw out from those different firms that you worked with? Did this kind of set the tone for you planning your future firm?

Ashley Rawlins:

I think that I’m just meant to be a boss and a leader by my skillset and my personality. I always like to learn. I worked for other people and it was great while the time lasted. My first job as an attorney, I was with a firm and there were some unethical things going on and I knew what I stood for, what my belief system was, and I didn’t want to be any part of that. So when I had those feelings, and I didn’t have any proof, it was just more of an intuition, a gut feeling, something wasn’t right, I walked out.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s the reason why I started my business. I just didn’t agree with their values and how they were doing things.

Ashley Rawlins:

I wanted things to be done the right way. I grew up in a Christian household. I believe in the Lord. My faith is a very big part of my life, but also my business. My firm was built on the foundation of Micah 6:8. It’s a Bible verse. It says, “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.” That verse means a lot to me. I started my business with it. It’s not a slogan or a tagline or something that’s just catchy to attract people to get clients and build business. It’s actually something that is personal to me.
Everyone has good days and bad days and clients that might need something more than others, but at the end of the day, I keep myself in check and remember that this is bigger for me than just the law firm. I really believe that I was created on earth to help people and to give back and to fight for justice.

Chris Dreyer:

And on that side, Mr. Rogers has this saying, “Look for the helpers.” Often, we hear attorneys are drawn to the practice because they want to help people. So why did you see law as the vehicle to make this happen versus just other career paths, whether it’s physicians or what have you? How did you see law making the most impact?

Ashley Rawlins:

I think that law and my passion from competitiveness and athletics and then the fact that I actually got into personal injury and I have the ability to help and give back, it just comes together full circle. And then I can still have my passion for the medicine and the science and kind of intertwined in there as well. Because with personal injury, you’re always learning, and if you’re a good attorney, you really want to learn not just the law side, but also the science and the medicine is very important in personal injury in order to be able to write good demand packages and be able to advocate and fight for clients if you know the medicine and know certain things when it comes to that regard.

Chris Dreyer:

You’ve had a lot of success in taking cases that other firms, quite frankly, turned down or overlooked. What was it about those situations, or maybe if there’s a particular case that comes to mind? Was it just because they were harder? What was it that you saw in these cases that maybe other people don’t?

Ashley Rawlins:

I think a lot of well established or what we call mill firms will reject a case based upon the basic five facts. So if there was any sort of liability that went against the client or if there was not enough property damage or there’s a certain limits issue, a lot of attorneys have a threshold on the amount of value of a case that they can take. And that’s something that I’ve always strongly said personally; I don’t believe in it. I want to help people if their case is an average personal injury case or a catastrophic one.
I think that a lot of times on the first read through, attorneys just pass this up and clients get frustrated. And so when I talk to them and my intake manager speaks with them and we break it down and I really dive into certain things, I see something that’s not there or I just have that competitive edge and I’m like, I’m just going to fight and I’m not going to go away. One of my clients said in a testimonial, she’s like, “Ashley doesn’t take no for an answer,” and it’s true.
I think that that’s what makes a good attorney is taking on hard cases, not just the slam dunks, not the ones that are the eight figure catastrophic cases, everybody wants those, but to really uphold the oath that you took as an attorney to be able to help people, and to fight and to take the hard cases. I’ve taken a bunch of cases where I’ve personally lost money on. It might not have been a positive for the client is in monetary value, but let me tell you, the clients are very, very happy and grateful that they had an attorney that took the chance and that listened to them because at the end of the day, there’s a lot of people that just want their day in court and want to be heard. So I think that that’s important is to keep fighting.

Chris Dreyer:

And I got a badge in too. You have a stellar reputation and just playing a long game that when they hear of someone that needs an attorney and needs a personal injury attorney, you’re going to be the first person they think of just because of how you treated them.

Ashley Rawlins:

Hopefully, and I think that goes back to my customer service roots. I’ve worked since I was 15, 16 years old. I’ve worked two or three jobs my whole life. I came from a middle class family, but nothing was ever handed to me. So once people know that and hear about my story, how I grew up in a small town, how I’ve worked for every single thing that I’ve had, how nothing was handed to me, I’ve had two or three jobs.
I worked in customer service. I waitressed, which people underestimate the skill of waitressing. Working in the restaurant industry has taught me far more than any class in law school has. You have to have the ability to learn to deal with people from all walks of life. You have to know how to make a situation right when you’re put on the spot. You have to put your emotions aside and remember that customer in the restaurant is there for a good meal and good service.
So when somebody comes to me, it doesn’t matter what I think about a lot of things in the outside noise, they’re coming because they need help and they want a good service, and me to be a good attorney for them.

Chris Dreyer:

I’ve read that you give your personal cell phone out, you also meet clients in person, you go to them. And that’s uncommon, right? You’re decreasing their effort. You’re making it more convenient for them. Is this kind of just falling in line, a customer experience and just how you want to be treated? This seems like a big USP that most people don’t do.

Ashley Rawlins:

When I first started, I had a couple clients that came with me, but I didn’t have a ton of money or deep pockets like a lot of these big firms. And so my whole mission was how am I going to be different? What can Ashley do that’s going to set her apart? And I was like, “I can just be myself.”
I genuinely love people. I love meeting people and talking to them and hearing their stories. And so my whole business was built on a virtual but concierges type service where I offer to go to the clients. A lot of attorneys have told me I’m crazy. I give every client my personal cell phone number. It’s just an extra touch that if somebody needs me, I’m there. The number one bar complaint is lack of attorney/client communication. And every client has the ability to get a hold of me at any time.
I just try to go the extra step and be there and be available as much as I can.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s fantastic. And your identity, I really want to talk about that because out of the gate you started with branding and taglines and this positioning out of the gate. Most of the time, it’s like an afterthought. A firm puts up a website and they put up their car and truck accident pages and then it’s like, “Oh, I need a brand. I need a tagline.” So talk to me about developing first of all, your tagline, your brand, and what went into that in terms of the creativity and your thought as it relates to marketing.

Ashley Rawlins:

When I started my firm, I didn’t have cases, and I didn’t have a ton of money to start marketing and advertising. So I was like, “Okay, well, I need to make a brand that is attractive and something that people are going to relate to.” I didn’t want just the traditional scales of justice, the traditional law firm stuffy, old school mentality. It’s just not me. I feel in branding and marketing, you have to be yourself. You have to be truly authentic to who you are. So when I started Rawlins Law, I started the logo and the tiger. So everybody thinks it’s just a tiger, and it’s just because I’m aggressive, but it’s more than a tiger.
My philosophy teacher in 12th grade he always used to say, “Ride your tigers or they’ll eat you up.” He was very passionate about making students understand that they were created for a purpose, and you should pursue whatever sets your soul on fire, pursue your passions and dreams. Don’t get caught up in the money. The money will follow. Just do what you’re passionate about. He unfortunately got diagnosed with eye cancer my senior year and he passed very, very quickly. I can count on a hand probably how many people have changed my life, and he’s one of those people.
So when I started the business, I wanted something that not only was good for a law firm, but that had personal meaning to me and who I am and what I stand for. So when a lot of people think it’s a tiger and then they hear the story and find out the story behind it, it makes it so much more meaningful. Actually on the book, the tiger’s standing on it, it has the Micah 6:8, which is the tagline, “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.” That just keeps me focused, and remember everything that I have is through the Lord.
And then over the past few years, it’s kind of transitioned into this avatar, Car Crash Ash kind of personality to take on as part of Rawlins Law. I can be serious when I need to and go in the courtroom and fight and stand up and do what I need to do, but at the end of the day, I think people want to hire a brand and a person that is likable, that’s charismatic, that they can relate to. I think that that’s where the disconnect is a lot of times between the customers and the general public and attorneys. And so my whole Car Crash Ash in the avatar is to appeal to the public and the customers to let them know, “Hey, I’m just one of you and I’m here to help.”

Chris Dreyer:

When your firm is just starting out, business development often looks like shaking hands and getting out in the community. Ashley went the extra mile to secure cases she felt she could win.

Ashley Rawlins:

It is exhausting. When I started, it was literally boots on the ground. I kid you not. I had business cards. I went door to door, and I introduced myself to everybody. I went and met attorneys that were doing well and asked them if they would refer me cases they didn’t want. People will still send me cases from the start. They just didn’t want it. So I started, and I introduced myself to other attorneys to ask for cases that they were declining that they didn’t want.
I went and met doctors, chiropractors, in person, showed my face everywhere. I went to every event for the first three years. It was absolutely draining, but I was everywhere and it worked. I still try to go to as many things as I can. I think you need to show your face. People like to do business with people that are nice and good people. And so you just got to show your face, show up, and keep working hard.

Chris Dreyer:

How has your marketing since you started and business development strategies, how have they evolved? In the beginning, you said you’re everywhere, exhausting, meeting, shaking hands, getting referrals, taking those cases they didn’t want, and now you’ve developed the pipeline. How do you look at marketing now?

Ashley Rawlins:

I think when you first start, that stuff is an absolute necessity to do. A lot of people are like, “I hate going out and networking.” I love it. I could be out every night of the week and meet doctors and chiropractors and clients. I love the personal interaction. So that’s something that I’m kind of unique when it comes to that. I actually truly enjoy it.
But now it’s more, I don’t have to do that as much. And I’m focusing more on the digital aspect, social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. Started some TikTok stuff. And then just trying to really have different types of advertising. Spanish posts and then a flat post and then a post with a video and then a post with me. I dropped some raps on Fridays to try to show my creative fun side and not be so stiff.
I just try to put in a little bit of different flavors and touches in the advertising rather than just the typical, every single post, every single billboard is, “Injured?. Call me.” I’m not even part of the general population, and maybe I notice it more because I’m an attorney, but I just can’t stand the same slogan, the same thing that everybody says. So I try to just be different in my advertising.
It’s not like you wake up and you’re excited you got into a car accident or a catastrophic injury. It’s like going to the dentist or going to the doctor’s appointment. Most people don’t want to hire an attorney. They do because there’s a specific problem or need that they have. And so I put myself in the eyes of the consumer and customers. How would I perceive some types of advertisements?
I try to diversify my ads to suit people of all ages and backgrounds and generations because I think there’s different types of advertisements that work different for everybody.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, I think a lot of times when I see this myself, I see individuals getting stuck in one particular demo or one particular message. The other thing is a lot of times it’s cringe-worthy of being a consumer and not being an attorney. I’ll be driving to the city and it’s like, “Congratulations, you’re injured.” And it’s like, “Ooh, that kind of missed the mark in terms of eq.”

Ashley Rawlins:

Yeah, nobody wants to go through that. I was rear-ended probably 12 years ago, and it was a pretty hard hit and I was dead stopped. And so I always tell clients, “I’ve been hit. I’ve been injured. And I didn’t get medical treatment that I should have because I was young.” So when it comes to the younger athletic clients, I always explain to them on the phone, “I’ve been there. You’re going to feel okay. Here’s what you need to do. And this is from personal experience.”
So I think that if you look at things from the outside view of you not getting in that one track lane of you’re an attorney and you’re advertising and you’re trying to get cases, but actually like, “Okay, well what are these people looking for? What do they need?” They want somebody that’s going to listen to them, that’s going to be compassionate, that’s going to find a solution to their problem and that’s just going to be there for them. Most of my clients, a lot of them will just be grateful that I was there for them, that I answer their phone call, that I answer their text message at 10:00 at night or on a Saturday just because I respond. Even if it’s just them saying hello or something, I acknowledge it and I respond. I think that goes a long way.

Chris Dreyer:

I couldn’t agree more. On this next one, I’m going to let you be a little creative here, because I know you have this. You have this huge vision and it’s just so clear to you; you’re a driver, your passion, you just want to grow, grow, grow. I would love to hear if you could kind of articulate what is your vision for Rawlins Law?

Ashley Rawlins:

I don’t think I can say this on camera.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, you can. Go for it.

Ashley Rawlins:

That’s what they always say; “Don’t say that out loud.”
I want Rawlins Law to be a household name. That’s been my goal since day one. A household name as far as everybody knows Rawlins Law. Everybody likes Rawlins Law. And everybody that has an experience with Rawlins Law… I mean you can’t say everybody because in personal injury there’s always those outliers, but people have that good, warm feeling, that they want to do business with Rawlins Law. We’re a customer, consumer friendly brand. We’re more than a law firm. We really want to help and give back.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s the name of the game. I love that. Ashley, this has been fantastic. Where can people go to learn more? Where can people go to connect with you?

Ashley Rawlins:

On Instagram: rawlinslawapc, or carcrashash. Facebook: Rawlinslawapc. And same for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Well, TikTok is carcrashash. And then the website is therawlinsfirm.com.

Chris Dreyer:

The personal injury space remains fiercely competitive. To maintain your edge, marketing has to be front and center. Ashley takes cases others won’t and is vocal about her work. Her community knows they can come to her and she will fight for them to take the hard cases like a superhero she is.
I’d like to thank Ashley from Rawlins Law for sharing her story with us, and I hope you gain some valuable insights from the conversation. And as promised, here’s a very special PIMM Easter egg from Car Crash Ash.

Ashley Rawlins:

Some think it may be too much to bear, but I took the lawyer oath. So I solemnly swear that I’ll support the Constitution of the United States and I’m honored to be the one who advocates. I’ll uphold the Constitution of Californ-i-a anywhere from Diego to the Bay. Being a good lawyer is far more than a debate, but for me, I live every day with my foundation of Micah 6:8.
So what does it mean when you raise your right hand, when you utter the words as an attorney on the stand; faithful execution of my duties as an attorney to the best of my knowledge and ability? As an officer of the court, I will never sell my clients short. I will carry myself with dignity, be courteous, and maintain integrity. So if you’re injured in a crash, you know who to call. Call me. Call Car Crash Ash.

Chris Dreyer:

That was amazing. You’ve been listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m Chris Dreyer. If you like this episode, leave us a review. We’d love to hear from our listeners. I’ll catch you on next week’s PIMM with another incredible guest and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.