Brian Kent:

I always ask clients, “What do you want out of this case?”

Chris Dreyer:

A lot of firms listening are looking for those litigators. How do you find the great trial attorneys and then more importantly, how do you keep them?

Brian Kent:

It took me a long time to be okay with advertising for crime victim cases, but then I felt that we were doing a disservice because I knew that we were different than everybody else.

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want the rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode. All right, let’s dive in. High profile cases are incredibly sensitive. The high risk can come with incredible rewards. As a firm owner, deciding which high profile cases to take on can feel like a gamble. You want the rewards of recognition and interesting work, but risk fumbling publicly and damaging your reputation. Brian Kent has been down that road time and time again and he shares when the risks are worth it. Over the past 20 years, hundreds of abuse and assault survivors have trusted Brian with some of the most complex and publicized cases out there.

As head of the firm’s crime victim department, he oversees teams tackling cases against high profile figures like Jerry Sandusky and Massage Envy. He secured multimillion dollar settlements for victims of sexual violence and misconduct across the country. Brian has been recognized as a top 100 lawyer in Pennsylvania and named on the National Trial Lawyer’s Top 100 List. Brian has been through it all tough cases, scaling a national practice and leading multiple specialty groups. Today he offers insights on confidentiality, assessing high stakes cases, unapologetically showcasing your firm and setting your attorneys up for success. Here’s Brian Kent, founding partner at Laffey, Bucci & Kent.

Brian Kent:

My dad started out as an ironworker. He then was a probation officer, went to law school at night and then went into the DA’s office as a prosecutor. Then ultimately left the prosecutor’s office to do civil litigation. He was on the bad side of the law, as I like to say, and I’m on the good side of the law. I thought I knew I wanted to do it at a pretty young age. In college I used to work in restaurants a lot in high school and college and I really did working the line and doing all that stuff. So I was very close in college, sort of like a fork in the road. What am I going to do? And ultimately I wanted to get up in front of people and do things and I thought I could help more by being a lawyer than just making good food. Probably junior year I said I’m going to go into the law and it’s been that ever since.

Chris Dreyer:

I imagine at the dinner table, do you ever get into your father’s mindset, like the good versus the bad? Tell me about that relationship with your father as him being an attorney.

Brian Kent:

Me and my dad have a very close relationship, but he was the one that influenced me when I was leaving the DA’s office to say, “I think the plaintiff’s side suits you much better because you’re coming from being a prosecutor. You represent the people, but you’re really representing individuals who have been harmed or victimized,” and this is very similar to that. But he does have, he built his career on having good relationships with everybody. He treated everybody on both sides with respect, and now he set up a mediation practice. So I had a good role model in terms of how to treat people. You can get into the weeds and you take a lot of things personally and you can take it home and it is important to just recognize that super important cases have a lot of influence in people’s lives, but you also have a life and family and got to make sure you’re keeping present at all times.

Chris Dreyer:

And you kind led me right down that path of basically your different specializations. You got your workplace injuries, your product liability, your sexual assault, crime victims. This is a bit different because a lot of times when you have the plaintiff’s side, they’re looking for the MVAs, the motor vehicle accidents. Tell me about this approach of targeting each of these different areas.

Brian Kent:

When I left the DA’s office, I went to a firm in Philadelphia that really specialized and concentrated in catastrophic injury cases. Mostly though dealing with construction workers that were hurt on the job. But when I left the DA’s office, I was working on those cases, but also getting a lot of calls from victim advocates, from prosecutors and detectives about sexual abuse or assault survivors, human trafficking survivors that were looking for a civil attorney that understood the criminal side of things as well. So that I could work with law enforcement to make sure that both the criminal case is preserved the way it needs to be preserved and nothing in the civil side is going to affect that negatively and vice versa. And then also just acting as a conduit for our clients that are going through that criminal aspect before they get to the civil aspect.

So that part of our practice, I would say in the late 200s, early 2010, ’11, the crime victim side just slowly, slowly started getting more and more and branching out outside of our just local area of Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and taking bigger cases, higher profile cases around the country because at that time, late 2000s, early 2010, 2011, there weren’t a lot of attorneys that were specializing in just doing sexual abuse, assault and human trafficking cases. It was kind of, I don’t want to say new, but not a lot of attorneys that were specializing. It was a small group of people nationally.

That has obviously for multitude of reasons, it changed over the past, I’d say five to 10 years. There’s been a lot more firms that have jumped into that field and I think it’s probably due at least in part to it becoming a much more public issue and people feeling much more safer and comfortable to come forward about abuse and assault. So that’s a good thing, but there are a lot more folks that are in that mix now. But that’s kind of how we developed the firm. We’ve expanded since then to include other areas like auto, some mass tort stuff and things of that nature. And our crime victim team has dramatically increased to the point where we have, I think seven of us that are all former prosecutors at this point, just doing these types of cases nationally.

Chris Dreyer:

With the publicity of Sandusky and then you’ve got the Massage Envy cases and things like that. They come with a different sense of pressure. These are high profile cases. How did that kind of start to expand and get legs, so to speak?

Brian Kent:

When Sandusky happened in 2011 and we were involved in those cases and were front and center in media, that contributed to the expansion of our name nationally, certainly things of that nature. One of the first cases I ever handled though, and I think this is also one of the reasons that we are where we are right now as a crime victim team, at least. One of the first cases we had when we started the firm was a potential case against very well respected sitting judge in Delaware. Nobody would take the case, nobody in Delaware, nobody in PA because of who this individual was, but we met with our client who filed a pro se complaint at the time against the judge, and we believed that he was abused. We knew that if things didn’t go well, that it could be very bad for us, especially being early on in our stages of a firm and maybe we’re too naive to know the totality and the consequences if things did go bad at that time.

But I feel like that’s been a bedrock of our practice. We have taken cases where for whatever reason people will say “We’re not going to take this case,” and whether it’s because of the pressure, because of if things go wrong, this is a high profile figure. But I really truly believe that we’ve sat down and said “Is the right thing to do to take this case regardless of what the outcome may be and regardless of the circumstances?” And if the answer is yes, then we’ve ran with it and typically done pretty well. So that has definitely contributed. In that case with the judge we hopped on and did it and we used the media, which we do and a lot of different types of these cases to get other people to come forward, whether witnesses or otherwise somebody that may have been abused. And as we all know, typically the perpetrators are not just one victim, they’re a multitude of victims.

After we got involved and had some of that media, we had additional people come forward that said the same thing, that they were abused by this judge and ultimately, even though he was beyond the criminal statute of limitations, he was disbarred, removed by the Supreme Court from the bench and he signed a written admission to the abuse regarding our client, which was huge. And there was a lot of media associated with that after that happened. Just around that time, there were a couple of different cases that we had that were high profile that put us right out in the forefront, and thankfully we did well and right by our clients in those cases.

Chris Dreyer:

And thankfully none of you had a Kelly calculator or were-

Brian Kent:

Yes, no doubt. I know. I can’t imagine if we did, but looking back at it now, I think about that. I’m like, “Would we have done what we did when we were…” But it all works out. It’s all supposed to happen the way it happens.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I kind of want to lean into a couple of things you said there because this is a bit different and how you originate these additional cases. So you mentioned like, hey, typically there’s another victim. So how would you go to spread that? Would you get on TV when you’re being interviewed about it? Do you disperse that to get more cases to have these other individuals come forward, so to speak?

Brian Kent:

We know that it’s a high profile case, meaning is it an institutional defendant that has acknowledged this guy had multiple victims or girl had multiple victims such that we know that there are additional victims out there, we just don’t know who they are. We’ll do a press release, we’ll do a press conference and ask to folks to come forward and it truly is not to get people to join into a lawsuit. If we represent somebody at that point, it’s to make sure that we’re doing whatever we can for that individual client. Sure, certain times it leads to additional clients, but in these types of cases, as you can probably imagine, you never want to do something that that individual person is not ready to do or may not even be right for them. I do think our background, being former prosecutors, I talk about openly me being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

I do think that that makes us different than say a lot of other firms that handle these types of cases. Because first and foremost, if somebody comes forward to me, I really do know how difficult it’s to go through that process and talk to somebody who you know, let alone somebody who you don’t know about a potential lawsuit where your life may be on display. And secondly, these cases are much different than just an auto case, not that an auto case isn’t just as important as these cases. We’re just dealing with survivors that have gone through something so horrific and traumatic that it affects every aspect of their life.

So we have to be prepared to deal with those individuals, not just from the beginning of the case, but where we know that they could be triggered by a lot of the things that are going to happen during the lawsuit. And I think that really sets us apart from any other firm, I’ll say any other firm in the country having that, all former prosecutors who have done these cases, trauma-informed people that work with us. The other added bonuses, like I said, a lot of our clients are going through a criminal case as well since they’ve been victimized. And we as former prosecutors know what to do in those cases, work with law enforcement to maximize both the civil and the criminal case.

Chris Dreyer:

A lot of firms listening are looking for those litigators. How do you find the great trial attorneys and then more importantly, how do you keep them?

Brian Kent:

Yeah, both excellent questions that we have to ask ourselves all the time, all of at least the crime victim attorneys that we have, the former prosecutors, all of us have come through relationships. So some are former prosecutors from my former DA’s office that I worked in. Some are former prosecutors from other counties. Philly is, it’s the biggest small town in America. Everybody knows each other even though it’s I think the fifth-largest city in America. Over the past 15 years one way or another through connections just came to be, and not everybody that is on my team is somebody that we thought was coming to us to have a conversation about being hired by us or interviewed. Some of them said, “Hey, I know you made this transition. Can you sit down with me and just talk to me about how it was and what do you think about these firms I’m interviewing?”

And then I met with them and I said, “You need to come with us. Don’t worry about the other firms.” And it’s just worked out very well. I believe there’s tremendous value in culture and we’re like a family here and everybody knows that if they have an issue, they can walk into our door, no qualms at all, and put something on the table and we’re solution-based. We’re going to try to find an answer to whatever the issue is or the problem. I think there’s tremendous value liking walking into work every day and knowing that you have people you can count on and talk to about anything that’s going on and you’re going to be respected and you have growth opportunities and things of that nature. So I know that we don’t pay the most out of any law firm in the country, but we take very good care of our people.

It took us a long time to get to where we’re at right now. I think we are always asking ourselves, how can we make sure that one, people have growth and they don’t feel like they’re capped? Two, how can we make sure that people feel that they’re being valued from a monetary standpoint? So we’re always looking for what else can we do for folks to give them an incentive into one, bringing cases in, but two litigating cases that they’re working on that they may not have brought into the firm and how can we incentivize them to get great results.

I also think that who we are as a firm and the type of cases that we get is also an important aspect as well. I think we build a very good recipe. We’re always learning because we weren’t businessmen or business people when we started the firm. We were just three friends who just happened to practice law and have the same sort of mentality about how to do it. I am proud of where we are today, respecting other people, them knowing that they can talk to us about anything, come in and we will legitimately will try to help them and come to some sort of resolution forum is huge for us in terms of keeping folks and attracting folks as well.

Chris Dreyer:

I love every bit about that. I completely agree on the culture side, and I think just what you’re doing for the world and for these individuals, it just creates a lot of purpose for the team too that maybe is missed if you’re just doing these assembly line type cases. The other thing too, what I was hearing was openness, transparency, candor, the willing to go above and beyond. And it leads me to the no stone left unturned philosophy that you also take to a case. Talk to me a little bit about this philosophy and all the efforts that you put into any respective case.

Brian Kent:

So before we file a complaint, after we’ve talked to a potential client, we’ll do our own investigation into a case. So we have former detectives, not just for the crime victim team that do investigations, but also for any workplace accident stuff, any catastrophic injury case when you’re trying to determine what the cause is. So we do our homework before we even file or even come to the client and say, we want to file a complaint. I always ask clients like, what do you want out of this case? And sometimes we can answer that question, yes, sometimes we have to say, no, we can’t do that for you. But especially in the crime victim cases, getting answers to questions that a victim or survivor may have is a super important part of the process.

We want to make sure that we’re answering every single question that not only needs to be answered in the case, but our clients want us to answer. And typically those are questions that juries are going to have at the end of the day. Who knew what, did they know that other people, this was happening to other people? Were there other victims? What did they have in terms of policies? Were they enforcing this? Things of that nature that I think we put every possible resource into making sure that those questions are answered.

Chris Dreyer:

Brian and his firm tackle multiple practice areas. Not every case can be optimized with the same organizational structure. By breaking down the ideal structure for each area he explains how to get the best possible results.

Brian Kent:

I had to have a lot of faith in, and I do have a lot of faith in my partners that are on the crime victim team with me. We have two teams of three lawyers on each team. That has increased a little bit. It’s typically three attorneys on each team, three paralegals on each team for the crime victim cases. Each team is overseen by one of my partners, and I kind of oversee the totality of all of the cases. I tried for a very long time to be as directly involved as I could, but it just wasn’t as practical. Although I am involved in every single case. It’s more trial strategy, big depositions, things of that nature. I’ve taken a less hands-on approach just out of necessity. I can’t do that and develop business to bring into the firm and help run the firm at the same time.

And I think I had to come to a point where I recognize I’m doing a disservice to the clients and I have great attorneys and paralegals that work for me. I just needed to get to the point where I said, “It’s okay to let them do it because they do an amazing job,” and that has benefited everybody. So that’s kind like the crime victim set up the rest of the firm. So the construction aspect is, it’s a little different. There are four attorneys that work on catastrophic construction aspect, four or five and a couple of paralegals as well. And they all just work together. And then our auto department/slip and fall department that is in and of its own bubble, they have their own system. We have a New York office now with an attorney up there and a couple of folks that work up there.

And the other thing that we have in terms of our setup, which is extremely helpful for us, not just from a business development standpoint, but also in being able to have this national practice, is we have great co-counsel relationships. So based on our specialties, we get asked to come into a lot of different jurisdiction to handle those types of cases, or we’ll get cases that are in those jurisdictions and team up with folks. And that’s just been hugely beneficial, not just from a divvying up the work aspect and being able to handle a lot more cases because you have these, we have great co-counsel, but also from the relationship aspect in future cases, if there’s a sexual abuse case or sexual assault case, a lot of times our co-counsel picking up the phone and say, “Hey, I know you guys didn’t send this over here, but do you want to hop in and litigate this case with us?”

And if there’s a case that they get in a jurisdiction that they don’t handle, they’ll look to us and say, “Hey, you probably have co-counsel in this area. Do you guys want to take this case and run with it?” So that’s been a great aspect as well, and that’s something that I have worked very hard on in making sure that we have attorneys throughout the country, regardless of the type of case that comes up. We typically have attorneys or firms throughout the country in every single state that we can team up with and handle cases with. And it has to be folks that we trust completely based on the type of work that we do, but we have those folks, which has really been a blessing.

Chris Dreyer:

How do you balance the decision to do business development mostly through referrals? And a lot of times referrals you got to pay that referral fee versus the thought of originating your own cases and maybe go on the advertising route. Just kind of overall, what’s your firm’s philosophy on that?

Brian Kent:

When we first started the firm, one of the things that I did as well as my partners is we really just pounded the pavement, like cold calling firms and attorneys that we thought we could have relationships with, which we still do to this day. More on a national level than anything for sure. We also do a lot of advertising as well. I think it took me a long time to be okay with advertising for crime victim cases just because I had something in my head that didn’t seem, didn’t feel right, it didn’t fit, but then I felt that we were doing a disservice because I knew that we were different than everybody else. I didn’t want victims or survivors to go to a firm that doesn’t have the experience working with trauma victims and survivors that we have. We do invest a lot in advertising, and that has dramatically increased over the past couple of years because we were always like a relationship sort of firm.

So we had to come out of our shell of, “Hey, we get most of our cases through these referral relationships,” and just doing that all the time. And then just take a shift and invest in the advertising aspect of things. Of course, that comes with growth, right? You have more people here that you need to take care of. You need different avenues of revenue. So we’re not really a mass tort firm, but we go out and get mass tort cases and work with some mass tort firms. And those mass tort firms in terms have brought us on for abuse cases or construction cases. But yeah, we are always looking for new avenues to be able to not just grow the firm, but have different avenues of revenue to reinvest in other things at the firm for sure.

Chris Dreyer:

Amazing. Thank you for that, Brian. What’s next for the firm and where can people go to connect with you?

Brian Kent:

We’re expanding at a crazy rate. We made a pledge to each other when we started the firm. Bigger and better is what we try to do every single next day. So we’re just constantly evolving to try to be not just bigger, I should say, but better and with better means bigger because requires additional resources. So we have some high profile cases in the mix right now. Yeah, I always tell folks that I wish I wasn’t meeting them under the circumstances that I meet them if they’re having to talk to me, but I’m glad I’m meeting them nonetheless, because I truly believe that our team can help folks so much differently and better than a lot of different firms out there.

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much to Brian for sharing his wisdom today. Let’s hit the takeaways time for the pinpoints. With great risk comes great reward high profile cases offer a chance to accelerate your firm’s national recognition. Earn media from trusted third parties like journalists builds credibility, but beware, fumbling. A publicized case can damage your reputation.

Brian Kent:

And maybe we’re too naive to know the totality of the consequences if things did go bad at that time, but I feel like that’s been a bedrock of our practice. We have taken cases where for whatever reason, people will say, we’re not going to take this case. But I really truly believe that we’ve sat down and said, is the right thing to do to take this case, regardless of what the outcome may be and regardless of the circumstances. And if the answer is yes, then we’ve ran with it and typically done pretty well.

Chris Dreyer:

Give them a choice. You’re better than the competition, but potential clients can’t find you if you don’t advertise. Competitors pay for ads, making them the default option. You owe it to future clients to showcase your firm and why you’re the best choice.

Brian Kent:

I think it took me a long time to be okay with advertising for crime victim cases. Just because I had something in my head that didn’t seem, didn’t feel right, didn’t fit right. We were doing a disservice because I knew that we were different than everybody else.

Chris Dreyer:

Develop your team. Invest in their growth. Complex cases, engage and challenge staff, making them feel valued. Providing development opportunities is one way to lift your team up.

Brian Kent:

We are always asking ourselves, how can we make sure one, people have growth and they don’t feel like they’re capped? We invest in our folks.

Chris Dreyer:

For more information about Brian Kent, check out the show notes while you’re there. Please hit that follow button so you’ve never missed an episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. All right everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I’m out.