Reza Torkzadeh
Everything starts at the top. It starts with me, it starts with how I act, am I living in my core values that I’m preaching to everyone? Or am I setting a really shitty example?

Chris Dreyer
People are at the core of every successful personal injury law firm. From employees to clients, how you show up, informs your community and impacts your bottom line.

Reza Torkzadeh
It’s not about one person or one ideology or one vision. It’s really, if you share these core values, you share these core beliefs. You truly in your heart are authentic. And guess what people know when others are inauthentic and people know when it’s not truthful. And then on the flip side, they know when it’s real and when it’s genuine. And that really makes a difference.

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. In the past decade, Reza Torkzadeh, super lawyer, has won over $150 million in judgements, verdicts and settlements. The past decade has seen explosive growth for his firm, TorkLaw . Across 12 physical offices in nine states and over 60 virtual offices, the firm has recovered multiple eight figure wins, including a $26 million verdict the largest in California history. But his success is due largely to metrics that are harder to measure core value guides, every decision resumes from community engagement and marketing to staffing and scaling. I sat with Reza to find out how values guide hiring when digital marketing really works and creative content marketing that instantly makes your firm the authority. 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. So let’s get to know our guest here’s Reza Torkzadeh, founder at TorkLaw.

Reza Torkzadeh
When I was in. College. I was actually a bio major and I thought I wanted to be a doctor and go to medical school and I had dedicated everything I did in life to getting into medical school. I drove an ambulance one summer as an EMT. I did research on medicine at the medical school at UC Irvine and ended up publishing an actual research paper and I got to my last year in college and realized I, I’m not smart enough to be a doctor. all joking aside I just felt that, there were things that I was better suited doing. I loved people. I love being able to help people and as cliché as that sounds. And so in my last year in college, I was really lost, not knowing what I was going to do. I decided I wasn’t going to go to medical school. And the next natural thing for me was how can I be involved with people and be able to make a difference? And at the same time I had parents who were now really disappointed. I wasn’t going to medical school and I had enough classes and credits where I could actually take the LSAT and then, and go to law school. And so the truth is I never knew I wanted to practice law. I didn’t really want to even never even thought of being a lawyer until I really got to that point where. I was at a crossroads on what I was going to do with my life and my future. And going to law school provided me so many different ways to be able to engage in people in their daily lives to make a difference in so many different practice areas. And ultimately that was really what drove me to law school.

Chris Dreyer
It’s interesting that you say that and you talk a lot about people. And at first I would challenge you. I know you would’ve crushed it as a doctor. Like I know it’s like they go in different directions. You’re an entrepreneur, you’re a very successful, a firm owner, you have a core value at TorkLaw Firm. . It’s representing the people. what role does empathy and trust play in connecting with clients?

Reza Torkzadeh
We have core values in the firm because I really believe in being authentic, being your true self and that’s where you can really make a difference. And you’re absolutely right. Like for me, it’s just who I am. I like people generally. And, but more importantly, Think about the differences that you could make in someone’s life and how fulfilling that could be. An and I tell the staff here to the point of, they don’t even want to hear me say it anymore, but our core purpose at our firm is we change people’s lives and it happens every day. And I have clients from. 12 years ago, 14 years ago, who still texts me on Thanksgiving and Christmas and new years who say without you, we would not be at this table right now without you, our life could not have moved forward. And no matter how big or small the case, knowing that we’re able to play even a small role in helping someone in giving them peace in walking them through what is probably the worst time of their life. Being there for them. I can’t think of a more fulfilling thing to do with my own life. And when you talk about people, you apply it to the firm as well. And I never did that. For me at the firm, I knew people were important and I just didn’t know how to find them and how to keep them. And and I talk about this in my upcoming book, but I cleared house one day. I lost half the staff because they were the wrong people. And having these core values in place having the right people is what’s really gonna push you far. For us at TorkLaw we wouldn’t be where we are without our people. We wouldn’t be where we are without our clients. And it’s not about one person or one ideology or one vision. It’s really, if you share these core values, you share these core beliefs. You truly in your heart are authentic. Because there’s a lot of people that are out there. Who say we care about the people we care about the community, but are full of shit. And guess what people know when others are inauthentic and people know when it’s not truthful. And then on the flip side, they know when it’s real and when it’s genuine. And that really makes a difference.

Chris Dreyer
Cleaning house when values and talent are not aligned, can be challenging for any manager. I wanted to know once the values of affirm have been identified, how can owners ensure they are communicated to the new hires?

Reza Torkzadeh
We have five core values at our firm right now. We share them at the beginning of every meeting in every email that goes out to the staff and we incorporate these core values and I’ll read them to you and radical authenticity. So be yourself, be genuine. Don’t talk behind people back, don’t create drama, just be radically authentic, striving for the win that means you’re committed to success. You’re committed to your own success at this firm, but you’re also committed to winning your cases and doing a good job for your clients. Respect for each other. That goes back to the drama. You got to respect everybody. Defense counsel, insurance, adjusters, your teammates. Growth mindset. We have a full fledged training program. Now it’s the halt and we have it in place at the front. It takes that person wanting to learn, wanting to grow, being committed to growth, being committed, to getting better every day, these are core values. And then our last one is unwavering integrity. Do what you say and say what you do. So we’ve got these five and everything that we do, every decision that we make from the top of the organization down to the bottom. Revolves around these core values. Okay. And we talk about them all the time. We have a point system we use where you can recognize other teammates or what they’ve done well. And in order to actually give them these points, you have to include some of these core values and how they tie into that description. Now, how did I get here is the bigger question. And I, again, I talk about this in my book. I had gotten to a point with TorkLaw , where we were experiencing unbelievable growth and we were looking to hire people, and this is how we did it. We posted a job posting on all the job boards, get thousands of resumes back. And you pick a few, you look at the resume. This is how we did it. If they had worked for a competitor, that they would automatically get an interview because we assumed incorrectly that if someone worked for a competitor, that they know what they’re doing, or if they had some legal background, we’ll bring them in for an interview they’ll interview with us they’ll interview and we just hire them on the spot. And we did that for years and we kept bringing people in without giving any thought to. Is this the right person or not. And so we’d gotten to a point, I think we were at 25 30 people and there was non-stop fires. I was putting out, I was dealing with personnel issues. I have this revolving door of just complaints and I got to it, it just got to a point where it’s too much for me. And it was either I was going to stop and I was going to shut the firm down or I was going to do something about it. And so it wasn’t all roses and easy. It was a very stressful period. It was a very stressful time. And as a business owner, Who invested everything that I had in this firm, it was an incredibly challenging time. And I look back now and I’m like, wow that was a really tough time. It was not easy to get through, but I only had one other choice. It was either make this work or, maybe go back and try to go to medical school. So Aaron’s happy. Very, I took some huge risks. I made some huge investments in the firm and ultimately it was myself and what I did and appreciate them that I do now is and number two is what am I tolerating? Am I tolerating bad behavior? Because. In a way, if you tolerate bad behavior, you’re essentially endorsing that internally. And I didn’t realize, I really appreciate the power of, it really starts from the top down. And do, as I do not, as I say, and that’s really transformed our organization from where we were which was a very challenging and difficult time.

Chris Dreyer
And I got to applaud you for taking action and I’ve heard the saying it’s it goes something along the lines of anything worth having doesn’t come easy. And I’m sure that your hiring, processes have changed, instead of, cherry picking from the resumes, I’m sure you have processes that intentionally look for these values that are shared to try to get the right people on the bus and the wrong.

Reza Torkzadeh
Chris, this is the most important thing we do now. And you’re right. It’s a whole process. And I’ll tell you some of it and how this works. So first of all, we went from the position of, Hey, let’s find reasons why to hire someone, to actually shifting that the other way around. Let’s find reasons not to hire someone and in doing so we set up a funnel for hiring. So now a job post goes up and in the middle of the description, it says, if you apply to this job through this listing, you will automatically be disqualified. If you are interested, call this phone number, guess what? It weeds out. 99% of the people who are just clicking and applying to every job out. And so we get rid of a lot of people that you don’t want anyways. People who are not paying attention, who are not diligent, who are not really into, or really committed to getting this job. And the other thing is when you look at some of our career pages and our job postings, we’re really marketing ourselves. We’re marketing our firm. We’re showcasing what it is that our firm can do for you. What it is that we do for the community. And, by, by and large, most people want to do good and they want to be a part of something that is giving back to the community. So we show those things off. And recruiting is marketing for sure. And for us we’ve set up this funnel to disqualify people. And so after they call that phone number, they’ll hear my voice and. I’ll give them some other instructions on what to do next. And most people won’t do that, but the people that do, then they’ll get an opportunity to do an interview, which is a one-way interview. We still haven’t touched this candidate yet. They do it online at their leisure. On their phones or computers and they do a one-way interview. So we get to then see them in real time live and how they present, how they speak. Are they articulate? Do they, are they put together, did they put thought into what they’re wearing? They put thought into what’s in their background and if they didn’t do those things, they would get disqualified. And as the funnel goes down, you get less and less candidates. We have them take cognitive testing, personality tests and by the end of it, that candidate really wants the job. And if they’ve made it that far, but you now know that person, almost everything about them. And only then can you really decide, is this person someone I’m going to bring in my organization and invest time and money into and someone that’s going to help me grow or not. And it’s not perfect, but it is significantly better than what, how we used to do it.

Chris Dreyer
For firms looking to create a funnel similar to Reza’s tools like Spark Hire go a long way to keep recruits organized and distinct from one another. I wanted to know what cognitive and personality tools Reza uses to find the right hires.

Reza Torkzadeh
So the first one we do is the Wonderlic, which is what the NFL uses to test its players. We do the Colby and we do the Print. So at the end of the day, leverage can be created at a number of ways, right? You can get software, you can, there’s processes, efficiencies, there’s outsourcing, and if you want to grow, you have to have people, you gotta get more bodies. Based upon your growth, you’ve got 12 offices in nine states, you may have more office and offices than that, w what have you seen in terms of like scale in regards to the people side? our form is still virtual, so we went home. When COVID shutdowns came and we never came back with the exception of our reception staff who handles incoming and outgoing mail, essentially we’ve got, 60 something home offices set up all over the country and it’s getting more and more challenging to find the right candidate. It is. We’re also having a hard time finding the number of applicants that would take to find that gem. But you’re right, Chris, without people and then without the right people, you just can’t scale. It’s impossible in my opinion, to scale without the right people. And I’ll say it again, because I truly believe this without the people we have in this organization, we wouldn’t be where we are. We’ve got a full-time recruiter. Who’s helping us look for candidates. We’ve got a head of people who’s helping us look for candidates, and it’s really finding those gems and holding out. Until you find those people, right? The biggest hiring mistakes I’ve ever made. And sometimes I continue to make them is hiring out of desperation because I want to scale so badly and so quickly. Every single time I’ve done that. I’ve paid for it. And try to be patient and go outside your comfort zone. For me, it was never an issue to have people working remotely. And I get that question all the time from attorneys. How do you know they’re actually doing the work? How do you know. Look, we got systems in place. We have KPIs in place where if someone is slacking, we’re going to know we’re going to know immediately. And so I trust my staff and I trust that they’d prefer to have a better quality of life working from home on a kind of flexible schedule, not having to commute. I want that for my life. I like that flexibility. And I want to give that to my teammates. And I know a lot of folks are hesitant to allow remote working, but my advice to you is give it a shot. But before you do have those systems and processes in place where you can look and look at the productivity if you’ve got case managers or legal assistants, while there’s things that you could track, how many medical records were ordered, how many medical records, which were received, how many demands were sent out that week? And you can compare by each role how every individual is doing. And when you see the same person at the bottom of that list every week, our report comes out once a week on Mondays, you’ve got a person at the bottom week after week, then you do some coaching, maybe you do some training. And then at that point, if that doesn’t work well, maybe you got the wrong person.

Chris Dreyer
And I liked those KPIs too, because it makes it objective versus subjective. Here’s the numbers. Obviously it takes better communication and delegation skills to do the remote type of work, but there are just tremendous advantages like you highlighted. I think some of the marketing that you do is really exciting and unique and. we had Mark Anidjar on, he talked about the holy Trinity of advertising was TV, radio, and digital, broad, big picture, what’s your kind of thoughts on marketing channels to, to, for biz dev?

Reza Torkzadeh
Yeah, look, I think all marketing and advertising works, period. Okay. I think it all works. You put enough money into TV. It’s going to work. You put enough money into radio and billboards digital. It’s going to work. The big question is. What does it cost to acquire a case and what are you willing to pay for it? I know my number and what I’m not willing to exceed. And so if for me TV cost per acquisition of a case exceeds X, because I know the numbers of my average settlement. I know my numbers of my average fee. I know what I’m willing to pay. There’s always going to be somebody out there, a competitor. Who’s willing to pay more for a case. I decided a long time ago, I’m not going to go dollar for dollar to compete for cases. I’m going to look for places to spend our money where we can acquire cases for the least. Amount of spend. And I believe that since day one, I believe that today, I think it’s gotten a lot more expensive over the last 18 months to acquire cases. It’s gotten a lot more competitive for us. I think some of the changes with the tracking with Facebook has made it more challenging to identify your potential clients and folks who are in need at that right time. But. Look at it. It all works. You find the right channel, your messaging has to be right. Your branding has to be right and authenticity again it comes through your advertisements. It comes through, if you’re doing community events and for me, I, I love digital. I think digital is, biggest bang for your buck. You can compete with the biggest spenders and digital today, if you want it to, and you don’t necessarily have to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Chris Dreyer
I couldn’t agree more. It’s those impressions. And I think Gary V talked about, marketing arbitrage, right? If nobody’s doing LSA is you’re going to get, cheap cost per acquisition, but then everybody floods in and it increases. And then everybody moves to the different channel and the different channel and the channels change. Stay in that one channel, then the cost of the case, it just may rise astronomical and you have to try other things. And I do think they all work together. There’s continuity, digital still largely a phenomenal channel from a variety of methods, SEO or pay-per-click or LSA or social, or what have you, one of the things. That I see you guys do a great job at, and I think it, it compliments the values too, is the, I think in your words, you refer to it as like the guerrilla marketing, like the grassroots marketing. So maybe if we could just touch on that briefly. I think I saw a video of you, you were at like a motorcycle event but it’s you’re enjoying yourself, but you’re a part of the community.

Reza Torkzadeh
Yeah, absolutely. One thing, and I’ll talk about that. I’ve been practicing for 15 years now and I still have this same issue of what channel is working best right now, and it’s ever changing and it’s never going to be, it’s never going to be one source or one channel that remains that way for a long time. And you’re absolutely right. LSA ads. When they first came out, we were crushing it on there. Now everybody’s on there. Pay-per-click was the same way. We could get cases for a few hundred bucks back in the day. And so I think this is going to be an ever forever problem that us PI attorneys will have So part of that, part of what we’re always trying to do is, what’s the next most creative thing that we can do that others aren’t doing currently. And so when we go out to the community, our biggest cases truly come from referrals, either other attorneys, past clients or folks that know us from the community. And we talk about. Being authentic while giving back to the community is as part of one of our truly core purposes. And we do it because it’s amazing to be out there in front of folks. It’s amazing to meet these incredible people from the community. So you’re right. That interaction is really, to me, priceless. So, A: I believe in doing that, whether it produces cases for us or not. And that’s the truth, and we’re not out there saying, Hey, send us your cases. We’re out there saying, Hey, we’re going to have a taco Tuesday. Let’s all get together and have a good time. And we’re going to pick up the tacos. Let’s get together and compare motorcycles. And the reason motorcycles for us is we do a lot of motorcycle cases every year. And we were just naturally pulled into that community. And so when we’re out there doing this, what guerrilla marketing. It’s really, you’ve got a handful of folks that are doing it maybe a little bit, maybe not. I wouldn’t say it’s as competitive as pay-per-click or TV advertising, but it truly is one of those unique ways that I think everybody can replicate this. This is there’s no misery at about what we’re doing. We’re doing community events, but we’re really authentic and genuine. And it’s going to be here for us forever. We’ve been doing it for years and years. And we see so many law firms come in, they’ll do one or two events and then there’ll be dealt disappear because they give up because it’s not an authentic play for them. So the only thing I tell your audience. Find your, what drives you authentically and genuinely, so that you’re truly enjoying doing it because if you’re doing it just to get a case, just to make money, it’s going to come off totally and authentic. And people just do not appreciate that. Especially if you decide motorcycles, which is fine. That community is very tight knit. They’re very loyal. And if they know you’re there for some ulterior motive to make a few bucks you’re not going to get far. Whatever you choose to do, just be authentic about it. Be genuine about it and know that it has to be a long play and something that you’re willing to invest in. Even if you’re not getting a return on it immediately.

Chris Dreyer
I think that’s a great piece of advice, especially in the longterm, like it coming back and billing. Relationship equity. Everyone talks about, I think Einstein said the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest. And I always think of it. A lot of people think of it from a financial perspective, like in investing, but I think it’s like you’re building relationship equity more and more individuals of the community. Start to recognize you start to know your name, start to introduce you to other people. And it just builds and builds. And then it has this, all this tremendous force.

Reza Torkzadeh
You’re totally right, Chris. And again, if you’re genuine, if you’re a real person and you’re, it’s not bullshit that network grows fast and you build a reputation, being a good person, a good firm, a good lawyer, someone who’s honest, who’s transparent and who just wants to do good.

Chris Dreyer
Writing a book is a mammoth-sized project. Reza has already written one book. And as a second, on the way. So I wanted to know the motivation behind this undertaking.
I wanted to, and the way my original books started Accidents Happen , which there’s two editions to it now. Clients would come in and they didn’t know anything about the process of how a personal injury claim even works. And so we started making these couple of page booklets and giving it to clients. They were in a car accident. They’d get the car accident. One, if they’re bicycle accident, they get a bicycle accident. One. We ended up having so many different practice areas and injury types. We decided to make it a book. So now the client gets a book. And what does that do? Number one, it sets you as an authority. You actually wrote a book on your particular practice area, but number two, if you’re competing for a case against your competitor down the street. They’re most likely going to hire the person who wrote the book on personal injury than they are someone who didn’t. For us, it was really a natural progression of what we were already doing for our existing clients. But we use that as a marketing tool to truly set us apart as the authority. And so a lot of our marketing copy, if you see it around or some of the remarketing and retargeting ads, it’s get a free book where we give it out for free. And that really allowed me to realize the power of. Using different ways to set yourself apart using different channels of advertising that in itself is an advertising channel that we give out. And yeah, the impact of it is tremendous. And I still to this day, not only did we give the book out for free. But we offer it to potential clients for free, even if they don’t want to retain us. And it goes a long way. And I have people who come back and thank me. I get emails, almost daily. People who say, look, this is wonderful. Without this book, I wouldn’t have gotten an XYZ. Again, a lot of Goodwill, a lot of excitement around it when somebody gets. But yeah, the power of authoring a book is incredible. And so that was the consumer-facing one. And then the one that will be released probably in April of this year is called the Lawyer as CEO. And really the target audience could be any business owner, but I primarily wrote about my experiences in starting a law firm, running a law firm, and I share a lot of my mistakes. I share a lot of the things that I did wrong. And the approach that I now have to being a CEO of your law firm, because look at the end of the day we’re lawyers, but you’re running a business. And if you own your firm, you’re the CEO and you have to also run it as a business. And so I talk a lot about that. I’m not doing that for any monetary gain. I’m truly doing it because. The impact that it could have on on young lawyers who are just starting on veteran lawyers who, want more advice or insight. And for me, I’m a book junkie, I’ve read so many different books that have made a tremendous impact in my life. One particular John Morgan wrote You Can’t Teach Hungry. And I just remember, I finished that book in one day. I couldn’t put it down, but the impact that had on my career It was transformational. And so my aim with the book is number one, hopefully, I could meet a lot more lawyers around the country who share some of the same values and ideas that I do. But number two is really to pay it forward and give back and hopefully have an impact the way that John Morgan’s booked it on me for their careers and their firms.

Chris Dreyer
I think you have so much to offer there. And I truly mean that, I think that’s selfless at too. The one thing is you’re building up this relationship equity, right? Just natural being yourself. You don’t know who’s going to read your book, maybe every person, but it, the person that it does have an impact later could come back, tenfold, you could, they could maybe not even be a case. Maybe they refer like, oh, you should work at TorkLaw . And they give you this great employee. And I just think there’s so many intangibles that come in to that.

Reza Torkzadeh
Chris. You’re absolutely right. And I never do anything and expect an immediate return. I think that’s the wrong attitude to have and in life in general. And I also never give, expecting anything in return, but I can tell you every time I have. You’re right. It gets paid back tenfold and it happens over and over again. And there’s something very satisfying about being able to help someone assist someone and make a difference in their lives. The same way we do for our clients and. With our shared workspace Law Works , which I’m sitting in right now, it’s the same idea is to build a community, a plug and play solution for lawyers, brand new and veteran senior lawyers where we can all come together, collaborate, work on cases together, refer each other business and work on stuff. So it’s really, again, it comes down to the people. Ultimately it comes down to the people.

Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I think that’s super smart. Caseworks with just access to individuals like yourself, where you’re, you could have a coffee with an individual in the morning and they could be really struggling with something that, that you’ve experienced yourself. And just that casual conversation and in the morning could just have a huge impact on a new firm.

Reza Torkzadeh
Oh, yeah, totally. And, vice versa. I get to learn so much. I get to learn so much from these other lawyers from different practice areas or even PI lawyers. It’s having that immediate impact on someone else and vice versa and having access to folks. Definitely.

Chris Dreyer
I want to circle back to the hiring. I just had one thought that I want to. Touch on just briefly please, your size and you mentioned a couple of key roles where like that recruiter, right? I, it makes me think of, college basketball, how they lose their starting five, and then they got to replace them, their best people. So they get out of that recruiting list is, at what stage, like when should you start considering the head of people, that HR manager and potentially the recruiting person, like how big, like when should they really start focusing on that?

Reza Torkzadeh
Yeah. Well, I think a big challenge and you touched on this earlier is being able to let go and delegate. So for me it was like, I don’t want to do HR. I don’t, I didn’t, I don’t want to do recruiting a, I wasn’t good at it. And B I just, I wasn’t interested in doing it. And so I, I think once you get to a point where. You don’t have the time and your time is better use figuring out how to grow your practice or figuring out better operations and processes. Once you realize that doing something you don’t like, if it’s HR or recruiting, once you realize that’s sucking more of your time, then it’s time to hire somebody. And the thing I’ll say is don’t be afraid. Of hiring people because of the number of the salary or the overhead or the additional payroll, they will pay. If they’re the right person, they will pay for themselves a hundred X. If they make your life easier, if they free up your time, if they take over tasks that you otherwise hated doing, then that, and that makes you a better business owner, a better CEO, a better lawyer about. Husband wife, father, then to me, that’s the value there. So I, when I first started, I was really afraid of hiring people. I didn’t want the overhead, I didn’t want the expense. I was so hesitant to do it. And I did, and I held onto so many pieces of the operation longer than I should have. But yeah, I think the more you can find the right people to delegate tasks to the sooner the better.

Chris Dreyer
Fantastic. Such a great piece of advice. And I got one final question here and this has been like absolutely fantastic. One final question is super broad. What’s next for TorkLaw?

Reza Torkzadeh
Great. We’re growing we’re growing fast. I think we have some exciting marketing initiatives that are, that we’re going to be coming out this summer. So that’s always exciting. We’re looking at a couple of new states and practice areas to add. That’s really exciting. I think you’ll see TorkLaw on the east coast more and more prevalent. And maybe I’ll start a podcast based on your advice. I don’t know, one thing’s for sure is, my love for scale, my love for the process of growing that’s my passion, right? It’s not we get to this goal and it stops. W you have to be, especially in this industry, you have to be evolving. You have to be changing continuously. And that truly is where I love to live. And I think you’ll see TorkLaw out there, transformation over the next couple of years. That that’s pretty exciting.

Chris Dreyer
In order to scale, you have to be willing to let go. Hold out for the diamond in the rough hires and build the right systems to manage the growth. Through every stage of the process, identifying your firm’s values will make tough decisions a little easier and help you reach your goals authentically. At the end of the day, it’s all about the people you serve as a lawyer and employer and community member. I’d like to thank Reza from TorkLaw for sharing his story with us. And I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation. You’ve been listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m Chris Dreyer. If you liked this episode, leave us a review. We 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.