Grace Montealegre:

We are heavy, heavy workflow automation company. Everybody here follows a process and/or a procedure to make sure that the automation is working.

Chris Dreyer:

If you got a vision, who you hire is everything.

Grace Montealegre:

I’m not hiring you necessarily for your skillset. I can figure out if you’re good at dotting I’s and crossing T’s, that’s not what I want to know. I want to know that not only can you do that, but are you a self-starter, because I can’t hold your hand here. This is not that type of firm.

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the preeminent personal injury marketing agency. Before we get started, if you’d like what you hear, head on over to Apple or Spotify and pound that five star review button. And if you don’t like what you hear, tell me about it in the one star review. I got a big hug for all my haters too. Each week we talk to the best in legal industry. Ready to dominate your market, let’s go.
If you’ve tuned in before, you’ve probably heard us talk about visionaries and integrators. Both have unique abilities and are very important to the success of any business including law firms. It doesn’t matter the size, but what are they and why are they important? Visionaries are all about ideas in the future. They’re all about passion and drive. Integrators are dialed into execution. Think operations, detailed orientation, then make that vision happen. See why you need both? Ed Lake is a visionary, founding partner at Gacovino & Lake and the Lake Law firm. His team has built one of the nation’s largest mass tort portfolios. He’s also dreamed up Persist Communications and automated lead communications system that you need to hear about. Owns Leaders and Mass Torts, is an author and to round it all out, he’s now in the restaurant business, but he can’t do it all alone.
Enter his integrator, Grace Montealegre, CEO of Persist Communications. Her role extends beyond the software company. She helps with nearly every business Ed dreams up. She gives us her insider perspective on making a business a success from hiring to CRMs. If you wanted to break into mass torts, she shows you where to start. Here’s Grace Montealegre, CEO at Persist Communications.

Grace Montealegre:

As soon as I finish retail, I went into my first kind of corporate job and it was legal, but it wasn’t normal legal. It was import export law down in Miami.

Chris Dreyer:

Walk me forward, how did you get connected with Mr. Ed Lake? What’s the story behind that?

Grace Montealegre:

For about 12 years, I was in Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, which is the import export law firm down in Miami. They’ve been around a long time. I was director of marketing mainly on the analytics side. Shortly after that, I actually went into steel. So I’m certified to logistically send steel all around the world by the NASPD and OCTG, so oil and gas market, all of that. And then the oil and gas market dropped out. That was around probably close to 2008 and unfortunately they literally had no job for me at that point. And so I started a little bit of a job hunt at that time and then Ed found me through a head hunter on my LinkedIn profile because of my technical background.

Chris Dreyer:

You certainly have the wide range of skills and experience. I mean, a very uncommon story and I want to jump into that because right now you’re wearing a ton of hats. Let’s start talking about your role today in being the CEO of all Ed’s companies and what are those businesses and give me the broad picture of those.

Grace Montealegre:

So Ed, I call him a serial entrepreneur. He loves to be in the business of business. He loves marketing, he loves everything that has to do with that. So when I first met him, it was primarily about Gacovino & Lake. Many people that do know Ed know that he split a couple years ago and now primarily focuses on mass torts, but he has a bunch of other businesses. And his other businesses, they’re very interesting. He owns a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale called Sapido’s, part of a restaurant. He’s opening more locations around Fort Lauderdale where I’m actually physically based. Then he owns Leaders in Mass Torts, which is essentially a company that’s part of his Persist Group of Companies that we teach people about mass torts, and it’s like a referral network. And it’s mainly tied to that mass torts A to Z book that he has chapters from different vendors about.
And then he’s got of course the Lake Law Firm, which is … it’s primarily consumer facing, but there’s a big chunk of it that we deal with that’s called employee retention tax credit, and that’s all business related. And then of course, how could I forget? Persist software. I help him run anything that has to do with that, all of the companies that he wants. He’s my visionary and the way we look at the roles is him as visionary, me as integrator. So he says, “Grace, this is what I want to do.” And I say, “Okay, I’m going to go make it stick.”

Chris Dreyer:

So many firms are looking at leverage in what they can do through just labor. You need to move these boulders, you get more humans to move these boulders, right? But you can also use tech. So let’s talk on that focus, the Lake Law Firm, right? You got the ERTC, the employee retention tax credits, you got the torts. How does the operation side of that business differ from maybe a traditional law firm that’s got a whole bunch of bodies and you’re utilizing tech? So tell me about … paint the picture here for that.

Grace Montealegre:

So that’s actually my favorite part about what we do because my background is in tech. So part of what I was able to change here. So Ed was always a technical person. He always enjoyed tech. He’s a software type of person. He understands call centers and things of that nature. So when I came on, my role was not necessarily integrator at that time, but it has become that role because we are a fully, I’d say 95% remote law firm. All of our people are not in an office. I’m actually one of the only people physically still in an office for a variety of reasons, but it’s myself and one other person in Fort Lauderdale. Everyone else works from home. We use collaborative tools, Office 365, Teams and even our intake and chat and everything is integrated with our CRM. We don’t use a normal CRM, we don’t use a normal case management software for legal.
We use Zoho, which comes with everything that we need as a firm in general, but as a tech firm, even more so. So the Zoho one product comes with e-signature platforms. It comes with survey software. It comes with form software. Literally everything you could possibly want, voice, everything. And then of course workflow automations. We are heavy, heavy workflow automation company. We have very strict processes and procedures that we follow, that the agents follow, that directors follow, that marketing people. Everybody here follows a process and/or a procedure to make sure that the automation is working.
Now, you’ve probably heard this, Chris, and I know you have garbage in, garbage out. So you always need people and you need good people that are detail oriented. And I actually have a process by which I hire people. It’s very particular, and it’s because of this remote nature. I’m not hiring you necessarily for your skillset. I know what your skillset is. I can run all kinds of assessments. I can figure out if you’re good at dotting I’s and crossing T’s, that’s not what I want to know. I want to know that not only can you do that, but are you a self-starter because I can’t hold your hand here. This is not that type of firm. And two, do you fit in with our culture? We are very, very collaborative culture, and we’re very serious about our culture here. We’re such a diverse group of people. We are almost primarily women run. Most of the partners, myself, right? The COO is a female. We’re minorities. I’m Hispanic. I like to call us the United Colors of Benetton, and we are very tight knit.
So we spend so much time with each other that it’s not just important, it is crucial that we like each other. And that might sound funny to some people, but I think those that especially work remote understand this concept of being able to just get on a call or on Teams or on a chat and know that that person’s going to answer your question. You have a problem, you need a solution, how quickly can you get that responded to. And you lose some of that when you’re not face to face. I mean, you just do.

Chris Dreyer:

I completely can feel and understand the challenges that you face with the remote culture and how important culture is. Culture is important from every dynamic for every business. It’s truly hard to uncover from a remote perspective. We have a remote company, and I’m the one in the office. I did it to separate home and life and break away and I get in my zone to do that deep work. Sticking on the hiring, what are some of the tactics that you do to uncover that? Is it personality assessments? Is it, hey, maybe you start the job and it’s like trial period to see if you fit before you get the full offer? How do you uncover if they’re a culture fit?

Grace Montealegre:

So I tend to hire people from call center backgrounds that are non-legal, and I’ll tell you why. I can teach you my process. I can teach you my procedure. I cannot teach you how to be good at customer service, and I cannot teach you or unteach you bad habits that you might have learned at another firm. We are not a normal firm here. So I absolutely make sure that when I do any type of assessment, the first assessment I do is customer service. I use Indeed. I use their free version. I really like their assessments and they allow me to literally check off and throw out buckets of people all at once. With expert proficiency, mid-level proficiency, I can look and just say “I only want all experts that are detail-oriented at customer services.”
Then I take it a step further. I make them submit besides a resume, three very basic videos. Things like, what did you do in a past job? What skills are going to be good for this? I mean, very basic five questions that you ask at every interview. I don’t want to waste my time. I don’t want them to waste their time. So I just go through those. Once I’ve narrowed it down from the assessment, I call that list. It generally comes down to about five people. I start with close to a thousand applications almost every time and then I cull it down to five to 10. I’d never gotten to 10 to tell you the truth so it’s more like five. From there, I personally interview them, every single one. I can’t let them pass through this company without me speaking with them.

Chris Dreyer:

CRMs can be powerful tools. The right one for your firm will help create efficiencies and grow client relationships across the entire customer lifecycle. Zoho is what works for Grace, but is it right for your firm?

Grace Montealegre:

If you need something out of the box, legal, don’t use Zoho. I’m the first one to tell you that. I actually used to be a Microsoft Dynamic CRM administrator for 10 years at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg at the import export law firm. So I’m not just familiar, I’m beyond familiar with just about every CRM out there. We do use SmartAdvocate at Gacovino & Lake, so I’m comfortable with SmartAdvocate. I know how to work the workflows in there. They’ve used Litify at other companies that we do referral work with. I actually assisted a call center to set up their Litify system. For our needs and for what we do, Zoho was the best option. It was the cheapest in terms of all of the applications that we knew we were going to need. E-sign, even password protection. It has Zoho people for HR. There’s a lot of things in Zoho that encompass all of the things that I know we were going to need going forward as a Lake Law Firm for all of the stuff that we do., B2B, B2C, no matter what, it was able to do and handle that.
Whereas SmartAdvocate, Litify, those legal specific CRMs are generally customizations made specific for legal. We’re not normal. So how can I use a normal legal CRM? And we just hired a Zoho CRM engineer. Now, that gentleman’s the one that runs it all and builds the stuff as I see the process, I tell him the process, builds it out in the pipeline, then he actually codes it into the system.

Chris Dreyer:

We’re going to go continue on right to Persist software. Being a marketing owner where we generate a ton of leads and then the phone isn’t answered, calls aren’t returned, right? There’s no after hours pick up. They don’t answer in three calls. It doesn’t kick. There’s a lot of issues that we’re facing. The Persist software, first of all, what is it and what does it do?

Grace Montealegre:

So Persist software is essentially a three in one call center app. It’s an application web based, and for some of you that know more of the technical side, it’s web RTC. So when you call, it’s all web-based calling. It’s not an app on the side of your phone. It’s not on your actual cell phone. Everything is web-based when it comes to Persist. What it does is it integrates with your CRM and it’s outbound campaigns. So if you set up a campaign and say, “I need to call 2000 people about hernia mesh.” You can set up a campaign that’s specific to hernia mesh and start the system.
Now, what the system does is with the integration, it will automate calling, emailing, and texting in a sequence of events and time. So I want to call all my hernia mesh leads for 30 days and I want them to be called first, texted second, then emailed the first day. Second day, I want this. Third day, so on and so on for 30 days. You set it in the system, including the actual text of the actual email and the voicemail that’s going to be left if they don’t pick up the phone, build it in the system and the system just literally talks to and calls out, boom, boom, boom. The moment somebody picks up, meaning a client or a potential client, it connects with a live agent inside of the law firm. It is not a Robodial. It’s the closest thing that I could consider it that people are used to hearing is power dialing.

Chris Dreyer:

Wow, that’s completely different. So I would imagine the other form of Persist that when I was researching the database mining, how does that play into this? Because that’s like the yin and the yang, right? It’s like you have this amazing database and then you meet certain, I guess, criteria. Tell me about that and how that works.

Grace Montealegre:

So data mining is I’d say more of a concept than an actual piece of software, because it works in conjunction with your data. So you’ve got a pool of clients, you’re allowed to communicate with them, right? Let’s say they had hernia mesh problems, a Zantac client, whatever it might be. They’re all part of the drug mass torts or device mass torts. Chances are they have had other problems. It’s just the nature of issues, right? Diseases and problems like that. So data mining is going out and creating a campaign using Persist software so that there’s no wasted time, no wasted effort and informing these clients through email and text message. Sometimes you don’t even need a calling person. You might not need that. The campaign could be 30 days of just emails and text messages. And so if they call back, then you can deal with it at that point because it’s all tracked.
So when it comes to the data mining, we basically created email campaign, text message campaign with drips, flows that tells us, “Hey, did you have this? Hey, did you have that? Hey, did you know about this? Did you know about that?” So it’s consumer awareness, it’s informing clients and it’s also twofold effect. You keep nurturing them, because what do you all know about clients? The best client is a client that comes back. The best client is a client that can inform other clients, because you spend less money on current clients than you will on new client acquisition.

Chris Dreyer:

Is it specifically for torts in that area or would it work for single event and car accidents?

Grace Montealegre:

It works for pretty much any company that wants to do outbound campaigns. It’s primarily B2C I’d say though, B2B. it needs to be a cell phone or a phone number that somebody’s going to pick up, because if there’s an auto attendant, it thinks it’s a voicemail. So there are some pieces of functionality that makes it more for B2C, less for B2B, but it is an outbound campaign system that works with pretty much any CRM that has an API.

Chris Dreyer:

Getting into mass torts can be expensive. If a single event practice owner is looking to get into this space, be smart about cash flow. Grace has this to say.

Grace Montealegre:

If you want to get into mass torts, you need to diversify, and the only way to diversify is to have the money to diversify. So it can be difficult to get directly into mass torts if you don’t have a network of people like we do. I suggest you co-counsel, and you’re going to get organic leads off of your single event practice. It’s just the way it works, and we’ve actually created all kinds of referral deals and communications with firms that don’t want to get into mass torts at all, but they know that they’re going to get these leads during their intakes for MVA for this, for that. They’re just going to get it. It’s just what happens. So pretty much whatever practice you have, I suggest communicating with a firm like us, getting an agreement in place and understanding what our criteria is or what the criteria is for the different things. Because the more work that you do as a firm and hand off to the next firm, the more you’re going to get in the split fee obviously.
And so we as a law firm are able to do that. We’re not just marketers. So we’re able to craft agreements that just make sense for everybody, including the client, right? Because the client’s going to win out because now they go to you, they trust you, then you hand it off to someone that you trust like us, and we work only with people that are on the steering committees that make these decisions and can get the highest compensation for the client and the attorney. So everybody wins in that situation, and anybody that wants to get into it, I also suggest it doesn’t hurt to put up a little landing page if it’s something that means something to you.
Perfect examples, hair relaxer. I’ve had family that used hair relaxer. It’s predominantly black and Hispanic that use it. It’s causing cancer. And so it’s something that’s personal to me. And if I were an attorney, I’d be putting up a page immediately and start telling everybody I know in my community about it and start emailing them, getting involved in my local church and all of those places that I know I can talk to these women that use hair relaxers and where I can go and make a change and impact because it means something to me. So if it means something to you, like 3M earplugs, like Camp Lejeune. Even Camp Lejeune. If it means something to you, I say put a page up and do a little bit of marketing, do a little bit of grassroots marketing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. If you believe in it, they will know that and they’ll sign up with you.

Chris Dreyer:

Well said. I love that. And I want to shift over to the restaurant side. So as many of attorneys listening, they generate income and you’ve got the serial entrepreneur side where some are maybe investing in stocks or overfunded whole life insurance or real estate, whatever, but then you’ve got other businesses. And so Ed has this restaurant. So tell me about how that’s different, what challenges you face, and tell me a little bit about it.

Grace Montealegre:

So the restaurant business is an interesting business. He lives in Fort Lauderdale part of the time, and right across or very close to where he lives is this restaurant. They have a wine wall, and for a long time he would just go there almost every weekend, sometimes multiple times during the week, he would take clients there. He fell in love with the place. So he ended up speaking with the owner who’s from Italy and making a deal with him in the end, and now they’re opening up multiple locations. If it works, he’s very happy, everybody makes money. If it doesn’t, he chalks it up to another thing that he tried and it’s no big loss. I tried it, I’m good. But we’re at the beginning of one of these and he’s very happy. That’s how he got involved in a restaurant. He saw it, he liked it. He’s like, “Let me be a part of it.” And now he is.

Chris Dreyer:

There’s no losses, there’s only lessons. And I think every business owner knows that, right? You get punched in the mouth a lot and as long as you just keep coming, you’re going to be good to go. I got a couple final questions, Grace. Next, NTL Summit, how do you go bigger than a mega yacht? And first of all, thanks for inviting us and it was an amazing time. So I was counting in my head, right, because I’ve hosted parties. Okay, so you guys had a magician, a caricature person, carving stations, two bands, dancers. Geez, who knows? There are a ton that I’m missing. So tell me about that, because that was very well executed.

Grace Montealegre:

Oh yeah, Ed, he’s my favorite. Really, I love working for him because the stuff that he comes up with, it’s him. This is all him, by the way. I’m the executor, right? That is my job. I don’t come up necessarily with these ideas. It’s all him. So for me, it blows my mind when I get to execute on these crazy ideas because they’re so much fun. And he came up with Tyson. As a matter of fact, two years ago, he came up with a celebrity thing. Two years ago, we had Danica Patrick, who is more persistent than a woman in Indie. That was his idea. He’s like, “I want a female. I want someone who’s persistent. Danica Patrick.” Last year it was John McEnroe. Ed is very much like that, right? In your face, don’t tell me, you better listen to be. I’m the best. He’s like that, but not.
So John McEnroe last year. This year, it was Tyson. And of course, he had to throw a mega yacht party with three floors, stations of food of all kind, alcohol, a band he flew in from New Orleans, by the way. That band was flown from New Orleans. There was like 350 people on the first go round and then he wanted to go here, go there on the yacht and honestly, I don’t know what he’s going to do next. I’m in the same boat as you. We all figure it out as Ed comes up with these ideas and I end up trying to make them stick and they usually always work out well like the boat.

Chris Dreyer:

So fun.

Grace Montealegre:

It is fun.

Chris Dreyer:

Where can people go to connect with you? How can they get in touch with you?

Grace Montealegre:

So easiest way is probably LinkedIn. If you do send a message to us on the Lake Law firm page, I see every single message. I’m an insomniac, so I really do review just about everything and even the Google reviews, all of that. So most people that I talk to have my cell phone number. If you don’t, obviously, just go ahead and contact me on LinkedIn. I’m more than happy to give you any type of information that you would want.

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much to Grace Montealegre at Persist Communications for everything she shared today. Let’s hit the PIMM Points. PIMM Point number one, put your energy where your values are. If culture is a major focus of your business and it should be, dedicate time to it. Grace interviews every hire that comes through the business, people are that important to her.

Grace Montealegre:

Once I’ve narrowed it down from the assessment, I call that list. From there, I personally interview them, every single one. I can’t let them pass through this company without me speaking with them.

Chris Dreyer:

PIMM Point number two, want to get in the mass tort game? Follow the money. You can’t help anyone if you’re broke. Co-counsel to get your foot in the door.

Grace Montealegre:

I suggest communicating with a firm like us, getting an agreement in place and understanding what our criteria is or what the criteria is for the different things. Because the more work that you do as a firm and hand off to the next firm, the more you’re going to get in the split fee obviously. If it means something to you, I say put a page up and do a little bit of grassroots marketing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. If you believe in it, they will know that and they’ll sign up with you.

Chris Dreyer:

And PIMM Point number three, we know culture is important. If you’re remote, the right hires holds even more weight find great personality fits the hard skills you can teach, and also identify those great soft skills.

Grace Montealegre:

I cannot teach you how to be good at customer service and I cannot teach you or unteach you bad habits that you might have learned at another firm. We are not a normal firm here. So I absolutely make sure that when I do any type of assessment, the first assessment I do is customer service.

Chris Dreyer:

I’m Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. If you made it this far, it’s time to pay the tax. No, I’m not talking about taking your cash like Big G. I’m asking you for a five star review on Apple or Spotify. Leave me a review and I’ll forever be grateful. If this is your first episode, welcome and thanks for hanging out. Come back each week for fresh interviews where you can hear from those making it rain.