Most disability attorneys are already working hard. The question is rarely whether they are putting in the effort. It is where that effort should go when the marketing tactics getting the most attention, big ad budgets, lead-gen contracts, social platforms, are not the right starting point for a lean firm.
On July 9, 2026, Chronicle hosted Jim Brown, also known as James Mitchell Brown, for a working session on exactly that problem. Jim is a NOSSCR Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and an attorney consultant who has spent more than five decades helping disability firms grow. Before lead gen and social media existed, he was signing 220 new clients a month and holding roughly half the Social Security claims in northeastern Ohio. His opening line set the tone for the hour.
Jim said: “if you don’t have clients, all you have is a hobby.”
This session was part of Chronicle’s Advancing Disability Law series, which brings practitioners, partners, and subject-matter experts to the community to address a specific challenge facing SSD firms. The format is intentional: short, practical, practitioner-led.
Catch the full replay here:
Speakers:
- Will Yang: Head of Growth, Chronicle. Host and moderator for the Advancing Disability Law series.
- Jim Brown (James Mitchell Brown): Attorney Consultant. A NOSSCR Lifetime Achievement Award recipient who has spent decades helping disability firms grow through referrals, relationships, and low-cost marketing. His philosophy: Enjoy Your Practice; Enjoy Your Life.
Key Takeaways
- Growth for a lean disability firm starts with referrals and client experience, not ad spend. The cheapest, highest-leverage moves are already within reach.
- There is a referral gap at most firms. The typical firm gets 10 to 13 percent of clients from current and former clients. Jim’s target is 50 percent, and closing that gap is a system, not luck.
- Referral sources are everywhere most attorneys never look: physicians, pharmacists, clergy, funeral directors, and the Social Security caseworker in every congressional office.
- Client experience is marketing. How the phone is answered, whether a human picks up, and staying in touch 12 times a year all convert directly into referrals.
- A marketing plan for a small firm is not exotic. It is an hour a week, written down: goal, publics, budget, timeline, actions, and who is accountable.
- Dollarize your value. When a client understands their case is worth roughly $330,000 plus Medicare over their lifetime, a $9,200 fee reads as a bargain.
- Skip the money pits. Buses, benches, billboards, and newspaper ads waste a lean firm’s budget. Educational marketing and being genuinely unique do not.
Why Do Most Disability Firms Leave Referrals on the Table?
If there is one idea from the session worth acting on this week, it is the referral gap.
Most attorneys believe they already get a healthy share of business from current and former clients. Jim’s experience says otherwise. As he put it: “Most people who say they get a lot of referrals from current and former clients are actually getting 10 to 13% of their referrals from current and former clients.”
The target is much higher.
You should be getting 50% of your current and former clients referring to you.
Jim Brown, Attorney Consultant
Closing that gap is not about a single gesture. It is a set of habits: send a thank-you note the moment a client refers someone, do exactly what you say you will do, make sure every client knows their case is a tough one so you never over-promise, and simply ask people to refer to you. Jim formalizes it with a client-firm agreement that authorizes the firm to send a thank-you note to whoever referred the client and to send a copy of the decision to the treating physician, both of which Social Security rules otherwise restrict.
Then there are the referral sources most firms never cultivate. Jim gets 20 to 25 clients a year from funeral directors, two or three cases a month from a single pharmacist in another state, and a steady stream from clergy, whom he thanks with a modest donation to the clergy member’s own discretionary fund. But the source he rates highest is physicians.
Physician referrals are the greatest. When you get a physician referral, you should always win that case.
Jim Brown, Attorney Consultant
His method for turning one physician referral into many is almost embarrassingly simple: send a thank-you note after you win, and highlight the page of the decision where the doctor’s evidence is cited. “People in America don’t say thank you anymore, when you do, you set yourself apart.” The doctor sees that what you asked for mattered, and fills out your next form faster. As referral volume grows, the operational challenge shifts to keeping case status visible across a growing caseload.
What Does a Low-Cost Marketing Plan Look Like for a Lean Firm?
Jim is blunt that trying a few tactics is not a plan. A plan is written down and constantly revised, and it answers a fixed set of questions: Who are your publics? How much will you spend? How long will you try each action before you judge it? And who is in charge of it?
For a small firm, the objection is usually time. Jim’s answer is that a plan takes about an hour a week, and the math justifies it. If you are bringing in five clients a month, a plan can reasonably get you to seven, “and have no problem handling two more clients a month. That would be an extra $10,000 a month.” Without a plan, he warns, “you’re going to get the scraps from the bigger firms.”
He also insists that marketing starts internally, a theme that runs through Chronicle’s panel on marketing, operations, and AI for disability firms. Once a year he gives his staff what he calls the white bread speech, a reminder that the firm exists to change people’s lives and give clients dignity and respect, not just to process paperwork. When staff believe that, they sell the firm better on every call. And before any of the outward tactics, he wants a firm to have brochures, given to every current and prospective client, every person you cannot represent, and everyone in the room when you give a speech. You paper your market with your brochures.
Who Should a Disability Firm Be Marketing To?
“Publics,” in Jim’s framing, are all the audiences whose impression of you matters, not just prospective clients. Current and former clients who might refer. Physicians and pharmacists. Judges, some of whom quietly refer cases. Politicians, because everyone in the U.S. House and Senate has a caseworker devoted to Social Security questions. Even the children of clients, who are often the ones who actually place the call.
The point is that marketing to judges may never produce a direct referral, but it shapes how they regard your work, and that carries into your cases. Part of the job, Jim argues, is simply making people think of you as a high-class representative doing right by clients. He learned the limits of that the hard way with an ad reading “Some of my clients used to work for Social Security, now they work for you,” which annoyed an ALJ enough that Jim pulled it, until the same judge apologized months later and told him to run it again.
How Do You Make a Disability Practice Stand Out?
Jim’s most repeated instruction was to be unique, and he means it literally. Every disability firm charges the same, and every firm promises to return calls and show respect. So the exercise he assigns is to write down everything that might make you different, then scratch out everything that thousands of other lawyers could also claim, until you are left with fewer than 20 words that are truly yours.
His own 20 words come from his life: a cousin left disabled by a misdiagnosed childhood illness, a father who hired disabled workers, and his own near-death experiences. That is what lets him tell clients he can relate to what they are going through. The same principle governs a firm’s website. Most people visit five sites before hiring a lawyer, so a site that lists the same credentials as everyone else earns only the scraps. Instead, tell a story, put a video on the page in which you welcome people and explain why helping them matters, and be yourself. One line he has clients use in words and on video is “I’m accepting new clients now,” because it creates just enough urgency to prompt a call.
Which Digital Channels Are Worth It, and Which Aren’t?
Jim is neither anti-digital nor starry-eyed about it. His guidance is about fit and follow-through.
On purchased internet leads, speed is everything: “you have to respond within five minutes,” because the same lead is sitting on several firms’ websites, and the form only tells you the last thing that made the person stop working, not the stroke or the psychiatric history underneath. On geo-fencing, he likes targeting the Social Security office itself, so a claimant sitting in the waiting room opens their phone and sees the firm, and warns that broader targeting, like urgent-care centers, pays for a lot of people you do not need. On television, he is candid that it is not the market it once was, and points firms toward the cheaper ad-supported streaming channels where disability clients now watch.
And he is emphatic about what to skip. “If you’re thinking of marketing, don’t bother with buses, benches, billboards, or newspaper ads. It’s a waste of time.” Unless a firm has a multi-million-dollar budget, that money belongs elsewhere. Keeping your firm ahead of what actually drives cases, the daily changes inside the ERE, is a better use of both attention and budget.
How Does Client Experience Turn Into Referrals?
For Jim, the client experience is not separate from marketing. It is the marketing.
You have 30 seconds to make a first impression.
Jim Brown, Attorney Consultant
That is why he wants a human being answering the phone, not a menu. “People feel more welcome when a human being answers,” and a menu that sends new clients one way and existing clients another too often ends with no one picking up and the caller concluding you only care about new business. The person who answers should give the firm name and their own name, sound genuinely glad to help, and say the caller’s name three times so they know they are a person and not a number.
He also reframes what clients resent. It is not your fee or the occasional missed call. “What they dislike most is that they had to call you at all,” because the process is so hard they needed a representative. Meet that with empathy from the first sentence and you break the barrier down immediately.
The small human details matter to him, too. “When I shake hands with someone, I look at them long enough to see the color of their eyes.” And staying in touch runs on a cadence: communicate with active clients about 12 times a year, letting them know when records arrive or a notice comes in, so the anxious “did you get my file” calls stop. Reducing those calls does not just feel better; it frees the staff time that keeps the whole system sustainable as a firm grows from 150 to 600 cases.
How Do You Show Clients What Your Representation Is Worth?
One of Jim’s most practical moves is to dollarize the value of a case. Clients hear a 25 percent fee capped at $9,200 and focus on the number. So he reframes it. Take a 55-year-old with two years of past-due benefits at $2,000 a month: that case is worth roughly $330,000 plus Medicare over a lifetime if the client stays disabled to retirement age. Explained that way, a $9,200 fee, versus the $100,000 a comparable contingency fee would be on a car-accident case, reads as a bargain.
He extends the same teaching instinct into what he calls educational marketing: ads and messaging that teach something true, such as that winning disability also brings Medicare, that minor children may receive a benefit, or that the standard differs above and below age 50. Press releases still work here, sent to the health charity matching a client’s condition and to local media when a case is genuinely newsworthy, always without naming the client. When Social Security becomes a news story, the firm that sends those releases becomes the reporter’s go-to for a quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where do you order the phone stands you send clients?
Jim uses 4imprint, which he says gives the best price on branded phone stands at about a dollar apiece, versus much pricier options elsewhere. Will added that promotional-product companies often price-match, so it pays to shop around. The stands carry the firm’s name, phone number, and website, and clients frequently call asking for extras to give to friends and family.
Q: For referrals from other attorneys, like workers’ comp, are you paying a referral fee, and how much?
Yes, and it is negotiable. For clients who are also getting workers’ comp, Jim typically pays a 10 to 15 percent referral fee. If a workers’ comp attorney refers someone who is not getting workers’ comp, he will pay 25 percent.
Q: I can’t always talk to a new caller right away. Should I offer a quick 15-minute intro call?
Use that call to email the intake forms and get them signed, and finish signing the client up within 24 hours or they will go elsewhere. Jim notes that when a firm can email forms and sign clients immediately, the old friction of scheduling an in-office appointment largely disappears.
Q: How do you build client confidence as an EDPNA rather than an attorney?
Tell them plainly that you specialize in Social Security disability and that it is all you do. Focused specialization is the credential that reassures clients.
Q: How often should a firm send press releases?
Every time you win a good case, send one to the health charity tied to that condition. When you win something unusual or extraordinary, send it to local newspaper, radio, and television outlets, never using the client’s name. Jim shared a recent case where a client won five and a half years of past-due benefits on a second remand, which put him in front of a reporter building a story on Social Security.
Q: Wouldn’t pharmacists and physicians find it annoying to be asked for referrals?
Most do not; a few will. The ask is simple: when you pick up a prescription or a vaccine, hand the pharmacist a brochure and offer to be a resource for anyone struggling with the disability system. Jim’s own primary-care doctor referred him a patient, was amazed how quickly the case was approved, and began sending more. Physicians want to help their patients; they just do not want extra paperwork, so make the paperwork easy.
Q: Twelve touches a year sounds impossible with hundreds of open cases and a small staff. How?
It gets easier because proactive contact dramatically reduces inbound calls. When you automatically email a client that their records arrived, the “did you get my file” calls, often 75 percent of the volume, largely stop, which frees the time to keep the cadence going.
Q: My firm has other practice areas. Should I separate out disability?
No. Most of the same marketing applies across practice areas, and past disability clients can refer workers’ comp or personal injury matters if your messaging tells them you handle those, too. Keywords alone no longer move a website; fresh, regular content does.
Watch the Full Replay
Upcoming Events
Built to Grow: How High-Volume Disability Firms Scale Without Chaos is our next workshop, presented with Firmidable, on Wednesday, July 15 at 12:00 PM CT. It covers how high-volume disability firms scale without operational chaos. Register here.
Disability Peers in Practice returns on Thursday, July 23: a small-group virtual roundtable where disability practitioners talk shop with peers across the country. This month’s topic is client communication from intake to decision. Pick the time that fits your day and RSVP on our events calendar.
About This Series
This session is part of Advancing Disability Law, Chronicle’s practitioner-focused event series. Each session brings in a practitioner, partner, or subject-matter expert to address a specific challenge facing SSD firms, from hearing prep and operations to marketing and technology adoption.
Chronicle is an ERE monitoring and analysis platform built only for Social Security disability practices. It automates the daily ERE and e-file checks that staff would otherwise do manually, surfaces what changed across your caseload, and keeps your firm ahead of SSA-driven deadlines, moving a firm from reactive to proactive. Chronicle is trusted across the disability community, working with more than 150 firms and 2,800 disability professionals.
If you would like to see how Chronicle helps SSD firms manage their operations day to day, Book a Demo. Questions? Reach us at support@chroniclelegal.com or 847-665-9612.
Full Session Transcript
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Welcome and Introduction
Will Yang: Hello, everybody, and welcome to today’s session on cost-effective ways to grow your disability practice. This workshop is part of the Advancing Disability Law series that Chronicle has been running over the course of this year.
A few housekeeping notes. This workshop runs for the hour. We’ll have some core content, and then Q&A at the end. If you have a question along the way, the easiest way to make sure it gets seen is to put two hashtags in front of it, that makes it pop out in the Zoom chat. Drop them in throughout, and we’ll tackle them all when we open up the Q&A in the second half. There is a recording, and we’ll summarize everything and post the key takeaways on our site afterwards, so don’t worry about missing a section.
In case it’s your first time joining a Chronicle webinar: we’re Chronicle. We watch the ERE so that you don’t have to. We provide daily checks of the ERE and e-file across every one of your cases, flagging what’s changed, and we’re built only for disability practices. It’s what takes a firm from reactive to proactive. We work with over 150 firms and 2,800 disability professionals.
Here’s what you’re going to learn today: what the referral gap is and how to close it, what relationship-based client development actually looks like, low-cost digital channels you can apply to your firm today, and where to focus first when you’re prioritizing growth. Quick introduction from me, I’m Will, I lead events and partnerships at Chronicle, and I’ll be moderating the Q&A. I’m really excited to bring Jim Brown to the stage. He’s a NOSSCR Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and a longtime attorney consultant who’s spent decades helping disability firms grow through referrals, relationships, and smart, low-cost marketing. Anytime we’ve seen Jim at the conferences, he’s always sharing tactics and passing his knowledge to the next generation of disability attorneys. Jim, take it away.
If You Don’t Have Clients, All You Have Is a Hobby
Jim Brown: First of all, I always like to remind people: if you don’t have clients, all you have is a hobby. So we need to help you get more clients.
A couple of things up front. I know there are some non-attorney reps in the audience today. When I say “lawyer” or “attorney,” I’m including the non-attorney reps, I just don’t want to constantly say “attorneys and representatives,” so you’re included.
Before lead gen and social media, I was bringing in 220 new clients a month. Fifty a month were from television; the rest were from a variety of sources, many of which I’ll discuss today. Something to remember when you’re doing your own marketing: if everything you try works, you’re not trying enough.
My first recommendation is: don’t be as crazy as I was. Twice a week I’d have my first appointment at 6 AM. I’d have six clients signed up by 9 in the morning. People with disabilities often can’t sleep, a lot of them would ask for early appointments, so I’d say, “How about 6 AM?” Even the ones who came in later were impressed I was working then, and they’d tell their friends.
I’m not a good sleeper myself. So people who left an urgent message and didn’t say why, the ones who were a pain, would get a call from me at 3 in the morning. I’d say, “This is Jim Brown, I was working on your case,” or “I just got your urgent message.” In almost 53 years, not one person ever got mad at me for a 3 AM call. They were happy I was working at that hour, and I’d venture that about 75% of the people I called at 3 AM have referred clients to me. My wife said my best smile was always when I put my head on the pillow after making a few 3 AM calls. It’s hard the first couple of times. Once you see people don’t get mad, it gets easier.
Build a Marketing Plan for a Lean Firm
Jim Brown: Are your new clients coming in too slowly? Do you want your practice to take off, to soar?
Let’s start with this: plain white bread. There’s no substance, no nutrition, nothing in it. You don’t want your practice to be like that. You want some meat in it. Once a year, I recommend you give your employees what I call the white bread speech, and sometimes you have to give it to yourself, too. You talk about why you have your practice. What made you do this? You’re changing people’s lives. You’re giving them dignity and respect. Your employees have to know that. Put your heart on your sleeve for your staff and for yourself. That’s marketing, letting your staff know you’re not just listening to people complain, you’re making a difference in their lives. If your staff knows it, and you remember it, you do a better job for your clients and you sell yourself better, too.
You need a marketing plan. If you just do one or two of the things I suggest, you don’t have a marketing plan. You have to sit down and write it out. Am I going to send press releases? Am I going to make speeches? Am I going to spend money on ads? Write it down, and constantly be modifying it. When you make your plan, you have to ask: Who are your publics? How much will you spend? How long will you try each action? And who will be in charge?
Brochures: Paper Your Market
Jim Brown: One of the things you need before you really begin marketing is brochures. I’ve had clients spending so much on television that they say they don’t need brochures, everybody knows who they are. They still like brochures. You give them to every current client and every prospective client. If somebody contacts you and you can’t represent them, you send them a brochure. The 22-year-old who calls with a sprained ankle clearly doesn’t have a case, but their parents are in their 50s, and maybe they will. If you give speeches, bring your brochures and give them to everybody. You paper your market with your brochures.
When you write your brochure, nobody cares where you went to college or law school, that’s the last thing to put in. You don’t have to explain how hard it is to get disability; everybody knows that or they wouldn’t be contacting you. You tell them what you’re going to do for them. They want to know you’ll lay down in front of the bus to win their case. They want to know how hard you’re going to try to help them. They don’t care about anything else.
Who Are Your Publics?
Jim Brown: Who are your publics, the people you market to? To get clients: current and former clients who might refer to you. Physicians who can refer. Judges, have any ALJs ever referred cases to you? I once had a group of clients come to me with a torn piece of paper with my name on it. One day a judge asked, “Do you know how you got this client?” I didn’t. He took out a piece of paper and matched it to the torn piece with the client’s name. That ALJ had been referring people to me. Politicians can refer people, too. Everyone in the U.S. House or Senate has someone in their office devoted to Social Security questions, find out who that person is and let them know what you do. And the children of your clients: a lot of people don’t want to call you, but their kids may.
Your marketing should be making an impression on judges, physicians, politicians, current and former clients, referral sources, and prospective clients. If you make a good impression on the judges, they may not send you clients, but they’ll think highly of you, which makes a difference on your cases. Part of your marketing is to make people think you’re a high-class representative doing a good job.
I once had an ad that said, “Some of my clients used to work for Social Security, now they work for you.” One judge was upset: “I work for Social Security, and I work for your clients.” He paid well, so I pulled the ad. About three months later he apologized, he said it was just marketing, he didn’t care if I ran it. So I put it back on.
Be Unique
Jim Brown: Be unique. What makes you different from everybody else? Everybody charges the same on a Social Security case. Everybody says, “I’ll return your calls, I’ll show you respect”, the same garbage everyone else gives. So what makes you one of a kind? What qualities do you have that nobody else has?
When you try to figure this out, start writing. Be verbose, write as much as you can. Then start scratching things out. Write down the law school you went to, the undergraduate school, all the things you think make you unique. Then you realize how many thousands of people graduated from your college, and how many people say they’ll return their phone calls. Get it to less than 20 words, because it’s hard to have more than 20 words that are truly special to you.
My words: I had a disabled cousin. When he was three, he was misdiagnosed, my aunt was told he had the flu. It turned out to be meningitis, and by the time they figured it out, his brain had stopped working. He lives in a group home now; he has the mind of a three-year-old. My father dropped out of high school at 16 to support his family after his own father died, and he ended up owning a business where he hired disabled people. When I was 16, twice a week I’d drive into the inner city to pick up his disabled employees, drive them to work, and drive them home. I got good exposure to people who were disabled. And I’ve almost died four times, 32 years ago I had 17 aneurysms repaired in my brain; I had a kidney tumor rupture; I had an aortic aneurysm. I can relate to what my clients are going through. Those are the things that are just me, that’s how you get to fewer than 20 words.
Here’s an offer: if you want to try writing why you’re unique and get it down to 20 or 30 words, email it and give me a call. I’ll help you get it under 20 words and make a statement you can use to identify yourself and what makes you unique. You have to be unique to market yourself.
What Your Website Must Do
Jim Brown: Is your website unique, or does it look like everybody else’s? I looked at a lot of the websites of people on this call. You all went to college, you all have experience, you all know how hard it is to get through the system, and you’ll all show people respect. So what you’ll get is the scraps of the people who look at you. Most people on the internet go to five sites before hiring a lawyer. What’s going to make yours special?
Tell a story. Tell about people whose lives you’ve changed. Tell something about your background, on my web page, I tell about my father and my cousin. Do you have a video? On your video, welcome people, tell them how you’re going to help them, and tell them how important helping people is to you. One line I’ve had a lot of my clients use, in words and on video, is: “I’m accepting new clients now.” It creates urgency, people think, maybe next month they won’t be, so I’d better call now. Your video has to be exciting enough that they stop at yours and stay on yours, so they’re not going to look at four more. And be yourself. Don’t try to be like anyone else. That’s where being unique matters.
Internet Leads: Respond Within Five Minutes
Jim Brown: If you’re purchasing internet leads, you have to respond quickly, this is again where people go to five sites. Internet leads are on a lot of websites, so you have to respond within five minutes. You get no branding from internet leads; the effectiveness depends entirely on how you handle them. People fill out why they think they’re disabled, and they’ll tell you the last thing that happened, the last reason they stopped working. If someone says they stopped because of back surgery, they may not mention the stroke two years ago, or the heart problems, or the psychiatrist they’ve seen for six years. There’s more to find out than what they put on that lead. But if you don’t answer within five minutes, you may have lost them.
I know one person who hires high school students who work in her office from 5 to 10 PM. The leads that come in between 5 and 10 get answered within five minutes. They get all the information, tell people what they need to hear, and set an appointment to be called back in the morning. She has an incredible success rate signing people up.
Think Outside the Box
Jim Brown: When you’re marketing, think outside the box. If you think like everybody else, you’re going to be like everybody else. Think differently. Be bizarre. One of the greatest lines I ever saw was on a fruit truck in New York City: “Our fruit isn’t spoiled, but our customers are.” For 25 years I’ve thought about how to use that to sell a law firm, and I still haven’t come up with a way.
If you’re going to do television advertising, be yourself. Sell yourself. Play to the market, don’t run ads like everybody else. For one client, I wrote a TV ad: “When I got out of the army, I became a construction worker. I saw my friends become injured and disabled. That’s why I went to college and law school, I wanted to help my friends get the benefits they deserve.” “Dedicated to helping the disabled” is a trademark I own, and I licensed it to him. Another ad I wrote for someone: “When I was young, my uncle was diagnosed as bipolar. He moved in with my grandmother, and I watched her fight to get him his disability benefits. That’s why, when I became a lawyer, I wanted to help people get the benefits they deserve.” Those people made it personal. They told a story instead of being like everybody else.
One of my most successful ads had a dark background and a spotlight on me, the camera coming closer with every sentence: “My grandfather was an immigrant. My father was a dry cleaner. They taught me to respect everyone, especially the injured and disabled. You deserve respect. I’m James Brown, and I was president of the National Disability Bar.” My mother cried every time she saw it. Because I didn’t say what I did until the very end, I was just emotional, it got an incredible response.
A lot of people turn down claimants with addiction problems. I have some addiction centers that refer them to me, but before they do, they get the person 10 appointments with a psychologist who fills out a medical source statement, and a physical to check for physical problems. I get calls from DDS saying, “You got us again, you’ve got somebody using cocaine who meets the schizoid listings.” You can win addiction cases; they just have to be handled differently. On every addiction case, I get the high school records, because the psychologist often notes that the problems existed long before the addiction.
What Do People Dislike Most About You?
Jim Brown: What do people dislike most about you? You have to understand that to sell yourself to prospective clients. Some of you think it’s that people don’t return phone calls, or that you charge a fee. What they dislike most is that they had to call you at all, that the process is so difficult they needed a representative. They resent that. So treat it differently. The person who answers the phone should say, “It’s a shame you have to call here, but that’s why Jim started this practice, so he could help you get the benefits you deserve.” Be empathetic right from the beginning. Break down that barrier from the start.
When you market, do it with passion. Don’t be blasé. Don’t throw out a bunch of words everybody else is throwing out. Use your passion. Use your uniqueness.
Tchotchkes and Small Touches
Jim Brown: Small giveaways matter. If I mail forms to a client who doesn’t have email, I always include a pen. The life of a refrigerator magnet is seven years, for seven years people have your name and phone number on their refrigerator. Every time I get a virtual hearing, I send the client a phone stand so they can prop the phone up instead of holding it for 45 minutes. That stand has my name, phone number, and website on it, and people call asking for extra ones to give to friends and family. They cost about a dollar apiece, well worth it. I also give clients notebooks, which I’ll explain later. A notebook with your name, phone number, and email is invaluable.
That’s your brand, who you are, what you’re selling, what you’re trying to be. You need that when you do your SEO work, your pay-per-click, and your geofencing. I have a couple of clients who do geofencing so that when someone sits in the Social Security office and opens their phone, the firm’s web page pops up. It costs about the same as pay-per-click, but they’re reaching exactly their market. A couple tried it at urgent care centers and found they were paying for a lot of people they didn’t need, so target it to the Social Security office. That’s money well spent.
Referral Sources: Funeral Homes, Pharmacists, Elected Officials, Clergy
Jim Brown: How about a funeral home for referrals? Sounds crazy. I’d get 20 to 25 clients a year from funeral directors. People go to a funeral home to plan their own funeral because they’re disabled, and the director would ask, “Are you getting disability?” If they weren’t, they’d refer them to me. I also got wrongful-death cases I could refer out for a referral fee. You can be the only lawyer in your market doing this. One of the toughest speeches I ever gave was to the Northern Ohio Funeral Directors Association’s annual dinner.
Pharmacists are great sources. Pharmacists know who’s lost their job and who has new health problems keeping them from working, and they like helping their customers. When you get a prescription, let the pharmacist know what you do and give them a few brochures. I still get referrals from a pharmacist in Oregon, I’m in Ohio, who sends me two or three cases a month. They’re easy cases, because pharmacists have a good feel for who deserves disability.
Elected officials: they send a form letter to Social Security and get a form letter back. Once in a while it helps. But if you let the Social Security caseworker in your representative’s or senator’s office know that you help people on disability claims, they’ll start telling people to call you. Tell that person, “If you have any questions about disability, call me, I’ll be glad to be your resource.” When they refer you a client and you win, send $100 to their campaign fund. You’re not paying for the client, that’s illegal, but you can make a political donation anytime you want. It works over and over.
Clergy are great sources. People who are disabled often turn to God, and I’ve gotten referrals from priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams. At the end of a case, when a client says “bless you” or “have a blessed day,” I ask for the name of their clergy person. I send a letter: “Dear Pastor, I helped one of your congregants receive Social Security disability benefits. They spoke so well of you that I’m enclosing this check for $25 so you can continue to help people in need. I’ve also enclosed two of my brochures.” Always make the donation to the clergy person’s own discretionary fund, not the congregation, or you’ll end up on the building-fund and endowment mailing lists. I once told a client in Houston to call Reverend Joel Osteen. He resisted, so he got a few 3 AM phone calls until it was easier to call than to keep listening to me. He now gets 12 to 15 referrals a month from that congregation.
Physician Referrals Are the Greatest
Jim Brown: Physician referrals are the greatest. When you get a physician referral, you should always win that case. When I win, I send a thank-you note: “Dear Dr. Smith, thank you for your help on Mrs. Gonzalez’s case. I’ve enclosed a copy of the decision and highlighted where your name is mentioned on pages 6 and 8. I look forward to working with you to help other deserving patients.” People in America don’t say thank you anymore, when you do, you set yourself apart. And the decision looks complicated: the doctor sees how many pages it is, sees that what you asked for mattered, and fills out your form faster next time. Send a few of these and they’ll start sending you their patients.
If the doctor did an extremely good job, I’ll send a donation to a charity in their field, NAMI for a psychologist, the Arthritis Foundation for a rheumatologist. The organization sends the doctor a card saying James Brown made a donation in their honor for help on a disability claim, and I send my brochure to the charity with the check, so now the Arthritis Foundation knows I handle disability claims and puts me in their resource file. Once you’ve gotten a few referrals from a physician, ask if they need a speaker at one of their meetings. The key line is, “We can teach your staff how to help your patients get disability without needing a lawyer.” “Without needing a lawyer” is what breaks through and gets you in the room. Everyone will still need a lawyer, but that’s how you make the inroad.
Know Your Cost Per New Client
Jim Brown: I always tell my lawyer clients: look at the cost per new client. From television, how much did you spend, how many clients did you get? Same with lead gen and SEO. But most people don’t look at the fee from each source. It cost me $300 per new client from television and my average fee was $5,000. It cost me $200 per client on lead gen and my average fee was $6,000, so I should spend more on lead gen. Look at your return per dollar spent, not just the cost per lead.
I like an annual report of where my clients came from. If any client sent me a lot of clients, in November I send them a $100 gift certificate to the grocery store with a nice thank-you note, or tickets to a sporting event. Again, I’m not paying them per client, it’s a thank-you.
The Referral Gap: From 10-13% to 50%
Jim Brown: Most people who say they get a lot of referrals from current and former clients are actually getting 10 to 13% of their referrals from current and former clients. You should be getting 50% of your current and former clients referring to you. How do you make that happen?
Start by sending a thank-you note when a current or former client refers someone. Don’t over-promise, make sure every client knows their case is a tough one. Do what you say you’ll do. Ask people to refer to you. Be polite on the phone; I can’t tell you how many firms have staff who aren’t polite. Show respect to your clients, they’re not educated, but they’re smart, so treat them with that respect.
I have my clients sign a client-firm agreement. It says, “I authorize my attorney to send a thank-you note to the person who referred me, and to send a copy of the decision to the physician.” I once had someone upset that I sent a thank-you note to their referrer, so now it’s part of the agreement. Social Security says you can’t send a copy of a decision to anyone unless the client agrees, so they sign that when they sign up. If you want to see the agreement, email or text me and I’ll send it to you.
Client Experience: How Is Your Phone Answered?
Jim Brown: You have 30 seconds to make a first impression. So answer your phone politely. I don’t like a computer answering and saying, “Press 1 if you’re a new client, press 2 if you’re an existing client.” The person who answers should say the firm name and their own name, have a pleasant voice, and let the caller know you want to help. Every person who talks to a client should say that person’s name three times, so the caller knows they’re a real person and not a number.
If you meet a client, shake hands. When I shake hands with someone, I look at them long enough to see the color of their eyes. I never remember the color, but that’s how long you should look at someone. It’s a little thing, but it’s important.
You should be communicating with your current clients 12 times a year. When you get a notice from DDS or OHO, let your client know you got it. When you get medical records, tell them: “I received the records from Dr. Smith; we’ll process them as usual, no need to call at this time.” When nothing is happening, send a questionnaire. If you’re writing off expenses you’re not getting paid, send a letter saying so and mention you’d appreciate more referrals, it’s a nice thing to do.
Dollarize Your Value
Jim Brown: You have to dollarize what you do. You’re getting your clients a lot of money, let them know how much. When you sign up a new client, you tell them you charge 25% with a maximum of $9,200, and nothing if you don’t win. But say your client is 55 with two years of past-due benefits at $2,000 a month. What’s that case worth? It’s worth about $330,000 plus Medicare if they stay disabled to retirement age. So when you explain your fee, you say: “When we win, you’ll get about $330,000 if you stay disabled between now and retirement, plus Medicare, plus a higher retirement benefit because of this, and the most my fee will be is $9,200. In a car-accident case, that fee would be $100,000.” You’ve just made yourself a bargain. They won’t be upset about your fee when they realize what they’re getting.
Press Releases and What to Skip
Jim Brown: Press releases work. Send them to newspapers, radio, and television. You can send one that says, “I won a case for someone with arthritis; their past-due benefit was $95,000, and they’ll receive $300,000 if they remain disabled,” and send it to the Arthritis Foundation. They won’t print it, but you go in their resource guide. When you win a notable case in court, send it to the media, never using your client’s name. When Social Security becomes newsworthy, you become the go-to person for a sound bite. Television stations used to show up in my office all the time.
If you’re thinking of marketing, don’t bother with buses, benches, billboards, or newspaper ads. It’s a waste of time unless you have a $9-million-a-year advertising budget.
Educational Marketing
Jim Brown: I believe in educational marketing, when you market, do some teaching. In an ad you can say, “When we win your Social Security disability, you’ll get a higher benefit at retirement.” “If you have minor children, they’ll also get a benefit.” “Disabled adult children can get a benefit.” “We only have to prove you can’t work for 12 months, it doesn’t mean you’ll never work again.” “If you’re over 50, you’re under a different standard than if you’re under 50.” I had one ad that said, “When I get my client’s Social Security disability, I also get them Medicare,” and people called saying, “I’m hiring you because I want my Medicare too”, they didn’t know everybody gets it. I also had a Spanish-newspaper ad that said, “I may not speak Spanish, but I listen with my heart.” You have to use flowery language in that market, and a Hispanic clientele lined up at my door.
If you want to work on what makes you unique, or you want to see my client-firm agreement, let me know and I’ll be glad to help. Will, do we have any questions?
Q&A
Will Yang: Yes, a lot of questions. To kick us off, where do you order phone stands from? Any recommendations?
Jim Brown: I get my phone stands from 4imprint. They give me the best price. Vistaprint’s are expensive; 4imprint’s are very reasonably priced.
Will Yang: One tip I’d add: these promotional companies often price-match, so shop around. Next, for referrals from attorneys, like on the workers’ comp side, are you paying a referral percentage, and if so, how much?
Jim Brown: I do, and it’s negotiable. For clients who are getting workers’ comp, I usually pay a 10 to 15% referral fee. If it’s referred by a workers’ comp attorney but they’re not getting workers’ comp, I’ll pay 25%.
Will Yang: Another question: at certain times I’m unable to speak with potential new clients right away. Would it help to offer a short 15-minute introductory call and then schedule a full meeting later, so the client feels acknowledged? And should I tell them in advance that the first call is limited to 15 minutes?
Jim Brown: In that 15-minute call, email them the forms to sign, you can always withdraw later. But if you don’t finish signing them up within 24 hours, they’ll go somewhere else. When I had my practice, everyone who called before 2 PM was asked if they wanted to come in that day, and 70% of my clients were in within 24 hours. It’s so much easier now that you can email the forms and get them signed up right away.
Will Yang: Do you ever represent Spanish-speaking clients?
Jim Brown: I do. I had seven years of Spanish, I don’t speak it well anymore, but I understand it moderately well, and I’m good enough to know when the interpreter is doing a terrible job. I once had a case where my client was talking about hemorrhaging, and the interpreter told the judge he had hemorrhoids. I interrupted and asked the judge to question the interpreter more carefully.
Will Yang: For a firm that’s just beginning to scale, what are the top five priorities to invest time and money in?
Jim Brown: Get out in the community and let people know what you do. Early in my practice, and even now, 53 years later, I’d go to the funerals of clients or their family members, because I liked them. Sometimes I was the only Caucasian at a funeral. I didn’t do it to get business, but it was great for marketing. If you’re just starting and you have some money, lead gen is probably the fastest way to get business. If you don’t have the money, let the health charities know you’ll come talk to their support groups, a 15-to-20-minute talk plus Q&A. I used to do a different arthritis, MS, diabetes, or NAMI workshop once a week across Northern Ohio. Out of about 20 people, I’d get three or four clients within the week, and three or four more over the following months.
Will Yang: I know we’re at the top of the hour, so let me quickly cover a couple of things. If you want to learn more about Chronicle and what our ERE monitoring platform looks like, check us out at chroniclelegal.com/demo. Our next session is in two weeks, Disability Peers in Practice, small groups of practitioners talking shop, virtually, across the country. You can RSVP on our events calendar at chroniclelegal.com/events. If you want to contact either of us, Jim’s website is attorneyconsultant.com and ours is chroniclelegal.com. Please share feedback in the chat, I’ll pass it all to Jim. Rich had another question.
Jim Brown: My email is jim@attorneyconsultant.com.
Will Yang: Great, you can reach Jim at jim@attorneyconsultant.com. Rich asks: do you have retainer paperwork in Spanish and other documents?
Jim Brown: I don’t, I should, but I don’t represent enough Spanish-speaking clients to justify it. I recommend that if you have a large clientele speaking another language, you have a retainer in their language. I have one client with a lot of Hmong, Spanish-speaking, and Vietnamese clients, and they keep retainers in each language, because otherwise a client could say at the end of the case, “I didn’t know what I was signing.”
Will Yang: Beverly asks: are there differences in marketing for English versus Spanish audiences when growing a newer firm?
Jim Brown: Yes. If you’re marketing to a Spanish-speaking clientele, make it more beautiful. English can be a little crass; Spanish is beautiful. That market wants you to be more flowery, more beautiful, kinder in your marketing.
Will Yang: Rhonda asks if you can address support staff, how to get the support to execute these strategies.
Jim Brown: A lot of it is just teaching them. There are mystery-caller companies that will call in and give you an evaluation of your support staff. It’s also a matter of asking your clients how the staff treated them, some firms send a questionnaire when the case is over. When I consult for firms, I’ll sometimes have someone call 8 to 10 current and former clients and interview them about everything from the first call to how they feel now that the case is over.
Will Yang: Katrina asks: how do you build confidence in clients when you’re an EDPNA and not an attorney?
Jim Brown: You tell them that you specialize in Social Security disability, and that’s all you do.
Will Yang: You mentioned press releases, how often should folks be sending them?
Jim Brown: Every time you win a good case, send a press release to the health charity for that condition. If you win something unusual or extraordinary, send it to the media, never using your client’s name. I just won one where my client got five and a half years of past-due benefits on a second remand; the first two hearings were with a judge who paid 8%. I sent a press release to the local newspaper and the radio and TV stations, and a reporter called me. They’re building a story on Social Security disability, mainly on one judge who pays 8% and another who pays 12%, who happen to be husband and wife.
Will Yang: For smaller practices, why do they need a marketing plan instead of just trying a few of your ideas?
Jim Brown: Because without a plan, you’ll get the scraps from the bigger firms. Your plan doesn’t have to be exotic, but you have to set aside an hour a week to plan: Am I going to send press releases? Make speeches? Find local radio talk shows that will have me on? If you’re 100% satisfied with what you’re doing, you don’t need a plan. But if you’re bringing in five clients a month, you could easily bring in seven and have no problem handling two more, that’s an extra $10,000 a month without much extra work. You need a plan to do that consistently.
Will Yang: Wouldn’t pharmacists and physicians think you’re a pain if you ask them to refer clients?
Jim Brown: Most don’t; a few do. When you get your prescription or vaccine, say, “I represent people on disability claims, here’s my brochure. If you ever have someone struggling with the disability system, I’d be glad to talk to them.” I told my own primary-care doctor the same thing, and she sent me a patient. She was amazed at how fast I got the case approved, and of course she’d written me a great medical source statement. She sent a couple more and started introducing me to her friends. Physicians want to help their patients. They don’t want to fill out our forms, but when they learn it helps their patient, and when I say, “We’re both trying to help the same person, so let’s do it together,” it goes a long way. At the Cleveland Clinic, forms have to go through the legal department first, so when I send one I include a self-addressed stamped envelope and a sticky note asking the doctor to fill it out and mail it back before sending it to medical records. I get about half of them back.
Will Yang: Why have a person answer the phone instead of a menu, press one for new clients, two for existing, and so on?
Jim Brown: Because people feel more welcome when a human being answers. Half the time they press the button for new clients and nobody answers, or they press the one for existing clients and nobody answers, and they figure you only care about new clients. If a human answers and triages the calls, they feel welcome.
Will Yang: You said to figure out how much a client gets if they stay disabled to retirement age, doesn’t that take a lot of time?
Jim Brown: Not long. Figure out how much they get per month, multiply by the months until retirement age, add an arbitrary cost-of-living figure, and that’s about what they’ll get. I put it in my closing letter. I also send them a notebook and tell them: you’re going to get reviewed, so record every doctor’s appointment, every new medication, and a brief note on every bad day. When they get their continuing disability review, they take that notebook to the field office and have it copied and attached to the form. The people doing reviews are rated on how many they process, and if you give them enough handwritten pages to read, they’ll move on to the next person, and your client doesn’t get cut off.
Will Yang: You challenged folks to describe what makes their firm unique in 20 words or fewer. Most disability firms do the same work, how do you find a real differentiator instead of just a slogan?
Jim Brown: Be verbose first. Write as much as you can, then scratch out everything that’s common to a lot of people until you’re left with things that are just you. Once you get to 20 words or fewer, come up with a trademark. I have two for my law practice, “Dedicated to helping the disabled” and “I change my clients’ lives for the better”, and one for my consulting business: “Enjoy your practice, enjoy your life.” A lot of people tell me they hate their practice or have no life because of it, so putting those together really sells. You need to figure out who you are before you can come up with a good trademark.
Will Yang: You said every website needs a video so clients can see and hear you. For an attorney who hates being on camera, is that non-negotiable, or does “be yourself” matter more than a polished video?
Jim Brown: You can be yourself and still have the video look good. It doesn’t have to be professional, but make some notes about what you want to say first. I’ve seen videos where people just turned the camera on and rambled, and they looked atrocious. There are apps that scroll your script in front of you, it doesn’t look like you’re reading, because you’re looking right at the phone.
Will Yang: Beverly asks: any tips for firms that also have other practice areas, should you separate disability out?
Jim Brown: You don’t separate disability. A lot of what I said applies to everything. Keywords don’t work anymore, you need blogs and a lot of fresh content regularly to get people to your website. If you win a workers’ comp claim, write the physician and tell them their bills will now be paid. If you win a personal injury case, thank the physician for helping get their patient the benefits they deserve. You’re appealing to the same group of people, you don’t get the politicians as much for PI, but you do for workers’ comp. Marketing is marketing: identify the publics you want to reach and how you’ll get to them.
Will Yang: You mentioned running an annual report on cost per new client by source. If someone has never tracked that, and the number comes back ugly, what’s the first thing they should do with it?
Jim Brown: I was advertising on television in Cleveland, Columbus, and Youngstown. I found Youngstown was costing about $750 per new client, while Cleveland and Columbus were about $200. So I canceled Youngstown, it wasn’t worth it. I had a client spending $100,000 a year on billboards who found he was averaging one new client a year from them; we got rid of the billboards. You look at how much you’re spending per new client and whether it’s worth it. When I started on TV, I was only getting about 50 clients a month and only spending $5,000 a month, but I ended up with 50% of the Social Security claims in Northern Ohio, a great investment. TV isn’t the market it used to be, though. If you go on TV now, look at the streaming channels, the less expensive ones with ads. They cost a lot less, and disability clients are watching them.
Will Yang: Twelve touches a year for every active client sounds great, but with hundreds of open cases and a small staff, how do you keep it up without it falling apart?
Jim Brown: It gets easy once you realize you’ve dramatically reduced your incoming phone calls. You get a medical record and automatically send an email: “I received these records.” I like one out of four touches to be a snail-mail letter with your phone number, so the client has something to hand a friend. When your telephone calls drop by 75%, all those “Did you get the records? Did you write the doctor?” calls stop, you realize you’re saving time. Most people say, “I never hear from my lawyer.” When your clients say, “They tell me every time they get something,” that’s how you get more clients.
Will Yang: With that, I think we’ve covered every question we planned to. Thank you so much to everybody who asked, and to Jim for sharing his expertise and years of experience. We’ll share the replay and takeaways in case you want to review any part of today’s presentation. If you can submit feedback for Jim in the chat, I’ll pass it along, it’s always helpful for him. If you enjoyed this, we run a regular series of events for the disability community. Next week we’re joining the Firmidable folks for a session on growing high-volume disability firms, the registration link is in the chat. And in two weeks we’ll be back together for our next roundtable, Disability Peers in Practice. Thank you so much, everybody, and have a great rest of your Thursday.
Jim Brown: Have a good day, everyone.
Nikhil Pai: Thanks, Jim. Bye.