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Andy Young – Driving Change and Verdicts as a Truck Driving Lawyer

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Ohio attorney, Andy Young, who like Michael, specializes in trucking cases. Andy’s journey over the past 20 years of practicing law and ultimately specializing in trucking cases started by accident when his hobby for rehabbing trucks, as well as starting a trucking company, turned out to be more valuable than he expected where he was being asked to speak at various trucking litigation groups. Essentially his passion for “anything on wheels” and his upbringing around big equipment propelled him toward the industry as well. He goes on to establish upfront that he indeed does not hate the trucking industry as some might conclude by having become a trucking attorney. Andy cares deeply for the truck drivers as well as the component of the industry that treats the drivers well while also explaining in great detail the parts of the industry he does not care for, which abuses the drivers and stokes safety issues all in the...
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Steven Gursten – Remarkable Customer Service = Extraordinary Law Practice

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Michigan trial lawyer and owner of Michigan Auto Law, along with 3 other law firms, Steven Gursten. As an early adopter of internet legal marketing, Steven has built his firm to become extremely successful in Michigan and is recognized as having the TOP verdict in the state 8 out of the last 12 years, as well as success throughout the country. Steven recalls in the first 10 years of his practice making it a goal to be a great trial lawyer and have attorneys all over the state refer him cases. To get there, he still recommends lawyers set aside 30 minutes to an hour every day to read and study some area of law. IE: Mondays would be opening statements, Tuesdays might be cross examining, Wednesdays – closings, Thursdays – medicine, and Fridays he wanted to become an expert on the Michigan no-fault law. Even now, Steven utilizes the massive amounts of information he’s accumulated, learned from, and still references. Si...
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Delisi Friday – Analyzing Your Marketing Strategies for the Year

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with his in-house Director of Marketing and Business Development, Delisi Friday, for another Table Talk episode. This show focuses specifically on an inside look at what they’re doing to market their law firm, why it’s important to analyze their efforts every year, and how they determine when to pivot on specific marketing strategies. Delisi starts the conversation describing why an annual review of their firm’s marketing is imperative and how it gives them a chance to see what’s working and what’s not. It also allows their team to see things early enough to allow for them to pivot in order to make something work better. Michael adds that they have also been known to double down on what’s working, in order to accelerate their success in receiving more cases. Although, the “sunk cost fallacy” occasionally gets in the way of making changes once you’ve put time, and money into an effort and continue with it even though (if...
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Tom Crosley – TBIs: An invisible, yet very real injury

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with accomplished trial lawyer and national speaker, Tom Crosley, who has been incredibly successful in trying cases involving Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs). Tom’s start in TBI-specialized cases began with a case involving a plumber who had a neck and shoulder injury with seemingly normal readings on his CT and MRI scans. The more he worked on the case, the more he found out through his client’s wife that his client just wasn’t the same as before the incident. It was when the defense lawyer was taking the plaintiff’s deposition that Tom realized his client likely had a TBI. All the things a plaintiff’s attorney cringes at in a depo were happening, from his client flying off the handle at the defense attorney, to forgetting his kid’s birthdays. Basically, all the things you think are going to be bad for your case. By the end of the deposition, Tom went from thinking this was a neck and shoulder injury case worth hundre...
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Tim Whiting – The Journey of a Trial Lawyer with Perseverance

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Tim Whiting, of the Whiting Law Group in Chicago, for a conversation exploring the journey which has led to Tim’s outstanding $9M settlement on a recent trucking case. While Tim primarily handles trucking cases in his practice, this wasn’t always the case. Tim’s story begins from humble beginnings and feeling “poor” as a young boy. When given a homework assignment about what he wanted to be when he grew up, the only thing he could think of was not to be poor. In the process of researching what he wanted to be, he stumbled upon a book by Melvin Belli, a prominent lawyer known as “The King of Torts” which immediately locked him into the desire to become a lawyer and not feel poor. Starting his firm from his apartment, Tim was hungry for success and started calling up defense and plaintiff lawyers that he had met and taking them out to coffee to give them his sales pitch and tell them he would be very available to t...
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Jack Zinda – Success by Design

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with an accomplished trial attorney, Jack Zinda, for an inside look at his bustling personal injury law practice. Built from the ground up in a county where seemingly no one wanted to start a law office because the juries are so conservative, Jack has built his practice up to include 3 offices with 63 people on his team, 23 of which are lawyers. Jack’s humble beginnings working in his father’s restaurant washing dishes and waiting tables, contributed to him becoming a great trial lawyer by teaching him to learn how to talk to people, which he says was “great training.” Michael admits that he actually looks for “waiting tables” on the resumes of his potential lawyers as he understands that such experience comes with being able to deal with people, even when they are being unreasonable, among other reasons. As they dig in deeper to Jack’s practice, he directly correlates the growth of business to an exercise he did afte...
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45 – Peter Kestner – Money and Strategy with “The Janitor”

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To Listen the Episode Click on the Link : https://content.blubrry.com/triallawyernation/Peter_Kestner_on_Trial_Lawyer_Nation.mp3 In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with acclaimed author, speaker, and trucking lawyer, Peter Kestner, for a conversation on going up against insurance companies. Peter’s experience is somewhat unique having started out in the insurance industry working for the second largest trucking insurer in the country, handling truck litigation claims. Then, after going back to law school, he ran an excess program for a sister insurer under the Travelers Umbrella with 30 of the largest trucking concerns with self-insured retentions (SIR’s) where he would audit their claims files to make sure they had proper reserves. In some cases when it was a high exposure case, Peter would have to interject himself into the case to settle it or make the decision to take it to trial. He was even nicknamed “The Janitor” because he would “clean t...
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