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Law Have Mercy!
Law Have Mercy! isn’t just about the law anymore—it’s about life, business, health, and everything that sparks curiosity. Join Personal Injury Attorney Chaz Roberts as he dives into candid conversations that mix legal insights with lifestyle tips, entrepreneurial wisdom, and personal growth. From breaking down complex legal issues in simple terms to exploring the challenges and triumphs of health, business, and beyond, Chaz brings his unique perspective and passion to every episode.
Whether you're here to learn, laugh, or find inspiration, Law Have Mercy! has something for everyone. Just remember: the opinions of our guests are their own, and nothing on this podcast is legal advice or creates an attorney-client relationship—it’s all about entertainment, exploration, and empowerment. Let’s make it fun!
Law Have Mercy!
Reflections on a Rollercoaster Career: How New Orleans attorney Vince Scallan navigates the potholes of practicing law in NOLA
Our guest on today's episode is attorney Vince P. Scallan of VPS Law in New Orleans, Louisiana. You can connect with Vince via his law firm's website or on social media @VPSLaw.
Law Have Mercy! Could your approach to law and life be transformed by simply shifting your perspective? Vincent P. Scallan, a thriving personal injury lawyer from New Orleans, joins us in this episode of Law Have Mercy! Podcast to recount the rollercoaster ride that has been his legal career as a personal injury attorney in The Big Easy. From overcoming job market challenges post-law school and establishing his legal practice out of his parents' house, Vince's journey reveals the hidden potential often overlooked by conventional hiring practices and proves the immense power of harnessing grit and perseverance to overcome the challenges of making a name for yourself in a bustling city like New Orleans. We also explore how host, Chaz Roberts' brief stint at a corporate law firm actually influenced the eventual decision to go solo for both Chaz and his guest, Vince.
But as the attorneys' candor quickly reveals, building a legal career isn't all big cases and quick wins in those early days (or even years!). Vince and Chaz share their experiences with taking on challenging, less profitable cases to build a solid foundation of knowledge and trust. Client relationships and referrals become the heart of their discussion, as they contrast their methods with those who rely on flashy billboards or seemingly endless television radio advertisements. The attorneys delve into the practicalities of gathering evidence after car accidents, especially when facing delayed police response times in New Orleans, and the game-changing role of dash cams in ensuring accurate incident documentation.
But of course, life requires balance-- in more ways than one! The attorneys discuss the profound benefits they both have found in yoga. They also delve into the important role of other hobbies and pursuits that both challenge them physically and mentally and bring overall balance and harmony to their respective lives, such as golf and coaching little league teams, taking turns sharing personal anecdotes that highlight both the joys and challenges that these activities bring.
From the highs and lows of golf to the financial implications of choosing between emergency rooms and urgent care clinics, this conversation spans a wide array of topics and ultimately underscores the importance of finding personal satisfaction in one's career and pursuing a path that resonates deeply with individual values and aversions. Tune in for a heartfelt episode brimming with practical advice, personal stories, and invaluable career insights.
You can watch most full episodes of Law Have Mercy on YouTube!
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This show is co-produced by Carter Simoneaux of AcadianaCasts Network, Chaz H. Roberts of Chaz Roberts Law and Kayli Guidry Bonin of Beau The Agency, and Laith Alferahin.
Hey, this is Chaz again with another episode of Law have Mercy. On today's episode, I bring on my good friend from law school, vincent Scallon. He's from New Orleans. He's killing it in the personal injury game. We talk about helping people, representing our wonderful clients, and how he found inner peace through yoga. Stay tuned, it's a great episode. We are super pumped up. My good friend, a friend of 17, 18 years since the beginning of law school, drove all the way from New Orleans this morning, mr Vincent P Scallon. Thank you, vince.
Speaker 2:And Chaz, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, man.
Speaker 1:Man, I think you were starting to worry that I had something against you because you were the last guy from our group that came on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, I figured because we were direct competitors. We do a lot of the same work, so maybe he didn't want me on his show stealing some thunder. But no, Chaz was my friend from law school from the first day, first day of orientation. We instantly bonded, probably by the keg, and I think we saw things differently even then.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm expecting thousands of downloads of this episode. I don't know. So you're single now, so that means that you have a lot of extra time to put into the books and maybe even do a little travel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I'm single. I'm not married. I do have a. I'm in a good relationship right now with a great girl. We won't talk too much about that, but yeah, but single in the fact that I'm not married. So, and that's been, you know, I've been in some serious relationships, but never married. Haven't had a family since I've started practicing law, and that does open up some opportunities for you. First and foremost, you're going to work a whole lot more. You know work was my baby, is my baby. You know, I started my practice out of my parents' house 15 years ago because I couldn't get a job. So by the time I developed in this practice was what I did for the last 10 years life was my law practice and, given the beginnings that I had considering I just look the beginnings was I didn't have a job, Nobody would hire me, so I had to make up my own job. You tend to be a little more protective over that and then you had the time to do that. You can work till 10 o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well you've been extremely successful over your career and so we're sitting here like in hindsight. Why do you think people, why do you think these firms wouldn't hire you or hire me or hire any anyone like us, like? What do you think is the disconnect that they don't see that potential early on?
Speaker 2:Well, as we all know, it's first. It's just grades. You know law school they. They rank you. You know you're graded and your ranking is right up there on your resume what your GPA was and what your rank was in the class. Most law firms who are hiring are looking for somebody who was top of the class or top quarter of the class so that they can put that on their website. We hired Joe Blow, who's top quarter of the class and order of the coif and trial advocacy board, because it looks good for them so they can attract clients. You know they're not going to brag about. Hey. We hired Vince Gallen, who was 70, you know 213 out of you know 220 in his class.
Speaker 1:But he's a good guy.
Speaker 2:He's cool. Yeah, it's great to have a beer with you know that's not something they probably should brag about that. Maybe we'd adjust our priorities a little bit. Can't put this guy, you know, on our firm's masthead. You know, he hasn't accomplished anything in law school, which is crazy when you think about it, because you don't do anything in law school but study the law and prepare to pass the bar.
Speaker 1:So when I was coming like so, I got a job with a corporate law firm and I lasted nine months.
Speaker 1:I was jealous man, of course, and I thought that I hit the jackpot and I was keeping you updated. And then one day I texted you and I said I'm out, and I think your initial reaction was why? What are you going to do? What's going on here? Are you crazy? Right, yeah? And then I said I'm going to go on my own, and that seemed pretty crazy to you, until just a couple months later, you're doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:No, that's right. I mean I owe a lot of this to I'll say it right here, I owe a lot of this to Chaz Roberts. But yeah, I mean, chaz gave me that phone call. I'm in my parents' backyard walking around by the pool. I don't have much to do when you're unemployed, you know, and I am longing for that law firm job that's eluded me. And Chaz is telling me not only did I have the law firm job, but I don't want it. I'm giving it back.
Speaker 2:And at that point in life you're thinking about well, how's he going to make money? You don't know anything about practicing law. How are you going to get clients? How are you going to? You don't know what you're doing. You've only been doing this for six months. And Chaz had that vision, you know he just said that it's not for me. You know billing hours and you know I think the discrepancy you had was you were accomplishing all your you know you were hitting all your billable requirements. You were, you know, pumping out good work. You know pumping out good work. Yet there were higher ups in the firm that thought you need to show more initiative and work when you didn't, when it was unnecessary, on the weekend coming on the weekends, even though all your work was being done has been done timely, yeah, and it was quality work.
Speaker 2:They thought you need to show that you were serious about this, yeah, and I thought that was fake.
Speaker 1:I thought I thought I was just, I wasn't going to just show up on a Saturday, just to show face.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but I was, you know, impressive what you did. And then, yeah, I mean, you instantly fell into what truly was your skillset and was that and that is. You know, what we used to always say is you get clients right, but it's because you're likable, right, you're affable, you relate to everybody, you can relate to the CEO and you can relate to the guy sweeping the floors, and that is something that almost cannot be taught and you don't even know that is your gift and your skill set, but it's always been that way, right, I mean.
Speaker 1:Well, because no one ever said in law school hey, Vince, you're a really cool guy, man. If you could just make it through this thing, you're going to be all right, and here's what you should do. Maybe you should do personal injury law.
Speaker 2:No, no, like I told you before, being a personal injury lawyer was seen as a badge of shame. It was oh, you're a goofball, you're probably going to be a personal injury lawyer. Yeah, now, there was that joke. That was you know, the um. The guys who get the A's work for the government, the people who get the B's get the corporate jobs, and then the C students become the personal injury lawyers and make all the money. And I guess what they meant was I wasn't in you, you got the job offer, but I didn't get the job offer. So I didn't get the golden hand. Get put in this large law firm and say, hey, here's $150,000 a year. And then they got you. You know so, because I didn't have that opportunity. Uh, it opened up doors, and it opened up doors to kind of do what you had to do. And what you have to do as a young lawyer starting a law firm is I didn't get clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the majority of folks, you know you're not gonna get called by an insurance company to come defend their you know their insureds. It's going to be, you know, your friend's cousin or your friend or your friend's sister. And that was my first client was my brother's friend called me. He said look, I know you're a lawyer. My sister got a DWI, can you help her? And I said, well, I know I've gotten a DWI. Uh, yeah, I can help you. I believe I'm comfortable with the system and I could do it.
Speaker 2:And that was a total lie. You know I had never been inside of a courtroom my entire life. Oh, I'm sorry, as a lawyer I'd been inside a courtroom as a defendant. I'd gotten a DWI back in law school. That's out in the open. But you know I've never represented someone and advocated for them in a court of law. But I knew the system enough and knew I could help them with that problem.
Speaker 2:And I had some older lawyers who said no, you can do this, this is what you got to do, this, this, this and this. Let me know about the procedural hurdles. And then you figure it out, and then you're kind of off to the races. Right, you figure it out, you help someone and it really is that one person gets you the next client. Or, while you're working on this case, someone else calls you because, again, they don't know what you do. They just know you're a lawyer and the majority of legal problems stem from people in their personal life, whether it's their car accident, whether they got arrested or their aunt got arrested, or they're getting divorced or someone died or there's a property dispute. I mean, that's where the legal problems come from.
Speaker 1:So when you started, just like me, you were taking all types of cases divorces, DWIs.
Speaker 2:Anything I thought I could figure out, I'd use my Barbary book had a basic outline of the law and I had other lawyers who would share other pleadings that had been drafted in the past. That would give you a guide, because a lot of it's this procedural just knowing what to file and when to file to move for divorce case, to move that divorce along. You got to file this and you have to file this and you got to file this and then you have to have enough background information about the law to explain to the client as to what's going on yeah, and you just figure it out the the actual.
Speaker 1:So we we have a. Once you pass the bar, you probably have somebody. A lawyer once told me you're going to know more about the law than you ever will for the rest of your career.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it's true, but you don't know. You don't get taught in law school how to actually practice law. The letters, the process, the procedure, the emails dealing with opposing lawyers yeah, what to do in court? You don't learn all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think they do a better job with that. Now I learn all of that stuff. Yeah, and I think you do a better job with that. Now I think there's more emphasis. There's clinics that the law schools do now that help give the students more practical experience. But no, you know, I took on a client and I walked in. I talked to that DA and he's like oh, blah, blah, blah, here's the, here's the discovery. Oh, by the way, your clients actually it's not a first offense DWI have charged more money.
Speaker 2:B. Now I'm scared because my client's facing jail time. So you don't learn about this stuff ahead of time. Or that case I told you about before when I helped somebody who was owed some wages. They had been terminated from employment but weren't paid for about three weeks of vacation. And I looked up the law and said no, I think you're entitled to this. And not only are you entitled to it, if they don't pay you, they got to pay three times what they owe you for penalties, right? So I just typed up this nice letter to this, to this business, and said my client was terminated on this date. You didn't pay her for her vacation time.
Speaker 2:And you know, two weeks later I get an email from like Adams and Reese you know large corporate firm in New Orleans, you know probably 300 lawyers and and they paid me. Game on, they paid my client every penny she was owed and, like I said before, they said do you want us to send a check to your parents? I was like, how did he know? Probably? Looked me up and realized that. But you know I didn't realize oh okay, this is transactional, you know you got, but I didn't know how to send an email to a lawyer. Then I realized it's more common sense than you think, but you just didn't know how the practice worked. A lot of things are resolved without litigation, thank God, and I tell people early on in my career, first five years.
Speaker 1:I don't think people realize how long it takes before you build some serious momentum as a lawyer. I mean those little checks. In the beginning they were everything. They kept you afloat. You thought that was more money than you ever seen in your life. But looking back you know it was a struggle. It was a dogfight for every penny that you earned and I was like why did it take so long? It's like man.
Speaker 1:I had to take on the tough cases that no other lawyer wanted to learn and to prove myself the toughest cases are, I mean?
Speaker 2:well, it doesn't make sense. The toughest cases are always the most difficult ones, and they're usually the ones that are worth less than you know, not worth a lot of money.
Speaker 1:The least, the least amount of money. There you go.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what to say there. But those are the toughest cases, the smaller personal injury cases with a lot of problems. They're worth the least amount of money. But you certainly learn in those tough cases to where the larger cases, the good cases, can be a lot easier. Or you're dealing with this domestic situation where A the client can't pay you a lot of money and there's a lot of problems with the case. It's really combative with the other party and you got to learn. You've signed on at this point you know, so you learn, and it was never worth the money. It was worth the knowledge, but the money is ancillary, but it was a I'm just thinking about this, vince.
Speaker 1:I know you've had this experience. You get a phone call from another lawyer in town. Hey, chaz Vincent, I got a great case for you, man. This lady came into my office and, uh, you know, she's got this old aluminum boat and she's having issues with it, right, it's like they, I know. So I could see them in their office talking to their, their client, and I got the guy for you yeah.
Speaker 1:And they have some things, some very difficult, uh, minutia, whatever type of case, and they're like I got just the guy rule Number one if a lawyer is calling you to give you a case, it's not a good case.
Speaker 2:I learned that early on, because if they could do it, if it wasn't outside their comfort zone or if it was worth a lot of money, they would take it, they figure it out.
Speaker 1:Look, there is a very tried and true rule If a lawyer is calling you about a case, it's not a good one.
Speaker 2:He wants to pass it on. He wants to help the clients. It's a former client but he wants to pass it on and I'm grateful for those cases because that client became my client in the future or they referred me business in the future. So I mean that is how you develop loyalty is by handling the cases Really. You're helping people that no one else will help or they don't want to help because they're too busy.
Speaker 2:Or lawyers get to a certain point where we have the luxury of turning down cases because we don't want to deal with the stress or it's not worth enough. There's always a younger person who will take that case and make something of it and yeah, they get the money, but they also get the client. Yeah, and then that's. From that client comes the next client. You know you and I've done similarly, have acted similarly. Where we don't really advertise other than social media, we're not on the billboards and nothing against anybody on the billboard. I think it's a tried and true business method. It's not my style. I don't believe it's your style. All of our work, all of our clients have come from the client before and they come from all sorts of places and sometimes it's the lawyer who won't take their case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's great cases because it's people that you've helped before friends of friends or friends of family and referral cases are the best. It's just inconsistent. You can't depend on it constantly because it's only the 10,000 people that Vince knows who can send them cases. Right, yeah, every client's a branch.
Speaker 2:Every client's a branch Branch on a tree and you just you know, and I always say I'm glad I got the client.
Speaker 1:Those billboards have to work, though, right, I guess they're spending millions on them.
Speaker 2:I wonder that and I don't. I guess it works because they haven't stopped. They haven't stopped doing it. But what I will say and I think it's those, you know, I'm happy to say this those billboards have probably given there's so many great personal injury lawyers out there and great personal injury lawyers who work for those firms who have billboards. So nothing against the billboards, but it's also probably given us a bad name. There's a lot of people have a lot of mixed opinions on what you call a billboard lawyer. But yeah, I guess it has to work.
Speaker 1:And the commercials are nonstop too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not helping the reputation of the profession.
Speaker 1:I think I've used social media I know you've done the same to try to kind of change the perception of lawyers that we're not just commercial guys, billboard guys, we take pride, we help people, we go above and beyond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try to help people. Look, I try to help people with anything that I can help them with. It just so happens that the majority of people's problems might stem from car accidents or getting injured on the job. But if I can help you with it, if I can handle that divorce, if I can handle that dispute even if it's something I really can't make money on if I can help you, if I can send a letter or if I could guide you through that little procedural process, that's what I want. The rewards will come after that. You may not make money on this one, You'll make money on the next one, and that's where the satisfaction comes. At the end of the day, you're helping a person, You're helping a person, and I think that's where you get job satisfaction. You have to have that too. You can't just make money, because at a certain point there's only so much money you can make, but you've got to feel good at night.
Speaker 1:Do you think that people that call billboards actually expect the person on the billboard to be working on their case?
Speaker 2:I think now people know that's not going to be the guy that I'm dealing with. For the most part, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's a big selling point for us. Why you want to call a Chaz Roberts or a Vince Scallon is hey, you called me, you got me, you got me, you got me. You're going to talk to me, maybe not every day, but you're going to talk to my staff. I'm the guy handling your case. You're going to get text messages from me, you're going to get text messages from my office and we're going to be in communication and that's the common thing. The common complaint Sometimes we do sign up clients that were signed up with billboard lawyers and that was the biggest complaint is I never talked to my lawyer never spoke and I spoke with the assistant.
Speaker 1:And an investigator showed up to house, signed up the paperwork and I never met with an actual lawyer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they go and they sign the paperwork. Like I said, there's so many great lawyers. Even those billboard law firms are fantastic and they have great lawyers who know their way around a personal injury case. But, like I said, anybody can work their personal injury case but you got to get the clients and if you can't provide that personal connection, you're going to lose them.
Speaker 1:And you're in New Orleans, so that's probably one of the toughest markets in the nation. I mean Atlanta, la, new York, chicago, new Orleans. I mean New Orleans has to be a top five.
Speaker 2:For advertising, for advertising as far as personal injury claims per capita, as far as lawyers per capita, I think New Orleans has to be up there. And, yeah, it's a wonder I have any clients at all, and there's really so many great lawyers down in the New Orleans area that you've never heard of, who are very successful, who get a lot of clients, and they just they don't advertise. I don't know where we get our clients from, but I have to imagine it's doing the same thing that you know that I've explained before is by helping people and building that trust and and they just come back. You know, and there's a lot of advertising lawyers and I always ask him you know, why don't? Why did you call that lawyer?
Speaker 1:Just out of curiosity, and I'm like I didn't know who to call and I'm like in this day and age, with all these lawyers, you don't have a lawyer you can call. So I guess there's a. There's a big uh maritime lawyer that told me in court one time he said you know how you run a successful personal injury. Uh, have wild success in a personal injury firm for 35 years. How do you do it, sir? You practice for 35 years right, that's it.
Speaker 1:So you just help so many people that you become the lawyer for their families and then they'll use you in the future. And it branches off and off and off.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen overnight. And I think the biggest problem is we've always a lot of lawyers do it in reverse they go and they work for another law firm for 10, 15 years and then decide I want to go out on my own. Well, someone like myself Chaz Roberts, he's like we started out on our own at the very beginning. So we have 15 years of gathering clients, of building a client base, of helping people, of helping people. But by helping people you're building a client base. We're 15 years ahead of the game. To where look? We get new cases every day, every other day. It's only because there's no amount of advertising that's going to get you to where I am after 10 or 15 years of doing this. I mean you might shorten that time period a little bit, because obviously it's name recognition, but nothing takes the place of that time in building the client base.
Speaker 1:Practically speaking, besides just being flooded with lawyers, what's the hardest part of actually practicing in New Orleans?
Speaker 2:Other than the city being saturated. I mean, look, new Orleans is a city and I love it, it's my home and I don't want to live anywhere else. But it has its problems, one of which crime has been known to be a problem from time to time in New Orleans. So the police don't have a lot of time to be investigating car accidents. You get in a wreck in New Orleans. You can wait three or four hours for a cop to come out and issue a report. And the police report is so important because it has all the information about the accident, the each party's story, the insurance information.
Speaker 2:What happened, you know, and usually people don't lie when they speak to the police. You, what happened, you know, and usually people don't lie when they speak to the police. You don't get a police report. Then you go home and an insurance company calls them. They tend to change their story. So the police report is just such a valuable piece of information to have and when the cops don't come out you're kind of forced to do your own police work.
Speaker 2:You have to gather your own evidence, take your own pictures. You really can't get a. You know someone hits you in the back. You try to put your phone in their face and have them give a statement. They're going to tell you to pound sand, you know. So you're not getting statements from them. You know it becomes a lot more difficult to prove your case and to gather the required evidence, and you don't even know what insurance carrier they have. You're even more lost on what to do. So New Orleans has had that problem with police response. Jefferson Parish is very good. The state police are very good. They come out and they do a thorough investigation. New Orleans they, you know. I had my car broken into in New Orleans down the street from the police department and I waited three hours for a cop to come down and investigate. So they're busy. They have other fish to fry.
Speaker 1:So what's your advice to someone that's involved in a wreck and the cops either don't come out or it's going to be through four hours. What's your advice to those people?
Speaker 2:Take pictures, get the other person's insurance information, maybe a picture of their license, take a picture of where their vehicles are and immediately follow the accident. If you can, if you're not too hurt to do so. You have to be your own investigator. You have to document your case and do your own work. And you look around while there are cameras around there in the adjacent business. Can I go in there and get a copy of it or record it on my phone? You just have to do your own legwork. So you've got to gather your own evidence and sometimes, if you're too badly injured and you need an ambulance, you can't do that. But if you're at all capable, take pictures, do the investigation, get the insurance information and put yourself in a place to where, when you do contact the insurance company or the lawyer which is what you should do you can prove what happened.
Speaker 1:You prove there was an actual collision.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully the property damage is there to where you know there's a collision. But it's that the quicker you gather the evidence it doesn't disappear and then it's difficult. It's a lot easier for people not to change their story. You know, when you have all that information at first.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure you've had some cases where you didn't have all that evidence and no police report and the client maybe didn't do a good job of taking pictures. Is that a dogfight from that point?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing we do is you know you can look at property damage photographs and kind of have an idea. If someone got rear-ended, you know they got rear-ended because the damage is in the back of the car. But sometimes we have to. I got to call a private investigator who has to run the person's license plate and get their insurance information, which takes some time right. So, yeah, love a rear-end collision, but sometimes it's a red light, green light dispute. I had the red light, I had the green light, I was at the stop sign first, and so it's their word against yours and the insurance companies. If there's no police report, it's probably going to side with their insured as to what they say.
Speaker 1:We believe our insured.
Speaker 2:We believe our insured. We believe our insured, we believe our insured, we believe our insured. He came over into my lane but you don't know that the house in the corner had a ring camera, or the convenience store right there had a camera that caught everything. You got to go and gather the evidence, the proof. Do you recommend dash cams? Absolutely, I mean. And they're so cheap now, a hundred bucks. Yeah, I recommend a dash cam because why not? It shows exactly what happened. You know, it's like police body cameras. Why would you not want to have that? It keeps everybody honest, you know, and it's cheap enough and they don't look not going to make your car look bad, they're hardly noticeable. I'll definitely recommend a dash cam. It's, that's a no brainer.
Speaker 1:Do you have I know you and I have complained about this uh, people going to the emergency room versus urgent care. Do you have an opinion on emergency rooms?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you don't have a bone sticking out of your skin, there's very little an emergency room is going to do for you. You know, I mean they're there to see if there's anything that's an emergency that needs immediate attention, but otherwise they're going to send you home. But in the process they're going to do a CAT scan and about three or four different x-rays and they're going to charge about $3,000. And they're not going to build your health insurance if you have it. They're going to build the third-party insurance claim, which means you're already behind the eight ball with a $3,000 bill, just for someone to say you don't have a broken bone.
Speaker 1:You're being generous on the $3,000.
Speaker 2:It. It could be three to five, it could be 10. University Hospital have gotten $10,000 bills. It's insane. As opposed to that, when Medicaid steps in and pays, they might get paid about 400 bucks. And look, the hospitals, sadly, are just as much to blame in the rising cost of insurance, the rising cost of these claims, because I have a client who's injured and maybe was injured for six months, but on top of that I got a $6,000 hospital bill and they didn't do anything. All they did was, hey, take an x-ray, a few x-rays. Every x-ray costs $1,200. That's not an exact figure, but that's really what adds up Any diagnostic test they can perform. It's not a thousand bucks and so naturally we need more money from the insurance company to so we've got to pay the hospital.
Speaker 1:But what's the problem? What's the problem? We need more money from the insurance company. There's a big problem with that is the policy limits.
Speaker 2:Well, the policy limits and the policy limits. In Louisiana, the state minimum, as we know, have been $15.30 since I've been practicing law, so we all know that a dollar 15 years ago is a lot more than a dollar today. So naturally a $15,000 minimum policy doesn't go very far. The medical bills are more expensive. Hey, I mean, guess what? I'm the lawyer. My lawyer bills are more expensive. I need more money to live, so there's less money to actually compensate clients for their injuries because insurance limits haven't gone up, yeah, you know. So everything's more expensive, but the insurance stayed the same as far as what they can pay for your injuries.
Speaker 1:I say the way I look at emergency rooms is you kind of know you need it, you know it when you need it, right. So like blunt force trauma, uh, an emergency room is there to plug holes right broken bone bleeding, you think there's some trauma, maybe even a concussion, you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't have a uh, you need to get in an ambulance because you're so uh, hurt or injured. Go to emergency room by all means, but if you can walk away, if you're able to take pictures and videos, you're able to walk away. Have someone bring you to an urgent care clinic. It's going to be $400 versus $5,000, $6,000. And I have not had a single case and you tell me if I'm wrong where somebody where an insurance adjuster or a defense lawyer said your client only went to the urgent care instead of emergency room. They must have not been that hurt.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't had that yet. And what people don't understand is that just because you can walk doesn't mean you're not hurt. This means you don't need emergency treatment. You don't even have to go to the urgent care. You can be in pain and just tough it out the next day so you can consult with your primary care physician or physical therapist, a chiropractor, an orthopedic. Don't feel like you have to go to the hospital, or they're not going to, they're not going to believe you were injured. You know you don't need to go to the emergency room. Only go to the emergency room if you need it. You know and you have to be your best judge there.
Speaker 1:I have an interesting thing. That phenomenon that I've seen over the last couple of years is that people actually go to emergency room more than once. Yeah, go to the emergency room one the day of the wreck and they'll go two or three days later because they're still in pain, because they don't understand that there are other options other than the emergency room, and they're used to maybe going to emergency room as a primary care yeah, and people use the emergency room as a primary care physician and that's, and you know, maybe because they're on medicaid and they just consider that to be free.
Speaker 2:But it's not free. Free, especially when you're in a car accident. They're going to bill you. They're going to bill you.
Speaker 1:They're not stupid. They look at it and say, oh, what led to this injury? A car accident Interesting Great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait until we get a letter from a lawyer's office. We're going to just lean that case and they're going to pay us.
Speaker 1:You know, when party insurance pays, like I said, it's five, six, seven, it's they use that to subsidize other losses in their, in their facility. Look, I, I've like the er physicians. So it's not just emergency room, it's an er physician bill, maybe a radiology bill, it might be four bills it's a facility fee, and then there's the physician's fee and there's separate entities how about the ambulance?
Speaker 2:2,000, 2,500 yeah, man, if you, if you can go to the hospital yourself, have somebody give you a ride I have a.
Speaker 1:I have a an idea for a social media post. It's gonna be lafayette to paris, uh. Fifteen hundred dollars, uh, a three mile ride from pinhook to oshner two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:Two thousand dollars, yeah, god right, that's a great way to put it it's the most expensive uber in the world. All right, yeah I mean again, if you need it.
Speaker 1:You're bleeding from your head, that's by all means go you need to turn that down because uh but you don't need it to prove that you're injured, was your point?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, yeah, you can. Like I said, you can walk away and still be hurt. I mean, people walk around in pain all day, every day. Still got to get up and go to work. They still got to. You know, you don't? Yeah, you don't need to prove your injuries as a misconception. You can go to the doctor later on.
Speaker 1:And look, the second part of that is and your other point, which is a very valid point, is okay you don't need to have missing a limb to be considered hurt either right.
Speaker 2:What I tell clients is are you in any pain that you didn't have before? Okay, well, that pain was caused by this accident, so that's an injury. Pain is an injury. I didn't have it before and now I have it. My life sucks right now because I'm in this pain that I didn't have before, and it wasn't even my fault. Somebody was texting and driving and ran to the back of me. You know, I mean we're brought up now to, oh, tough it out, tough it out. Oh, I'm not injured. Well, you're not injured because you don't have a bone sticking out of your body. But you know you're in pain. Yeah, and that's no fun. And look, it's not really an injury unless you're in pain or see it. I mean, are you even really injured?
Speaker 1:I just think. I think of the crick in the neck right. Have you ever woken up with a crick in your neck? It just ruins your whole day, right? You can't turn when you're trying to drive. You can't work. Your mind is fixated on that crick in your neck a lot. So that's like an injury that our clients suffer every day.
Speaker 2:The neck and back injuries, except if you're cricking their neck for six months.
Speaker 1:Or two years.
Speaker 2:You can't work out, you can't play with your kids.
Speaker 1:You have less joy in your life. You can't fully be present and enjoy the moment.
Speaker 2:Loss of enjoyment of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it Well. And what people don't understand too is like okay, so I've been in bed for a month and I've taken ibuprofen and heating pads and ice pads. If you don't have documentation from some type of medical professional, the insurance company will say yes, mrs Smith, I'm sorry to hear that you were in bed for a month. You have no case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sadly, if you don't have a piece of paper saying that you were hurt, you could say I've been in bed for the last month. I couldn't get out of bed, I've been in so much pain. Insurance company will not pay you a penny. Without a piece of paper that says this person reported an injury to me, it could be the urgent care. Hey, look, it says he has neck pain. But if you have nothing and I tell clients all the time if you didn't go to the doctor, then I can't prove your injury and you have no case. And sometimes people wait two or three months because they thought the pain would go away and sadly at that point then the causation becomes a little tenuous and you still have a lot of difficulty proving that to the insurance company. So no, man, I mean, unfortunately we have the burden of proof, right, we have to prove injuries and I've yet to see a case where somebody has gotten up there with no medical records and just said I've been hurt for six months.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It'll probably get thrown out. It'll get thrown out, it's having no damages. So there is look, there is some truth to going to maybe not the ER if you don't need it, but going to a doctor just to document the fact that you're injured, just to document it If you had that documentation and the pain continues months down the road then you can go back, but you want it as close to the wreck as possible.
Speaker 1:You really don't want to wait more than six weeks, six weeks is kind of my number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean six weeks. I mean I've gone as if the client's credible and they've never been hurt before. I've gone as high as maybe two months or more because it's like, look, you're credible, they're going to believe that you were injured and you've never been hurt before, so you can't blame it on a prior injury. You know that's a big problem we have too is that people have been hurt more than once and it hurts them when they get another accident. But in all actuality, they're probably more susceptible to injury because they were hurt in a prior accident. Right, but the insurance company will use that against them. Well, you were hurt two years ago. Your neck was hurting. How do we know this pain was caused by this accident? But it's like, hey, yeah, I had a herniated disc two years ago. It hasn't gotten better with age, and now I get another car accident. It's worse.
Speaker 1:Eggshell plaintiff. The eggshell rule. Yeah, I tell people that all the time. That's one of the examples where laws can be favorable to an injured plaintiff. We have some decent laws in Louisiana that can protect injured plaintiffs though those laws. To ask you, is that all right?
Speaker 1:so you have a filing cabinet full of injured people and they're dealing with billion-dollar insurance companies who are holding the purse strings and discrediting them constantly or maybe even re-victimizing them through a defense lawyer where they have to give a deposition, and all these see an IME doctor and all this stuff. That's a lot of stress, that puts a lot of strain and it's very difficult. Do you ever experience compassion fatigue?
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I mean every I've said this before is that every case that I deal with, that's the most important thing in that person's life. For me, as much as I care, we do have a few clients now, so it's hard. Everything you're dealing with is the most important thing in that person's life. It's a very similar argument. Every time I'm in pain, I hurt, I can't go to work and you're dealing with it all the time, 24-7. So, yeah, there's compassion fatigue. You know the things that used to bother you before don't bother you as much now. You know it's like if you're a doctor and you're used to seeing dead people, you know I mean, the first time I saw a dead body it freaked me out.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you see it more and more, more. You just you get used to it and yeah, I mean so. Compassion, fatigue is a combination of. I've seen it before so it doesn't move me the same way and just a combination of maybe just being tired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dealing with it all the time. Dealing with it, you know, um, it's tough, it's really tough. It's being grateful that we are given that responsibility to help people in their time of need and in the most important thing in their life. I think gratitude is what helps me and, uh, I do some mindful exercises. I'm I'm getting to the point where you got into yoga yeah, okay, well, we had to mention that yeah how?
Speaker 1:what made? So I recently went to this great yoga clinic that's right near my office, ascend Wellness, and I felt very welcomed. And I get in there, take my shoes off, get on a mat and I do these breathing exercises and stretches and there's sound baths and everything. I felt like a million bucks and I hit you up right away. I was like dude. I understand the yoga thing.
Speaker 2:How did you get into it? Well, first it was more, it was another avenue of fitness, doing something else that I heard. It was a good workout and I had a friend at the time who was very into it and so she convinced me to go and it was just an experience. I wanted to get a workout. You know, I know it was hot and it was hot yoga and I knew it'd be a good workout. But I and I enjoyed it so much. You know, I sweat buckets and I felt good afterwards and that was just the physical part.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm by no means a yogi, a yoga expert, but we all think of yoga as the stretching. You know the stretching that you do, and even that is great. You know, the sweating and the stretching, that's fantastic. But that really is only a small part of what yoga is. You know, as the more and more I did it, I realized, you know, the stretching is a way to kind of stay present and stay focused on this one thing. So it's all about, you know, mindfulness and presence and and and staying focused on that pose. You know, while you're. You know, while you're there and focusing your gaze and you're and focusing and concentrating on your breathing. So it's just a way of practicing mindfulness and you know so the physical part is one thing, but it really got me into it more and as.
Speaker 2:I the more I did. It was right. The meditation practice and just the, the mindfulness practice, you know, being present on your mat at that for that hour and not in a way shutting out the outside world, only focusing on what's in front of you. That was what really made it a whole different situation for me?
Speaker 1:Well, because that's the only time we could truly unplug, right. Sure, because I've been at the beach with my kids and I'm thinking about cases.
Speaker 2:You're not unplugged.
Speaker 1:I've been on long runs. I'm checking my phone Because we're constantly getting stimulus right from our clients need something, or a defense lawyer is trying to put a stick of dynamite in our case with this nice lady that we've come to know and love and it's really tough to just disconnect completely and our brains need that, right, I mean. I think Jerry Seinfeld the other day said look at a bed. You think your brain is resting when you're in bed. Look at your bed when you wake up. Does that look like peaceful to you? With your sheets and your pillows, everything disarray. Uh, meditation, yoga is it? Is it truly a time where you can be doing something and get your brain focused on something else?
Speaker 2:I'm giving your brain a rest, you know, uh, just trying not to think at all, you know which is impossible, but it's, you know, the more you try to focus on just your breath, you're not thinking about the 10 different things you got going on. So it's a practice and all I can say is I don't quite understand it. But after I meditate for 10, 15 minutes in the morning, I'm calm, it's the most calm I am all day. And then we get to the office and, you know, things get crazy, you know, and then.
Speaker 2:So, if you can do that and you can, yoga is essentially meditating, but with a physical, you know, I'm sorry, the physical yoga is. It's like meditating, but it's a physical component as well. So you get your fitness in, uh, and uh, I still feel rested and rejuvenated, uh, at the end. So you know I'm a big fan. I mean, there's a lot of yoga schools out there and I'm not going to begin to be an expert on it. I went down the rabbit hole for a little bit and actually did a 200-hour teacher training class, which is one of the benefits I have Not being married, not having kids I can dedicate 200 hours just on the pursuit of yoga. So that's again going back to the balance that you have when you don't have those obligations.
Speaker 1:Well, I've put 200 hours into Little League sports.
Speaker 2:There you go. You've probably been an expert at that.
Speaker 1:I've been coaching and following and we're coaching Little League right now. So today, at 530, I will be in the sun for two hours coaching kids. I'm sure there's a lot of reward with that right. It's amazing. It's amazing, it's amazing. I loved playing sports when I was younger and to see my son play and excel and me being able to be part of that coaching coaching other kids, building other kids up, instilling values in them Coaches were a huge part of my life growing up especially my dad not always around.
Speaker 2:I looked to these other men as role models. I know about your football coach. Shout out to coach.
Speaker 1:Uter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely no. I mean, you know, it's a lot of look, a lot of the reward that what we do as lawyers is. We get a lot of appreciation from our clients and that's the ultimate reward. So I imagine coaching Little League, it's like that on a different level, right? You are this prominent figure in that kid's life and you get to see them improve over the course of the year and I'm sure you get a lot of satisfaction out of that. That's awesome, I mean.
Speaker 1:And you also play golf.
Speaker 2:I try to play golf. I've always tried to play golf about the last eight, nine years. It's very hard to get better play golf. I've always tried to play golf about the last eight, nine years. It's very hard to get better at golf, but you know, if you're breaking it down it's a great opportunity to get outside for three or four hours at a time. It is a you know it's an endless pursuit. You know if you don't practice you're going to get worse. It's so hard. You know it's just a great hobby, you know. But you know it's just a great. It's a great hobby, you know.
Speaker 1:but uh, you know, you really need golfing to be a full-time jobs and I can't do that. Yeah, um, I've, I've, I've rose quickly in golf.
Speaker 2:Like I went from.
Speaker 1:I went from being terrible to being decent, and I've, and I was like oh this is easy, man.
Speaker 2:I might be a pro golfer one day.
Speaker 1:And then I've just been okay, slash decent, you know, for the last four or five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean golf. I always say golf gives you everything that you need. You know the high, highs, and it gives you those low, lows and then the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Golf gives it all to you. You know, and right. When you think you know you've conquered it, then you hit a ball in the woods and your score is ruined and it just gives you everything that you need man.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you're out there and it's like you've never swung a golf club before, and then sometimes you don't swing a golf club for three months and you go out there and it's easy.
Speaker 2:I mean it's hard to describe the uh, the bliss that I uh received when I hit a pure golf shot, you know. And then I'm happy, I'm in a good mood and I'm patting my buddies on the back and it's great, it's elation, you know. But just as happy as I can get, I can get really mad and I'll slam my clubs on the ground and be unhappy and cursing and yelling. So golf's an amazing game.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing about being single is you've gotten to go to way more cool golf courses than I have.
Speaker 2:I have. I've had the freedom of time to for somebody who's such a bad golfer. I've played all over the country and around the world. I've played in Ireland, obviously. I've played in Mexico and Punta Cana, but Pebble Beach in California is my favorite place. I've played at a lot of US Open courses. For a guy who would probably shoot about 120 at the US Open, if that so you know, for somebody who's a high handicapper, I've played a lot of great courses around the country. Probably, you know, every month or two you see a course on the PGA Tour and I've played it, but you know, not from that far back. But yeah, again, that's the tradeoff, right, you maybe don't have the reward of a beautiful family and kids now, but you do other things.
Speaker 1:So I'm grateful for that. Do you ever get out on a course and you're like are you self-conscious, Like I have no business being out here, yeah? Or do you say I paid my fee, hey, move out of the way, yeah if I'm not playing well, of course.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, but that's a part of the ego too. Lately I've gotten better at accepting the fact that golf is hard. Some days I'm going to play well and some days I'm not going to play well. Some days I do not want to be there. But it's frustrating, man, I've been playing this for eight years. How am I still this bad? Know, it's a blessing to be able to spend that money and go play these fancy courses. You know a lot of folks don't get to do that, so grateful for that One thing interesting.
Speaker 1:Getting back to law, one thing interesting that you do occasionally is like all right, you're a 99 percent, 100 percent personal injury lawyer, You'll take on a random divorce or DWI. You said something like man, I just want to just keep my skills sharp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, a lawyer tell me it keeps my tools sharp. It's hard to turn. I've made a career out of helping people with a lot of different things and I feel bad when I can't help them with something, not just because I might lose a potential client or business. I just, you know, I like the feeling of being able to help someone with a problem, you know. And so every now and then it's a former client, or if I think it's a matter that I can handle, like a divorce, I'll take it, and you know, sadly. Look, we are in a world now where almost every lawyer is in a specialty. We can't call it a specialty. I think you maybe can in domestic work, but we can't say I'm a personal injury specialist, I'm just a lawyer. So, but it really is. You're forced to specialize because you know you don't again talk about practice. We didn't learn how to practice law in law school.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I spent so much time dedicated to this personal injury practice. The domestic practice is different. You know the dealings and how often you go to court and the players and the players right.
Speaker 1:The judges, the judges, the lawyers.
Speaker 2:You know how it's done. You know how the judges, what the tendencies are, what they're going to do. A lot of time you know there's been shifts in, uh, from in domestic work, from child custody, for example. You know, 20 years ago it was, you know, kids with the dad on the weekends and mom during the week. You know, kids with the dad on the weekends and mom during the week. Now they shift. Then they shifted to a week on, week off and they shifted. Now it's like a two, three, two custody situations. They're always you know. So you don't know, I can't give the client the best advice on what the judge is going to do because I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm not in that world.
Speaker 2:I'm not in that and I have to freshen up on.
Speaker 1:So the way I describe it is like think about a machine shop. That machine could make any part in the world, but we make this widget and to stop that machine and retool and recalibrate and reconfigure and train the guy on it is just too much work. We'd rather just keep on making those widgets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can become better and more efficient at it, um, but I do struggle with that. I mean, I like I always want to take on domestic cases because it's another way to access people and everyone. Sadly, a lot of us have domestic issues. You know, divorce is prevalent, child custody is prevalent, um, but I always I gotta get away from that, you know yeah, well, so I have.
Speaker 1:I've done probably 1500 dwis in my career. I was with the public defense office five years, not to mention. I was a big part of my private practice and the way I describe it is I was like there's a doctor in town, he does the best boob jobs. Yeah, okay, so people go into his office, pay, pay him cash, money and he does the best boob jobs. But he has this special training where he's like the best hand guy in town. So he gets called at midnight to go in and fix these manly hands on Medicaid where he's making no money but he's so good at doing the hands that he still keeps that. It's his gift to the world, it's generosity, right. And so it's like every once in a while when somebody calls me for a DWI, owi, I'm like damn dude, this is my. I got to be generous right here. I know I'm going to lose money on it.
Speaker 1:I know it's not worth my time, but I have that training and expertise. I want to help this guy.
Speaker 2:You're good at it? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it makes no financial sense.
Speaker 2:Sadly, look. At the end of the day, as noble as we want to sound, the practice of law is a business. You know we do this to feed our families and to feed ourselves. You know number one, and you know so it can't. You can't just go out and save the world and help everybody with everything. You have to make money. But when you get to a point to where you've made some money and maybe it's time to go back to some of those passion projects, you know so you can do some good and get some joy and some purpose, some satisfaction out of what you do.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why I try to take on some of these cases that I'm not as experienced with, because I just get a different sense of satisfaction out of it. You know, I mean, we always have to work. People ask me all the time do you like being a lawyer? I say, well, I'd rather not work at all, and that's true. I mean, if I could, I love what I do, but I do have to work. If I didn't have to work, I don't know that I'd practice law. If I did, it would only be project cases, it would only be stuff I wanted to do. It's a job like everything else. You've got to find some joy in your job. Most of us aren't going to have the luxury of being able to stop working. You better find some satisfaction in it, find some joy in it.
Speaker 1:I find joy. I get more joy out of handing a client life-changing money than I don't even look at the check when it goes in the bank account. Right, because that money we owe Uncle Sam, we got overhead, we got to pay people. It's really not about us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't feel any more rewarded on a large case versus a smaller case because, yeah, it's income for me and that's fantastic. But the feeling that never gets old is helping a person. And say what you will about personal injury and personal injury lawyers, by the end of the day we are putting money. At least we're helping a person. I'm not going to get satisfaction out of saving a corporation a hundred thousand dollars, but putting a hundred thousand dollars in an injured person's hand, I mean what a reward. And they're so appreciative. You know that's, that's part of it. You want to feel appreciated in what you do.
Speaker 1:And we'll, and we'll wave the flag and wear the shirt. Man, I mean, that's just, it's an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2:I'm a personal injury lawyer. I'm proud to be a personal injury lawyer. It was a badge of, it was a scarlet letter in law school. But I would venture to say a lot of the folks who tried to joke with me and say I was going to be a personal injury lawyer wish they had gone down that road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you've done a good job of making it look cool, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you as well, man, we can still be cool and not use a billboard.
Speaker 1:Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you and I used to talk about it. I was thinking I'd be retired by 45, but you know, inflation's gone up. I don't think I'll have that kind of money. But you know, look, I think it's to work for some time. I'm going to keep practicing law. I would actually probably want to hire a few more lawyers and be able to focus more on larger cases or passion projects. So, balancing that business side and making money with joy You've got to find joy in what you do. So, no, I'll still be practicing law.
Speaker 2:In five years and as long as I'm able to continue to help people, that's going to be my satisfaction. That's my biggest gift to the world, right? I think I can be relatable. Like I said, you can get along with the CEOs and the guys sweeping the floor, and I found a job where I'm able to relate to folks on all levels, not just the clients. You know opposing counsel, judges, you know insurance adjusters, you know you're doctors You're talking to. You have to talk to and be relatable to all different types of people. So I don't know what else I could be doing. Uh, where I get that much satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you'd be a terrible insurance.
Speaker 2:I would. I don't think I could sell it. I'd be a terrible doctor. I don't like to see blood and stuff like that, you know. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Vince, keep killing it, man. Thank you for being on. Mean the world to me if you subscribe to the podcast and leave us a five-star review. It helps keep the show free and it helps us book better guests to provide more valuable content to you. None of the opinions expressed by my guests are that of my own and nothing we talked about creates an attorney-client relationship or could be construed as legal advice. Hope you enjoy the show. This podcast is powered by Acadiana Cast Network. Go to AcadianaCastcom for more South Louisiana-sourced content.
