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!
Insurance Myths & the Billion-Dollar Game with Personal Injury Attorney Chaz Roberts
Think your insurance company is rooting for you? We peel back the curtain on how claims really work, why “on your side” is a slogan—not a strategy—and the simple steps that protect your health, time, and final payout. From quick lowball checks to cleverly inconvenient call times, we map the tactics carriers use and show you how to shift the leverage back in your favor.
We also clear up a fear that keeps people from getting help: most personal injury cases never reach a jury. We talk through why settlements dominate, the true cost and risk of trial, and how the prescriptive period (statute of limitations) in Louisiana recently extended from one to two years for auto cases—giving more room to treat, document, and negotiate before filing. The punchline: a strong settlement is built on quiet months of evidence, not courtroom theatrics.
And if you’re wondering whether a regular person can stand up to a billion-dollar company, the answer is yes. The civil justice system levels the field by pairing preparation with the credible option of trial—a pressure that pushes fair deals without forcing spectacle. Between legal insights, we share the rhythm of marathon training, Sunday run camaraderie, and how consistent habits outside the office shape calm, smart choices when the stakes are high.
If you found this helpful, follow Law Have Mercy, hit subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and drop a review to tell us which myth surprised you most. Share this with a friend who needs clarity before they call an adjuster.
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If you are in need of legal guidance, visit our website: https://www.chazrobertslaw.com/
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 guys, welcome back to Law Have Mercy. I'm by myself on this one. We're going to talk about a few topics that I'm very passionate about, and it's common misconceptions when it comes to the law, common misconceptions when it comes to personal injury. And I'm looking forward to discussing some of these things because I I like to call myself the myth buster. I'm always breaking myths. A lot of things that are told in the streets, quote unquote, or sometimes I like to call them jailhouse lawyers. They put out bad information, and it's my duty to correct some of those things and educate you because you know I love educating. Um before we get into that, a little bit about what's going on in my world. I'm training for the Marine Corps Marathon. That is in Washington, D.C. Uh I don't know how I keep getting lucky getting these people that I know that offer me passes. The Marine Corps Marathon is one of the biggest. Uh it's well over 50,000 people. It's not one of the uh gold star marathons, but it's right up there. Um, so I'm looking forward to it. My kids are coming, my wife's coming, and we're gonna tour DC. They've never been in DC before. We're gonna see the monuments, maybe check out some museums. Uh, I tried to get into the White House, it's currently under construction right now, so I couldn't, but we're gonna check out the Capitol. Luckily, my brother's girlfriend is uh connected through state government, so we were able to get a tour of the Capitol. So we're really looking forward to that. I love traveling, the kids love traveling. Uh this week, Jake was telling me all the places he's been, and I think we counted 13 times he's been on a plane. And um I said, well, that's very cool, Jake. I'm I'm super pumped up that we're that blessed. I think when I was your age, I had gone to I had flown on a plane once, and I was to uh let's see, where I was Midland, Texas. My my uncle was uh was in Midland and my grandparents. I was it's it's a super long drive, and I was like, hey, I want to ride in a plane. I'm like 10 years old. They're like, let's make it happen. And so Jake has been to New York a couple times. I say Jake, Jake and Luke have been in New York a couple times, California a couple times, Colorado. Um, we went various places with my marathons, and so I'm pumped up, man. This is my eighth marathon, believe it or not. I was trying, I thought I was around four. I started counting them. I'm at eight. And I am not a runner. I am I guess I am a runner now because I I'm because I run, but this was never the plan. I was always a guy who would go into the weight room, play around with some weights, and drink a lot of beer and get a fat face, but have a little muscle under the fat. I mean, that was my that was my deal. But right when I hit 30, I started running a little bit more. And then when I hit, I guess, 35, that was right around COVID. I started taking running seriously. As you know, I reached out to some friends of mine who had run a marathon and they were so kind. That was Jed and Israel. They let me join their Sunday run group. And I've pretty much run every Sunday since, probably in the last five years. I could probably count on two hands, one hand, maybe two hands, how many times I've missed a long run on the weekend. My Sunday routine is goaded, goaded. We we meet at 5 or 6 a.m., depending on how much how many miles at Reds, and we run all around Lafayette, and we have little water stations that we that we hit, and then after the run, you got the runners high, and it's beautiful. The sun's coming up, it's just a beautiful morning. We sit on the back of a tailgate, BS it a little bit, and then we go into Reds, do the cold plunged for recovery, then we'll do maybe a hot tub, and then we'll have breakfast. And we get the same breakfast every time. We get a couple cups of water, and we get sausage, egg, and cheese croissant, and I usually get an egg, cheese, and onion omelet. I like to be a little lighter. I don't want all the carbs, but sometimes when I'm on a long run, I get the croissant. And the key is this is this is this is insider information. You put sriracha, sriracha sauce on it, and you put honey on it. And it's the sweet heat. I'm telling you, don't doubt it. And look, my guys, like we got we got two Mexicans in the pack in the in the in the Wolfpack Running Club, Angel and Kevin. You know Kevin from being on the podcast, and he's also a lawyer with our office. They do mayo and salsa on their croissant, and it is delicious. Creamy, hot, is delicious. And of course, Christian runs with us, Logan, who I've been lifelong friends with, and uh Christian Williford I've been friends with for a long time. And um, we'll have random guests like Chris or you know, my old my old group, Jed and Iz, will drop in time to time, but it really is special. I mean, and it's guilt-free. We're running around the city when everyone's sleeping, there's no traffic, and my kids are sleeping, my wife's sleeping. It's it's really guy time, it's camaraderie. It's doing something positive. We're talking about business, we're talking about things going on in our lives, like a like a nice coffee. I don't want to say date, but a coffee meeting or a lunch meeting, but we're working out at the same time. So we're killing so many birds with one stone. It's it's a joy. When I don't do it, something's missing in my life. And so we get camaraderie and business talk and just family talk. These are all family guys that love their families and are they're good people. And then we, you know, we break bread together after. And it's Kevin joined us about, I guess, about a year ago once he started here. And he goes, he showers after and goes to church with his family. We all go home with a smile on our face. And Kevin's like, man, when I don't do it, something's missing in my life. And so that's been a really cool thing. And um for a marathon runner, quote unquote, that's very little training. I just do Sunday runs and I do two or three miles a couple days a week and I uh I lift weights. When I used to not lift weights because I was running so much I didn't want to get my legs real sore, I lost too much weight. I was too skinny. I didn't like the look. My face was real gaunt. Um, I didn't look good and close. So now I've incorporated weights with that, and I don't put a ton of miles during the week, and that really saves my knees and ankles. You know, I've been watching a lot of TikTok videos where they say running's bad, doctors are saying running's bad. It's like, man, I'm 41 years old and I'm in great shape. I've kept my belly down. I'm I can I can run. Yesterday I forgot I was coaching soccer practice, I forgot the cones in the car. I just instinctively took off on a sprint and ran to the car and got the cones. So um that was probably four or five hundred yards, two and there and back, and I don't I wasn't breaking the sweat. You look around, a lot of guys can't walk, you know, they're huffing and puffing when they're walking, much less running. And so I'll take any downside long term with knees and ankles or whatever to have the quality of life that I have now. And so this is yet again another endorsement for running or some type of aerobic activity in your life, whether it's biking or swimming, you should really consider it. It's been uh an amazing thing for me. But that's not why you're here. Um, you're here to learn about misconceptions, and I think the first misconception that I want to bring up is people think that because they have insurance, that the insurance company is on their side. I get in a wreck, I got insurance, I'm good. Well, you have to realize that the insurance company is a business. It is big business, it's a billion-dollar business. Okay. They expect that every they're gonna collect premiums by law, by the way. It's one talk about an oligopoly. It's a you are required by law to have insurance, and only certain insurance companies can write insurance in the state. I think Louisiana has like 12 of them, right? So you got an oligopoly, like a monopoly, but many, uh a handful of monopolies. You assume that when you get an erect, they're just gonna cut you a check and say, oh, here, Mr. Chaz, here's your here's a check for your property damage. Oh, there's some damage that we didn't see. Here's another check. Oh, by the way, your rental, here you go. And oh, you're injured, just send me your medical bills, I take care of it. And here's a check just for your pain and suffering. That's not how they work. It's not how they work. If they're handing you a check, is because they think that you probably have a bigger case where they could offer you less money now to get them off the books and off the liability for later. That's what it's about. They're a business. Warren Buffett, who is one of the greatest, you know, one of the richest people in the world, but also one of the greatest uh investors of our time, probably the greatest investor of our time, owns several insurance companies. Berkshire Hathaway is an insurance company. Geico, he has a huge share in Geico, right? Because it they make money. And the way they make money is they collect premiums from everyone and they pay the least amount possible. They pay the least amount possible. If they were just giving money away for everyone that made a claim, they wouldn't make money. And so they're stingy with it. And so they're gonna hold on to those purse strings really tight. And so what do you do if if you're a if you're a mechanic or you're a teacher or you're even a doctor, you don't have time to fool with that. You know, you and you're you're out of your element. You don't deal with insurance companies every single day. So, you know, they're gonna play phone tag with you, they're gonna call you at lunch, they're gonna call you after hours when you're at the soccer game. There's little tactics that they've been trained to do to really annoy you and to make it inconvenient to get their money. You know, I I remember the saying uh never chase people to pay them. Never chase people to give them your money, right? And so insurance companies aren't gonna chase you to give you their money. In fact, they're gonna make it hard for you to get that money. So the first misconception is insurance is not on your side. Just because you have insurance, that's a good thing. That's required by law. I want you to have as much as much insurance as possible because that's Kevin says that's like a line of credit. That's the amount of money that we can go after. Um, but they're not just gonna give it to you. So they're really not on your side, despite what the I'm on your side commercials say, they're not on your side. They're gonna make it really hard. I don't care if it's a house uh from a storm that's damaged, I don't care if a house burns down, a car wreck, uh any anything, they're gonna make it hard for you. The second misconception that I can talk about is that people think that everything goes to trial, right? And so I don't want to hire a lawyer because I don't want to deal with all that. I don't want to go to trial. Very, very, very few cases go to trial. I think in Louisiana, which is a big state. Oh, I wouldn't say a big state, but it's five million people, probably. Is that late? Look that up, Laith. Um, I'm embarrassed if I get that wrong. Um as a kid, it was always 4.6. Okay, it was always in the four point somethings when I was in school. Uh 4.5, 4.6. That's what it was about. Okay, it's 4.6 million people. There was only like 150 jury trials, civil jury trials last year. Staggering. It was under 200. I know that. There was 80,000 cars. Okay, so Lay said there's 80,000 car wrecks, and there's 150 jury trials. Now, those jury trials are probably two, three, four, five-year-old cases, by the way. Right. So very few cases go to trial. So a lot of them settle, and settlement is a good thing because the money is sent to you within 30 days, and all the expenses are minimized, right? So to go to trial is a very expensive endeavor, right? You got a jury of 12 people, and I can't just get up there as cool as I think I am. I can't just go up there and speak. I have to have slideshow and a tech stack and make sure that there's a projector in in place. The doctors um aren't going to show up for free because they're leaving their clinic with all their people. And so that's probably a$5,000 appearance fee or$7,500 appearance fee. You have to print uh records upon records, boxes of records. That all costs money. You have to take depositions. Um, other side has experts. We have life care planning experts that are probably another$25,000. You have accident reconstruction experts that can be another$10,000,$20,000,$30,000. You got to post a jury bond. I mean, it's just cost upon cost upon cost because you're shutting down a whole court room and bringing all these people in to be potential jurors and then the jurors and they have to miss work and miss obligations. So it's a really big deal. It's cost, it's really cost prohibitive unless you have to go. Some cases you have to try, and we're happy to do that. But most cases settle. In fact, now Louisiana just changed the what we call prescriptive period, but statute of limitations of how long you have to wait after a car wreck to actually file a formal lawsuit that used to be one year. Louisiana was was the the shortest period of time in the country. I think there were two or three other states that had a one-year prescriptive period. That has just been extended to two years. That's breaking, that's within the last uh year or two that we've extended to two years. So even fewer cases are even filed a lawsuit. And of those cases that are lawsuits are filed, very, very few go to trial. Trial is expensive, it's a lot of anxiety, it's a lot of pressure, it's a lot of risk, right? You could flip a coin and get, you know,$2 million, or you could get zero or somewhere in between. And so everyone wants to be able to settle their case and control their own destiny, even if it's not the tippy tippy top number, is darn sure not the bottom number. So a lot of cases settle. So don't let the misconception that you don't want to hire a lawyer because you don't want to go to trial, don't let that prevent you from exercising your rights. I was looking at something the other day, I it was actually in the Bible where Jesus said, um, this is in the book of Luke, I think. I don't want to, I'm I'm not a biblical scholar, but it's like, hey, you should resolve your issue before you see the judge amongst yourselves. Right. And so it was like, it was a it was a great quote, and I and I wish I had it handy, but it was basically like even Jesus said, it's good to settle the case. Don't don't put uh the decision in someone else's hands. And so very few cases go to trial. So that is a misconception that I want to uh clarify. The third misconception is you can't stand up to these insurance companies. Chaz, you told me that the insurance companies are aren't on my side, so how are you ever going to stand up to them? How can I stand up to them? Well, you need a lawyer. You need a lawyer. What's really cool about our system is although we prefer not to go to trial, I mean, Jerry Spence, who is the greatest lawyer ever, said I only go to trial when I have no other choice. They have to drag me to trial. It's because I've tried everything other than going to trial. They've had to drag me. I've done everything other than sell my client's case down the river to go to trial. I'm willing to do everything but sell my cases, my client's case down the river to go to trial. You have the opportunity to go to trial and take a billion-dollar company like FedEx or the insurance companies or whoever, Johnston and Johnson, all those, a simple person can sit in a table with an attorney and go head to hell with a billion-dollar company and have a jury of 12 peers selected from your community, from your parish or county to make a decision about what is right, what is wrong. That is beautiful. That is the American justice system. That is that is what separates America from most places is that we have an amazing civil justice system where the little guy could take on the big guy. We prefer not to, but we can. We have that ability. I could go right there in St. Martin Parish and take on Johnson ⁇ Johnson, a behemoth billion-dollar company. And I'm sitting at the table of my client, Mrs. Smith, and they're sitting at the at their table with their corporate representative and it's game on. That is a beautiful thing. Now, very rarely do we have to do that, but the risk of us being able to do that is what enables us to get settlements, right? But you need a good lawyer in order to do that. Right. And so those are the three misconceptions. Number one, the insurance isn't on your side. Right? Number two, every case doesn't go to trial. But number three, the misconception you can't stand up to an insurance company, you damn sure can. And is the ability to go to trial. Even though every case doesn't go to trial, it's your ability to go to trial and be judged by a judge or a jury of your peers in your community. And that's a beautiful thing. I hope that cleared up some things and some misconceptions. I hope you enjoy the episode. I don't do this nearly as much as I want to. By the way, have you subscribed to the podcast? Because every time I drop these episodes out sporadically, you will be notified. So make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Law have mercy on Apple, on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the follow button. I appreciate it. I do this to help people. I do this to educate people and arm you with the information you need to be the best version of yourselves. I remember a time when I had no access to law and I really didn't know any of this stuff. My family really didn't know any of this stuff. And so I have a duty to constantly educate you all and share my legal education experience with you and what comes around goes around. So it's an honor. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Take care.
