The old-school method of law firms generating leads has changed. Technology, like it has done with the banking system and just about every other industry has disrupted the way attorneys work and generate new clients. The days of airing a television commercial and generating leads from viewers calling the law office are over, and Michael Taylor has developed a company packed with digital solutions and services that will help law firms succeed in today’s modern age, that is driven by technology.
Michael Taylor is the founder of the buzzing company Attorney Leverage to give lawyers an opportunity to generate leads and thrive in a highly competitive industry with over 140,000 law firms nationwide, which grows daily. One of the many services his company offers is the Leverage automated software, which enables firms to automate the client acquisition process and improve their back-end customer service at the same time. This software also allows firms to scale without costing them an arm and a leg. A single law firm staff member can handle 500+ cases a month with a fraction of the traditional effort or cost, which is music to the law firms’ ears.
Attorney Leverage is set to take the legal industry by storm, and it may not be long before the software and dozens of technology-driven services are dominating the legal industry and being used by many of the top firms around the United States.
Michael, can you please start off by telling us about Attorney Leverage and why it was created?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I created Attorney Leverage to solve many problems that exist within the legal marketing space, that I have witnessed in the last ten years. Things like poor back end customer service, which the Leverage software we offer law firms not only solves, but it allows law firms to scale at a rate that has never been seen before and at a fraction of their current cost in most cases. We have seen miraculous results in various areas of practice from auto to mass tort plaintiff case lead generation using our secret weapons, which is a combination of eight systems with the software only being one of those.
How does the software work?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: We offer the Leverage software that automates the entire client screening, qualifying, interviewing, signing, and back end engagement for law practices, which is just one of the services we offer at Attorney Leverage. The goal was to build a company that literally was a “turn-key” business in a box, so law firms would not have to use ten companies for all the different services they need to run a successful legal practice. If you cannot use the services or products at Attorney Leverage, they either don’t exist or are not worth using, because we have spent years and millions to create the offerings we list on our company site.
Attorney Leverage streamlines many processes for law firms. The software can make these businesses far more profitable by eliminating unnecessary work. Firm’s employees can then focus on the important tasks they need to do to grow the business.
What can your clients expect from the streamlined process provided by Attorney Leverage?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: When a law firm works with Attorney Leverage, they can expect to have their account handled by some of the best talent in Legal Marketing who pride themselves with being up to date with the legal landscape, as well as the marketing challenges most firms face and to know confidently that we offer solutions for just about any size of firm or any situation when it comes to lead generation and client intake solutions.
What type of legal marketing does Attorney Leverage specialize in?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: Attorney Leverage was built based on our 10 years of experience in Mass Tort and Personal Injury marketing and intake services. Our core focus is on Auto, Bankruptcy, Mass Tort, SSDI, workers comp lead generation and intake service solutions, as well as other services like medical record retrieval, investigator, and notary signing services.
Law firms, and the industry as a whole, have not adapted to technological change quite as quickly as other industries. But out of necessity, the industry is now working to modernize itself. Attorney Leverage helps firms come into the modern age and do business in a tech-savvy world without tech experience, developer requirements, or the usual expenses of adopting such systems.
How is the way attorneys find leads changing today?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: The legal industry methodology of how law firms generate new clients, also known as leads, has completely changed in the last 10 years. The old days of running a TV commercial and watching your phone ring off the hook are literally gone. There has been a lot of industry disruption due to the changes in technology – like TV, for example – where people are fast-forwarding through the commercials. So, unless you buy the first ad position or the last, your commercial ROI is going to be next to nothing these days. You also have the social media boom, which we believe is underpriced right now, and over the next year or two will skyrocket due to “supply and demand” with the demand going up as we watch TV go down. If you’re not using the latest technology and systemization to create automation, and most importantly making it “duplicatable” for your staff, then you are going to have grey hairs running a legal practice in today’s technology-dominated reality.
Attorney Leverage offers multiple different campaign lead types. Can you explain these different lead types?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: Attorney Leverage offers a variety of technology-driven lead generation types designed to meet the needs of any size of law firms at any stage of growth or scaling. We realize that different firms have different needs, so we offer low-cost options as well as options that let us do everything from start to finish, like generate the lead, verify it, and even sign it on behalf of the law firm if that is their goal. We also offer a written replacement policy on most of our leads because we want to ensure our clients get what they pay for unlike most of our competitors who provide either no-return policy or 10% add-on, which doesn’t help a client if 60% of the leads they purchased are no good, right? That basically increases the cost of the actual good case leads significantly. Most law firms undervalue this because they don’t understand the fundamentals of legal lead generation or marketing. They went to school for law, not business or marketing in most cases, so we must educate them as much as we can in order to build a sustainable relationship that is built to last. We use our blog on our site and email subscribers as a method of engagement with both potential clients and clients, so even if the firm is not buying from us or using our services, we may be able to help them avoid making a critical mistake. In addition, we can keep them from losing money if they stay engaged with our content.
Tell us about the Summit Partners aspect of the company. How can clients benefit from becoming a Summit Partner?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: Summit Partners is basically an affiliate referral program as well a way to legally provide discounts to our clients who are regulated by the American Bar Association, so we created a way for people in legal marketing or legal plaintiff litigation to network with Attorney Leverage in multiple ways that benefit both parties in a compliant manner. It also creates a “community effect” of like-minded individuals to leverage the collective brain trust and buying power in some cases that enables a group to do things that otherwise are not possible. It’s all about giving back and staying connected with Summit Partners, which we are planning to scale it to an annual conference event in the near future that will be “invite only” and free to attend.
Michael Taylor’s career was shaped by tragedy. He lost his parents at a young age to cancer. He has seen other members of his family pass away as well, including his father in law who recently lost a battle with cancer on NYE 2018. Their deaths help drive Taylor to create Attorney Leverage and to help those who are not being represented to find a voice that also helps them to get compensation. He is initiating the fight for individuals through Attorney Leverage and giving people a voice, who otherwise have none!
Michael, can you tell us about your career and what led you to Attorney Leverage?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I got into Mass Tort and Personal Injury marketing accidentally back in 2009, which I was immediately intrigued by the opportunity in multiple ways. The motivation for me was personal because I lost both my parents to cancer, who both chose chemo and radiation treatment, which ultimately killed them and left them with a poor quality of life in their last months that most should not have to experience. But the idea of helping people who have been misled by the big pharmaceutical companies, either directly or indirectly, get financial compensation is what has become the driving force for me. The people who get denied, which is around 72% nationally for disability, social security and VA benefits get their claims approved, which is also very satisfying.
You would not believe how “dark” and ugly the business of Big Pharma really is unless you hear the stories we hear and see daily. I mean, we speak to or read tens of thousands of victims’ cases annually who have had their lives turned upside down over a drug or device that was “supposedly” designed to improve their life. It is a money-driven political thriving business, and it gets very ugly when you start to connect the dots of “profits over people” marketing that is done on a daily basis with a lot of doctors basically on the payroll of the very drug or device company promoting to their medical practice the second the FDA clears it.
Look at chemo, for example; it kills more people than it saves. That is a fact. It hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years when everything else has evolved in the way we treat ailments in this country, but it is a TRILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS. I also just lost my father-in-law who I was unusually close to on New Year’s Eve 2018 to cancer as well as my Uncle in November 2018 to brain cancer. My wife’s aunt died in February of 2018 to cancer, so it has literally hit our family very hard, and we have seen what these “so-called successful drugs” that treat cancer due to people out of a sheer desperation as a last attempt to “extend life” in our family, but they didn’t work in any of those cases.
Do you foresee technology completely changing the way law firms are run in the future?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: Yes, technology already has completely changed the legal industry, but it is usually one of the last industries to “adopt” new technologies, which has been shown in case studies done by MIT and Harvard University. Why? I am not exactly sure, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the cost. The technology we are seeing used in the legal industry, as well as others when it comes to marketing or legal intake, is designed to reduce the cost for the firm and increase margins while minimizing labor and maximizing the client experience.
Taylor is a busy person working to connect individuals with law firms who can help them. He does this six days a week most of the year. However, one of the best parts of his day is working next to his wife, who doubles as his business partner. As they say, behind every great man, or entrepreneur, is a great woman.
Michael, what is a day in your life like?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I have three computer monitors with at least 15 different windows open at any given time monitoring all of the systems we deploy that make our company work. The business is very complex with a lot of moving parts, especially when it comes to compliance like TCPA or CAN-SPAM laws that we need to ensure we abide by with each lead that comes through our systems.
In addition, we use about eight third-party systems, which we believe are the “best of the best” to create our secret sauces of delivering quality legal leads to our clients. It’s not easy and has taken me nearly 25 years to achieve what I have within business success. I have had plenty of failures as well as lots of losses along the way, which I think any successful entrepreneur will tell you the same, if they are honest. I enjoy the daily challenges, which for us, we work six days a week six months out of the year to ensure we get the most out of our B2C business that connects law firms with pre-qualified clients seeking representation for whatever potential claim they may have.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: That I am 100% self-taught and educated by literally taking steps that most business owners won’t or choose not to. For example, I have a personal rule that I never ask anyone to do something I myself have not already done, or I am willing to do with them because I am a big believer in you must “inspect before you expect.” So, just do it, is my thought process. Most entrepreneurs like the “title,” but the title is meaningless if you haven’t worn all caps within each area of YOUR business and treat yourself like an employee, not employer sitting back calling out orders.
I am an absolute workaholic who is in my pedigree because my father was a mathematical engineer for NASA and my mother worked 37 years as a nurse. I have been blessed with strong DNA, and I believe I put that on display every day. I am a big believer that work ethics are more superior than any other quality in business. I always say a competitor may outsmart me “temporarily,” but I will outwork them and eventually learn anything I choose by focusing on whatever that may be, which is just a matter of time before they no longer have an edge on me or our services offered. So the company is always evolving and changing as the technology and legal space requirement or demands change.
What makes you smile?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I get to work with my beautiful wife every day who is also my business partner, and she makes me smile daily, especially when we have one of “those days” she is my rock. She is the love of my life and just as passionate about our mission in business as I am. I also smile just knowing that we are in the business of “helping people” that are literally holding onto life in some cases or have been so close to death get to redeem themselves through the type of plaintiff litigation marketing we do each day.
It’s easy to smile when you know you’re making a positive impact or difference in the world one person at a time. If it were not for these law firms taking on the manufacturers of the drugs or devices or helping a person that has been denied for social security, disability or VA benefits, Auto insurance companies, etc… then we would be in a bad place as consumers. We would have little to no protection against the wrongs being done to so many victims, which is in the millions per year when you think about all the different areas of practice we focus on as a company.
What scares you?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: The talk about the FDA removing clinical trials to let U.S. citizens become “human guinea pigs.” This is being proposed and will be done by removing the federal red tape that usually cost tens of millions of dollars to get FDA approval, which is currently in place. It scares me to think about the way our kids will be treated medically 10-15 years from now with robots already performing doctor-assisted surgeries. My oldest son is a paramedic, so I get to hear the things he is taught and then school him on the things he is not that only you could learn by doing what we do daily. But the FDA scares me the most because it literally dictates where we are going as a society when it comes to consumer safety.
Do you have any hobbies?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I enjoy traveling with my wife and kids the most, but I would say boating and piloting a plane are my two favorite hobbies.
Which historical figure do you most admire?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: I would have to honestly say Albert Einstein, because of his relentless attempts to achieve success. It is said that he had about 10,000 attempts before successfully creating the light bulb. He forever changed the way humans live and the universe is energy, so he would certainly qualify there.
Can you share two of your favorite quotes with us?
“If you do the things that are hard your life will be easy “
“If you help enough people get what they want you will get what you want”
If you had the power to change just one thing in the world, what would it be?
MICHAEL TAYLOR: Politics. I hate them because I see what it has done in terms of corruption and greed in our country, as well as the world. I will leave that at that!
Taylor’s personal experiences have influenced his desire to help others. While many Americans are critical of law firms who represent people and help them receive deserved compensation, Taylor knows those who are being helped could have their lives completely changed for the better. He refers to it as “fighting the good fight.” Attorney Leverage is doing great things, not just for law firms, but for the tens of thousands of victims his companies help by connecting them to the law firms they otherwise would not know of or find. Helping others is near and dear to Taylor’s heart, and it is his passion to make the world better, which fuels his success as an entrepreneur running a legal marketing and intake solution-based business!
For more information on Michael Taylor and Attorney Leverage, please visit https://www.attorneyleverage.com or call 800-399-9895
Journalist and author. Contributor
