Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Relay, the legal show for personal injury law firm owners, presented by Alex Amica, the largest managed referral network for law firms. I'm your host, Gabriel Stertz, and my guest today is Carson Brienza. Carson runs operations at Kinetic Apps, where he's building a legal side of a consumer app called PayMe. Before that, he ran the operation at Legify and ABS, doing mass tort and mass arbs at Voluum. And before that, he was at Top Class Actions and lawyer dot Com.
Carson is one of the people who has been on every side of the business of law, and he is one of my favorite people to talk to. I'm really excited to have him on the show. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that we haven't talked yet. Carson, welcome. And I'm really excited to dive in with you.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Gabriel, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Absolutely, man. So, look, you've done a bunch of stuff, and we could talk for a couple hours, but you're. You're working on something that I just think is absolutely fascinating and is very different from everything else that's going on in the industry right now. And I'd love for you to give an overview of that. Just what is it that you're working on and why, I think is also an important part of it before we dive in and I start asking you questions about it.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we're building PayMe. And PayMe is a consumer advocacy app at its core. We help people identify when they may be owed money, when they're eligible for savings or benefits in some form or fashion, and then also getting them connected with legal help.
And the bigger vision is to give everyday Americans an advocate in their pocket that's powered by technology and data and then connecting them with the right partner network so that they can solve whatever problem they have at that moment.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And how. I mean, look, what's super interesting to me is that nobody that I'm aware of in plaintiff side legal is really doing anything on, like, consumer apps, like, you've got HONA and Case Status who are doing client communications. But I haven't run into anyone else yet who has gone over fully on the let's go build an app that just works for consumers at scale.
Did you. Was this a concept that originated with you? How did you end up in this space?
[00:02:11] Speaker B: So it actually wasn't a concept that originated with me. The guys at Kinetic, which is a venture studio, came up with this idea amongst all of the other apps that we have that we're building that are not legal specific.
And they said, okay, look at this huge opportunity to make this industry better. Right, right. What is going on here? Why is this all so fragmented? There's a million different types of marketing and none of it seems to have any cohesion anywhere. And so they, we looked at it from the standpoint of most legal marketing starts with a case type. Right. And instead, let's start with the consumer. Instead of asking someone, you know, do you have a Reggie claim or an FCRA claim or employment claim, whatever that is, we want to ask, how can we help you? Right. And then build the system behind that that connects them with those opportunities. Because the average consumer in America does not know what claims they might have available to them. Most of them just think that, you know, candidly, they've been screwed and they have no way to get any sort of recovery.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Now, what's the entry point for consumers on the app? Because I've, I've looked at it on the App Store and it's, it seems to be, look, you might have some money that's recoverable that you're not aware of. And that to me says like, maybe it's like a refund or like a recall on a product or a bank fee that I shouldn't have gotten hit with. Like what's, what is, what's hooking people into the app right now.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So the main funnel coming in is through digital advertising, primarily meta. We have a good, good number of organic as well. But we're solving the problem long term.
The legal industry right now waits for people to self diagnose, and that's insane. Right. We don't ask anyone with a health care problem as a patient to diagnose themselves, you know, before they can enter the system that's put in front of them. And we help them see the problems that they have. And so the underrepresentation that exists is not because there's no lawyers, with the exceptions of some legal deserts, but there's a lot of underrepresentation because the path and that front door into the law firm feels broken and a lot of people don't know how to get there. And so we come in and we say there's all these opportunities that you might be able to have, whether that be solving your financial issues or solving your legal issues.
Come in, let's learn about you, let's put the app on your phone and then we'll be here as an advocate so that we can help you if something arises. Or let's help you uncover what you might be able to solve for right now that you may not know about.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Interesting. One of the things that has is fascinating to me is, and I'll ask you this in a second if this is exactly true, but everyone knows that personal injury has some of the highest cost of acquiring customers of any industry out there. Not in legal, just everything like $3,000 a case is not an uncommon amount for a lawyer to to accept on a personal injury claim. Your app actually customers are paying for it. Like are you secretly spending thousands of dollars to sign every each one of these customers up or is it true that you are getting paid or breaking even on that attention that consumers are bringing to the app?
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah, so we are, we're more than break even on the attention that we get into the app and we're not paying thousands of dollars to generate a client. But the average American, you know, doesn't know, have and what den line matters, what evidence they need. And so the trust that's built through the ecosystem that bridges them to the right partnership, you know, whatever law firm we're connecting them with, that gap is the opportunity that we're filling. And so they come in, the trust is built, they can learn about their issues and then as a result, they may not qualify on day one for some sort of legal issue. But I can almost guarantee that on day 45 or day 90, there's going to be something that they can solve for themselves by that trust that they built with PayMe. And as a result, the cost of acquisition goes way down. Because we're not only solving for one problem. We're not putting up a billboard or doing something to get one car accident in the door. We're solving for a wide breadth of issues that these users have. And so whatever that, you know, some users will generate more revenue or be more effectively helped than others. But at some point at the volume at which we have people entering the app, the, you know, they're able to find help for almost every.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: And what's interesting to me in, in that construct is like you said, I mean look, people, people know, do know when they get in car wrecks, right? So they can self diagnose, hey, maybe I need a lawyer, maybe not.
But what you're doing is you're really capturing that attention before they've gotten in a car wreck at enough scale that the people in car wrecks are presumably right where they are going into this app and saying, well, this is where my lawyer lives now. It's not on a billboard anymore. It's not on whoever sent me the most meta ads over the past week. Now that they know that I've been in Iraq and I'm searching around for lawyers. That's just like really changing the entire structure of how lawyers are found.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And the traditional lead minute model is we wait for someone to raise their hand and say I have a problem. The closer we can get to being in the issue detection and qualification and then guided action portion of the, the entire of the structure allows us to take these users who have these issues and get them back to the right people without having to get them, you know, in through a top end funnel. And some of that is through education. Right. You know, there's, there's great new companies, Hona being one of them, that does a good job of putting videos and putting content in front of people to educate them about the process. But on the front end a lot of the top line legal advertising just says hey, come here. Because we solve for this.
Many people don't have any idea what's going on or what the education is behind that. And so the more that you can teach them and show them up front and let them make an educated decision as to what, you know, what they have going on, it just makes for a better experience for everybody because then they have some context as to what's going on. And so that's not only during, throughout the case process which is very complex and you know, wide variety of different case types, but the user education ahead of time at the front end is also very important.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Well, and look you, there's, there's two ways like if, if you're a PI law firm owner, you could be like, wow, like these guys are coming in and they're trying to steal my client funnel. Sure, maybe. And if that's true, like then, then that is true and you should be trying to understand what that means. The other thing that I think though that's also equally is interesting for me sitting outside of it a bit is there's so many people who don't ever get lawyers. Like we've all heard the stat, three out of four Americans don't get legal help when they have a legal issue.
I've even heard inter in personal injuries specifically that there's maybe 30 or 50% of people end up unrepresented when they get into car wrecks. And so there's a lot of blue ocean here around. And I'm also, I also have like a really strong gut level instinct that people who would hire an attorney from a billboard or radio or TV ad probably at least don't entirely overlap with the demographic of people who are downloading a consumer mobile app and then engaging with that. But I do think that, like, more and more we're being trained as Americans for Amazon, for Netflix. Like, we've been having this conversation for a long time. You're the first one I've talked to who, who I can genuinely say you're taking that consumer first, mobile first approach and showing up where people already are. It's very interesting to me. The question for you that I would ask if you have any kind of insight into is do you think that this is largely taking market share from people who are would have hired an attorney, or is this hitting people in a new place outside of that demographic? Like, do you have any data or a position on that yet?
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt. So based on the data and the work that we've done so far, it is not taking.
Obviously there's a small percentage that it is taking from traditional marketing, but the overwhelming majority is us turning consumer frustration into structured action as opposed to touching what other marketers are doing. And so this new vertical and this new concept of he, hey, you should have an app on your phone that can help you with a wide variety of issues. You should learn about, be able to learn about them and then take action, is not the same user demographic and not the same people that are seeing a billboard actively after they've been in an accident or they know for a fact that a certain drug or a certain chemical harmed their family member. These are people that are looking for some sort of justice. And they may not know what that justice is right now, but they're, you know, we can help, help them get there. And a big difference of how we've approached it with PayMe is the entire economy is shifting towards monetizing attention. And we're trying to pull it the other direction that's monetizing outcomes. And so the better we are and the better we're able to get clients in the door and get them to the right law firms or the right financial partners, whatever that might be, the better we are and the better they are, we can get all the attention in the world and have them come to an app that doesn't do anything for them, or it just makes them feel good, but doesn't really get those outcomes. And if we can pull it more in the direction that, you know, we build the consumer trust and we're not just getting legal leads, it allows for this whole unlock of users that otherwise weren't in the marketplace to hire legal help because they either didn't know about it or didn't care. And now we're getting them into the mix and educating them that there is a path to justice.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: It's a really compelling hypothesis, especially given how it's really not been, to my knowledge, not been tried. It's a, it's a non legal branded way of, and it's, and I'm not talking about like lead gen, like it's a way of bringing people in and taking care of them in a certain way through an app.
You've been, I mean you're deep industry guy from, from the legal side, lawyer.com, top class actions. You've been around the space. What's, what surprised you? What are the big things that you've learned switching over to consumer side outside of being embedded in legal first?
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So pay me. Sitting at the corner of three massive markets being consumer finance, legal services, and then this whole AI enablement phase that we are all moving into, the thing that I've taken away from it most and has been most shocking to me is that the consumer really in most cases does not care whether the solution is, you know, a refund, a benefit, access to a lawyer, a lowered bill, whatever it is.
They care that someone is there to help them win and help them get their issue taken care of. And so driving towards those results and realizing that a lot of times we get so in our heads in legal that we're saying we can solve this problem.
Taking that and saying, hey, you have likely, as the average American a wide variety of problems. Let's start knocking those out for you and let's start making your life a little bit easier and a little bit better by helping you throughout the whole process. And so it, it has definitely been eye opening. And then every day with the advancements in AI, when it's leveraged the correct way and it's not, you know, just a bunch of AI slop spit out and, and thrown out there into the world. The, the advances that we see are just going to change every industry and that's not legal alone. And I, I don't think that's going to ever, ever get rid of lawyers and really good lawyers and really good legal teams. But it can certainly supplement that access to justice that people crave.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Drawing a line from your lawyer.com experience to pay me. How have you seen consumer expectations change over time?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Yeah, so consumer expectations have changed over time in that they really want a technology forward product and whether that is because they are so busy and they can't get on the phone or can't do the traditional process of researching and finding the best lawyer, or they don't know how to. Or it is just that they want to be in this digital architecture that they're spending their time in doing everything else, whether it's texting their family members or playing around on social media.
The connection and the ability to put this in their pocket allows for that to happen. And it's just we have had so much innovation in this industry since COVID and everything has changed. And I think, you know, the statement used to be a lot in legal that it's 10 years behind every other industry. I don't think that's true anymore. But I do think that as we continue to evolve and modernize, being digital native is very important, no matter the age or demographic of the user. We've, we've actually done studies on our, our older subset of users that are in the app. And something that's really interesting we learned about that is even those that are in the age group of 45 to 70 that are using PayMe prefer a digitally native experience, which I think 10 years ago would absolutely not have been the case.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: That's really interesting. One of the things that still surprises me is how much personal injury law firms are, are still focused and still use voice as a primary channel to interact with, with consumers, whether it's at intake or whether it's for updates. And I know law firms are doing more by text and more by app than, than ever before.
Do you think that they've pushed the envelope far enough given the current state of where technology is and what consumers are looking for when, or is that really still like a necessary part of the law firm operational stack?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think the first mile of legal help, no matter almost what category it is in legal, it's repetitive, it's messy, and it's very expensive for law firms. And that's where AI and newer technology can create leverage both for the user and for the firm that allows the right people in the firm to spend their highest time, highest leverage time, solving the right problems.
And then users are also more educated and more prepared for when they are communicating with those individuals to say, hey, listen, we're spending a lot of time on the phone, a lot of money on the phone with these people. Let's make sure that we have this, our T's crossed and our eyes dotted before we ever talk to them live. I think I still very strongly feel that humans are best at judgment and AI is best at speed and structure and follow up. And I think the winners that will continue to be at the forefront for the next decade are the ones that are going to combine both and have them both running in the same direction.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: I just think it's, man, it's fascinating to me how, look, I've never spoken to Amazon on the phone and I'll just keep saying the names because it's Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, it's the big tech companies, you just don't talk to them at all. But in our space in legal still, it's, it's so voice heavy. And in talking to human beings, I know some of that is, hey, this is a high stakes, I'm in. You know, I'm like genuinely like it's people who are running intake call centers for PI firms are basically 911 operators, right? Like you get in a wreck, you get called.
But also at the same time there's a lot of, there's a lot of this that I think is somewhat legacy behavior. And one of these days I think we'll hear from the bigger law firms, you know, like a Morgan and Morgan hey, call volume went down for the first time. I just think that trend will hit one day and in part because people are using apps more and more high, high level, like what kind of numbers are we talking about? And in some of the, you know, share what you can about like the consumer demand, desire, what's the scale of this app? What are you, what are you seeing behaviorally from people?
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt. So on the intake side, we have run tests where we give people a choice, right? We let them choose their own adventure. And one of those adventures is a voice call where they're talking to someone, talking to an agent live on the phone and then talking to a live person. And the other adventure is that they go through a full comprehensive form stack and answering questions in app or in a connected form flow that then gets them to the same result. And the challenge that you have to combat there is we have had so many historic fraud issues in the space that how do you take that form stack and still trust that there's a real person on the other end and still trust that they have a real claim building in things like identity verification and building in these other, you know, checks and balances that make sure that whoever's answering that form is actually the person on the other end? It can be solved genuinely. When we gave people the choice, 90% chose to go through the digital form stack and 10% chose to speak on the Phone. Now, I think that 10% is still important to capture and to give them that option to speak to someone.
But it does show that the overwhelming majority is moving in the direction of having things be digital first and call it late.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Is that mass torts, personal injury? Combination of both.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: That's a combination of both. And then also, you know, sprinkled in a few mass arbitrations and then other practice areas like immigration and family.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Interesting to date, what case types, practice areas have you found to be most naturally aligned to this experience for the end user?
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so the most naturally aligned are, relatively speaking, high volume torts like video game addiction and social media harm. Just because of the market that we're talking to and we're facing with other torts do also work in there. Personal injury works in there.
And then a really interesting angle that we had not initially looked at or thought about is the general consumer protection side of things like, like your FCRA and like your housing, your fair housing. These things that people don't necessarily think are potential legal issues, but they are, that type of product is really needed in the marketplace and users just have no idea that they can even take action on some of these things that are happening to them. They just think this is how it is and I have to move on with my life no matter how I've been, you know, disenfranchised.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Which I think the educational aspect of that is, is awesome. Like you're able to help users understand that they have legal recourse for something that's been done that's wrong to them. Like that's the diagnostic thing. I think a lot of, I hear a lot of talk about lawyers who are going in like helping people find mass tort claims and medical records, but you're really just helping them find legal recourse in their day to day lives, which, which is amazing. And that was one of the things that when I was inside the, the law firm on the employment side, it's like helping people to understand the difference between, hey, I had a really bad situation at work and I have legal recourse for that situation is huge. And it's something that, I mean, given that you can deliver that at a low or negative cost to consumers is really valuable.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely, 100% agree. And, and the other piece of it also is there's, in traditional legal flows, people come in and they think they have an issue and they feel really passionate about it and at the end of the flow it just says, sorry, you're disqualified, you know, go have a nice Life. We've tried to capture that and say we're really sorry that this happened to you, and we will do everything we can to see if you have a case. But if you don't have a case, just know that we will be here in the future to help you with something else that happens. And also, it's terrible what happened to you, right? Because a lot of the people that, that come into some of these funnels, they. They either get an intake person or a form and it just says, sorry, we can't help, you know, good luck. And we don't want that to be the experience because it's. It's not a very human experience to have, no matter who you're talking to.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: A hundred percent agree people. And this isn't a legal statement. Like, people view you as an expert, right? Like you're walking them through this flow. A lot of times they want to be heard. They want empathy. They want some kind of resolution, even if it's not a hard. You don't have a legal claim. They just, they just want some to be walked through, some process that helps them. Um, and I, I just think that's. That's incredibly valuable. And so many law firms that are taking the time to even put a person on the call, the other person don't even go that far. It's a, hey, we can't help you hang up the phone. And that is not a good experience if you're taking the time to go through that.
Last question for you is what are the big questions that you have? Like, what have you not figured out yet? What is it that you're. That you. A year from now, you and I are talk, talking. You have, you've learned from this process that is you. That you're trying to understand today.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: It's a really good question. We are excited to continue learning about what users need and want and how to deliver the experience that is best for them instead of trying to fit them into a mold that, you know, we're creating. And then I also want to continue to evolve and understand is that what is the line in which when we all get to a critical mass together, at what point is there too much volume in legal and we really do need more attorneys? At what point do we change criteria so that it is more strict and outcomes are better for those that are able to be represented and just the whole evolution of this industry will continue to change? You know, we've seen that happen a lot with the shift in everything moving to or not everything, but a lot of Things moving to mass arbitrations instead of class actions, you know, the, the evolution of structured and scalable enforcement for everyday harms that are much smaller has changed a lot. And I'm really interested to see the economies of scale of how arbitrations continue to evolve and how we can play a part in that and get people compensated when it's not what I would consider a major wrongdoing or harm to them, but there is still wrongdoing and harm and how can they seek that recourse through this evolving lever that is new.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. No, I, I, I really love that. And it's, look, you're at the, the top of the funnel piece of all this and then, but there are very exciting new business models, operations that are coming to market now. Downstream of that, whether that is AI, that's helping litigators litigate more effectively and successfully, whether that's pre litigation services or case types like diminished value immigration that weren't, family law that weren't being done at scale before all of this becomes this ecosystem, like you said, that helps people more efficiently and effectively get justice, which lowers the barrier to entry and lets more people get help, lets everyone get better and faster and really importantly, from my perspective, more transparent help. Like people have really lacked transparency in the legal space. And what's most exciting to me is how that process is becoming more transparent over it. We're not there, but that transparency is a huge part of what American consumers need to be able to have to make good decisions about who they pick, which type of legal help they receive. So really appreciate you having this conversation. Carson, we'll have you back on to hear what you've learned as this continues to move forward. Again, this is something that I really haven't seen anywhere else. And as such, I think you're learning things about legal that really no one else knows right now and so appreciate you being on the show. Thank you for sharing what you have learned so far and it's, it's really been fun to hear you share the learning so far.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on and it was great talking as always. I always love these conversations and I look, I look forward to the learnings we have and coming back and talking about them because I'm sure that many of my assumptions will be wrong and I'm sure that some will be right
[00:24:50] Speaker A: over the next year and we'll learn probably more from the first than the second. We'll talk about both of them. Thanks, Garson.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Thank you.
