The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Car Crash Attorney Joshua Brumley Shares Tips for Maximizing Settlements

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Car Crash Attorney Joshua Brumley Shares Tips for Maximizing Settlements Brumleylawfirm.com Show Notes About The Guest(s): Joshua Brumley is an attorney and the founder of Brumley Law Firm. He is also a pro tem judge and a professor at Highline College. With over 14 years of experience, Joshua specializes in car accident cases and is dedicated to helping his clients receive the compensation they deserve. Summary: In this episode, Chris Voss interviews Joshua Brumley, an attorney and founder of Brumley Law Firm. Joshua shares his journey of becoming a lawyer and the experiences that led him to specialize in car accident cases. He emphasizes the importance of taking immediate action after a car accident, including calling 911 and documenting the scene. Joshua also provides valuable advice on maximizing your settlement and working with an experienced attorney. Key Takeaways: Call 911 immediately after a car accident, even if it seems minor. Take photos of the accident scene, including the damage to the vehicles and the layout. Follow through with all recommended medical treatments to strengthen your case. Hire an attorney who is experienced in car accident cases and comfortable with going to trial. Be cautious of insurance companies trying to minimize your claim by accessing your medical records. Quotes: "Call 911, even if it's a minor accident. Don't assume the other driver will be honest." - Joshua Brumley "Photos of the accident scene can provide valuable evidence of liability." - Joshua Brumley "Listen to your lawyer and follow through with all recommended medical treatments." - Joshua Brumley

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. Boy, she sure does it so much better than I do.

For 15 years, I did the job of doing that call-out, and I just like the way she puts it as well. Welcome to the show, my family and friends. As always, we're bringing you the smartest people, the CEOs, the billionaires, the White House presidential advisors, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and authors, people who have stories of a lifetime, built their careers, built their businesses, entrepreneurs, et cetera, et cetera. And we're going to be sharing that again with you today. But in the meantime, we need you to do one simple thing for us. We don't ask much on the show, but if you could refer the show to your family, friends,

and relatives, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisvoss, chrisvoss1 on the tickety-tockety, and I think that's think that's pretty much it chris voss facebook.com you can see that over there as well today we have an amazing gentleman talking to us about his journey how he built his business and etc etc on the show joshua brumley joins us on the show he's an attorney and founder at brumley law firm he's a pro tem judge professor at highline college and a car crash rights educator. Welcome to the show, Joshua. How are you? Very good. Very good.

Thanks for having me, Chris. There you go. Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it. So give us your website so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah, yeah. BrumleyLawFirm.com, Brumley Law Firm on Facebook. And we have an 800 number, 833-83-CAR-CRASH, 24 hours a day.

I love it. Was it 1-800 or 1-888? It's 833-83-CAR-CRASH. Car crash. Car crash, call Josh. That's the slogan. You got to love it. So Joshua, give us a 30,000 overview of your, what you do there. Well, we're a car crash law firm. Like I said, car crash call Josh, any, any case big or small. I think some other car crash attorneys are really interested on, on getting those big significant wrongful death or train wrecks or plane crashes and all that. I'm more interested in helping the most amount of people. So no case

too small. Call me for anything. I'm happy to help. There you go. Now, I suppose a car crash attorney firm is very different than what my girlfriends call me a car crash life. I'd expect so. Yeah. Yeah. I think yours is probably working better than mine. Anyway, whatever. So Joshua, give us an overview. What made you want to become an attorney? How did you grow up? Did you grow up with attorney parents? Well, I grew up with a single mom.

And my dad left when my mom was pregnant. She had to raise five kids by herself over time. I'm the oldest. And I helped a bit as a young man, but for the most part, it was her doing all the work. And I actually met my dad much later in life. I found him on the internet. He is a lawyer. And yeah, it's really weird to think about because my mom raised me. I was 21 when I found my father and talking to him on the phone for the very first time. Our voices are similar.

I saw photos on the internet, his, his video, you know, commercials call me, you know, that, that kind of cheesy stuff. But we looked exactly the same. Our laugh is the same. It was really weird to think about that whole nature versus nurture thing. So you haven't had to call Maury on this one. No, no, this. This is the therapy I get is being on podcasts like this and talking about it. There you go. Well, we're here for you,

man. So evidently there were some different proponents that made you want to become an attorney. What were those? Yeah. I recall a specific incident. I was driving in Lakewood, a city near Seattle that is frequently listed on the Cops TV show. I don't know if you're a fan. Yes, I love the show. But Lakewood, Lakewood, Washington, frequently on the show. I was maybe 18 for a month, a month and a half, something like that. I had a car full of my friends. I was the only one with a car. So there's like seven people, people on laps, you know, crammed in into the car because they all wanted to come along for the ride to go to this bonfire we were going to. So I'm driving in Lakewood. I'm pulling up this hill in my Ford Tempo, totally gutless car. I

think the speedometer went to like 80. It was just the worst car. But, you know, that's what I could afford as a young man. And that's what I bought. So I'm still the baller in the group that has a car. So everyone's crammed in there. I'm gunning it going up this hill because I know my car is going to start stalling halfway up the hill. So I'm kind of speeding, getting a running start up this hill. And a cop drives down the hill opposite of me. And I'm like, oh shit guys,

we're going to get, we're going to get pulled over. So I pull off the road into this apartment complex and I say, everyone get out of the back seat. And you know, that way he won't know if you guys didn't have seatbelts on, he won't know how many people were in the car. And that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried about my friends getting a no seatbelt ticket. You know, I'm, I'm expecting a speeding ticket and I'm not worried about that, but I'm just trying to protect my friends in this point. And the officer turns around as I turn into this apartment complex and guns it and turns too sharply into that same apartment complex. And he hits a curb and he messes up. He just ruins the front end of his

police car. It just destroys this thing. And he backs up off the curb and it's just crunching and everything. And then he pulls in and he's furious. He's so pissed. And he pulls me out of the car and throws me in handcuffs. My sister's in the car. She starts bawling. She's like, don't arrest my brother. Don't arrest my brother. And he says, hey man, you killed your headlights. Why'd you do that? And I said, hey man, I understand you're pissed. I did not kill my headlights. This is a Ford Tempo. They have daytime running lights. You have my permission to jump into the car, turn the car on and teach me how to turn the headlights off if you can. And he does. He jumps in the car, he turns my car on and he can't figure

out how to turn the headlights off. So he knows he's caught in a lie immediately in front of everyone and he's even more pissed oh man like you threw something out of your car you threw you threw drugs or something out of your car wow and i said i i don't know if that works on other people buddy but like i don't even drink alcohol and everyone in my car is gonna vouch that i'm that I'm the abstinent person in the friendship. You've got like seven witnesses. Yeah, yeah. I have so many people in the car. So then he's so furious. He calls all the drug dogs and everybody he can down.

His boss comes down. They're searching the woods looking for drugs. And I'm telling all my friends and family there, I'm like, I'm worried they're going to plant something and find something because he's so pissed. But I didn't, I was just a dumb kid speeding and that's all it was. And thankfully they did not find any drugs in the woods in that area in Lakewood that they were going to blame on me. And he charged me with obstruction of justice, which is a gross misdemeanor. And I had to go to court for that. I had to report it to the law schools that I attended. It eventually got dismissed. I was on a probation agreement, but I had to report it to the law schools, report it to the bar. And as I became a pro tem judge, had to discuss it when I was going through that process.

And I remember talking with some of the people on this panel for judicial ratings, and they said, you'd be surprised how many public defenders are created by police officers. And I didn't expect that, but they hear these stories all the time. And it really just brings to light this idea that police officers are people too. You know, everyone, everyone can be a good person or a bad person. It doesn't matter what your job is. And if, if you're just a dishonest person and you're a police officer or a flight attendant or a lawyer, like whoever you are, you can do things that damage people's lives. And this was something that, you know, as an 18 year old, I learned and, and realized, wow, people just kind of blatantly accept whatever a police officer says as,

as gospel. And that's maybe not always the case. How did you tune that into becoming a lawyer? Did you have a lawyer in your case or, or how did you kind of go, you know, I, you know, we need some law protects around here. Yeah. So that was, that was the first time in my, in my young punk music listening era that I had to deal with, with the, the one-on-one authority issues. But, but I think that there were more of these kind of like individual events that,

that occurred that, that kind of forced me into this realm or showed me that this was the realm that made sense. So I started some live music venues in Tacoma around that same time period. And the city would come out and they'd say, hey man, you can't have live music in here. There's no sprinklers, there's no this, there's no that. And they'd shut my venue down and I'd have to cancel all these shows. And I eventually started calling the fire marshal and saying, Hey man, what's the deal? Why do you keep shutting all my stuff down? And he was like, all you have to do is read the city

code and you'll understand. And I'm like, I'm 19 years old. I'm, I don't know what you're talking about. So thankfully for me, he gave me enough advice that I could go down to the city of Tacoma building and land use office and argueoma's building and land use office and argue with the building and land use engineers about what laws should apply to live music space that didn't have alcohol. And they were applying all these rules that applied for like bars, because that's frequently what places did live music, but we didn't have alcohol. So I made all these arguments about how we should be considered a roller skating rink instead of a bar. And that's more in line with what we need to do. And with the space that we're using, maybe the bathroom regulations are a little bit more

strict than they should be, or the sprinkler system regulations. So it was just about arguing with the city until they said, yeah. And I said, wow, I can't believe that worked. I'm just this young punk kid coming in here, making arguments about a roller skating rink. And that was another, I guess, pivotal moment that I was like, wow, people, if I learn how to argue with the rules that I'm given, I could just argue about stuff. This seems fun. And I turned it into a career, man. And it's really a lot in part to meeting my father at that later stage in my life and realizing that's what he did. And he was a catalyst in providing that path for me.

I didn't ever grow up thinking I was going to be a lawyer or anything, but enough of these little things had happened that I couldn't ignore it anymore. And when I realized how similar I was to him and that's what he did for a living, I said, well, maybe I should give it a shot. There you go. And now you get paid to argue. Sounds like my last two marriages. Anyway, I'm not sure what that means. But maybe there's another proponent there too where you say that city hall also creates a lot of attorneys as well oh man i i think that city hall creates a lot of unhappy residents you know i've never heard anyone who's like yeah i'm really just i'm excited to have worked with the building and land use team down at city hall no one's no one's living

leaving good google reviews for them i'm sure of it there you go but it's great that you kind of learned the the ins and outs of it when i was younger i i got myself a bmw and i started piling up tickets and speeding tickets and i've been you know up here in utah at the time you know the a lot of the cities lived on speeding tickets in fact it was kind of during that era where they had the photocop thing. Oh, yeah. They had those everywhere. But I was always getting jammed up.

And even then, I was up here during the time there was a lot of BMWs and expensive cars in Utah. And so I was just a mark for anybody who had a chip. But I was driving fast. I remember going into court for it, and I learned some interesting things because I just was working the system. I learned that if I kept appealing the court cases for my speeding tickets, that they wouldn't show up my driver's license and jack my insurance until there was a final decision of final run out of appeals and and then i learned that i could run appeals for two and a half years so by the time i'd hit

the wall on the final appeal i would have like six months it would be on my insurance and then you know half the time i get lucky the cop doesn't show up you know the the the ca whatever city attorney gets tired of fighting me and stuff and i remember one time i was i i had i had gotten wrongly pulled over by this guy who was in a unmarked car and he was a dmv guy it wasn't really a cop and i passed him i was probably about 75, 80 or something like that. And he was parked in the, he was one of those guys who's like hoarding the passing only lane. And he's got four cars behind him. So he's holding back the passing only lane.

And so I blow by in the small lane, going in like 75. Well, this guy is some old guy. He's got his wife in his car. And I guess he decides to, you know, I don't know, make make himself look good so he lights up his lights and immediately pulls me over well he tells me that he paced me for you know whatever long it took because he didn't have a radar yeah and i'm like you're fucking lying and and and his his wife is in the car as a witness. So I remember I was in court appealing it, and I wanted to call his wife as a witness. And, man, he was pissed about it because I was like,

you know, I want to know what your wife witnessed. And, you know, because you didn't pace me. I know you didn't pace me. And I remember this judge, and she was so funny. She was one of those wicked, smart, big black ladies who gives it to you straight, man, you don't mess with her.

And, and she looked at me and she says, Chris boss, I want you to know something. There was probably a time in your life where you had an innocent baby face that most people would believe, but that time has long passed. But I am going to grant your, you know know you're being able to call her as a witness because i really appreciate what you're doing and i want people in this courtroom to know

that what i what he's doing is he's using the law to his benefit he's using his ability to to call witnesses under the constitution to defend himself even though he does look pretty guilty with that without that baby face and so i'm going to grant this to him and i i appreciate what he's doing i thought that was really cool and i was like damn there is something to this constitution this law stuff yeah it's not just for the the rich people that that everyone just kind of studies it in school and forgets about it's it's for us. Yeah. It's, you know, people always say you never need, you know,

you never care about lawyers until you need one. But I think more people in this country need to understand, you know, what the rule of law is about, why these principles are important, you know, just from, just for everything you see in the news today,

et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, also the defense, you know, being able to call yourself as a witness, being able to have an attorney,

if you can't afford one, one can be afforded to you you know the power that this does is is amazing so let's get into some advice you can give to people since you're since you're you're a car crash attorney firm i imagine this you know these days you so many attorney friends you know they're there's so many of these guys running around texting and looking at their phone and driving through people sadly yeah there's a lot of crazy things that around texting and looking at their phone and driving through people, sadly. Yeah. There's a lot of crazy things that can happen. So give us some tips on what happens in car crashes and things that we can do to deal with them when they happen.

I actually, that's funny that you say looking at their phones. I was, not recently, it was maybe two years ago, but I was rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic. Wow. And the guy says, hey, man, that was totally my fault. I wasn't even looking at my phone. I was just looking at that wood over there. And I was like, there's a wood over there? But that's always stayed in my brain that he was like, yeah,

I wasn't even looking at my phone. I was just looking at that wood over there. I was like, cool, thank you. Thanks for the free liability. Thanks for the whiplash. Yeah, yeah, thanks. So, yeah, I think that a lot of times people are afraid to call 911, even if it's a minor accident. They're just nervous about having police involvement.

As a former public defender, a former person who has been lied about by police officers, I still always recommend calling 911. People in this industry see a lot of crazy stories. And what I can tell you is that if someone crashes into you and they say, don't call the police, we'll work it out. They might drive two blocks away and then call the police and say that the accident happened in a completely different way. Or that you drove off or something, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That it's a hit and run against you and you don't have the ability to go retroactively and fix that. You have to call the police while you're at the scene. Sometimes the police don't come. Sometimes the other driver drives away. I always recommend as soon as it happens, try to

get a photo of the other person's license plate or any identifying information about the car or the driver so that you have that information in case something goes awry. You'll be surprised how many people don't take photos at the accident scene. They don't remember what streets it was on. If you're taken away by an ambulance, there's reason for not being able to take photos and stuff like that. But an overwhelming majority of car accidents are not that significant and you should be able to exchange the information on your own and, and to get a photo of the other person's insurance information, a photo of the other person's driver's license and protect yourself from a

story that they might deceive their insurance company to, you know, try to keep their insurance rates down like like chris voss does um you know appeal appeal appeal until until it doesn't go on your record but you know i'm driving quit driving so fast that's probably a good thing or stop looking at wood you know whatever you guys are doing just stop looking at the lumber world sounds like an only fans channel very weird i don't know what that means. So, but getting photos.

One time I was in an accident in California. I was pulling into like a McDonald's or something to get something to eat. And, you know, I was going up to the thing, the drive-thru lane, and someone pulled out of a parking space and hit the rental car that I was in and dinged it up. And so we tried getting the cops there. The cops wouldn't come because it's California. And so I got the guy's information.

Well, I didn't get a photo of his ID or anything like that. I just wrote down his name, his phone number, and everything else. Well, ironically, he gave me all the wrong information except for his phone number just so that when i called him he could tell me what a idiot person i was and lied to me but he he lied to me on his name address everything the whole thing was a lie and so what you talk about taking photos and video and i didn't even record like audio or just record video the whole time so you get the audio i think it's so important nowadays i i i do want to mention too something that a lot of people just assume so videos in washington where i'm at washington state this is a two-party consent state for for recordings for

video and audio so you can't you can't record someone without their permission photos are a different story and so so video absolutely helpful helpful to prove how something went down, but it might not be as admissible in a court as you think it is. And photos are going to be a lot more easy to use to track someone down. If they can put something in writing, a text message to you that says, hey, I'm so sorry about this accident. It was totally my fault. That's a slam dunk. You'd love to see that kind of thing. And if you're hit by some sweet old

lady who says, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, just have her shoot you a quick text. It's something that you can depend on when the insurance companies come later and say, please send me your insurance information in this text and we'll keep the conversation going. You don't have to be adversarial when it's an accident and it's not a significant injury. The insurance companies exist for this purpose. But sometimes people get really aggressive and you don't feel comfortable approaching that person. You and I are big, strong dudes, but someone else in a different situation might be a little more intimidated by someone who crashes into them and not feel comfortable. And again, that's where the police can lend a hand.

And if you mention that when you call 911, that this person is being aggressive or I've had people pull weapons, it's crazy out here, man. So protect yourself. And get a picture of the license plate and get a picture of what the cars look like in the layout i've had that contested in courts you know we for many years we had a career company and well we were really good at not running into people they were really good at running into us that deer were really good at running into us as well but we were up in the rural part sometimes with our cars and some deer would just be like hey

i want to know what it's like to slide across the hood of a car you know like the like the starsky and hutch you know that's sliding across just never worked out well for them but you know we you have these people sometimes they want to move the car on you they're like hey let's move off the road and i'm like no no no you need to take a picture of what this layout is. Because I've had people we've had to take to court that are like, no, that's not how it happened. It was very different. And they'll try and spin that, you know,

if they can spin the layout of how the cars are positioned and whatever, that somehow they can take away liability. And I've had insurance companies go, yeah, we don't, you know, you're both in the suicide lane. Yeah, that's kind of a either or. So, you're both in the suicide lane. Yeah. We that's kind of a either or. So you're going to have to take him to court. Yeah.

Yeah. We used to have to do that. I think we did that two or three times. It was a pain in the ass, but we usually won. Yeah. No, I 100% agree that the car accident case is based on negligence. And negligence has two real components when you're going into the lawsuit part of it and pre-litigation where you're just negotiating with the demand. It's the same thing. They have the liability component and the damages component and liability

is who's at fault. If the insurance company for the person who hit you accepts liability right off the bat, then that box is checked. You don't have to argue about it anymore. And all you're arguing about is how much do they owe you for your damages? Is it just the property damage for the damage to your car? Is there pain and suffering and medical bills? Is there more wage loss? All these other things that you could add on to your claim. But the first step is always going to be that liability portion. And that's not something that a lawyer can manufacture evidence about. You know, it's what evidence do we have that shows how the accident occurred? And yeah, my client can testify, but so can the other guy.

And so if you take photos of how the accident occurred, take photos of the body damage, that's maybe a way for evidence to be evaluated and show who was really at fault, where the side swipe occurred. If there's no other witnesses, it's really a he said, she said, and the insurance company can just rely on the fact that their attorneys are paid a ton of money to deny liability and make you prove it and hold onto their money for as long as they can. They're earning interest on that money every single day that they hold on to it. They're not motivated to pay it out to you quickly. Wow. Yeah. I remember I got rear-ended in traffic on the freeway. It was stop and go. And the lady had turned back. She had a baby in the back seat,

and she turned back to get the baby to do whatever. And she hit me pretty hard. And I remember the insurance company came out and they were like fast. Her insurance company was. And they wanted to interview me and have me take a whole statement. And I remember saying to the gal, I'm like, would my attorney advise me to give you a statement without them being present? And she goes, goes honestly probably not we're not doing this yeah and that's honest she was willing to well i you know like i say i'm a big guy i kind of tend to intimidate people and i have resting bitch face too so that and people look at me and they go like you shouldn't anger that bear he doesn't like he's

you know i have a car crash life as we discussed earlier. But she was like, hey, we'll cut you check right here on the spot. And I'm like, you know, I really think, you know, and it was one of my BMWs. And so I'm like, I really think this is going to cost more than you're offering me. And we're just, you're just trying to ram me through here and get me settled. And the reason you're ramming me so hard is you know that you really mucked this up. So what are some ways people can maximize their settlement, make sure they're covered? You know, one of my friends years ago, he'd been in a car accident that had blown out one of his discs in his back.

And he tried winning in court for, I guess, a year or two. And then he finally just settled for a low amount, and it turns out he ended up getting his back fused several times and had a lifetime of bills from that. It was insane. Yeah. Well, advice about maximizing your settlement, listen to your lawyer. Gosh, that's the first one.

Get a lawyer. Yeah, get a lawyer at first, but then listen to the advice of the lawyer. I think so many people call and want to understand the process and I'll spend hours educating them. And, you know, I'm working on a book. It's going to be out next year. It's called Protect Your Neck, Advice to Maximize Your Car Accident Settlement. And it's really just a lot of the stuff we're discussing here. But if your lawyer says, do all the medical treatment that the doctors tell you to do, and then you don't do the medical treatment, you're negatively affecting your case.

The lawyer's interests are 100% aligned with yours. For every dollar they get you, they get 33 cents. So they want you to get every dollar you can, but they can't go to the chiropractor for you. They can't go get the massages for you. They can't get the injections for you. They can't get the surgery for you. You have to do those things. And if an insurance company says, look, there was a month where they didn't do any treatment, so they must not have been in pain. They must not have been injured.

And that's what insurance companies look at. They look for gaps in your treatment. And they say, if the doctor told you you're supposed to be doing three days a week and you didn't come for a month, then how are we going to evaluate the claim for any treatment after that? And so listen to the doctors. That's all the bills and records. All of that And so listen to the doctors. That's all the bills and records. All of that gets turned over to the insurance company. And if you're putting zero

out of 10 on your pain scale for a treatment, they're probably going to say, well, then why are you here? The chiropractor is not going to turn you away. If you're showing up, they get to bill the insurance, your health insurance, your personal injury protection, whatever. They're not going to say, well, if you're zero out of 10, why are you here? But the insurance company who's getting that bill and record later is going to say, why'd you go? If you were one out of 10 paying, is it for maintenance? Well, if you're trying to maintain it, you need to be consistent. And so if you're inconsistent, that's a huge problem from the eyes of the insurance company. There's ways to get around that're inconsistent that's that's a huge problem from the eyes of the insurance company there's ways to get around that and that's where a seasoned attorney comes in

i think another tip i i see it all the time i'm because i i did public defense work i did family law i was a bit of a general practitioner when i first started my practice and i got very comfortable in a courtroom setting i think a lot of personal injury attorneys are not comfortable in a courtroom setting. They are nervous about going to trials, and so they don't try cases. Maybe these are attorneys who do many different types of law and aren't comfortable in car accident cases, but know what your attorney's experience and confidence level is to push the case forward. Because if they're pushing you to settle your case, there's probably a reason for that. And it might not be in your best interest to settle that case just because your lawyer

doesn't know how to file the lawsuit. Not all lawsuits are created the same. And a lot of people think that there's a ton of money in car accidents. And so let me just dabble in that on the side of doing everything else. But I tell you, I'm literally filling a book with things that other people don't know. So don't assume that your buddy who's a bankruptcy lawyer that you went to high school with can work on your demand letter for you. He probably is not going to do you very good justice there you go and i know i know some attorneys are just kind of settlement attorneys aren't they they don't really yeah they don't really usually prosecute the law i know we've had other attorneys like yourself on and and they they're like yeah we we we go to court we we like

and there's others that don't but yeah the one thing about the people don't realize you know like i mentioned my friend who i mean i watched him degenerate because once you mess up one disc and it starts wearing wrong if they go and infuse it they'll eventually have to fuse another and then if he's and you eventually just have this this crazy back and and i watched him you know go to a cane and probably eventually went to a wheelchair. But, you know, and I told him, I go, don't settle that case, man. You got enough problems. It is.

And sometimes you won't recognize the medical problems or maybe damage that's been done to your body, especially your spine or vertebrae that may not come out till years later or months later at the very least. You know, usually when you have an accident, you know, you're not really going to feel the pain of it till the second or third day when your body's going to really, you know, kick it. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, the rush of, of all the accident and the anxiety that's associated with it. And then you're worried about wherever you were going. You're worried about your baby in the backseat. You mentioned there was a baby in the backseat, that other one. Did she use the baby to testify against you or no no she didn't testify we they settled that thing oh the baby yeah no that is not he said she said there's a baby as well he called the baby she even told

me she goes i was i was turning around putting the binky in the baby or whatever and but yeah they they ended up settling that with me for more money in the end. That's great. They weren't going to fight that thing. Yeah. And like you said, there's attorneys that do just kind of take these cases and then settle them for whatever they can get and get out. We call those here, we call them mills. They're interested in moving the cases really quickly. And if that's what you're interested in, you don't want maximum value. You just want as much money as you can get quickly, then that might be the right resolution

for you. But my office doesn't work that way. And I've got former insurance adjusters, former insurance attorneys working for me that kind of know how things work on the defense side. And I think that that lends a lot of credibility to what we do when we're negotiating, how we know that the insurance companies work on the back end and helps us to get really great results for our clients. There you go. Yeah. 434 solved cases on your website, 14 years of business, 544 clients, 2023 winning awards. I remember i remember too was interesting was that when the rear end insurance agent came out she wanted access to my medical records and she wanted to know if i had had any neck injuries back injuries or anything prior and i sat there going i see what

you're doing you're trying to minimize the whatever damage happened in this by you know oh well you know chrisford is back 20 years ago and i'm like you want access to my home medical records no yeah yeah they they do and that's exactly what happened it's it's it's a consistent tactic used by the insurance companies to just blame whatever whatever you your injuries from from whiplash or neck or back or whatever on a pre-existing work injury or or a car accident prior or a car accident after this one and they say well every everything you were treating for until that's new accident is based on us but everything after that's that's on the new accident yeah that's not necessarily the case but if you're just if you're just doing this on your own and then not using an attorney for advice you're you're

going to get hemmed up they're going to they're going to find a way that's their whole job they're going to find a way to minimize the value of that claim and not not give you the money that you deserve for what you went through definitely and you don't know if you're going to have any mitigating issues and stuff as you go. So what's it been like to build a business as an entrepreneur technically over 14 years? You know, you've built up, you've got a lot of employees now and stuff. What's it been like to do that journey? Yeah, yeah.

So the first thing I say is I didn't have gray hair before I started this law firm. I don't think that the law is the stressful part of it. I think managing people is the stressful part of it. And I know a ton of attorneys that don't enjoy having staff. They enjoy working by themselves from home and they do a great job and they know exactly how much money they need to make in a month just to pay their bills. And they don't have to work 40 hours a week to make that a month just to pay their bills. And they don't have to work 40 hours a week to make that money. That life is incredibly appealing. I understand the appeal of

that. And for whatever reason, I went the less traveled route and decided, I want to build something bigger than me. And how do I do that? And hiring staff was something that it seemed really appealing, right out of law school. And how can I get tied up with another law firm? And I had a lawyer who was working with me when I first got out of law school. And she was running her own family law practice and had a staff of a couple of folks. And she said, just rent an office space from me and I'll teach you how to do family law. And then I'll pay you hourly to work on some of my cases with me and kind of bill you out as a contract attorney. So I started working with her, did a bunch of stuff on the

family law side and learned a ton. And about three months in, she said, hey, you have an MBA. It's very clear to me you understand the business side of things much better than I ever will. Can you just partner with me and run the business side of things, and I'll continue to just do the lawyering and teach you the lawyering? And I said, wow, this is three months out of law school, three months out of being sworn in as an attorney, and you're offering me this partnership. It must be a good idea for me, right? There's no possible downside to this. So, you know, six months or so go by, and then the clients start calling me and saying, hey, I got my bill, but like I had already paid that other attorney cash when I went to court. So why isn't that reflected on my bill? And I asked her, I said, hey, did these clients pay you cash in court? And she said, yeah, but I thought that was my money. And I said, what? No, you have to put that in the bank

account. You get a salary. This is the client's money. And she was like, I don't really think that. I don't really think that's how it's supposed to work. It's my money. And then the client started complaining to the bar, the bar did a whole investigation she fled the state it was pandemonium and i was i was forced to take over her law firm in the complete state of disrepair and all these clients that are furious about cash that they had paid out and the bar who was wondering because my name's on all the bank accounts now, if I'm in on this. And so I ended up doing trials for free. I ended up spending hours and hours and hours just donating my time to make up for the hours that she had billed clients and didn't put money in the trust account for them. And then the bar ended up prosecuting her and she took a resignation in lieu of discipline, which effectively disbarred her from ever practicing law again.

And I kind of inherited the staff that she had, the cases that she had and had to learn how to be the boss. It was not really something that I had a ton of experience doing. But after that, it was sort of like the unfortunate, but also everything happens for a reason jumpstart I needed for my career. I never looked back. I had a great staff that was dedicated to her and then dedicated to me and dedicated to our clients. That staff continued to grow until now where we're at about, I think, 13 staff today. I'm really excited about where we are and I don't have to do whatever walks in the door anymore. I can be very focused on just

doing car accidents. I don't even do other types of personal injury cases. I don't do slip and falls or anything like that, medical malpractice. And I'm happy to answer questions and connect people to resources. I think that's really important too. In the punk culture that I come from, there's not a ton of access to lawyers. And so I love to be the guy that everyone knows that, hey, that's my lawyer friend. I call him for everything. Because if I can't help y'all, at least know a resource that can. And so I love being accessible to folks that normally wouldn't have access to a resource like that. There you go. So very insightful for people who want to be entrepreneurs.

Of course, the business side of being an attorney, they don't ever teach you, I guess, the business side in law school, which is I think they're starting to do more of that, aren't they? I mean, I got business undergrad and then I did my mba so it's all kind of a blur all college just kind of lumped together in my brain at this point but i'm sure that there was business classes in the law school but i was taking business classes in the business school at that time so my education a little bit different than i think that the the average lawyer's education and not sure how much they give. But I know a lot of lawyers that are just like, why go through the stress of paying someone else your money to do the work that you just should do? There you go. And do you only cover Washington? Do you cover multiple states? Yeah. So we do only cover Washington state.

The car accident industry in just Western Washington, very, very busy. There's tons of attorneys that we work with in other states. So if you call us up and we can work with another attorney in another state to help connect you or work on your case remotely for that other state, that's absolutely an option as well. So there are cases that we can work on outside of Washington with another attorney involved. But I recommend just giving us a call and talking about what your rights are, no matter where the accident occurred. And we can go from there. There you go. You guys probably have a lot of accidents with all that rain you guys get up

there. Yeah, man, especially right now. It feels like every time I'm trying to drive home, there's a new accident. Yesterday, actually, there was a semi-truck turned over on I-5 and a car that they had crashed into totally destroyed. I hope everyone's okay from that, but it did not look pretty. It had stopped I-5 and that was just yesterday. I totally forgot about that. Wow. Get off your phones, people.

Stop looking at wood. Stop putting the baby's binky in the baby's mouth. Maybe you need to turn this into a shirt and a campaign, maybe. Stop looking at wood. That's the next Brumley Law Firm t-shirt. Well, Joshua, it's been fun to have you on and very informative. Tell people how they can onboard with you, reach out to your website, your.com, etc., etc.

Yeah, yeah. 833-83-CAR-CRASH, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We also have a website, BrumleyLawFirm.com. We have a blog. We are working on our release of our podcast, Early 2024. You're going to get a ton of great, insightful, very specific personal injury advice from mediators, arbitrators, other attorneys, experts, and the book. The book will be released in 2024. More information on that on the website, BrumleyLawFirm.com. There you go.

Thank you very much, Joshua, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man. Thank you, Chris. Have a good one. There you go. Thanks for tuning in. And if you're on it,

it's good at Goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss, Chris Voss 1 on the TikTokity. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter and the 103,000 LinkedIn group over there as well.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.