The Inside Scoop on AAJ, TortX, the ABA Tech Show and More

Blushark Digital 0:00

Welcome to the Conference Connection, your go to place to get the scoop on what conferences are coming up that you need to know about. Here are your hosts Paul Foust President of RingBoost, and Seth price, founder of BluShark Digital and managing partner of Price Benowitz.

Paul Faust 0:17

Hey, everybody, Paul Foust and Seth Price here from the conference connection, our third episode, trying to bring you up to date information on events coming up and events that maybe have just happened. We want to let everyone in the industry know about the conferences, the groups, the place where you can go to learn to network to meet vendors, to meet other attorneys in the industry, and really just grow your practice. So I’m gonna kick it over to Seth to start out on what’s going on, what’s coming up

Seth Price 0:42

Look so early in the year AAJ, very often back to back in the old days with NTL, but huge mega event. You know, you know, very heavy trial lawyers. There are some other plaintiffs lawyers that are that are there. But the really personal injury, workers comp, all of these guys come together, lots of CLE. So it is lawyer continuing education centric, very few tracks on marketing. There are a few of them that have spoken over time. But it is really a substance first, let’s say. And it’s interesting because most of our conferences, we go to have a pretty consistent track, or maybe two or three tracks. This is dozens or scores of tracks, they’ve moved to sort of a weekend format, generally now where you can sort of have a free day on Friday with a bunch of different institutions that have their events. And then Friday night, a slew of parties. And the difference at this one is many of the parties are actually on the agenda. Many are not but there, there are so many different networking opportunities, it may be the most networking event rich event of the year, to the spring and the fall AAJ but

Paul Faust 1:55

Definitely something that you should get on there, look at the agenda, try and map out a little bit of what you want to go to because there’s a lot of rooms, a lot of breakout sessions, it’s not one main stage. So there’s a lot to get through there. And you should plan out a little bit what what you want to get out of the show because it’s really there’s a lot there for you.

Seth Price 2:12

And then from a lawyer perspective, just know that there’s there’s, there’s an upsell option. So people are members of AAJ Leaders Forum is not inexpensive, a little over $1,000 a month buy-in. But for those people that are members, as lawyers of Leaders Forum, they provide breakfast and lunch and sort of a way to get away from the the craziness and a great place to sort of meet and hang out between different events. So it really is one of those things that they have all different sort of subgroups within this organization, lots of political events, where if you, if that if that’s your thing, you know, glitterati from the house Senate, occasionally presidential candidates come by. And it’s, you know, pay to play but it is an awesome, awesome way. If you if that’s something where you’re in an area of the country where you don’t get the A list, celebrities coming or the politicians that could really make a difference for the industry. There are a lot of people, you know, up for election in hotly contested races. And AAJ, in addition to doing CLE, is the lobbying arm for trial lawyers and making sure that laws are right. They’re very, very heavily involved right now with Camp Lejeune, making sure that trial lawyers interests are put forward first. Awesome, awesome, yeah, another

Paul Faust 3:27

One coming up. That’s actually coming up next week. And it’s probably too late to register. But I want to mention, it’s called TortX. It’s the waste management open, you go to the golf, but it’s really this one is really legal tech focused in terms of mass tort. It’s not so much about how to get cases it’s more about processing those cases, understanding the data in those cases, how do you run that stuff, you know, so it’s TortX put on by the guys who belong to the great sponsors like open jaw and others vorticity. That’s happening next week, but kind of late to register. But something you should just follow if you’re in that industry, and that’s coming up. It’s really a Wednesday night through Saturday and in Scottsdale, but not a lot to talk about because it’s kind of late to go but follow it for next year. And I think you had another tech event you wanted to?

Seth Price 4:13

Absolutely, so the ABA tech show is a really interesting event. Now full disclosure with the marketing company, it is not something where people come to sort of find SEO, I’ve even had a booth there before. It really is not target rich from a vendor point of view in the marketing space. But in the tech geek space, I love going and walking the floor. Because not only is it a chance to sort of see everybody who’s doing cool stuff, but they also bring what’s next. They have a whole startup alley, where people instead of getting a whole booth just have a little kiosk they can put their stuff out at and they allow 15 different startups to bring their tech sort of almost Shark Tank style to make a three minute pitch and then there’s a voting to see which one wins. And I find it just very inspiring. And I love going because you sort of, the connections between the different technologies for the law firm owner point of view, what things do I want to upgrade or add to my firm? And from a vendor point of view, you know, is very much about interacting with the other people in the industry. We spend time at conferences, talking to people from sister companies and related companies. But this is all about that. It’s almost like a vendor conference for vendors to interact with each other. Even more so than it is the random people that stumble in who may live in Chicago or come in for these tech first events. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

Paul Faust 5:34

Another one that I’m really excited about. I haven’t been yet I’m excited to go this year. Everybody knows one of the greatest vendors in the industry. They’re always out there Law Tigers, the motorcycle experts, this is what they do. They’ve got a conference but it’s the motorcycle accident summit Savannah, Georgia believe March first through seventh. Let me hit some of the agenda highlights, marketing technology, law, firm management, financial planning, opening jury selection, witness prep, catastrophic injuries, policy limits, forensics, this is the conference if you want to learn about, get into motorcycle cases motorcycle accidents, the JW, Marriott, Marriott Savannah plant River District put on by the law Tigers group. I’m trying to find I think it’s

Seth Price 5:37

Ever been this property is great. So during COVID, when I drove the family to Florida, we spent the night on the way down at this place. It’s amazing. It’s a beautiful hotel, one part of the lobby or two sections of the lobby has like a dinosaur like you’d see it in natural history but made with jewels. It’s crazy. It’s a museum within the hotel. So a) if you’re looking to get away with a significant other, even kids, it is a great spot. And b) this is inside baseball, which is being put on by Association Management, right Chase and company, Chase Givens. And they are responsible for the for NTL the two MTMPs, Lanier, they’re adding this to the portfolio. So you know they have very solid people behind putting the conference on. Yeah, and

Paul Faust 6:59

I’m reading this correctly. If you go to motorcycleaccidentssummit.com/agenda, you should see the agenda. This is one that is a must. If you want to learn about getting to understand motorcycle accident cases, put on by great people, the association obviously, and then the Law Tigers group. Pushing out a little bit until April we’ll get into more detail. But Craig Goldenfarb has a one day event up in Boston, the Seven Figure attorney Summit, obviously a lawyer but it’s run his own conferences. And it’s really I went to one and really covered all topics. He does a lot of speaking set, you’ve been there too.

Seth Price 7:37

So I would say is it’s you know, for PI lawyers, generally those that are on the small to medium size, he basically opened the curtain on what he does at his firm. And it’s very useful for people in those formative years to be able to sort of you know, look for best practices from somebody who’s been playing with this for a while. Yeah,

Paul Faust 7:56

We’ve always said that there’s there’s nothing you’re gonna run into in your practice that somebody hasn’t run into before. So there’s there’s conferences where it’s kind of broad reaching and then conferences where attorneys show you how they did it. And I don’t know is there anything else coming up in April,

Seth Price 8:10

Or say they tagged on to the Boston event with Goldenfarb. The second day is John Fisher has his mastermind experience. So that goes the day after that will be Friday, save a hotel, for any non PI lawyers watching, Mario Godoy has his Windy City mastermind coming up in March, it’s like a 15 seat, each person’s hot seat, which is unusual. It’s like an hour and a half, where you really get to delve into what’s going on at your firm and have another primarily non PI lawyer, one to $3 million average range sit there and mastermind those issues.

Paul Faust 8:45

Also, I think that there’s nothing else in April is there?

Seth Price 8:48

I’m sure we’ll find some. Oh, I

Paul Faust 8:50

Think there’s one, what are they this man in Vegas, something in Vegas maybe. There’s a big thing in Vegas coming up. Everyone knows about it, Mass Torts Made Perfect. One of the best, one of the biggest, pricier this year it’s at the Wynn, I wrote down the date, so I think it’s the third to the fifth at the Wynn. This is the conference, if you’re interested in the mass tort world from a business standpoint of what casees are hot, everything said, you know, as a lawyer, why don’t you talk more about it because you’re on both sides of it. Right? So

Seth Price 9:21

What I love about it is people who have never been exposed to mass torts, they have a whole track for that where you can come in and figure out if you want to do it in house, you want to partner with people. They do a particularly good job with a tradeshow floor where there are different people that help out with different pieces of the mat, stored puzzle, all these different ones. And it’s become sort of even those people like myself are primarily single event. It is great networking. It is the you know, great sessions that I think are applicabl. On the first day, I moderate much of the business of law track where they bring in different people who think of different ways to get cases to make sure you’re answering your phones right. Different insurance issues or funding issues. So overall it is, it is a juggernaut. I mean, there are people that never even make it to the hotel ballrooms that just, you know, literally network at the cabanas the entire time. There’s, you know, entertainment, they go, they go all out with some really top notch entertainment at night. And then a number of the vendors really put on extraordinary Shindig. So Vegas, you know, Vegas April doesn’t suck. Sharon and her team really are very thoughtful about putting together a content rich agenda. Yeah,

Paul Faust 9:26

I’m looking forward to it. One of the things I want to talk about, and this is not a conference, but it’s important to me, and I want to mention it for many reasons. You might see it at a number of conferences, or you might see online a group called the League and I just want to throw it out there. Because I love the people who did it. I love the cause. And also I have a look, I have a daughter who’s in school and wants to be a lawyer. And so if you run into the League, research find out about or maybe want to join a sport the League is basically the coalition of women in the industry. This is service providers, paralegals attorneys, law students, Operation personnel, and its way, and I’m reading it to make sure I get it, it’s a great way for women in the industry to connect, build coalition support each other, or be conference buddies it is a great

Seth Price 11:13

We’re, BluShark’s behind it. We’ve supported from day one, Nalini is a board member, my colleague of BluShark who’s just, I’ve seen what it’s done for her, people like Jenny Levine, others there have gotten so much out of it. So I encourage anybody who’s listening, who would be appropriate for to reach out because it really they’re doing some great work.

Paul Faust 11:30

If you’re a woman in the industry, join it, if you’re a man in the industry support it. This is the stuff we have to do. And the last thing I’m gonna say, and that’ll turn it to Seth to wrap us up is look, the whole reason Seth and I started is to give information, and which is well, what’s the reason? What’s the reason the reason is, we have an amazing industry, there’s a lot of events, there’s more and more every month, if you have an event, if you’re putting one on it doesn’t doesn’t have to be a big event like MTMP or NTL or AAJ. It’s not the size of the event, always. It’s the quality, the people going, the agenda, send it to us, we want to talk about it. We want to get the lawyers and paralegals who’ve typically gone to these events, to know which ones to go to and then get the other people who haven’t been going to events to understand the power of the events where you can learn, where you can network, where you can grow, what vendors you can meet. So please send it to myself, send it to Seth. And please encourage the vendors and lawyers, you know to follow the page. The bigger we make the group, the more we’ll be able to share with everybody.

Seth Price 12:26

And I’ll wrap up with you know, there are lots of masterminds out there right there’s you know, Brain Trust, there’s PILMMA. Fireproof, Fireproof, and it’s what I was going to say, and with Fireproof, which is really developing more and more joint ELS program for lawyers, John Nachazel spun this out of Mike Morris with Mike Morris. And they have created not just great coaching, I’m actually big fan of theirs and use the EOS program they use as opposed to like an outside EOS coach, because EOS for lawyers, I just love, but twice a year as part of that program they put on their Summit. And, you know, you know what Mike is like, it’s just like drinking from the firehose, it’s they’ve accomplished so much at Twitter, million dollar, single event, regional firm, statewide firms. I’m saying it’s amazing what they have done. So you just said something before, which is if somebody you know, you need to do something other people have done it. To me, these are some of the guys that have figured out how to crack the code for a number of different pieces, from running cases to intake, you know, clearly marketing. They’ve done some remarkable things there. And they opened the kimono for this event. So you know, it’s for generally people who are participating in the Fireproof program, but not too late to get in and get yourself ready for April. Absolutely.

Paul Faust 13:45

So, guys, we’re excited to keep this going. We’re gonna do it anyway. The more you feed us, the more we can share. Send us your stuff, send us your events, please join the group. Please tell other people to join the group. Tell us what you want to hear about. And then we’ll wrap up these conferences as we go to them and and let you know, you know our experience with them. And we’ll do we’ll even do some lives on the conferences. Seth. Until next time sir. I will see you on the road

Seth Price 14:10

Sounds great. See you soon.

Blushark Digital 14:11

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