Tim Semelroth: [00:00:00] mock trial changed my life. My my dad worked in a factory. My mom was a teacher. I don’t think, I can’t remember ever meeting a lawyer in my life before I started participating in mock trial when I was in eighth grade. And that, The opportunity to learn about the justice system in that way, to learn about what trial lawyers do and then the opportunity to meet my coaches and find out the, you know, the, what their lives were like really.
Changed the trajectory of my life. And so I knew that when I was in law school, I didn’t know if I’d stay in Iowa, but I figured you know, I was going to be around for a couple of years in law school, and so I went back to the teacher who was my middle school mock trial coach and the teacher who was my high school mock trial coach and said, Hey you know, I can help out, you know, and so I started doing that when I was still in law school and I loved [00:01:00] it
Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to founding partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. This is going to be a fun one today. I’ve been looking forward to this. We’ve got Tim similar off on with us today. I’m in a great legal marketing mastermind with Tim and I’ll tell you, whenever Tim speaks listen he’s always got really thoughtful things to say and I know he’s gonna have a lot of good stuff to share with us today.
So, Tim is a I will call you a trucking lawyer from Iowa. But you have, I [00:02:00] believe. The biggest personal injury firm in Iowa. Maybe I’m wrong, but why don’t you introduce yourself, Tim? Tell us about you and your firm and what you guys do.
Tim Semelroth: Well, you got it. All right. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to chat. I always enjoy talking to you and learning from you whenever we get together. But you got it right. I am a a trucking lawyer from Iowa. And my firm is the largest personal injury firm in the state of Iowa.
We have offices in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Dubuque.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to get into some of the history of your firm for sure, but sort of big picture, you know, personal injury firms, they can mean a lot of different things. You’ve got high volume, low volume, trial work, pre trial work, referral shops. So you got all sorts of you’ve got boutique, Med Mal, all these sorts of things.
How would you describe. Your firm do you do it all or there are certain areas you don’t do
Tim Semelroth: Well, Iowa only has 3 million people. [00:03:00] So if you want to practice personal injury law you have to be able to do a number of different things. So, we have 16 lawyers in the firm and we have lawyers who do, you know, traditional personal injury. Car wrecks premises, liability cases, things like that.
We have lawyers in the firm who specialize in medical malpractice. My partner Presley’s is the premier nursing home abuse and neglect lawyer in the state. We have lawyers that do. workers compensation that do social security disability and who do plaintiff’s employment law work. And so the one thing that we all have in common is that we’re all trial lawyers.
We try cases. So even though we have a big firm we handle a lot of cases. The reason why lawyers refer cases to us is because we’ll take them to trial if we need to.
Jonathan Hawkins: and what’s your role in the firm? I know you [00:04:00] try cases and I know you do trucking cases. Are you managing partner or how do you guys delineate those sorts of administrative? Aspects between the partners,
Tim Semelroth: It’s not as, I guess, hierarchical as you would expect it to be. We have four equity partners in the firm and each of us have kind of gravitated towards a particular aspect of management, so my role is In terms of leadership in the firm is primarily related to managing our firm’s marketing and outreach.
I have partners who spend more time in terms of HR type things hiring, interviewing. I another partner who focuses mostly on the finances. They’re the ones who are talking to the bank. You know, malpractice insurance brokers, that sorts of thing. And then we, but we make [00:05:00] most major decisions together, but we also trust each other.
So, nine times out of 10, I’ll be making marketing decisions and just let the partners know as they come up.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, that’s key You know, I had a lot of law firm breakups a lot of partnership disputes and question. I always get you know On the front end, people come and they say, Hey, we want to do this partnership. What do we do to make sure it works? And, you know, it’s like a marriage. You can’t guarantee anything, but you know, again, you got to trust that your other folks are doing what they’re supposed to do and they have to trust you likewise.
So it sounds like you guys have. And it’s, it seems to be working, whatever you guys are doing.
Tim Semelroth: Well, I like to say we are the firm that mock trial built. For those of people who don’t know, mock trial is a a competition. That where you have students on teams being lawyers and witnesses on both sides of the [00:06:00] case. And so, my partner Presley and I met each other on the trial team at law school at the University of Iowa College of Law.
And then our other two partners are former mock trial students of mine. So we have a long history with each other and yes we have a lot of trust because we’ve known each other for years and years.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, we’re going to talk about the mock trial stuff later. I definitely want to hit that because I think that’s really interesting and cool. Some of the stuff you’re doing there. But let’s talk about sort of the, your firm. You said you had three locations now. I know it didn’t start that way.
I think, you know, all firms start with one location. You know, I want to get a sense for some of the evolution of the firm and how it’s grown over time. Both in terms of sort of your role in it and maybe some of the practice areas you covered and the different sort of the geographic spread that you’ve done over time.
So let’s start with, you know, I don’t believe you started the firm, but at some point [00:07:00] you did sort of take over the firm. So maybe go back to that.
Tim Semelroth: Sure. So I’m glad I got a chance to say that. I was feeling a little guilty that I was on the founding partners podcast when I didn’t actually found our firm. Our firm was founded. Back in 1989 by two great trial lawyers and I was their first associate hire. And and when they hired me they were primarily a known as a medical malpractice plaintiff’s boutique firm.
And they would do other types of personal injury cases. But if you asked, you know, 10 people. In the know in the state of Iowa, what was, you know, what were they known for? It was plaintiff’s medical malpractice. And so that’s the firm that, that, you know, that hired me. In the process of working for them, you know, I had a chance to do all kinds of personal injury [00:08:00] cases car accidents even some workers compensation.
And so, ultimately when one of the partners left to go on the bench. We brought in Presley and Presley came with his own specialty. As I said he’s one of the best nursing home lawyers in the country. And and so that was when we first realized it’s like, Hey, you know, we can have additional specialties.
We can, you know, we can try to achieve excellence in these different areas. And so that’s sort of how things evolved that you know, as we added people who had skills, we then tried to build up different areas of practice around them.
Jonathan Hawkins: And you know, like there’s a lot of folks out there that think either have to found your firm or maybe not. And. I guess they think that’s maybe the only way to do it. But you really have shown, no, there’s another way to, you don’t have to actually found the firm. You can, I mean, it is your firm now for sure.
And I’m sure it is [00:09:00] completely different. Sounds like that it was when the founders founded it. You know, you, I don’t know if you bought in or how you got in. Maybe we’ll talk about that too. But then it became your firm and Presley’s firm and whoever it is now. And you guys have taken it and made it your own thing.
So you don’t actually have to found a firm to really control the firm or control the destiny of a firm.
Tim Semelroth: Absolutely. I tell people, you know, professionally, I was born on third base because I was hired by two great trial lawyers. Who had a very good practice and it’s night and day different now than it was when when they ultimately turned it over to Presley and me, but it’s, it, the reason why it’s strong is because it’s built on, you know, a strong foundation that that the two founders created.
Jonathan Hawkins: and the other thing I tell people you know, I get a lot of partners or owners of a firm that come to me and they’ve been the sole owner. They’ve never had a partner and they have a [00:10:00] senior associate that says I want equity. I want in and a lot of times I feel like. Attorneys just say they want equity.
They think they want equity just because that’s just sort of the next trophy to get. They think they want it, but it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. And I think you learned that pretty early on, right? Tell me about that.
Tim Semelroth: Oh, I learned it the hard way. So, so what like I said our firm was founded by two great trial lawyers John Ricklow, David Baker, and when Baker went on the bench, then, you know, John owned the firm and I got some equity in the firm and ultimately Presley joined in. He got some equity in the firm.
And then there came a day when John said, you know what, I think I’m done being financially responsible for the firm. You know, let’s work out a buyout plan. And and that was great. But up until that point in time, Presley and I had never [00:11:00] had a professional relationship with the bank. You know, we didn’t have a professional line of credit.
We didn’t didn’t have anything set up like that at all. And so the way it worked was Riccolo you know, we had this discussion and Riccolo said, well, I think as of the first of the year, you guys are now financially responsible for the firm. And then he. Left to to go to his home in Colorado in December.
And January came around and it gets to be you know, the second week in January and our office manager comes up to Presley and me and says, Hey, we need money for payroll you know, cause we, at that time, our firm structure was such that we would, you know, we’d clear out our accounts at the end of the year.
And and so we just. Hadn’t had any settlements come in the first two weeks of the year. And we looked at each other and it was definitely a a shock to the system. And, you know, when we realized that part of being [00:12:00] an equity owner meant that, you know, we were going to go home to our spouses and say, okay, we’re writing checks from our personal accounts to the firm so that we can cover payroll.
And you know, that was one of those being thrown in the deep end moments that, that made us take our firm’s financial footing a lot more seriously.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I put myself in that situation and I can imagine driving home to have that conversation. With my wife that night. It would not be fun. Oh, honey. Yeah, I’m gonna have to write a check She’s like wait, it’s supposed to pay you not the other way around, right?
Tim Semelroth: Exactly.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so Let’s talk about so, you know, you like you said you’ve got three locations now I want to know a little bit about your thinking in You know, strategy wise, what were you thinking in terms of adding offices? Was it just sort of an organic thing that just sort of an opportunity came up and you did it?
Or was it something that you guys said, Hey let’s open another office and then you figured out how to do [00:13:00] it. You know, what’s the thinking behind the new offices
Tim Semelroth: So the driving force is talent. You know, we had the opportunity to hire lawyers who lived in other places. So our firm was founded in Cedar Rapids. I live in Cedar Rapids. It’s the second largest city in Iowa. But Des Moines is the largest, that’s the state capital. Dubuque is a decent size town about an hour and a half north of here.
And so, you know, the first thing is we had the opportunity to hire really good trial lawyers. In those communities, but I mean, we didn’t do it just because of that. I mean, there’s also a lot that we’ve learned along the way about the benefit of having multiple locations, both in terms of online presence, as well as you know, the.
The benefits of the reputational benefits of being in a particular community. [00:14:00] And then what we’ve learned is that it’s also a huge opportunity to recruit more talent. You know, the reality is that there are some people that that we want to hire who. You know, aren’t interested in living in Cedar Rapids.
Maybe they’d rather live in Des Moines rather than maybe they’d rather live in Dubuque. And so by having three offices, not only is, are there marketing benefits, but there are also recruitment benefits.
Jonathan Hawkins: and I’m not, I should have studied the map. I’m not super familiar with Iowa, but do you guys have any, like, border towns with other states? Are any of those border cities? And then do you sort of bleed over in any of the border states at all?
Tim Semelroth: are some larger by Iowa standard cities that are on the border. So the east border of Iowa is the Mississippi river and the west border of Iowa is the Missouri river. And so, that’s where you’ll get a lot of the [00:15:00] bigger border towns to the north. We have Minnesota to the south. We have Missouri, but there aren’t any really big towns on the north and south borders, but there are a number of good size communities on those rivers.
And so, yes, we occasionally will be called about cases across the river. We do have lawyers who are. Licensed in Illinois, you know, to the east. But for the most part our practice is focused in the state of Iowa.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you know, it helps from a marketing standpoint to just say, Hey, boom, we own Iowa, you know, instead of we’re in a little bit of here and there. But, you know, who knows? Maybe down the line, you guys will Start to venture into other states. I don’t know.
Tim Semelroth: You know, you never know. We’ve had the opportunity to you know, to buy firms in nearby states, but we’ve always focused on, we want to be. You know, the trial firm in the state of Iowa, we want to be the [00:16:00] person you know, the people that you call if you need a trial lawyer in Iowa.
And whenever we’ve had opportunities outside of the state, we’ve always asked ourselves, well, could we use that money to better. You know, to better serve, to better cover Iowa. And so far, the answer to that has been yes. And so that’s really where we’ve decided to plant our flag.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned that you’ve had opportunities to buy firms and just from conversations with you in the past, my understanding is you have quote, bought some firms and then there’s others that. You’ve been approached and maybe you did not buy. I want to sort of dive into that a little bit. So, you know, quote, buying a firm can mean a lot of different things.
And so I guess the first thing is, you know, what does that sort of mean to you and then how did you structure those,
Tim Semelroth: So it’s happened in a couple of ways. Usually it is a lawyer approaching us because you know, [00:17:00] maybe they’re looking to retire. And so they want somebody to take over their cases. And so then you’re negotiating about, well, what are, you know, what are the assets that we’re getting? And and so I have sort of a checklist in terms of, you know, it’s like, do we get the, you know, do we get your URL, do we, you know, do you have a kit, do you have a client’s list you know, do we get your phone number you know, and but ultimately, you know, it’s, With any firm that we bought, it always falls under our umbrella.
And actually that’s probably a big reason why people approach us is because they’re like, Hey, I think my practice would fit well under, under the umbrella of RSH legal and and so. Other times we’ve had lawyers who you know, they have a firm and they’re just looking for institutional support.
You know, they are you know, they’re like, Hey, you know, I’m of the age I’m not sure how [00:18:00] comfortable I am about spending money to get new associate or to hire more staff or this, you know, you guys obviously are, you know, a growing firm and so. You know, can I, you know, is there any way that, that I can become part of your firm?
And and so sometimes that means we take over their office space. You know, sometimes it means they’re just coming over it. So it’s been a varied ride, but in general, what I’m wondering is when somebody approaches me is number one, what is it that They’re actually selling. You know, is it cases, is it you know, is it geo geographical area?
Is it expertise? And then second, does it match our vision of what our firm is and where it’s going? Yes.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, and it sounds like you’ve done it enough where you’ve got your checklist and you know what fits and what doesn’t. And that’s key. You know, a lot of, I think it’s a decent growth mechanism for firms is to go sort of [00:19:00] take over practices, but not every practice is worth taking over.
Right.
Tim Semelroth: Oh yeah. And it has nothing to do with money. I just sat down with a lawyer who approached me about buying his practice last week and it’s a great practice. He has built it so that it serves him very well. The reality is that it’s a perfect practice for him. And it’s just not a great fit to, you know, for us.
And and so that’s, you know, you’ve got to look at it critically because it can be you know, it can be flattering when somebody approaches you you know, they can talk about numbers that sound, you know, pretty pretty inviting, but there’s a whole lot of factors you have to consider before you say that you’re going to to buy a practice or take over another law office.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I’d say I’ve seen it work really well and I’ve seen some disasters. So, be safe out there folks. Thanks. So I want to shift a little [00:20:00] bit. You know, it’s been fun getting to know you over the last year and in the way I would describe you. In a nutshell is that you are both an eager student, but also a very good teacher.
And we’ll go into some ways you do that. So one of the things that was very, last time we hung out, we went to dinner and you were talking about your participation in the trial lawyers college. And I think you started as a student, but now you’re on the faculty. So, you know, it, One thing that a lot of lawyers, they feel like once they’ve finished law school, they’re sort of done investing in themselves.
And by that, I mean, taking extra time, extra money, their own money to go do these things versus what the firm is making them do. And at some point you decided to do this trial lawyer college. What sort of led you to that?
Tim Semelroth: big picture is I I’m a fan of lawyers. I love being around lawyers. I love talking to them about their practices. I and [00:21:00] in particular trial lawyers, cause that’s what you know, that’s what I grew up wanting to be. And so I could. I could talk all day about different ways to do an opening statement or how to cross examine the other side’s expert.
And so I’ve always loved going to seminars, CLE, learning from other lawyers, because I’m a fan first and foremost and I can always find something That I can learn how to do better. The trialers college is a whole different level of investment because it is, you know, it’s flagship program is a three week program where you are going off the grid and you are spending, you know, 10, 12 hours a day working on trial skills.
And so the trialers college for people who aren’t familiar with it. It was a program that was founded almost 30 years ago by Jerry Spence and several other you know, great trial lawyers. And it has evolved over the years, but [00:22:00] it’s a, it’s at its core, it is this three week program where you are incorporating the tools of psychodrama into the practice of law.
And for me. And for my firm, it’s been a game changer. We have nine of our lawyers are graduates of the Travelers College. That’s how strongly we believe that it it benefits us.
Jonathan Hawkins: So three weeks, that is a huge did you have kids at the time? Did you say, Hey honey I’m leaving. Sorry. How’d that go? Tell me about that. So,
Tim Semelroth: Well, so, my partner Presley was the first person in the firm. To go to the trial lawyers college. Like I said his specialty is nursing home cases. And he looked around and he noticed that the biggest verdicts in the country in the nursing home space were being won by people who had gone to the trial lawyers college.
So he went. And he came back and you [00:23:00] know, you use the analogy of a marriage. I would, that’s how I would describe my relationship with Presley is that, you know, we’re married professionally. And it’s, and, you know, just like when your spouse comes to you and says, Hey, This is really important to me.
I want you to do this. And you know, if you’re committed to the relationship, you’re going to find a way to say yes. And that’s exactly what happened. He said, he came back, he says, you’ve got to do this, Tim. You will love it. It will change your life. And so, so I, then I went to my wife and, you know, the nice thing is I I, my wife has, you know, we’ve known each other since since high school and she’s been with me throughout my journey from doing mock trial to going to law school, to being a lawyer.
She knew that this was important to me and you know, we have family in nearby who can, who could help with the kids. And so, she made it work. And now it’s to the point where she likes it. Whenever I go to a trialers college event, either as a [00:24:00] faculty member, or they have some grad programs, because she says, after I come back, after a week of using psychodrama.
I, I’m I’m a better listener. I’m more, you know, more open and touch. And she says, you know, it’s tough when I’m gone, but once I get back it’s a better me.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah. So why don’t you explain sort of what psychodrama is and then how it’s used there and then how that makes you sort of a better trial lawyer. I’m curious.
Tim Semelroth: So psychodrama, it’s this therapeutic technique that was developed In the early 20th century by a a man by the name of Moreno, and it involves participants acting out events from their life in sort of a structured way using particular techniques. And so it allows people to explore emotions, thoughts, relationships [00:25:00] through this role playing form.
And it is a. tool for travelers because it allows you to gain these insights and and develop relationships and understanding of other people’s stories in a way that I haven’t found you could do it in any other setting. And so, the travelers college encourages using psychodrama to with. The lawyers who are students in the college to to improve your trial skills.
So in other words, there are certain aspects of psychodrama that you can use to give a more engaging opening statement or to give a more effective. Direct examination, but then the other aspect of it is they strongly encouraged that you go back home and use psychodramatic techniques when you’re interacting with your clients.
And what we’ve found is that creates a level of trust [00:26:00] between our clients and their lawyers that allows you to you know, give, you know, Tough advice, you know, to a client that, that helps them understand that, Hey, you’re on their side because you really understand their story. And so whenever we you know, we will oftentimes hire.
Professional psychodramatists to come in and do a day of work with our clients before a deposition or before a trial. And you know, those are always events where, you know, at that point that the attorney client bond is just. Stronger and more powerful than ever. And it makes it very easy for the client to trust you to go in and tell their story.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that sounds pretty intense to me. Is it something that you use on every case or is it have to be a sort of a substantial enough case for you to really invest all of that in there? I mean, maybe there’s techniques that every time [00:27:00] you talk to a client, you’re sort of using them anyway. But is there a line you have to get to?
Tim Semelroth: Absolutely. So, you know, we don’t bring in a psychodramatist to, to do a day’s worth of work on, you know, a 50, 000, you know, car crash case. But if it’s a case that it’s a case where, you know, you’re into six figures and there’s a good likelihood that a deposition or a trial is going to be key to getting a good outcome for the client then that’s, you know, that we’ve found that it’s a good investment.
It, and it serves a lot of different functions. It’s a way to. Find out your client’s stories that need to be told for trial. It’s a way to get, you know, to prepare them to tell their stories either in a deposition or a trial. And so it’s, you know, maybe it’s three to 5, [00:28:00] 000 to bring the psychodramatist in plus, you know, the time of your team to participate.
But you know, if you’re dealing, you know, six, seven figure case it’s money well spent.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I’d imagine a side benefit would be, you know, you get to know your client, you get to do all, you know, try the case better, present it better, but with this deep bonding you know, on the marketing side, everybody says, create raving fans. I imagine. At the end of this thing, these people are out there, you know, you are their best friend and they’re telling everybody, I would imagine
Tim Semelroth: it’s, you know, there are few occasions in life where people really get the chance to be heard. And this is one of those occasions and so, they [00:29:00] can’t help, but have, you know, really deep feelings towards you when you go through this process with them you know, you and I have talked a lot about focus groups and I always tell people that even in a focus group setting, which is obviously a lot less intense than a psychodrama, you know, the people that you bring in and, you know, you pay, you know, 75, a hundred bucks for, you know, it’s like they walk out of that process. so validated because somebody was interested in what they had to say. And and that’s, you know, that’s rare in the, in this world and any chance you can give it it, it creates a chance that you’re going to develop a fan,
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, that the thought has never occurred to me until just now, but for your focus groups, do you stay in touch? Do they go on your list? Do you start staying in touch with your focus group people?
Tim Semelroth: not as well as we should. So, you know, the way that that we do focus groups and we do a lot of them in house it’s very important. [00:30:00] To make sure that they don’t know who you are and who you represent because people will subconsciously, you know, if you’re the person springing for the pizza or the sub sandwich, and they know that, you know, the money’s coming from you at the end, subconsciously, it’s going to impact how they view the case.
And so when we put together a focus group, you know, they’re not coming into, You know, RSH Legal’s law office. They’re not getting a check that has our firm name on it. And so, we put so much effort into making sure that they don’t know who we are up until the time of the the focus group that to then turn around and start marketing to them directly is a little.
I haven’t figured out the ideal way to make that switch.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a good point. That’s a good point. And so, like I said you’re a student. So you went through the trial lawyers college as a student, and then now [00:31:00] you’re a faculty. So that’s one way that you’ve now. Teach others. And I know you’re committed to that, you do a lot of teaching through trial lawyer, col college and other avenues too.
But the one I want to talk about now really is you are a long time mock trial coach. I mean, you, like you mentioned earlier, you are a participant but you’re a coach and you’re a very successful, your teams have been very successful from what I understand. And so. You know, tell us about why you want to coach and teach others why not just move on and do something else?
Tim Semelroth: Well, mock trial changed my life. My my dad worked in a factory. My mom was a teacher. I don’t think, I can’t remember ever meeting a lawyer in my life before I started participating in mock trial when I was in eighth grade. And that, The opportunity to learn about the justice system in that [00:32:00] way, to learn about what trial lawyers do and then the opportunity to meet my coaches and find out the, you know, the, what their lives were like really.
Changed the trajectory of my life. And so I knew that when I was in law school, I didn’t know if I’d stay in Iowa, but I figured you know, I was going to be around for a couple of years in law school, and so I went back to the teacher who was my middle school mock trial coach and the teacher who was my high school mock trial coach and said, Hey you know, I can help out, you know, and so I started doing that when I was still in law school and I loved it you know, it’s, it is the chance to to, to work on a craft that I love, you know, storytelling trial, you know, trial skills with some of the most talented.
Hardworking, ambitious people that you’ll ever meet who just happened to be in middle school or high school. And and so, you know, I started coaching 28 [00:33:00] years ago and I’ve just, I’ve never stopped because I’ve never stopped loving it. And that’s in part because you know, I’ve coached with other lawyers who are great who.
You know, help take the load. During this time, I’ve had the chance to coach three of my siblings and all three of my kids. And I tell people it’s the only time that my kids and I have deep conversations about the kind of work I do is during mock trial season. You know, when they’re, you know, when we’re driving home from practice and they’re asking about You know, maybe a cross examination they have to do and how, you know, what I do with that in real life.
So I, I love it. It it’s very fulfilling and, you know, thankfully you know, we’ve been pretty successful over the years. And and so, you know, success you know, breeds more success. We, we always have this great stream of talented students in Cedar Rapids who want to come out for our [00:34:00] teams and it’s always a lot of fun.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s really cool. I think you said two of your partners were students of yours. So you met partners that way and you got to coach your kids. I mean, that’s cool. I mean, especially as they get older, you know, like you said, they may not even listen to you at all, let alone about what you do at work.
But you had a pretty, this last run, I think did you get, is it nationals, you took your son to
Tim Semelroth: Yep. So, so it was a great two, two I guess 2023. 2024 was a particularly good time in my coaching career. My son Ben, who’s 14, he was an eighth grader. His team won the Iowa Middle School State Championship. And and so that was exciting to be part of that with him. And then my son, Joe, who’s 18 and a senior won the his team won the Iowa high school state championship.
And when you win the high school [00:35:00] state championship, you get to go to the national. Championship where all the state champion teams go. And he and his team went to the nationals and they won all of their trials and they ended up placing fourth in the country. They missed out on the finals by a couple of tiebreakers, but they they won every trial they had.
So it was a very exciting year.
Jonathan Hawkins: that’s cool. And I imagine an incredible experience for your son. To go meet people from around the country, you know, it, in my mind, I’m thinking it’s sort of like when we were kids, sports were made mainly sort of, you know, pretty amateurish, but now with all the travel teams and all the all star teams, maybe mock trials can end up there too.
You’re going to assemble some powerhouse team of all the top mock trial people in Iowa and really go, right.
Tim Semelroth: Well, you know, I, as you mentioned you know, two of my partners are former students of mine. We have three [00:36:00] other lawyers who are former students of mine. And so, you know, I know that one of the questions that you often ask is, you know, how do you find talent for your firm?
And if, you know, I’d say start coaching mock trial and eventually it pays off because you know, we’ve got all these lawyers in our firm now who I’ve known since they were you know, 12 years old and and I know, you know, what quality people they are and they’ve had to listen to me talk about, you know, how to do a closing argument for years and years.
So, there’s a lot of trust when we go into the courtroom.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s a really cool point. Cause you know, hiring it’s a hard thing to do. Everybody I’ve talked to, it’s a challenge. You might get a resume that just looks awesome and then they get in there and it’s a dud. But by working with these people for so long, you know, they work hard.
They know what it takes, you know, they’re good. They know you there’s that trust. And you know, I guess if you’re not trying cases, mock trials, probably [00:37:00] not where you want to get your. Your lawyers from, but yeah it’s worked out well for you. That’s pretty sweet. So I want to move on.
Cause there’s another thing that, that you teach a lot about lately. That’s the rage is the new thing. And I think it’s really important that we lawyers know about it and that’s sort of AI and the use of AI. And I know you, you’ve been studying it a lot. You’ve been experimenting with it yourself.
You’ve been teaching other lawyers. You’ve been learning from other lawyers. And so what are, you know, what are some of the cool things you’re seeing that law firms, lawyers can use AI for nowadays?
Tim Semelroth: Well, it just. It can do so many things that can make a lawyer’s life easier. It is an amazing brainstorming tool. So it’s a great way to come up with ideas for anything from analogies, metaphors different examples of of something that you’re trying to explain. It is an amazing explainer.
And so if you’re dealing with a [00:38:00] difficult concept that you haven’t faced before, whether it’s a type of an injury or like I said, you know, most of what I do is commercial trucking cases. And so if I need to learn how a new, how a tire can come off of the axle of a tractor trailer.
You know, I can type in, you know, what are the 12 most common ways that, you know, an axle comes off and it gives you ideas it’s just it is a sea change and if you commit to playing around with it using it, you’ll find that, that it can make your life easier and in a hundred different ways.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so the one everybody knows about, CHAT GPT, that’s the one everybody knows about. I know there are others out there. Have you explored some of the others? Are there any others that are good maybe for certain things and not others?
Tim Semelroth: Sure. So, in my mind, it makes most sense to put them in categories. So you’ve got the AI tools that are being created by the legal. [00:39:00] Publishing giants, you know, whether it’s LexisNexis or you know, Thomson Reuters and a lot of the tools that they’re creating are fantastic. If you’re doing a lot of brief writing and research.
Not chat GPT or any large language model is not a great research tool in and of itself. Everybody knows about hallucinations that can be caused. And so you got to double check what you know, what’s being produced, but. So the legal publishing companies are making some fantastic tools. If you’re doing a lot of brief writing that, that can really make your life easier.
Then you’ve got some legal specific AI tools. I would put things like spell book, which is a great tool for. Contract drafting and contract review. You’ve got services like even up, which use AI to help create demand letters and personal injury cases, and [00:40:00] then you’ve got the general category of AI tools, whether it’s chat GPT or.
You know, Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Copilot. And and those can be really useful in the legal context. And so a lot of the the different things that you can do with AI that I talk about are using those general basic tools because you can say, hey, for 20 bucks a month, here’s a tool that can you can use to edit anything that you write.
Or can help you know, create insights from spreadsheets that you upload into it. I mean, it just the opportunities are as they’re almost endless. I mean, there’s a lot of things you can do with AI that just involves creativity. And I think that’s why I find it so exciting.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I think I’ve heard something they say, you know, people are saying AI is not going to replace lawyers, but AI, [00:41:00] lawyers that use AI are going to replace lawyers that don’t. Something like that. I probably have it wrong, but.
Tim Semelroth: No, that’s exactly right. The, and that’s, I believe that to be true. And and I also believe that AI will help with, you know, what a lot of people refer to as the justice gap. You know, the fact, you know, there are a lot of people who need lawyers, who can’t afford lawyers, who can’t find lawyers.
And I think if you put some effort into learning how to leverage artificial intelligence in your practice you’ll have the ability to serve more people. And so that’s a really big deal in the state of Iowa. So like I said, there are 3 million people in the state of Iowa. We have 400 lawyers who are retiring, dying.
Moving away every year. We are only swearing in about 200 lawyers a year. So, you know, the opportunity. For business [00:42:00] in Iowa and probably most other states in the United States is only going to grow. And so you, but you’ve got to put yourself in a position to be able to work efficiently and artificial intelligence can definitely help you do that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And that leads to maybe my last question on AI. Yeah. There’s a lot of fear out there that, you know, it’s going to replace lawyers. We’ve mentioned that already, you know, you’ve had these fears whenever there’s a new technology, people are scared that it’s going to eliminate jobs and it may eliminate some jobs, but generally it seems to create more than it eliminates.
Do you have an opinion on AI? Is it going to, are there going to be more lawyers or fewer lawyers?
Tim Semelroth: You know, the legal jobs that AI could potentially take. Are the jobs you don’t want to have anyway, you know, it’s like, you know, nobody goes to law school to be a you know, to review discovery responses, you know, nobody goes to law school to you know, [00:43:00] to, to hop onto Lexus and check and make sure that the cases that you’re citing in the, in your brief.
I haven’t been overruled. I mean, it at best, AI is a, is a young, kind of dumb associate or a law student or a clerk. And you know, and so. I tell people not to fear AI because the jobs that it’s coming for are not the jobs that lawyers really want to do and the jobs that lawyers get excited about doing.
Jonathan Hawkins: Great point. That is a great point. It may hurt. Certain firms business models, but in the long run, I think you’re right about that. So let’s shift you’re in charge of marketing your firm. I know you do a lot of stuff over there. And every time we meet, I’m just peppering you with questions.
You’re probably like, shut up, but it’s really fascinating to me. And you do all sorts of stuff. You do grassroots, you do advertising, you do everything. And for, you know, [00:44:00] An attorney or a new firm owner who’s many leagues behind somebody like you in terms of marketing, they look at somebody like you and they are just overwhelmed and like, Oh my gosh, where do I start?
What do I do? So, first thing is, you know, how did you learn marketing and sort of how did it evolve for you and your firm over time? I’m curious.
Tim Semelroth: So if you remember, I got hired by two, two trial lawyers. And one day I was sitting in my office, you know, maybe getting ready for a deposition or minding my own business. And they came in and said, Hey Westlaw is doing a seminar about websites. We should probably get one of those once you go there.
And so that was the start of my marketing journey. I had to go to you know, some conference room and listen to the pitch from Westlaw about, about websites for law firms. So that shows also how old I am. You know, most law firms didn’t have websites then. And so I, [00:45:00] when I didn’t realize is at that moment I became in charge of our firm’s marketing and and then it evolved you know, when one of our, you know, the founding partners went on the bench all of a sudden, you know, it made me realize it’s like, Hey where do our cases come from?
And what do I need to do to make sure that cases keep coming in? And so that led to learning about you know, everything from. Pay per click marketing to you know, to education based marketing. And then at that time, Iowa had the most restrictive advertising rules in the United States.
You could not when I first became responsible for marketing for the firm, there was almost no advertising. Mass market advertising for lawyers in the state of Iowa. You had to put so many disclaimers on any document that you sent out that nobody could put up a billboard because it would be full of disclaimers.
You could have a [00:46:00] television ad, but it couldn’t have moving pictures and it could not have the voice of a lawyer. It had to you know, for some reason the Iowa Supreme Court at the time thought that. You know, lawyers were such smooth talking, you know, silver tongue, you know, devils that they would just entrance people if they heard us speak.
So you had to have a monotone spokesmodel. So nobody was using TV. Nobody was using billboards, you know, a lot of the stuff that we take for granted now wasn’t even invented. And so when. The rules changed when the Iowa Supreme Court finally realized that our advertising rules wouldn’t stand up to first amendment scrutiny.
Then it became a whole new ballgame. And so at that point, I was just trying to learn as much as I could about as many types of marketing as possible, because in, in our work you know, plaintiff’s personal injury work, the reality is that you can be the greatest lawyer in the world. But if you don’t [00:47:00] have cases that allow you to show your skills, nobody will ever know and you sure won’t be you know, paid for it.
And so, I firmly believe that I do my best work. On the best cases. And so that’s why it started as my job and it continues to be my job to make sure that I’m putting the the best cases possible not just for my team, but for for all the lawyers in the firm so that they can do their best work.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so you do it all. You do the grassroots, you do email marketing, you do probably have some events and parties, you have a print newsletter, you do all that stuff. And you do ads on TV, probably radio too, but you were telling me a pretty, pretty cool story about. Maybe one of the most valuable ad buys, maybe in the history of of your firm, maybe anywhere.
So why don’t you, why don’t you tell us about that? I’ll let, I won’t, I’ll just leave it with that and let you, you tell the story,
Tim Semelroth: So, so I am a proud native Island [00:48:00] and and we. We celebrate the success of anybody from Iowa. We are the biggest fans. And so, because of that probably the most popular person in the state of Iowa right now is Caitlin Clark. The the now professional basketball player, but she was selling out arenas at the university of Iowa when she was playing for the Hawkeyes.
And it, I realized I’m like, holy cow. I mean, you can’t buy a ticket to her games. You can’t you know, you have, you know, people who don’t care about sports at all, who are, You know making an appointment viewing to watch the Iowa women’s basketball team play. So, I realized that about the time she was a sophomore.
And so I went to our broker, the people who buy a TV ad time for us. And I said, I want a commercial for our firm [00:49:00] on every Iowa women’s college, you know, basketball game. And our broker, who are great you know, PMP out of out, out of Florida. They looked at me and they said. And I said, I want to advertize on women’s college basketball. And they’re like, nobody’s ever requested that before. And I said, trust me, you know, just, you know, go, you know, make the buy. And so they came back and they said, all right, you got it. You’re going to be on it, you know, on every game that’s shown on cable and this season. And so then the rating started coming in and so this, you know, our representative down in Florida is going crazy because he gets the ratings for each of these games.
And she’s, you know, the Hawkeyes are breaking records and, you know, they went to, you know, her last two years, they go to two national championship games with each game setting records. And and so I was loving it, but I also realized the train was likely coming to an end. And so my [00:50:00] last and probably my smartest media buy was I went to them during our senior year and I said, okay, here’s when the WNBA draft is.
We’re going to find out what team drafts her. And then I want to make sure that we have an ad every time that team is on TV in the state of Iowa. And so, we got this amazing buy for really next to nothing because up until Caitlin Clark was on the Indiana fever, nobody was watching Indiana fever WNBA games in the state of Iowa, and now it is appointment viewing.
You can’t walk into a restaurant or bar with the TV during the WNBA season and not see her game on. And so, it’s, you know, I’ve lost money in a hundred different ways in marketing, but that’s one way that I’m pretty proud about.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, that, that is so fascinating. I love that story. That was just one of my favorite stories. And it gets me thinking it’s sort of like in [00:51:00] any investment, you know, like say financial markets or whatever you want to try to. See where the puck’s going, so to speak. And so you, you did it, man, you nailed it.
So I’m over here thinking, okay, what can I do? What can I do? I don’t do advertising, but you know, that’s awesome story. I guess the, I guess it’s over now. Right. I guess you can’t get the same deal.
Tim Semelroth: No I doubt I doubt they’ll ever sell a space to me that cheaply. Again,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Well, cool. So real quick let’s sort of wrap it up, but you know, I want to ask, you know, You’ve been at this for quite a while in all sorts of roles at your firm. You’ve seen a lot you know, looking back what’s been some of the bigger challenges of just running your firm over the years.
Tim Semelroth: I would say the biggest challenge is being a trial order can be absolutely consuming. You know, a good case, a good trial will take every minute of every day. There’s always [00:52:00] something you can do deeper. There’s always something that you can do more and, you know, the same goes for running a business.
And so, the biggest challenge that I’ve had is. trying to set boundaries on things. Cause you can completely burn out on either of those activities and trying to do both of them at the same time is, you know, almost impossible. And so, trying to figure out, okay, what am I going to focus on?
What am I not? You know, what, you know, what pitches am I going to lay off on, you know, and which ones are we going to swing, you know, from our heels is probably the greatest challenge.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m with you. I did a post a while back. I call myself a squirrel chaser. It’s just, it comes across my vision and I want it. So, yeah, I feel ya. So last question, you know, you’ve done a lot. Your kids I think are getting to the point where maybe they’re all going to be in college or past that.
What’s your vision for the firm and maybe for your life over the next [00:53:00] 10, 20 years, do you have it yet?
Tim Semelroth: yeah you know, it’s always a work in progress, you know, for the firm, I just want to be the, for the people within our firm. I want to be the place where they can go and be the best trial lawyers that they can be. You know, I want them to come here and say, Hey, I am completely supported. I’m given all the tools that I need to be great.
And and I can’t imagine going any place else because this is the place that’s going to help me be the kind of lawyer I want to be. So that’s my internal goal. My external goal for the firm is. I want to be the law firm that anytime anybody needs a plaintiff’s lawyer in Iowa, they think of us first.
If I could have one wish for this podcast, it’s that people remember me as Tim from Iowa. And and that if they [00:54:00] have a legal issue in Iowa, that they give us a call. I, you know, I probably know more lawyers in the state of Iowa than just about anybody. And if we don’t have a lawyer here who can help you.
We will put you in touch with the lawyers who can and then on a personal standpoint, I mean, obviously, you know, you want you want your kids to you know, to achieve their dreams. And like you said, I have 2 kids in college now, 1 who’s in high school and, you know, you want to support them so that they can they can, you know, reach whatever heights they want to.
And then you know, for my wife and I, it’s like, I. I, I love to teach, like you said. I you know, it to the extent that I back away from many responsibilities with the firm. You’ll probably see me teaching at the law school at Iowa. I’m an adjunct professor. I’m actually getting ready to teach trial ed in two weeks.
You know, at the University of Iowa College of Law I don’t see myself ever stopping doing that. You know, people people ask me when I’m going to stop [00:55:00] coaching mock trial. And I tell them when I stop having fun and and it’s still fun for me. I still love doing it.
And so, you know, there’ll be a lot of things that are different, let’s say 10 years from now. Probably won’t be handling quite as many cases, probably spend more time being a cheerleader for the other lawyers in this firm. But you know, there’ll probably be a lot of things that are the same.
Jonathan Hawkins: Tim, I’ve enjoyed having you on here. So for the people out there that have cases and they need a lawyer in Iowa, or they just want to reach out and pick your brain on you know, trial advocacy or whatever, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
Tim Semelroth: The website is fightingforfairness. com. You email is T Semmelroth at fightingforfairness. com. But the social platform that I’m really trying to put a lot of time and energy into right now is LinkedIn. So, hey reach out to me on LinkedIn, connect and if you ever need a resource in Iowa that’s, you can [00:56:00] reach me through there.
Well,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Everybody go send a connection request on LinkedIn, get connected with Tim. Tim, there’s been real fun. Thank you. I’ve learned a lot from you over this past year and I made it when I say When you speak, I’m like, okay this is going to be good. So, I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.
So thank you.
Tim Semelroth: thank you. It’s a great podcast you have here and it was a real honor to be on it.
