Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] Welcome to Founding Partner Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. We’ve got a great guest today. We’ve got Natanya Brooks, who is a personal injury lawyer here in the Atlanta area. I’ve known her for a number of years now. We are both Georgia Tech grads. We did not know each other at Georgia Tech, but we’ve got that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I think that’s sort of helped us connect here, but I’ve known her since the early days of her firm. And there’s been a lot of growth.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’m excited to explore some of that today. But Natanya, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us what you do sort of a little bit about your firm, you know, how big it is, where it is, that kind of thing.
Natanya Brooks: Okay. Well, thanks so much, Jonathan, for having me. I am excited to discuss everything with you today. I am the owner of Brooks Injury Law. So we only help people who have been injured, but we do all kinds of injury cases. So anything from a wrongful death, medical malpractice case, all the way down to a [00:01:00] small car wreck.
Natanya Brooks: And we have different attorneys across the firm that specialize in premises, cases or truck wreck cases and all of the different types of injury cases that there are.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I know a number of personal injury firms also do workers comp. Do you guys do that?
Natanya Brooks: We don’t. We tried it and I think workers comp is a volume practice. So we were not ready to do that at our firm. So it wasn’t a good fit right now for us.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So let’s go back. So, as I mentioned earlier, you went to Georgia Tech. George Tech does not have a law school. Did you always know you’re going to be a lawyer? I mean, why did you choose the law?
Natanya Brooks: No, I never thought I’d be a lawyer. Even currently, I sometimes wonder how I ended up here. But I was actually a swim coach when I applied to law school, believe it or not.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So we’ll get into that. You were a swimmer in college and we’ll get to that in a minute. And then you graduated [00:02:00] tech, but then I think you had a gap. So there was a time, you know, some people go straight in. I took about a year and a half off, which was awesome. But how long did you take off and then what triggered you?
Jonathan Hawkins: It sounds like you were a swim coach. What triggered you to say, all right, I’m doing something, that’s going to be law school.
Natanya Brooks: Sure. I actually thought I would get my MBA. I never thought I would go to law school. I never thought about law school. I got my degree in business at Georgia Tech. I love business, I always wanted to do business.
Natanya Brooks: My plan was to go straight into my MBA and as I got deeper into school and have really good professors, they told me that it would make more sense to get real-world experience before getting an MBA.
Natanya Brooks: So I listened to them, but it kind of threw my whole plan off track. So I had many years in between trying to just figure out what my next steps would be when I graduated from Georgia Tech. I didn’t have a job, I had never had even an internship. All I had ever done was swim and coach [00:03:00] and give lessons.
Natanya Brooks: So I did a number of different things within the few years after Georgia Tech, but I traveled, I backpacked until I ran out of money. I worked in finance, the person that sits across from the dentist, I like just went out with the person that sits across from the dentist that sucks the spit out of someone’s mouth.
Natanya Brooks: That’s the chairside dental assistant, I did that. And then finally I was a swim coach and I was working at a country club in Atlanta and basically everybody at the country club, they’re all attorneys. And as I either taught them how to swim or their kids. They just said that they really enjoyed being a lawyer, it was a great career, and they would write me a recommendation.
Natanya Brooks: So, I ended up getting recommendations from all these people that I worked with at the country club, and that was the route.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s funny. I have a similar route, so I wanted to go get an MBA. I want to go into finance. I wanted to do all that. And somebody told me you can’t go [00:04:00] really go straight from undergrad MBA school, or at least not a good one. So they’re like, you’re going to have to go work.
Jonathan Hawkins: So my dad was a lawyer and I was like, I am not going to be a lawyer because I already know what about that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so I took some time off. I traveled, I did all that and the same thing, I ran out of money. So then I was like working temp jobs. And then I ended up, you know, somewhere and I was like, all right, it’s time to get serious. And that’s when I was like, all right, I’ll do law school. So. I’m with you. I feel you say a similar journey there.
Natanya Brooks: You’re nodding like you understood. You knew exactly.
Jonathan Hawkins: But it was fun. You know, it was good. And when I went to law school, I was a little more serious, maybe than I would have been, maybe not. But all right, so you end up in law school, and the other thing I saw a post that you did on LinkedIn or something, and I did not know this, but your daughter or your first daughter was born before you graduated.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you were pregnant during law school. Law school is hard enough. Pregnancy is hard enough. Put them together. Wow, well, that must’ve been pretty tough. So tell me about that.
Natanya Brooks: Everyone thought I was [00:05:00] crazy. I got married before I went to law school since I didn’t have, like, I didn’t go straight through, I guess, a non-traditional route, so, I was already married the summer before I started law school, so I’m a few years into my marriage and I didn’t like to plan it. I never even thought about having kids, but it’s like, you know, they talk about women having this like ticking clock.
Natanya Brooks: I don’t know, something, like some switch flipped and all I could see were kids. I mean, I would go to the same beach I’d been to every single year and I never noticed a kid, and all of a sudden that’s all I noticed. And I just was like, I’m ready to have kids. I just knew that was what would be true to myself at that time.
Natanya Brooks: And then everyone said, you’re in law school. And I said, who cares? There’s never going to be a good time. It’s always going to be hard. And I thought, well, it’s my third year and I already was working at the firm that I planned on working at when I graduated. So that was good and I [00:06:00] was able to switch all my classes to evening classes since it was my last semester.
Natanya Brooks: So basically when Harper was born, I stayed home all day with her and then my husband would come home, you know, after he finished at work and then he would take her and I would go to class all night and it was a blur. It was really hard.
Jonathan Hawkins: I imagine so but that was your last semester. Thankfully.
Natanya Brooks: Semester. Yeah. And then I had to study and take the bar with a newborn.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah, it’s timely. I guess the July bar just for timestamps just happened. So everybody’s been talking about that lately. So that, yeah, I can’t imagine that too. I mean, you’ve got sort of the distraction of a newborn basically, and you’re trying to study for the bar, you must’ve been stressed out of your mind.
Natanya Brooks: Yeah. I just said, if I don’t pass, I’m not going to retake it. It’s just not for me. I said, I’m going to burn all these books and I just gave it all I had. And I said, this is just, there’s [00:07:00] nothing left in the tank. And I don’t know, I was before they had points, I probably passed by half a point, but I.
Jonathan Hawkins: Is all you need, right? Yeah. Okay. So, you graduate, you pass the bar and then you say you had a job at a firm. What kind of firm was it? What kind of work were you doing?
Natanya Brooks: I was doing insurance defense. And so I had a really good friend in law school whose dad had an insurance defense firm. And he helped me get an interview with him and I started working there my 1L summer and then I really liked it.
Natanya Brooks: So I worked there my 2L year, my 2L summer, my 3L year. You know, after, when I was taking the bar and then I worked there for years as an attorney and I was just very lucky to have that experience and have great bosses.
Natanya Brooks: I got a lot of trial work. I worked on cases all across the state and I learned a ton.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s a good thing about like an insurance defense. I mean, you’re going to get a lot of [00:08:00] experience, generally speaking, fast. I mean, they’re just throwing you in the fire.
Jonathan Hawkins: So it sounds like you got some trials and probably hundreds of depositions and, you know, everything in between. Right?
Natanya Brooks: That’s exactly right.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you did that for a while now.
Jonathan Hawkins: At some point you said, all right, I’m going to start my firm. So the first question is, did you have a feeling you were always going to start your firm? You just didn’t know when, or was that something that just sort of happened? Tell me about how that came about.
Natanya Brooks: No, actually never planned. I never planned on being an attorney and I never planned on starting my own firm. I just, I don’t know. It was like a gut feeling. And I didn’t know what I was doing or how I was going to do it. And a lot of people said, similar to when I was going to have a baby in law school like you’re going to start a firm.
Natanya Brooks: You don’t know what you’re doing. How are you going to do this? But I just like trusted myself that I would figure it out and that I didn’t need to have every single thing planned that it would be hard and I wouldn’t be perfect and if I was okay with that, then I can [00:09:00] figure it out. And it was like an out-of-body experience almost.
Natanya Brooks: It wasn’t a plan.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you were interested in business before and I know you dabble with some other business things on the side now. So I guess it may have been inevitable that you were going to start a business of some sort, right? Maybe.
Natanya Brooks: It makes total sense now, like hindsight, like, okay, cause I was always into entrepreneurial, just things my whole life. And I was like, how does law fit in with all of these other business interests that I have? So now it’s like just the perfect collaboration of the two.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so you started the firm, you also switched sides. You, from the defense to the plaintiff’s side. And so, you know, another post that I read that you had sort of, I think maybe when all this was going down or sort of near that time you had sort of a cancer scare. So tell me about that, you know, that sounded pretty traumatic.
Natanya Brooks: Yeah, I was pregnant with my second daughter [00:10:00] and I went in for my first ultrasound and the doctor found a huge mass on my ovary. That was 10 times bigger than the baby. So she said, your baby looks beautiful. I see the heartbeat. And then she said, what on earth is that? You know, you never want to hear your doctor say.
Natanya Brooks: She said there’s this huge mass. And so, they started monitoring me. I had to go to a specialist, and then every week. There would be imaging done and this mass, it was just growing and growing and changing. And so the radiologist thought nothing does that unless it’s alive. And when it’s alive, it’s cancer.
Natanya Brooks: And so he told me I needed to have an emergency surgery because if I let my pregnancy progress any longer than my body would like when I go in for the surgery could think that it needs to give birth and then I, you know, it would be going to labor early. So basically this is my window. The mass was to the point where I needed the surgery.
Natanya Brooks: If I waited any longer, I couldn’t have surgery. So, you know, [00:11:00] tomorrow I go in I remember coming back to the office and having to send in all of these emergency leaves. For all of my cases and then going into the hospital at 5 a.m. to be ready for surgery. It was supposed to be laparoscopic and something simple, of course, it wasn’t. They couldn’t use the robot they had planned to use because the baby was in the way. So they ended up having to ditch that.
Natanya Brooks: The doctor was a specialist who used this da Vinci machine on me and they couldn’t even use it. They had to end up basically doing like a full abdominal cut, like a C-section, except that I was still pregnant, and take out the mask. There were some other complications. So, they were keeping me open longer than they had planned to, which is scary for the baby.
Natanya Brooks: And then when I woke up at the hospital, all of my doctors were there, you know, I had my OB, the radiologist is there, the surgeon and we got a call from pathology because they sent the mass to three different [00:12:00] pathologists. The phone call that they took, they said that it was not cancer.
Natanya Brooks: And my surgeon said, Natanya, look at my arm. He said, you know, I have chill bumps and I saw it with my own eyes. I thought it was cancer. So they’re basically all at my bedside because they knew how bad it was. And then it ended up not being cancer, but you need to still go through all the same emotions and all the same fears.
Natanya Brooks: And especially in my situation, I was pregnant. And they were telling me that I would take chemo pills while I was pregnant, which I didn’t even know was a thing, but apparently it was. And so, you know, you’re mentally prepared to do all that.
Natanya Brooks: Obviously, it was a huge relief and it just, it was like a catalyst in my life to really think, what am I doing? What do I want to do? Life is short, what’s important? And what changes do I want to make? You know, I have another chance that I really appreciate after going through that.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s scary. You know, my wife and I, had a similar issue. Our daughter had cancer when she was in the womb. And so, [00:13:00] you know, I remember the night before the surgery, you probably had this, it was the speech, or maybe it was the morning of the speech that the doctor gives you basically, you know, to CYA, all these bad things can happen and you’re just sent right before and you’re like, what, why’d you give me that?
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, they probably gave you that speech, right?
Natanya Brooks: know, I mean, I remember I was sitting like in this conference room, like a long conference table. I mean, I can remember it, I was just in there by myself and I’m just like crying as I’m reading all these things that are going to go on and yeah, nurses explaining all these things and you’re just like, okay, I mean, I guess I’ll move forward, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, happy ending. No cancer. Your daughter’s here and great, right? The pregnancy.
Natanya Brooks: What about you, what about everything with you guys?
Jonathan Hawkins: It all worked out. I mean, we were lucky. She was born, and our daughter was born with cancer. She ended up staying in the NICU for like five months after, she had a trach. It was extremely traumatic. And like you, it was like, I was a [00:14:00] zombie for probably a couple of years. But everything’s good, she just started high school this week, so all good.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you have this, I mean, I’ll call it a, you know, I don’t know what you’d call it, but a moment where you’re like, everything could be crashing down, like everything, including your life. And that led you to sort of said, Hey, I got a second chance. And so you’re like, all right, I’m going for it.
Jonathan Hawkins: How long after sort of the recovery and all that, you said, all right, I’m opening the doors.
Natanya Brooks: The recovery was like six weeks. And so during that time, I couldn’t even sit up. I was in the hospital for a week and then I had to use a bedside toilet and I couldn’t do basic things. And then, you know, I couldn’t drive and even when I was able to get back to getting in the courtroom, I couldn’t even carry in like a Redwell.
Natanya Brooks: Full of papers because it was too, you know, I couldn’t hold something that was over a pound. And then when I had my [00:15:00] first trial, I remember I had to go to my car and lay down, put the seat all the way back, and lay back because I was in so much pain.
Natanya Brooks: And so, like going through that part of it and not knowing how long is it going to take to recover? Am I going to recover? And am I going to be able to pick up my daughter again? The daughter that was still in my stomach, like, is she going to be okay? What effects is this going to have on her? So I think during the recovery process is when I really started understanding like what is pain and suffering and what matters, and I’d only done defense work and I’d never had surgery.
Natanya Brooks: So when I got into the position where I had to have a surgery and I had gone through emotionally, mentally, physically, the things that are involved with surgery and recovery, then I just really started to connect with that experience. And I felt like I could give a voice, an authentic voice to it because I knew it.
Natanya Brooks: And so that’s when I decided I loved what I was doing. I loved being in the courtroom. I loved the [00:16:00] law. I loved the advocacy, but I just wanted to be on the other side and I wanted to help someone who had been through what I was going through.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s really interesting. I had not even thought of that, but going through that, the empathy and the experience you can connect with your client probably on a much deeper level, but then you can communicate it to the jury much more effectively than somebody who probably has never been through it. And you track cases, right?
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, you recently, I read in the paper, got a pretty good verdict here within the last, I don’t know what, a couple of weeks.
Natanya Brooks: Yeah. I mean, there’s two things that I love. I love trials. I just love everything about it. I love working with the clients and I love just like the competition of it, the adrenaline of it. The teamwork, the late nights, I don’t know.
Natanya Brooks: I just, I love the whole trial experience, having an opportunity to represent a client in a life-changing circumstance with the pressures on, it fits with like, I don’t know, I just, there’s [00:17:00] some things you get so honed in on, there could be 500 people watching.
Natanya Brooks: You would never know, that’s like a trial for me, once you get into it, everything else disappears, you forget about your emails you just get really present, so I just love trial, I love helping other people get ready for trial, like coaching with mock trial or other people at our firm that are getting ready for trial, I just love being involved with it. But then I also love the teamwork aspect of it.
Natanya Brooks: So yeah I personally like it and then I like just having it a big part of our firm and there are a lot of people or other attorneys at the firm now that are great trial attorneys and that are just doing really well. So just being involved with them is also really fun for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned being competitive. So let’s go back to your college days. You are a swimmer in college, so you are a competitive person. I’m sure you were a college athlete. The other thing I’ll point out is you graduated from Georgia Tech in three years. Is that right? How the hell did [00:18:00] you do that?
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, that is, it’s unheard of without sports to graduate in four years. Everybody’s on the five-year-plus plan. How did you do that? First of all.
Natanya Brooks: So a combination of a lot of things, as I’m sure you can imagine. When I was in high school, I was from Georgia. And if you stay in the state, then you can do something called joint enrollment. When I was a senior, I started taking college courses at Georgia Preliminary College, which was right down the hill from my high school.
Natanya Brooks: So I took a bunch of courses there and I took AP classes. And then when I ended up graduating, I already had 12 hours that counted towards my degree. If I went to school in Georgia, since I went to Georgia Tech, I was transferred over, then I was taking classes over the summer.
Natanya Brooks: So, like, my first summer, you know, if I was coaching one summer, I trained, I stayed at Georgia Tech and I trained and I took my science that summer because it was a four-hour course and I had lab and I just really needed to have the time which is hard with [00:19:00] swimming.
Natanya Brooks: So I did that over the summer and then I took a course one summer when I trained back at my club team, I took a course with Georgia for the college. And then one semester at Georgia Tech, I took 21 hours.
Jonathan Hawkins: Holy crap.
Natanya Brooks: While I was swimming. So, was a lot. But I don’t know, that was probably crazy.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well that is crazy. You know the other thing, so, you know, I swam growing up, but I did not, I was on the swim team one year. I was not that great, but my nephew is, was pretty good and I just know how much he swam. Early mornings, every morning before school. I know how hard it is and how hard you train. I can’t imagine what it’s like in college.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then just the endurance and the, probably the pain you have to go through to do that. So I’m sure that experience, number one it’s tough and it’s probably sort of set you up to endure some other things like we’ve already talked about, but how? Looking back at your college days, your competitive swimming, does that translate at all in, you know, your practice or [00:20:00] running the firm?
Jonathan Hawkins: Are there any parallels or anything, any lessons learned?
Natanya Brooks: Yeah, 100%. I think doing a sport or just something where you’re super engaged, dedicated, and determined. I think that it’s like a direct, it directly translates to the real world. I think for me, probably the biggest thing is just learning to be resilient.
Natanya Brooks: Which is really hard and every life is hard, you know, law is hard, trials are hard. You know, everything is tough. And with swimming, I was kind of trained my entire life that you work really hard every day. You go to your swim meet. If you do bad, it doesn’t matter.
Natanya Brooks: Like you still have practice the next day, right? You don’t get any days off. You can’t miss practice. You do well, you don’t, you just get back up the next day and you do the same thing.
Natanya Brooks: So I think for me, it’s like, there’s going to be hard days, but you just, you don’t quit. You just come back in and you work hard, you get back on your feet. Something [00:21:00] else doesn’t go how you want, you just get back up the next day and you come in and you just keep at it. And I think that’s the most important thing because some days you just want to throw your hands in the air.
Natanya Brooks: But I think my whole life, you know, I’m used to just, there’s tough things you get let down. So you just get back up and you don’t stop.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Some days you just want to sleep in, right?
Natanya Brooks: Yeah, but that just wasn’t an option. I mean, you just couldn’t miss practice.
Jonathan Hawkins: So have you ever sat down and tried to figure out how many miles you’ve swam in your life? Have you ever done that? Oh, it’s gonna be.
Natanya Brooks: Would be so many miles.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, do you think you’ve cracked a hundred thousand or, I mean, gosh, yeah. So do you still swim at all now? I know you got your kids, your daughters, do they swim?
Natanya Brooks: Yeah, they swim both my kids swim, my oldest daughter her sport of choice is tennis, and she’s really into tennis. My younger daughter is super into swimming, so it’s been really fun for me to be able to stay in the sport and [00:22:00] watch her swim. And even my oldest daughter that likes tennis more, she’s still, she’ll get into swimming.
Natanya Brooks: And so, that’s been really fun. And I still swim. I try to do some open water swimming, which I love, like being in a lake or the ocean. And so I’ll try to do something like triathlons or some kind of open water event. And, yeah, I just swim for fun. I just enjoy it.
Jonathan Hawkins: I imagine it would be a huge stress relief to you. I mean, trials are stressful running a firm stressful. You go out and swim, you know, a few miles, and you just, it’s just sort of get it all out. Right?
Natanya Brooks: Well, you’re underwater. It’s like you’re in your own little world and no one can talk to you. There’s no phone, there’s no emails, and it really is therapeutic, I think, to kind of be under the water like that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. You know, I’m a big proponent. It doesn’t matter necessarily what it is, but you know Everybody needs something that is that release valve. It’s good that you’ve got that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So another thing you mentioned [00:23:00] you said the teamwork and I know that at your firm, teamwork is a big thing. So I guess first of all, how many people are at your firm now?
Jonathan Hawkins: How many lawyers how many staff?
Natanya Brooks: Including me, we have eight lawyers. And including me, we have 21 people.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that yeah, it’s getting that big that’s getting there. So how do you stress the teamwork? I mean, the bigger it gets, the harder it is. You know, there’s always that contingent you got to bring into the team. So how do you manage that?
Natanya Brooks: You’re right, it’s like, it is harder, but when it goes right, it’s beautiful. When all the pieces work together, and everyone is in the right spot, and everyone has a common goal, like, one person can’t do it all, right? I mean, it’s very hard. There’s a couple of special people, but like, really, you need people with different skill sets to work together.
Natanya Brooks: So I found that even though it’s hard, you have two different people and you have them going towards a common goal and they’re good at different things. Then you [00:24:00] kind of have the whole picture. You can do everything on the team.
Natanya Brooks: So I think as a team who can accomplish any goal, no matter what it is, you have somebody on that team that can do it. That’s good at it and that enjoys it.
Natanya Brooks: The normal person is not amazing and enjoys every single part, every case.
Jonathan Hawkins: And you know, so on the teamwork thing, something that you did that is a little more unusual, I’ll say compared to most other lawyers that I’ve ever really encountered. When you started your firm, you had an operations person sort of from the early days, maybe from the first day. And most lawyers don’t start out that way.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I remember having a conversation with you and I may misremember, but you were like, I want to try the cases. I want to do the legal work. And you had this other person, Mark, who is sort of your operations guy. So it’s back to your point about different people, having different roles in the firm.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m curious though. I mean, you’ve had in about six years, you know, it started with, was it just you and Mark at the very beginning?
Natanya Brooks: And Anna.
Jonathan Hawkins: [00:25:00] Ok and Anna. So it started with three people and so in six years, you’ve grown to eight lawyers and 21 people. I mean, that’s good.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how did that work and how did you guys divide that?
Jonathan Hawkins: And, you know, for people out there that are thinking about bringing on sort of an operations person you know, sort of tell us your experience.
Natanya Brooks: A law firm is a business. I mean, you have HR, and you have all of your systems, and you have hiring. You have, like for us now, we got a building, we got contractors. It’s not just legal. I mean, part of it, that’s only part. You know, once you have a certain number of people, there’s a lot more to it.
Natanya Brooks: Lawyers typically aren’t, they’re not business people, right? Like we have someone who is a business mind and who gets things done and who likes numbers, you know, that’s a different kind of skillset than a lawyer.
Natanya Brooks: You know, lawyers usually, they like to read and they’re good at talking and like, again, it’s back to the teamwork, which is [00:26:00] you want to have somebody who understands business and numbers.
Natanya Brooks: And all of the other parts to the firm, in addition to law to grow in my opinion, because otherwise it just everything again, just can’t fall on one person. You kind of have to divide up and different people have different strengths and kind of do it that way. So that is kind of what I always saw that made sense.
Natanya Brooks: I do think that a lot of larger firms. I know on the defense, there’s typically a CEO of some of the larger firms. But I’m sure maybe for smaller firms, I probably did that sooner than most.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it worked. So kudos to you. So you mentioned you got a building. I know you guys moved into a new office. So I guess, did you guys buy the building?
Natanya Brooks: We did.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. Now that’s cool. So this is a debate that I see from time to time on LinkedIn and just, I’ve talked to folks about it. You know, do you buy a building or [00:27:00] not?
Jonathan Hawkins: And then there’s a camp that says, Oh yeah, that is just the best thing you can do. And then there’s a camp that says, I don’t know, it limits you. You might run out of space, blah, blah, blah. So what was the thinking behind you guys buying a building?
Natanya Brooks: I just personally, like real estate. I think it’s a really good investment. And it just, it like gives me energy, you know, I mean, people invest in different things. Like some people like to be in the stock market and they like to watch things move. And I personally enjoy investing into the firm, like investing into people and, you know, bringing in someone new or being able to elevate someone within the firm.
Natanya Brooks: So investing into the firm. And then I think that it makes a lot of sense to own a building because then your costs are fixed for that building. Whereas if I’m leasing and then every year it’s going up further and further, and then when your contract runs out, right, you kind of just, if you want to [00:28:00] stay, you’re at the mercy of the landlord and they tell you, you can’t do certain things in the parking lot. You can’t have a heater in your office. I don’t know. There’s rules which I also don’t like.
Natanya Brooks: So there’s a lot of perks to owning real estate. And I think it makes a lot of sense. And for me personally, because I enjoy it, you know, for someone else that maybe sucks the life out of them, it’s a lot to deal with.
Natanya Brooks: But like, I even like moving. I mean, it’s crazy. We moved in this week and there’s a million things to do. And I’m drained, but I’m also happy. And some people would probably be drained and miserable, but I think it’s like a personal decision. But I do think that it makes sense business-wise to do it and it was always a goal and I don’t have any regrets yet.
Natanya Brooks: I’ll keep you posted.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, congrats on the building. And for people that are sort of in the Atlanta area, I think, do you have extra space if anybody is interested in finding a spot to sublease or lease?
Natanya Brooks: We thought about it and we decided to [00:29:00] just, you know, keep it our firm. So, you know, it’s security too when it’s just us and again you’re in complete control of who’s in and who’s out and who people are meeting with versus you’re renting out some space and then, you know, knows who’s in and who’s out and what’s going on.
Natanya Brooks: So it just felt security-wise, safety-wise. Keep it all just our practice. Anyone is welcome. Anyone can stop by and pop in and grab an office for a day. But the plan right now is just to keep it our firm in here.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that makes sense. And it also, you know, you mentioned you have the ability to sort of do what you want, and there’s another thing I’ve seen is and we’ll get to this in a minute, but I know your daughter’s come to work a lot. And so you, I think you had a playroom, maybe at your old office.
Jonathan Hawkins: Are you building out a side, a place here for them to do whatever?
Natanya Brooks: We have stuff here for the kids. It’s insane. But of course, they have a playroom here. They got a PlayStation [00:30:00] 5, which I’ve never even heard of, so apparently that’s, you know, the newest Nintendo. But there’s, like, couches, and there’s a ping pong table, and there’s a stand-up shuffleboard, and I forgot what it’s called, another game where you roll balls, there’s an arcade game.
Natanya Brooks: I mean, it’s just like, I want to be with my kids, and I also want to work. So, if my office space is a place that my kids don’t mind being for a couple of hours a day, then I get to see them more. So, for me, that’s important.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. And then everybody else can take a break and go in there and yeah.
Natanya Brooks: Work doesn’t have to be serious all the time. I mean, of course, there’s so many serious and stressful moments, but there can also be some fun moments and some enjoyable moments. You know, that’s possible.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you one of my favorite posts that you did. I thought was awesome. It was, I think you were there at your old office on the weekend, prepping for trial. You’re in the office, papers everywhere. And then you get your video out [00:31:00] and you start walking down the hall and in the office is a bouncy house and your kids are in there going crazy.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s incredible.
Natanya Brooks: Well, I was trying to think, you know, how do I hang out with my kids this weekend? I know I’m going to be in the office all weekend. I have to put in the time and I have to read all these medical records, but I want to see them and I want them to be happy. And kids love a bouncy house. I mean, my kids, you give them a bouncy house, they’ll stay all day.
Natanya Brooks: And then it just kind of became a tradition. They would pull out the bouncy house and like, we got the bouncy house here in the new office. Since we have a larger parking lot and we can do whatever we want here, we have just bought a commercial bouncy.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh man.
Natanya Brooks: For the parking lot.
Jonathan Hawkins: That is awesome. I guess you’re going to have a party, I guess, you know, get everybody to bring their kids.
Natanya Brooks: Absolutely.
Jonathan Hawkins: You’re going to get a lot of insurance, right? Just in case.
Natanya Brooks: We have a lot of kids, just in case.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let me ask. So, did the landlord complain at your old office that you had a bouncy house in their building?
Natanya Brooks: I don’t think they ever knew. If they knew they would [00:32:00] probably complain.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. That’s sweet.
Natanya Brooks: But we did want to do something outside and they said, no, you know, it’s not your parking lot.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so we’ve just touched on another thing that I’ve seen you talk about too, and it’s you know, it’s not work-life balance, it’s work-life integration. So tell me about that.
Natanya Brooks: Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s what it’s called. I had to look it up. What is this called that I’m doing? But yeah, I mean, it is what it sounds like. It’s just kind of, you do it all together. And I think if I look back on my whole life like I never wanted to choose.
Natanya Brooks: I’ve always wanted to do both things. You know, you can either do A or B. I’m like, I want to do A and B. So I’ve done it throughout my life. Different friends. I have my swimming friends, my school friends, and my family, and I would want everyone to be together and I’d want to do events and have everybody there. And I think this, that’s kind of what this is where I don’t want to choose.
Natanya Brooks: I really enjoy working. I really enjoy kids and that’s probably what it was in law school. Like why do I have to choose? Why can’t I do [00:33:00] law school and a kid now? It’s going to be hard. It’s challenging. It’s not easy but this is my attempt to have it all is just you kind of pile it all together and hope it works out.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you’re doing a good job. So, let’s get back to your firm. So I want to talk a little bit about your firm model. I know you track cases. I know that’s what you like to do. And I think, what was the verdict? A million, 6 million, 9 recently.
Natanya Brooks: One six four.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, congrats. That’s great.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, obviously you do trials, but tell me about your firm, what is the business model? Is it only trials? Do you do some pre-suit? Is it high volume, low volume, or mid volume, how’s the firm set up?
Natanya Brooks: So the firm is set up to handle everything from the first day of an injury. So pre suit all the way up through the Court of Appeals High Courts. So, we have paralegals that specialize in pre-litigation. We have attorneys that do pre-litigation. We have litigation [00:34:00] attorneys. Attorneys that specialize in litigation, and then we have a telecouncil also that does complex cases and that handle everything up in the Court of Appeals.
Natanya Brooks: So we take a case from A to Z. There’s no switching firms or sending it here. And we kind of switched models, you know, as we’ve grown and learned. We used to have you know, pre-lit, and then we would have a separate pod, I guess you’d say, for litigation and the case transfers over.
Natanya Brooks: And what we’ve been able to do for the last few years is to train everybody, train the paralegals, get training for attorneys, and be able to, you know, now what we’re doing is the case stays with one team the entire way.
Natanya Brooks: So the attorney knows how to handle pre-lit and lit, and the paralegal knows how to handle both as well. And then for a short time period, we have a trial team where if the case is going to trial, you just need extra help.
Natanya Brooks: So the attorney [00:35:00] that’s worked it up, the paralegal that’s worked it up, they of course know the case well, but you just have to have extra people.
Natanya Brooks: You have to have people helping with the CPTO, with the motions in Lemony, and with the charges. And so at that point, we kind of add in you know, some more people so that when we go to trial, we have just people who can do every single piece of the trial.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s interesting that I know a lot of firms that sort of do have the pre-lit and lit, and there is some knowledge that gets lost in the handoff. So that’s interesting that you guys tried that and then you sort of switched what you got now, that’s interesting.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so again you’ve seen a lot of growth in the last six years and I know personally, and I know just from talking to a lot of attorneys, growing’s hard, it’s not easy.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, in theory, it just sounds easy but because you need people and people are difficult. It’s hard to find them, it’s hard to keep them, it’s hard to keep them engaged. So, how have you gone about, how have you done that?
Natanya Brooks: Luckily, I love people. [00:36:00] I just always like people, even if I watch a TV show at night, because we always joke about, you know, what do you watch? I like reality TV. I just like, I like people.
Natanya Brooks: So, that has been something lucky for me because yeah, as you grow, you have so many different personalities. And as I have matured, you kind of realize everyone doesn’t think the same way as you. So for me, if I say I like change and I like the unexpected and everyone here says we don’t, you’re the abnormal one.
Natanya Brooks: We want to know what’s going on. We want more lead time with things. And so yeah, it’s like you’ve got to know every single person, what, who they are, what their personality traits are, what makes them happy.
Natanya Brooks: And then I have to be able to understand that and address it and know that I don’t want everybody to, I don’t want cookie cutter, I don’t want everyone to be the same. So if someone thinks differently, that’s not a bad thing. You know, they’re bringing something to light and [00:37:00] something for me to think about.
Natanya Brooks: And I think for me, I just have to stay like very calm and steady and open-minded. And care about people. And then I think everything else just follows from there. If I’m able to do that, cause we all want the same thing. You know, everyone wants to be healthy and happy and help people. Right?
Jonathan Hawkins: So, it’s a couple of things. You mentioned the reality TV. In my house lately, my wife and daughter, the bachelorette, the bachelor have been on. Now I’m going to watch it in a different way. I’m actually going to pay attention. I can get some skills, people skills from these shows.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’m going to try that. So.
Natanya Brooks: You see like real emotions in real-time. You see people’s like, you can see them thinking and then feeling and them expressing and then other people reacting. And yeah, there’s so much to learn,
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. I’m going to, over this weekend, that’s what I’m going to do. So, your role in the firm, you know, as you’ve grown the team and you know, you’ve learned how to manage the people and manage the personalities. Sort of what is your role? I know you, again, you try some cases, you [00:38:00] do some legal work, but what else do you do in the firm?
Natanya Brooks: Right. So my role has changed so much. I mean, I went from being the only attorney and I was taking every single deposition and I was in a depo almost every day to now it’s very rare for me to take a deposition at all. So in just a short number of years. It’s a huge change, and I’m still, you know, trying to understand and make the changes myself.
Natanya Brooks: But I’m more, I’d say, managerial at this point. Where like my job is to put together the teams and to meet with the teams and to help everybody get where they want to get. So I have amazing attorneys, amazing employees, amazing paralegals every single person that I work with is somebody who it’s just incredible.
Natanya Brooks: So how do I help them be the best version of themselves? What can I give them or what do they need from me to help them? And then I’m [00:39:00] just, you know, letting them do their thing and supporting them. And then for me personally outside of that, I’ll work on trials if I’m brought in. Like to help someone like I have a trial coming up in a month and I was brought in to help with the trial.
Natanya Brooks: So that would be something that I would personally do but outside of that I’m not on any case. It’s going to be the attorneys that are at the firm and I’m sure I’m getting all the notices, but they’re running the show.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let me ask if I’ve talked to some others that have made the transition from sort of practicing attorney to more operations or management, whatever you want to call it. And you know, some love the change and others have sort of almost this identity crisis. They’re like, I was the lawyer and now I’m not.
Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s sort of a hard thing to grapple with. What about you? What kind of experience mentally did you go through it? Was it easy and you’re like, hell yeah. Or was it tough?
Natanya Brooks: Well, luckily I like both. [00:40:00] Like I like the litigation and I also like the business. And since I still am doing some trial depots and some trial work, I’m getting the part of the law that I really liked. But I think that in a managerial position, it’s like more big picture thinking, you know if I am focused on one trial and then I’m helping one family, but if I can work to help eight attorneys all have their own trials and their own clients, then that’s eight families that are being helped.
Natanya Brooks: So I think for me, like regardless of an identity crisis, you know, it’s always hard. You’re trying to understand what makes you happy, but I think that it’s better for me, I think it’s a better decision for me to help get everybody else where they want to go than for me to just focus on where I want to go personally.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’ll tell you for me, I like to learn new things. I [00:41:00] like to be challenged and you know, doing a case, running a trial, whatever it is at some point you sort of, you know, there’s always something new, but you’ve sort of mastered it, but running a business, there’s always some new curve ball come in your way.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re just constantly which I like sounds like there’s probably something you like to, right? It’s sort of back to your competitive nature and working hard and you just keep going, right?
Natanya Brooks: I feel like trials like that also. There’s always something that comes up at trial also, but yeah, I mean there is so much to learn in the law. There’s so much to learn in business. I’m definitely not lacking for things to learn.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s switch to marketing and bring it in the cases. So, you know, to grow as big as you guys have, you have to get the cases now you don’t have to give us your secrets, but you know, maybe tell us sort of your approach to marketing maybe some lessons you’ve learned over the years.
Natanya Brooks: So, my first, I started with five cases. [00:42:00] They were five cases that I had brought in. Somebody knowing a friend. And then I started, I built the business because I had come from the insurance defense side where you only are an attorney on the case when the case is in litigation. So I knew how to litigate.
Natanya Brooks: I knew how to try cases out of my skill set. A lot of attorneys didn’t want to do that. So they were really good at the marketing and business. But they didn’t want to try the case. So I started taking cases that needed to get filed. So once another firm tried to get a case settled, they couldn’t, they would send it to me and I would file it.
Natanya Brooks: Or if they, you know, they filed it and they tried to settle it and they still couldn’t and its trial, then I would take it for trial. So I built the firm by referrals from other attorneys specializing in litigation. And then, so I started getting cases in that way, then I realized that if I really want to make sure that everything is done right, I got to get a case from the beginning.
Natanya Brooks: And there’s a lot of things that have to happen at the beginning and during treatment. And if you [00:43:00] get a case, you know, X, Y, and then you want to do something good at Z, you can’t really do much. It kind of is what it is. So I wanted to be able to bring cases straight in. So I started trying to figure out the marketing piece. It was, it’s very hard.
Natanya Brooks: So at one point I had 11 billboards. I tried billboards. I committed, I decided that I would commit to it for six months and see if it worked and it did not work for me. And I tried TV. So six months of TV ads all around the main news stations, the main times didn’t work for me. I committed for six months to an outside marketing firm that was doing just internet marketing, didn’t work.
Natanya Brooks: So where I am now, I decided to hire and have someone on staff that does marketing. And so she knows me, she knows our firm, she knows everybody else. She sees us every [00:44:00] day and to really go for like a genuine, authentic marketing where, I mean, the goal is still to reach people, but we’re doing it being ourselves.
Natanya Brooks: And showing people who we are and creating a connection. And so that’s what I’m doing now. That’s the thing that I have enjoyed the most. And I think that is what has worked for me personally.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re on I know you’re on LinkedIn you have some good stuff there. So that’s I mean you got some really good quality posts there. I recently joined Instagram, so I know you’re on there. I sort of looked at that a little bit what other sort of Social channels or YouTube or what else are you?
Natanya Brooks: Basically if there is like a platform, then I’m on it. And again, it’s just I can’t give enough credit to Taylor. She is our media person and that is her job and she knows it. She’s so good at it and she just gives me [00:45:00] ideas and works with me and helps me and I send her stuff and she knows how to put it out there on every platform.
Natanya Brooks: Every single platform is different and different soundbites and videos and pictures, they work differently and it’s very complex, it really is.
Natanya Brooks: So you’ve got to have an expert. You’ve got to have somebody who does it full-time and understands it.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s so true. I mean, you know, I feel comfortable with LinkedIn. I know, you know, I’m not the best, but I sort of, I know my style. I know sort of the rules. I know sort of the way it works. And like I said, I recently got on Instagram and I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never been on it. And I’m like, I don’t even know what to do.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I’m like, I need to learn this somewhere. And then you start adding channels. You got Twitter and then Facebook and this and that. And it’s just like, it’s too much for me to learn on top of doing everything else I’m doing. So, you’re lucky you’ve got somebody there to help you. And from what I’ve seen, it looks good.
Jonathan Hawkins: Alright. So, let’s talk about sort of [00:46:00] running your firm. So, to date, this question I like to hear is, what’s one of the bigger challenges you’ve encountered in growing and running your firm?
Natanya Brooks: There’s challenges every day. There’s always something that is going to come up with having a large number of cases and a large number of employees. I can’t tell you there’s one certain thing, it’s just that every day you’re going to come into the office and every day you’re going to need to fix something and address something and change something.
Natanya Brooks: So, I mean, luckily for me, I’m okay with change, and I try to be open-minded, but it’s like I gotta listen, and I gotta figure out what’s wrong, and then I have to actually do something about it and usually make a big picture change. So, alright, this one thing happened. Now, it’s not usually about the one thing, right?
Natanya Brooks: The one thing happened because you don’t have the correct process. And then, what is the correct process? And then how do we implement it? [00:47:00] So it’s doing that every single day in a million different places.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s scary for some folks, right? And other folks like it. So you mentioned earlier that, you know, buying a building was always one of your goals or part of the vision. So, you’ve accomplished that now, that’s great. Congrats again. As you look to the future, 5, 10 15, 20 years from now what do you see?
Jonathan Hawkins: What’s the vision for the firm?
Natanya Brooks: Well, since I love trial, I always have, you know, trial goals. You know, when we started the firm, I wanted to be able to have a six-figure verdict that we got at the firm. And then a seven-figure verdict that we got at the firm. You know, once we’ve achieved that now, I would like the firm to have an eight-figure verdict.
Natanya Brooks: I would like every single attorney at the firm to be on a trial team that has achieved a seven-figure verdict. So, at this point, I’m looking at, you know, what cases do we have going to trial? Who’s on it? Who’s part of this team? How do we get everyone [00:48:00] participating and opportunities? Because I have really good people that I want to work with forever.
Natanya Brooks: And so, it’s my job to give everyone opportunities. And I want each person to feel just that joy of getting a client, doing something life-changing for a client. You know, being able to see it all the way through and knowing a person and helping and being part of it and working with a team to actually see it all the way to a jury trial.
Natanya Brooks: So that’s a firm goal that I have that I’m hoping to achieve.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s cool. Sorry. You still growing or is it just organic or?
Natanya Brooks: It’s actually always been organic. I have never had any goals with growth. I don’t have any now, I never did. I always just wanted to do the best job for every single client and we grew because someone would come in and say, you know, we have a MedMal case. And I had zero plans of starting a MedMal team.
Natanya Brooks: I didn’t personally have experience in MedMal. [00:49:00] But we started getting clients who needed help in MedMal. And I met an attorney who wanted to do MedMal. And that’s just how it happened. It wasn’t a plan, it was just, look, there’s a need. We want to help, we know we can set it up and learn it and do a really good job. And that’s how everything has happened.
Natanya Brooks: So, I mean, there’s no ceiling if we get clients and we have opportunities and we can do it, then I’m not going to say, no, I’m going to grow and expand. I don’t know how or in what way it’s going to be all organic.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s really a good point for the people out there. You know, sometimes you have a vision and a goal and you’re like, this is what we want to do. And then you can work to that, that’s one path. And sometimes you have that, but then these opportunities sort of fall in your lap. And I think the trick is to know which ones to ignore and then which ones to pursue cause not everyone’s a good one.
Jonathan Hawkins: But it sounds like you’ve been able to do that. It’s the opportunity arises and you’re like, all right, let’s do that. So good job.
Natanya Brooks: I mean, it’s also trial and [00:50:00] error, right? I mean, I make a lot of mistakes, I make mistakes every single day. So every person is always trying to do the best they can in the moment, right? So with the knowledge I have, I try to make the best decision. If it’s the wrong decision, then I try to you know, do better the next time, and learn from it, and just like, keep pivoting until I find the right path, so it’s not like, oh, it’s just been, I’ve always got it right, absolutely not.
Natanya Brooks: I’ve messed up tons of times, but if you just get back on your feet and try something else, well at that point you have a lot more knowledge and then, you know, it’s easier to make the right decision the next time.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s like in college when you had that bad meat, you had to get a practice the next day, right?
Natanya Brooks: Hopefully. Yep.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, cool. This has been fun. So for anybody out there that wants to find you, get in touch with you how can they find you?
Natanya Brooks: So email is always great, NHB@BrooksInjuryLaw. com and then our social media handle is at WeCareLaw.
Jonathan Hawkins: Is that for every platform?
Natanya Brooks: Everything.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh, wow. [00:51:00] That’s cool. You got the same one for every platform. Good job. That makes it easy.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Well, I encourage folks to follow you. Like I said, your LinkedIn posts are great. So keep that up and thanks again for coming on. It’s been fun.
Natanya Brooks: Thanks for having me, great to catch up with you, appreciate it.
