Brian Chase’s “Closing Argument”

I’ve been doing this for 31 years, and so you have so many impactful moments to where that just grows you as a trial lawyer and your law firm and things like that. But I think back to the first seven figure result I got back in the 90s so that was a bigger deal than it would be now obviously. But it was Bisnar and Associates back in those days and I had this difficult case.

I have a letter I used to have framed where the lawyer said the case was the biggest sham he’d ever seen and they would never pay a penny. Just a real arrogant letter. Long story short, we litigated it. It was a very righteous case. Started the trial and then the case settled in seven figures. And the impact of that isn’t so much the result, although personally it’s always nice to get a good result like that. And I really loved it for my client, Dorothy Darnell. I’ll never forget her. But that result allowed me to form my partnership with John Bisnar.

So that was the beginning of Bisnar and Chase. And then from there, John and I, maybe for younger lawyers when they’re trying to figure out how to grow their law firm, you know, John and I partnered up and we went from just your sort of generic personal injury law firm doing the ordinary everyday cases (although I’m reluctant to say that because no case is ordinary). They’re very personal for each person.

Back at that moment when I got that result and I partnered up with John, he was a great marketer. We had a website back when it was thought to be cheesy. I was actually against it. I go, “We don’t need a website. Our clients don’t have computers.” So John took over running the business and running the marketing. He didn’t want to try cases. And then that just gave me free rein and he gave me full support to be in trial all the time. And so one of the biggest impacts was Dorothy Darnell’s case. It allowed me to do some really good work, get my name on the map a little bit with that settlement. But then what John and I have been able to do over the last 30 years from there, I mean, you know, it’s mind boggling. Then I can go every few years with another landmark thing that allows us to get to another level and to another landmark thing to get to another level.

As I was saying earlier, I think whenever I talk to younger lawyers, you’ve always got to keep hustling. I mean, I go back to “You’re always a hamster on a wheel.” I don’t care if you’re 30 years old or 75 or 80 years old, if you’re still practicing, you know, you’ve got to keep on grinding, which is why you have to love it. I don’t feel like what I do is a grind at all. I love what I do. I have a big passion for what I do. I look forward to being a bigger hamster on a bigger wheel. I’ve got no desire to get off of it. There’s no shortcuts. You just gotta put in the time. And I learned that going all the way back to the Baby Faye where I spent, you know, four days in the basement scouring through microfiche. Now, to some people, they’d rather put a toothpick in their eye than do that. For me, I’m like, “My God, this is amazing.” And I still have that same fire and desire today. Now, a gazillion years later.