How Solo Law Firms Use AI to Beat Million-Dollar Ad Budgets

Collin McKee

Welcome back to the Endeavors AI Podcast. I'm your host, Collin McKee, founder of Endeavors AI, where we talk about the intersection of artificial intelligence, law, business, and the new economy being built all around it. My guest today started his career in data analytics and then walked away from that into law school. Today he runs Rex Legal, a solo personal-injury firm in Denver, Colorado, where he's a one-man shop taking on the cases most firms won't even touch — and quietly using AI to compete with firms spending fifteen grand a month just to try to beat him. If you're a small firm wondering whether you can actually keep up right now, this is the conversation for you. Michael Rex, welcome to the show.

Michael Rex

Thank you for having me, Collin. Happy to be here.

Collin McKee

So you didn't take the regular route when it comes to your law tenure. You were in pricing analytics first, and before you ever set foot in a courtroom, that was your background. Take me to the catalyst — what made you walk away from tech?

Michael Rex

Sure. I graduated undergrad with a degree in economics and a minor in business. When you graduate and you're in your twenties, you just kind of want to start making money. Law school had always been in the back of my mind, but with my education as it was, analytics was obviously a good fit. I spent most of my day in front of an Excel sheet — there's not a lot of interacting with other people — and I soon realized I really just disliked working in the tech space, in analytics, doing that kind of work. So when I was twenty-six I thought: okay, law school, it feels like now or never. It took me a couple of years to get the LSAT done, get applied, and get enrolled. I started at twenty-eight and graduated law school at thirty-one.

Collin McKee

That term "now or never" comes to us at different stages, but that's pretty young. What was the catalyst at twenty-six that made you know you needed to pivot then?

Michael Rex

It was really just that I was not happy with the career path I was on. I knew I wanted a different path, and I can't wait forever not making money — so it felt now or never in that sense. I need to change my career path, and law school feels like the best bet. There were a lot of people in my class who were in their forties and fifties, and it could have been now or never for them at that time. But for me at twenty-six, it definitely felt that way.

Collin McKee

And then you went out on your own. Most people would go to a large firm first to get their wings underneath them — not you. You went directly solo. Tell me about the first year.

Michael Rex

Yeah. I was lucky that I had a professor who encouraged me to start my own practice and helped me get set up, and I had some great mentors who held my hand a little bit early on. But I knew I wanted to work for myself, and I knew that personal injury was, as far as the law goes, a pretty easy market to break into. So I made that leap.

The first year obviously was a bit challenging. It's tough to convince clients to sign with a first-year attorney who works by himself. So there were definitely challenges around retaining clients early on. The other thing about the personal-injury space is I get paid when a case settles, so the income was very inconsistent. I had a girlfriend at the time who supported me for a few months as things kind of went dry. But after about a year or so I started to see some momentum, and I was able to appreciate that maybe that was the right choice.

Collin McKee

What changed after that first year? It's chicken and egg — it's hard to give someone a background when you don't have one to provide, and in your field that's very important. When did it start to become less brutal?

Michael Rex

Going into my practice I knew I wasn't sitting on a bunch of capital that I'd be able to spend on marketing like some of these large firms — some of them spend seven figures a month on advertising. So my marketing strategy was all first-person. I was going to all kinds of networking associations. And as you network, eventually people start to trust you. When they trust you, and then they have a family member or a friend who ends up with a car accident or a dog bite or whatever it is, that referral starts to actually come through and things start moving. But it's tough to get people to trust you — especially when they're dealing with something serious like injuries or a death in the family.

Collin McKee

Right. And beyond building that rapport, there's another strong attribute you have that a lot of attorneys don't, especially in their first year. You'd want to take the cases that are comfortable, that are clean, that you have confidence in — but that's not really your MO. You went the other way; you took the cases other attorneys didn't want to touch. Tell us the fajita story.

Michael Rex

Sure. Attorneys who work for these big personal-injury firms get used to doing car accidents where liability's clean and there's not much of a dispute. I was getting sort of the leftovers that other firms didn't want. The individual with the fajitas is a good story: he's at a restaurant celebrating with his wife, he gets the fajitas, and the server brings it out and puts it right in front of him — and it's so piping hot that grease is splattering, and some of it gets in his eye. He had to get eye surgery. That guy called six or seven other firms who all passed on the case. I don't know if it just didn't reach a lawyer and the intake specialist didn't realize this is a solid liability case.

I've taken a few cases like that that people just weren't interested in. I had a bouncer who broke a girl's arm — nobody wanted to touch that case; I thought it was a great case. Right now I'm working on one where a homeless individual who was sleeping in a dumpster was picked up by the garbage truck, thrown in the back, and compacted — broke a bunch of his bones. Nobody wants to touch that one. I think we've got a good argument. Those are the cases that I think are kind of fun.

Collin McKee

What are you seeing in these cases that other people are missing? I'd imagine most people, seeing your success with cases they passed on, might pick them up if they had it to do over. So what does Rex Legal see that the other guys don't?

Michael Rex

I think the difference is that the first call comes right to me. These larger firms that have big systems are relying on intake specialists and receptionists who don't have the training they need to recognize that some of these are actually solid cases. So it's kind of an interesting silver lining to it just being me at my practice: I actually get to evaluate these intakes with the perspective of an attorney. I'm not going off some script like an intake specialist would be — "no, it's not a case that we would take." It's more like, well, if you think about it, it's actually a pretty good case.

Collin McKee

Do you think that willingness to take the cases other people left behind got you the recognition — Super Lawyers, Top 40 Under 40? That's a badge to wear on your shoulder.

Michael Rex

Yeah. A lot of those awards are based on peer recommendations — other attorneys nominate you. I've built some great relationships with other attorneys in Colorado, and I think they see what I've accomplished here the last few years and they appreciate that. I'm grateful to have mentors who encourage me and support me and nominate me for those sorts of awards.

Collin McKee

That's humbling, and excellent work. Going back to your foundation in data analytics — do you think that set you apart as well? A lot of attorneys come out of law school knowing the law but generally not knowing how to run the business of law. With your background reading a spreadsheet and following analytics, has that helped the solopreneur side?

Michael Rex

It's interesting, because I don't know if I ever really thought about being an entrepreneur or having my own business. One thing I picked up on in law school was that to start a law firm there's automatically a high bar to entry — you have to be a lawyer, you have to go through law school, you have to pass the bar. And then, just looking at my peers, I realized a lot of them had gone straight through from grade school to law school, majored in English or history or whatever it was, and weren't necessarily prepared with the skills they need to actually run a business. Coming from more of an analytics, econ, business background — after clearing that initial bar where you become an attorney — I have more business sense than a lot of my peers who are maybe better attorneys than me, but don't necessarily have that skill set where they'd go out and trust themselves to start a business.

Collin McKee

That segues well, because a lot of attorneys, especially solos, are wondering how they can keep up. How do you compete with people throwing five and six figures at their marketing? Especially in personal injury, because it's speed to lead for the most part — whoever picks up first and takes the case. When we talked earlier, you said most people looking for an attorney are Googling, and some might be using the LLMs — and you get a massive response. If you Google "best PI attorney in Denver" there might be twelve-plus attorneys there. So how do you make sure you don't have lead leakage as a one-man shop?

Michael Rex

That's why early on, when you're starting a practice and you're not sitting on a bunch of cash to throw into advertising, the focus has to be building relationships with the people in your city — going to networking events, going to bar events. As you start to make money, then you start advertising. But you've got to realize some of these firms are spending seven figures a month. If your plan is to start a firm without much money and try to keep up or out-advertise those firms, it's just not going to happen.

Collin McKee

And your line was: you've got my cell phone, you're not a case number.

Michael Rex

Yeah. I've had clients referred to me who say, "I'm talking to this firm and it's a billboard firm." And I'd say, okay, you can sign with them, but they've got three thousand clients and you're going to be just a number to them. I'll give you my cell phone number — you can reach out to me anytime. That pitch tends to work. People want to have a relationship with their attorney, or their doctor, their accountant, whoever it is who's helping them through something that's a bit out of their wheelhouse.

Collin McKee

People do appreciate that personal touch. But you're one person doing what twenty years ago took an entire staff — now you're doing it with software and AI. Walk us through how you're actually keeping pace. What does your tech stack look like?

Michael Rex

The cool thing about the legal space is that there's a ton of money being poured into all kinds of AI tools and software. When I file a lawsuit, there's all kinds of stuff I've got to throw on the calendar — LawToolBox will calendar everything for me, throws it under my Outlook. That saves me a lot of heartburn. Some of these other tools — Eve, EvenUp — will take the medical records for my clients. It's a closed system, all HIPAA compliant, and it'll run the medical summaries, draft demand letters, draft a complaint for me. And then on the legal research side, Westlaw, Lexis+ AI — they all have an AI platform now.

A lot of firms five or six years ago had the typical structure of an office admin or receptionist, then some paralegals, then the attorneys. I think the role of paralegal is being quickly shooed out the door. You might have a paralegal help you on the litigation side, but with the pre-litigation stuff — going through medical records, writing the demands — I don't really see the need for hiring somebody to do that at this point, because the software is becoming so reliable anyway. And AI is not perfect, it's going to make mistakes, but so is your paralegal. Ultimately I'm having to review everything either way.

Collin McKee

I love how you went through that stack and didn't even mention the big ones — there was no ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini in there at all, which I'm sure you're using as well; we all do. But especially in this space, to have the discipline to make sure you're using the right tools for the right things — that's doing it the right way. Unfortunately we've had a lot of instances where people are using their personal accounts for this, and you're steering clear of that.

Michael Rex

Yeah, and I think one thing attorneys, especially in the personal-injury space, have to be wary of is that Claude, OpenAI — these tools aren't necessarily HIPAA compliant. So I can't just throw my clients' medical records into the ether and do that ethically. I know there are some enterprise upgrades, but I don't have twenty people, so I don't qualify for the enterprise plan. I have to be careful using OpenAI and Claude specifically for legal work. But on the marketing side, the operations side, I think tools like Claude especially are fantastic.

Collin McKee

They definitely have their place, but when it's privileged information you've got to keep that separated. And to that point — we don't want to look out at the audience and say "paralegals, your jobs are in jeopardy." They serve a really great purpose. But for a solo personal-injury firm, don't take on that additional expense until it's absolutely necessary. To your point as well: you are the attorney, you're the lawyer. So where do you draw the line between letting AI draft it and signing your name to it?

Michael Rex

I have a lot of clients who use AI. I've actually had to put it in my fee agreement that you're not allowed to run my stuff through AI. Because when you're trained as a lawyer and you use AI as a tool, you know what questions to ask — you know how to build that prompt in a way where you're going to get good results. And ultimately anything I send out, I still have to comb through. I have to check the cites and the sources and make sure it's all correct. But I wouldn't go on ChatGPT and say, well, I know as much as a doctor, because I don't know the questions to ask. As a professional, these tools can be really useful, because you're trained to know what to look for and build the prompts in a way where you get a response that's actually helpful.

Collin McKee

It's funny that you actually write that into your agreement. I mean, you're not going to keep them from using it — but taking what you've produced and trying to prove you wrong, I can see where that could be counterproductive. It could kind of ruin the relationship, to be honest. I think that's smart, and I might need to share that piece of knowledge with other firms I talk to.

Here's another one along a similar line. You're doing something I'm seeing more of, but it's still in its infancy: being aware of your AI visibility. There are still people spending tens of thousands of dollars on Google SEO — massive firms — and I'm sure it's still benefiting them. But more and more people are searching through the LLMs. Walk me through what you've done as a solo attorney to keep your presence in this growing field.

Michael Rex

This is where a program like Claude becomes really helpful. I'm not familiar enough with the marketing space to know which prompts are going to pull up the best results for me, but I was able to find some online. Going through that and having it scrape the websites of my competitors, look at their business profiles, look at my website, look at my business profile on Google — and then tell me: okay, what's different? What needs to change here? What is this firm that spends ten or fifteen thousand dollars a month on SEO and building out their visibility doing differently?

The cool thing with Claude — the Cowork stuff — is that it's actually able to go on the internet and scrape all of this and come back with a plan that some people are paying over ten thousand dollars a month for. So it saves me a lot of time, a lot of money, and it gives me a better understanding of what builds out that visibility online. I like to know what's happening.

Collin McKee

It's very smart. You're asking it more questions, and I think that's what people need to do more of — almost have a conversation with it. Let it teach you instead of just barking demands at it. It'll take you step by step on what you can do to help yourself. Having the humility to know that asking questions and learning is one of the best uses of your time with these tools.

You also mentioned that ChatGPT is starting to allow legal ads. That's new to me — I haven't seen them, probably because of the subscription I have. What are you seeing in the ad space?

Michael Rex

This is pretty new to me too. There's a marketing firm I've spoken with a few times, and they called me just a couple of weeks ago and said OpenAI had changed their rules with respect to marketing for law firms. The impression I'm getting is that it's much, much less expensive than doing a Google ad, and that the results are promising. So I think that's something I'll probably start to look into. My marketing strategy is always just cost arbitrage — how do I get the best results for the least amount of spend? And it looks like ChatGPT may be offering that right now.

Collin McKee

Need to look into that further. The way it force-multiplies in so many other ways, it makes sense it would do it here as well. Let's start to close it out — a couple of rapid-fire questions. You're doing so much with AI as a solo practitioner. What's one thing you'd suggest another solo attorney do to stop leaking leads this week?

Michael Rex

Don't miss phone calls. You've got to have a call-answering service, or some sort of an AI setup. I've missed phone calls before on great cases, and within an hour they've already called another two or three firms. So you've got to have a system where you're able to have the phone answered even when you're unable to do it yourself.

Collin McKee

Great advice. Where do you think AI goes in personal injury in the next two years? You mentioned it's filling the gaps for paralegals — where else?

Michael Rex

Ninety to ninety-five percent of the personal-injury world all happens before the lawsuit is filed. It's just trying to settle insurance claims. That's the portion AI is just going to totally own. All the pre-lit stuff that used to make up the bulk of the actual hours of work that a firm had to do, I think AI is going to be able to handle. So if you want to be a personal-injury attorney in five or ten years, you'd better have some skills in a courtroom, because I think that's the area it's not going to be able to touch. We're going to have a lot of trial attorneys who rely on AI for just about everything else.

Collin McKee

Sound advice. And lastly, where can people find out more about you and your work?

Michael Rex

Probably my website — that's rex-legal.com. I only practice in the state of Colorado, but if you want to give me a call, I'll answer the phone.

Collin McKee

There you go. Michael, this was great — I really appreciate it. The fajita story alone was worth the price of admission. It's very helpful for people to hear sound advice from someone who's done it themselves, especially solo, to show that it can be done responsibly. Links to Rex Legal will be in the show notes — go check out Michael's work.

And thank you for listening. For Endeavors AI, my name is Collin McKee. If you have any questions on where your firm or small business stands as far as AI readiness, that's what we do here at Endeavors AI. We try to guide people through this new wild west of AI and do it in a responsible way. You can find us at endeavorsai.com. We will see you on the next episode. Michael, thank you again.

Michael Rex

Thank you, Collin.