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(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to "Business Forward", I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, friend of mine, Todd Strong, with Strong Law.

Todd's an attorney, and also loves this community, giving quietly and supporting Middle Illinois.

Welcome, Todd.

- (laughing) Good morning, Matt, or good evening, I should say.

- Yeah, so personal injury lawyer and work comp attorney, Todd Strong.

I'm going straight off the thing here because I didn't realize you had locations, Peoria, Springfield, Bloomington, Chicago, Champaign.

I mean, you're all over the board.

- That's right, I have a statewide practice.

I have a case that I'm leaving for tomorrow morning in Downtown Chicago.

I'll be at the Daley Center fighting the fight up there against, it's a completely different world when you go up to Cook County, for sure.

- I bet, I bet.

(Todd laughing) So when you say, "Different world," is it just competition or what is it?

- Just the level of attorneys that you would go up against, their quality and the caliber of legal expertise.

Their system is different, Cook County is one of those places in the state of Illinois that has literally their own set of rules to go by in terms of the court.

- (laughing) That's a shock.

(Matt laughing) - Yeah.

(laughing) And so you have to become versed in the local nuances of a particular judge, or courtroom, or the county itself.

- Okay, so we'll talk business here in a second, let's talk about you.

So are you from around here?

- I grew up in Lacon, Illinois, about 30 miles north of Peoria.

I came back to Peoria in 1994 after I graduated law school, and I've been living and practicing here and raised three wonderful daughters here.

- Nice, nice.

We have that in common, I've got four.

I beat you by one daughter.

(Todd laughing) Where'd you go to law school?

- Valparaiso Law School in Valparaiso, Indiana.

- Nice, nice.

So I sat with you recently at a fundraiser and you had your grandma with you.

- I did.

- And I think that's like one of the coolest things is to be able to be around your mom and your grandma and all that.

That was a fun night.

- That was an awesome night.

I like to take my grandma out, she's very active, she's 90 years old.

She still works at the local Dairy Queen up in Henry, Illinois.

And she's just a joy to be around.

She knows my kids, my kids stay with her.

The fun thing about that night is I got an opportunity to support the event that we were at and was able to win successfully a bid to name a bison after my grandma.

(Matt laughing) So there's a bison out at Wildlife.

- At Wildlife.

- At Wildlife at Wildlife Prairie Park named Phyllis.

(Matt laughing) That I'd like everybody to go to.

(Todd laughing) - I love that.

Hey, and Roberta's doing such a great job at Wildlife Prairie Park, one of our gems around here.

But very fun, thanks for the support on that.

So talking about your business, how long have you been in business?

- I practiced for a local attorney here for five years here in town, learned the ropes, and then opened my own business in 1999.

- Interesting, and so has it always been Strong Law?

- Strong Law Offices, yeah.

I've had several associates worked for me over the years.

I started the business with Becky Mansfield, who's my manager.

I couldn't open and run the business without her, for sure.

- That's awesome.

- She's still with me up 'til today.

- How many employees do you have?

- Currently, I have about 25 employees.

I've had up as many as probably 35.

With COVID, it seems like people have kinda migrated elsewhere, and we're open for business and looking for good help, talented people.

- I've always found it interesting with your sector of business how people go about marketing.

- Okay.

(laughing) - Because it is interesting because there's some people who take the astute approach and, "Come in."

Yours actually is enticing, it's funny, it's great, it makes you wanna watch your ads when you play 'em.

- I've had fun with my ads over the years.

I've actually written all the ads myself.

- [Matt] I wondered, that was my next question.

- I produce the ads.

Now I usually have a camera person, or an audio person, or an editor come in and help with the technical component.

But I've always sort of tried to put a twist on legal commercial advertising that you wouldn't necessarily see from other firms.

And I like to try to bring some humor to real-life situations.

The business that I work in is tragic, I deal with life and death issues every single day.

And I try to bring some element of humor so that the folks that I represent or are drawn to me through marketing or advertising sort of have a good feel for when they come in the door and I can get to know them.

- So in a way too, the way I look at it is not just for clients, but people who wanna work with you.

And because one of my questions is, let's say young people are coming through, how do you go and recruit and get new people into the business, and then how do you vet 'em to know if they're good or not in your business?

- Right now, it's probably very challenging to get good-quality talent to come to Peoria and live here, wanna stay here and work hard here.

I'm sure I'm not the only employer that you've talked to that's come through the studio that's telling you that.

It's hard to attract talent here to Peoria area for a variety of reasons.

Number one, geography.

What the city has to offer, what the city can offer folks.

I'm blessed, I consider myself to be very blessed by the people that I work with and that work for me.

Like I said, Becky has been with me, we've been for 28 years.

It's very difficult to find somebody like that.

I have an attorney that's been with me for 15 years, another one for 12 years.

I've got another, my personal secretary that handles my day-to-day things has been with me for 20 years.

So I try to cultivate relationships, I like the people that I work with, I like to be friends, I consider them family.

If there's hard struggles that come through in their lives, I try to help them as best I can or accommodate their special needs.

- Yeah, I mean, and there's that piece that people just look at your sector and think, "Aw, they're just lawyers," and all that, but there is an empathetic side too, you have to.

- There's definitely an empathetic side, and I give a lot of credit to my family and my upbringing.

I started working in the fifth grade for my dad at his gas station.

(Matt laughing) I worked on the back of his garbage trucks.

My mom and dad, I grew up in a business, so I would sit at the kitchen table at night, listening about their day-to-day trials and tribulations.

I was the first one in my family to go to college.

- Oh wow.

And so from an entrepreneurial standpoint, just like, let's say a new attorney comes in, or even the one that's been there 12 years, do you have those talks with them and say, "What's your future looking like?"

Because after they understand what you're doing in the business, they could see peeling off themselves.

I mean, do you bless something like that or do you see that?

- Absolutely, I really try to push for professional growth for everybody, my attorneys, my paralegals, my receptionists, and I encourage growth.

I like to think that I challenge my employees, I like to give them responsibility that might be just a little bit more than what they're ready for, but I'm there to mentor 'em, to watch over them.

I have an open door, I literally have an open-door policy to my office, where they can come in at any time and ask questions or seek guidance.

- Yeah, and I've always wondered that and I feel like you're that guy, but at the same time, you're building your own business.

And so when you mentioned the word mentor, I love that, because that's a question that I ask, I usually ask towards the end, but I'll ask it now.

In your business, you have to do a lot of mentoring, I'm guessing.

- Absolutely, and the legal field, I think, is a little bit unique, and particularly within the legal field, trial attorneys.

So I go to court, I advocate for a client's position, and so I'm standing in front of 12 persons.

Those 12 persons might be older, they might be younger, one might be a nurse, one might work in a factory.

So even though I'm the senior partner or the owner of the firm, I'm asking my younger attorneys all the time about, "Hey, what do you think about this?"

(Matt laughing) Or I may even ask my secretary, "Hey, what do you think about this?"

Because I'm interested in knowing.

- Yeah, different sides or.

- Either different sides of an argument or mainly perceptions about how someone may perceive what I'm arguing, "Am I making a good argument, a good-quality argument, or does it just not sort of fly?"

Maybe it's legally, technically correct, but it's not practically correct in a common-sense terms.

And sometimes laypersons are the best persons to ask.

- So you're talking about going to Chicago, let's use a sports analogy here.

Every time you go in the courtroom, do you still get a little anxious?

- I do, I do.

- Do you?

- I'm anxious this morning right in front of you.

(Todd laughing) - Yeah, I wonder that, because it's like getting onto a field, or playing a sport, or whatever it may be, that's your game.

- That's my game, and then when I step into that courtroom, I have to be on.

- [Matt] (laughing) Right.

- And I've got a judge in a black robe to report to and to make sure that I don't get outta line and to make sure that I make the appropriate legal arguments within the bounds and constraints of the law.

And so I try to be very aggressive to my client's position and I try to advocate as strong as I can up to a certain point, up to where the law allows.

There's sort of a gray line that you always have to be cognizant of not crossing over.

- Hmm.

And is that out of respect or is that out of just pure law?

- It's out of respect and it's out of pure law, both.

And also you don't wanna face sanctions for making inappropriate arguments.

(laughing) - Gotcha.

And so if, I mean, let's say you're an attorney in good standing and you go up and you have a judge that you know is gonna be a tough judge.

If you've been in that courtroom with him or her before, does that play into almost like who you're playing with?

- Absolutely, every judge runs their courtroom a little differently, all judges have their own personal views.

They're not required to completely set aside their own common sense when they walk in and put the black robe on.

So whether I'm arguing in front of a judge, or I'm arguing in front of a jury, or arguing in front of an arbitrator, it's good to know their background.

It's just a good piece of information to know their particular leanings one way or the other.

You can look at past rulings that they've made, things of that nature.

- Hmm, okay, I've always wondered that too.

So I'm gonna give you a little scenario here.

So what if I called you and I was injured, like in an accident, what's the next step?

Tell me the process.

- So the first thing that I would do on the first phone call is just sort of interview you, and the first thing that I would ask you is, "How are you doing?

How is your injury doing?

What type of injury did you have?

Did you have to go to the emergency room?

Was an ambulance called?

Are you in the hospital now?

Are you still under a doctor's care?

Are you able to get access to the right type of doctors and get the right testing that you need?"

And so that's the first part, and then I would start asking you some questions about the legal aspects of your case.

"Did you notify your supervisor of a work accident?

Were the police called?

Did they conduct an investigation?

Is the investigation ongoing?

Has there been any conclusive results about fault, or liability, or responsibility?"

So I'm gonna ask you a lot of detailed questions.

The biggest question, or concern, or I would say probably the number-one reason why I get phone calls is access to care issues.

And what I mean by, "Access to care," the health system in the United States, in our state, in our city, has become filled with very large hospital systems.

And a lot of times, people come to me because they can't get access to the right type of doctor, they can't get access to the right type of test.

And my job is to help that person advocate in the confines of the system and the legal system to get them the quality medical care that they need.

- And I think too, one of the things, and something happened to my daughter in Arizona with a car wreck, somebody ran a light, and you just also don't realize how long this process takes.

- It can take a long time, depending on the facts, depending on the circumstances, but more importantly, on the injury itself.

So one of the things I would ask you if you were the dad that called me, "How's your daughter doing?

What type of injury did she have?"

'Cause sometimes medical recovery from a traumatic accident can take years.

And so sometimes there's a habit of folks perceiving that it's the legal system that is slowing the case down when sometimes the injury in and of itself might require multiple surgeries, multiple hospitalization stages.

- Rehab, whatever, yeah.

- Rehab, physical therapy.

- Yeah, okay, that's interesting.

So how do you and your team stay up on all the laws being changed?

I've always wondered that, how do you stay relevant and up to date?

- I do much more reading (laughing) about the legal field on a day-to-day basis than I probably care to admit.

(Matt laughing) I go to continuing legal education classes.

I actually teach and have been asked to teach continuing legal education classes.

I teach younger lawyers, and sometimes not just younger lawyers, but also other older lawyers that are wanting to learn about what it is that I do and the techniques that I use.

In terms of keeping up with the law, I also am very active in political action committees, bar associations, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, to keep up on laws that we are attempting to get put into place to make things like access to quality medical care better for the members of the public or for accident victims, people that have been injured.

So a lot of medical care and healthcare is run by the insurance industry.

And doctors are out there actively making medical choices based on what an insurance company will or will not approve, and I think that's just wrong.

And I fight against that and I advocate against that every single day.

- So what are some laws that can be passed or, yeah, I guess be passed to help strengthen the cases against healthcare?

- One issue that I advocate for is laws that prevent cost shifting.

And what I mean by that is, when somebody is in an accident, your daughter, for example, is in a motor vehicle accident, who should be responsible for her medical bills?

The person that caused the accident, her own insurance company, or the taxpayer?

A lot of times, workers' compensation insurance companies or tort insurance companies will attempt to get the injury victim to pass their medical expenses off to the taxpayer.

If they say, "Well, you're a Medicare recipient or you're a Medicaid recipient," they point the person in that direction to shift the cost of that medical care from the responsible party to the taxpayer.

So you and I, a lot of times, end up paying for bills, medical expenses for injuries caused in the workplace or caused as a result of the negligence of another.

- Hmm.

So you talked about, I wondered about that cost shifting, because that is something that we ran up against, that was a personal thing.

- All the time, all the time.

And a lot of times, then it creates a big mess when you're trying to resolve the case at the conclusion of the medical care, particularly if it's a work injury where the employer's workers' compensation insurance should have paid for something, but we, as the taxpayer, end up having to pay, and then you go through a whole process called subrogation.

- Hmm, and so when you're talking about access to quality medical care, is that something that, as a lawyer, you understand the full system, basically, because you have to?

So you actually have an opinion, I'm guessing, knowing you too.

(Todd laughing) But you have an opinion and knowledge of the innards of the medical world?

- Absolutely.

- [Matt] Yeah, that wasn't coming out right, but.

- I tell my kids and folks at church or folks at a social function all the time that I spend more time reading medical records than I do law books.

And I'm trying to understand my client's injury, trying to understand what they need to get better.

I'm not a doctor, I never went to medical school, I never even took a medical terminology class, but after 28 years, you develop a knowledge and you've seen patterns of treatment.

And all doctors and medical providers rather, are sort of ranked in their field, whether it's board certification, whether it's fellowship training, the quality or caliber of the medical school, whether or not the physician or medical provider keeps up on the current medical literature.

And then also the diagnostic testing that a person may know, an x-ray isn't a CT scan and a CT scan isn't an MRI and an MRI is not a myelogram.

So having a working knowledge or working understanding of those type of things, I'm able to give my clients better service and helping them navigate a complex, difficult medical system.

- So do you keep track, like a scorecard of how many cases you've been involved with over the years?

- I don't know if I keep a scorecard, but I have a database that I've set up in my office, not just me personally, over 25,000 cases.

- [Matt] Man.

(laughing) - (laughing) Over 28 years.

- Yeah, so you're talking almost 900 a year.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

That's pretty cool.

So when someone says, "Maximizing," I mean, this is an obvious term, but, "Maximizing personal injury settlement," really I'm hiring you or your team to navigate to get to the point to get what I feel like I'm deserved.

- Absolutely, and when I use the term maximizing, what I mean by that, in a legal sense, is gathering the evidence necessary in order to establish proof of the damages that you, or in your daughter's case, the damages that she sustained in the accident.

Can I get a copy of the x-ray?

Can I get a copy of the MRI that I can physically show up and show that she had a broken bone or a herniated disk?

And I gather the medical records, sometimes I have those medical records reviewed by another physician, as an expert, to be able to tell me what future problems that your daughter's gonna have.

Is she gonna be impaired?

Is she able to gonna go back to her usual and customary occupation?

Is she gonna have permanent limitations or restrictions?

And so when I say, "Maximizing damages," to answer your question, I'm gathering evidence to be able to establish the proof required in the legal system to.

- Gotcha, gotcha.

So if you could tell me one thing I need to know about your business, what is it?

- That we work hard, that I work very hard from the beginning, that first phone call that you call me to tell me about your injury from your daughter, all the way to the day that I obtain the final settlement or the final judgment.

I think hard work is what it takes.

- And when you talk about negligence and strict liability and all these terms, you really, if you think about it, you're somewhat of a medical expert without the medical background, you're an attorney, you have to be very empathetic, but you're also an educator.

Because a lot of times what happens, and it happened with my daughter is, she's, at the time, 25 years old, she's a woman, she can take care of herself.

(Todd laughing) But Dad is sitting here going, "Whoa, I know a little more of the lingo than you do."

So there's that attorney and client speak that that person's learning a lot.

- Absolutely.

- And so I just kept saying, "Document everything, and then we'll do our own review, and then if we have to get on the line together, we'll figure out what that means," but that's hard.

- It's very hard.

As a caveat, I wouldn't hold myself out as a medical expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm certainly knowledgeable in the inner workings of how.

- Yeah, expert's a strong word.

(Matt laughing) - Yeah.

(laughing) - I didn't mean to say that.

- Yeah, I'm not holding myself out.

- No, you're right, I didn't mean to say that.

- But I do pride myself in working hard by digging into a case, understanding the case, understanding your daughter's injuries, and trying to figure things out.

I mean, sometimes life is about doing the right thing in difficult times when nobody's looking, and that's what I try to do every day.

- Aw, I love that.

So are you ever called from a client and then you realize that that client themselves maybe kinda set that up or?

- So one of the things that I learned very early on from some of my mentors is always understand yourself and always protect yourself and always be realistic and fair to the client.

I'm required by law to believe my client, but I'm not required to suspend belief.

(Matt laughing) Meaning that, I'm a reasonable person, if I catch wind that a client, to me, is presenting a false claim, I terminate that client immediately.

- Okay, that's what I wanted to hear.

- I'd like to be able to say that I hold myself up to very high ethical standards.

And if I sense that a client is way out of base on a case, I close the file, or a lot of times, just given the amount of time that I've been practicing, on that initial phone call, I can usually tell.

And sometimes the file never even gets set up, because I decline the case right away, because I know something, it's pretty hard to pull a hood over my head, I guess.

- Yeah, yeah.

So lastly, you mentioned mentors and we talked about it earlier, but you currently have mentors still?

- Absolutely.

- I mean, I'm sure you pick up the phone and call somebody and say, "What would you do here?"

- Absolutely, I do.

And I have mentors all over the state of Illinois, I'm also a member of national trial organizations.

Workers' comp is kind of what I'm known for.

I won an award, was placed in the top 100 work comp lawyers in the United States, which is a feather in my cap, but I also, it doesn't have to be an older, more senior attorney to reach out to, sometimes I reach out to an attorney that might have a particular more experience or expertise in a unique issue that I'm currently tackling in my case, and reach out and compare notes to my colleagues.

And that's part of the fellowship of being and the importance of being in things like the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.

- Yeah, well, I appreciate you coming on.

I love your marketing, always been a friend of yours.

And I see your team and I think that team cohesiveness is key and you talk about 'em a lot, so you give 'em a lot of credit.

So, Todd Strong, thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you very much.

- Appreciate it.

Yep.

- Thank you very much.

- I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - Thank you for tuning in to "Business Forward", brought to you by PNC.