Speaker 1: 0:30

My name's Peter Pentney. I go by Pete. I am a lawyer at Williams Ford Personal Injury Law here in town. I have one partner. His name is Corey Ford. We've been around since 2006, and we handle personal injury cases for people who've been injured or who have had loved ones killed in car crashes or medical malpractice incidents or other types of things that can happen out in the world. We handle those cases in Virginia and West Virginia and a tiny bit into Maryland, although not a lot there.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Yeah, wow, that's some pretty serious stuff there.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Nobody's calling us with good news. Yeah, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Speaker 2: 1:11

I'd like to ask your background and how you got started in your industry.

Speaker 1: 1:15

I'd like to ask your background and how you got started in your industry. Sure, when I got out of law school, I joined a small general practice firm in West Virginia and did everything Criminal defense, real estate work, I wrote wills, I did family law and personal injury law and pretty much anything else that came down the pike. But I was attracted early on to this kind of case. My law partner, corey Ford, was an assistant Commonwealth attorney, so he was prosecuting cases. So between the two of us we were in court a lot. We had a lot of experience with a lot of different kinds of matters, and then so, when we were fortunate enough to come together about six years ago in this practice, it just worked out really perfectly. We've had the perfect blend of experience and energy at our ages too.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Yeah, I love that, that's great. Yeah, I'd like to ask you, as an entrepreneur with your partner, what is that like, what's the dynamic like and what type of service do you hope to give for your clients?

Speaker 1: 2:17

like and what type of service do you hope to give for your clients? That's a good question. Corey and I are kind of like the yin and yang partners. Maybe you've seen this before. He's very calm and always sees the positive side of things, and I'm a little bit more of the neurotic one that worries about all the little details. That's you Okay, so you can sympathize with me.

Speaker 1: 2:34

But, between the two of us. We sort of get everything covered and think of everything that needs to be done and come up with a strategy for every case. Because of that dynamic that we have together, we're able to really work together on a lot of our cases and try to come up with the best solution. If it was just me worrying about the detail and not seeing the big picture, that wouldn't work great. And if it was just him not worrying about the details and looking at the big picture, that wouldn't work. Between the two of us, it's quite good.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Perfect. I love that you have that dynamic, so you guys can fill in those gaps perfectly. I'd like to ask you what your core values are for your company.

Speaker 1: 3:11

Yeah, sure. So Corey and I have sort of evolved these over the years, almost without talking about it. The first of those is that, bar none, family first is important at our firm. We're both deeply devoted to our wives. We both have children. Our staff, the members of our team, have family and it's really important to us that what we're doing is in service of them. It's really important to us that what we're doing is in service of them, you know so we make sure that everyone has time to spend with their family.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Important family events take precedence over just about anything else. We've had cases where I was in the middle of a trial that went longer than expected and Corey was with me and he promised his sons a fishing day. And we said Corey, go. You know you're not going to get that chance again. Maybe you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. We had one of our most trusted team members who hadn't seen her brother in many, many years and had a chance at a holiday to spend time with him, and she said don't worry, boss, I'm going to have my laptop. I said no way, we're going to fire you if you're on your laptop and you haven't seen your brother in this long.

Speaker 1: 4:14

That's really important to us and we bring that into our clients as well. Oftentimes we're dealing with folks who've had really serious injuries, life-altering changes in how they can go about things and it's easy to just focus on them. But when you get to know the family, you realize it's affecting all of them. You know the spouse is carrying a heavier load, the children are pitching in. You know you have all these different ripple effects of an incident.

Speaker 1: 4:42

So that's really our most critical principle. The second one is honesty and integrity. Most of our cases come from referrals former clients, other lawyers, other members of the community and so if we betray those principles, we're not going to get those referrals anymore. We also deal with the same lawyers. There's always a lawyer on the other side, right, an opposing counsel, and we see them a lot. There's only so many in this region, and so if they find that we've been dishonest with them or played a game, they're not going to trust us the next time around. So you know, being honest and open, even when it hurts sometimes, it's really important to us, and so those are really the principles we try to live by. And then you know we don't take every case. We're really careful. We want to make sure we're able to give personal attention to every client that comes in, rather than it's just a case number that gets filed away and dealt with.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So we keep our caseload intentionally low, because of that.

Speaker 2: 5:45

I love that. Yeah, I love that you like know what cases are going to be a good fit and not. And I sometimes I think that's good, because in any business, sometimes it's it's a little bit difficult to just say no and just keep taking, and taking and taking.

Speaker 1: 5:57

It's one of the hardest things. Right, you're right.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Yes, so I'm glad that you have set boundaries there, where they're needed. I would like to ask you how many people are on your team staff and everything.

Speaker 1: 6:08

We have two lawyers, Corey and me. We also have the firm founder, Barbara Williams, who founded the firm in 2006. The firm founder, Barbara Williams, who founded the firm in 2006. And she is largely retired but remains of counsel, which means she's a great source of advice and resource for us, but she's living on top of a mountain in Western North Carolina now how lovely.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Not locally hands-on with us anymore, as she used to be. We have two really really good, experienced, clever paralegals who are integral parts of our team. We have an intake member who handles onboarding new cases. And she's also a registered nurse, so she brings some unique experience to us because of that.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Wow.

Speaker 1: 6:49

And then we have a part-time marketing professional who handles maintaining contact with our referral sources, our internet presence, things of that nature. So it's a small team, purposefully, and we're really choosy and careful when we add somebody to the team because it has to be the right fit.

Speaker 2: 7:09

Yeah, when you're choosing somebody to come on board with you guys, what kind of person are you looking for? I am curious.

Speaker 1: 7:15

That's a good question. The first thing we're looking for is someone who's really clever. A lot of the things we deal with in every case maybe to the outside it might seem every case has sort of a cookie cutter process, but really they're all different and requires a lot of creativity to figure out how best to present that case, how to handle it, what strategy to take. So we're looking for people who are really able to think around different ways of problem solving. We don't want shrinking violets. We want people who can tell us what they think and are comfortable sharing their opinion, comfortable talking to our clients, whoever else we might have to deal with in a case. And then you know, we want people who have the same values we do. Honest people, people who are family oriented, who you know, prize that because then they're going to align with what we're trying to do as a firm.

Speaker 2: 8:06

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I would like to ask you what do you think sets you guys apart from other?

Speaker 1: 8:15

That's a good question and it's a little hard to know exactly because I haven't worked in a lot of different firms, but I know what we do and I know what other people tell us about how they do. One of the things that we absolutely put a priority on as I said about being choosy in our cases is we keep the case load small so that Corey and I can be involved in every single case. It's not getting passed off to a junior level associate or to you know some, some person to just handle on. A person meets with me one time and they never see me again.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Um we sort of have, at least in our firm, legendary long lunches where we're all sitting and talking about our cases and planning them out and and really having the input of our whole team and everybody's different backgrounds and ways of thinking about things to come up with the best tactic for handling a case. And you know, because of that, no one's just a number when they come in our firm, love it, thank you.

Speaker 2: 9:10

And then, what is the most rewarding aspect of helping clients navigate personal injury cases?

Speaker 1: 9:18

So we can't solve all their problems.

Speaker 1: 9:20

That's really the hardest thing to come to grips with.

Speaker 1: 9:23

If somebody comes in with a permanent injury, we can try to get the money, we can try to help them find services, but we can't heal them.

Speaker 1: 9:30

So what's really rewarding is when we can use our connections to find a way to solve some of the problems beyond what a lawyer can do. I'd like to think the money we can get for them can help make the path a little smoother, can help them use that money in a way that helps them for the long term, rather than sitting in a checking account for a short time and then put into a new truck that depreciates or something like that. Or we can help them find that specialist who can perhaps think of a way to perform a surgery that would be life altering for them. Or a recent example is a medical malpractice case where the family was deeply troubled by some processes at a hospital that broke down. That led to a sad death, and we were able, as part of the resolution of the case, to have the hospital change its policies so that something like this particular incident wouldn't happen again, and they changed their training methodologies and helped this family sleep better at night, knowing that their loss wasn't.

Speaker 2: 10:40

It was hopefully going to be the last loss that way, for sure, this does sound like a very high stress kind of job. I'd like to ask you how you are handling that, because I'm sure sometimes it can take a toll on you. I'm sure maybe you've had some training where it's like no, you got to leave that there, and all that good stuff. But I'd like to know personally how you cope with that. What do you do to keep yourself, I guess, clear headed?

Speaker 1: 11:10

It's hard to compartmentalize.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Right.

Speaker 1: 11:12

My wife will probably tell you, I'm not very good at it when.

Speaker 1: 11:15

I come home and I'm vacant for an evening because there's some big hearing the next day or something like that. What helps me? I do meditate, you know, not in some two hour long transcendental way, but, you know, five minutes here and there to try to get centered. Exercising is really really important. To try to get centered Exercising is really really important, and so you know I try to do that, especially during a trial when it's really stressful for you know, a week or two at a time, listen to music, read as an outlet, you know, spend time with my kids and get sort of recharged. Yeah, recharge. That way it helps me remember what's important.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Yeah, absolutely. I see where that could play a key role for you to just reset and think about something else because you're like oh, this is so I got to help my client have the best outcomes.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Oh, you nailed it. It's easy to get consumed by.

Speaker 2: 12:05

Right.

Speaker 1: 12:05

It really is. There's a phrase the law is a jealous mistress because it's so easy to get consumed and think about nothing else, and I've seen lawyers who struggle with that. Yeah, I mean it's tough.

Speaker 2: 12:18

I'm sure. And then I'd like to ask you what are some common misconceptions people have about personal injury cases that you've come across perhaps?

Speaker 1: 12:27

That's a good question. Well, you know, the one I always hate is the ambulance chasing. What's?

Speaker 2: 12:33

that one.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Stereotype right People running after the car crashes with their business card out every time there's an ambulance going somewhere. It's not really like that at all for us. I mean, people come to us when they're not sure what to do. Most folks haven't been through something like that before. There's no class you can take in. You know school that teaches you how to deal with going through. You know, having been in a car crash and being really hurt and not able to work and maybe you can't pay your mortgage or your rent.

Speaker 2: 13:06

How do?

Speaker 1: 13:06

you deal with that. So helping people through that is really important. You know the lawyers known as attorneys sometimes and also counselors at law and the counseling part is a really important part of that. That. I think most lawyers uh eventually get pretty good at and people don't realize how much a lawyer is helping. Uh. Folks understand, um, the details of what they're dealing with, why they should go about things in a certain way. What's important, what's not?

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yeah, love it. And then how do you ensure your clients feel supported and informed throughout the legal process?

Speaker 1: 13:48

We spend a lot of time talking to them at the outset. One of the things Corey and I often tell our clients is that you know you're the boss, we work for you. We might clients is that you know you're the boss, we work for you. We might know a lot about this, but you're the one who ultimately makes the decisions about your case. So we spend a lot of time explaining their options to them, the pros and cons of those options, so that they can make a decision and give us direction about how they want their cases handled. Some people are dead set on being vindicated through a trial, and that's fine. That's great, that's fun for the lawyer. It's not much fun for the person going through the trial, but that's fine. Other people will tell us candidly I cannot tolerate going through a trial. It's too stressful, it's too risky, whatever that might be. I need to have this done in a quicker, quicker way, and then we can handle it that way, once we've explained the pros and cons of that to them.

Speaker 2: 14:42

And I understand you said that you have somebody who handles the marketing aspect of the business. I'd like to know what are some of the strategies that you guys are implementing or using to get the word out there about your business and the type of services that you provide. And I'm sure you have a type of services that you provide and I'm sure you have a lot of word of mouth clients, so that helps. So talk to me about that?

Speaker 1: 15:04

Yeah, that's a good question. We're pretty low key. We don't have ads on TV, you know. We don't have billboards out by the highway, anything like that. Our clients are coming to us because usually someone else has recommended us, which is really flattering, because usually someone else has recommended us, which is really flattering. And so our marketing person spends a lot of time working on maintaining and building those relationships, you know, making sure she's checking in with the folks who've sent cases to us you know, building new relationships with people who might send cases to us and then reaching out to past clients because, um, you know the effects of that are exponential.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Yeah, once you have those satisfied people talking about you to their neighbors and I hope nothing bad happens to anybody but I know anybody who lives in loudon county knows most mornings there's a crash out there on 7 or 28 or 9. You know it's happening so we try to be there for those folks love it.

Speaker 2: 15:55

And then are there any landmark cases you've worked on that shaped your career or change your perspective on personal injury law that maybe you could share.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Well, I've had some really noteworthy ones to me Personally because of the impact we were able to have for folks. One that stands out for me was a woman who was hurt by a drunk driver in West Virginia and he had been over served at a well-known place there the place to account for that and recover an amount that was life-changing for her. She was paralyzed from the waist down and so her life was just turned upside down.

Speaker 1: 16:42

She was a caretaker for a grandchild and it was just. Everything was going to be impossible for her and we couldn't heal her, but we were able to recover enough that it meant that she could deal with those things a little bit easier. Money was at least one thing she didn't have to worry about, and I realized that was pretty early in my career and I realized, oh, we can, we're not ambulance chasers. We can make a difference for somebody. We can help them improve their lives or get through this tough situation. Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:12

What advice would you want to give to anybody who's going into your specific field with law, any newcomers? What advice would you want to let them? Oh my, gosh.

Speaker 1: 17:23

So when I went to law school I truly I'd read To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd had some friends say they thought I would be good at this, but I didn't really know what I was getting into. I didn't have family members who were lawyers. I didn't know any lawyers, I had no idea, and so I kind of was feeling my way through it as I went.

Speaker 1: 17:43

I think what I would suggest to young folks considering that or old folks considering that, is to go out and about and ask to spend a week in a place checking out what they do and how they do it and learn about all the different ways that a lawyer can make a living, because it's not just walking into a courtroom or doing a real estate closing or writing a will for someone. There's a lot of different ways that lawyers can find a path. Pretty much any interest someone might have, there's a way to be a lawyer and fulfill that interest.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Yeah, absolutely, Thank you. And then let's see. I have so many questions that I want to ask you have you noticed any recent trends in personal injury law that are changing the way cases are handled?

Speaker 1: 18:38

cases are handled. So one of the big things that's going on right now is, with the advent of AI, is is, you know, are there ways to make this work more efficient? Are there ways to make it, uh, more creative? Are there ways to cut back on some of the busy work and and free up more time for the creative thinking and strategic thinking that's necessary to have?

Speaker 1: 18:54

a successful case. So that's that's one thing, and we're working very hard at ways to implement that safely. You know we're dealing with clients deepest, darkest, you know most private issues, so being safe about it is is critical. But also we're slowly, incrementally adopting little steps here and there that are designed to make cases more efficient so we can get people's cases resolved, yeah, Quicker with that.

Speaker 2: 19:20

That's incredible.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Yeah, we also try to work with, um, you know, friendly members of the general assembly or the West Virginia legislature when we see a problem with the law, to try to get changes made. That might be a little bit more protective of folks and that's a huge task and not often successful, but it is something we try to work on and support organizations that do that as well.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Wonderful, that was literally going to be like my question. I was going to ask you Are there any changes you'd like to see in personal injury laws or regulations to better serve clients?

Speaker 1: 19:56

Yeah, that's a good question. So one of the benefits for me in handling cases in multiple states is that I can compare what's going on and see where there might be gaps. And one of the things that has long bothered me about the law in Virginia is that if a bar or tavern or restaurant irresponsibly serves alcohol, allows a person to become intoxicated, that person goes out and causes a horrible car crash In Virginia, that bar or restaurant that acted irresponsibly can't be held responsible for the consequences of it In West Virginia or in North Carolina or other states.

Speaker 1: 20:37

They can be responsible. You have to prove the case. It's not just an automatic thing. You have to prove that they acted irresponsibly in the service. But most folks have been somewhere where they saw somebody. Oh gosh, that guy's had too many. I can't believe they're giving him another one. When that guy goes out on the road and hurts somebody, the bar ought to be responsible for that.

Speaker 1: 21:00

So that's a big change I think Virginia should adopt and I know there are many, many very motivated organizations trying to do that and there are just as many motivated organizations trying to prevent that. So, hopefully someday we're able to protect folks a little bit more because it has the. I don't want those that to be the law because I want to have cases against bars. I want that to be the law because then that's a check on on the service in those places.

Speaker 1: 21:27

If you realize you could be held responsible for this. You're going to train your servers to be a little bit more responsible.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Yeah, and it's just going to reduce those situations happening, so that would be great, right.

Speaker 1: 21:39

A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Fewer cases, not more cases, love it.

Speaker 2: 21:44

No for sure. That's a great point that you brought up that I wasn't even aware of. So that would be nice to have that here in Virginia. I think I'd feel a little bit safer going on the road. Now I'm like, oh, I'm kind of nervous now. But yeah, awareness, where do you see yourself in the next five years as a person and with your business.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Good question. So in five years all of my kids will be out of high school. So that's going to be a major change in my life personally, and it's hard to say what that's going to mean for my wife and for me. It's going to be a real change. Um, for us as a firm, I hope we continue to grow slowly and carefully. Um, I don't want to grow too fast, but we do want to get bigger. We have an office right now in winchester. I'd like to have one in west virginia in the next few years and make sure we're geographically located where our clients are you know adding slowly with the criteria you asked me about before would be part of our plan over the next five years.

Speaker 2: 22:44

Awesome.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Love it.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Is there anything maybe I have not touched on that you would like to share with the audience, whether it's about yourself, your business, your industry?

Speaker 1: 22:54

I don't think so. I think you touched on it. I really like that you do this. You guys do a great job with it and it's really good way of calling attention to the really very many smart and creative people in this community. Absolutely, yeah, I appreciate you thinking I might be one of those people.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Yes, absolutely I love it and I love the awareness that you're bringing to certain things that maybe some of us weren't aware of or that you were here. Maybe someone hasn't heard of you or didn't even know that that was a thing Like they thought. Maybe I just go to a regular lawyer. No, you got to go to that specific lawyer who knows about these laws and regulations and the systems that go into it. So I'm glad that you're here so you can add to that pool of knowledge and entrepreneurs that have services and insight to offer to others.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Yeah, thanks for saying that.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah, absolutely. And now I'd like to ask you my final question. It is one that I ask everybody If you have a quote or a saying, a mantra, maybe even a law that's inspired you in any way, would you like to share that with our listeners? Oh my gosh, putting you on the spot.

Speaker 1: 23:55

You are, but in this sense I'm an inveterate collector of quotes.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Okay, perfect, I have them saved on my phone. I have them written in little places on my office. I don't even know how I could go about selecting one. The one that I write down and I wish I had memorized, but I don't is by, if you want to pull it out of your phone, your poet and philosopher from the 1800s named gethy, and his starts out with I am the decisive element, and it basically goes on for a long paragraph about how you know, each of us can make a difference in somebody else's life by how they respond to things, and so, um, you know, if you respond in anger to someone else, you're going to make that situation worse. If you respond with kindness to someone else, you're probably going to make that situation better, and each of us has this little bit of a climate that we bring with them to every situation, and if your climate is calm and temperate, then it's going to bring good things to somebody else.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Absolutely Like. You get what you put in right.

Speaker 1: 24:57

Yeah, get that energy back 100%.

Speaker 2: 24:59

I love it. And now I just have one more question, actually If you could leave a message for our listeners about your firm and why they should reach out to you, and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Well, I hope none of your listeners ever have to reach out to me because that means something bad has happened. But if they do, they should know that there's no obligations when they call us. If we can help them, we'll try to. If we can't help them, we'll try to get them to someone who will sort of have this philosophy of never leaving someone without some other option when they call our office. If it's a kind of a case we can't handle, we help get them to someone who does handle those kinds of cases. If it's something that we can't take on, we get them to someone who can take it on. If they need something else entirely, we try to help them find resources in the community that can help them with that. So anytime someone has some kind of issue that they're not sure about, they are more than welcome to start with our office and we can try to get them in the right place.

Speaker 2: 26:02

if we're not the right place, how kind Thank you Appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:07

Sure my pleasure.