Welcome to episode 60 of The Earley Show, hosted by personal injury attorney Christopher Earley! For this conversation, Chris is joined by David Craig, managing partner of Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC and host of the After the Crash podcast.

David has been a trial lawyer for nearly four decades and a marketer for just as long. He tells Chris how he started a firm in 1999 with three lawyers, no cases and no money; how wrapping every phone book in southeastern Indiana in a vinyl cover got him the back cover for free; and why he flipped his firm from 80% attorney referrals to 80% consumer marketing and ended up with more referrals than ever. He also breaks down how he squeezes a dozen assets out of a single podcast interview, why he writes books for consumers instead of lawyers, and the Monday-morning bacon that keeps 50 employees from leaving.

00:00 Sponsored by Answering Legal
00:52 Meet David Craig, Indiana truck accident lawyer
02:04 Growing up in Indiana: a psychologist dad who was a Marine
03:27 From politics to law: the drive to make a difference
04:31 Law school strategy: one A and a clerking plan
05:45 Learning from the best trial lawyers he could find
07:45 Stacking experience — and hanging a shingle in 1999
09:09 Leaving with zero cases and starting from nothing
11:27 The slow burn: competing when you can actually try cases
12:04 The phone book cover idea that beat the back cover
13:24 “I don’t know how to build a business” — why that’s a choice
14:03 Laundromat cards, bike helmets, and standing out
14:41 Being a high-level trial lawyer and a high-level marketer
16:12 Masterminds, Crisp, and maximizing every asset
17:04 After the Crash: niching a podcast down to trucking
18:21 Batching content and spinning one asset into many
18:56 Keywords, comments, and asking “why am I doing this?”
20:29 Flipping from B2B referrals to B2C consumer marketing
22:33 Stacking authority: books, speaking, Google and AI rankings
24:27 Turning down speaking gigs and protecting your time
25:52 Refer a case to Chris Earley
26:34 The 80/20: start with “is this helpful to anybody else?”
28:11 Why David still gets on planes to speak
29:16 Marketing two books written for consumers, not lawyers
30:45 The client interview that flipped the script
32:40 Becoming a category of one — and never pressing the client
34:13 Retention: hiring law clerks and good human beings
35:54 Equal partners and a buy-in formula from John Morgan’s book
37:11 Giving associates 50% of every case they bring in
38:01 Accountability, seasons of life, and kids in the firm
39:46 People don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses
40:36 Monday bacon and Thursday lunch: culture that costs little
42:08 A day in the life at 66
43:36 Why trial lawyers are the future in an AI world
44:55 Bring on the competition: challenges as fuel
46:33 The moat — and how to reach David Craig

About our guest
David Craig is the managing partner of Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC in Indianapolis, which he founded in 1999 with Scott Faultless and B.J. Kelley. He is board certified in truck accident law and has tried catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases for nearly four decades. He hosts the After the Crash podcast and wrote Semi-Truck Wrecks: A Guide for Victims and Their Families and It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney. He speaks nationally for the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys and hosts an annual trucking seminar for the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association.

Connect with David
Website: ckflaw.com
After the Crash podcast: https://www.ckflaw.com/after-the-crash-podcast/

People and resources mentioned
Scott Faultless and B.J. Kelley — David’s founding partners
Semi-Truck Wrecks: A Guide for Victims and Their Families
It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney
Tanner Jones — Consultwebs
PIMCon — Personal Injury Mastermind Conference
Crisp — David’s coaching and mastermind group
Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys (ATAA)
Indiana Trial Lawyers Association
John Morgan — his book shaped David’s partner buy-in formula
practicetipoftheday.com — Chris Earley’s free weekly email list for lawyers

Learn more about Chris' practice, the Earley Law Group, here: https://www.chrisearley.com/

Check out Chris' book "Scaling The Wall" here: https://tinyurl.com/mrxxyv5n

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