Defending People

Comments

24 Responses to “R.W. Lynch Raises Its Ugly Head Again”

1. Ken says:

   27 February 2009 at 10:07 am

   We’ve been get­ting a sud­den rush of emails rather than calls. All from var­i­ous legal ser­vices firms we’ve never used before (and would never use), all unso­licited — and all using the same new tac­tic: a creepy, inap­pro­pri­ately famil­iar tone. “Hi Ken! How is the new year treat­ing you? Can we get together for lunch?” etc.

   Reply
2. Windypundit says:

   27 February 2009 at 11:31 pm

   Some­time sales peo­ple can be pretty crafty. Maybe it’s some sort of qual­i­fy­ing test for prospects: They don’t want to waste their time try­ing to sell their prod­uct to any­body who’s smart enough not to call them back.

   Reply
3. InTheKnow says:

   2 March 2009 at 9:30 pm

   As some­one who once worked for RWLynch, I will be the first to apol­o­gize. RWLynch runs com­mer­cials as “The Injury Helpline”. They take money from sub­scrib­ing Attor­neys who get to call back the peo­ple who call the IHL.
   RWLynch con­tin­u­ously tell their sales peo­ple lie their way past sec­re­taries to get to the Attor­ney. (part of the rea­son I left.) They will con­tinue to call you unless you call back & tell them “Take me off your list”.
   (To which their trained response will be “I’ll take you off my list of Future Millionaires.”)

   Reply
   • Mark Bennett says:

     3 March 2009 at 11:36 am

     And this works?

     Reply
     • Jdog says:

       3 March 2009 at 12:14 pm

       Why wouldn’t it? It’s not news that fear of miss­ing out can moti­vate peo­ple — com­bine that with pos­si­ble greed, and it sounds like a winner.

       Reply
4. Jay Willingahm says:

   6 April 2009 at 10:51 am

   Does any­one have any idea of a way to get out of the agree­ment with RW Lynch? As I recall their sales­peo­ple said we would get some cases. Noth­ing has come our way of any value to us. Almost all call come from the web­site. Noth­ing from TV. Calls are uni­formly me spend­ing time try­ing to help folks who have usu­ally spo­ken to other attor­neys and been declined. They are almost all far away out­side our “area”.

   Reply
   • Mark Bennett says:

     20 April 2009 at 1:56 pm

     Jay, have you con­tacted InThe­Know yet?

     Reply
5. InTheKnow says:

   6 April 2009 at 2:28 pm

   Jay,

   What is your con­tact information?

   Reply
6. John Lengyel says:

   19 May 2009 at 5:16 pm

   To the blog­gers who have posted about RW Lynch and the sales tac­tics of a sin­gle sales per­son or small group of the larger body I say dont judge the com­pany and all its peo­ple based on the bad expe­ri­ence of one or a fewof the des­per­ate and uneth­i­cal. As the Sr Acct Exec for RW Lynch I have new clients for­warded to me from two sales offices every week and most if not all enter the pro­gram the right way and with real­is­tic expec­ta­tions. Our web site and our adver­tis­ing agree­ments are very plain and clear as to how we oper­ate. RWL has been around for 25 years with the Injury Helpline pro­gram and some of our old­est clients have been with us for the entire 25 years. I per­son­ally iner­act with our active clients daily and work with them as an adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing part­ner in their legal prac­tice. I am the last per­son on the earth to con­done such neg­a­tive sales tac­tics and I truly believe our pro­gram is wor­thy of a bet­ter sales pre­sen­ta­tion and bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Sadly we very rarely hear from the prospect attor­neys, except for those who do join up, that our sales peo­ple are in con­tact with to help improve our rank and file. Blog­ging may get the word out about one or two unuique neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences (10 happy peo­ple tell ? and 1 unhappy per­son will share with the world) but why not just pick up the phone and call Lynch, maybe email the Pres­i­dent of the com­pany and make things bet­ter for us all. My per­sonal apolo­gies to any­one who has had to deal with any puffery involv­ing our ser­vices and rep­re­sen­ta­tives. I will be shar­ing what I have found here with the Lynch fam­ily who will undoubtably take immea­di­ate cor­rec­tive action. Thank you.

   Reply
   • Mark Bennett says:

     19 May 2009 at 5:27 pm

     John,

     How do you respond to the for­mer employee who says, “RWLynch con­tin­u­ously tell their sales peo­ple lie their way past sec­re­taries to get to the Attorney.”

     When the only two RW Lynch sales­peo­ple who try to reach me use iden­ti­cal decep­tive (and des­per­ate) tac­tics, that state­ment has the ring of truth.

     Reply
   • InTheKnow says:

     19 May 2009 at 6:19 pm

     You can’t ask peo­ple not to base their expe­ri­ence off of those who are doing what they are doing (“being des­per­ate & uneth­i­cal”), espe­cially since they have BEEN TRAINED by your Sales Man­agers and Gen­eral Sales Man­agers to do these things.

     Sales peo­ple are trained to tell all the “pos­i­tive” or “suc­cess” Attor­neys using your ser­vice have had. But what about the hun­dreds of Attor­neys who have left your pro­gram? As the Account Exec­u­tive you see first hand the Attor­neys who are “upset” and want out of your pro­gram. Yet you failed to men­tion them here.

     Since the Mar­ket Man­agers are trained to “hype” / “exager­ate” your pro­gram and get the Attor­neys “Excited about all these great cases they can get”, no won­der they want out of your ser­vices when these it fails to deliver.

     To make mat­ters worse, you throw in 2 or 3 year auto­matic renewals into your “Plain & Clear” con­tract that is if I remem­ber cor­rectly 13 pages long. I don’t see how any­thing is plain and clear yet takes so long to “spell out”.

     How is that employee turnover rate com­ing along? Why are sales peo­ple no longer allowed con­tact with Attor­neys they bring in after 90 days?
     (Retor­i­cal ques­tions) I can answer them myself.
     1. Turnover rate is still extremely high. Prob­a­bly a new train­ing class every other week, if not sooner.
     2. Because it is demor­al­iz­ing to hear from Attor­neys you hyped up that the prod­uct is crap.

     Lynch only cares about how much $$$ sales peo­ple keep com­ing in. Pres­i­dent Lynch has a “what have you done for me lately” men­tal­ity. “Doesn’t mat­ter what you did for me last month, what’s com­ing in today?”

     NO Loy­alty, No Respect. Just, “Show me the Money!”

     Reply
   • Rosanne Kruschke says:

     19 November 2012 at 2:03 pm

     We also get calls from RW Lynch and they lie every sin­gle time they call. First they usu­ally act like they are an injured party and their sec­ond line of BS is that their attor­ney retired and they are look­ing for a new per­sonal injury attor­ney to replace them.

     Reply
7. Michael says:

   19 May 2009 at 11:41 pm

   Recently, I’ve been get­ting spam from both An Attor­ney For You and MiNeeds. I don’t sub­scribe to either one, but they both want me as a cus­tomer so they send me actual requests for attor­neys. The last three have all said “I need an attor­ney. I have a lim­ited income so I can’t afford to pay very much.” Why I’m sup­posed to pay for leads that can’t pay me is a mystery.

   Reply
8. John Lengyel says:

   20 May 2009 at 11:09 am

   Hello Mark and Mr In the Know,
   First and for­most, the last per­son I would believe is some dis­grun­tled and unem­ployed PAST EMPLOYEE of this or any other com­pany. And yes, some­times the fish sticks from the head down due to poor train­ing or man­age­ment but just like any other estab­lished and rep­utable com­pany we catch on and make changes. I for one teach the sales folks to make a good first impres­sion with the recep­tion­ist or assis­tants and make sure that they know we are who we are. Often times the gate­keep­ers at the front desks are rude and uncar­ing and if it were not for get­ting past them to the attor­ney, the desci­sion maker, then we would never have many of the clients and positve rela­tion­ships we have today. Being cre­ative, upbeat and shar­ing suc­cess sto­ries in not unethical.…it’s sell­ing the ser­vice. Most recently a good num­ber of changes have occured in the man­age­ment at the com­pany based on feed­back from the sales peo­ple, some of our prospects and our loyal clients. We have also revised the ser­vice agree­ment which for most of the new year is only 5 pages (I guess in the know doesnt really know much)
   As the Sr Acct Exec I have had the plea­sure of a 75–85 % reten­tion rate for my 7 years here at Lynch (doesnt sound like a lot of turn over and pissed off clients to me). I have worked in sales, sales man­age­ment and sales train­ing for years and in any sales indus­try you will find the puffers and BS artists who in time will be shown the door ( the turn over rate is very high in car lots to elec­tron­ics retail.…why would adver­tis­ing be any dif­fer­ent?). I would expect a pro­fes­sional, such as an edu­cated attor­ney, to do his due dil­li­gence on any­one propos­ing a ser­vice such as this or any sim­i­lar costly busi­ness ven­ture. The sim­ple fact remains that Lynch is now in its 25th year and going strong (poor busi­ness practices.…I think not) in one of the most aggres­sive adver­tis­ing envi­ro­ments any­where. Lynch built their rep on TV adv and are now the biggest group on the inter­net as well. Sure, per­for­mance varies based on each mar­ket and on each attor­ney we work with but in PA Work Comp is a win­ner and in TX its a looser. Some PI guys han­dle med mal and oth­ers turn it away at the door. I do know that we do exectly what we say we will do and have been doing for 25 years…collective dol­lar group adver­tis­ing of the INJURY HELPLINE. For every one upset attor­ney MR In the Know refers to I have 20 that will sing our praises. With odds like that I would say Lynch is as sure of a bet as it gets in this game. I for one will be here for another 20 years!!!!!!

   Reply
   • InTheKnow says:

     20 May 2009 at 8:18 pm

     John,

     First of all, I am hap­pily and gain­fully employed. The only rea­son I would have for being “dis­grun­tled” would be the mil­lions of dol­lars I gen­er­ated for RWLynch and the “minus­cule” com­pen­sa­tion I received for my “ser­vices”. Or the thou­sands of dol­lars I lost in “tails” when I left. (I highly doubt you would like me to divulge your com­pany pay scale, bonuses or com­pen­sa­tion plans.)

     I love how you jus­ti­fied lying to get past “gate­keep­ers and sec­re­taries” by say­ing, “if it were not for get­ting past them, then we would never have many of the clients we have today.” (So if it were not for lying to get past sec­re­taries, you wouldn’t have clients… Sounds uneth­i­cal to me.)

     “In the know” was in the know when it came to your ser­vice agree­ment. At the time of employ­ment, your ser­vice agree­ment was 13 pages. (You even admit to recently revis­ing it. So don’t take petty shots at me John.)

     As for your reten­tion rate, I do not believe you. I was fed those same num­bers when I was employed there. Yet 14 of the 17 clients I per­son­ally brought on with your com­pany ARE NO LONGER with your com­pany. (Most of them were “multi-territory” sub­scribers as well.) And ter­ri­to­ries became avail­able all the time. I was per­son­ally respon­si­ble to “freez­ing” 2 or 3 mar­kets which are no longer frozen.

     True, turnover rates are high at car lots, elec­tron­ics, etc. How­ever, this is because not every­one can be decep­tive and “shady” like most of those who make suc­cess­ful liv­ings in those indus­tries are.

     First and fore­most, Lynch needs to bet­ter eval­u­ate the peo­ple they let “sell their pro­gram”. A warm body should not be the only require­ment for employ­ment. I remem­ber sev­eral Mar­ket Man­agers who looked like they were prob­a­bly sleep­ing behind the office, smelled of alco­hol or mar­i­juana con­stantly. Knowl­edge of Mar­ket­ing and Adver­tis­ing, Inter­net trends, etc. would be in your best inter­est. Proabably drug test­ing as well. Not just a week long train­ing class that teaches how to “get past gate­keep­ers” and “puffery” of the suc­cess your cur­rent clients are having.

     Granted, Per­sonal Injury is a quag­mire of a prac­tice. You can tell the same facts to 10 dif­fer­ent Attor­neys and get prob­a­bly 7 dif­fer­ent answers. And yes, Per­sonal Injury varies by state with some things being more lucra­tive than oth­ers. (i.e. dog bites, slip falls, Med-Mal, Work­ers Comp.)

     The prob­lem with your adver­tis­ing is you present your­selves as Attor­neys in your TV ads and your Inter­net cam­paigns. Your ads also state “Talk to a Lawyer about your case for Free”. How­ever, no PI Attor­ney out there does their work “pro-bono”. The sales tac­tics are decep­tive and puffery.

     Glad to know that Lynch has been around for 25 years. And those 25 years of Attor­neys pay­ing Lynch to run adver­tis­ing on their behalf has gen­er­ated a Race Car Team, pri­vate plane, a Vine­yard, huge homes, fancy cars and count­less vaca­tions for the Lynch family.

     Best of luck stay­ing with that com­pany. The AZ office only has 3 sales employ­ees who have been there over 2 years and the cor­po­rate approx­i­mately the same. I would say the Account exec­u­tives were sales peo­ple to but they are even worse than the sales man­agers. (I was screwed out of 3 up sales by my account exec­u­tive, Lisa who is no longer there, by my 3 clients who actu­ally had suc­cess with your services.)

     My opin­ion for Attor­neys, Stay away from group adver­tis­ing. Do the adver­tis­ing for your­self or join a well mar­keted direc­tory that will get the clients to con­tact you directly ver­sus mak­ing peo­ple go through a third party service.

     Reply
     • Mark Bennett says:

       21 May 2009 at 9:36 am

       The Texas Dis­ci­pli­nary Rules gov­ern­ing lawyer adver­tis­ing do not stop apply­ing when some­one else is doing the adver­tis­ing for you. A lawyer who pays R.W. Lynch for adver­tis­ing that does not com­ply with the DRs is liable for any vio­la­tions of the rules that R.W. Lynch might commit.

       And I think it’s about time to close this thread.

       Reply
   • Mark Bennett says:

     21 May 2009 at 9:32 am

     78–85% would be lousy reten­tion rate for some­one hon­estly sell­ing a product.

     (the turn over rate is very high in car lots to elec­tron­ics retail….why would adver­tis­ing be any different?)

     Yep, that you would ask that ques­tion is why eth­i­cal lawyers should run away from yours and any other mar­ket­ing scheme: lawyer adver­tis­ing must be different.

     When a lawyer hires a com­pany to do mar­ket­ing or adver­tis­ing for him, he’s putting his good name in that company’s hands. If that com­pany trains its sales­peo­ple to lie to get past the gate­keep­ers or even (giv­ing you the ben­e­fit of the doubt, though I don’t for an instant believe it) sim­ply hires sales­peo­ple who hap­pen to do so, it’s the wrong com­pany for the job.

     Reply
   • Mark Bennett says:

     20 August 2012 at 6:00 pm

     (The lies never stop. Within nine­teen months, Lengyel had left RW Lynch.)

     Reply
9. ShortFatBaldGuy says:

   27 May 2009 at 3:16 pm

   All I want to say is that I was fired for speak­ing with gate­keep­ers. Hav­ing come from an exec­u­tive level inside sales back­ground deal­ing with C and V level execs at For­tune 100 –1000 com­pa­nies, I was told I was hired because I knew how to get through to the deci­sion mak­ers. What they didn’t hear is that to get through to the deci­sion maker, you MUST deal the gate keeper hon­estly and pro­fes­sion­ally — NOT got around him/her.

   Reply
10. Charlie says:

    9 June 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Just got a call today from a rep at RW Lynch, Phillip Tuck­willer — he was hor­ri­bly rude, then told me if our firm was lucky, he might con­sider part­ner­ing with us! Yeesh! No thanks, buddy ~

    Reply
11. Joel Pores says:

    14 August 2009 at 3:22 pm

    I just received a cold call from Mary Mudge from RW Lynch regard­ing per­sonal injury. The mes­sage said noth­ing about a refer­ral pro­gram and it sounded like it could be a new client.

    I became sus­pi­cious at the use of her name “from RW Lynch regard­ing per­sonal injury” , as this is an area of the law that I have done very lit­tle of for the last fif­teen years.

    I now han­dle Legal Ethics, Attor­ney Fee Dis­putes, Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion and Legal Mal­prac­tice almost exclusively.

    For all of you Cal­i­for­nia attor­neys, beware of join­ing any unreg­u­lated and unap­proved attor­ney refer­ral pro­grams whcih must be reg­is­tered with the State Bar pur­suant to Busi­ness and Pro­fes­sions Code sec­tion 6155 for you to accept a refer­ral from them.
    I have no idea if RW Lynch is so registered.

    It may have been attempt­ing a “joint adver­tis­ing” pro­gram but I do not par­tic­i­pate in those cam­paigns as a gen­eral rules, as there seems to be a middle-man involved in almost every case. The rea­son I shy away is that a joint adver­tis­ing pro­gram is legal only if there is no per­son other than the lawyers who are par­tic­i­pat­ing mak­ing a refer­ral to you, as con­di­tioned by Busi­ness and Pro­fes­sions Code sec­tion 6155 (h)(1) and (2).

    Lawyers join­ing in such an endeavor must also be care­ful in regard to poten­tial soli­ci­ata­tion in vio­la­tion of Busi­ness and Pro­fes­sions Code sec­tion 6151 and 6152.

    I just got another solic­i­ta­tion call, this time from Legal Busi­ness Solu­tions Steven Gib­son. Any feed­back on this com­pany would be appreciated.

    If you have any ques­tions call me. (949) 609 0300

    Reply
12. lawrence strauss says:

    20 January 2012 at 8:34 am

    I appre­ci­ate your insights on RW. Do you have any expe­ri­ence or infor­ma­tion on “The Lawyers Group” ?

    Reply
13. Steve Ball says:

    20 August 2012 at 5:37 pm

    Another attor­ney here got a call Fri­day after I had left I guess. He emails me their name and infor­ma­tion and said they’d call back Mon­day morn­ing. Tells me it’s a new client and it sounds like a large PI case, which is great news on Mon­day am for a new solo attor­ney. So when I get their call this morn­ing from the per­son with that name and at the right time and it’s a sales call I was really con­fused. I hon­estly assumed the attor­ney who took the first call (very old guy, good lawyer though) can’t even han­dle calls/messages any­more. Glad I read this. Won’t be tak­ing their “ori­en­ta­tion call” tomor­row or ever now.

    Don’t care what the prod­uct is or does, lying to get me on the phone ends the deal before it starts. Like some­one else said, I am a grown man run­ning an office. I always accept sales calls. If I need your ser­vice or prod­uct I’ll let you know, if not I’ll let you know that too so nei­ther wastes time. The lying is ter­ri­ble practice.

    Reply
14. Kevin Lane says:

    30 October 2012 at 5:05 pm

    You may see some unusual spellings in my post. I do not need the headache of get­ting caught up in a Google alert for this com­pany name(s) or articles.

    A Google search for: “Th3 1njury H3lplin3” scam, cur­rently returns 37,000 hits, almost exclu­sively from RW&L’s prop­a­ga­tion of their own blog arti­cles such as: S3O $cams 0n th3 Ris3 – H0w t0 Pr0tect y0ur F1rm, as well as arti­cle tags of Seo scams. I must say(you do I hope know this is done tongue-in-cheek); well-done R.W. Lynch! I can’t of course state that this was their intent, but doing so has no doubt increased the dif­fi­culty of the aver­age search­ing find­ing any low hang­ing fruit.

    They don’t do as suc­cess­ful a job with their com­pany name in quotes along with the word scam, but then the aver­age per­son may not know the company’s actual name.

    Reply