Personal Injury Attorney and Harley Davidson rider Paul Hernandez discusses what it means to be known in the Virginia motorcycle community. This is an excellent episode – if you are considering a niche, listen to every minute of this podcast at least once.

We have talked about the benefits of niching down a few times before. We primarily discuss niching as a strategy to attract more clients in saturated markets. It also makes sense when you are a member of a community that is regularly at risk for catastrophic injury. This is especially true in the motorcycle riding community.

Visit Attorney Paul Hernandez here: https://www.kalfusnachman.com/attorneys/paul-r-hernandez/.

See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.

https://youtu.be/lsrcoWmAhOY

Transcript:

Welcome to the personal injury marketing minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world.

I’m your host, Lindsey Busfield. We have talked about the benefits of niching down a few times before. We primarily discuss niching as a strategy to attract more clients in saturated markets.

It also makes sense when you’re a member of a community that is regularly at risk for catastrophic injury. This is especially true in the motorcycle riding community.

Now, every personal injury lawyer would love to have more motorcycle accident cases, but they seem impossible to regularly get through the door.

However, Paul Hernandez: of Calphus and Nackman has figured out how to become the motorcycle accident lawyer throughout Virginia. He joins us today to share his insight.

It’s on what works and what doesn’t. Thank you so much for joining us today, Paul.

Paul Hernandez:

Thank you. Appreciate you inviting me.

Lindsey:

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your practice.

Paul Hernandez:

Yeah, so I’ve been practicing 30 years. It’s hard to believe that time flies so fast. We have a team of 16 lawyers here, and our staff’s about 90 people.

We started handling personal injury cases. We do personal injury. We do longshore and workers’ compensation, and we do social security disability.

But we have a special area, a special division at our firm, and that is our Law Tigers division. We’re a Law Tigers group.

We’re part of that group. But I have a specific group of people who handle all of our motorcycle crashes, and it’s a select team of people.

So if it’s an investigator, if it’s a paralegal, if it’s a lawyer, if it’s a negotiator, it doesn’t matter.

Everybody rides. Everybody’s in the community. Everybody supports the community. So, you know, what is our firm? We do handle cases.

I’m licensed in North Carolina and Virginia, and we have people licensed in Maryland and D.C. and things of that nature.

But, you know, our big part is Virginia. And by handling motorcycle cases, you know, we’ve really become experts and specialists in that field.

And everybody can’t do that. But I know we’re going to talk about that in a little while. But that’s a little bit about who Calpus Enactment is.

The firm has been around for over 45 years. So it’s a great ride, to be honest with you. I’ll be honest with you.

I love coming to work every single day.

Lindsey:

And that’s the best job to have, you know, regardless of what industry you work in, regardless of what sector, legal sector you work in.

If you are loving what you do, then you are going to be serving your clients in absolutely the best capacity.

And this is clearly a passion for you because you’re a part of the motorcycle community.

Paul Hernandez:

So the big question, the most important question. Of course, what kind of bike do you ride? And how long have you been riding?

Right. So it’s funny. said, what type of bike do you ride? What type of bike do you like to ride?

Right? So I have been riding. Oh, I know I hate to say this word, but I’ve been riding for over 40 years.

Started off on, you know, actually, I guess if you really want to go back, it started off on minibikes.

And minibike, I don’t see them anymore, to be honest with It’s just basically a lawnmower mower on a little metal, small thing, a little tire.

Lindsey:

Sounds really safe.

Paul Hernandez:

Yeah. Well, it started there. It’s funny. We would, in the wintertime, we would, of course, drag people behind it while you’re on a boogie board, you know, in the snow and whatever, just doing kids stuff, you know.

again, the type of stuff we did when we were kids, I’m surprised I’m still here. But, so, started at minibikes, went to dirt bikes, where we would, you know, the whole neighborhood would have dirt bikes.

bikes, they’re bikes, And we’d be racing around on the streets, in the yards, in the fields and stuff. And then once I became old enough to get a driver’s license, immediately got my motorcycle endorsement and started riding road bikes and sport bikes.

So currently, I’m riding a Harley-Davidson Road Glide CVO, which I love. It’s a huge bike. It’s a big bike.

I’m not the biggest guy. I’m not the tallest guy. But I love that bike. I’ve had other Harley-Davidson’s, you know, sport glides, 883s, 1200s.

Now, the smaller bikes are funner, I’ll tell you. They’re easier to maneuver. But the big bikes, you feel a lot of, and I hope we can get into this, about why we ride.

But you feel this sense of freedom. And it’s just a big bike. And you just feel, I’ll be honest with you, you feel empowered.

So that’s what I’m riding now. I love it. I’m. I’ve always liked those bikes, but I always thought they were too big.

And I’m like, no, no. Once you’ve done it and rode them, it just feels great. Now, I’ll be honest with you.

I like to ride sport bikes every once in a while. Those are those ones you see going very quickly down the interstate because they’re just so hyper.

They’re so nimble, as nimble as you could be. But in any event, I’m a road, you know, I’m getting older.

So I’m a road type guy, road bike guy. So that’s what we’re doing right now.

Lindsey:

Well, that’s fantastic. And clearly this is something that’s passionate for, that you’re very passionate about, that you have been doing for a very long time.

You know the ins and outs, you know your bikes, you know the reasons of the why that, you know, motorcyclists like to be out there riding and you’re part of that community.

So it would seem like it would be an obvious fit that an injured rider would choose to work with another member of their community.

But with so many other lawyers out there who are out They’re writing. Why do motorcycle riders choose to work with you?

Paul Hernandez:

Yeah, so I appreciate you bringing that up because that’s very important. Why do certain people hire certain firms? Now, riders hire us because they know us.

They know law tigers, number one. They know us because I’ll be honest with you, we’re big advertisers. We’ve been doing it ever since it began.

So we’re ubiquitous. They know us. But when it comes to a motorcycle rider, and it depends on the type of bike you ride, but certainly the road bike community, they know law tigers.

Why, though? Why do they know us? Because we are in the community. We are at every dealership. We’re at every repair facility.

We’re friends with different motorcycle clubs, and we support the community. What does that mean? What do mean by support the community?

Number one, we’re there helping and teaching and sponsoring. Training for new motorcycle riders and for experienced motorcycle riders. So we’re in the shops, okay?

We co-brand with everybody I just told you about, the dealers and the repair facilities and the motorcycle clubs, to support the community.

When we have races, when we have, you know, shows, motorcycle shows, whatever we’re doing, we’re there sponsoring things and helping people.

But why? Number one, because we love it, okay? It is different. So, you know, I ask people, it’s funny because I’ll ask somebody, hey, do you ever heard of Long Tigers?

And they’ll go, no idea. And I go, do you ride a motorcycle? And they go, no. I go, done, right?

It’s okay. No big deal. You don’t need to know. But you ask a rider and they go, oh, yeah, I’m familiar because they’re always out there.

They’re always out there. You know, we go and do shop talks quite frequently. And again, I’ll be honest with you, it takes a lot of our time, right?

We’ll have lawyers go to these different facilities, these different dealerships and clubs to talk about things that affect us, whether it’s laws that help us, laws that hurt us, our ability to change the laws.

And most importantly, and I will tell you this, this is 100% true, safety, safety. I am a safety freak.

Yes, drive, I guess I ride a cool bike, but I’ll be honest with you, it’s a beautiful pearl white.

Why? I want to be seen. And I’m wearing reflective day glow gear in the day and reflective gear at night because at the end of the day, I want to be seen.

Yeah, everybody wants to be cool on their bike, but I’d rather be cool and seen than cool and not seen and have something happen.

So back to the issue of why, number one, they know us and the