Jon Groth

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Jon Groth: It really comes down to four words. It’s, do the right thing… I like just the aspect of helping others, but helping others with strategy, and that’s what I really do enjoy… We got a $6 million verdict for this person who was horribly injured in a dog mauling and other attorneys would not look at this case because there was no way to recover….

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice” presented by the Trial Lawyers Journal at CloudLex, the next-gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community at triallawyersjournal.com. Now here’s your host, editor of TLJ and VP of marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: Welcome back friends to “Celebrating Justice.” In this episode, we welcome Wisconsin based trial lawyer, John Groth. With the focus on doing the right thing and following the golden rule, John has established himself as a trusted advocate focused on making the community a safer place. To get to the stories, I asked him, why did you want to become a trial lawyer?

Jon Groth: It’s a great question. I mean, my father is a retired firefighter for the city of Milwaukee. My mother worked in insurance for a nursing home. So I didn’t have anybody that was in that world. My best friend growing up, his dad was a lawyer and an accountant and they did like trust in estate stuff. But that’s the closest thing that I had really to the legal world. Luckily, my mother had a friend whose son worked for a personal injury firm in Chicago and I got this clerkship with them. And it was fascinating to have that kind of intro to the personal injury world where I would sit on the phone literally all day listening to people’s concerns, problems, and then trying to figure out little old me as this snot-nosed young lawyer, well, young law student, sorry, I wasn’t even a lawyer yet, trying to see what the problem was that we could help with. And that I liked, just helping others. Kind of very generic to say, but I like just the aspect of helping others, but helping others with strategy. And that’s what I really do enjoy even today is the strategy of a personal injury case, really how you can maximize the benefit for your client starting at day one. Talking to them as soon as you can and understanding based on things that you’re helping them make decisions on, how you can get more money for them from the insurance company at the end. Seeing that back in 1998 probably, going back young John Groth back then, sitting there and I could tell you more stories about that firm. It’s an awesome firm. I’m very jealous of that firm because they do fantastic things for their clients and for the nation. But living through that was something that really said, okay, this is what I want to do. I then was hired as an associate at a general practice firm. I tried to do whatever trial work I could do, tried to do every personal injury work I could do. There wasn’t very much because it was a general practice firm. And then eventually I got poached by a personal injury firm. And then I guess the rest is history. And since 2002, I’ve only practiced in personal injury law.

Chad Sands: Dad was a firefighter. Yep. So he was giving back to the community a little bit. Did you kind of absorb that and saw what he was doing and that your mom worked on an insurance? Did she like work for an insurance company?

Jon Groth: She worked for a nursing home. So she like did the processing of billing at a nursing home. So growing up, my father is the kind of guy that he can fix anything. He always was working on cars or small machines or things like that. Firefighters, they always have two, three, four jobs. That’s pretty typical. He was always doing something. He really never sat still. On our street, if somebody had a lawnmower that was broken down, they’d bring it over to our house and my dad would fix it and then take it back. Or he walked to their house and fix it. If we had somebody that wasn’t around, we need to mow their lawn, we would mow their lawn. It just really was a nice childhood where we were looking out for others and that was just our mentality. Now I see it, there’s a saying at a local high school, being men for others, so it’s all boys’ school. And that’s, I think, exactly how we kind of grew up. It was helping others, always helping others. It was just second nature and just being a good person. I think that’s something that the golden rule, however you want to say it, it was something that was ingrained in us from my parents early on.

Chad Sands: When did you decide that you wanted to go to law school and that you were ready to go down that path?

Jon Groth: 1996, there were a couple different options. So I went into undergrad as a music performance major. So I was going to be a jazz saxophonist. I was going to be awesome. Didn’t get very far. I was okay. I was okay. I have a good number of awards in medals and jazz band. I got exponentially better. I had a really good instructor in high school. Great band leader, Mr. Troyden was fantastic. And I think my sophomore, junior, senior year, I got a lot better and had some solos and did some…

Chad Sands: Were you an awesome jazz saxophone player?

Jon Groth: Pretty good work. So I was like, well, okay, I’ll take this into college and went to college and realized if this is your life, you’re going to sit in a room and practice your scales over and over and over again. I didn’t really like to be in that room in solitude. So after about a year, almost a year really, I should say, I decided to change majors and went from that to philosophy, to like philosophy and just like that, the deep thoughts of being a smart aleck 19 year old that knows everything. So I’m going to save the world with my deep thinking philosophy. And then I realized that maybe I’m not all into philosophy and then switched to political science because I was in student government. And then that’s when I kind of clicked that, okay, there’s the marketing aspect behind political science and business kind of of it. And student government was very interesting to me. So that was fun. And then that’s what got me into thinking, working in our capital here in Wisconsin in Madison, I helped different politicians. They gave me credits for it, so it was a fantastic endeavor. It was cheaper. I was able to graduate college a little bit early because of it, because I had all those extra credits from working over the summers, working in Madison. Poli Sci, what do you do? Well, you go to law school. You go to law school. Or you work in Madison, or you work in DC. Those are the options. And I had a shot at working in DC for a campaign. That candidate lost, so that shot was gone. And then I said, well, okay, there’s either maybe go to the military officer training or I didn’t choose that. Luckily got into law school and the rest is history.

Chad Sands: Did you hang your own shingle? Tell me about that. Was that a nerve wracking time in your life or were you in a good place where you knew that this was the time to kind of go out on?

Jon Groth: Now have you ever interviewed anybody who said, I was just so cool, calm, collected? No. For me, it was March 1st, 2010. So honestly, we’re at our 15th anniversary here in a couple of days. I had my oldest son was, what, four and a half at the time. My middle child was two and a half at the time. And my youngest child was a twinkle in our eye. And we had a dog and I was the sole breadwinner and it was stressful. I tell the story that we used all of our savings, we turned everything in, 401k everything to start this and luckily I have the best wife ever who is overly supportive, was with me and has been with me every single moment and we talked it through and ran the numbers and realized we could probably do it. It might be a little bit difficult but we can do it and luckily it turned out okay.

Chad Sands: I think you’re my first PI attorney from Wisconsin. I’m assuming though that like in any city and state that there’s a lot of PI firms around and that the competition is up there. What makes you unique? What makes you stand out from the other firms?

Jon Groth: So yesterday, I got up at, I don’t know, whatever time in the morning, drove up to a city called Eau Claire, Wisconsin. So that’s Wisconsin. We’re down here in Milwaukee. And then Minnesota’s up here. If you can see, Minnesota’s up here. So I drove from Milwaukee up to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. That’s really close to the Twin Cities. I drove up there three and a half hours, four hour deposition, then drove three and a half hours back. Some firms, you have these bigger firms that are, you have a number of attorneys that are the face of the firm and are you hiring that attorney? Well, no, you’re not because they’re doing the marketing, they’re not doing the practicing. So we happen to do both. What sets us apart, I guess, really from day one is that we’re not afraid to go and try a case. And a lot of lawyers are going to say that. And there are a lot of good lawyers that are a competition here in Wisconsin. Luckily, we’ve had some good experiences and we have just the ability to help people. While we’re doing it, I think do it in a manner that is kind and supportive. I think that’s something that some lawyers don’t have that bedside manner. So maybe we’re a little bit different that way. I think just the people that we have, our team, just really good people. And you can’t take that for granted.

Chad Sands: Ten years later now almost on your own and then you were obviously working before a lot of trials, a lot of cases. It’s hard to choose one, but would love to hear a story about a case that really had a significant impact on you?

Jon Groth: So the one that I immediately go to is because of how it ended in the parking lot after trial. We got that case from an acquaintance of mine. I don’t know how many conferences you go to, but back in the day, I went to the AVO conference, Lawyernomics, they called it. And this guy next to me is a younger guy and I shake his hand. We exchanged cards. He was a lawyer out of Arizona and we got to talking and I think we went back a couple of years, just saw each other. And that’s why I really liked that conference because you get to see kind of the same people and they were your conference buddies, right? Because of that relationship, he referred us this case. It was a guy who was visiting Wisconsin from Arizona, going to a Packers game. He flew into Milwaukee, was visiting a local business on his way up from Milwaukee driving, it’s about two hour drive from Milwaukee to Green Bay, visiting a local business, walked outside onto like a metal staircase and it collapsed. And he fell like 20 feet and just crushed his ankle. Just destroyed his ankle and then he had to get back and he had to get home. So he got home, had treatment, but because of that kind of fracture, they couldn’t do much. They set the fracture and he had arthritis because of it and he needed to have future surgery to fuse it. Well, based on his age, he wanted to put that off as long as he could. Well, the insurance company didn’t really like that answer. And they said, well, we’re not going to account for the future care. We think that’s because of him being one day older, not because of him falling. So they offered almost nothing. And then we had to put it in a suit. It was a fun case because defense counsel had hired this expert and the expert was honest, just kind of rare for a defense expert to be honest.

We never saw the report, but the report we believe was even more generous than our expert’s report. And they named the expert, then withdrew the expert, and in Wisconsin that’s kind of a big deal. So the strategy was that at trial, we could say that to the jury. That in my “Closing Argument,” that hey, they had this doctor that they hired. My client flew here from Arizona to meet with the doctor, but that doctor didn’t show up and didn’t give a report. So why do you think they didn’t do it? Well, because obviously, they know that our client’s horribly injured and he’ll have to have the future surgery. So we had that. There were some other comments that were made, some testimony that was hilarious, not appropriate for a podcast. If this is a G-rated podcast, it was a really good trial. My client was just fantastic, nice guy, very big guy, six foot five maybe. So we get a half million dollar verdict and they had offered maybe like a hundred thousand dollars. Even during trial, I went back to the adjuster who was there with the attorney and said, are you sure you don’t want to offer more money? I think we’re going to win. This is your chance. And they’re like, nope. And they were just kind of snarky and just kind of jerky about it. I’m like, okay, well, the jury’s going to probably find in our favor, whatever. Jury came back, half million dollars. My client and his wife went to go get dinner. As he’s in dinner, the jury comes back and I was like, you got to get back here. The jury’s coming back. So he’s like, okay, I’ll pay the bill and be right there. Well, the judge, it was like 5:30 at night and the judge is like, I’m not waiting any longer. I’m done. Jury’s done. They want to get home. We’re going to tell you the verdict and then you can tell your client. I was like, can you just please wait? And the judge was like, no, we’re going to go. They tell us the verdict. I write it all down and have it all set. As the jury’s walking and the judge is walking out into the parking lot and they’re literally shutting, closing all the doors, locking the doors. My client comes in with his wife and the totally empty parking lot except for like 20, 30 cars. He drives in, stops in the middle of the parking lot, gets out and goes, what happened? And I was like, it was a half million dollars and he grabs me. And he’s a big guy and he hadn’t shaved that day and he had this scruff and he has me in this huge bear hug and he’s jumping up and down, just rubbing me raw on my cheek. But it was the best feeling that I have my client who is giving me this huge bear hug. That moment I’ll never forget. I just kind of get chills right now just thinking of it because you live with these cases for years upon years and the struggle that you go through. And I remember what my goal is for every case is to go to clients’ houses so you can get a feel for who they are. I remember flying down to Arizona so I could meet with him at his house and walk through and see what’s going on. You really have more of a personal relationship with clients when you do that kind of stuff. Yeah, just all we had been through for all those years to have it end that way was fantastic. That was a great, great trial win. 

Chad Sands: Great story. Did he ever make it back to Green Bay to catch a Packers game?

Jon Groth: He honestly was a football player and I think for a little bit he was recruited by the Jets, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t know if he ever made it back for a Packers game. Hopefully he did because the Packers are the best team of all time, but just my bias coming through there.

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Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Jon Groth: It really comes down to four words. It’s do the right thing. This morning, for example, I was walking out of our local coffee shop. I go there every single day and I was packed full of people. There was a young mother with a baby who was crying. She was a newborn baby, cutest little baby you ever saw. And she had a coffee in the baby and trying to get out the door, nobody got up to open the door. So I put my coffee down, walked past others and simply opened the door for her so she could get out of the coffee shop. Doing the right thing, hopefully that gave her a little bit of joy in that day, in that moment. And if she can spread that joy to others and spread doing the right thing to others, I think that’ll just help society. If that goes to our professional world, doing the right thing for your clients, doing the right thing that if you can fight for them all the way, you gotta do it. You can’t be afraid to fight in the beginning, middle, and at the end of the case. Doing the right thing means taking a case to trial when you know that you may lose and you’re going to lose your own money. And that’s the beauty of a contingency fee, that the client doesn’t have any risk. They’ve been through enough, but you’re going to stand with them and do the right thing for them. That hopefully, knowing that they tried and they got all the way to the end, and maybe the jury came back and said, it’s 51.49 against you, but they had their day in court and that was the right thing to do. My most recent trial was a trial that we’re never going to get paid on. We got a $6 million verdict for this person who was horribly injured in a dog mauling and other attorneys would not look at this case because there was no way to recover. We know that the at-fault party, in all honesty, bad people who are doing the wrong thing in the community and hopefully we’re showing everybody else that you can’t do what they did and have these kind of dogs that are a menace to society. So hopefully by taking that case, making some news and helping this one client, hopefully we’ll go and help others and hopefully help the community to be a safer place to live. Those kind of cases, again, go back to really doing the right thing for your practice, for you as an individual and certainly for your clients.

Chad Sands: That was trial lawyer John Groth. Thanks for sharing your stories. To learn more about John and his firm and why Groth gets it, visit his website, www.grothlawfirm.com. All right, I’m Chad Sands. Thanks for listening.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to “Celebrating Justice” presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyers Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn more.