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The Managing Partners Podcast

Kevin Biniazan

Episode # 196
Interview on 06.02.2022
Hosted By: Kevin Daisey
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About Kevin Biniazan

Representing: Breit Biniazan

Kevin Biniazan is the Managing Partner at Breit Biniazan in Virginia.

Kevin is a trial attorney who passionately represents individuals injured or harmed by the carelessness of others. Between jury trials and settlements, Kevin has secured more than $55 million for his clients in his first five years of practice.

Since 2019, he has been recognized as a Rising Star by Virginia Super Lawyers®️. In 2021, he was honored with the Ones to Watch award by Best Lawyers®️ as well as receiving the distinction of Up & Coming Lawyer by Virginia Lawyers Weekly. Kevin is the youngest trial lawyer in Virginia to be recognized by the National Trial Lawyers: Top 40 under 40.

Learn from his expertise and what trends are helping grow his firm on this episode of The Managing Partners Podcast!

Episode transcript

Kevin Daisey:

Hey there everyone. Welcome to another live recording of the Managing Partners Podcast. I’m Kevin Daisey, and I’ll be your host. Also the founder of Array Digital, where we help law firms grow through digital marketing. Today, I got a guest that’s actually local in my hometown here in Virginia Beach. Kevin Biniazan, welcome to the show.

Kevin Biniazan:

Thanks Kevin. Appreciate you having me on.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah, so I love your first name. It’s a real strong, strong name. Biniazan, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to say it right. So if everyone out there listening, but I did right?

Kevin Biniazan:

You did a good job.

Kevin Daisey:

We’re off to a good start here. So, Kevin, you’re actually here in my area, Virginia Beach, Virginia on the east coast. So glad to have you here. It’s a little cold here. We’ve had snow the last couple weekends. When you’re listening to this episode, it may be warming up hopefully. I got to have someone in my backyard on the show. And so we appreciate you coming on to share your story, your journey, what you got going on, and you have a lot of new things happening. And so we want to get the audience exposed to that and learn more about it. So, first thing I want to start off is why did you become an attorney and what was that like? What triggered you to say, “Hey, this is the path I’m going to take?”

Kevin Biniazan:

There’s so many different starting points when you look backwards. But I was a business student, an undergraduate, I had no aspirations to be a lawyer or to be a trial lawyer for that matter. And I had to take a business law course and the business law professor that I had at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona was a former trial lawyer. He was a former William & Mary Law School alumnus and graduate. And he structured his class in interesting way where we were set up in law firms. And on a week to week basis, he would give us different hypotheticals or business law related issues that we would have to pick somebody to argue at the end of the week. And I loved being that person at the end of the week. And I just really dug it.

Kevin Biniazan:

It was one of the things, I guess when you’re going through college and people say, you’ll find yourself or find your passion. And I didn’t know, substantively that’s what I wanted to do, but I really got into the opportunity to dig into something and that’s nuanced and detailed and stand up and try and convey that.

Kevin Biniazan:

And he, that professor’s name’s John Moore, ended up being a big mentor of mine. He pulled me aside and encouraged me to participate in the school’s trial team or trial team competitive program. And I did that for a little bit, and he handed me a Jerry Spence book, who is one of the greatest trial lawyers of all time and the founder of The Trial Lawyers College. And that indoctrinated me in the idea of going to law school, but not only going to law school, but to be a trial lawyer and to be someone that steps into courtrooms and represents the interest of the powerless or the less powerful or the voiceless. And I sort of attached to that at that age in my early 20s. And that led me to William & Mary and led to the dominoes that brought me here in Virginia Beach.

Kevin Daisey:

Awesome, man, that’s a good story. And I’m glad you had that experience and were able to find yourself at that point in time and had someone that could be your mentor. You know, not everyone probably gets the same in experience as you have, but it’s nice that you had that.

Kevin Daisey:

And on a side note, speaking of William & Mary, which has nothing to do with this show or my company now, but we done some website work for them and built The Flat Hat News site, their news publication for William & Mary’s been around-

Kevin Biniazan:

Interesting.

Kevin Daisey:

… It’s been around for a hundred plus years, I think. So some work that I’ve done for the college. Pretty cool.

Kevin Biniazan:

That’s awesome.

Kevin Daisey:

So anyway, there’s probably some stories in there about you, who knows? But that’s awesome, man. So that’s the thing too. And while we’re we’re chatting, so other people tuning in can get with speed with you. This is his firm’s website below. If you’re listening, it’s BBtrial.com, couple of things. I love the short domain and everyone listening. If you have like 20 partners in your firm, come up with something that’s nice and tight and re memorable, especially if you’re going to change partners a lot, or do something random, always trying to go back and change domains and rebrand and new logos.

Kevin Daisey:

So it’s just nice when you keep it nice and clean, but I like the short domain. Another thing I think you’ll see on the website, we’re just talking with Kevin here, is that it’s very quick to understand what they do, personal injury in Virginia, and they go to trial. And so I think that’s pretty clear, and I think a lot of attorneys, or a lot of firms miss the point and they come up with all these crazy taglines and all this fluffy stuff, and you don’t even know what they do until you start to drill down into all the practice areas. And there’s usually a thousand of them.

Kevin Daisey:

So I just like the fact that says Virginia personal injury and all they talk about is going to trial and versus just settling. So for me, that’s what I take away. That’s, that’s what you focus on. That’s your niche. So tell us a little bit more about the new firm. Again, speaking with your marketing director. It’s a newer firm that you’ve established us. You’ve been at other firms before. So tell us a little bit about maybe that transition and then tell us more about what you’re up to now, the name of the firm and all those things?

Kevin Biniazan:

Sure. You know, it’s a new name, but I think an old legacy, especially in the Hampton roads area, my partner Jeffrey Breit has been doing this for 40 some years that may age him a little bit, and his father before him was also a trial lawyer in the area. It used to be, gosh, I don’t know. At one point it was Breit Ratterman and Tagna and then, and Jeffrey and his brother went out and made Breit Drescher Breit and that had its iterations over the years. And most recently we decided to go onto this venture or this, this next chapter, if you want to call it together, kind of to play homage to his old roots and his old tactics and messaging.

Kevin Biniazan:

He was in the Hampton roads area for many years in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and across Virginia banging the gavel of the importance in the value of being a trial lawyer and trying cases and how that not only impacts the client, that’s going to trial in a positive way, but can also impact all your other clients because the defendants, defense lawyers, insurance companies, they know who is willing to tee up the case and who’s willing to buckle up and try a case and who’s going to try them well, and who’s not.

Kevin Biniazan:

And so this, I guess the new chapter, if it’s how we’ve been thinking about it is our look internally to say, “Okay, who do we really want to be?” What’s like you said, just a second ago, “What’s our niche? How are we going to differentiate ourselves from other people?” And, “What’s our current differentiator?” And I think what we’ve always come back to is we provide the most value, to our clients and even our referring lawyers, the closer we get to a trial date.

Kevin Biniazan:

I think that as early as you want to get us involved in a case, great. In just speaking with Jeffrey, working with Jeffrey, working with the other partners at our law firm, I know that there are war time generals and there are peace time generals.

Kevin Biniazan:

And I think we’re a group of folks who relish the fight and I wanted to not rebrand, but I think our vision was to capture that in a way that we can clearly communicate that to our clients and say this isn’t just a business to us, obviously we have to run it well and market it well and do all the things to make sure that we’re staying alive and active and can continue to be in business to represent our clients. I tell my folks our team internally, I like to be a crusader. I think that there are causes that are worth fighting and devoting our time and attention to, and in our marketing, in our strategies, I’m trying to capture that in the way that we communicate that to other people.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah. I think that’s huge. I think it’s super important. And I think maybe it’s an advantage for you to have the ability to have the reset or the focus on this new brand, if you will. It gets you probably time to think about, “Okay, what do we really want to do here?” And how do we want to carry ourselves? And yes, I think that’s super important. I’m actually in the point of interviewing branding companies, because even when we’re a marketing company, we can’t get out of our own way sometimes. So we’re actually bringing in third party for ourselves, for brand and messaging and certain things we just don’t have time to do. Once you get to a certain size, sometimes it’s hard to make the changes you need to. So it’s good to have some third party help. Kudos for what you guys have done.

Kevin Daisey:

And again, you have a pretty simple website right now, which I assume you’re probably going to be expanding on at some point.

Kevin Biniazan:

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey:

But it is clear, it’s simple. I get what you do. And I think that’s what most people miss the mark on communicating that. I think you guys have done a really good job.

Kevin Biniazan:

Thank you.

Kevin Daisey:

So you have a Virginia abuse location here. I see that on your site, you have a Richmond, Virginia coming soon. What’s some of the plans for expansion and growth as you guys get going?

Kevin Biniazan:

Like you mentioned by the time this is probably aired. I hope we’ll be moved into our Richmond office in downtown Richmond. We’re finalizing that right now. So we’re going to have a Richmond, Virginia office. We have a couple great lawyers partners there in Justin Sheldon and Lee Floyd. We have partnered up and are bringing on Delegate Don Scott, in Portsmouth, who’s going to be of council to the firm. So we’ll be opening up an office in Portsmouth with him.

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent.

Kevin Biniazan:

And I practice maybe a quarter of my cases or so in Phoenix or in Arizona generally. And that’s where I grew up. And so I have a satellite office there. And so this again is what’s the next chapter for us, right?

Kevin Biniazan:

And where do we see ourselves going? And I think that the legal world in this industry has been more and more national, especially as we get more adapt to being doing Zoom depositions and being in front of our computers at hearings and all of these things that allow us to be in more places at once in front of a laptop like we are today. The value that I think that we provide to our clients, like I said, in being that premier trial firm that I hope and expect us to become. And that I think we are, I don’t think that’s limited to our ability to do that in Hampton roads, right. And, or sure. Or in Richmond. And our goal really is as we grow, not just grow in size, but grow in our ability to provide that top level, that top level representation and trial representation and having those different offices, I think still give some roots throughout the Commonwealth gives us some roots in Richmond where people feel comfortable coming into the office down here at the beach in Portsmouth and in Phoenix.

Kevin Biniazan:

But beyond that I really do hope and expect that we’re going to be a firm that people want to bring in. And whether it’s in South Carolina or North Carolina where we’ve been, or New York or Phoenix or wherever it may be when the going gets tough. So that’s our expectation or that’s our hope.

Kevin Daisey:

No, that’s excellent. Things have changed really quickly for the law industry, with COVID. Making people move ahead faster. The courts and firms in general, some were not even paperless or even have this capability until 2020 when they had to do it. But imagine if I would’ve come to your office today with a bunch of equipment and said, “Hey, we’re going to do a podcast today.” And half of your day’s spent half of my day’s spent, maybe more. And this is not necessary. How many more podcast interviews can I do? I’ve done four or five a day sometimes, which is a little much, but it allows us to do more different times zones around the world. And so it’s just allowed me to interact and bring on folks like yourself from all over the place, which has been great.

Kevin Daisey:

So why not have your firm be able to do the same thing and help people no matter where they are in the country. It makes sense. I love that. So sounds like you have some big plans there. Just so it’s relative to what we do here is what marketing initiatives are you looking at doing, are you already doing? Obviously your partner has quite the reputation. I knew the name Breit before I even had a company that worked with law firms. So that’s a well known name around here in the law space. So what are some of the things that you guys are looking to do that you have done that have been effective to this point in bringing in either those clients, not just from a referral base, but is there anything you’ve done outbound that’s generated some, some interest?

Kevin Biniazan:

I think historically have been a firm that generates a lot of clients through referrals, like you mentioned. Whether that’s a lot of other trial lawyers or a lot of other lawyers, who don’t specialize in personal injury work. Through the reputation of Jeffrey Breit, or just the firm have called us and brought us in on cases and passed clients, obviously that word of mouth that everyone’s familiar with. But it’s been our goal and is still my objective to broaden that, especially if we’re aiming to do this beyond the Hampton Roads area and effect lives. The word of mouth only travels but so fast. And so the primary focus for us right now, I think is social avenues.

Kevin Biniazan:

And we’ve spent some time branding and thinking about how we want to do that and how we want to leverage and get involved in whether it’s Facebook or TikTok or Instagram, and who becomes the face of that, whether it’s the firm, whether it’s individual lawyers and I think we’re doing a lot of those meetings behind closed doors.

Kevin Biniazan:

I’m of the belief and I’d love to hear what you think and your feedback on this, but it’s hard and sometimes it can be difficult with injury firms to capture, “Who’s my target audience?” Because frankly anybody can be driving down the road and T-boned by a tractor trailer. That’s an indiscriminate wrong that doesn’t affect more people more than others.

Kevin Biniazan:

And so talking internally, our goal, our objective is to increase the attention on our brand and increase the attention on us as a firm, through social media channels, primarily, and YouTube videos and using video assets to be able to do that, so that people can look at us, not just as folks who are on TV or saying, “Hey, hire us when you’re hurt.” But view us in the way that we view ourselves, frankly, which is, as thought leaders, as people that think that we’re driving the profession forward, as people who feel that we’re innovators, who are looking for that next edge in trying cases, and representing our clients.

Kevin Biniazan:

And I think the legal industry has trouble with change and I’m sure you’ve recognized that in working with firms and trying to take digital to the next level. And my goal really is to be able to give other firms, other potential clients, friends, and family, an inside look at us as a firm, and to be able to get to know us, to be able to trust us when they don’t need us. And that way, when they do, when something does happen or their family members injured or they need to go to trial and they need a lawyer to come in and take over, then they remember the trust signals that we’ve been sending them, that we care about our work, we do our work well. And I think the best way to convey that, at least for us right now, and what we’re thinking, is to be able to do that on social channels and really try and convey our message and our brand.

Kevin Daisey:

A hundred percent. I think doing digital marketing is what we specialize in. For one, you’re right. You can’t be like, “Well, it’s this particular type of person…” You can’t do that. And then you can’t really target people on social necessarily because they just got hurt. But what you’re saying is the long road, but the right road, a hundred percent. Now you can do things like advertising and stuff. And if someone searches, “I need a injury lawyer.” You’re there when they, when they have the need. That’s one way to capture, which is 100% a great way to go. And we do that and we recommend that. But what most people do, is that only, and they don’t, they don’t spend the time to build up that brand and that messaging out there and whatever.

Kevin Daisey:

So they just go for the, “I need you now.” And they’re not really there. They don’t have the SEO, the content, the thought leadership expertise, which is what a lot of SEO is really based on. That you’re answering their questions. You’re there to help solve problems.

Kevin Daisey:

And over time you’re a trusted brand thought leader that people go, “Hey, these are the guys you need to talk to, or at least they’ll have the answer.” Then ads and stuff like that is, at that moment. Sometimes it is whoever’s there may get the job or get the case. But those other things have to be in order. And you have to focus on those things and they do take time.

Kevin Daisey:

Social is great. And I think a lot of firms don’t do a good job of that, either. Some find their niche and they really do well. TikTok, all that stuff, you’d be surprised how many attorneys have just blown up and get tons of clients through the means that most firms would be like, “I’m never we’re not doing that. That’s crazy.” But I was saying change video, doing Zoom calls, trials online. You got to change the times and we need to embrace some of these changes in social is just something you need to be part of.

Kevin Biniazan:

Yeah. To your point, I think a lot of people, do we do pay-per-click? Of course. And there’s that aspect of our marketing and our case generation allocation to make sure that we’re trying to compete at bottom of the funnel client generation. But that’s where the most resistance is. That’s where everyone wants to play is at the bottom of that funnel where they can try and point to a direct, ROI. “How much did I pay for that click, and did I get that client?” And I like to view it as a little bit of a step back and let’s say we’re putting out an ad on Facebook or an Instagram, making it native, making it something that doesn’t look like an ad that doesn’t look like we’re trying to sell you or get you to buy, hire our firm be something that’s still providing value to the users, but now you get an ad. So you can track who’s seeing it where it’s being sent, target it to certain populations or geo targets. And so it’s sort of the long game is right.

Kevin Daisey:

100%.

Kevin Biniazan:

I started a YouTube channel called Legal Lunchbreak, maybe a year and a half ago. Frankly, just to talk about legal issues that I thought were interesting and that people may care about, and it’s picked up some steam, but just the opportunity to sit in front of a camera and share your thoughts and engage with people online, I think is something that I’m hoping to incorporate, not just in my own personal brand and what I do, but into our firm.

Kevin Daisey:

Absolutely. I love that. And that’s why I do this show. And it is so helpful for me and my firm to talk to people like yourself and what are you seeing? What are you like? What are you doing that’s different than others? It’s super helpful. And for me to be out in front of people and I used to love networking and going to all these events. And since COVID, that’s kind of cut that back, this is a great way to just get your thoughts out and have a conversation and then learn how your business is running. And so I totally love that. So what’s the YouTube show called again?

Kevin Biniazan:

It’s called Legal Lunchbreak.

Kevin Daisey:

Legal Lunchbreak.

Kevin Biniazan:

Legal Lunchbreak.

Kevin Daisey:

Let’s see if I can grab that. And also, again, everyone listening, bbtrial.com is Kevin’s website. If you want to check it out, their firm. Is it linked off there by any chance?

Kevin Biniazan:

It’s going to be. So to your point, we got up a landing page so that people could crawl it as we’re going through our transition. And I think within a week’s time, so certainly by the time people are listening to this, there’ll be a link there to the YouTube page, but also excellent a full built out page like you were talking about.

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent. Okay, awesome. bbtrial.com. Everyone who’s listening, but check out as lunch series on YouTube as well, and maybe get some ideas for those that haven’t done that, that want to do that. I know I’ve had a lot of guests on, or even clients that like to do a podcast, or haven’t done it yet. And I think one tip, and maybe you agree, Kevin, just start doing it. And I think everyone wants to do these things. And they’re like, “Well, I don’t have the equipment. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the expertise. It’s not going to be perfect.” You know, one of my biggest pieces of advice is, just start doing it. You, might hate it at first no matter what. You don’t look the way you look, you don’t like the way you sound. But if you start doing it over and over again, you’ll start to improve and get better at it.

Kevin Biniazan:

I couldn’t agree more. One of my favorite YouTube videos is an old presentation. I think it was, he was in like an insurance sales or something by a guy named Art Williams. I think he just screams, “Just do it and do it and do it. And when you’re tired, do it.” I have a sticker on my desk that says, “Execute.” Because at the end of the day, we can have tons of ideas. And we can think about what we’re going to do next. And when I started doing the Legal Lunchbreak, I felt awkward. It took hours for us to get something down to about seven minutes, which is what we try and aim for in terms of the final product. And it still takes a long time and you have to plan for it. And some sometimes we cancel, because we’re not ready and you just make it happen when you can make it happen. But if you don’t start, then it’s never going to turn into anything.

Kevin Daisey:

A hundred percent. We always have brainstorming sessions and write down stuff. I got note pads all over the place on my desk. You can’t always do everything, but you make that short list of things that you’re like, “This is something I want to do.” You got to pull the trigger, you got to make it happen. And so kudos for doing that. We got to use the social channels out there. Work on the long game. Super important. Because if you’re just an ad out there and that’s it. Once you turn those ads off, you’re gone. You have nothing to stand on. So kudos for taking that strategy and building that brand and going the long road. So I just think a lot of firms skip that.

Kevin Biniazan:

I appreciate that.

Kevin Daisey:

All the yelling commercials were, “[inaudible 00:27:17] man, tons of money for you.” And doesn’t sound like your brand.

Kevin Biniazan:

I was about to say, that’s a brand, it’s not ours, but that’s a brand.

Kevin Daisey:

That’s quite a few of them out there to be honest with you. Well, Kevin, anything else you want to share? Anything else we should know about you and the firm before we turn off today?

Kevin Biniazan:

No, I don’t think so. If somebody’s listening to this podcast, I take it that the digital or marketing arena and managing their firm is important to them. And I was clueless when I started trying to do this stuff and it takes time and it takes listening to podcasts like these or reading some books and learning what the heck TikTok is, if you have to learn what TikTok is. And I just encourage people, like you said before, just do it, execute and take it one step at a time.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah, absolutely. And anyone that is listening, you’re trying to go out on your own. You’re starting to start a firm, or maybe you just started a firm. We’ve had many guests that started in the middle of the pandemic. There’s a lot of people out there that are trying to figure it out and you don’t come out of law school knowing how to run a business.

Kevin Daisey:

And so find a mentor, read books, we’ve recommended tons of books on the show. We have our newsletter that comes out as well. Connect with Kevin or any other guest that we’ve had on the show. We always ask, “Hey, how can we connect to you? Of course, we put his website up. Everyone on the show. I’ve is more than willing as far as I’ve seen to help other attorneys, if they have questions, could be referral partners. Maybe you’re a PI firm that doesn’t get a trial. So you need a referral source for that. So keep that in mind. Tons of episodes here and others like Kevin to share their experience. So we appreciate you sharing today, Kevin.

Kevin Biniazan:

Thank you.

Kevin Daisey:

So also just that in mind, this episode and others, let me have at 160 up on the site, as I’m recording this, we have about 30 or so in the queue, along with Kevin’s, that I’ll load up today. So we’re going to be over 200 and some managing partners on here telling their story and how they run their firms and things that they’re doing. You can go to thisisarray.com/podcast.

Kevin Daisey:

You can also sort by state and or practice area. So if you’re a family attorney in Maryland, you can probably find someone that you maybe connect with. If not, if you just want to learn how other managing partners in your practice areas are running their firms, you can find all that on the website. And then also this will be in the podcast on audio. If you need our help or just have questions about marketing in general, like what Kevin’s doing and why I think some of the things they’re doing are great. Reach out to me. You go to thisisarray.com, happy to take a look at what you’re doing and giving you free insight. Got any questions. You don’t have to be a client to get some insight from us. So Kevin, anything else?

Kevin Biniazan:

That’s all I got. I appreciate you having me on.

Kevin Daisey:

Yes, sir. Virginia Beach. We’ll have to go surfing together. I’m not sure if you surf, but if not, I’ll take you.

Kevin Biniazan:

I try. I don’t know that I can say I surf, but I try to surf. And once the weather’s warmer, I’d be happy to try again.

Kevin Daisey:

Sounds good. Well, I’ll hit you up for sure, but everyone, thanks so much. Kevin, thanks for sharing your story and more about your firm. Everyone have a great day. Get out there, execute, take Kevin’s advice and we’ll see you soon.

 

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