North Carolina — Clarke Speaks, Personal Injury Attorney and Founder of Speaks Law Firm, with offices in Charlotte and Wilmington, recently appeared as a guest on Spaghetti on the Wall Podcast with host Armando Leduc. Speaks, who overcame adversity at a young age, discussed the essential steps involved in launching and growing a successful business.
Speaks first shares how his father left when he was around nine years old, leaving his mother to raise him and his brother as a single parent. He recalls how he and his brother immediately got jobs, knowing money was about to get tight financially.
“Sometimes we had to depend on our family, friends, and church for help,” he recalls. “I remember one time I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom doing a homework assignment. I was kind of spinning off into other things and not focusing on what I’m doing. ‘God expects you to do your best,’ my mom said. ‘For unto whom much is given, much will be expected.’”
Indignantly, he’d replied, “Much is given! We’re behind on our rent, we don’t have enough money for food, I’m wearing my big brother’s shoes, we’re having to depend on our friends, family, and church for help. What do you mean? Where’s God?”
That’s when Speaks’ mother asked him, “‘Who do you think gave you your friends, your family, and your church?”
He tells Leduc, “I started thinking about it and it really hit me. It struck me as powerful. After that, I always started looking around places to find helpers — the go-to people in our community and in society. Some of them were police officers, pastors, coaches, teachers, doctors, and some of them were lawyers. I decided then and there that that’s what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be somebody who could go out and help somebody through a very difficult time.
“Another realization came to me later in life when I started looking back at it. This thing that I thought was terrible, you know, you feel bad, your dad’s there and then he’s not, and you have events, games and activities, and everybody else’s dad is there and yours is not, it becomes a source of being self-conscious. I realized later that ended up being a blessing in a lot of ways. Anytime something like that happens in your life it can be terrible or it can be a platform for something that’s wonderful. A lot of times, it’s how you look at it and how you approach it.”
“When people are going through it, it’s hard to see what’s going to happen. What do you tell your clients when they’re going through it?” Leduc asks.
“It depends on the circumstances,” Speaks explains. “When we have clients that have a broken leg or something like that, there’s a silver lining. They might have a job they don’t like and maybe they can’t do that job anymore, but they can do something else. Maybe they have a job in a factory, they get injured in a factory-type situation, and they go on to do something that’s creative. That can be a wonderful thing. It doesn’t take away from the initial problems associated with the injuries because they’ll need professionals to come in and help them through that — medical professionals, legal professionals, and financial professionals — but in terms of their personal journey, it might be a good thing.
“There are some things where there’s just no silver lining,” Speaks continues. “We represent people who are paralyzed, and people who lose family members in tragic accidents. There’s nothing good about that. That’s a terrible situation. But then it becomes a question of ‘What good can come from it?’ There’s almost always some good that can come out of a bad situation.”
Speaks highlights a particular guest and client on his own podcast, Catastrophic Comeback, as an example. A young guy in his 20s, this client was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. “I’ve always been amazed by this guy,” Speaks enthuses. “He took his time to process it. ‘Hey man, how did you get through this?’ I asked him. As he’s in the vehicle, crushed by another vehicle, he’s upside down, waiting an hour for medical and fire safety people to come, he’s got gas running all over him, and he knows right then something is wrong. He can feel something is wrong. ‘The first thing I had to do was take inventory and realize I’m grateful to be alive. Look at all this wreckage. There’s a real chance I couldn’t be here right now.’ I thought that was interesting.
“Then he talked about the process of giving himself some time and space to grieve, recognize, and deal with the situation he’s got to face. He went through a series of other steps that led him to a place of acceptance, gratitude, purpose, hope, and joy, recognizing what he did have and what he does have in the future. He has relationships, he has a daughter. Then he started looking at the things he can do, and it’s incredible what he does. He’s an avid hunter, he has some land that he improves, he spends time with his daughter. He has a rich, full, interesting, phenomenal life. He started a business where he takes drones and flies them around to get images, pictures, and videos for commercial projects. This is a relatively young person who has been faced with a challenge that I can hardly get my head around, but he found a way to recognize that adversity, see it for what it was, and put together a plan for how he was going to deal with it, get past it, move on with life, and find meaning and purpose and joy going forward. And impact the lives of the people around him. He sure as heck has done that. I find that inspirational.”
Switching gears, Leduc shares that he has seen Speaks scale his law firm. “Can you talk to me about that process and where you were? When did you start your law firm?” he asks.
“1997,” Speaks replies.
“I guess you were at a certain point in revenue. Did you hit a spot where you were like, ‘Ah, these are the things I need to do’ and then you started doing them?”
“I started my law firm in ‘97. I got out of school. All I ever wanted to do was trial work. I didn’t really care about making money or being rich or driving fancy cars. I saw To Kill a Mockingbird when I was young. I wanted to be a lawyer, I loved the way that guy stuck up for somebody else who was in a tough spot and I wanted to be that guy. And I wanted to do it in a courtroom. That was important to me. I started a firm when I got out of school and I did criminal defense. That’s where I developed all my trial skills — direct and cross, jury selection, opening and closing. I did that for 15 to 20 years. I was in the courtroom every day.”
Speaks then shares the story of how he moved into personal injury law as the father of young kids. “I was involved in a federal case that was really dangerous,” he explains. “It was gangs and a guy who tried to murder his previous lawyer’s family. It’s the height of criminal defense. It was on the cover of USA Today. Professionally, I was getting to the level I wanted to get. The more into criminal defense you get, the more serious and the more attention you get from the cases you’re involved in.”
He goes on to explain how he called his wife to tell her about his involvement in the case and how they were going to have to take extra precautions. “As I’m talking to her, I’m hearing what I’m saying and I’m like, ‘This is dumb. I got a two-year-old and a three-year-old.’ I called him back and told him I was not in a good place in life to have to look out my window every night before I go to bed. I can’t do this.”
Speaks represented somebody else involved in the case, but then realized he needed to transition into a different area of law. He remembers thinking,“I’ve got to figure out how to reinvent myself so I can do the things I love to do — help people who are facing adversity.”
He began working with coaches, one in particular who advised him to think about instances where he felt he really made a difference for somebody. That led him to move into personal injury law, realizing very few of those attorneys ever tried cases.
As a personal injury attorney, Speaks used his skills and trial experience to fight for a particular client in the courtroom when he could not reach a fair settlement. Afterward, the client genuinely thanked him. “I got the impression that nobody had ever fought for her like that before. That made me feel good and professionally satisfied,” Speaks recalls.
“So you got into personal injury. Let’s talk about that exponential growth factor,” Leduc says.
“Criminal defense is kind of a solo game. People hire you and maybe a secretary, an investigator or a receptionist, and that’s it. They come to you. Personal injury is a little bit different. We have teams. Initially we started off with just me. I had just moved into a new office and my secretary ended up leaving to work for the city and it’s just me rattling around in a big office.”
Speaks recognized early on that he needed coaches. He knew how to do the legal work, but if he was going to accomplish the things he wanted to accomplish, he needed professionals who knew how to build a business.
“The first thing in my mind was identifying my calling,” Speaks says. “It was about that time, I got that clarity. What I’m supposed to do with my life is to help injured people recover physically, financially, and emotionally. The first step in starting a successful business of any sort is to have clarity of purpose. The second step — people will talk about marketing and marketing is important — but marketing is only effective if you love what you’re doing, care about the people for whom you’re doing it, and are committed to helping them. If those things are in place, if you love what you’re doing, you care about the people you’re helping, and you’re committed to helping, marketing can shine a spotlight on that, and you can share it with the world.”
Click below to listen to the full interview.
About Speaks Law Firm
From a mother and father picking up their kids to a friend driving home from work, accidents happen every day and can affect anyone. When disaster strikes, it’s important to have someone in your corner who knows the law and has experience handling personal injury cases. Our team of Wilmington personal injury lawyers has been helping injured victims seek justice and fair compensation for over 20 years. We put our clients first every time and fight hard for the compensation they need to support themselves and their families after an accident.
If you’ve been injured due to someone else’s negligence, you have rights. Put Speaks Law Firm in your corner and we will use the full extent of our power to protect your rights and fight for what you’re owed. We speak for YOU.
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