Judicial Dollars and Cents
Judicial Dollars and Cents explores the financial strategy, performance metrics, and decision-making frameworks that help modern law firms — including high-growth personal injury firms — build stronger, more profitable, and more resilient businesses.
Hosted by Anders Partner and legal industry Virtual CFO advisor John Scott, the podcast brings together legal and business leaders to share insights on law firm financial management, profitability, and long-term firm value.
From cash flow forecasting and partner compensation to marketing ROI, cost per case, and operational performance, each episode focuses on how law firm leaders can move beyond historical reporting and toward proactive, data-driven financial leadership. Drawing from real-world client experience and deep legal industry specialization, the show delivers practical perspective on the complex financial realities facing law firms today, including the unique economics of contingency-fee practices.
Judicial Dollars and Cents
The Systems Behind a Fast-Growing PI Firm with Matthew Tandy
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If your law firm is growing but still depends on you for everything, your systems may be the bottleneck.
In this episode of Judicial Dollars and Cents, you hear from Matthew Tandy, owner and attorney of Tandy Law Firm, about building a personal injury practice with stronger systems, clearer client communication, and a more intentional approach to growth. Matthew shares how his background in public defense and insurance defense shaped the way he talks to clients, evaluates cases, and positions claims with insurance companies.
You will learn how Tandy Law Firm grew to 607 open files, why client communication has to scale with the business, how case management software helps with settlement conversations, where AI can support legal workflows, and why prepaid case costs can create cash flow pressure even in a strong growth year.
Listen to this episode of Judicial Dollars and Cents: The Systems Behind a Fast-Growing PI Firm with Matthew Tandy
Matthew Tandy is the owner and attorney of Tandy Law Firm, a personal injury practice based in Indianapolis, Indiana. His work focuses on guiding injured clients through the legal process with clear communication, transparency, and a strong commitment to client relationships.
Connect with Matthew Tandy and Tandy Law Firm:
Website: https://www.tandylawfirm.com/our-firm/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tandylawfirm/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TandyLawFirm
Li: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tandy-law-firm/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TandyLawFirm
Judicial Dollars and Cents, a podcast hosted by Anders Partner and Virtual CFO, John Scott, focuses on helping law firms win high-stakes cases with smarter financial strategy. The show breaks down the key metrics, financial frameworks, and decision-making systems that drive stronger case outcomes and firm performance.
Website: https://anderscpa.com/learn/podcasts/judicial-dollars-and-cents/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jdc.vcfo
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John C. Scott, CPA, AEP, is a Partner in Tax and a leader in legal industry financial strategy by Anders. He helps law firms win high-stakes cases with smart strategy by delivering clear financial insights, identifying key performance indicators, and strengthening decision-making at every level. With deep expertise in estate planning and financial analysis, John works closely with attorneys and firm leaders to align financial goals with long-term business success and case readiness. His approach brings scalability, flexibility, and data-driven clarity to complex legal environments, helping firms stay focused, prepared, and competitive.
Connect with John C. Scott:
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-c-scott-cpa/
Welcome to Judicial Dollars and Cents, brought to you by Anders virtual CFO services team from all across the United States. I'm John Scott, and in each episode, we'll shine a light on the financial side of the legal world, turning law firm numbers into impact-driven stories. From taxes and profitability to practice growth and leadership, we sit down with law firm innovators who are shaping the future of the profession. Let's dive in right here on Judicial Dollars and Cents. Welcome back to Judicial Dollars and Cents, the podcast where we dive into the business side of running a law firm. I'm John Scott with Anders Virtual CFO Services for Law Firms. And each week we talk with industry experts who help law firms leaders think differently about growth, profitability, and performance so they can build firms and practices that last. Today we welcome Matthew Tandy. Matt is the owner and attorney of Tandy Law Firm, a personal injury practice based in Indianapolis, Indiana. And he focuses on representing individuals who have been injured in accidents and guiding them through the legal process with transparency, integrity, and a strong commitment to client relationships. We're going to get into Matt's origin story because I think it's unique. But Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. You do have a unique origin story of where you came from to where you are today. So can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh, well, my undergraduate degree is in biology. I originally wanted to go to vet school and be a dog doctor. And then when I realized that path wasn't gonna be what I wanted to be, I ended up going to law school uh at the University of Denver. Um I was a public defender for a couple years to get courtroom experience and see how to really move around a courtroom and how to how to manage files. And it also gave me a great deal of experience in dealing with uh clientele from a broad background. Um from there, I went to work for an insurance defense firm. I was in in-house counsel for some of the big insurance carriers, and then uh transitioned from there. I wanted to see what insurance companies need to hear to put money on a file. What are they, what are the key words that I can tell them to get them to do what we want them to do? Um from there, I went to work for one of the bigger PI firms uh in the state of Indiana and then opened this practice 13 years ago.
SPEAKER_00I imagine it's very valuable to know what the other side and how they're thinking doing the defense work side. So that I'm sure has been invaluable on the plaintiff side.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is really helpful. Um the the insurance carrier that I work for uses Colossus, like a lot of, or at least they did. I don't know if they still do. Um, a lot of these carriers use this algorithm that tells them, you know, if you rank a collision level as light, moderate, or heavy, that affects the amount of money that they're willing to put on the file. So what do we need to say to them to get them to maybe bump it up to the next category if I want it to be moderate rather than light? How do we frame this so that they'll get us there?
SPEAKER_00That's amazing that a few keywords or set of fact patterns can increase the value of this those cases.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they really do.
SPEAKER_00So, how do you approach transparency with clients?
SPEAKER_01So, one of the things, this is honestly something that I learned way back as a public defender is talking to people where they are. You know, and different people communicate differently. And it's it's not it's not putting on a front or or being disingenuous, but it's really just talking to meeting people where they are, I think is the best way that I can explain it. One of the biggest frustrations that I would hear from clients when I did more criminal defense work was I never heard from my lawyer. And, you know, um, and that may not be me specifically, but somebody on my team needs to be walking people through this process. And for the great majority of our clients, this is the first time they've been involved in anything like this. And they probably have already been frustrated by the insurance company before they called us, or they that's that's usually the triggering event for somebody to call us, is they tried to work it out on their own, uh, but the uh insurance justice was either non-responsive or bullied them or something and made them feel some way, okay, I need help. And so what I always wanted to do, and what we've really tried hard to put in place is a system where when somebody calls us, the first thing that they're told is, I got you. I understand where you're coming from. I think that goes a long way towards just taking that stress level down to a point where you go, okay, somebody's listening to me. Somebody cares about what happened to me.
SPEAKER_00And if you can set the expectation about the cadence of communication and then live up to it, then that can give them the comfort that they're fully informed and they're not always wondering what's going on with my case because you've been communicating on the schedule that you said you would.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, indeed. And then also we, you know, it different people need different levels of communication. So uh you might be a high-touch client who says, I, you know, I want something every 30 days. And we say, okay. Or you might be a more low-touch client who says, Hey, just email me when significant events happen. And we note that in our system that says, hey, high touch client or you know, moderate touch client or whatever the case may be, and also note their preferred method of communication. Obviously, you know, there's a there's a shift here, right? As as our older clients want us to call them. Our younger clients, if you call them, they're like, Why are why are you calling me? Is your text broken? Um, and so the the firm management software that we use also has an internal text communication. So we can text them directly from our system uh so we're not interrupting their day.
SPEAKER_00I absolutely love that because you know I'm a more experienced person, which is an HR way of saying older than the average bear that works at my firm. And so we are full of 20s and 30-year-old people who love uh Teams messages and Slack messages. And we have Teams email, Slack, we have an internal communication system, and in reality, we're also distributed. So we're all across the country, in addition to some being in office and some being at home. And so in my world, if you send me an email, it's really difficult for me to communicate that way. So I've trained my staff and my assistant to say, look, if you want to talk to me, if you want to get something resolved, send me a Teams invite if you're not here. If you're here, come see me. And the third and best way to communicate with me is via text because I always have my cell phone and we can get a lot done by texting. So I love the fact that your system allows for texting with clients because I think that resonates with a lot of people. How do you approach um well, let me frame it this way looking back at when you started your firm and where you are today, what one or two things would you do differently from the start?
SPEAKER_01Um, one thing that we had, you know, for the first I'd say 10 years or so of this firm, it was just myself and one paralegal, um, or two, you know, depending on on case flow. And the manager of files, we had about an average of a hundred open files at any given point in time. Um, and that was fine. And we got to a point where it was kind of uh plateaued, I guess, or whatever I would say. And and then I took a step back. I actually had a uh an injury that kept me out. I had three knee surgeries in two years. Um blew out my ACL doing taekwondo. We were sparring, and I blew out my knee. And so what that did though was really forced me uh to take that adversity and say, okay, well, so if I'm not at work, how are we making money? How is this business running without me there? And so then what I did is took a very deliberative approach and said, all right, I need to structure this in a way that isn't so reliant on me to run. Um, and so then took that, put a plan in place to put uh an office manager in and hire more staff. And you know, at first that seems daunting to say, okay, well, all that means to me is more money spent, but it it kind of paid for itself so quickly that it was like, okay, well, now we can do this, and now we can. So I had I hired somebody to do marketing, and then they focused on that. Well, the marketing then, you know, brought more income, and the more income means we can hire more people. And it it really was, and we know this is a long answer to your original questions. What would I do differently? I guess what I would do differently is I would have started that a lot earlier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that leverage is so important because it allows you to work on your business rather than in your business. You can still get involved in casework, but having other people serving your client base allows you to do more strategic things. And outsourcing your marketing or anything else, I think, is a great way to leverage your capabilities too. That's what we do. We do outsourced finance work for law firms. And really, if you think about it, attorneys didn't generally go to undergraduate school for accounting or finance. They certainly didn't get it in law school. There's a few unicorns out there that really know how to run a balance sheet and income statement, but outsourcing that function allows you to serve clients and grow and scale faster.
SPEAKER_01No, I I agree that that certainly being being intentional in our days has helped. So, how large is your firm today, staff-wise, professionally? Staff-wise, we have seven people on staff, um, eight including me. Um in there, so we have one person who works in a remote capacity. So um, and then uh people who are managing different aspects. So we split it up in a way. So I have an office manager and then a couple file managers, uh, three file managers, um, somebody who is responsible for gathering medical bills and records. And um we have a customer, I forget the title and customer relations specialist that was is a role that we just added. So as we've grown, we are now, as I think as of this morning, we have 607 open files. Um, we grew 100% last year. Wow. Um in revenue and in and in our case load. Um, so we brought somebody on to specifically be a customer relations specialist because I didn't want to lose what made us ups. I didn't want to lose the part of the being clear in our communication and transparent with our clients and giving the touch points that we talked about earlier. As we've grown, it's become more and more difficult for me to do that. And kind of going back to what you were saying about sort of offboarding some of those things to other people and saying, hey, I even if it's not specifically me, as long as somebody from the office is touching base with them. And obviously that person can't disseminate legal information and all those guidelines, but they can talk to me. We have team meetings on a regular cadence. Um we do all team meetings every Monday morning at 10 a.m. And then once a month we do matter report meetings where whoever is working in a file reports back their quick, you know, hey, what's going on with Mrs. Jones's file? Uh, we answered Discovery last week and I talked to her uh two weeks ago, and this is the next thing. Okay, let's move on to Bill Smith's file. And we just quickly touch all of them, but we touch all of them.
SPEAKER_00That's great because they know your culture, they know your commitment to communication, and they can keep that up as you grow. What do you attribute your growth to?
SPEAKER_01Just you know, the thing the things that we've talked about a little bit is just being very intentional. So um I mentioned this, I think, uh at NTL. I I read a book called Vivid Vision, and it was kind of one of those things somebody had mentioned to me, and I went, ah, sure, whatever, you know, all these self-help, business help kind of books. And uh I decided to read it. And it really was this concept of picture your law firm three years into the future, um, and money and time and talent are not limitations. Okay, what does it look like? And then I just happened to get there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I I took a I took a notepad out into the woods uh literally. I I walked around a park near us called Eagle Creek and just walked around, and then I sat down at one of the benches and just started writing. And I didn't censor anything. I didn't hold any. You go, ah, that's stupid. Don't write that down. I just wrote it all. Why are we here? Why do we exist? Is this even what I want to do? Maybe I could open a restaurant. Um, and then when I came back, I condensed it all down and I hired uh somebody off of a website to polish it up for me and put a put a cover on it. And we had pictures taken and made our our vision plan. And so we're now uh in our in our third year of our vision. So that uh at October of this year will be the end of our third year, and I'll go do it again. And we've used that as our North Star, though, to say, okay, well, what do we want to do? And and sort of, I don't know, there even some random things that I included. So being in Indianapolis, the ND500 is a big event here. So one of the things I put on my wish list is I want to be a sponsor for one of the cars. Not not the you know, on the hood, but I don't even care if it's a sticker that's this big. I just want to be on a car. Are we there yet? We're working on it. Okay. I have my office manager working on it, reaching out to teams right now.
SPEAKER_00You have a preferred driver or team of drivers?
SPEAKER_01Um I don't. I mean, there's so Ed Carpenter Racing is a local team, so that would be kind of cool. Uh Ray Hall Letterman Racing is not too far from my home. Um is that David Letterman's team? It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I'd go that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um but they're um they're they're kind of on a different level. You know, Ed Carpenter Racing, I think, is a more sort of family feel, like a smaller, knit, closer knit team. Um, it would be really cool to sponsor somebody local. Uh, you know, I mean, some of these teams going, uh, our our sponsorship package is a million dollars. Uh we're growing, but we're not we're not there yet. So I'll take one percent of that, please.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Hey, so tell me about your case management system and what you really love about it. Um, we use Cleo.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um what I have liked about Cleo is it's grown over the years. Um they they're constantly striving to add things and move things. And and so I think in the past maybe year or two, they added uh a personal injury module to their program, which is actually really helpful. Um I like that it allows us to plug in numbers. So when I'm talking to an adjuster or a defense attorney, if they make an offer, I can actually plug their offer into the settlement distributions tab. And then I can call the client and say, hey, their offer is $75,000 right now. This is what it'll put in your pocket. What do you think about that offer? And then I it also lets me play with the numbers when I'm talking to the adjuster or defense attorney and say, okay, well, if my if I talk to my client, my client says their target number is, you know, I want 40 in my pocket, then I can move the sliders up and down and say, okay, this is the number I need to achieve to get our client to their bottom line goal. So I've liked that. Um, and they seem to be uh they listen to us, you know, so they have their own conference and and I've gone to it um before and they they actually have a room set up there where they'll let users go in and say, hey, I want this added to the program. And if it's something that's that has enough utility, they'll add it. I've seen them add things right there on the spot. Did you go to CleoCon this last year in Boston? I did not go last year. Um, it's been a few years since I've gone to that one because I've been going to national trailers quite a bit. NTM. Um one of the other things that we have is have done is um I got licensed in Florida after COVID. Uh I'd always wanted to- That's actually hard to do. You have to reset for the mark, right? I had to take a whole nother exam. So I uh I'd always wanted to have a multi-state practice, and I kept saying, Oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. You know, I had to some play baseball, and you know, it's like I don't have time. Then COVID hit. And you had time. We weren't going anywhere, so it kind of got to the point of like, hey, fish are cut bait. So you're either gonna do it or stop talking about it. Uh, so I decided to stop talking about it and do it. Um, so I took the Florida bar, and we were the first group that were in person after COVID. Uh, passed the bar, got licensed in Florida. We opened an office in Tampa a couple years ago. Um, and then our next growth clan is I went to law school at the University of Denver. And so I went recently went back to my law school reunion. I was talking to some friends there, and they said, Why would you be in Florida? You have friends here. Uh, I'll refer you cases. And then another person said it, and after a while, I was like, Well, yeah. So we are I'm in the process of getting uh or submitted my application uh for admission to Colorado, and hopefully we'll have a uh Denver office here. Um, I'm hoping this year.
SPEAKER_00So you'll be up to three states at that point. That'd be great. Yeah, that's the plan. I did go to Cleocon this year, and it was a great conference. Uh, one of the things they announced there was a large acquisition of an AI company. So they're big on adding AI into their their software platform. What uh how are you using in your practice any automation or AI tools?
SPEAKER_01We um we use the AI in Cleo. It's not perfect yet. Um I'm a huge fan of Chat GPT. Obviously, there's some uh ethical issues. You know, you can't put client uh information into an open source AI, uh that kind of stuff. So, but if we use it, we strip out the client information and ask it questions, you know, or maybe I could uh take an interrogatory question from a defense counsel, as long as it doesn't have anybody's name in it. I can strip the question out, paste it into Chat GPT, and say, hey, write me an objection to this. I know there's something there that it that feels objectionable, but I I can't quite frame it the way I want, or uh give me the case law that says they can't ask it this way. Um and it's really good for that. And then of course, you know, uh the obvious parts are we as lawyers have to double check it and cross-check it and all that to make sure that the information's accurate and they're not getting ghost answers or some of those other kind of weird things that chat can do occasionally. And then we're looking at using, we've interviewed a few companies over the past couple weeks to more utilize AI. We went through our caseload and started figuring out how we can use AI to support some of our staff without adding payroll. Um, if I could use the AI, if we could use, you know, uh, I don't know if I'm allowed to name them, but anyway, um we we've talked to uh even up and tavern and finch and a couple of the other vendors that that have these AI solutions that are closed, so we don't have to worry about the ethical implications of using Chat GPT or something like that, that we're still being HIPAA compliant, all the things that we have to do. Uh, where if I could say, you know, to Finch or even Up or whoever we select, hey, can you sketch out some answers to these interrogatories for me and then let if you could do 75% and then let the file manager fill in the other 25%, you just saved an hour's worth of work.
SPEAKER_00Oh, at least an hour. And and imagine if you could geofense it and keep it all in your own environment, you could upload all the history of all your cases with judges and opposing counsel and opposing insurance companies and really streamline the process going forward for new cases. I'm a huge fan of the ethical use of AI. I think it's going to uh create some efficiencies in our world and allow us to use that extra time to put the human element in review and so we can do higher-level things and get better outcomes for our clients. So, you know, I think there are two camps of attorneys. Some don't like it at all. I think it's the ruination of the profession, and regular listeners have heard me say that many times. But I think that firms like yours that embrace it and use it ethically, it will allow you to compete with bigger and larger firms. And a lot of the defense firms you go up against are are very big firms.
SPEAKER_01There's, you know, I obviously this is a topic of conversation. It has been at at National Trial Lawyers and other conferences for years. And and I I think the that my general thought process on it is AI is not going to replace lawyers, but lawyers who use AI will replace lawyers who don't. Yep. That's generally how I feel about it. I and it's not gonna go away so. It's why fight the wind? It's not gonna vanish. It's not gonna stop coming. It's only getting faster.
SPEAKER_00And every every month it changes. So we have to just stay on the the front end. I don't want to be the beta tester using the next version, but I want to be right behind that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Agreed for sure.
SPEAKER_00You doubled in size last year, and and one thing on your balance sheet is are those prepaid case costs. Uh I have a PI firm who's a client, and they had a very good year, a couple million dollars in profit for a couple partners, but our cash wasn't there. We only had about a million one in cash left to distribute. And of course, they're like, what happened? Well, their case costs went up eight or nine hundred thousand dollars. So how are you managing that investment? Because again, that's your money. If you lose the case, it's an expense, but it's a big investment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, we are we're self-funding our cases, and I know that there's better ways to do it. Um we're kind of we're we're fitting into the category that you just described. So we're we're doing well uh financially, but the cash flow gets eaten up with case costs, and that's something that I think that's probably on our next horizon of okay, so we've tackled all these things, we're put our our our you know structure in place to build and grow. Now, how do we do it better? So I think that's just certainly on our horizon.
SPEAKER_00Well, before we wrap up, I want to talk to you about Indianapolis and uh what's your favorite steakhouse in Indianapolis?
SPEAKER_01So there's a few. There's actually some really good steakhouses here. Um, and a lot of merchains, right? Like Sullivan's is good. I like them, but St. Omo is my favorite. It's it's it's iconic. Uh it's been here for a hundred years, I think. I also was there not too long ago, and our server told me that they sell more shrimp than any other privately owned restaurant in the country. Wow.
SPEAKER_00I I gotta tell you my St. Omo story. I I was there two years ago, never been, and I was there with three people who were local, and they said, Oh, we got to go to St. Omo's. And we all got, they said, You got to get an old-fashioned in the shrimp cocktail. Don't care what steak you get, but you have to get that. So, as we were served our shrimp cocktail, they weren't eating. I didn't notice, and they waited for me to take that first bite of shrimp cocktail lathered in the cocktail sauce. And boy, my eyes were watering, my sinuses were cleared up, they were laughing. It was, it was a great experience. Great video. It is it is a unique uh flavor for sure.
SPEAKER_01And it's also nice because we've um, you know, anytime the Final Four is going to be here this year, and I can almost guarantee that they will bring San Amo cocktail sauce to the stage at some point in time. Uh the NBA All-Star game was here not too long ago, and they they gave some of that to uh Charles Barkley, I think, or somebody somebody had the set, and he took a bite of it. And man, you just it's it's the horseradish that's in it, just opens your sinuses up. It's it's a unique experience for sure.
SPEAKER_00I wish I had seen Barkley take a bite of that because he is absolutely hilarious. Yeah, hey Matt, before we wrap up, what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_01Um, so our law firm's website is tandylawfirm.com. Um, that's probably the best way to get a hold of us.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Hey, and thank you all for tuning in to Judicial Dollars and Cents. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us grow and ensures you never miss an episode. We'll see you next time on Judicial Dollars and Cents. Matt, thank you very much. Thanks, y'all. Appreciate the time. Thanks for joining us on Judicial Dollars and Cents presented by Anders Virtual CFO Services. If you found value in today's conversation, be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. To learn more about how Anders helps law firms strengthen their financial foundations and drive growth, visit AndersTPA.com. Until next time, keep making smart decisions that make perfect sense.