In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Jillian DeSimone, the firm's Vice President of Business Development, to examine a line item almost every plaintiff firm carries: tens of thousands of dollars a month to an SEO agency, paid out for years. For most of the last decade that spend was defensible. Search meant ten blue links on Google, and a firm that ranked on the first page reached people at the moment they went looking for a lawyer. Firms that invested early built a real advantage over firms that did not.

Ray and Jillian walk through the three shifts that ended it. People stopped starting at Google: consumers who said they would use LLMs to research an attorney went from 9% in 2023 to nearly 42% in 2026, while Google's share of that research fell almost fifteen points in a single year. The systems answering those questions barely read law firm websites at all, and when one agency asked ChatGPT which personal injury lawyers to call in a real American city, the number of firm websites cited was zero. And the work an SEO vendor can still do has become a commodity any firm can handle in house.

The conversation turns to what these systems do trust, which is what other people say about you. Earned coverage, third-party validation, and a public record consistent enough for a model to rely on are the inputs that decide whether a firm shows up in an AI answer, and none of them come out of an SEO contract. Ray and Jillian lay out how firms should be reading the latest AI search data, where the marketing budget goes instead, and what it takes to build the kind of authority and reputation that holds up no matter which system is doing the answering.

Read the full report: https://www.rebuttalpr.com/ai-guide/

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Tad Thomas, founder and managing partner of Thomas Law Offices, a plaintiffs' firm he started in 2011 and has grown to more than 20 lawyers across multiple states. Tad traces his path from a family grocery store in Louisville to a job as a runner in a legendary criminal defense practice, a solo shingle hung straight out of law school, and a stint as assistant deputy attorney general for Kentucky that taught him how to run an organization.

The center of the conversation is the $104.2 million verdict Tad won this July against an online ghost gun seller in the death of 18-year-old Henry Willis. He explains why the illegal nature of the sale opened a path around the federal immunity that keeps most lawyers out of gun litigation, what his focus groups revealed about how gun owners think about illegal sellers, and how he handled a defendant who never showed up to trial. Days after the verdict, the seller shut down his website.

Tad also talks about why jury selection is his favorite part of any trial, why he insisted on trying cases during his year as president of the American Association for Justice, and how AI has changed his trial prep. 

Learn More about Tad Thomas and Thomas Law Offices: https://www.thomaslawoffices.com/attorneys/tad-thomas/ 

Episode 40 of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR takes on trial communications, from the moments in a case that are newsworthy to what you do in the hours after a verdict. RebuttalPR founder Ray DeLorenzi joins host Hannah Gallagher to explain why filings and verdicts aren't the only news hooks in a litigation, his first rule for trial media strategy (do no harm), where the line sits between talking to a reporter and angering the judge, and why spiking the football after a win is a bad idea when an appeal is coming.

The conversation once again returns to AI: why the AI companies want immunity and the competitiveness argument they'll use to get it, how you tell the story of an injury you can't photograph, Reddit as a mini focus group, and Ray's bet that half the legal AI vendors on the conference circuit are gone within a year.

Want to learn more about Ray and the RebuttalPR team? Visit www.rebuttalpr.com

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Nicole Smith, a partner at Langdon & Emison in Kansas City, Missouri. Nicole started at the firm as a law clerk during law school and has built a career spanning single-event litigation, mass tort leadership, and the operational side of running that work like a business.

Nicole traces her interest in the law back to a sixth-grade mock trial of the Lindbergh kidnapping and shares a winding route to the profession that ran through architecture, journalism, and a stint as a teaching major before a legal assistant job at a mass torts firm pulled her toward plaintiff’s work. The conversation digs into the business of mass torts, and Nicole explains how she works through revenue projections and case selection and the thinking behind her article questioning early vetting and census rules. She also talks about mentoring younger lawyers, her Society of Women Trial Lawyers talk on work-life balance and “mom guilt,” and the advice she wishes she’d had starting out.

Read Nicole's piece on mandatory early vetting: https://irlaw.umkc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=lawreview

Learn more about Langdon & Emison: https://www.langdonemison.com/

In this episode, Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Jean Martin, a mass torts and class action litigator who recently joined AWKO as founding head of its consumer class action practice. Her path to plaintiff's litigation was unconventional: childhood courthouse visits in North Carolina, business school, candy manufacturing, Wake Forest Law School.

Early asbestos work led to a neurodevelopmental injuries case that lost on a Daubert ruling two nights before trial, but shaped her instincts as a litigator. Jean credits her economics and business background with giving her an edge in damages modeling and expert depositions, and emphasizes the importance of remembering the human behind every class member.

Jean sees AI and data misuse as the next major wave of litigation, targeting tech companies that monetize user data and manipulate images. She notes the irony of AI itself now appearing in class action objections and client inquiries, and why plaintiff lawyers need to collaborate to succeed in that space.

The conversation closes with Class of Our Own, the invitation-only summit Jean founded four years ago for women class action lawyers. Now drawing 140 attendees with a 46-person waitlist, the free event has become a sisterhood that gives women visibility and community in a profession that has long offered such networks to men informally. At a firm with ten female partners, Jean reflects on what it means to have "coup sisters" in her corner.

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Eric Cramer, chairman of Berger Montague and co-chair of its antitrust department, whose career spans more than three decades of plaintiff-side class action work and more than $4 billion in recoveries for workers, consumers, fighters, and others harmed by concentrated corporate power.

Eric traces his path from Woodstock to Princeton and Harvard Law School, where he sidestepped big-law recruiting in favor of environmental public interest work. He shares how a chance meeting brought him to Philadelphia, how a small generalist firm threw him into depositions and appellate arguments from day one, and how a 1995 conversation with Berger Montague's founding partner set the course for his career.

The conversation moves into Eric's early work on nuclear weapons facility cases, including communities around Rocky Flats and Hanford and prisoners at Oregon State Penitentiary who were irradiated in Cold War experiments. He explains how those cases taught him to translate complex science and economics for judges and juries, a skill that carried directly into antitrust work and a deep facility for econometrics and economic proof.

Eric then walks through the UFC fighter pay antitrust case: how the UFC used exclusive long-term contracts to lock fighters out of competing organizations, suppress pay to well below 20 percent of sport revenues, and monopolize the market for elite MMA. He covers the economic proof, the media dynamics of litigating against a powerful sports entity, and the resulting settlement for the fighter class.

The episode closes with Eric's take on the state of antitrust enforcement, why the field is having a moment across the political spectrum, and his work with Public Justice and the American Antitrust Institute.

Episode 36 of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR takes on AI search — and the vendors selling rankings that don't exist. RebuttalPR founder Ray DeLorenzi joins host Hannah Gallagher to break down what actually drives visibility in tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, which AI model he prefers and why, and how plaintiff firms are already thinking about AI accountability through litigation.

The second half gets practical: what to do after your first media hit, why "billion dollars recovered" isn't the homepage stat you think it is, and how to write a lawyer bio that doesn't sound like everyone else's.

Want to learn more about Ray and the RebuttalPR team? Visit www.rebuttalpr.com

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Rich Ruohonen, a partner at TSR Injury Law in Bloomington, Minnesota, whose career spans nearly three decades of plaintiff’s work in traumatic brain injury, car accidents, product liability, and premises liability cases.

The conversation digs deep into what Rich calls the parallels between being a competitive athlete and being a trial lawyer — from his firm’s “Fight Club” practice sessions for opening statements, to the sports psychology principles he applies in the courtroom, to the mental resilience required to push through week-long trials on four hours of sleep. Rich has tried roughly 90 cases and has not lost one since around 2011 or 2012, a streak that now stands at 27 consecutive wins heading into 2026.

Rich also shares the story behind his Olympic journey — eight failed bids before coming out of retirement at 55 to help a younger team through injuries, winning the Olympic trials, and then traveling to Milan–Cortina as the oldest American Winter Olympian in history, breaking a 94-year-old record. He describes what it felt like to finally stand in that arena with his family watching, and why the experience was the greatest moment of his life.

The episode closes with Rich’s account of speaking out at his Olympic press conference about ICE operations in Minnesota — a decision he made deliberately, knowing there would be death threats and backlash from the administration. He explains why he believes lawyers have an obligation to speak when the rule of law is being violated, and why free speech isn’t free if it stays in the locker room.

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Rachel McCarthy, Executive Director of The Milestone Foundation, a Buffalo-based nonprofit that provides pre- and post-settlement funding to plaintiffs at rates designed to help rather than exploit. 

Rachel shares how a Jesuit education, an AmeriCorps stint in Buffalo, years as a paralegal in New York City, and a detour through the San Francisco tech world eventually led her to John Bair and the founding of what would become The Milestone Foundation. She describes being there at the very beginning, when the organization was little more than a board and an idea, and what it meant to watch it grow into a team serving over 1,000 plaintiffs and working with over 320 law firms nationwide. 

The conversation covers what separates consumer litigation funding from commercial litigation funding and why so many trial lawyers have a hard-line opposition to the practice. Rachel explains how the foundation’s nonprofit model keeps money in the mission and out of anyone’s pocket, and why attorneys who are skeptical of funding companies often come around once they understand what The Milestone Foundation is actually doing. 

Rachel also takes stock of the regulatory moment the industry finds itself in, including New York’s Consumer Litigation Funding Act going into effect this June, and where she sees the biggest gaps still left unaddressed. She closes with the story of a veteran turned quadriplegic who used The Milestone Foundation’s funding to adapt his home to his disability, and a call to the trial lawyer community to support the foundation as it heads into its 10th anniversary year. 

Learn more about The Milestone Foundation here: 

https://www.milestonefoundation.org 

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Tony Romanucci of Romanucci and Blandin in Chicago, one of the leading civil rights litigators in the country.

Tony discusses how growing up as a first-generation Italian American in Chicago shaped his worldview, and how a summer clerkship at the Cook County Public Defender's office permanently redirected his career away from securities law and into the courtroom. He describes watching the same story play out over and over in court and how that experience taught him the scales of justice were not evenly balanced for everyone.

The conversation covers Tony's early days building Romanucci and Blandin, the case that put the firm on the map, and how he thinks about the decision to settle versus go to trial. He reflects on getting the call from Ben Crump one day after George Floyd's death, meeting the Floyd family for the first time, and why the $27 million settlement was only the beginning of the work.

Tony also discusses representing the family of Renee Good, a case involving federal agents and near-absolute immunity claims, and how his approach to media strategy differed entirely from the Floyd case. He closes with what keeps him optimistic: the next generation of lawyers ready to carry the fight forward.

Learn more about Tony Romanucci:

https://www.rblaw.net/professionals-antonio-romanucci

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Pete Weinberger, partner at Spangenberg Shibley & Liber in Cleveland, Ohio. Pete shares his journey from a criminal defense lawyer to becoming the Plaintiff’s Co-Liaison Counsel in the National Prescription Opiate MDL. From his early days in the courtroom to his leadership in mass torts, Pete opens up about the challenges, the importance of collaboration, and the fight against big pharma. Tune in for a conversation on the future of opioid litigation and Pete’s personal path through the legal world. 

Learn More About Pete Weinberger:

https://www.spanglaw.com/our-attorneys/peter-h-weinberger/ 

This week on Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, we’re doing something a little different.

Instead of our usual format, we’re sharing Ray DeLorenzi’s recent guest appearance on GAVL’s Behind the GAVL podcast, hosted by Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Raplee.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Ray breaks down why plaintiff firms should be thinking beyond advertising and investing in reputation, credibility, and earned visibility. 

Ray and Ryan also explore how the rise of AI and large language models is changing the way law firms are discovered online, with third-party validation and brand mentions becoming increasingly important.

It’s a candid look at where legal marketing is headed and why firms that prioritize credibility and consistency will have a clear advantage.

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Kim Dougherty, co-founder of Justice Law Collaborative, for a conversation about purpose-driven advocacy, systemic change, and what it truly means to fight for justice. 

Kim’s path to the law was anything but conventional. A first-generation college student who grew up on Cape Cod, she channeled a lifelong instinct to protect others into a career in social work before law school ever entered the picture. At Columbia, she was placed in the South Bronx on day one. She helped pregnant teens navigate their futures, then moved into the Manhattan Family Courts to work alongside lawyers on child protective and delinquency cases that exposed just how broken the system was. That proximity to injustice drove her to law school at Northeastern and into a career focused on the people most harmed by the systems meant to protect them. 

The episode traces Kim’s evolution from early mass tort work on Fen-Phen and hormone replacement therapy cases to the New England Compounding Center fungal meningitis litigation, where she moved quickly to secure an inspection of the contaminated facility before critical evidence could disappear. Over 700 people were sickened and more than 100 died in that outbreak. Kim discusses how she held multiple parties accountable and what the case revealed about the limits of FDA oversight and the dangers of unregulated compounding pharmacies. 

The conversation then turns to Katie Meyer, a Stanford soccer star and team captain whose life ended after a deeply flawed university disciplinary process spiraled into tragedy. Kim and her law partner took on the case not only in the courts but in the California legislature, where Katie Meyer’s Law was passed, requiring universities to provide students with a support person from day one of disciplinary proceedings. Now the push is going federal, with Representative Brownlee introducing legislation that would apply to any university receiving public funding. 

This is a conversation about what the law can do when lawyers refuse to stay in their lane. It is about legislation, advocacy, and choosing clients because their cases matter. 

Learn more about Kim Dougherty 

https://www.justicelawcollaborative.com 

In Episode 29 of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Sarah Doles, shareholder at Levin Papantonio, for a conversation about evolution, credibility, and what it means to step into advocacy after more than a decade inside the federal judiciary. 

Sarah’s path to plaintiffs’ work was not linear. After watching her father argue before the United States Supreme Court, she chose law school with a desire to “fight the good fight,” then spent over thirteen years clerking at both the Eighth Circuit and the Southern District of Illinois. Those years shaped how she views briefing, credibility, and the responsibility lawyers owe to the court. 

The episode traces her transition from neutral observer to advocate, beginning with the Yaz birth control MDL and birth defect litigation involving SSRIs, and continuing into complex agricultural cases. Sarah discusses representing farmers in the Syngenta corn litigation and her ongoing work in the Paraquat MDL, explaining how mass tort practice has expanded beyond pharmaceuticals into environmental and agricultural harms. 

This is a conversation about perspective. About how time on the bench sharpens judgment in private practice. About earning trust in communities that are skeptical of litigation. And about the discipline of never overstating a case, even when the stakes are high. 

Learn more about Sarah Doles 

https://www.levinlaw.com/attorneys/sarah-shoemake-doles 

In Episode 28 of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Rayna Kessler, partner at Robins Kaplan, for a conversation about what it really means to carry responsibility in high-stakes litigation.

Rayna’s career has placed her at the center of some of the most complex and emotionally demanding cases in the plaintiffs’ bar, from developing mass torts before regulators act to representing survivors whose abuse happened decades ago. She reflects on how clerking for legendary New Jersey Judge Carol Higbee shaped her understanding of trial advocacy, collaboration, and the long-term impact these cases can have far beyond a single courtroom.

The episode spends significant time on Rayna’s recent historic trial against Delbarton School under New Jersey’s Child Victims Act, the first case to reach a jury under the statute. Rather than focusing on headlines or verdict numbers, Rayna walks through how she thinks about telling a survivor’s story, earning trust, and explaining lifelong trauma to a jury without losing humanity in the process.

This is a candid conversation about preparation, restraint, and accountability, and about why some cases demand more from lawyers than simply winning. It is an episode about responsibility, both inside the courtroom and far beyond it.

Learn more about Rayna Kessler:

https://www.robinskaplan.com/professionals/new-york-lawyer-rayna-kessler

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Amanda Bronstad of Law.com, who covers class actions and mass torts nationwide. Based in Los Angeles, Amanda has spent more than two decades reporting on the legal industry and is the author of Law.com’s widely read email dispatch, Critical Mass. 

Amanda shares her unconventional path into journalism, from early business reporting to becoming one of the most trusted voices covering complex litigation. She explains how she learned to navigate legal language as a non-lawyer, why mass torts and MDLs drew her in, and how the beat has evolved over the past 15 years. 

The conversation explores how judges, lawyers, and juries influence the stories she tells, what drives readership in legal journalism, and how scrutiny of MDLs, settlements, and litigation finance has intensified. Amanda also offers insight into emerging trends, including antitrust cases, data breach litigation, and growing lawsuits involving claims administrators. 

Amanda closes by discussing what makes lawyers effective sources, how she tracks dozens of active cases at once, and what she is watching closely in 2026. 

Learn more about Amanda Bronstad: 

https://www.law.com/author/profile/amanda-bronstad/  

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Hunter J. Shkolnik, partner at Napoli Shkolnik and a nationally recognized trial and mass tort lawyer. Hunter leads discovery and trial teams across environmental, pharmaceutical, and medical device litigation and has played central roles in some of the largest mass tort matters in U.S. history.

Hunter traces his path from an early plan to become a physician to a career defined by courtroom advocacy, mentorship, and trust. He reflects on his formative years under legendary trial lawyer Dick Friedman, his early trial experience, and the lessons he carried through transitions between plaintiff and defense work before ultimately joining Paul Napoli as a partner.

He walks Ray through his leadership roles on major settlement committees, including the national and New York opioid litigation, Johnson and Johnson Talc, Red River Bankruptcy Torts, Kidde AFFF bankruptcy, and the Flint water crisis. Hunter explains how honesty, preparation, and credibility guide his approach when negotiating frameworks that affect entire communities.

The conversation also explores Hunter’s work as a legal and political news analyst, his long-standing involvement with AAJ and national litigation groups, and his commitment to mentoring young lawyers in an era where trial opportunities are increasingly rare. He closes by reflecting on working alongside his daughter at the firm, sharing the profession with family, and why trust remains the foundation of every case he takes on.

Learn more about Hunter Shkolnik and Napoli Shkolnik:

https://nsprlaw.com/en/attorneys/hunter-j-shkolnik/

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Tobi Millrood, partner at Kline & Specter and chair of the firm’s Mass Tort Department. A national leader in complex litigation, Tobi has spent 25 years trying high stakes pharmaceutical and medical device cases, including a recent $175 million Roundup verdict in Philadelphia.

Tobi talks about growing up as the sixth of seven children, sharpening his debate skills around the dinner table, and performing on stage long before he entered a courtroom. He shares how those early experiences, along with an unexpected path through the University of Tulsa College of Law, set him on a trajectory toward the plaintiff’s bar and helped shape his approach to storytelling at trial.

He walks Ray through his first trials, what it was like to go up against some of Philadelphia’s most seasoned defense lawyers, and the mentors who taught him to use being underestimated to his advantage. Tobi also explains how mass tort trials differ from single event cases, the years of preparation behind the Roundup verdict for client Ernie Karanchi, and why authenticity resonates more deeply with juries than performance ever could. He closes by reflecting on his time as AAJ president during COVID and the work involved in keeping the civil justice community connected during a period of national uncertainty.

Learn more about Tobi Millrood and Kline & Specter:

https://www.klinespecter.com/tobi-millrood/

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Paul Geller, founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and one of the country’s most accomplished class action and mass tort litigators. 

Paul reflects on his early days defending corporations and the moment he realized he was “on the wrong side.” He shares how that realization reshaped his career and how Robbins Geller became a powerhouse firm leading landmark recoveries for investors, consumers, and communities across the nation. 

They discuss what defines effective advocacy, why many of the best plaintiffs’ lawyers began on the defense side, and how empathy and listening can drive negotiations forward even in billion-dollar cases. Paul also highlights the importance of balance, sharing how jiu-jitsu helps him stay grounded and focused while managing some of the country’s most complex litigation. 

Learn more about Paul Geller and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP: 

https://www.rgrdlaw.com/attorneys-Paul-J-Geller.html  

In this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, host Ray DeLorenzi sits down with Khaldoun Baghdadi, a partner at Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger and one of California’s most respected trial lawyers.

Khaldoun shares how his early years as a first-generation Palestinian American shaped his path to law—and why understanding “how the rules work” drew him toward advocacy. He reflects on his first job out of law school, when working on evictons made him realize he was fighting for the wrong side, and how joining Walkup in 1998 set him on a career-long mission to represent people who truly need an advocate.

They talk about the culture of trial work at Walkup, the art of storytelling for a jury, and the fine line between being a technician and a tactician. Khaldoun also opens up about his teaching work at UC Berkeley and UC Law SF, his appointment to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and his role on the board of Shades of Mass, where he’s helping mentor the next generation of diverse trial lawyers.

Learn more about Khaldoun Baghdadi and Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger:

https://www.walkuplawoffice.com/attorneys/khaldoun-a-baghdadi/