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Kobargo IT provides outsourced IT management, technology consulting, data-security services, and strategic technology leadership for companies and law firms. The episode focuses on its approach to AI readiness, process engineering, data security, and fractional technology leadership.
475. Stop Automating Broken Processes: What PI Firms Actually Need Before Deploying AI | Yuval Goren, Kobargo IT
This episode explores how personal injury firms can apply AI and digital transformation in practical, secure ways. The conversation focuses on AI-powered intake, follow-up systems, process engineering, data consolidation, and the importance of human connection with prospective clients. It also examines how strong data-security protocols can become a marketing differentiator and referral advantage. The discussion emphasizes that firms should establish sound processes, policies, and governance before adopting AI at scale.
Two conferences, same week, same audience.
Most organizers would fight over it.
But Bob Summary and I did the opposite.
Lauddy Grond runs October 1st, 2.4th and San Diego.
10 Con runs October 4th, 2.6th and Scottsdale.
So we've built a two-fer.
1999, get your boat.
Two conferences.
One ticket.
One trip.
Stocktree's in.
Go to pmcon.org.
AI is not going away. We could talk about the perception out there.
But the reality is, if you're not at least looking at AI as a firm, you're going to get left behind.
It's the shiny new toy everyone wants to play with. Rushing into AI without a solid foundation is a guaranteed way to be cash.
Great technology is not going to fix a bad process.
And I think a lot of firms, that's what they do. They do. You cannot automate a fundamentally broken system.
To scale a massive PI firm from today, you need strategic IT leadership and bulletproof data security. Because if you get it wrong, your firm's reputation is on the line.
All you need is one breach, one exposure, one vulnerability to really impact your reputation.
And it's one Google review, right? Somebody latches onto it and says, “They can't be trusted. They mishandled my data.”
Chris Strire: This is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Strire, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, a legal marketing agency for elite firms specializing in personal injury.
Today, we're sitting down with the CEO of Cabargo IT to talk about the real-world application of digital transformation for personal injury firms.
We cover why AI agents shouldn't be your first line of defense in intake, how to turn your rigorous data-security protocols into a powerful marketing differentiator to win even more referrals, why hiring a fractional CIO or AI chief might be the missing piece to leveling up your firm's operations and also your overall valuation.
Let's get into it.
Chris Strire: Can you just give me a rundown of Cabargo IT and what you do for PI firms—the big 80/20—and then we can get in the weeds and get your annual?
Isaac: Yeah, I mean, very simply, we're a managed service provider, although we take a little bit of a different approach. Companies and firms will outsource all their IT to us. We can manage it end to end and just bring more efficiency, the right technologies, and really the security that's needed today around IT services.
Chris Strire: Hey, Isaac. Hot topic—the GenTech stuff, everything going on. We've had firms kind of dabble, and I'm excited to talk to an expert and someone that's actually doing this for firms. I'm excited to have you on here, and we're going to dig into the weeds on all of this.
Isaac: Yeah, let's do it. I mean, AI is not going away. We could talk about the perception out there.
But the reality is, if you're not at least looking at AI as a firm, you're going to get left behind.
Chris Strire: So, let's talk about that. When you walk into a 50-person employee PI firm today, what's the biggest misconception the partners have about AI and what it's actually going to do for them?
Isaac: Leadership is always going to be, “Let's use AI.”
So there's a big movement initially to the public. They're dropping stuff into ChatGPT, the free version, and that is kind of more of the people are putting in their own personal information.
And now you start to realize that we needed an enterprise plan for AI because it's all about controlling data, right—your data, your client information.
So they think it's going to do everything for them. But I think the biggest challenge is understanding the use case.
And I think this is where a lot of firms falter and some don't move forward, because this is the piece they're missing.
Where does it fit? Where can I use it? And really understanding the use case and setting some real expectations around the use of AI.
Where can it help me most in my firm, in my operations? And really just making my people more effective.
Chris Strire: Let's talk about the front end. Let's talk about intake, capturing.
A personal injury attorney has spent a fortune to obtain the lead, the opportunity, right? And many of them are still reluctant to call it sales, but it's sales, and intake is sales.
So let's talk about the front lines, where speed is everything. You emphasize AI-powered intake. Is it backup? Is it the first engagement? Where do you see it being most valuable?
Isaac: So, AI—and this is including voice AI, right? Because there's a lot of talk about how do we use these tools—AI is great at collecting information.
But when you're talking about your clients, you need to create relationships, and people create relationships, right?
And AI, voice AI in particular, is getting better. There's a little empathy. There are some great tools out there.
This is my personal opinion, because we're all in the same business: it's customer service.
You’ve got to create a relationship with your client to build that trust, to get that referral, to get that good review.
So yes, AI for intake, it's great to collect information, whether you're using intake on your website or using Lawmatics. And I'm not endorsing anyone, but just to give you an idea about these types of tools that leverage AI and, more importantly, have integration with your CMS.
We could talk about the right technology, but it's got to fit your business model.
After hours, AI is great, right? We don't want to turn agents into being up 24/7 on call returning calls. So I think there's good coverage there.
I don't think it should be the first line of contact with a client or prospective client. Again, my opinion. The tools are decent. They've got a little bit of ways to go on voice, but I think we can't miss that point that humans create the connection.
Chris Strire: I think that's well said, and I also like that you're an expert when it comes to technology, but you're saying frontline human.
You mentioned intake, which I think is fantastic from a live-chat perspective—basically the logic-based AI component.
Chris Strire: One of the things I've been an advocate of is the chase side.
Most of the PI firms have a follow-up sequence of seven to fourteen days, and it's just kind of off to the next.
I've always been intrigued by that, because I understand the percentage chance that converting a client goes down considerably. But it seems like maybe AI could bring back some of those opportunities.
Isaac: One hundred percent, right?
Your lead list is building, right? Because a lot of people don't make that first call. If they don't get a call back, then you're chasing them to get them on the phone.
And obviously, metrics we want to track as well. But the top firms have a process in place.
I could certainly fit that model, right? These follow-up calls get somebody on the phone, and I would say, in terms of how you build it out, you want to give—if you can get somebody on the phone, you collect that basic information—give me the opportunity to hand it off to a human.
We've had clients that have tested voice AI really just for backup, not as a primary, right? Nine to five, nine to nine, because we're going to hand it off to an attorney who's on call.
But then it goes to a service. They're looking to replace the services of backup, and only those calls between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.
I think there's an expectation there that people are going to be like, “Okay, I'm going to give my information. Somebody's going to call me back.”
But that chase that you talked about—the ones that don't answer the phone—we're trying to call between 9 and 5, and they're working. You've got to have that.
And again, the voice AI piece is not the end-all, be-all, but it can certainly fit your model and how your firm operates around intake.
Speed, elite is everything, and using AI to chase down uncontacted opportunities is a massive advantage.
But before you plug in the latest automation tool, you have to look under the hood.
Most firms suffer from disjointed and undocumented workflows. If you automate a broken process, you just get bad results faster.
So, as you will see, engagement always starts by mapping out these foundational processes first.
Chris Strire: This is a big topic, and I'm smiling because over the last five years we've done half a dozen digital transformations for law firms.
And the thing that we run into are the processes. We're finding that we need to get into some process-engineering work, right?
Isaac: Look, we do technology. I'm not going to pretend to be an attorney and understand all the nuances around the business, but we've done a significant deep dive in understanding how you operate.
And I think all of that—the engagement starts with, “Let's define the use case.”
But the use case only works if you have a process, right?
So we dig into the process because the first thing we're looking to do, call it AI, call it automation, is where are our opportunities to automate?
And if you've got one person in your firm who is the lead and the end-all, be-all on one process, you know what's going to happen?
No one else knows their process. Nothing's written down. There's no SOP.
So we want to use technology. Look, I have a saying: great technology is not going to fix a bad process.
And I think a lot of firms, that's what they do. They're like, “Okay, let's just get the software and it's going to fix this process.”
It's not the way it works, and a lot of times they're disappointed or the project doesn't get completed.
So, again, we will understand how you operate as a firm, because there are differences.
What are the use cases?
And we're not jumping in with two feet into the pool at the deep end with AI, because you're going to spend a lot of money and you're not going to get the value out of it.
We look at where can we implement, what's your team like? Do you have a team that's thoughtful about their process?
I know I'm being a little verbose, but I think it's important to set the expectation that there's a lot of great technology out there and you could go out on your own.
“You know, here's something I like. I read it in the AI newsletter,” and then you go down a rabbit hole.
Chris Strire: You mentioned right at the beginning, you briefly touched on data. There's this fragmentation there. How do you integrate all of it? How do you turn data into an asset and set up a liability in regards to powering the systems?
Isaac: So here's the other thing we've seen over the last five years: data is everywhere and everyone has access, right?
So it's not just the data, but how do you secure it? Who gets access? We'll talk a little bit about that.
But starting with the data, these digital transformations were moving everything to the cloud for a couple of reasons.
Obviously, COVID—everybody's traveling together alone. That's pervasive now, right?
Attorneys are there at the court. They need access. You've got people who are working remotely. You have mothers, you have fathers. They need to take half a day, but they've got stuff they've got to do.
I think for the most part, people really are interested in getting what they need to get done, but they need a little bit of flexibility.
So the data's got to be consolidated. It's got to be in one place. But it's got to have a little more structure, right?
It can't be your data from ten years ago that you're still holding onto and paying a lot of money for it.
I'm not, again, endorsing—no endorsements for you—but, like, BigQuery, you lean it with Snowflake. How do you think about the data warehousing components that go into collecting it on the cloud?
I think, for most—if we're talking about 15 to 50 users in a firm—I don't know that you need Snowflake with Databricks.
We could talk about that as part of that KPI dashboard that we want to get to at some point, but this is just operational.
You've got data sitting in different places: on-prem, maybe in an AWS S3 bucket, maybe it's in Azure, in SharePoint.
And again, the thing that we've run into is data is everywhere. There's a lot of it that's been kept for a long time. It hasn't been cleaned, hasn't been segregated.
So you've got to make sense of that.
And on the plus side, there could potentially be some cost savings, because a lot of the data could be moved into cold storage, which is pennies on the dollar.
If you're not accessing it all the time, why do we have it sitting in prime storage? You know, at a premium cost.
Chris Strire: I couldn't agree more. The other side of that is the security of sensitive information.
You argue that data security is an increasing part of the firm's brand, not just a compliance checklist.
So how does a firm actually use their security protocols as a marketing asset to win more B2B peer referrals?
Isaac: This is a big topic, right? I mean, this is your sweet spot because it's reputation. It's Google reviews. It's referrals. I mean, that's a channel to get more business.
And I say, first of all, publish your privacy policies. Privacy policies—make sure it's clear, right?
You have to be very client-centric about how you handle their data.
It's PI, it's PHI. Get your BAAs with your providers. Any provider that's touching client data, you've got to have a BAA.
And for a couple of reasons. First of all, it shifts the onus. I mean, you have responsibility, but now it shifts 50% to the vendor, right?
So you've got to make sure that whoever's touching that data is operationally making sure it's secure.
But that's your reputation. You talk about and use it as a marketing tool:
“Hey, we use technology, but here's how we protect your data, because you're important to us.”
And to your point, that can really be leveraged as a technology differentiator.
We're not just storing your stuff into AI. We understand the sensitivity. We know what's going on out there.
AI deepfakes, phishing emails—you know, PHI is much more valuable than credit-card information even, because there's a lot of fraud tied to it, right?
I could submit an invoice to get paid for, you know, “I had this medical treatment done,” and people are doing it all the time. They're using other people's PHI to do that.
So it's a big topic. All you need is one breach, one exposure, one vulnerability to really impact your reputation.
And it's one Google review, right? Somebody latches onto it and says, “They can't be trusted. They mishandled my data.”
That could set you back a ways.
Chris Strire: I see a lot of times in the courts the hallucinations and things like that as a risk. What other big risks do you do a risk profile on when you work with a firm and say, “Hey, you've got to plug this. This is a giant red flag”?
Isaac: So again, a lot of this is operational, right?
Having the right policies in place that are public on your website to address your client, but also internally appropriate-use policies—AI usage policy, right?
We talked about getting the enterprise plan, right? So you have a BAA, but you also have to mandate that you cannot use any other AI.
Pick a platform, right? But have a policy internally.
And also, again, this is a story you could tell about how we leverage AI. You could have policies for clients to opt out, right, if they don't want to use AI.
But this is a lever that can be pulled and used to your advantage.
You have to make sure your ducks are in a row in terms of usage before you go full-blown AI. Make sure your employees understand what's appropriate. What can we put in that?
I would also say to err on the side of caution. Even if you have a BAA, redact. Redact before you put it into AI. There are tools to do that, right?
Look, we want to leverage AI for efficiency, and it's certainly going to be able to do that with generating demand letters, chronologies, discovery, all that stuff.
You're going to get more efficiency. Take that time and make sure that everything is verified.
You can redact and then it's easy to replace if you use the word. But also make sure that nothing leaves your firm that hasn't been verified.
Now, a lot of the AI tools, they'll give you citations. They'll give you the source.
Go to the source. Read the source.
The time that you've saved on the more administrative, operational stuff, let it free up some of that time to make sure you're verifying.
There are plenty of stories about law firms being tagged by bar associations and courts for these hallucinated citations.
So I think this is really more of a discussion about policy and how we operate and putting those measures in place internally.
Getting your data in the cloud and setting up strict AI governance protects your clients and keeps your firm out of the crosshairs of the bar association.
But even with the most secure, cutting-edge technology in place, your investment is completely worthless if your staff refuses to log in and actually use it.
Change management is notoriously tough, and getting your team to embrace new tech requires deliberate, top-down leadership.
So I wanted to know if people are still resistant to AI adoption, perhaps fearing it would cost them their job or the future, or if there's been a change in how people view it.
Are you seeing the barrier start to drop, and people are like, “Okay, the AI's here, the capabilities are here”? Talk about their resistance gap.
Isaac: So again, I mean, you've got the younger crowd, and I think this is important from an HR perspective too.
Guest: The people that you're hiring, the younger people, they want tools. They want technology.
So think about it that way, too. You're going to get a lot of value from leveraging the right tools that work.
The cultural adoption within an organization is led by the leader, right? You can look at it—there's plenty of news out there that AI has a pretty negative perception.
People are afraid they're going to lose their jobs, and it's real. It's real.
Chris: It's the guy from Google. Who is the guy that gave the commencement speech and they were booing him?
Guest: Yeah.
Chris: Recently, the former Google CEO, correct?
Guest: And there was another guy also. They're talking to young people, or trying to get into the market, and they feel like, hey, jobs are not going to be available because of AI adoption.
The culture in your organization is paramount for technology adoption. So how you lead, how you present it—presenting it as a tool, making sure employees understand, “Look, this is going to make us more efficient, and this is how it's going to help you be more strategic. It's going to be a career opportunity for you.”
Instead of saying, “Okay, use these. Put all your tasks in here. Let's automate them,” and then you get crickets. They're thinking on their own, “What happens when I do that? Am I still here?”
That has to be addressed as part of the culture of the organization and the adoption of technology.
I'm sure it was the same thing: “Let's move to a cloud CMS.” “Oh, it's a different platform.” There are always hurdles, but at the end of the day, it makes the paralegal legal system—the attorney's job—easier because they have better tools.
Again, how do we position it? I think that's vitally important, and that's why I also say, don't throw everything at them. Like, “Oh, voice AI agents, totally changing intake. Get rid of intake. We're going to be agentic.” I don't think that's the right messaging at all.
Chris: Yeah, agree. You know, it's funny, like, adoption and how things change. I remember when I started—and we're not on QuickBooks anymore—but we had QuickBooks Desktop, and then we had to push the bookkeeper to go to QuickBooks Online.
Now I can't even remember what we're on. We're on a whole different financial platform. But I remember that being just a push, and that's not too long ago.
There's also something that came to mind when you were speaking. I listen to this podcast called *How to SaaS* by Shiv, and basically, it's all about—it’s just interviews with private equity groups. The whole premise is how they think about adding value to any business they buy. One of the things they look at is how adaptable the organization is that they're going to buy, which kind of leans into your point. If they're really adaptable, they're more willing to use tech, make changes, and innovate.
Guest: I mean, ABS, MSOs, right? All of the private equity money that's going to make its way into PI law.
If you're thinking about an exit, if you're maybe five years away, you've got to leverage technology to bring the value of your company up.
They're not going to look at it as wasted money, but it's got to be the right technology.
If you want more value for your business, put in the right processes. Put in the SOPs, right? Leverage technology to grow your business. I mean, it's the same thing with marketing, right? A law firm that's not using rankings, as opposed to one that is, they're going to have more value because they're doing all those things. They've got a marketing plan. They've got a process in place.
It's the same thing with technology. What do you do if you're outsourced?
Chris: Well, and I'll give you the plug, too, right? You guys have the fractional CIOs and AI chief, right? Most firms are just going to have an IT manager or an IT director. Even segments—there are subsegments of revenue operations and things like that. IT is handled maybe just at the front end, as opposed to all operational complexity.
Talk to me about the difference between having a true CIO and an AI chief at your organization.
Guest: It's funny. I think this started when we were at VeeCon last year. We did a 60-second commercial, but I attended, and I'll tell you, I learned a lot of things because I'm not a marketing guy.
The thing that became clear to me is messaging. I'm not going to lie, we're like every other MSP. Our first initial contact is, “We do help desk, we do system admin.” Imagine you're not wearing a color attack—who cares? I mean, really, who cares?
The thing that I realized starting on that journey is that what's missing is tech and AI leadership for these companies.
You look at bigger law firms. They can afford to hire an AI chief. They can afford to hire a CIO. Most companies can't, and to be honest, they don't need one full-time. But they need to have a strategy.
We flipped the script, right? We're coming in with leadership. Level-one support, level-two support—it’s commoditized. I think we're great. We've got great people. But that's what everyone says, right?
It's consultative. It's leadership. That's going to be part of the package. It's not, “Oh, you want me to help you with AI? It's extra.” “You want me to help you develop that? It's extra.”
I want to bring value to clients.
Listen, if you start and somebody says, “What’s your goal?” and you say, “It’s to make a lot of money,” I say, “Well, that’s not really a goal. It’s a result.”
I've been doing this for 30-plus years. I've had clients I liked, and I've had clients I didn't like. I work with clients I like because I want to be completely invested. I want to help them succeed because their success is my success.
To be honest, I don't have such a big back-office team that I need to worry about invoicing for every time we ask and we have to do something a little extra. It all comes out in the wash.
My goal is for them to be successful, for them to grow, to have the right tools, to create these efficiencies, and make sure they're 100% secure.
Never a guarantee, but there are so many things that need to be done around security. And if you're trying to do it on your own, or if you're using your IT manager that doesn't have that exposure in that market and technology, they're putting their finger in the dike. They're not researching, they're not talking to clients, they're not doing strategy.
So even if you came to me and said, “Look, I've got internal IT,” I'm going to say, “Great. We can work with your team. We can direct them. Bring a center for leadership, bring a center for strategy.”
I'll give you an example. I know I'm being a little verbose, but I'll give you an example.
I've seen clients look at software, get on the demo, not trial it, not actually use it, and then go in and sign a five-year contract.
You know how many clients have gone into five-year contracts, five-year leases on printers? Why, right? That's negotiation. That's part of that leadership.
How can you negotiate with vendors? What are you really getting? My question is going to be a lot different when you're looking at a CMS or some other tool for intake. I'm going to ask, “How does it integrate?”
Because now you sign a contract for a tool that doesn't integrate with anything else. Maybe they don't even give you an API so you can at least get a dashboard that gives you some visibility and insight into your company.
So it's different, right? And these are my values that I want to bring to clients.
Chris: I love that. So, for the audience listening that wants to have Kabargo IT take a look at their tech stack and bring them into the future, look at their AI risk score, or has questions about this podcast, what's the best way to get in touch?
Guest: Connect with us at kabargoit.com. We have an AI readiness assessment. We also have a free download. We created a report—not a pretend report—a 2026 Tech and AI Report that you can download.
You do have to give your email address. We won't bombard you, I promise.
But connect with me on LinkedIn, and then we can have a 15- to 20-minute call and talk about whatever tech- or AI-related subject you want to talk about—anything I can do to help. And you're not going to get a sales pitch. I'm not that guy. I'm not a sales-pitch guy.
Chris: Well, this has been amazing. So we'll link it all up in the show notes. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Guest: Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it, and I'll see you at VeeCon.
Chris: Yes, I'll see you there. Take care.
Guest: Take care.
Chris: If you want to scale a massive personal injury firm and increase your ultimate valuation, you have to build processes that actually work before you throw software at them.
By consolidating your data, enforcing strict internal security, and bringing in fractional leadership to negotiate your vendor contracts, you stop being a reactive law firm and start operating like an elite business.
Just like you need a strategic IT partner to protect your client data and eliminate operational bottlenecks, you need a specialized and elite marketing partner to dominate digital search.
If you're ready to stop burning cash on generic marketing strategies and want to engineer a pipeline that consistently delivers high-value cases, head over to Ranking.io.
We've built the digital infrastructure that puts your firm in front of the clients who need you most.
That's Ranking.io.
I'm Chris Stire. Thanks for listening to *Personal Injury Mastermind*. See you next time.