Turning Hard-Learned Lessons Into a Great New Future: The James Helm Story
The legal industry is full of personal injury law firms bearing the names of their founders, advertised with serious faces and stories of impersonal legal expertise. In this inundated space, TopDog Law stands out because of its name and founder, James Helm. His personable, approachable air comes from a down-to-earth attitude and an imperfect story of true struggle that he’s happy to share. James is great at what he does in part because the hard times he’s lived through have given him real strength, plus the ability to empathize with the real struggles of his clients.
James believes people should share their scars, so she’s open about his own. It began with a wrestling injury in his teens that led to his first taste of prescription Percocet, and this led to an addiction that lasted eight years. He succeeded in college and law school despite the addiction, even as some of his friends and family wrote him off as a “pill head” whose life had already peaked. In the middle of all the hard work of college, he also undertook the incredible labor of breaking free of an addiction that had defined his youth.
When James succeeded in putting his addiction behind him, he found himself with a different perspective on the practice of law. He wanted to help struggling people, so working to help victims as a personal injury lawyer made sense, but he didn’t want to be folded into the stodgy rank-and-file that seemed to dominate the field. Even though he had an offer from a top Philadelphia firm, James decided to turn away and build something of his own.
Today, TopDog Law is an incredibly successful firm working on cases nationwide. James is one of the youngest lawyers to have a national reach, and he pioneered a new brand of social media marketing not seen before in the legal industry. It’s made him one of the best personal injury attorneys and most well-known lawyers in the US, and it’s given him the chance to begin philanthropic efforts that he hopes will grow over time.
It’s hard to imagine that in its first year of operation, TopDog Law had no clients and no capital, and James burned almost two hundred thousand dollars into the red before he made his first dollar from the enterprise. This came from James’s principled approach to running the firm, refusing to charge advance or hourly fees. He was determined that TopDog Law should only make money when its clients won, which took time. It paid off, though, setting James and TopDog Law up for staggering success in the long term.
This success is possible because of who James became as a man who built a better version of himself by taking the best lessons from his troubled past and using his inner strength to improve his character. James believes everyone struggles and deserves respect, so he’s always determined to win big for his clients. This determination has turned TopDog Law into a firm that’s true to its name, one of the best personal injury firms in the business.