Dante Weston and Scott Donaldson, the co-founders of Donaldson & Weston work hard to serve South Florida. Their personal injury law practice focuses on cultivating authentic and personalized customer experiences to defend life and liberty at all stages of ligation. With an optimistic mindset, supportive mentors, and full transparency, Weston and his team aim to reach above and beyond to provide top-tier service while helping clients fight for the compensation they deserve.
A strong mindset is needed to accomplish any task to grow a top-tier law firm. For Weston, “Staying positive and looking at negativity as just a challenge to improve.” This is a key factor in any industry, particularly at a law firm that encounters various meetings and business matters throughout the day.
“A strong mindset is needed to accomplish any task to grow a top-tier law firm.”
“I will bring up issues and my teams know that I’m not coming from a place of negativity and that dealing with problems is a chance to make them better,” he says. Despite the challenges that may come, Weston believes asking questions is the best strategy for success. “You’ll end up with a more diverse and balanced result by collaborating with those you’re speaking with, as opposed to dictating to them what to do,” he adds. These strategies fuel his passion to bring clients the best opportunities and build a thriving business.
From pursuing verdicts for personal injury law clients to managing a top-quality firm, Weston proudly reflects on the outside influences that continue to impact his role today. “People that have been highly successful in multinational businesses gave me an amazing opportunity to ask them a million questions,” he shares. These mentors remain instrumental to the success of D&W, beginning by valuing the insight of others. “Sometimes, people let their egos get in the way and want to talk about what they’ve done. However, if someone has built and grown something, you should respect their time and ask them as many questions as they’ll allow you to because the gift given is priceless.”
Weston also uses modern technology to provide top-tier representation with supportive team members to stay ahead of the curve. “If you’re only practicing law, you’re probably not going to have a lot of opportunities to think outside the box whether it’s digital and software opportunities, efficiency tools, crypto, etc.,” he explains. In what could be a challenge to overcome, Weston trusts in the capabilities of his team to deliver positive results. “Having someone within the firm or company that’s dedicated to thinking outside the box and researching these topics is a huge benefit,” he adds. These efforts accompanied by strong values allow the team at D&W to achieve effective client outcomes at every opportunity.
Striving to deliver the best outcomes for clients, Weston finds education to be an element that empowers clients and manages expectations, guiding them through the healthy fear of the unknown. “At times, lawyers can be concerned or afraid to give clients negative news and opinions on their cases. However, by managing expectations, they can participate in helping bolster those strengths and overcoming whatever weaknesses there are,” he states. Above all, Weston believes tougher discussions early on allow clients to make their case stronger with open honesty and full transparency.
“Ultimately, I’ve learned that clients respect that more because they know you’re a straight shooter. If you must confront them later with another hurdle in their case, they’re already used to having open discussions, making communication moving forward much easier.”
With the tools necessary for success, Weston, and his team work to remain a leading firm that stands apart by delivering a strong customer experience that exclusively focuses on each case. “By building procedures, protocols, and systems, we’re able to perform at a high level from the best lawyer in the firm, all the way down to the person that’s just starting in our company. Whomever they talk to, our clients know their interests are being prioritized and we’re living up to our core value of treating every client the way we want to be treated.”
Dante Weston is a Senior Founding Partner at Donaldson & Weston. He began his professional career as a litigator and civil trial attorney in 2006, after obtaining an undergraduate degree in Psychology with a focus in Business Engineering from Brown University and then ultimately a Juris Doctorate from Stetson University College of Law. At that time, he joined one of the leading law firms, where he not only practiced law but participated in business development, human resources, and data analytics for six years. Dante opened up his own law firm in April 2012 and what started as a small firm with one part-time employee grew to a 25-person internal team while experiencing 10x growth over nine years and 5x growth from 2019 to 2021 after fine-tuning the company’s digital growth strategies. Donaldson & Weston has offices across South Florida, located in Stuart, Palm Beach, and Lake Mary. They have served over 10,000 clients and recovered over $100 million.
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