Built for One Kind of Case
One of us spent years defending insurance companies, learning exactly how they fight injury claims. The other spent a decade building law firms that answer the phone when clients call. We put both together and pointed it at one thing: serious auto and truck crashes across Montana.
Serious crashes. Serious lawyers.
The story, straight
Between us, we’ve spent more than three decades practicing law— in big firms and small ones, on both sides of the courtroom, across five states. One of us tried cases for insurance companies and learned their playbook from the inside. One of us built practices from a personal loan into thriving firms and learned what clients actually need when their lives fall apart.
Along the way, we both kept seeing the same gap in Montana: seriously injured people choosing between high-volume settlement mills — where a crash case is a file number worked by whoever’s available — and general-practice firms handling it between a divorce and a DUI.
A serious crash case deserves the opposite: a small number of cases, a lawyer who knows every fact, evidence work that starts in the first 72 hours, and a firm willing to try the case when the insurance company won’t be fair. That’s not a slogan — it’s an operating model, and it only works if you say no to everything else.
So that’s what we did. JF Injury Law takes serious auto and truck crash cases across Montana. Nothing else. When you call, that focus is what answers the phone.
Two founding partners
Joe Frick
Founding Partner
Joe Frick has spent the last decade doing something most lawyers never do: building law firms from nothing and standing next to people on the worst days of their lives.
After graduating from Washburn University School of Law and starting his career at Crowley Fleck, Joe walked away from big-firm life in 2016 to build his own practice — starting with a personal loan and a conviction that clients deserve a lawyer who answers the phone. In the years since, he has represented hundreds of clients through nearly every kind of legal crisis — injury claims, bankruptcy, and high-stakes family litigation — and built a thriving firm doing it.
That range taught him something: the cases that demand the most from a lawyer are the ones where everything is on the line at once — health, income, family, future. So Joe narrowed his practice to exactly those cases. JF Injury Law, founded with Sean Johnson, has one focus: serious auto and truck crashes across Montana, done at the highest level.
Sean E. Johnson
Founding Partner
Sean Johnson spent years on the other side of the table — defending insurance companies in courtrooms across Montana. He knows exactly how they evaluate claims, what they pay attention to, and what they hope your lawyer never figures out. Now he uses all of it for the injured.
A Butte native, Sean graduated from the University of Montana in 1998 and earned his law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law in 2003. He built his career as a trial lawyer — first as a partner at Corette Pohlman & Kebe in Butte, handling civil litigation, insurance defense, and plaintiff’s personal injury work, then as founder of Johnson Law Firm, P.C. in Spokane, which he grew from a solo practice into one of the region’s respected injury and family law firms. Along the way he has tried cases to judges and juries, handled appeals, and earned an AV Preeminent peer-review rating from Martindale-Hubbell — the profession’s highest rating for legal ability and ethics.
With JF Injury Law, Sean brings that trial experience home. He’s admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of Montana and Washington and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — but Montana is where he’s from, and serious crash cases are where a career of litigation experience matters most.
Focus is a promise, not a tagline
We take fewer cases on purpose
Every case gets partner attention — not a case manager with 200 files.
We know their playbook
One of our partners spent years evaluating claims for insurance companies. We build every case knowing exactly how the other side will attack it.
The evidence work starts immediately
Preservation letters, camera canvasses, vehicle holds — in the first days, when it matters.
We prepare every case for trial
Not because every case goes there, but because insurers pay differently when the file across the table is built by lawyers who have actually tried cases to juries.
You'll always know what's happening
A real update at least every 30 days, and a direct line that gets answered. Silence is the industry's worst habit; we treat it as a fireable offense — for us.
We come to you
Hospital rooms, kitchen tables, anywhere in Montana.
Straight answers, even when they cost us
If you don't need a lawyer, we'll say so. If your case has problems, you'll hear them from us first.
From Butte to Billings
Sean was born and raised in Butte — a town that doesn’t produce people who back down. He graduated from the University of Montana, started his legal career in a Butte firm, and tried his first cases in Montana courtrooms. He’s been admitted to the Montana bar since 2003. This state isn’t a market he expanded into; it’s where he’s from.
Joe took the other road to the same place: building and running law firms across four states taught him what serious cases demand — and Montana’s licensure has been part of his practice for years. Together, we built JF Injury Law in Billings because that’s where Montana’s serious crash cases need serious lawyers: the crossroads of I-90 and I-94, the state’s biggest city, and too often, the trauma center where the worst weeks of Montanans’ lives begin.
We represent families statewide — from Yellowstone County to the Hi-Line — and when you can’t come to us, we come to you.
Talk to us — it costs nothing to find out where you stand
Every case starts with a free Crash Response Plan: one call with a lawyer, and a written plan for your medical care, your evidence, and the insurers already calling. No pressure, no obligation — that’s the promise this whole page just made.