Resources

Red Cave Law Firm Consulting's Technology Blog Series (from CEO Jared D. Correia, Esq.)

2023 Quarter 1

March 29, 2023: Back Tracking: Now is Not the Time to Abandon the Efficiencies You Were Forced to Adopt During the Pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to wane across the United States, lots of folks are breathing cautious sighs of relief.  It’s been a pretty crazy 16 months.

Everybody is looking for a return to normalcy.

But, your law firm shouldn’t be going back to normal.

All those painful adjustments you made during the pandemic to get more digital, and to become more consumer friendly – make sure those stick around.

You see, the need to run a more digital business (to drive down costs, and save time), and the importance of adjusting to the convenience economy (that was here before the pandemic, the pandemic just accelerated it) . . . none of that is going away.

And, if you’ve already adjusted, and feel a strong pull to keep innovating, good on you.

If not, it’s time to get on board, before you get passed by.

If you’re still using premise-based technology, and swimming in paper . . .

If you don’t have a website, and don’t pick up your phone . . .

Time is running out on your particular style of law practice.

March 24, 2023: Task(s) at Hand: Tools for Managing Your Practice Responsibilities

Most attorneys feel overwhelmed by everything they need to do.  Especially for solo and small firm lawyers, this can be crushing.

It helps to take a step back, redefine your goals, reset your tasks, and focus on what you need to do now.  For many attorneys, they’re just trying to do everything at once, which is impossible; and so, they end up multitasking themselves into extinction.

Of course, while establishing an order of operations is immensely helpful, you still need a good system, through which to manage all your tasks, and to stagger them in the order you want.

It’s likely that you already have a task management system in place – in fact, pretty much every productivity (email) software, or law practice management system has one built in.  But, you may find those lacking, in terms of the task functionality.  If you do, there are a lot of great task management tools, that focus on that one operation, which you could look to.

Those include: Trello, Asana, Notion and Monday (not an exhaustive list).  There are free options available.  Some task managers offer Kanban-style arrays; some are list-based systems; and, some allow you to toggle back and forth between the two.  And, depending on your email or case management system, you may be able to integrate your task management system, potentially via a product like Zapier – for when a direct API connection is not available.

March 10, 2023: Emotional Rescue: This Is Why Consumers Buy Legal Services

Attorneys hate to think of themselves as ‘salespeople’ – but, if you’re a law firm owner/manager, you’re selling things the same way everyone else who owns a business is selling things.

Though, you might not be selling what you think you are . . .

Legal consumers are not like you: They don’t know as many Latin phrases as you do.  They don’t care about arcane statutes.  Precedent is meaningless to them.  Heck: they probably don’t even have a ballpoint pen.

What they do have is a big problem, that they want someone else to solve.

And, you’re that someone else; you’re the problem-solver.

Keep that in mind when trying to convert your leads.  They’re stressed; they really want to hire you – and, they’re making an emotional buying decision, which is what most purchases come down to anyway.

Once a potential client is having a retention conversation with you, they’ve already decided that you are competent, and that you can help them with their specific issue.

Now, you just need to get out of your own way, and let the sale come to you.

Make them feel comfortable, help them to understand that you’re there to provide them direction, and take all that stress off their back.

If that is the fundamental focus of al of your client engagements, you’ll be sitting pretty when it comes down to looking at your conversion metrics.

March 03, 2023: Go Green: An Evergreen Retainer Can Help with Collections

Law firm collection rates tend to be well below average.  That’s in part because law firms are great extenders of credit.  They’ll taka a retainer upfront, struggle to collect any more money, and then continue to work through a situation in which it’s unlikely they’ll get paid anything more.  This is precisely why most senior lawyers will tell their juniors to get paid as much as possible upfront, because another dime may not ever come.

But, that’s bad advice in a market in which there is continued downward pressure on legal fees; and, it also encourages attorneys to avoid a fixable problem.

It’s not the only solution available, but one method for dramatically increasing your collections is to adopt an evergreen retainer model.  The way it works is: the law firm sets a retainer amount for an initial client payment; and then, moving forward, it’s the client’s job to ‘top off’ that amount, on a recurring basis, when it falls below a predetermined threshold.  So, let’s say that your law firm takes a $1500 retainer, and sets the evergreen retainer amount at that number, while the payment period is the traditional monthly option; then, the math works like this:  law firm performs $500 worth of work in month 1, and the client’s obligation is to pay in another $500 to get the retained amount back up to $1500.  Pretty simple . . . but, highly effective, because it means that a law firm is never working in arrears.

Add to the mix payment automation via credit card, and a stop work policy, and you’re in business.

I talked over this concept (and other financial management best practices) on a recent episode of my podcast.

February 28, 2023: Arrested Development: What Do Modern Law Firm Associates Want, Anyway?

There’s a lot in flux around the legal industry of late.  Work roles, places and preferences seem to be changing constantly.  Yet, law firms continue to require associates to move business forward.

Managing partners often think, in these instances, about what the law firm needs.  But, even if in an employer’s market, it pays to consider what your associates (and potential associates) actually do want – especially if you want those associates to stick around for a while, along with all the capital you’ve invested in them.

One of the major challenges of hiring is that those doing the hiring are often a generation (or more) removed from those they are hiring.  There’s lots of barriers there to begin with; and, most of those hiring partners are not going to take the time to learn more about candidate preferences.

So, let’s do a quick crash course on what millennial (and younger) employees want out of an associate position:

Flexibility. Especially with the massive amount of flexibility that has recently been handed to the entire workforce across the globe, it’s gonna be tough to rein this one back in.  Not only have employees felt for a while that they could do their jobs anywhere, that has now been categorically proven to be true.  Your younger employees want more control over their work schedules -- and will get it from someone else, if you don’t offer it.

Feedback. Millennial and younger employees want consistent feedback.  That’s not, as most ‘boomers’ might think, equal to praise.  But, associates just want more feedback and input, in general.  While most traditional lawyers are tight-lipped, or only offer negative assessments, managing attorneys who want to hang on to good associates need to be more open about the pros and cons of their work.

Professional Development Opportunities. It’s not all about the salary; hiring partners can trade that off for other benefits.  And so, if you want to keep millennial and younger associates in your firm, you’ll want to be aggressive about offering professional development opportunities that the firm pays for – not just one CLE a year.  And, you can get creative here: general business skills apply to lawyers, too.

February 20, 2023: Spin Cycle: How Quickly Do Your Cases Move?

Lawyers look for revenue in all types of places.

Sometimes they try to reduce overhead.  Sometimes they try to generate more leads.  Sometimes they try to convert more leads.  Sometimes they try to throw more money at the problem.  Sometimes they try to throw less money at the problem.  If most of those solutions haven’t worked – keep reading.

One place you can find lost revenue is by focusing on your current clients.

The most efficient law firms make the most money, because they move through cases quicker; consequently, they can bring in new cases faster.  That’s pretty simple math.  But, making the equation work is hard.  Since law firms don’t generally pay attention to the speed at which they process particular tasks, or parts, of cases, there is no baseline to improve on.  In other words: you can’t reduce the time it takes you to do something, if you have no idea how long it takes in the first place.

To offer a simple example, if you run a personal injury practice, you can identify how long it takes you (on average) to get to settlement after a demand letter is sent.  Now, once you have that average, you can try to reduce the average time spent.  Publishing those rates of speed internally may even ramp up your employees’ efforts, because gamification is a real thing, and works in law offices, too.

Cycle time is a key concept in Lean Six Sigma, but law firms spend very little time considering or tracking process speed, and trying to eliminate waste from it.  But, without even utilizing that concept in full, law firms can create case workflows, and track the time it takes to get from one task to another.

Then, it’s just a matter of whittling down each segment.

February 8, 2023: Feature Presentation: Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Software?

Most of the software that business owners buy has a lot more features than those same business owners use.  This is true for attorneys, as well.  And, most lawyers are not particularly curious about the software tools that undergird their businesses.  This is not necessarily a fault of ambition; it’s mostly that attorneys are really busy, and that learning anything beyond the basic features of any software program seems like something that is going to interrupt the workflow on substantive cases, which means a downturn in revenue.  And, if nothing else, lawyers are always hyper-focused on revenue.

But, it’s also true that law firms that are the most efficient, make the most money.  So, if you’re ignoring valuable software features, you’re probably less efficient.  Therefore, making the effort to better understand the technology tools you use in your practice has a pretty significant effect on the bottom line of your business.

Let’s take two basic examples:

You use email and a calendar, sure.  But, that technology is referred to as ‘productivity software’ for a reason.  Take Microsoft 365, for example, which has all the software features you know of (email, calendar, document drafting, presentation software), but also lots of stuff you’re probably not aware of, like video conferencing, task management, internal communications tools, and more.  Utilizing these features from a single interface not only means that you’re more efficient, it also means that you’re paying less, because you don’t need to buy alternative products to substitute for what you’re already paying for.  Case management softwares, too, are getting more robust, by adding things like esignature, epayments, video conferencing, and the like.

Those are two places to start; but, if you can get the most out of each and every software you use, you’ll be running at peak efficiency, and making more money than you thought possible.

So, the key is to know what you have, to avoid buying what you don’t need.

February 1, 2023: This Is Your Year: Creating New Habits Is About Commitment

Everybody loves a good shortcut.

Seriously, who hasn’t considered skipping the hard parts in the marathon of life?

Change is hard, oftentimes necessary.  So, we spend a significant part of our lives trying (and failing) to instill new habits.  And, that includes work habits.

Most fail in this regard for two reasons: They try to bite off more than they can chew, or they don’t stick with it long enough.  Lawyers gonna lawyer.

The solution to this problem is relatively simple: Start with a smaller goal, and work longer at it.

I know, I know.  That sounds almost too easy; but, it works.

The fact is that, to really instill a new habit effectively, it takes more like 2/3 of a year, not a week or a few.

So, rather than setting a goal of revising your entire law firm marketing program, instead focus on mastering one component of it.  If you want to get better at social media marketing, for example, choose an anchor platform (LinkedIn is getting lots of eyeballs right now), and commit to writing long-form content for that platform at least once a week.  That’s a small personal ask of yourself, and something that is eminently achievable.  Given that the task is relatively simple and straightforward, you may also be able to stack up other similar tasks for yourself, and generate several good, little habits simultaneously, over the course of an entire year.

It’s okay to think big, if you start small.

January 27, 2023: Draw Me a Map: Intake is Still the Biggest Law Firm Challenge

The stats on law firm intake are pretty damning.  64% of voicemails left for law firms by leads are never returned.  Only 1 in 3 phone calls for law firms are picked up live.  It takes an average of 8 emails to schedule an appointment with a law firm.  Those aren’t the sort of numbers you want to see in an economy driven by consumer convenience.

And, while lawyers often worry about revenue (it’s the #1 concern for law firm managers), they often view revenue through the lens of work in progress, and don’t put an emphasis on lead management, to convert more clients.  But, the more leads a law firm converts, the more money it makes.

So, the first step is putting additional emphasis on intake processes.  And, for many law firms, that often means building out an intake process for the first time.  That may seem like a daunting process for attorneys, because they often get wound up around which technologies to use.  But, in the first instance, most law firms should avoid the technology question altogether, instead building an intake roadmap out on paper.  Mapping out preferred lead interactions in a very granular way is the first step to reducing the time leads need to spend navigating your process, and increasing the number of clients you actually get.

Then, instead of falling victim to statistics, you can start to use them to your advantage, by aggregating and analyzing data about your law firm leads, so you can do a better job bringing them in, and taking on more of the clients you want.

January 18, 2023: Free Ride: What Are You Trying to Accomplish with Your Initial Consultations?

Law firms often offer initial consultations, because that’s what law firms do.  But, thinking a little more deeply about the purpose for your initial consultations makes some sense.

There is still a lot of debate in legal over whether you should be offering free or paid consultations.  And, it’s a legitimate question.  But, it’s also a question that depends on your purpose for providing consultations in the first place.

If you want your consultations to be a separate, additional revenue stream -- then, of course, you charge as much as you can, without much regard for conversion.  If you want to get access to as many potential clients as you can, and are just seeking a way to vet them more effectively – then, yes: you probably reduce your charges, and take more calls.  Or, set up free consultations.  Many startup law firms, for example, will not charge for consults, in part, because new attorneys want to talk to as many people as possible, to build their networks, and their email lists.

So, if you’re not sure about what to do with initial consultations, and you’re afraid that you might be wasting your time, consider what you ultimately want out of those conversations.

Then, create your system around your end goals.

January 12, 2023: Start Fresh: A Legacy System is the Recycling Bin for All Your Old Business Processes

Most law firms need to update their technology, and many are aware of it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they will actually update their technology.  A primary reason for the reluctance is simple: data transfers suck.  For example, if you’re thinking of replacing your case management software, one of the main reasons you would hold off is because the data migration seems costly, and time-consuming.  That’s because it is.

But, what if you just kept your existing system, until it aged out?  That may sound crazy, but hear me out:

If you’re shifting from a premise-based system to a cloud-based system, you’re not actually paying anything any longer for the premise-based system, because it’s not charged on a subscription model, like cloud software is.  So, pick a date for when you’ll adopt your new cloud-based system, and start adding all new clients into that software from that date forward.  Sure, you’ll be running two system (and performing a conflict check across both systems for a time), but eventually that old system will age out – and, those closed cases will get archived.  For some law firms, opting to keep a legacy system around, until its usefulness disappears, while onboarding a new system, is less problematic than the prospect of converting data into a new system – especially when you don’t have to pay for the old system. 

So, to migrate or not to migrate?  That is the question.  But, when it comes down it: Neither approach is wrong.

However, if you can’t seem to overcome the daunting process surrounding a data conversion: you have my permission to skip it.

January 6, 2023: Processing Speed: How Much of Your Law Practice Is Mapped Out?

As is clear by now, more efficient law firms make more money than inefficient ones.  The more work you can get through, the more money you make.  Of course, efficiency does not build up out of thin air: you need to work for it.

And, the best step to take, in terms of building law firm efficiency, is to map out everything you do.  Like, literally everything.  Each process you run should be attached to specific workflows = aggregated tasks lists.  This ensures that each case is moving forward in a specific way; and, that’s a great hedge against malpractice, because it decreases the potential to miss deadlines – even self-imposed ones.  It also makes for happier clients, because you (and your staff) are likely to be more on top of things, more communicative, and also able to provide faster, better results.

It may be daunting to think of mapping out every process in your law firm.  So, don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Look at specific practice areas, and begin to build out new processes one-by-one.

How is your intake process looking?  What about workflows for specific case types?  What happens when you close a case?  How do you stay in touch with former clients?

Pick one, start there – and get to building the processes that will increase your revenue, down the line – maybe sooner than you think.