Case studies written in 2015 for Clio as part of what would be a new series of customer case studies to be used to help other lawyers identify a use scenario for their firms.
Best Practices: Jennifer Laviano
Jennifer Laviano is a Connecticut-based attorney with a very unique practice. Her clients are families with special needs children and Jennifer’s firm helps them with the legal issues surrounding their children’s education. The firm consists of four lawyers, two non-attorney advocates, an office manager, a team of assistants, and an off-site bookkeeper. Together, they use Clio to help them work as a virtual team to serve the needs of the firm’s clients, as well as managing daily operations.
Given their area of practice, Jennifer’s firm is not dealing with just any ordinary legal matter. Anyone who is a parent will agree that their children are the most important things in their life. Raising a special needs child comes with many challenges and clients seek the firm’s counsel to forge solutions that have a long-term effect.
The Challenge
For Jennifer and the attorneys in her firm, there are three vital challenges to meeting their clients’ needs: cost efficiency, client communication, and attorney availability. Fortunately, they are able to meet all of these challenges using Clio as their practice management platform.
Prior to signing up for Clio, the firm did not use a comprehensive practice management system. They did use tools like Google calendar and QuickBooks, but knew that as the firm was growing, they needed a more robust solution.
Driven by a need for greater organization of records, files, and information, as well as the desire to manage a virtual firm with lawyers spread across the state, Jennifer and her team researched a number of solutions. That included trials and interviews with each provider. Intuitive, cloud-based, and offering a client portal, they ultimately decided that Clio was the right fit for the firm. And they haven’t looked back!
Cost Reduction
About seven years ago, Jennifer committed to reducing her overhead costs by establishing a virtual law practice and by going paperless. When she switched to Clio a few years later, that became even easier.
“The ability to scan all of the documents into Clio and the document management system has been phenomenal,” says Jennifer. “We’ve been able to use less paper and thanks to Clio, I can get everything I need from just my laptop and a wifi connection.”
When you consider that some files have up to six bankers boxes worth of paper documents, the ability to scan and save them digitally greatly reduces the cost of printing, copying, and storage. That savings ultimately gets passed along to the clients.
And for families of special needs children, the balance of your child’s care expenses and their legal rights is a real concern. Jennifer’s firm uses Clio’s cost-saving advantages to help them strike a perfect balance.
Client Communications
In addition to saving on paper and related costs, scanning and saving all documents into Clio builds a strong and secure communications link between the firm and its clients. Using Clio Connect, clients can access their files anytime they need them and keep in constant communication with their lawyer.
“We can invite a client to look at their files through the client portal. Doing that saves both time and money because they can access the file immediately through any device without us having to send a physical document,” adds Jennifer. “It has also been a great value to clients, giving them access to their child’s records at any time throughout their education.”
In fact, Jennifer notes that the client portal has been a bit of a surprise value-add for her firm’s clients. She had expected that it would be more of a back-end benefit to the lawyers and assistants inside the firm. Instead, it has become great tool for client communications, allowing the clients to keep track of their matters, communicate with the team, and stay informed of any and all developments.
Attorney Accessibility
Of course, another significant benefit of using Clio is the anywhere, anytime accessibility it allows by virtue of being cloud-based. Jennifer’s law office is no exception here. As a virtual law firm, they benefit tremendously from this feature. While Jennifer runs her practice from her home, all of the other lawyers in the firm practice in other parts of the state. This helps reduce office space costs, but it also enables the firm to cover the entire state.
Using Clio, everyone in the firm can collaborate on matters, track time, and keep calendars up to date. They can also arrange to best meet the demands of their clients, especially in emergency situations or scenarios that require a fast turnaround time.
And they never let anything like a snow day get in the way of offering exceptional service. If you’ve ever experienced a New England winter, you’ll understand the pain and shoveling that a few billion of flakes of snow can inflict. But that won’t stop Jennifer’s firm from delivering on their promise of client service excellence.
The Case for Clio
Jennifer’s clients are truly special cases. Dealing with children with autism, dyslexia, learning disabilities, and other related issues is a concern for both the school system and parents. The legal rights of these children and their education is fundamental to their future. Jennifer’s firm helps set them on the right path. And Clio helps set her firm on a similar path: efficiency, communications, and accessibility are all hallmarks of the firm’s practice, boosted by having Clio as their practice management platform.
“Our experience with Clio has been excellent,” Jennifer concludes. “Not only has Clio provided great value in streamlining our firm and helping us move to where law offices should be going in the future, but it has also enabled us to provide better client service and look toward their future as well.”
Best Practices: Nathan McCoy
Florida-based lawyer Nathan McCoy has always had an appreciation for the value technology and practice management tools have in getting organized and staying in touch with clients. However, that wasn’t necessarily something fully embraced at some of the firms where he began his legal career. So a few years ago, Nathan and fellow lawyer Gary Wilson set out to create their own labor and employment firm.
Committed to Nathan’s belief in the benefits of practice management solutions, they started off with Clio and were quick to see results. Starting out in 2012, they’ve since doubled the number of lawyers working in the firm, have added a crew of support staff, and continue to expand their book of work.
Wilson McCoy is unique in that the firm represents both businesses and employees with their issues. They also offer their services on a flat fee basis, striving to keep client costs down and budgets in order. For them, using Clio has meant they can achieve two needs vital to any firm’s success: organization and communications.
Valuing Practice Management
Nathan had such a strong belief in using technology and practice management tools because he saw it as a way to stay organized and keep clients informed of their matters. Ultimately, that’s the best service a lawyer can provide. Working in firms that either eschewed such tools or used out-of-date solutions was a concern for Nathan and would eventually inspire him to set out on his own.
As a firm practicing employment law, Wilson McCoy helps companies sustain their business and individuals protect their livelihoods. Dealing with hirings, firings, and other employment matters requires everyone in the firm to be organized and in frequent communications with clients. That’s exactly why they turned to Clio.
Organized Labor
Labor and employment matters can be very complex for the attorney and very stressful for the client. Clients need to trust that their legal representation is organized and keeping on top of everything. Clio allows the lawyers in Nathan’s firm to do just that. It also helps them all stay on the same page and work effectively as a team.
Nathan’s area of practice involves a lot of documents, files, and correspondence. Clio’s document management system is favorite feature for him: “I really love the new folder option. It lets us upload documents into subfolders, making them easier to retrieve when we need them.”
Of course, the most difficult thing for any lawyer to manage is time. Fortunately, Clio helps them do that with ease. With an organized system, fluid communications, and ready accessibility, everyone in the firm is better enabled to spend more time on actual legal work and less time on administrative tasks or calling clients to update them on where matters stand.
Client Communications
Technology has changed the way people communicate. They expect it to be instant and are looking to be informed and involved. This is also true for lawyers and their clients and especially true for clients of Wilson McCoy. Using Clio Connect, a private portal that enables secure two way communications, has helped them exceed this expectation.
“I believe that clients deserve access to their information 24/7 and that’s one of the areas where Clio has helped us,” says Nathan. “People can log in through Clio Connect at any time and stay aware of what is going on.”
This helps eliminate a barrage of phone calls and relieves the anguish clients feel when dealing with a legal matter. They can log in to the system at their convenience, check on their matters, see what has been done, and affirm that the wheels of justice are in motion. Certainly, for a client dealing with a sensitive employment issue, it is reassuring to stay informed and be able to better plan for their future.
Competitive Advantage
Of course, once a firm builds a reputation of being organized in how they manage matters and how they communicate and work with clients, something pretty incredible happens—business starts to grow exponentially! Using Clio has allowed Nathan’s firm to better manage their practice and that means they can take on even more work.
“No two attorneys by themselves with a limited book of business should be able to compete as we have,” Nathan adds. “But the features and efficiencies inherent with Clio has allowed us to compete with larger, more established firms.”
In fact, if you visit Wilson McCoy’s website, they proudly feature Clio as a service and a benefit to their clients. Using Clio Connect, the firm’s clients have 24/7 access to their files and their matters, they can receive updates and messages about their case, and they can see what the firm’s lawyers are doing or have done to help them resolve their issue. That leads to happy clients, and happy clients are essential to growing a firm’s business.
The Case for Clio
Nathan’s clients are not just well-represented; they are also well-informed and well-connected. That’s because Nathan and his firm had the foresight to invest in practice management tools that enabled them to provide outstanding client service. Indeed, Clio keeps them on top of their practice so they can be on top of their game when it comes to tackling the difficult matters their clients face.
“We wanted to be paperless, provide clients with 24/7 access to their files, and not be tied to our office desks in order to complete case work,” concludes Nathan. “Clio made this a reality, and from the outset our firm was at an immediate competitive advantage.”
When you consider that Wilson McCoy has doubled in lawyer count since they started out three years ago (plus staff members), it is evident that Nathan was right about technology and practice management all along.
Tim Travis 