or many law firms, having a cloud-based solution integrated into their operations was considered unnecessary; a distraction to the traditional way law firms was supposed to be managed and run. Then COVID-19 happened.
As law firms continue to adapt to working from home, video conference hearings, and managing a team remotely, many law firms are starting to look for solutions that can help not just with doing things like they did when they were back in the office, but do them better and more efficiently.
Terry Dohrmann from Litify joined us for a conversation about software that not only empowers law firms to work from anywhere but makes them smarter through data and analytics that their competition is not even thinking of.
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Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] In March of 2020, many law firms had to hold all their operations and rethink entirely the way they were running their business. Others just had to stop going to the office and instead work from home. And the factor that determined which category a law firm belonged to was the cloud. I’m Liel Levi, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is In Camera podcast, a legal marketing podcast recorded on the Cloud.
Liel: [00:00:56] Welcome to In Camera Podcast, private legal conversations. Grace, how are you today? It’s great to see you again.
Grace: [00:01:02] Great to see you, too, Liel. How are you?
Liel: [00:01:04] I’m doing great, Grace. Thank you very much for asking, still Okay. Under the impression that I haven’t yet caught COVID, so you know, that’s always a winning feeling. But Grace, it’s dangerous out there. I’m scared. I’m going to tell you, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m scared of what I’m hearing on the news and stuff. And as we were mentioning right a few weeks ago, like, you know, this no longer feels like we’re just adjusting for something temporary. Like, I think what’s settling pretty much now is the idea that this is here to stay and that a lot of what we’re doing now, a lot of those shifts and adaptations that we’ve had to implement into our working life and personal lives are not just kind of like temporary adjustments. They’re pretty much going to be the new norm. Right. And so with that being said, Grace, I think we have a very relevant conversation that ties very well into that. So why don’t you introduce our guest for this conversation?
Grace: [00:02:00] So we have a fantastic guest for everyone today. We are thrilled to introduce Terry Dorman for a conversation on the rise of law practice management software. Terry is the chief revenue officer at Litify, which is a platform whose mission is to transform the legal industry through the use of trusted, intelligent, user-friendly software. Terry has been with Litify since 2016, and he is one of the founding executives. Prior to that, he held numerous positions within Salesforce to learn more about Litify, you can visit Litify dot com. Terry, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to In Camera podcast.
Terry: [00:02:37] Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. This is a very relevant topic. And that’s a great lead-in by both you and what you’re seeing out there and sort of what we’re experiencing as a business. So I appreciate you having me on. Thanks.
Liel: [00:02:48] Of course Terry, it’s our pleasure. So let’s start with where is this podcast finding you?
Terry: [00:02:54] I am currently in northern New Jersey, my home. And I’ve been here for a bit now. And what’s interesting is that early on, you know, this was sort of a hotbed. And now it’s sort of spread to other parts of the country. But we were used to, I guess, dealing with, you know, the new reality or the new norm, as people are saying, for a while now. But thankfully, much like yourselves, I’m safe. I’m good. And, you know, we’re just trying to keep the spirit alive here.
Liel: [00:03:21] Excellent. That’s all-important and thanks for sharing. So, Terry, for those who have not yet heard of Litify, right. Grace just kind of shared there the mission. So help us understand a little bit better. What does it mean by trusted, intelligent, user-friendly software for law firms?
Terry: [00:03:39] That’s a great question. So our mission really is to take the best technology that’s available and sort of democratize it in a sense. And what I mean by that is, you know, legal as an industry, you know, I think you’ll find openly admit, you know, lawyers and legal professionals that don’t necessarily adopt the best technology in the fastest way, be it…
Liel: [00:04:03] Slowest by far.
Terry: [00:04:05] Yeah, right. Maybe dentists are the only ones behind them. And you think about in the context of who still uses the fax machine. You know, doctors, dentists, and some lawyers. But we hear that quite a bit.
Grace: [00:04:16] Good, point.
Terry: [00:04:17] Our plan really is you know, can we take, you know, these technologies that are being used in other industries and bring them into legal and empower anybody at a law firm or an in-house counsel or really any legal professional to work better, to be more collaborative, to have automation in their day, leverage some of these tools so that they can, you know, ultimately provide a better experience for their client and, you know, be more efficient as a business. So how do we do that? You know, we leverage you know, you mentioned in my bio salesforce as a background. So we’ve built the Litify platform on top of Salesforce, you know, which is offers a lot of that just inherently just, you know, the security, the mobility, the ability to leverage other systems and tie them together via the salesforce. I started getting a bit too technical there, guys. I apologize for the initial part of our conversation. But yeah, so you can leverage a platform, which is an interesting concept for a lot of legal professionals. They haven’t really thought about it in that context before. They’ve been more used to sort of buying at point solution for a particular need. And so they need something. They buy software for that. They need something else. They buy software for that. And then they have a heck of a time trying to integrate those softwares together. So our approach is, no, let’s move you onto a platform where you can much like your iPhone, where you can have one place where, you know, you can do a lot of your work. And as your business needs change and things evolve, you can evolve with it. Versus, again, trying to kind of patch together these different softwares over time. Yeah.
Liel: [00:05:59] So, Terry, I’m hearing here, as you said, a lot. Right. So a platform that can integrate and can help you and even automate some of the daily tasks. Right. So I think let’s start from something very, very basic. Cloud-based. Right. So the platform is cloud-based. And I think maybe four or five months ago, some law firms still didn’t know what did it mean to actually have your law firm in the cloud. I think now many learn the hard way that it’s actually a necessity because that’s basically the only way that you’re actually going to be able to work remotely without compromising on efficiency and really being able to do an effective job of running your law firm.
Liel: [00:06:39] Right. So to start off that, that’s one of the things that Litify does. It gives you that cloud, centralized access to everything. Right. So. This is a web-based application.
Terry: [00:06:50] Correct. And it’s funny, I was talking to in a different context, not I’ve been in a business context. I was talking to a lawyer who was a friend of a friend the other day, and he just asked, how do I buy me some cloud? Like, he didn’t really understand the concept. And he was I keep hearing cloud. What the heck does that mean? Cloud..
Grace: [00:07:07] I have heard that.
Terry: [00:07:09] Yeah, I need some cloud. And I just had to explain to as listen, it’s not, it’s a very simple concept. Versus having to own the equipment and have the expertise to run that equipment as part of your staff. You don’t need servers. You don’t need the, you know, the actual premise-based items that you need to manage and upgrade and control and be worried about if there is, God forbid, a fire or whatever. This is all based somewhere else. There’s data centers that people have built and managed and have security and all these components to it. And you buy it like a subscription. You just pay a subscription fee based on the number of people that you have and the access to what types of functionality and information that you need.
Terry: [00:07:56] And this is a much cleaner, easier, low maintenance way to manage your business. So it’s not necessarily that the cloud is a thing. It’s more just a method of working and operationalizing your business without having to worry about all those real tactical things around it. So a basic explanation like that, to someone who’s not familiar with it, then, you know, a light bulb goes off and they go, oh, OK, I get it. So it’s just a lot easier for me to manage. Is it? Exactly. That’s what this is. So, yeah. So we built from the beginning, you know, all of our services to be Web-based, available from any browser of any device, frankly. So be it your phone, your laptop, whatever computer you’re at. You want to have the ability to access, you know, these systems and this information that will really make you, you and your staff efficient. So those types of explanations, that education process for a lot of folks is very helpful for them to conceptualize what this all means.
Liel: [00:08:49] Yeah, and actually, we were very curious to hear a little bit as to, you know, just like this conversation that you said you had recently. How have you from where you are being at the front of a cloud-based solution for law firms, how these last four or five months have been for you? Right. Like since these whole COVID-19 situation came down and was like, how was the transition being and how have you experienced this journey with some law firms that I can imagine that at some point, maybe in early March or mid-March, your phone must have started ringing with people saying, hey, like, can you help?
Terry: [00:09:29] Yeah.
Liel: [00:09:30] Can we help you? We cannot go to the office. We need to handle cases. What can we do? Can you actually do something for us? Has that been the case?
Terry: [00:09:39] Yes. Yes, that’s an understatement. It really has been the case. We, you know, like everybody in mid-March, you know, we’re all human beings, Litify like any business. We all had a little bit of a freakout moment or are like, OK, what does this really mean for society? You know, the heck with law firms or Litify or whatever, like how do we react to this? So I think everybody initially was, you know, a little bit tentative to see how they’re going to weather this storm. Frankly, you know, being a cloud-based solution for law firms who we, you know, we already covered; we’re not necessarily the best from a technology standpoint. I knew the long-term prospects for us would be very good. One of the guests that we had on our own, Liticast, you know, a podcast much like this. Peter Coffey is his name. He’s a futurist that works for Salesforce. I had him on and he coined it very properly, said it’s the reckoning that’s that law firms did not want. But it’s frankly one that they needed because it was really such a dramatic societal event that got everybody thinking about how do we leverage technology to still get done, things that need to get done and how do we sort of not lose the personal touch and the real sort of functional items. Use, you know, Web-based technology and things that you can do remotely to do that. So, you know, the last four months have been very busy for us. We’ve, you know, really had to react to a lot of firms reaching out and saying, you know, what does this even mean? How do I, how can I get moved quickly to something that will help me continue servicing my clients, taking on new cases, managing my inventory, collaborating amongst our teammates? How do I do it? You know? And much of what we did early on, frankly, was not necessarily selling Litify. It was more just sort of an education process to say, OK, here’s the reality. Here’s what you’re faced with and this is what you need to prepare for. And a lot of our advice wasn’t really even around practice management so much. It was more, is your team set up? You know, from a pure equipment perspective, does everybody have secure access into whatever systems you have right now. What are you doing for phone calls? Are you on an IP based phone system? You know, how can you actually communicate with your clients? Is texting something that you do right now with your client? So we had a lot of discussions initially just to try to help people just get on their feet, because there you know, there was a, like I said, sort of a freak-out moment for everybody. We became very busy. We pivoted on a couple of things from a product perspective. An example. We had a product called UpLink that was in production, which was a video service that you could actually click on a link. If you’re talking to someone, one of your clients or one of your partners or an insurance agent, whatever it is. And you can click on a link and have a video conference right from within Litify.
Terry: [00:12:30] That was very powerful because, you know, a lot of firms just didn’t have the ability to do that. So that was something that we pivoted on to give our customers the ability to have those conversations and have that still at personal touch, that face to face type of communication with clients that they were fearful that they were going to lose. So, yeah, it’s been very busy. This forced reckoning we call it, has really prompted everybody to take a good, hard look at the way they do business, the way they communicate, what matters to them from a data collection standpoint. Like what? You know, what information do they really need to make intelligent decisions? So it’s been, you know, very busy on a number of fronts for our clients and us.
Grace: [00:13:13] No, that makes perfect sense. Actually, I was. I don’t know if you know, but I’m actually the CEOO for persist Communications. And we were in the middle of an integration with Litify and one of your clients. And this actually started probably right around the same time as COVID. And that was the first thing that everyone came to us that we had as current clients for persist. And they asked us the same questions. You know, how can we do this? Do I have the equipment necessary? You know, do I have my security in place? Do I have this? Do I have that? So exactly to your point, I mean, that was I think, that for the first two, three months and even now it was mostly education. Right. Trying to teach them what the cloud means, what it means to go fully remote, or to take the components that you need. What do you need to be remote? What don’t you? Right. So that sort of leads me to my next question that I think is perfect timing for this and it’s Can you share with us why you believe law firms need to be able to have quick and granular access to their data? And how can that lead to better decision-making?
Terry: [00:14:23] That’s a great question. And it’s funny; I’ve opened a lot of meetings. I’ll go into a, you know, a very well established law firm, you know, with mahogany wood, you know, from floor to ceiling and big windows. Well, this is back when we actually visited clients. But, you know, maybe in a virtual sense now and I’ll say, you know, hey, you guys are probably selling to lawyers now with Litify for four years. And prior to my career, some of the most brilliant people you’ll meet, some of, you know, amazing people that care for their clients, incredible. Their knowledge of the law is amazing. You know, above, all these superlatives, but some of the worst businesspeople you’ve ever met in your entire life. And I get a laugh almost every single time because they have enough self-awareness to be like, you know what, you’re right, because they traditionally and I had a lawyer laid off me once. He was like, you know, you’re in school and you think I’m really good at English. I’m really good at history. I’m really good at politics. I really suck at math. So they think to themselves, I’ll be a lawyer, because in that way I can be, you know, a way where I could serve as clients and do some good for society and make a good living, but don’t necessarily need to deal with spreadsheets and math and data and things like that.
Terry: [00:15:33] And the reality is that you can’t avoid that. You just cannot avoid it, particularly now in the age of big data and understanding trends and understanding, you know, the feedback from your clients and trying to go to where the puck is going, whatever like Wayne Gretzky line is, you know, skate to where the puck is going. You. Cannot do that without access to information and without kind of logging information about your interactions with clients, about financials, about, you know, task management. You have to have that piece of your business in place in order to make very intelligent decisions as to where do you invest. What parts of my firm are actually working? Who is working? Who’s not? What type of client experience is occurring right now. You don’t, if you don’t have that information available to you. And frankly, as we as a society become way more used to having access available at the drop of a dime, if you don’t have that speed and ability to react quickly, and again, service your client or, you know, work with another vendor or whatever it may be. But if that scenario is if you don’t have that access and be able to speak from an intelligent position, it should be a pure and competitive thing. You’re gonna get left in the dust. You’re going to have another firm that’s going to have that ability to do that. That’s thinking about these things in a much more progressive way. And to use a completely overused term, the uberification of business is occurring. So, you know, something available on your phone that can give you access to something and that experience is much better. Over time, the firms that have that are going to win out against the firms that don’t. And they just rely. And believe me, you can go a long way just being just with good lawyering and good ability to get a good result for your client. You certainly can do very well as an attorney nowadays, with just that ability, but that extra gear, so to speak, of being able to speak intelligently and getting to use your grace. The granular level of data is a huge competitive differentiator for any firm that’s taking on that type of approach.
Grace: [00:17:37] Yeah, I find it’s difficult for attorneys to work on the business of law rather than work in legal. Right. So…
Terry: [00:17:44] 100 percent.
Grace: [00:17:45] Yeah. And I’ve noticed that. And, you know, particularly with everyone basically gone remote. Right. I mean, they’ve had to. I mean, where you’re located, where I’m located, I’m in Florida and I know Liel’s in Texas. So the three of us are actually in some of the probably biggest hot spots in the United States right now. So what do you think about with everything going on? How about managing a team remotely? What are the kinds of solutions available for law, for managers to understand what their teams are doing? How can they support them? You know, tracking, but also helping. You know, like you were talking about productivity and, you know, what is working, what isn’t. How do you help them?
Terry: [00:18:25] Yeah, we actually lean on our own experience quite a bit, frankly. Meaning the Litify as a business being a tech business and built, you know, on the cloud ourselves. It lent itself to switching to a full remote scenario. We had an office we have an office in Brooklyn and an office in New Orleans. But as soon as it hit, we just made it, you know, everybody to work remote. Now we’re getting back to as optional if folks want to go back to the office. We know we have. We just notify H.R. We’re going to be there as we do the proper distancing and such. But, you know, the advice that we give our clients is let’s look at your overall tech stack and let’s understand, you know, how do you actually do that communication collaboration today? And frankly, a lot of firms, it was really just email and, you know, phone calls and yellow legal pads. And we said, OK, well, you’re not going to get the best sense of of real time data on all the things we just talked about, what’s working, what’s not, and all that stuff, and collaboration. So, you know, we will talk to clients and say, are you using Zoom? Are using meetings? Are using some type of tool that you can have a videoconference with, you know, amongst yourselves. Because that does add that personal element of seeing people’s faces. You know, we are human beings. We want to have an interaction with someone. We’re not just strictly on the phone or over email. So, you know, we advise in that regard. Litify as a business, we use slack to do a lot of our real-time communication. There are other tools that are available along those lines in terms of, you know, messaging and tracking of conversations.
Terry: [00:19:58] So we suggest something along those lines to bring that into a law firm again. A lot of times, that’s a new concept for them. They don’t necessarily do that. But we’ll also tell them, like, OK, if you’re talking about email, you would have to literally go pour through, you know, some type of Internet Explorer search drama to try to get back to something that was communicated to months ago on a topic. I mean, you can spend all day trying to find information like that, that’s out there. So, you know, we talk about that communication methodology. We talk about some of the, you know, the ways that the data that they’re tracking today and what makes sense for them to track moving forward. And then we also ask from a security perspective, what security measures do you have in place if you have people that are VPNing in or you have people, you know, random users and you’re communicating with clients? Is that being captured? If you’re having a text conversation with your client, does that live anywhere, or is it just on your phone? So we try to kind of prompt these types of discussions that lend themselves to, OK. I need to do a good hard reset on what I have from a technical perspective in my firm. And then that’s the one piece of it. The other piece is really the behavioral component. Because, again, many people are used to, you know, the five most dangerous words in business. We’ve always done it this way. And we really try to get them to look at that statement and say, is that the best way to do things?
Terry: [00:21:18] You know, can we use, again, this forced reckoning of COVID to look at the methodology you guys use? And in some of those workflows that are in place. Is there an approval processes? We get them thinking from a behavior standpoint, what is working today? What is not? What could use a reset? I mean, we’ve had many, many firms that came to us and say, you know what, let’s make lemonade out of lemons here, COVID is terrible. It’s horrible. But it will actually allow us to kind of take a step back and understand how we’re working as a firm. And then, of course, you know, we’ll pull in our team members that are very familiar with this and try to give them guidance on best practices and all the things they should be doing.
Liel: [00:21:53] Well, thank you so much for sharing that and, Terry, I really appreciate the fact that you are talking there about different methods of communication that could be implemented. Right. Like, it no longer has to be just telephone doesn’t necessarily have to be only email and obviously the personal meetings, right now, it’s pretty much not an option for most law firms. And so you’re talking about video and how video can still remain a very, very powerful way to make interactions personal. Your platform actually powers the option of having videoconferences, which is great.
Liel: [00:22:33] Now, what tips do you have with being able to have a good videoconference with a client? Because, you know, we all assume it’s just a webcam. Turn it on. Be yourself there in front of it and talk to your client right on the other end. But is that really it? Is there is aren’t there more considerations that should be had? Are there any best practices that you can share with people who do this well, and what are the things that you would assume people will know when taken to consideration? We’re entering on a conference call, but haven’t necessarily yet put into practice.
Terry: [00:23:11] Yeah, I think one of the recurring themes that comes up and even during, again, our own Liticast that we’ve done this, it’s just and it’s hard to kind of describe, but it’s a level of tolerance. I think that everybody has to sort of adopt. And we really encourage people, and particularly in law and legal, I think is a very sort of suit and tie buttoned up approach that is always been adhered to. And that’s great. But the reality is, when we’re from our homes and, you know, we’ve all seen the videos of a little kid walking into the room or the dog jumping up on somebody’s lap and things like that. So we really encourage people just to embrace that. And I think one of the lasting things, I’m hoping that one of the lasting things that comes out of COVID, is at scenarios like that where we’re all human beings, we have families, we have drama, whatever it is, we have interruptions. One of my own, we did a little cast the other day and the doorbell rang and my dog went bananas right in the middle of the webcast. And I joked about it. That was a case in point. There it is. You know, then goes, you know, things go sideways. So we really try to encourage people to, you know, if you’re going to try to maintain that human connection, just accept the fact that we are humans and that things like this do happen.
Terry: [00:24:20] And you can still have a productive professional experience on this, but also have that level of tolerance that I mentioned, you know, where things are gonna happen and it’s OK. The other thing I think to think about is, you know, to have, like, any meeting you would have like let’s have a bit of an agenda. Let’s, you know, let’s if we riff off of that agenda and we go into more of a personal discussion, great. Let’s allow for a minute or two on that. But, you know, because we see each other and because we’re interacting in a different way, let’s still have sort of a these are the five things we need to accomplish on this call and let’s try to get through them. And if, again, if we go off another direction, let’s manage that as best we can, but be somewhat systematic about, you know, what we do. What are the things we’re working on now in our own videoconference component uplink is actually taking a transcript from the calls and being able to call for data in that. So you could do that manually. Now, like you, there’s a couple of tools that are out there. Course.ai is one thing we use where it actually pulls from these conversations, consistent themes. In our scenario internally, we look at it from a competitive standpoint. And these calls competitors were mentioned in these calls. And we had a really long monologue, which I’m guilty of sometimes, too. But you don’t want a customer talking, you want question and answer. There’s some tools you can actually utilize that’ll show, you know, sort of how effective these types of video conferences are being. And again, you know, we’re working on a transcript component where w can go in and actually mine that data. For example, in a law firm, if you’re looking for a class action case where inconsistently in personal injury, for example, you know, a Volvo. No offense to Volvo, just as an example, keeps coming up as a consistent part of some accidents. And I’m using a very obscure example. But the point being, you know, you can actually start pulling data from these types of interactions that’ll help you in your business and kind of where you’re going moving forward. So I think it’s sort of a tactical, you know, or the philosophical, if you will, being tolerant, the tactical staying on point with what you’re looking to accomplish. And that’s sort of the post video approach, which is taking some of that data and some of those interactions and trying to figure out how you can improve your business, how you can potentially, you know, invest in the right areas, et cetera, et cetera, coming out of those costs.
Liel: [00:26:45] Totally, 100 percent. And I think also kind of understanding what calls for an actual like what would be more productively conducted over a videoconference. And what should be dealt with, as you said, through Slack or through another messaging app or maybe e-mail in some cases. Right. And so kind of like being able to understand, because I think by now most of people have understood that you don’t need to jump into a conference calling Zoom for every single internal meeting that you need to have, particularly with your team. Right. That can be very unproductive in like. Let’s be honest. Annoying.
Terry: [00:27:18] Exhausting.
Liel: [00:27:21] Exactly. But there are certainly some conversations that need to have. And sometimes they’re the less transactional conversations. Right. Are the ones where you actually do just want to. And I’m talking now from the internal team standpoint. Right. When you’re actually trying to complement what’s missing right now. From a lot of our teams is the human connection. That sense of belonging and that potentially kind of like the X Factor that makes businesses sometimes be what they are and thrive. Which is just being part of the team and having that proximity to your co-workers, which you may not have now.
Liel: [00:27:55] And so I’m going to, this is because we’re going to talk about, down the road in this conversation we’re going to talk about whether we can really kind of like with all the technology we have right now, replace our physical locations and just go remotely and can we leave on that? But before we get there, I want us to talk a little bit about automation, which you brought it up at the beginning. Right. We’re going to assume that automation actually just good for the business because it makes things easy. But I’m more interested in hearing as to how the mission can actually improve the client experience? Because people do not know. But when you automating, when you’re putting a machine to do your thing, you’re not gonna be you know, you’re taking away. You’re taking away. Are we really taking away with automation or can we actually deliver an even better experience using it? So can you fill in there a little bit? Maybe give us an example or two?
Terry: [00:28:47] Sure, sure. Yeah, that’s it’s a great question. And it’s I think it’s a debate that will rage on forever, really, because you don’t want to remove that personal experience from, you know, from client-lawyer interactions we use as an example, because that personal touch and that ability, the human element, like we’ve been talking about, is very important. But I’ll give you a very specific example. And this was actually raised up to us through a few of our clients who talked about, you know, when implementing Litify, one of the first things they were gonna do was to automate some communication components to deliver a better customer experience. So in the example, I’ll give you two examples. One, one of our bankruptcy attorneys said that they needed to win one of the, there’s a hearing that it has to occur with any bankruptcy proceeding. And what they were having a real difficult time was getting a client to show up for this hearing so they would email the client, they would call them leave a voicemail, they would have some type of interaction where they would try to get this client to this hearing 403a or so. I forget the number, but it’s a very specific thing that the client needs to be there for. So they were having like a 20 percent attendance rate, something like that, with the clients actually showing up now. They were the attorneys of record. So it didn’t necessarily completely destroy the process, but it was a real problem for them.
Terry: [00:30:12] What they did was they, based on the proceeding getting to the matter, if you will, getting to a certain stage within Litify, it would kick off an automated task that would send a text message to the client saying as a reminder that e-mail had already gone out, a calendar invite, already gone out. You know, somebody from the firm had already called. But what it did is it created a text message to go out from within the system at three days before and then the day before saying reminder tomorrow at X, Y, Z, address at X, Y, Z time, you’re meeting with Judge X, Y, Z, and be sure you had the following information with you. It went from 20 percent to 97 percent in a matter of 60 days just from texting. So this is just sort of behavioral component with us. I mean, I know myself. I got a text from my kids. I’m reacting that to that a lot faster than I am. An e-mail from some random thing, which I may very well delete, but I don’t really look at it closely so that in that scenario, the automation actually created a better client experience because I’m making it better for our proceedings and for you to get the best out of this, which is kind of a crappy scenario, bankruptcy. Let’s make it the best that we can by staying on point, getting the respect of the judges, getting respect of the creditors by not, not showing up, which, you know, really kind of puts a crimp in the whole process.
Terry: [00:31:28] So that’s one. The other one we hear from a lot of our personal injury attorneys is, you know, treating. Are you getting treatment? Is there some, you know, and you’re getting that note from your attorney saying, are you treating OK, great reminder. There’s a deposition that’s coming up X, Y, Z date. And this is all automated. This is not somebody physically going into the system and saying I need help. You know, well, I need to do it. Now, there might be a reminder for someone at the firm to reach out to a client, which is another kind of automation. But I’m talking about pure automation where because the case has advanced to this status, the status change from this, you know, X to Y. Boom. These three things are prompted. We create a document. We create an actual, you know, whatever it may be. A motion is being filed, a copy that goes out to the client. Hey, please look at this. Read this. Make sure this is all, you know, squaring away with what your expectations are. And via DocuSign, you could send this back to us with an initial that says OK, I understand what’s going on. OK, the next day a text message goes out. It says, are you still treating? Have you met with Dr So-and-so. Now again you put all that information in, in a very sort of automated way in the beginning. But now throughout the entire process, the client is getting that interaction now. Yes, some of it is coming from the machine, but the client doesn’t necessarily know that or really care, frankly. They just know that there is this consistent level of communication that’s occurring between the law firm and themselves. So at the end of it, their experience has been a positive one, because overwhelmingly the biggest complaint that lawyers get about their firm, about their personal reaction, is that they’re just not communicative enough. There’s not enough interaction going on between the firm and them so that gets a loop eliminated, basically, because now you’re having that consistent touch between the two organizations and be that email, text, phone, whatever it is, it’s all there. It’s seen and it’s tracked. So somebody at the firm can understand what that interaction looks like. So automation is not necessarily a dirty word. I think a lot of times lawyers fear that I’m going to be replaced by automation. Well know. No one’s ever gonna replace the ability to look at someone’s particular situation, understand from a legal perspective what the best path forward is and have that human touch to kind of shepherd that their client along the right way.
Terry: [00:33:43] That won’t be replaced. But can be replaced is, like I just said, reminders, documents, tasks, things that, you know, ordinarily you’d have to have a couple of paralegals kind of run this. Now, you don’t have to have necessarily had that piece. You have a piece of automated end in place.
Liel: [00:33:59] I totally agree with you. It’s basically just removing friction or some friction away from some of the more transactional aspects. I like to use the example of using Uber, right, to get somewhere or lift, because it’s really like the reason why it’s so good and so successful is one, not just because you get it on demand whenever you need it, but because just the whole process is frictionless. You, at no point have to actually interact with someone to actually get that car right. It’s basically you put up you send out a request, you get it to the car, you get where you have to leave, and then you just walk out, right? You don’t have to pay nothing. You don’t have to do anything else. And that’s just automation at its best. It’s completely frictionless. So I think it’s kind of like trying to adopt some methods that will just allow you to better serve your clients and at the same time do it seamlessly without them having to put much effort and neither you.
Liel: [00:34:59] Now, I do want to hear your thoughts as to whether law firms should integrate client portals. And if yes. How should client portals look alike for a law firm? What should be there?
Terry: [00:35:12] Yeah, that’s a great question, Liel. It’s funny. I’ve used this sort of anecdote a few times just to talk about the going back to beginning sort of the embracing technology from a legal perspective. And it’s a very interesting observation was when we started Litify in 2016. I would talk about client portals or communities in some capacity to interact with clients. And overwhelmingly, when I would bring this topic up with clients, they would go Oh No way. No, I don’t want it. That’s going to raise more questions than answers. We don’t want to expose ourselves. Oh, that’s not true. I get it. But no thanks. No thanks. You know, it comes up in almost every single call that we have now where clients are asking us, what do you guys have for a portal? How does that work? How can we sort of deflect, so to speak? Some of the, you know, some of that front end work that has to happen with my staff where they can automate, and they can get an update. Some of the stuff we were just talking about, some of that that automation of hey deposition has been taken. There’s a next thing that’s gonna happen. You know, you need to tell your client to reach out to you by X date like that stuff being put into a portal is very, very powerful. And just to see that sort of transition in four years where it went from the no-fly zone to we absolutely need to have it as part of our deployment, tells me that, you know, from a technology perspective, people are embracing. So the short answer to your question, Liel, specifically is that it really does matter. It really does sort of depend on the firm and what they’re looking to communicate. My personal opinion is sort of simple is better. Meaning if you have a very simplistic way to provide updates, to exchange documentation, to collaborate in a very basic level, I think that’s fine. I think that’s fine for now, for law firms, because you don’t want to entirely deflect away from that human experience we’ve been talking about. You want to use that as a way to sort of have that ongoing narrative of the case and be able to refer to it and exchange those types, that type of information. But once you start getting into very complex operations that are going to exist within that portal, two things happen. One, it becomes too complex for the client. They kind of get lost and two, it becomes expensive. So because a lot of times, certainly you start talking about really enhanced functionality. You’re talking about adding more into the product and then obviously, like for us, we’re getting a lot of the functionality from Salesforce right now. And you’re talking about more log ins, more data, more storage, more functionality. And it just becomes cost-prohibitive because we’ve had customers roll out to us and say, we want to look like this and we come back and we go, great. You can look like this, but it’s going to be another hundred thousand dollars a year. Oh, I hear there’s a reaction. I’m like, well, so we need to sort of reverse engineer this and talk about what really is required from a communication perspective. So Litify as a product. We have a few options along these lines and we can give them a very rudimentary community slash portal, just exchanging information, and then we could get more robust if the needs are really there. But yet people want it. They need it. Again, my advice is to keep it pretty simple to start and to roll it out. And this is something that from our product team has been wrestling with for as long as we’ve been around what exactly that looks like. And we’re actually looking at a few integrations now, actually about to integrate with a company called Case Status, which actually has a very interesting methodology and portal product that they use. And so we kind of go to a customer. We understand really what their needs are, and then we sort of guide them down the path. This is the true Litify/Salesforce product that they want to pull in, great. If it’s something they want to integrate with, that just provides that, you know what they need. Great. And then we just sort of solution it based on what their needs are.
Grace: [00:38:58] That makes perfect sense, honestly, because I feel like, you know, especially with client portals and information as a whole, I find that when we communicate to people as clients, it’s a lot easier for them to see things in a streamlined fashion. Right. And that’s how we all kind of like to see things. I know I’m thinking about even myself. And when I communicate with others, if I can condense whatever my communication is to a couple words or one sentence, as opposed to, you know, a bunch of different things that I need to go click, look at or whatever. I kind of feel the same way when it comes to a client portal. It should be a little more streamlined, a little more basic, and it’s just providing the updates. It doesn’t take away from the human interaction that still needs to happen. Human, being, you know, a personal interaction, not necessarily in-person with COVID and everything, but a human interaction. So that kind of leads me to my next question. So everyone’s going remote. Right. Some people have gone completely remote. Some have sort of a double situation. Like you said, some people are allowed back in the office in Florida. We’re actually we have, everyone has their own office and we’re maintaining social distancing. So we’re inside of the office here. And I know Liel stayed at home pretty much throughout this thing, right, Liel?
Liel: [00:40:18] That’s correct Grace. I don’t keep count anymore. From when was the last time that I’ve been out.
Grace: [00:40:24] So in that vein, Twitter went all completely remote. Right. They basically shut down everything. I’m sure you probably heard about it being in tech. What do you think about that? Do you feel that law firms, can they since they discovered the convenience of remote working and gotten, you know, in some cases much more productivity out of their people than they ever had before? In some cases not or figured out who’s good and who’s not. Yeah, like virtual mailrooms and things like that. Do you see law firms leaving their physical offices for good? And if yes, what kind of law firms?
Terry: [00:40:59] It’s a great question. Very good question. Very early on in our own Liticast series. One of our clients who was remote from its inception came on, meaning they never actually had offices, had people throughout Southern California and Arizona. And when they had to meet clients, they would basically meet them at like, you know, they would rent a space, like a we-work or something or a conference room. To meet folks, they would try to do it in bulk, like meet a few at once, but that their philosophy from the very beginning was we don’t need to have, you know, this very expensive space just to make ourselves feel better or feel important for clients. Now that’s the extreme that’s very far to the extreme and they were specific to I think they’re mostly personal injury, but maybe some medical malpractice type of stuff that they did. So it lent itself to, you know, not necessarily having to be in the face to face with their clients. And they set up a lot of their workflows in the way that they manage the business. Exactly for that, from a remote perspective. So they don’t necessarily need to walk down the hall, so to speak, with a piece of paper for someone else to look at. I think the need that the lasting legacy of this, I think the need for a lot of stuff that had been traditionally done in person is going to go away. And I’ll give you a specific example. The notary public is something that you have to do in person, that the notary has to be physically standing with you and doing this. Now, there’s a couple of e-notary type of solutions out there that I’ve had some fits and starts over time. But they’re really the concept of that having a two-hundred-year-old process, a notarization process. And does that necessarily need to be in person? You can probably argue that there’s more ability for corruption being in-person versus doing some type of e-signature process where it’s my device is timestamped, we know where I am, and here’s the notarization that’s occurred. So that’s something that should be sort of left in the dust and we should be able to do that remotely. I think there are certain types of law. I think you mentioned Grace. Like what types of law versus others are going to have to stay remote. And I think the more process-based type of law can stay remote in a sense that what I mean by that is there’s things like bankruptcy, for example, not the hearings that are in-person, but, you know, there’s a lot of procedural elements and sort of volume-based components that go on that a firm may not necessarily need to have office space to do that. And they can work from wherever they are. You know, there’s practice areas like that that don’t necessarily need to get back to an office. And if they do, they can certainly have less space than they’ve had in the past, because if you determine that certain functions within the firm don’t necessarily need to be there, you can actually just save money, frankly, by not having space available for those people. Where you may not be able to do this is if you have some very sort of high profile clients or very impactful type of cases that are going on where literally you need to recreate the courtroom scene, you need to have sort of that personal interaction with the client. To talk about what they’re going to face, what they’re going to have to deal with if they’re on a witness stand or if they’re in a courtroom, for example. That may be very difficult to not have an office and to try to recreate that type of experience. We’ve had some very lively debates, you know, with some of our clients, our trial attorney clients who said, you know, we need to return to the courtroom, for example, because the pageantry of it and the formal element of it is really what makes us who we are as a society that makes it real and that other trials are ready to go. Zoom is fine. I can say I could see body language. I can understand what’s going on. I don’t necessarily need to be in person. But then, frankly, it’s better for me and I need to fly an expert witness in from somewhere else. I could just have those kind of, you know, videoconference. In some courts you’re doing it already. So that that debate, I think, is going to rage on as to what really needs to be in person versus, you know, remote. I didn’t give you a very clear answer. I think it really is sort of practice area dependent and the way that your firm operates and really what is important to you. But I think those areas where there can be some level of automation and you can leverage the technology we’ve been talking about on this program. If you can leverage that and it could be something that you don’t really need to be there. I think ultimately you’re going to see the need for actual office space decrease, stay decreased on the other side of COVID.
Grace: [00:45:35] It does seem that way, honestly. I mean, for us, it’s been very similar. You know, we have Gacovino and Lake in Long Island, in New York. So I’d say it’s a couple of people may have come back to the office, I guess, the more essentials, you know. That kind of run the office. But other than that, everyone’s pretty much stayed at home.
Terry: [00:45:54] Yeah.
Grace: [00:45:55] And I honestly don’t see in the future potentially a need for certain space, you know, and we were kind of growing out of our space because we’ve been there a long time. So this is definitely an interesting setup. Right. And like you said, I think practice area-specific, which ones can go kind of completely remote or at least have just a much more reduced location. And I feel like everybody’s kind of going to go through that in a way. I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot of location specific things that are going to survive. I mean, what do you think about that?
Terry: [00:46:29] I agree. I agree. You know, I think that if people were not familiar with this type of communication before, they are now. And I think that that’s setting in that, you know, from just pure convenience perspective, why do we necessarily need that? I live in North Jersey and I commute to Brooklyn? Even before you know this, the already normal. I was only doing it a couple days a week, but that’s an hour and a half each way. You know, do I need to do that. I will admit. And a handful of times I went back to our office since the last whatever, two months, or month and a half. It felt good just to be out. So like there was like that sort of community element. And it was only a handful people in the office. Just sort of felt good because it was different. And I’m not sitting in my home office here, but I agree 100 percent. I think that the convenience, the way that things get accomplished in many ways and we leverage you know, we eat our own dog food in the sense we’re Salesforce client and we track our folks and we use a CRM much the way that we’re proposing to our clients to do.
Terry: [00:47:30] In many ways, we’re more productive now. During COVID and everybody being remote because we are removing that commute time, we are removing any type of you’re getting on a plane, you’re going somewhere for us it’s from sales perspective. You know, we’re constantly on the road and we were running events, going to industry events. A lot of that’s been removed. Now, I think some of that has to creep back in because there is nothing like a good old-fashioned sort of handshaking getting to know somebody. But, you know, in many ways we haven’t. And again, we’re unique as a business being who we are, what we sell. But in many ways, our levels, our activity levels and sort of our pipeline generation things like that are higher than they were even pre COVID. So I think there’s a lasting legacy there and I think that’s a good thing.
Terry: [00:48:15] Yeah, I agree with you. I feel like the software industry is it as a whole, the ones that were pivot, you know, that are agile and can pivot along with what’s going on or already had these things in place, like Litify and, you know, persist and people that are in digital marketing, like Liel as a whole we already knew this. Right. We kind of work this way anyway. So it wasn’t too big of a shift. I think that the big shift was in how we’re gonna handle the increase in software requests. Right. Because I’m sure you guys went through the same thing where everyone’s like, oh, wait. Now I need this. Now I need this. I needed it yesterday. I didn’t need it tomorrow. No, I know. I need it yesterday.
Terry: [00:48:53] Yeah and that’s been one of the biggest challenges is the immediacy of it. And you know people. And now I need it now and I need me some cloud. It’s not that simple. Like, you know, we do need to do a deployment. We need to understand your business. We need to do data migration. We need to do a config and so. There’s some sort of consternation that comes as a result of that. But, you know, once you explain to folks how it works, they get it and they know it. But, yeah, I agree.
Grace: [00:49:21] Definitely education. Right. So I think that kind of brings us to the end of our conversation here. And Liel, I usually like to talk about, you know, closing it off a little bit and then some actionable takeaways as a whole. We know law firms realize the benefits of working remotely and I know some of our customers, Liel’s customers don’t plan to return to the office until it’s safe to do so. Same with the schools. Right. So I think the first for everything that we were discussing, the first actionable take away has to do with. And tell me what your thoughts are on these as well. Of course, get a CRM. Get some kind of system that will help you assist your clients. To me, that’s basic.
Terry: [00:50:06] Yeah, 100%. You’d be surprised at how many, maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. But, you know, it is surprising, I should say. How many folks so, you know, just conceptually understand that. And it’s, you know, how do you track who you’re talking to when you’re talking to them? And again, sort of you know, there’s a heightened level of expectation with interaction with companies and education and what’s available online and what you can do. I forget the statistics, but there’s like some stat that, you know, people are basically the purchasing decision for something is almost made up before they even talk to anybody just because of what they can see online and sort of what your brand looks like, so to speak. So a lot of that really is accomplished by just having a CRM that can do some type of consistent touch. You could put campaigns in there in terms of outreach. You know, you can keep records of folks that that are inside your ecosystem. I can’t you know, again, I’m a Salesforce junkie, so I mean, I’ve been in for years, so I’m obviously biased. But there’s a reason that that business is going through the roof. There’s a reason that really any business like that is just incredibly valued right now. And Wall Street is reacting the way they are, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, and two percent agree.
Liel: [00:51:15] So what are other takeaways that you can share with us? Terry, for instance, if somebody who’s just taken the first steps in to taking their law firm to the cloud and haven’t yet necessarily, however further emerged themselves, into whether it’s automation, whether it’s video conferencing with their clients, what are other additional steps that you can share with them to kind of like continue the evolution that they have started by enabling themselves to basically take their law firm anywhere with them?
Terry: [00:51:49] I think what a great initial step. And I know this sounds kind of simplistic, but we found at times firms have not done this is to really have an internal level set with the staff to say, guys, we’re going to be making some moves and, you know, potentially adopting some new software and really looking at our process and procedures. By no way is this an indictment of anything you’re doing. This is something that we’re doing because transparency ultimately is a good thing and understanding, you know, how we’re working, what’s working, how to, you know, sort of I’ll use another cliché term. But you know how the rising tide lifts all boats. You need to have that real discussion, a real, you know, kind of getting everybody on the same page within the firm and understand that the things that we’re doing this is not a management ploy for Big Brother to be watching you. No. You’re here. You’re part of our team. We want everybody to be, you know, the best that they can be. And for us, everybody included. So I know I know that sounds kind of corny, but it’s a hundred percent true because oftentimes if you make these moves sort of in a vacuum, you know, you run the risk of alienating certain people within your staff. And they don’t really understand why you’re making these moves. So and that as I mentioned earlier, it kind of ties into that behavioral component. Like this is why we’re looking to change our behavior. This is why we’re looking to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. These are all things because we believe in our team. We believe in our mission. We believe in providing a level of service to our clients that’s above and beyond any of our competitors. Those type like having that level set. I think it’s a really, really good place to start. And if you notice, I mentioned nothing about technology. Well, maybe we’re buying some software, but nothing about a specific technology. It’s more just kind of that mindset of let’s, you know, let’s bring our firm to the 21st century. And that’s, you know, all kind of agree on that. And then I think it really is after that really an assessment of where you sit from a technology perspective. And if that’s hiring an outside consultant firm, you know, 40 hours to come in and really take a look at things and give you some guidance, maybe it’s leveraging vendors like Litify. I love having conversations with clients where practice management software is only, you know, a quarter of what we talk about. Three quarters of it is really all the things we just mentioned. Methods of communication where the industry is going, what other firms are doing. I love that because for me, that’s how I differentiate myself versus competition and the value that we can provide. My team can provide. So leverage those vendors have those discussions. I think another big thing, too, is to think about what your brand looks like online. We had a guest on from, um, from Bert the other day, Dave Lehman, who’s the president there. And his whole business is really around online reputation, reputation management and brand and what it looks like. And, you know, a lot of firms don’t really think about that, like, what if I’m from the outside looking in to you? What do I see? What exactly, what picture am I getting of your firm without really even interacting with you at all? What are you putting out there on social? What does your Web site look like? What is any communication you have, you know, external to your business look like? And is that the image you’re trying to create? So it’s really doing a good, hard assessment of where you are, what you’re looking to accomplish. And, you know, what is your utopia? Six months, twelve months, five years, whatever it is from now to really do that. That is it. I think that good hard look is the first thing any firm should do.
Liel: [00:55:15] All great takeaways. Terry, thank you so much. I know both Grace and I could go on with this conversation for another three hours. But unfortunately, things have to come to an end, but I think you’ve shared with us some amazing insights. And Terry where can people find out more about these conversations and webinars that you and your team are putting together?
Terry: [00:55:36] Yeah, there’s a few specific places. I mean, you can go to Litify.com and that’s just our Web site. And from there you can navigate around the LitiCast I mentioned. It’s actually LitiQuest was in-person events that we ran for years. W moved that to virtual with LitiCast. But within our Web site, you search for Liddick cast. You’ll see some of the upcoming professionals we have coming on board. This past week, we did what the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of our clients, that was just phenomenal, really nothing to do with technology, really about their mission. But we really try to provide a good background of various topics there and our Liticast series. And then if someone wants to send an email specifically info@Litify.com , our team will handle it. Any questions you may have? We’ll start a dialogue and help out in any way we can.
Liel: [00:56:22] Excellent. Well, thank you very much. We’ll make sure that we lacked links on the episode notes. And again, thank you very much for your time.
Terry: [00:56:28] Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here. And good luck with everything. Appreciate it.
[00:56:31] Thanks Tery.
Liel: [00:56:32] Thank you. Same stay safe,
Terry: [00:56:33] OK You too.
Liel: [00:56:41] Grace, what a great conversation. I really enjoyed Terry’s take on everything, right? I think we both you and I already align very well to what he’s had to share. And so Grace, I think, is going to be rather easy for us to do our takeaways because they’re going to be very similar to what Terry said. Right. The first one. And I really like this one was get your team’s Buy-In.
Grace: [00:57:06] That’s right. So important.
Liel: [00:57:07] So important, Grace. Yeah. It’s basically gonna determine the success rate of adopting these new software. The moment that you alienate your team before you’re actually bringing something onboard, you’re almost kind of like predetermined to sabotage it. And that’s the worst thing that’s going to happen. And so just get them early on on the stage to be part of the process. Right. I think it’s great to get them involved from the research steps of it. And, you know, for certain conversations, get them to be present and don’t just make it a thing for managers or C-level decision makers. Right. I think since this is something that’s going to be touching everyone’s daily operations and routine, you should definitely be taking their input and hearing the concerns that they may have, right? They may be very valid and they actually have access to things that you don’t know. That you don’t consider when looking at making these kind of decisions. Right. Grace, what do you think about that?
Grace: [00:58:09] No, I agree with you completely. I mean, Buy-In is the most important for every decision that’s being made that’s going to affect everyone. Right. That’s what it boils down to. So I agree with you wholeheartedly on every level. I’ve done CRM administration many times before, and it is set up for failure if you do not get everyone to buy in at least a little bit. Right. It doesn’t mean you have to have them involved in every decision you make. No, of course not.
Liel: [00:58:36] But the whole idea of listening them out, let them have a say. Let them also bring up their ideas. Right. And I really like the idea of, OK, we need to have to find a solution for this. So let’s research it together. Right. Don’t necessarily narrow it down all entirely for them. You may already have an idea what you want to go for, but let them also be part of the research up to a certain extent, because who knows, maybe they will find a great solution that you may have not been aware for of, or at least they’re gonna get an opportunity to be part of the process. What I really, really liked that Terry mentioned was talk to vendors. Don’t just delay forever in accepting those free audits and free consultations and those chats with the sales representatives. Because granted, Grace, you’re gonna learn something, I think, particularly for many law firms that have always built on those store three events that they attend a year, whether it’s AAJ or a National Trial Lawyers. Right. Like they always knew. Okay. Yeah, I’m going to be going to one of those events once or twice or maybe three times a year. And I will do a round on the exhibitors’ hall. And I know I’m gonna be able to interact, connect and get myself up to date with some of the new things out there. Well, you don’t really have got now. So unless you actually start having these conversations and pushing yourself for it, you may not necessarily get first-hand information on what’s happening out there. Right. Even though many of these organizations are doing a lot to promote themselves and to create content and to try to be in front of you, unless you actually accept their invite to have a conversation to get into a consultation. You may be missing a lot. And I think it’s fair to say, Grace, because I’m standing on the other side like I’m one of those was trying to initiate conversations with law firms and such and see whether we can add and be a resource to them and add value.
Grace: [01:00:37] You’re a good fit, yeah..
Liel: [01:00:39] Exactly. Grace, like no one goes to these meetings and thinks, OK, we’re going to land the client right now today. Not at all. We’re just trying to establish a relationship and establish trust and really be a resource of information to these Law Firms. And I and I would bet that most of organizations. Right. Catering for law firms have that same approach. They’re not going for the kill. Not going for the sale. They’re not going to go and try to shove a contract down your throat on the first meeting. Right. It’s all gonna be about really showing and trying to be a resource of valuable information to you and to your law firm. So I think there is a lot of value to get out from there. And it just takes from you to allocate some time. Nothing to lose, a lot to gain Grace.
Grace: [01:01:25] I think it’s important, too, for lawyers to understand that same free consultation they give to the clients or their potential clients. That’s the same consultation they should be getting for themselves with the vendors that they’re looking at. Why? Because that’s the only way to understand what they can provide. You ask questions. It’s essentially free information. What is wrong with that? Nothing.
Liel: [01:01:46] Yeah and I do want to pick on that one. Right. Great. Because that also exist as stigma that people think nobody to if it’s a free consultation. It’s rubbish. Just garbage. It’s just the sales speech. It’s really not great. I got I. I tell you, Grace. And again, I’m getting a little bit passionate here because we give the free consultation. Right. But I would have zero problems in charging five hundred dollars for any of these consultations. Like, I don’t think, I wouldn’t feel ashamed of doing so because I know the value is there. Guaranteed. I’m just being more strategic in thinking of the long term value of actually establishing a relationship. And it far outpaces those five hundred dollars that I could be selling the consultation for. And so some people are saying, not but if it’s for free, it’s not good. And so some people may say, you know what, I’d much rather pay for it. And honestly, Grace, like they’re overthinking the thing. Right. If the brand speaks to your needs and if it’s a product or it’s a service that you need, go for it.
Liel: [01:02:55] Don’t overthink the fact whether you’re getting charged or not or if you’re going to be pushed too much into a sale. Right. And at the end of the day, you’re not enjoying it. Just disconnect. Sorry something came up. I’m done, OK? Perfectly fine, Grace. But there is a lot of value opportunities there out there. And particularly when it’s something new, when it’s something that you do not dominate, whether it’s technology, whether it’s marketing. You do need to start from somewhere. And this is a great way to do so. Or hire a consultant. And they’re going to. And they’re going to take you exactly the same journey. Right. But they are just potentially gonna save you some time along the way. But you’re not gonna save yourself of having these conversations with these vendors and companies, because at the end of the day, if you need a solution for something, you’re going to end up having to hire someone.
Liel: [01:03:49] Grace, let’s move on to our last and final takeaway for today, which I think you gave it to us at the beginning.
Grace: [01:03:56] I did. And it’s as simple as get a CRM. You get a system in place and start using it.
Liel: [01:04:04] You need to start getting a system that will help you organize that and access it efficiently. Right, Grace. So, I mean, we’ve mentioned that in probably five or six or seven different episodes now, specifically, a CRM is gonna give you a lot of insights that you’re currently missing. You may have your cases very well organized, but you don’t necessarily have your clients’ profiles as well organized. And so that’s a great opportunity there. I think there’s a lot of solutions out there that can help you. For anyone who has been in the sales-world knows that Salesforce is kind of like the gold standard for CRM and for sales processes and such. So Litify it already speaks to a great quality product. And so if you want to start there, go and have that conversation, see what is it that they have to offer and if that’s not the right fit for you. There’s dozens of other options for you. Built specifically for the legal industry. Grace, thank you so much for another great conversation. And let’s commit to be back here next week healthy, hopefully.
Grace: [01:05:20] Hopefully, we all stay very healthy.
Liel: [01:05:23] Yes, Grace. Because we cannot take anything for granted.
Liel: [01:05:26] So, Grace, thank you. Have a great rest of your day. Talk to you soon.
Grace: [01:05:30] Thank you, Liel, you too.
Liel: [01:05:35] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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