The Lawmatics Blog

Summer is heating up and so is the latest batch of feature releases from Lawmatics! You’ll be delighted to see these new additions and improvements from our team to yours.

Date Field-Based Automations

We are thrilled to announce that you can now create time-relative automations (one hour before, two days after, etc.) for any date type field in Lawmatics. Our new Date Field-Based Automations take the existing concept of event-based automations and apply it to date fields. This new functionality allows you to trigger automated reminders or check-ins relative to a client’s court date, filing date, anniversary, or any other custom date field you may use in your practice — all from simply populating the date into a date type field.When creating a new automation you’ll select the Date Field option, then select from any of your firm’s date type fields as your target field to create a Date Field-Based Automation. You can then add your time-relative automations by clicking on the yellow label at the top of your page (highlighted below).To learn more about Date-Field Based Automations, click here.

Custom User Permissions for Viewing Email Communications

Confidentiality and discretion are paramount when dealing with sensitive client information. While logging your external emails in Lawmatics can be helpful, you may not want the entirety of your staff to have view access to these emails on a matter’s timeline. With our new External Email Role Permission you can now easily limit any user’s access to view email communications, without limiting their access to the matter all together. To use this new permission, go to the User Management page in your Admin Settings, Click Manage Roles, edit the role you wish to apply this restriction to, and then uncheck the All Emails option, as shown below.

Not yet using custom user roles? Learn all about that option here.

Set Default Tax Adjustment

With this latest update to Lawmatics Payments, you can now set a default percentage or flat amount for tax adjustments. While the default can be overridden when creating an invoice if necessary, setting a default will save you the time of entering a tax amount on each invoice if your firm does have a standard rate or amount. This adjustment can be applied to the invoice subtotal, expenses, or time entries, as shown in the example below.

Find this option on your firm’s Invoices settings page. If you are not yet using the Time & Billing feature in Lawmatics, email us at support@lawmatics.com to add it to your account.As always, we hope you enjoy these latest updates from Lawmatics and stay tuned for another round of releases in August.

There are plenty of benefits to being a multi-state lawyer. Besides the most obvious advantage which is expanding your client base, it can also be practical when you live near a border between two different states. So, if you find yourself asking how to practice law in multiple states, you’re certainly not the first. In this article, we’ll detail how to become a multijurisdictional lawyer as well as some of the perks and drawbacks involved.

The benefits of practicing law in two or more states

Greater client base

It’s understandably appealing to be able to take on clients in different states. It’s economically advantageous to generate more business in multiple locations. Not to mention one state may have more demand for a certain practice area than another which can be practical for tapping into your niche market. Furthermore, you may have clients that need representation in different states who don’t want to have to hire multiple lawyers. Being able to offer all-in-one legal services can give you an edge over the competition. Of course, it goes without saying that you’ll need to allocate a bigger law firm marketing budget to market in not just one but multiple states. Or, just be more savvy with marketing strategies, such as familiarizing yourself with email marketing for law firms.

Greater flexibility

Life events can spring up suddenly, forcing lawyers to relocate to a different state. Some states may only offer bar exams as little as twice a year, and as such, it can cause a significant delay before being able to accept clients. For many lawyers, anticipating the possibility of relocation without the worry of having to lose a second of work is an important advantage. So, ensuring they can practice anywhere is a nice added security to their business.

Ethical responsibilities of practicing law in multiple states

As more and more lawyers are working remotely since the onset of COVID, many are accepting clients in other states. Unfortunately, in many cases, these lawyers are violating the rules.Rule 5.5 of the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct states that lawyers may not practice in jurisdictions where they are not admitted. The consequences of violating these rules can range from a fine to disbarment depending on the gravity of the violation. That being said, there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, a licensed attorney may provide legal services temporarily in a different jurisdiction as long as they are associated with a lawyer who is admitted in that state.

How to practice law in multiple states

Check for states that offer reciprocity

Some states offer reciprocity if you meet certain conditions. Usually, these conditions depend on the amount of time you’ve been practicing and they may consider you eligible to practice in their state depending on the state bar that you’ve already passed. It’s important to note, however, that you should never assume that just because a state offers reciprocity, you’ll be qualified. It’s always important to contact the reciprocity state bar to ensure you are up to date with the latest policies otherwise you could risk serious disciplinary consequences.

Take the uniform bar

You might need to brush up on your legal education to retake the Uniform Bar Exam. The Uniform Bar exam, also known as UBE, is a version of the bar exam that lets you practice between states with greater ease. It’s important to note, however, that each state has its own bar admission requirements for the examination, and the passing score may vary by state. So, although it can be a solution in some scenarios, it’s not a sure thing. This is certainly more convenient than taking New York State, North Carolina, or any other state's bar exam each time.

Take the bar exam for the states you want to work in

The most practical way to practice in another state is to pass the bar for that state. However, there are significant costs and challenges involved which may not be ideal for everyone, and taking the UBE or opting for a state that offers reciprocity is much more common.

Take on federal court cases

In theory, if you’re allowed to practice law in any state then you should be able to do so out of state. Yet, there is still some debate around this topic, and it’s still possible to find yourself in hot water with the state bar if you take this route.

Is getting licensed in multiple states right for you?

In the big picture, it’s much more convenient to practice in one jurisdiction for your entire career. Yet, lawyers looking to take their practice to the next level may choose to pursue the route of becoming a multi-state lawyer despite the challenges. The good news is that thanks to advancements like the UBE and reciprocity laws (as well as advancements in law firm technology), practicing law in another state is much easier than it was 20 years ago. Deciding whether to get licensed in multiple states will come down to your unique circumstances and above all, how much time you have on your hands.Getting licensed out of state requires a time commitment and administrative pile-up that may be difficult depending on your firm’s current workload. Putting in the work it takes to acquire additional state licenses will be much easier if your practice is streamlined with the help of modern legal technology like a CRM and client intake software. Not only can you access your firm from wherever you are thanks to cloud technology, but automation can help you stay on top of your most important tasks, and put your firm on autopilot while you’re focusing on passing the bar in another state. Are you ready to see how Lawmatics all in one client intake, law firm CRM and marketing automation for lawyers platform can help you with a multijurisdictional career in law? Our CRM also provides law firm performance management features. Sign up for a free product demo today! Sources CitedShari Davison, Reciprocity: What States Can You Practice Law?https://www.onbalancesearch.com/reciprocity-what-states-can-you-practice-law/Richard J. Rosensweig, Unauthorized Practice of Law: Rule 5.5 in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond August 12, 2020https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/ethics-professionalism/articles/2020/unauthorized-practice-of-law-rule-55-in-the-age-of-covid-19-and-beyond/

Recently, Lawmatics teamed as a sponsor for MaxLawCon, an annual two-day conference held in Saint Louis, Missouri. With a little over 250 attendees, it was two exciting days packed full of knowledgeable speakers and industry leaders sharing strategies and tactics around managing a law firm from 2022 onward.The attendees, many of which were already familiar with Lawmatics, were largely tech-savvy legal entrepreneurs eager to learn and interact with law firm technology vendors like ourselves. Our own Anna Gasperlin was there to represent Lawmatics who says she was tickled by how many current customers were selling Lawmatics to prospects without her having to do a thing. “I would be chatting with current Lawmatics customers and prospects would stop by, to which current customers would say ‘you have to switch from Lawmatics to Clio Grow!’ so I really didn’t have to do that much convincing!” she chuckles, “It was great!”There to join Anna virtually to represent Lawmatics was our own CEO, Matt Spiegel, who spoke to the benefits of automation in the law firm as a means to offer attorneys a hands-off approach to repetitive business tasks. The turnout was impressive, and we appreciate everyone who stopped by and greeted us in-person.Lawmatics is committed to helping legal professionals grow their practice with the best all in one client intake marketing automation legal CRM and billing software on the market. Make sure that you stay up to date with our latest updates and releases.

Happy summer to all! We’ve been cranking here at Lawmatics and it’s about to get hot in here. Our engineering team has doubled over the last couple of months and because of that our pace has drastically increased. This is one of our largest releases to date and encompasses many different areas of the platform. Check it out!

Conflict Check Automation

With the recent addition of Conflict Checking in Lawmatics, we have made it easy to streamline this important step by automating your conflict check process. You can now use the results of that conflict check to trigger an automation, initiating the next step in your process. Depending on whether or not a conflict check passes, you are able to trigger a particular sequence of automations for each outcome. Each of these next steps can now be automated accordingly. We have also added the ability to exclude any targets who did not pass a conflict check from your automations, simply use the “Skip Conflicts” toggle at the top of your automations.To learn more about how to use our brand new Conflict Checking feature, click here.

Conflict Check Notifications

Adding to the conflict check capabilities in Lawmatics, users can now opt to receive notifications for approved, denied, and/or undecided conflict checks. These email notifications provide yet another way to stay up to date on your firm’s PNCs without needing to be sitting in front of your computer screen. Each user can customize their unique notification options with the ability to toggle both account-wide and user-specific notifications on and off.

Multi-pick List in Custom Form Conditionals

A highly requested feature, you can now use multi-picklist fields to set conditional logic within your Lawmatics Custom Forms. Previously, this ability was limited to true/false fields and generic picklist fields. This addition allows for even more customization and automation to the custom forms feature that you already know and love. To learn more about how to use conditional logic in Lawmatics Custom Forms, click here.

Change Main Contact/Company on a Matter

If your firm often works with matters that have more than one contact, such as a married couple, you may prefer one contact or the other to be listed as the primary name on the matter in your CRM. To that end, you can now easily swap the main contact on a matter from within Lawmatics. Simply click the arrow icon adjacent to a contact's name in their profile, and then select an alternate contact from within your CRM. The same functionality is applicable to company matters. This new feature helps you keep your CRM organized and accurate so that you can always find your matters with ease.

Hours Billed Report

Our new Hours Billed Report provides a real-time snapshot of billable hours based on criteria of your choice, so you can make business decisions accordingly. Get as granular as you need with your report by selecting one or more of the following search criteria: date range, user, and practice area. Once you’ve made your selection, the Hours Billed Report will display the total amount of hours billed per user.To learn more about using this report, click here. If you are not yet using the Time & Billing feature in Lawmatics, email us at support@lawmatics.com to learn more or to add it to your account.

Lawmatics Payments - Successful Notifications

Collecting payment is an essential step in the client lifecycle. Consequently, you can now receive an email or in-app notification when a client payment is submitted and successfully processed via Lawmatics Payments. Each user can select their notification preferences as they see fit, so that all parties responsible for client payment stay in the loop.

Log Trust Balance Refund

Lawmatics Billing is your firm’s one-stop-shop for all things payment-related, including your firm’s trust accounting. In the event of a remaining trust balance or an accidental overpayment, you can now manually log a refund of a client’s trust balance from within the client’s contact record, their matter or in the Trust Account tab.To learn more about managing trust account activity in Lawmatics, click here

In-app File Preview

You can now easily view a preview of files saved to a matter, including .docx and .xls file types. This improvement to our file storage system makes it much more convenient to locate and view files without any extra tedious steps or waiting for a download.

This release also includes many bug fixes and behind the scenes improvements to optimize your Lawmatics experience. We hope that you enjoy these new features and put them to good use. See you back here with more new features and enhancements very soon :wink: 👋 ! P.S. Not using Lawmatics yet? Book a personalized demo to learn how we can help you grow your law firm!

Lawyers naturally expect to be paid for the work they do. As a result, one of the most prominent strains on a law firm’s bottom line is outstanding accounts receivable, and there’s nothing worse than getting into a billing dispute with a client.Although the amount might be small, the issue, if it remains unsolved, can be large enough to tarnish even the most respected lawyer’s otherwise stellar reputation. When a legal bill is unpaid, some attorneys are tempted to “fire” the client and sue for fees, but this can be a risky move – it is estimated that up to 40 percent of fee lawsuits lead to counterclaims of legal malpractice against the attorney. So how can attorneys and law firms address billing issues that arise when it comes time to collect from clients and prevent future miscommunications surrounding billing and payments?Clients value transparency. They want to know precisely what they’re getting for their money, meaning an attorney needs to state, in writing, what their billing procedures are before they begin work on a case. Then, if an issue arises down the road, they will have a signed agreement to support their position. A written fee agreement signed by both the attorney and the client sets forth the scope of their relationship. Here are some things to include in an attorney’s fee agreement:

• The extent and limits of the representation
• Who will perform the services, including who will be the lead counsel on the case
• The billing rates of non-lawyers like paralegals who perform substantive legal work on the case
• How often the client will be billed, and how long they will have to make payment
• Details specifying whether the fee is hourly, fixed, or contingent based upon the award issued at the end of the case
• How litigation costs like filing fees, expert witnesses, travel expenses, and process servers will be handled
• The types of costs to be paid by the client, outside of the cost of legal representation – filing fees, expert witness fees, court costs, and copying charges
• How each party can end the relationship, if necessary

Avoiding billing issues with legal clients is an ongoing balancing act that involves complete transparency and open communication, and a comprehensive retainer agreement is an excellent way to start.

Why do billing issues arise?

Attorney-client billing issues can arise for numerous reasons, including a general lack of communication. Some of the most common situations that can lead to billing disputes with clients include:

1Vague estimates.

When quoting fees as a range, attorneys should be aware that most clients hear the low end of the scale and ignore the high end, so if their bill is calculated at the high end, they are likely to experience sticker shock, cry foul, and a billing issue might ensue.

2Unspecified fees.

Clients are often stunned by the out-of-pocket expenses that they must pay at the conclusion of their case. Telling them upfront about the types of fees that they can expect to incur – filing fees, expert witness fees, court costs, and copy charges – can help soften the blow when the bill arrives.

3Less than full disclosure.

If your work hours start to exceed the original estimate provided to a client, inform them as soon as possible. The failure to do so will encourage some clients to argue that you need to stick with the initial budget since you gave them no warning regarding the additional hours.

4Services left unperformed.

Even a reasonable legal fee might be questioned if the attorney fails to complete the agreed-upon work specified under a signed fee agreement. These circumstances can become the basis for a billing dispute.

5Wrong amount of information.

When you provide too much detail in a bill, it can confuse the clients, but they might think you’re not working hard enough for them if you give too little information. So, the best approach is to provide sufficient detail to clearly explain tasks and address anticipated client questions, but no more.

6Legalese.

Try to write billing descriptions without using complicated legalese. One way to do this is to establish parenthetical definitions of common legal terminology in your software’s billing task descriptions. Understanding a legal invoice is challenging enough without having to decipher legal acronyms and abbreviations.

7An abundance of no charges.

Although it’s a good idea to include a task in an invoice with a $0.00 charge when you perform a service for a client without charging them, if you do this too often, clients might begin to expect it and balk when a line item that they weren’t billed for last month appears with a charge on this month’s invoice.

8Outsourcing without explanation.

If you have a matter that requires legal or non-legal outsourcing, include a detailed description of this on the invoice. If you don’t, the client might assume that you cannot provide adequate requisition without help from third parties and start to question your fee. Also, ensure that you have addressed third-party resources and outside counsel in the initial fee agreement.

9Allowing past-due bills to accumulate.

When a client ignores a bill (or two or even three), don’t sit back and hope for the best. Instead, meet with the client to determine why the bills are outstanding and explore potential options to bring the account up to date.Another way to avoid billing disputes is to put a standardized law firm billing policy in place. The policy will address issues like how the firm bills clients, when to send invoices, how long descriptions should be, what expenses should be billed and which should be written off, and standard introductory communication to be included on bill

More billing pitfalls

There are some billing practices that lawyers generally need to avoid entirely. These include:

• Double billing - when an attorney invoices two clients for work done simultaneously. If you performed an hour of research that can apply to two cases, bill each client 30 minutes (not one hour each).
• Block billing – combining distinct tasks into a single billing entry. Although block billing might be appropriate during instances like travel, this practice might be considered somewhat suspicious because it does not accurately report the time taken for each task individually.
• Inflating time – marking up your time spent working on a matter. You should only invoice for your time to ensure that you are not overcharging your clients and maintaining a strong attorney-client relationship.
• Value billing – charging additional fees for specific, higher-value tasks. Many disputes happen when a client notices that an attorney is billing an unreasonable or excessive time for certain tasks. Although there may be legitimate reasons why some work takes longer than anticipated, you need to explain this to the client, and provide them with descriptive time entries to educate them and potentially avoid a dispute down the road.
• Unnecessary charges – billing for wasteful, unnecessary, or redundant processes that could have been avoided., e.g., traveling to a meeting when a video conference would suffice.
• Charging for overhead – meaning billing a client for creating a bill. Clients should not be expected to pay for your firm’s administrative tasks, and some will take issue if you ask them to do so.

Because these billing practices might involve deception, fraud, and misrepresentation, they can frequently lead to billing disputes and legal liability claims.

How to address billing issues

Billing is a double-edged sword for lawyers. While they want to ensure that they’ve billed a client correctly and ethically so that they will be paid on time, attorneys don’t want to spend too much time on billing (a non-billable service). This situation often gets complicated when a billing dispute arises, forcing the lawyer to walk the tightrope between getting paid and not being sued for legal malpractice. Here are some ways an attorney can proactively address billing issues:

• Be direct. When a client is late paying their invoice, you must be clear and straightforward regarding your expectations. Many clients believe that lawyers are wealthy and “don’t really need the money,” at least not right away, and they elect to pay other bills before their legal invoice. Let your clients know that you expect prompt payment from them to avoid this situation.
• Address concerns immediately. Whatever the reason for the lack of payment, you need to address your and your client’s concerns right away. Be assertive but also respectful and understanding. Don’t harass those who are behind on their payments, but don’t let your concerns go either. Work on the problem as soon as you realize that there is a problem.
• Send a written reminder. Resend the invoice to the client, along with a message stating that you haven’t received payment. While you don’t have an obligation to give the client extra time to pay their bill, if you are dealing with a large company that needs additional time to process payments, consider setting another due date within a week or two.
• Follow up with a collection letter. More formal than a written reminder, a debt collection letter includes the payment due date, provides a timeframe for payment (usually two weeks), the methods of payment accepted, and a statement regarding the action that you will take if payment is not made. This statement can be vague in nature (“to avoid further action”) or more forceful (you’ll turn the matter over to a collection agency or initiate legal action). Which phrase you choose to use will depend on the time that has passed, the amount the client owes, and your need to work with this client in the future.
• Call the client or meet in person. If your reminders and letters receive no response, consider calling or meeting face-to-face with the client to discuss the issue and a potential resolution. If you haven’t been paid due to financial difficulty, consider setting up a payment plan or accepting partial payment to resolve the matter without resorting to more aggressive and costly actions.
• Discontinue work. Suppose you’re working on a long project or an ongoing contract under which you agreed to be paid monthly or at some other interval. In that case, you should stop delivering work after your client misses a payment – sometimes, this is enough to get the client’s attention and get you paid.

If you’ve exhausted all other avenues to obtain payment from a client, you could opt to proceed with a fee suit. Before doing so, research the statute of limitations for a potential legal malpractice claim and wait until it has expired before filing your lawsuit – this will help minimize the possibility of a legal malpractice counterclaim. Before you file a fee suit, ask a colleague to review the file to pinpoint any errors that may have been made that would potentially expose the firm to a malpractice claim. You need to also determine whether the file supports the work outlined in the invoices and analyze the net recovery should you win the fee suit (considering the cost of outside counsel, taxes owed on the recovery, and lost billable time to the firm). Also decide regarding whether you will be able to collect on a judgment against the client.

How to prevent future billing disputes

A law firm is a business that will not survive if it does not get paid by clients. Although most clients pay their bills on time and most fee disputes are resolved quickly and amicably, others morph into ugly battles – often much larger than the legal matter that led to them. Here are eight ways your firm can improve collections and avoid future billing disputes:

1. Know what is in your fee agreement. Most fee agreements are comparable to ordinary contracts, and both parties are bound by what is contained in them. Unfortunately, like contracts, people (including attorneys) do not always carefully read them to know what they are signing. To protect yourself and your firm from a billing dispute with a client, you must know exactly what is in your fee agreement to ensure that your billing practices are consistent with your contractual obligations. If you don’t, you risk charging rates that significantly differ from what is outlined in your fee agreement. Uncaught, this situation could cost the client thousands of dollars in unauthorized fees and costs, and if caught, you might be facing an extremely irate client who decides to bring a legal malpractice action against you.
2. Collect a realistic retainer. Although some lawyers are hesitant to ask for a retainer, thinking that they might scare a client away, if the client cannot come up with a reasonable retainer at the onset of representation, this could be a sign of their inability to pay later. Collecting a retainer and having it replenished as needed is one of the most straightforward ways to avoid payment issues. For certain cases, such as personal injury, a lawyer waits until the case’s conclusion to take a percentage of the award as their fee.
3. Take cases on a contingency. This type of payment allows attorneys to represent people who have been damaged but cannot afford a lawyer. However, be aware that some contingency clients might be unhappy with the percentage they initially agreed to when presented with an unexpected result. Therefore, when a lawyer is paid on a contingency basis, the fee agreement must state what percentage of any award they will take, whether they will collect a higher rate should the case go to trial, and whether they will be entitled to a portion of the award if representation ceases before the end of the case.
4. Ensure that your fees are reasonable. Unfortunately, a signed fee agreement won’t help much if your client feels that your fees are unreasonable. According to Model Rule 1.5 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the factors used to determine whether a fee is reasonable are as follows: the time and labor required, novelty and difficulty of the issues, whether the fee is customary for similar services in a similar area, the amount involved and the results obtained, the time limitations the attorney is operating under, the nature and length of the relationship, the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorney, and whether the fee is fixed or contingent.
5. Avoid financial surprises. Legal clients do not like surprises, especially from their attorneys. Although it isn’t possible to completely avoid unanticipated fees and costs, experienced attorneys can prevent most of them by preparing a comprehensive budget at the beginning of the case that lists all the potential fees and other charges a client is likely to be responsible for paying. To stay on track – and avoid unwelcome surprises – this budget should be honest, realistic, and updated regularly throughout the matter. Before starting any particularly costly projects, discuss the reasons for those tasks and the anticipated costs. If the client agrees, put it in writing.
6. Manage client expectations. While a lawyer can substantially influence the result of a case, much depends on the law and the facts, which are out of their control and cannot be changed. Also, sometimes good lawyers get back results, but less-than-ideal results should not shock the client if the attorney has done the groundwork of managing client expectations. Clients are much more likely to pay fees, even if they have received an unfavorable outcome if their attorney explained the risks upfront and the client was still willing to proceed. Although clients do not typically like to hear about the weak spots of their case, attorneys must explain them in detail, in writing.
7. Address payment problems immediately. It is much easier to resolve a $10,000 fee dispute than a $100,000 fee dispute. As soon as a client begins to fall behind on paying their invoices, contact them to discuss the situation. Although many lawyers try to avoid this uncomfortable conversation and continue to send invoices, hoping the client will one day miraculously pay the bill in full, this is not realistic. If you fail to address invoice and billing concerns right away, it harms the attorney-client relationship. Unfortunately, when a lawyer feels underappreciated, the resulting animosity can sometimes affect their willingness to provide competent representation to the client, an ethical violation.
8. Identify problems before they happen. Some clients simply do not intend to pay for legal services no matter the outcome of their case, an unfortunate risk of the legal profession. Some red flags: A potential client who is on their third or fourth attorney, one who refuses to make retainer deposits, or another who fails to pay the first invoice you send them (they will likely not pay subsequent invoices either). Although it is not always easy to identify payment risks before representation, problem clients usually reveal themselves early on. It is wise to end the representation quickly if you can ethically do so.

Successful attorneys know how to practice law as effectively as possible, not just in the way they manage clients but also by the manner that they bill. For example, when they create client invoices, they combine transparency, timeliness, and common sense to improve their chances of getting paid on time and retain more clients by strengthening the attorney-client relationship.

How technology can help your law firm escape billing disputes

It isn’t easy for a law firm to juggle practice management and client relationships. Whether your firm bills hourly, fixed fee, or on contingency, law firm time and billing software offers an easy way to seamlessly record billable hours without disrupting your workflow. With accurate and detailed time entries that appear on your client’s invoices with a single click, technology allows you to capture billable hours, non-billable time, and everything else – to significantly decrease the risk of legal billing disputes.Lawmatics’s time entry and tracking features make it incredibly easy to log billable and non-billable time, create customized billing rates for different clients, be more organized, and avoid unpleasant and costly billing disputes. To learn more about how Lawmatics can help you maximize productivity, minimize loss, and avoid time-consuming billing disputes, request a demo today.

Catherine Tang is an intellectual property lawyer, business owner, and single mother of 2. After launching her virtual law practice abroad, she relocated to Madison, Wisconsin to manage life and legal work on her own terms. In just a couple of years, she built a substantial following on social media that has generated continuous business and lucrative networking opportunities to fuel her brand awareness and lifestyle.In this 3-part blog series, Catherine offers insight into living a fulfilling life while managing a busy law practice.

Abroad and back again

I started my law firm from overseas right before the start of the pandemic. Becoming a firm owner was the end goal before I even started law school, but I didn’t think it would happen so early on in my legal career. I am a single mom of two young children and had been living in Bangkok, Thailand working in international corporate law. When I passed the California Bar the firm I worked for presented a few options to me. They had a large presence in Asia with a base in Singapore. I was told I could move my family to Singapore, or stay in Thailand and start working full time. My work hours would become increasingly more demanding, sometimes requiring me to entertain clients or senior partners in town or travel to other countries regularly, as is the norm abroad. I knew that if I stayed with them as a foreign, American educated, native English speaking attorney I would enjoy success in my career, but as a mother I wanted to be around for my children especially at their young age. It was then that I decided I would open my own firm.

The decision to leave security and a modicum of success for the unknown and unstable is never an easy one. It was a bit easier for me knowing that if I failed horribly I had job offers waiting for me back in the States…. but it was terrifying nonetheless. In early 2020 I hung a shingle as a virtual lawyer and only two years later, I have a successful award-winning law firm with a beautiful office located directly across from my local courthouse.

My practice remains virtual friendly for the most part, I have the best clients that are located all over the world, and I have never had to meet most of them in person. More importantly though, my practice has allowed me to thrive in my personal life like no law firm job could have ever done. As a virtual firm operating during a pandemic with initially no physical presence whatsoever in the US, marketing and social media became integral to the success of my firm. It was the one and only way prospective clients could find me. In this article I will discuss a few key concepts to focus on when building a social media profile for attorneys hoping to build a law firm, as well as some additional thoughts on successful social media marketing.

Embrace the downtime

When you are starting a law firm from scratch, you might find yourself coming up with a clever law firm name, hiring someone to make a website, getting your headshots taken, and all those other ancillary necessary-but-not-income-generating parts of building a firm. You may also find yourself with no clients to serve and a business line that doesn’t ring. What I have learned is to embrace this time-- it is time for you to build your practice, focus on content creation, establish your systems, and generally improve your firm so that when clients do come in, you are ready to serve in the most efficient manner. My law school electives were almost entirely focused on family law and estate planning. I did not anticipate that I would be practicing from another country where very little of what I had learned really applied, if at all. Furthermore, pre-covid, the legal industry as a whole was not remote-friendly. I very quickly realized that certain types of law such as most litigation was probably out of question since I was very far away from the nearest American courthouse. I was also in the opposite time zone. I had always imagined myself as a litigator but since it seemed impractical if not impossible at that time, I ended up focusing on transactional law: business and intellectual property with a focus on trademarks. This is a topic I knew nothing about before opening my practice. Thus, I used my free client-less time to learn every single thing I could find on trademarks and business law. I took multiple courses, watched every CLE I could find, and read books and practice guides. I took notes during the learning process…. And then I transformed those notes into social media content.

Pick a platform then speak to your audience

My platforms of choice are, in no particular order, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. The very first thing I did when building my firm was repurpose the law that I learned into multiple short bits on various platforms. Importantly, I did not merely recite what I learned in a dull manner. While some of my content is solely legal focused, most of it I try to weave into stories that are both entertaining and informative to the average social media user.One of the things I try to convey when teaching lawyers about marketing is that often I have seen lawyers use marketing to benefit themselves, to try to promote their firm. The most effective form of marketing, in my opinion, is content that benefits the audience. Think not about what people can do for you, but what you can offer to others. What I mean by that is that an advertisement about how your law firm just opened and everyone should call your law firm is just that: an advertisement whose sole purpose and beneficiary is the promotion of yourself. A person scrolling through social media on a Sunday afternoon is not scrolling so that they can benefit you. They are scrolling for their own enjoyment and spikes of dopamine. With traditional social media advertisement posts, people ignore them and scroll on to their desired content. What I try to do when creating content is create content that will catch the reader's attention, get them to want to read it, and remind them that I am a lawyer ready to assist should they ever come across a legal issue. Oftentimes, I do not even directly talk about the services I provide. The only thing that I care about is leaving an impression and keeping at the top of a person's mind so that if and when they run into a legal issue, they think to call me. I have had a lot of success doing this by creating engaging content that people want to see. Generally by the end of a post, if I have done my job, there are people asking me for more content, finding a way to stay in contact …or hiring my firm.

Think about back in the days when we only had cable tv. During a commercial, many people tune out, leave to get a snack, and while it may still get that person to recognize or buy your product some day, most people do not actively engage in commercials except perhaps during the Super Bowl which has mastered the art of entertaining advertisements. Most law firm marketing I see is the equivalent of a channel playing commercials all day long. Not memorable, not engaging, and not that effective. Effective marketing, in my opinion, is making your content the entertainment. Make your content the show they’re waiting to see… and your law firm is merely the product placement in the background. By doing this, you are creating content that people want to see, that people share, thereby creating algorithm favoring viral content. I would be the first to admit that creating viral content based on law is not easy …but can be done.

Learn and break the algorithm

My first few months of practice I set out to combine my knowledge of law with my knowledge of social media to create viral posts that trend. If you are unfamiliar with those terms, we’ll take a minute now to explain. When social media first became a thing, posts by users were shown in reverse chronological order in a feed, by any person you were connected with. The newest post would show on top, and it didn’t matter if a person posted any random thing multiple times, it would still show all their “friends” their content in the order it was posted. Before long, the Zuckerberg’s of the world realized that the more entertaining they could make the experience of their platform be for you, the longer you would stay on, and the more their company would be worth. Thus came the introduction of algorithms. Nowadays, most social media platforms employ algorithms that use machine learning beyond the scope of this author’s full understanding to figure out which posts are the most entertaining to the average human being, and they show you those posts first. This formula ends up showing you the most entertaining, likable, funny, and/or controversial posts first Often, the ranking of a post is based on the user engagement (likes, shares, comments, length of time spent reading/watching it), with highly engaging posts being shown to the most amount of users, and posts with little engagement get pushed down the social media abyss, never to be seen by your friends or future clients, ever.

While this formulaic approach may seem exhausting, take comfort in that I typically think that if done correctly, you do not need to be posting content multiple times a day, or even every day as many social media experts seem to suggest. In fact, I took my time coming up and releasing my posts, usually releasing a single marketing directed post every month or two. The catch of course, is making sure those posts trend. Each of the posts I released received thousands of likes and hundreds of thousands of views. With practice, you inevitably learn what people want to see. In fact, it is practically a pavlovian response as you will receive “likes” for everything you do right, and the dreaded social media abyss if you do not. Unlike conventional social media marketing advice, I do not post the same content on all of my platforms. I prefer to custom tailor my content to each platform and want to encourage users to add me on all of them due to the variety of content they will get on each. I spent the first 6 months of my law firm actively marketing, and I am still reaping the benefits of my initial marketing posts to this day. In fact, I rarely actively market at all these days. I often get messages from people saying they had read a post of mine from a long time ago and now that they’ve run into a problem I was the first person who came to mind. Marketing, when done correctly, should have a snowball effect if it is combined with good service. I started my instagram while still in law school and then when I moved to Bangkok I started posting photos of my travels for friends to see. However, my audience slowly began to grow. As my followers grew, I started getting free things and those perks did not go unnoticed. Initially a free upgraded meal turned into a free meal. Then a free upgrade at a hotel, and eventually fully paid for week-long resort vacations in exotic places. I started putting more and more effort into my photos and captions, and regularly studied what made other posts trend down to the hashtags. Since Instagram was very focused on aesthetics and beautiful photography my posts became more picture perfect. The way I tied it into law was by telling stories about what I was doing at work at the time the photo was taken, or sometimes the story was entirely unrelated but somehow complimented the picture. With Instagram the main components for a viral post are the photo, the caption, and the algorithm. What I did not like about instagram and why I eventually stopped focusing on it is because it required a constant flux of picture perfect photos which as a full time practicing attorney I have a hard time keeping up. (This is changing soon as Instagram has lost a lot of creators to TikTok and they are now focusing on video content and loosening their algorithm). Nowadays I mostly use it to post stories and give snippets of my day to engage with followers. However, different attorneys are able to produce different vibes on instagram. Mine was highly focused on travel photos. I have seen many attorneys employ a different approach with more business oriented posts which can be successful if done the right way. Importantly, the number of followers you have does not necessary directly translate to the amount of paying clients you get. Because I incorporated a travel theme, my audience net was larger… however the same people looking for travel content might not be the same people needing legal services. The conversion percentage is lower than a legal instagram focused and targeted directly to business owners (or whoever your target client is). Likewise, because I primarily practice federal intellectual property law, it makes sense for me to cast a wide net because anyone with a US business can potentially be a client of mine. Whereas if you are a local personal injury law firm, you may want to target people in your general location.

No matter which social media platform you decide to use to grow your business I think it is important to study it as each platform favors different content, has its own unique characteristics, and different algorithms. Instagram often favors visually appealing images and puts the most focus on picture perfect photos, with a caption as an aside. On Facebook you can mix in a variety of photos, text, or I have seen some profiles that have great success merely posting curated news articles. Engaging in witty banter is valuable on Facebook. LinkedIn has a more professional feel and is one of the best platforms to use in order to reach people outside of your network (you can“trend” easier). Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are platforms that are very “in the moment” and require you to post constantly to stay relevant. Youtube on the other hand is great for people who want to make content once and have it searchable for a long time. Writers may favor Facebook and speakers may gravitate to Youtube or Tiktok.

A few final tips

Lastly when growing your social media presence I think it serves well to keep a few things in mind:Quality over quantity. As noted above, the number of followers you have or likes you get on a post does not always directly translate to business or cash in hand. Some of most successful business-generating posts do not always have the most likes. Similarly, a person with 100,000 followers may not always be the highest revenue generating firm. My favorite example of this is legal meme accounts. Yes they may have a lot of followers because they’re posting relatable, funny memes…. But none of their followers are reaching out to them when there is a legal issue at hand. Do not be discouraged or compare yourself to others.Consistency is key. Starting out a new social media account can be overwhelming and it can seem like no one is paying attention to your posts. It doesn’t matter. What you are doing is building a foundation so that when you get your first “viral” post, those who view your account see all your previous related content and follow you. In the social media world it is very common to go from 5 followers to 5000 overnight because of a single post. Marketing is a learned skill. Once you learn social media marketing skills they are generally easily transferable to other platforms. Start with one platform and get really good at that platform before moving on to another. Watch other content creators and try to figure out what they are doing that speaks to their audience, then try to do it on your own. Think about what worked and what didn’t, and why.

I think most important of all is to have fun with it. I believe a large part of my social media success is because I enjoy content creation and engaging with my audience. In life, time is our most valuable asset. If you aren’t doing what you like with your time, you are better served using your time to do something else. Social media is not for everyone, and that is ok. There are many different ways to bring clients into a law firm, and while social media is highly effective, there is also paid advertising, in person networking, and many other ways to build a law firm. You can also outsource the job entirely. Bringing clients in from various means is just one piece of the overall puzzle of a successful law firm. Success is defined differently by different people. My personal aim is to build a law firm and lifestyle that I love, and having plenty of time for my kids. -- something we’ll talk about in the next article.