The Lawmatics Blog

Chances are that being an attorney suits you, otherwise, why on earth would you have pursued this profession? Yet, after a few years of overwhelming piles of documents, never-ending emails, back-to-back consultations, finding your own clients, doing your own marketing, and ardently defending your clients in court, it's easy to find yourself working more than 60 hours a week. Because of the non-stop pressure, lawyers are among the top professionals susceptible to burnout.Many who have never experienced burnout assume it’s merely periodic, work related stress or lack of sleep. But burnout is far more than feeling mentally overtaxed — a simplification of a deep-rooted issue. At its most severe, it’s an occupational hazard capable of leaving you incapacitated or unable to carry out your job. As a lawyer, people are counting on you to handle their most sensitive legal issues. So, if you're so inundated with stress and exhaustion to the point of burnout from the incessant demands of your career, it's not just you that will suffer the consequences — your clients will too.

What is lawyer burnout?

Lawyer burnout is chronic exhaustion as a result of too much on your plate. Lawyers without an efficient system in place can find themselves disillusioned, overworked, and ultimately emotionally distressed. Exacerbating the issue is work martyrdom — the propensity to put the well-being of your clients before your own. Not only is this emotionally draining, but it can start to take its toll on every area of your life. Your emotional and physical burnout will start to spill over into your clients' overall experience and affect your reputation.Believe it or not, burnout can even cause long-term changes in your body that can make you more vulnerable to depression and anxiety.

Signs you’re on the brink of burnout

1Physically drained

Chronic stress can start to lead to physical fatigue. From stomach aches, to migraines, the emotional exhaustion will eventually take its toll physically. Regardless of how much you sleep, during a burnout period your body never quite feels rejuvenated in the mornings since it’s producing high amounts of cortisol — the stress hormone attributed to disrupting healthy sleep patterns . Many individuals suffering from burnout may start to experience depression as well, which can cause a drop in energy and motivation to move your body.

2Inundated with tedious, monotonous tasks

As a lawyer, there's no shortage of tasks to complete throughout the day, whether administrative or in service of your clients. But when you start to feel like your tasks are more than you can handle, then it's only a matter of time before your entire day feels consumed by the pressures of your pending to-do's. Lawyers who have an incapacitating amount of backlogged tasks tend to develop decision paralysis when it comes to prioritization. And in the absence of an effective system in place, managing your workload to completion can seem like an impossibility.

3Pulling away from your responsibilities

When the pressures of your practice become all too much to handle, withdrawal — a common attorney defense mechanism — isn’t far behind. And if kicking the can down the road wasn’t antithetical enough to your workday, cynicism and apathy rear their ugly head when stress compounds. Consequently, personal and professional relationships decline as your workload piles up.

4Turning to alcohol or other substances

Many professionals turn to alcohol to cope and unwind after a long day — attorneys included. After all, drinks with colleagues or a glass of wine after a long day are customary are they not? However, dependency can creep up as alcohol and other substances become go-tos in alleviating the stressors of a demanding workweek, impairing your ability to do your job. Around 70% of legal malpractice issues can be attributed to substance abuse, often by attorneys struggling to seek treatment. Suffice to say, alcohol (or substance) consumption can take the edge off on occasion but really isn’t sustainable without risk of addiction and further health implications. For those who find themselves drinking beyond moderation, assistance for lawyers is readily available.

5Weight fluctuation

A common physical reaction to burnout is experiencing weight change. For many, increased cortisol levels as a stress response triggers hunger sensations, pushing stressed out lawyers to snack more often, in many cases on less than healthy food choices. On the other hand, there are those who can't stand the sight of food when they're overwhelmed with too much work on their plate. Whereas some people lose weight when under duress, others experience weight gain. It all depends on your body's unique chemistry. Either way, if you start to notice significant physical changes as a reaction to your stress, it's a red flag that something needs to give.

6Easily agitated

If you start to feel your patience running thinner than usual, it could be a sign of burnout in the not-so-distant future. The reason why many people feel easily agitated as a burnout symptom is because stress releases adrenaline. Too much adrenaline released in your body upsets your body chemistry, sending you into survival mode. It's almost impossible to pump the brakes once you reach a stress threshold. Should you catch yourself feeling unreasonably angry about seemingly innocuous things, consider taking a much-needed break and reassess the way you’re running your practice.

7No desire to take on more clients

It's hardly a no-brainer why you wouldn't be enthusiastic about taking on more clients when you can barely handle the ones you currently have. Yet, your clients are relying on you to carry out your role. Not only could you be negatively affecting their well-being by failing to do your job in providing adequate representation, but you are ultimately rolling the dice on your livelihood. Failing to follow through with inadequate representation of your clients will lead to poor reviews and a bad reputation in general.

8Troubled relationships

People who are nearing burnout are hardly feeling very sociable. The intense stress paired with chronic fatigue makes you feel disinterested in most things. As such, it's likely difficult to be patient and compassionate in your relationships. Over-tiredness can create a rift in personal relationships, causing attorneys to be distant or even short-tempered with friends and family.[oxygen-template id="6129"]

Common causes of lawyer burnout

!Long hours

According to a 2018 legal trends report, the average full-time working lawyer works just under 50 hours a week. Almost 40% say that this has an overall negative impact on their life. One of the biggest reasons why lawyers put in so many hours is because it's a struggle to catch up with everything that it takes to run a legal practice. With so many administrative tasks, lawyers are often forced to work outside of standard business hours in order to tend to their clients' needs. On average, lawyers spend over 50% of their day on non-billable tasks, like marketing and following up with leads.Clearly this isn't a sustainable lifestyle. The exhaustion will start to take its toll on legal professionals, regardless of how zealous they are about practicing law.Working extra hours may seem conducive to productivity, but in most cases, it is in fact counterproductive, not to mention detrimental to your physical health. Research shows that working more than 10 hours a day can increase your chances of cardiovascular issues by as much as 60%.

!Stiff competition

The competition is fiercer than ever in today's legal industry. Clients expect more than ever for less, and many law firms find themselves struggling to meet their annual revenue goals. With more than 1.3 million practicing lawyers in the United States, there is no shortage of choices for legal consumers seeking representation. But attracting new clients is no small feat for those with zero to minimal marketing experience — particularly in smaller firms.To the chagrin of many lawyers, marketing is typically absent in law school curriculum. You’re taught to handle cases but not how to run a business. Lawyers who aren't prepared for the marketing and sales aspect of standing out in a sea of competition may find themselves burned out from the multiple hats they have to wear.

!Drawn out manual processes

Manual processes are one of the primary culprits for burned-out lawyers' workloads. From responding to incoming leads to finding the best time for a consultation, to drafting up lengthy documentation, to sending and receiving agreements, all of these steps take countless hours to complete manually. They are tedious, they are error prone, and they shouldn’t be on an attorney’s plate to begin with lest you risk double work and client dissatisfaction.

!Perfectionism

Many lawyers possess personality traits that cause them to strive for perfection at all costs. You can see where this is going. Impossible standards are tough to meet. While perfectionism may drive lawyers to excel at what they do, it incurs an emotional toll. Failing to achieve perfection can lead to feeling helpless, out of control, and dissatisfaction with oneself and life. Rather than being driven by aspirational goals, perfectionists are driven by the fear of failure. Hence, it’s arguably toxic in excess, particularly a law firm work environment.

!Lack of resources

When running a law firm, resource availability dictates your time, growth, and caseload capacity. The fewer employees you have, for instance, the more difficult it is to keep up with all of your paying clients or prospects. It’s a simple equation, output equals resources plus time.Once you reach burnout, it’s an uphill battle to reach baseline. Think of a car spinning its wheels in a ditch — it’s possible to get out … eventually, but the best solution is prevention. If you start to notice any of the warning signs mentioned in this post, then look no further than the following solutions to circumvent disaster and turn things around.

Ways to avoid legal burnout with legal technology

Pinpoint your problem areas with legal reporting software

Time equals money. The more time you lose on manual processes, the more you can hear the metaphorical coins dropping into a piggy bank. While you might not be able to stretch the number of hours you have in the day, you can make the most out of the 24 that you're given. Instead of letting yourself get bogged down with manual processes that shouldn’t be on your plate to begin with, boost your efficiency by relying on legal technology.Step one: identify where your time is going with data. Data is the unsung hero in the legal world and, if harnessed, can be one of your greatest assets for identifying problem areas when it comes to efficiency. One solution, legal reporting software, helps you track your productivity, and stay accountable for how you're using your time. You can easily keep tabs on firm’s performance with visibility into the following key metrics:

• Case Volume
• Billable Tasks
• Completed Tasks
• Monthly Revenue
• Revenue Per Employee

If you find yourself currently working over 50 hours a week, and only a small portion of that time is allocated to actual billable work, then law firm reporting software will help you pinpoint the holes in your productivity so that you can make changes accordingly.Once you find out where your problem areas are, you can turn towards automation to put those tasks on autopilot. Attorney intake software can help you automate processes that are draining your energy, resources, and time, and put you back in control of what's most important at your practice.

Accelerate growth with a CRM

A CRM for lawyers manages the client journey end-to-end, keeping everything in one single organized location. No more spread out post-it notes or multiple spreadsheets — a CRM keeps a record of all interactions with clients, ensuring no one falls through the cracks.CRM paired with a pipeline management system takes this a step further by telling you what action to take next on any matter, eliminating inefficiencies in your follow-up process — all with minimal effort on your part. The end result is less work for you, and delighted clients that refer you to their friends and family.

Automate client replies

One of the biggest challenges for lawyers trying to stay productive is getting back to their clients and leads. With so much on their plate, it can feel impossible to have to take a 10-minute call several times a day to update each client on their case. Because of this, poor lawyer responsiveness is one of the top complaints that clients have. Making your clients wait more than 24 hours to hear back from you can lead to negative online reviews and a lack of referrals. Instead of sacrificing your productivity to try to get back to everyone while simultaneously completing all of your tasks, rely on automation to reply for you.Client intake software can be easily configured to send automated and personalized messages, keeping clients engaged from day one, without you having to do a thing. From that point on, you can set triggers of your choice to send out a message depending on where they are on the client journey. Whether they sign up for a newsletter, or they schedule a consultation, automated messages make them feel connected to you every step of the way.

Give clients access to the client portal

In 2022, we find ourselves in a consumer-driven world. Clients expect immediate replies, and won't settle for anything less. Yet, as a busy lawyer, you simply don't have time to stop what you're doing and give everyone an update in real-time. That is … unless you have a client portal. A client communication portal provides immediate means of access to a client’s case details thereby cutting you, the attorney, almost entirely out of the equation.Clients can access the client portal 24 hours a day, and see the latest developments of their case, access documents, and even send their lawyer a message. Not only does this give them more freedom, but it also gives lawyers more freedom. Your clients will be thrilled with your modern approach, and you'll benefit from them being more self-sufficient. Everyone wins!

Allow self-scheduling

One of the frustrating aspects of running a law firm is finding a time that works for your clients and you for consultations. Before long, trying to find a time and date that works for not only your schedule but also theirs can lead to a long string of emails back and forth.Nobody has time to write 10 emails a day over one simple consultation. Allowing your clients to book their own appointments with automated appointment scheduling can be one of the most liberating, time-saving changes you make in your practice. It's as simple as sending them a link to a calendar that links to yours in real time, displaying only your available time slots.From there, they can schedule an appointment without you having to do a thing, serving as a modern and convenient alternative to manually setting appointments, which can be especially helpful when you don't have the luxury of front desk staff.In addition to being able to set their own appointments, clients will also receive automatic appointment reminders, significantly reducing the chance of appointment mixups, and client no-shows.

Use document automation software

From drafting up attorney retainer agreements, to wordy affidavits, creating documents can take a lot of time out of your day. Not to mention, you risk them being full of errors. Lighten your workload by using legal document automation to generate tedious paperwork in a matter of seconds. Custom fields make it easy to merge data from your matters directly into your PDF and word documents, saving you precious time that you can dedicate to what matters most at your practice — giving your clients the attention they deserve.

Offer e-signature

Up until very recently, getting documents signed by your clients was a time consuming, multi-step process for most. It required your client to print, sign and scan documents back to you, often resulting in hour-long delays to get the case rolling. Those were the dark ages before e-signature.Stop losing time, and offer your clients an instant and effort-free way to sign important documents. A client e-signature tool ensures their cases are continuously in progress, making everyone's lives much easier. In addition to being much faster and more convenient, e-signature is also safer. Rather than sending legally binding documents through email, or snail mail, e-signature software is protected from third parties trying to access sensitive information. Above all, offering effortless solutions like electronic signature for legal documents will strengthen your client relationships, and improve the overall client experience.

Automate your marketing

As mentioned earlier in this post, marketing is an enigma to many in the legal industry. After all, you're not a business person, you're a lawyer, right? Unfortunately, you are a business person, and you have to run your law firm like a business if you hope to continue to grow.Yet with so much on your plate, it can be difficult to keep up with the demands of attracting and engaging clients. Automating your marketing with email automation for law firms can be one of the best things you ever do for your firm. Automation tools like audience segmentation software target specific contacts in your law firm CRM based on their characteristics such as their profession, case type, and other factors that could play a role in what sort of marketing materials you sent them. Each group of contacts is sent targeted and personalized marketing that makes that much more likely to open the emails.Rather than trying to appeal to the masses with an all-in-one marketing approach, personalized messages make your firm memorable, and stand out. Automated drip email marketing sends clients messages based on triggers of your choice. From birthday messages to thanking them for joining your newsletter, marketing automation for law firms keeps you top of mind for your clients without any effort on your part.

Burnout can happen to the best of us — the good news is that legal technology can help

The silver lining of a potential burnout is that it's a great motivation to make lasting improvements in your practice. The trick is to take action before burnout takes effect. If you start to notice signs of burnout approaching, consider turning to legal technology to help quickly turn things around for the better.By harnessing the power of legal technology, and automating your most time-draining processes in your practice, you can take control of your sanity, and find a balance between your profession and your personal life. Get back to a place where you enjoy your job again, and let automation handle the rest. Are you ready to see how Lawmatics' all-in-one CRM client intake and marketing solution can help you stave off lawyer burnout? Sign up for a free product demo today!

Sources Cited

Amy Adkins, Majority of U.S. Employees Not Engaged Despite Gains in 2014, Gallup.com, January 28 2015 https://news.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-despite-gains-2014.aspxClio, The 2018 Legal Trends Report https://www.clio.com/resources/legal-trends/2018-report/Claire C. Caruso, Ph.D., R.N. Edward M. Hitchcock, Ph.D. Robert B. Dick, Ph.D. John M. Russo, Ph.D. Jennifer M. Schmit, M.A., Department of Health and Human Services, Overtime and Extended Work Shifts: Recent Findings on Illnesses, Injuries, and Health Behaviors, April 2004 https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-143/pdfs/2004-143.pdf

What is your role at Lawmatics, and what does your job entail?

I’m a Software Engineer at Lawmatics, specifically, a Full-Stack Web Developer. I basically develop new features, extend the existing ones, or fix bugs — because bugs are the eternal crusade in the life of any professional programmer.

How did you end up working for Lawmatics?

Through Fred (Frederico), a friend of mine from a friendship that has existed since 2005. We met in college. I wasn’t properly considering leaving my previous job back then, but Lawmatics was expanding and he invited me to join the team.

What’s the best part of your job?

I really love programming and writing better code that is easily comprehensible to every other programmer in the company and to my future self. I’m also very passionate about what we call DX (Developer Experience), and writing intelligible code is one of its premises. At the end of the day, I love building useful features and products for our customers. It’s always very heart-warming to get nice feedback from customers after a new feature is released.

What challenges have you faced or opportunities you’ve uncovered working remotely during COVID-19?

COVID didn’t change much for me in that context since I’ve worked remotely since 2011. But I confess that the first pandemic months were tougher. Not having a coffee shop nor any coworking space to flee to when working solely at home felt a bit excruciating.

Where are you originally from, and where do you live now? What do you love about where you live?

I am originally from Goiânia (in the state of Goiás, Brazil) and I still live there today. For a brief time I lived and worked in São Paulo. Although I have considered living in other cities in Brazil (or even in other countries), I like how peaceful Goiânia can be sometimes despite its 1.5M inhabitants. I’m not so much a fan of the weather, however; it’s always hot over here and the closest bodies of water are rivers and waterfalls 50 to 100 miles away — no beaches sadly.

What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve had to push pause on most of my hobbies. I used to take Pilates classes and play soccer with friends semi-regularly but have yet to resume due to COVID. Nonetheless, I spend my spare time with my girlfriend Isadora watching series like The Office and This Is Us, or playing Stardew Valley on Nintendo Switch. That or I take care of a side project of mine, which is a URL shortening service, called abre.ai (which basically means “open it” in Brazilian Portuguese).

What is a fun fact most people may not know about you?

I’m very worried about recycling and sustainability, so I take charge of waste management at home, separating recyclable materials from organic ones and whatnot. I go as far as washing all food residue and grease from recyclable materials before discarding them.

What is the one thing you can’t live without and why?

That’s funny, because the first thing that came to my mind when I read this question was paper towels. I use them for lots of things at home, especially in the kitchen: drying liquids that accidentally get spilled or wiping down my dining table after hosting some friends, etc.

Do you have a favorite saying, quote, or personal mantra and if so, what is it and why?

There is a stoic quote from Seneca that I like a lot, and that I try to constantly apply in my life: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”. Fun fact, it’s also tattooed on my leg.

Can you walk us through your "Aha" moment - the moment when you realized how powerful the Lawmatics platform is for lawyers and law firms?

That’s a tough one; there were a few of those for me. The ability to autofill documents with customer data and signatures in Lawmatics is magical. Custom forms with conditional blocks and integrated automations that help law firms and lawyers guide their clients through functional pipelines to improve their client experience is simply awesome.

Based on your experience, what words of wisdom or advice do you have for legal professionals looking to help their law firms win more business, impress clients, and be more efficient?

If they aren’t using Lawmatics yet, I’d start sooner rather than later. Our product roadmap is rife with goodies and improvements we aim to release soon. They will help these professionals provide a great service quality to their clients. And it’ll only get better and better over time.

Believe it or not, the key to a successful law firm is more than just getting your clients the best possible outcome on their case. As a matter of fact, many lawyers don’t win their client's cases, yet their clients are thrilled with them. Ultimately, it all boils down to the customer experience. Building strong connections with your clients through professional conduct will keep them returning for more business, and encourage them to refer you to their friends and family.But if you fail to build that bridge, it won't just result in poor reviews, it will affect your revenue. It goes without saying that it's in your best interest to elevate the client experience.Here are some of the best tips for getting the most out of your relationship with clients, streamlining client intake, and accumulating rave reviews.

1. Practice diligence

Before anything, you have to practice diligence for your clients. So how do we define diligence in the context of client-attorney relationship? For starters, it means performing to the best of your ability when handling their case — being thorough, being transparent, and being as prompt as you can.Beyond that, it’s about keeping your clients' best interests in mind. In some cases, your client's best interests may clash with what's most convenient for you. And though a customer-centric mindset is the key to making happy customers, putting your clients at the center doesn’t always mean putting them first. Going above and beyond for each client at the expense of your business isn’t sustainable in the long-term. What you should strive for is finding a balance between keeping your client’s satisfaction in mind and focusing on the best interests of your business. For many, finding this balance can be a challenge. However, a customer-focused mindset counterbalanced with a business mindset can be a virtue that will open many doors for you.

"Going above and beyond for each client at the expense of your business isn’t sustainable in the long-term."

2. Pay attention to details

The devil is in the details. Attorneys are all-too familiar with this idiom. From your operational duties to your billable work, one seemingly minute overlooked detail could play a key role in your client’s case or conflict. However, with so much on your plate, it can be challenging to stay on top of it all. From juggling your law firm marketing to responding to incoming lead inquiries to drafting up complicated contracts, lawyers have plenty to worry about that can make the minuscule details a blur. The great news is that you can avoid this limitation with the right tools; staying on top of details doesn't require more work. It's all about being resourceful.Law firm client intake software, for instance, guarantees that your client's information is entered correctly — the first time. Rather than manually inputting your clients' information, client intake software pulls it directly from the client intake form and plugs it directly into your database, saving you time and eliminating errors.Lengthy contracts and other critical, informational documents that can take hours to days to assemble manually. Legal document automation makes it possible to turn template documents into intelligent automated workflows, saving you hours a week on busy work.With law firm automation tools such as these, not only do you ensure 100% accuracy on the details, but you also gain priceless time that you can focus on what matters most at your law practice — your relationship with your clients.

3. Manage your time wisely

In a busy practice, every second on the clock is valuable. Making the most out of your time will increase your efficiency, avoid lawyer burnout, and in turn, create happier clients. To that end, accountability for your time is key. But without a baseline of how your time is being spent and how much you’re allocating to administrative work, identifying opportunities to be more efficient becomes particularly challenging.Consider, for a moment, the amount of time your firm spends on new client intake — sending fee agreements for signature, data entry, consultation scheduling, etc. You have no real way of measuring your current or potential efficiency without knowing how many hours you currently dedicate to that part of your business.Lawyers looking to keep track of where their time is going turn to legal reporting software. An easy-to-read dashboard makes it simple to measure how productive you are, how many tasks you're completing overall, and where the problem areas lie. That way you know whether or not any improvements need to be made, and where, for instance, the holes in your client intake process are that should be addressed and improved. Goal tracking for law firms will ensure that you're aiming to deliver fast and consistent results for your clients, by keeping the ball continuously rolling on their cases.

"The most practical way to make each client feel like they're your only client is by employing legal technology."

4. Make it easy to get ahold of you

One typical complaint that clients have about their legal counsel is inaccessibility; they seem impossible to get ahold of for legal advice or a quick legal question. This is understandable, of course, since lawyers are spread in 10 different directions at any given moment of a day. Yet, the foundation of a strong relationship whether in a law firm or elsewhere is communication; your ability to build a lasting connection depends on it. The more responsive you are, the more satisfied your clients are with your legal service. But, to be clear, this does not mean answering the phone for every client or replying to emails as they appear in your inbox — that’s downright unrealistic. The most practical way to make each client feel like they're your only client is by employing legal technology to make them feel connected every step of the way.Client intake software is capable of delivering an immediate response based on triggers of your choice. Whether a client signs up for a newsletter or fills out a legal client intake form, they'll get an automated reply almost instantaneously. Once they're a client, you can use tools like a client portal to grant them access to their case details 24 hours a day. They can log in with a secure link, view everything from calendar events, to important documents, and even send you a message.But not all clients have the same communication preferences or access to technology. In addition to a client portal, you may also want to consider giving them multiple ways to communicate with you. Whether by email, a client communication portal, or SMS for law firms, it helps to have multiple options. The less you make your clients sit around waiting to hear from you, the higher your client satisfaction rates will soar.

5. Make document signing simple

One of the biggest hiccups of the client intake process is getting documents signed. After all, asking your clients to print, sign, scan, and send back to you isn't always easy for their schedules. The easier you can make it for them, the more likely they are to be happy with your services.Instead of asking clients to take multiple steps to get an important document back to you, allow them to sign electronically. Electronic signature for legal documents is an alternative and hassle-free way to sign documents. Not only does it make your clients' jobs much easier, but also yours. You can get the ball rolling much faster since clients can sign and send documents back to you from any device with an internet connection. Convenience is key.[oxygen-template id="6135"]

6. Allow them to self-schedule

There's nothing more frustrating than trying to find an appointment time that works for both you and your client. In many cases settling on something that accommodates both of your schedules can result in a long, drawn-out string of emails getting nowhere. Instead of dreaded email back and forths, avoid this limitation and allow your clients to schedule their own appointments. Simply sync your calendar to a CRM for lawyers with built-in automated appointment scheduling. Doing so will offer your clients visibility into your availability by the date and hour so they can choose the time that works best for them. Not only will you impress your clients with your modern approach to appointment setting, but you'll significantly lower your no-show rate and schedule conflicts.

7. Make sharing files easy

Digging through emails trying to find the right attachment is exhausting, not to mention disorganized. Make it easy to send and receive critical case files and confidential information securely by sending links to your client where they can upload files directly to the client portal. Centralized storage eliminates the need to dig through multiple locations to find the right file, and makes you look much more organized and competent as a lawyer, further improving your client-lawyer relationship.

8. Offer e-payment

The latest legal trends report shows that 65% of legal consumers prefer paying for legal representation online with a credit card. That being the case, it’s safe to assume that many of your clients have the same payment preference. Rather than subjecting a potential client to an in-office visit each time they owe a balance on an invoice, make payments as quick and effortless as possible by offering e-payment.

Source: Clio 2021 Legal Trends ReportE-payments also make your life easier since you can effortlessly keep track of who has paid, and who still needs to settle up.

9. Keep your clients engaged at every stage of the client journey

Keeping your clients engaged through personalized, scheduled and targeted emails is a must. Modern legal technology makes it easy to send automatic messages to clients each time they move from one stage to the next. However, one of the biggest mistakes that lawyers make is assuming that clients only need to be engaged during the potential and existing client representation phase. In actuality, former clients can be one of your biggest gold mines for more business. 75% of law firm business comes from referrals. So if your goal is getting more clients, understand that cutting off communication after a closed case is a major missed opportunity.There's no time like now to engage and re-engage with existing and former clients. Whether you're sending a welcome email, or a happy birthday message to someone you worked with before, nurturing and engaging through targeted emails solidifies the client-attorney relationship and breeds more business.

10. Use data to measure your relationships

Don't take your customers' words for it — use data to measure whether your lawyer-client relationships are as strong as you'd like them to be. A great place to start is by tracking your client acquisition rate. Legal reporting software like Lawmatics shows you where your best clients are coming from, and what your prospective client retention rate is.A low retention rate could be an indication that you need to make serious changes. You should also consider sending out surveys to your clients regularly. Feedback can be a wonderful tool for understanding what it is that your clients would like to see more or less of. Lastly, read your reviews regularly. If the majority of them are positive, then chances are you are doing things right. If you get one or two bad reviews, then chances are you're still probably doing things right. However, if the same issues continue to pop up across multiple reviews, then it's something that you should take into consideration.The more that you can tune into what your customers are thinking and feeling through reviews paired with law firm data analytics, the better you can use that information to strengthen your client relationship.

11. Don’t bite off more than you can chew

At some point, you have to accept that you have a limited workload. In order to give each client the attention they deserve, be sure that you don't take on more work than you can realistically handle. Your clients are paying you to be committed. Spread yourself thin and it will be obvious to them that they are not a priority. By Identifying and sticking to an ideal caseload, you won't jeopardize their experience.

12. Practice self-care

Your commitment to a meaningful attorney-client relationship doesn’t equate strictly to legal representation. Instead, think of it as the oxygen mask scenario on an airplane. Always tend to your own oxygen mask first before helping others with theirs. In other words, if you don't practice self-care, you won't be able to put your best foot forward for your clients. That's why it's important to take breaks when needed and get plenty of rest. Statistics show that lawyers are one of the most stressed-out professions and have a higher propensity to suffer from depression.So, if not for yourself, at least practice self-care for the well-being of your clients. A burnt-out and overworked lawyer can't adequately represent their clients.

Make each client feel like they’re you’re only client with Lawmatics all in one law firm CRM marketing automation and legal intake solution

When you're spread thin it's not always possible to stop what you're doing for a 10-minute follow-up call with every client throughout the day. That's why it's critical that you harness the power of the right legal technology to strengthen your relationships with your clients without the manual effort that comes with it. Lawmatics’ marketing automation for lawyers, law firm CRM, and client intake solutions, not only connects you with new clients but stays in touch with your current and former clients, and elevates the client journey. Put your client relationships first, while Lawmatics takes care of the rest.Are you ready to see how Lawmatics can help you nurture your relationships with clients, and enhance their overall client experience? Sign up for a free demo today!

Welcome to the 21st-century legal market — it's more competitive than ever, and client expectations are at an all-time high. As if you didn't already have enough pressure on you to be an outstanding attorney, you also are faced with the challenges that come along with running a small law firm. And as most lawyers soon find out, while law school may have prepared you to be a lawyer, it hardly prepares you for running a small business. Running a law firm is so much more than simply offering your legal advice, strategizing, and representing clients. You also have a business to run.You have to think about things like costs, marketing, administrative tasks, and the client experience. While once upon a time lawyers had the upper hand, it's now a buyer's market. Potential clients have more options than ever before, and it's up to you to attract and retain clients by delivering a seamless client journey. Unfortunately, because you're a small firm, you don't have a lot of luxuries that a larger firm may have. From the size of your budget to a smaller staff, you likely have to do a lot of things yourself rather than delegating to a staff member.On top of everything that goes into handling your existing clients, it can seem overwhelming having to do your own marketing, and client intake, on top of your administrative tasks. Throw on top of that a worldwide pandemic that has flipped the legal industry upside down and has forced lawyers to completely change the way they practice law.The great news is that there is a solution for effectively managing your small or solo law firm despite the restraints of your challenges.

Common challenges small law firms face

!Long manual processes

When a lead first calls your law firm or sends an email asking for more information, there are a lot of vital tasks that follow. From taking down their contact information, to scheduling a consultation, to sending and receiving agreements — completing these processes manually can take hours to days to get done.Unfortunately, in addition to being time-consuming, manual processes also risk being riddled with errors. Yet, clients come to you for solutions, not more problems. If you hope to build a solid reputation for your law firm, then mistakes aren't an option.

!Keeping up with the competition

As of 2020, there were a reported 1.3 million practicing lawyers in the USA. It goes without saying that there is an oversupply of lawyers for the number of potential clients. It's up to you to attract leads and fight for your clients.One of the first things that clients do when they're looking for a lawyer is to turn to the place they know best, Google. As a small law firm, likely the first search results that come up in your area are larger law firms with larger marketing budgets. In many cases, small law firms simply accept this as their fate and submit to the competition. However, small law firms can stand a chance against even the biggest competition. The key is having an effective management strategy in place.

!Putting in long hours

Lawyers are some of the hardest-working people out there. On average, lawyers put in 60 hours or more a week, and in many cases even more when running a small law firm or solo practice. Despite how passionate lawyers may be about working on behalf of others in need of legal assistance, with those heavy workloads often comes extreme stress.A recent study revealed that attorneys have one of the highest mental health disorder rates out of any profession. Nearly 30% of lawyers interviewed claim to suffer from depression, just under 20% suffer from extreme anxiety, and a whopping 10% claim to have experienced suicidal thoughts at some point during their career.For attorneys trying to scale their firm, long hours don't just equate to less time for other areas of their life such as vacations or spending time with their family, it can damage their mental well-being and quality of life.

!The juggling act between paying clients and potential clients

One of the biggest challenges of running a small law firm is balancing your attention between your potential clients and your paying clients. Because lawyers have so much going on with their current clients, it can be challenging to get back to incoming leads quickly. Yet slow response times can be the death of your small law firm. Statistics show responsiveness has a 60% influence over a potential client's choice of a lawyer. 42% of law firms in a 2021 study took three or more days to respond to a lead inquiry. With so many competing law firms out there, that's a massive window of time that you're giving them to go with the competition. When someone is looking for a lawyer, chances are they're in a hurry. If they don't hear back from your law firm right away, they'll go on Google and click on the next ad that comes up.

!Client cost expectations

Today, over 50% of Americans say that they feel anxious about their finances. When you consider that lawyers charge anywhere from $100 to $1000 an hour, it goes without saying that most Americans can't afford legal representation. Consequently, your average person will avoid hiring a lawyer at all.For that reason, many lawyers are moving towards a flat fee system to appeal to clients who feel uneasy about hourly billing. Hourly billing comes with the implication that costs are uncapped; they may receive an astronomical bill that they won't be able to afford. A flat fee presents your legal service in a neatly wrapped package that is much more appealing to the average budget.However, in an attempt to appeal to potential clients' budgets, many small law firms may be shortchanging themselves with their flat fees. After all, your legal expertise comes with a certain price tag attached and a considerable amount of administrative work, so taking a financial hit is not the answer.Unfortunately, many small law firms blunder trying to find a balance between appealing to client cost expectations while also pricing their legal services fairly. Aiming too high or too low is a common problem for many.

!Budget constraints

4% of small law firms claim they can't generate enough revenue to be able to invest more money into their firm. Unfortunately, budget constraints can make scaling your firm much more difficult.From hiring more staff to investing in legal technology, making your law firm more efficient comes at a cost. Without the cash flow it takes to finance these upgrades, many small law firms find themselves trapped in a perpetual rut of long and tedious processes.

!Lack of insight about where time is going

According to a recent trends reportthe average lawyer devotes only about 2.5 hours of their day to billable tasks. The other part of their day is spent on the “other” parts of running a law firm.Yet, the secret to success as a law firm is knowing what every hour of your day is devoted to. Many small law firms have no idea just how much time they're losing that could be committed to more revenue-producing tasks. Data is power. By following the right metrics, you can identify where you're losing the most time in your practice, and what improvements need to be made to increase your productivity and consequently boost your revenue.Small law firms may find the idea of running law firm data analytics reports daunting. However, the same trends report shows that law firms who rely on legal technology like CRM Reporting and insights software collect nearly 40% more revenue per lawyer compared to firms not using those technologies.[oxygen-template id="6131"]

Tips for effectively managing your small law firm

Develop a strong law firm brand

If you don't remember taking Law Firm Branding 101 in law school, don't worry. It's probably because it wasn't one of your courses. One of the rude awakenings for many lawyers is that law school set them up with knowledge of the law, but didn't teach them how to run a business.In the business world, a brand is more than just the name of your law firm. It’s an intangible feeling your law firm evokes in potential clients. Smart branding appeals to your target audience by sparking their interest and peaking their emotions.There is a whole galaxy of elements that go into a brand. From font choice to website layout, to your logo colors, all of these elements come together to form what we call a brand.Developing your firm's brand should depend on what kind of emotion you hope to evoke in your potential clients. Who do you hope to appeal to? How do you hope to make an impression? Most importantly, what makes you stand out against competing lawyers in your area? Creating a unique strong brand for your small law firm is paramount for your success.By piecing together the right mold for your brand, you'll be able to better appeal to your target audience, and stand out in a sea of competition. Creating a strong brand for your law firm will take patience and consistency. There may be a lot of trial and error in the business development process, but with enough diligence, you'll create an effective branding strategy that stands out.When creating your law firm's brand ask yourself the following questions:

• What kind of lawyer am I?
• What can I promise my clients?
• What’s my unique selling proposition?
• Who is my target audience?
• What is my core message?

Above all, take things step by step, and remember you must learn to walk before you can run. Don't put your law firm's brand out there until it's fully developed if you intend for it to be as resonant as possible.

Streamline client intake

As a lawyer, time is synonymous with money. Therefore you should make every second count by streamlining your processes as much as possible. As you probably well know, onboarding clients is incredibly tedious and time-consuming. Yet, if you aren't on top of every step, you can make a poor first impression on your client. The only way to ensure that you give every new client the kind of attention they deserve while still being able to keep up with your workload is by streamlining your client intake process with client intake software.Automation in law firms means no more having to stop what you're doing to take down a lead's phone number and enter it into your database yourself. Client intake software like Lawmatics inputs contact information directly into your law firm CRM and tracks your leads from that point on. They'll receive an initial welcome email introducing your firm, and any other details you'd like to add. From that point on, client intake software follows up for you on autopilot with drip email marketing, keeping your client up-to-date with where they are in the client journey. In other words, they'll feel completely connected to you, without you actually having to do a thing.An e-signature tool streamlines your client intake process even further since it eliminates the friction often associated with asking your clients to print, sign and scan important documents back to you. Electronic signature for legal documents makes it possible for your clients to sign and send important documents from anywhere with an internet connection. That way, you have everything signed on the fly, in a matter of seconds so that you can get the ball rolling on your case.Thanks to an easy-to-read dashboard, law firm client intake software gives you a birds-eye view of where each client stands. No more scrambling, or digging through your inbox to find out whether clients have been followed up with. Attorney intake software makes it easy to seamlessly move leads through a clear and consistent intake process thanks to workflow automation for law firms, ultimately making it possible to take on more clients at the same time, without having to sacrifice your sanity.

Improve the client experience

One of the biggest contributing factors to customer loyalty is the amount of effort you ask your clients to put in. In other words, the easier you can make things for your clients, the more likely they will be to refer you to friends and family and return back for repeat business.Improving the client experience starts with being as efficient as possible while requiring minimal effort on their part. One of the best places to start is by making it easy to get a hold of you when they have a question. Access to a client portal means they can log in at any time to see their case details. From important documents to events, everything is located in one central and secure location. Clients can send you a message and even self-schedule their own appointments with automated appointment scheduling without having to contact you directly. Self-service options included in a client communication portal elevate and modernize the client experience, giving your small law firm a big law firm feel.You should also consider accepting multiple payment options. Statistics show that 65% of consumers prefer to pay with a credit card. Offering online payments for your clients can make a world of difference in the client experience.The latest Clio trends report revealed that growing firms are 37% more likely to accept online payments. What's more, online payments can significantly reduce your administrative tasks, by automatically updating your outstanding balances, and alerting you about which clients still require payment follow-up.

Set law firm goals and objectives

The secret to successfully running a small law firm isn't just an elevated client experience — it's also thinking long-term by setting goals and objectives. Yet setting goals without measuring them is a fruitless endeavor. To ensure that you're en route to meeting your objectives, actively tracking your most important metrics is the key to progress.Legal reporting software makes it possible to stay on top of what's working and what's not at your firm, keeping you (and your staff) accountable for where your time and resources are going. Running regular reports gives you better insight, and it gives you the tools to better plan for the future. Above all, you'll see increased revenue. Once you start setting concrete objectives and tracking them, you'll see an increase in your efficiency thanks to goal tracking for law firms. From how much time you’re spending on each task to who your most efficient staff members are, information is power. Increased efficiency equals increased revenue — it's really that simple.In order to get the most out of setting and tracking objectives, you should develop a long-term strategy. Where do you see your small firm further down the road? Who is your ideal client? The more specific you can be about your targets, the better you can adjust your tactics as you go.Some essential management reports you should run for your small law firm are:

1 Productivity

Productivity reports show you how well your small law firm is performing on an individual and collective scale. By tracking your total amount of tasks compared to what you've actually completed, you can start exploring where you're losing the most time and why.Once small law firms start tracking their productivity rates, they're usually shocked to find just how much time they're losing on long drawn-out manual processes. This is why the smartest law firms turn towards automation software to skyrocket their productivity by putting their administrative tasks on autopilot.

2 Client acquisition

Are you attracting enough prospective clients? Can you say whether your potential new client to retained client conversion rate is where you'd like it to be? The more you get to know where your best clients are coming from, and why, the more you'll be able to increase your conversion rates. Turning your leads into loyal clients is often a process of trial and error. Many firms have to try several different methods before they get their footing. By running a client acquisition report, you can determine whether you have quite a low rate, which is usually an indication that you've got holes in your client intake process. Yet again an important reason to rely on client intake software to streamline the process.

3 Client satisfaction

The only way to ensure your attorney client relationship is healthy and that your clients are satisfied is by measuring their behavior. One of the most reliable ways to do so is by tracking the number of client referrals you have along with client retention rates. You can also measure client satisfaction by sending out regular surveys, asking your clients to evaluate their experience with you, and asking them to leave you a review online.

4 Marketing

It's critical that you keep an eye on your marketing campaigns so that you only put your resources into the most revenue-producing sources. The idea is to get the maximum return on your investment, so measuring your marketing strategies is essential. Marketing metrics like visit-to-lead ratio email click rate and SEO keyword ranking will help you gain better insight into whether your marketing efforts are where they need to be. Since 30% of clients look for lawyers on Google, you want to make sure that you're standing out. Running reports like average bounce rate may reveal that your legal website needs an upgrade.

5 Revenue

It goes without saying that tracking your revenue is one of the most important parts of managing your small law firm. By using time and billing software for lawyers, you'll be paying close attention to KPI’s like the total revenue billed over the course of the month, compared to what you collected, average fee per matter, and which marketing sources produced the most revenue, you'll be able to make changes in your strategy where needed and make more data-informed decisions.

Give your small law firm a big law firm feel with Lawmatics

Small law firms face numerous obstacles that larger firms simply don't. Not to mention we also find ourselves in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. For many small law firms, success can feel like a long shot under the current conditions. However, with the right legal technology, you can make better-informed decisions, streamline your processes, prioritize what matters most at your law firm, and elevate the client experience. Are you ready to see how Lawmatics can help you manage your law firm and create more business with less busy work? Sign up for a free demo today!

Happy New Year! We hope that despite the circumstance of yet another COVID strain that you enjoyed the holiday season and were able to ring in the new year safely — maybe even with close family and friends.Right out of the gate in 2022, we’re excited to announce new functionality that enhances a number of our key Lawmatics features. We hope these make your day-to-day business operations that much easier.

Client Portal Messaging

Late last year we took a huge leap forward in releasing our Client Portal for document and calendar event sharing. This year, we’ve made the Client Portal even more powerful by adding a new way to interact with your clients in Lawmatics using our fully secure, encrypted messaging feature.In lieu of flooding your inbox with client emails containing sensitive case information, 2-way messaging via the Client Portal conveniently centralizes all your client communications in one easily accessible place. All incoming and outgoing messages are stored in your account as part of a message thread, automatically generating a historical record of any interaction for future reference. In other words, you won’t need to comb through your texts and emails anymore to find who sent you what, when, and for which matter.

Creating and replying to a message thread in Lawmatics is also easy for both you and your clients. A new “Messages” menu item gives you a top-down view of all message threads wherein you can see all incoming and outgoing communications as well as the manner associated.On the client end, their unique Client Portal now features a “Messages” section to easily correspond with firm members assigned to their case. And to ensure no messages slip through the cracks, you can activate email or text notifications to be alerted about any incoming client message(s).The addition of Messaging takes the Client Portal to a whole new level in that you can keep your clients fully updated on their cases without ever leaving Lawmatics. The faster you move away from messaging via email or your personal cell phone, the better.We are slowly rolling out Client Portal Messaging over the next week. For early access, please shoot us an email at support@lawmatics.com.

Scheduled Email Sends

By popular demand, you now have the ability to control when your email messages are sent and arrive in your recipient’s inbox. In addition to sending automated and immediate one-off emails to matters, any email created either from a template or from scratch can now be scheduled to go out at a future date and time. Support documentation along with instructions on how to use Email Templates can be found here.When preparing your next message, take note of the new clickable clock icon situated next to the ‘Send Email’ button. Here you can specify a date, time, and timezone for your upcoming email send — all in a matter of seconds. And should you need to cancel a queued send for any reason, you can do so quickly and easily from within the individual matter.So let’s say it’s 11 PM and you just finished drafting a not-so-urgent case update for a client or a conflict of interest notice to a prospect. You no longer need to wait until the next morning to manually send that message (or risk sending it unseen outside of business hours). Just set it and forget it.

Resend Expired Signature Documents

Delays happen; it’s the nature of the business. What you don’t want is for those delays to translate into lost time for you or your staff. For that reason, we’ve rolled out a new shortcut in Lawmatics that allows you to resend any expired documents requiring e-signature with the click of a button.For instance, should a prospect fail to sign a fee agreement within the allotted time, you can simply send them a duplicate copy from the Documents tab of your Lawmatics account. Any document with a status of “Expired” is eligible for a resend, with the added option to extend the e-signature link deadline. No need to send a new e-signature required document from scratch. Further information on utilizing documents in Lawmatics can be found here.Ultimately, this update offers additional control and convenience when it comes to documents that require e-signature and is part of a growing list of time-saving features on our docket for 2022.Stay tuned for more updates and improvements from the Lawmatics team later this month! Not using Lawmatics yet? There’s no better time to start than the beginning of a new year. Book a personalized demo to learn how we can help your firm reach peak efficiency in 2022!

Just over four years ago, we set out on a journey. A journey to initiate a shift and transform the way law firms think and operate — less like a law firm and more like a business. Though it would undoubtedly be a tough and lengthy process, we knew that a fundamental problem in our industry was left unsolved and that we had the vision to meet that challenge head-on.Today, that journey hits an exceptional milestone — one all budding companies such as ours often only dream of achieving: a round of Series A funding. We are proud and excited beyond words to announce that we have raised $10mil in fresh capital, designed to take the Lawmatics platform to the next level. This funding represents a new beginning for Lawmatics!As with any round of funding, the same questions tend to surface. What will the money be used for? What does this mean for our customers? In response, I want to take a moment to answer those questions with as much transparency as possible.

We raised this money in order to scale Lawmatics.

More money means more people: more people to build the product; more people to aid our customers in their successful use of the platform; more people to help get Lawmatics in front of more people; and more people to interact with our customers and understand their problems that need solving.

Increased cadence in product development

As we scale the number of engineers on the team significantly, Lawmatics users can expect a much higher frequency of updates to the platform. One major catalyst for completing this fundraiser at this juncture was the Lawmatics platform itself. We have an exceptionally enthusiastic and vocal customer base. They are a wellspring of incredible feedback and ideas on making the platform better. And we listen to those customers intently; they drive us to want to move faster. This new war chest will allow us to do just that: We aim to move quicker than we ever have to add the features, functionality and usability that our customers want into the platform.

Enhanced customer success

Providing a great customer experience is in our DNA. This fundraise will ensure that we can continue to deliver on our promise to our customers to provide industry leading customer support and onboarding services. Already, we’re seeing stellar new additions to the team and look forward to the influx of Lawmaticians joining us over the coming months.

A personal thank you

On a personal note, this raise means so very much to me. I want to extend a big thank you to each and every one of our customers and team members who have allowed us to grow to this point. If not for our incredible customers and team, we would not be able to focus on bringing best in class solutions to our law firm customers.Building a company is like having a child. You start it from nothing and nurture it to the best of your abilities. With any luck (and a lot of elbow grease), it’ll grow well beyond its infancy through adolescence and adulthood. While we are still very much in the infancy phase — and hope to preserve our ‘startup’ culture for as long as we possibly can — this round of funding represents a “growing up” of sorts of Lawmatics. And as I reflect, I couldn’t be more proud of the team that we’ve assembled that is so foundational to our success. We are perfectly situated to scale because of the great people we have here now.When we founded Lawmatics, I did not know what we would become. I had no idea what to expect, nor could I imagine how big of a company we could build. Now, our expectations are enormous, and our goals even more so. I can’t wait to see what this team accomplishes with this great, new wind in our sails.

– Matt Spiegel, Co-Founder and CEO