Latest / The Managing Partners' Table / Ep 3: Modernizing a Multi-Practice Firm
Transcript
- 0:00welcome to today's episode of the Managing Partners Table.
- 0:03I'm happy to have with us today Tim Dinan from Laddie Clark and Ryan.
- 0:06They are a personal injury, employment law, real estate.
- 0:09Fill me in with tell me, tell me everything your firm does, and then we're gonna talk about you.
- 0:14All right.
- 0:14Thanks for having me today.
- 0:15~ we are a personal injury firm.
- 0:18We have a workers' compensation practice.
- 0:20We have a very robust trust and estates group.
- 0:23~ we do employment law, we do business transactional law, ~ land use as well.
- 0:29those are our our big areas.
- 0:31We do a little bit more, but those are our our major practice areas.
- 0:35wow.
- 0:35So you guys definitely keep busy over there and certainly in your role you're keeping busy.
- 0:40Yeah, yeah.
- 0:41it's it's ~ trying to to keep an an eye on and and control over all of those groups that have different needs is is definitely a challenge.
- 0:52Yeah, so that's why I'm excited to have you on today.
- 0:53I know you have an interesting kind of pathway to managing partner that maybe some people have started their own firm have an experience, but I know we're have a lot of people that
- 1:01listen that are also in the process of some transitioning within their firm.
- 1:04~ so
- 1:05for some background, Tim went from being a partner to leading a practice group at the firm to co-managing partner and is now managing partner.
- 1:13~ so I'd love to hear a little bit, you know, was that always your plan that I want to be a managing partner one day, or are you just kind of that became the path?
- 1:22No, that that kind of became the path because, you know, looking around was like, okay, well, who who is it that that really has a vision for where not only we we can go, but
- 1:35where where we wanna go?
- 1:37And I think I probably was the most vocal one and the the one that ~ really I would say stepped up and and and said, Yeah, this is this is something that that I wanna do and and
- 1:50that we
- 1:51we need to do in order to to survive in the ever changing legal market.
- 1:57Yeah, and I think that's an interesting point because so often I think sometimes the managing partner role, some people see it as just more oversight and making sure
- 2:03everything's running smoothly, but there's a lot of that visionary piece also and really guiding the firm to what needs to happen next for them to stick around.
- 2:11Yeah, and I think that's that's the part I was excited about.
- 2:13I think I I grossly underestimated the the day to day management aspect of it ~ when when I came into this role and how much time and and energy and and thought that it would
- 2:23really take to to get us focused in the right direction and then moving in that right direction.
- 2:31Yeah, so I'd be curious, what's what's the piece that you underestimate the most?
- 2:34Because I always say that about going into the owning a business too.
- 2:37I'm like, I knew it would be difficult and challenging.
- 2:39I had no idea what I was getting into.
- 2:41And maybe it was for the best.
- 2:43Yeah, and I think it really is it it's all of it.
- 2:45It it is, ~ not only the the the people and and the managing sort of the day to day, it's all right, gotta learn the numbers.
- 2:53And and when I took over, I I have to say I don't know that we were doing a great job of keeping track of the right numbers.
- 3:01We had systems in place, but they were sort of the same systems we had and the same tracking ~ capabilities that we had when the firm started thirty some years ago.
- 3:11And
- 3:13being such a diverse firm, which you know, I think we we had grown to a point where we were a little bit bigger than our capabilities were as far as tracking goes.
- 3:23And we were treating all the practice areas and and assessing everybody the same.
- 3:29And that really didn't make sense to me.
- 3:31And so it was okay, trying to figure out first how do we assess a personal injury attorney and a personal injury paralegal.
- 3:40versus a trusted states paralegal and trusted states attorney.
- 3:43And they are very different.
- 3:45And how they make money is very different.
- 3:46And how they generate clients is very different.
- 3:49~ and and when the the one of the hardest parts I've found of of managing this firm is that with with personal injury it it's one of those feast or famine kind of ~ things where
- 4:00our revenue is can be great and then the next month it can be very low.
- 4:06And you just have to prepare to sort of ride that out.
- 4:08And the other practice areas aren't
- 4:10are more stable, which is great.
- 4:13but they don't see the same high highs.
- 4:15And so trying to figure out, okay, how do we turn that roller coaster into something that that we can plan for has been ~ has been part of my challenge that I'm I'm working on and
- 4:27continue to work on every day and probably will for the rest of the time I'm in this role is ~ figuring out, okay, what what should our next steps be in order to make sure that we
- 4:36survive those low points.
- 4:39Yeah, I think having and tracking the right numbers to have the information you need to have some of that predictability is really helpful.
- 4:45And it's almost impossible to know that without the right numbers.
- 4:48And I'd be curious, just because we've talked to some people about different formats for how they do this, ~ do are you ha is that like firm-wide?
- 4:54Do you have those practice group leaders running and reporting on those numbers or how are you guys implementing that?
- 5:00So and and I I hope to get to a point where we are sort of giving it back to the practice group leaders to interpret their numbers for us, but ~ we really had to set that up.
- 5:12And that's sort of where we are right now.
- 5:13So we we switched over to a document management system file line, which also does a great job of tracking our billables as well and our revenue and gives us all kinds of metrics
- 5:25that we did not have before.
- 5:27And so then
- 5:28What we're doing what we've done then is we we've created spreadsheets for all of our attorneys that show them this is how many cases you've signed up, this is how many cases
- 5:37you've closed, this is how much revenue you've made, this is where they came from, this is where they originated from, all the details that you think ~ everybody should get,
- 5:44anyways, but we weren't getting them.
- 5:46And so we're at the stage now where we've we've started producing those monthly and and we're about a year into doing that.
- 5:55And ~ the next step.
- 5:58I think is okay, now that we've got a year's worth of data, let's start analyzing these and and see looking for trends and looking for okay, where where are the ~ where where can
- 6:10we improve?
- 6:11Where are we struggling?
- 6:12And then, you take a practice like Trust and States, it's it's really in our case, four different practices.
- 6:17It it's the planning, it is the administration, it is the litigation, and it is ~ guardianships as well.
- 6:26And so taking those four groups and and really looking at, okay, are we charging enough?
- 6:31Are we charging too much?
- 6:32~ where are we getting those cases from?
- 6:36And just looking at all of it sort of holistically and trying to figure out, okay, what is the logical next step?
- 6:42Where do we need to invest more maybe in marketing to get more of those cases?
- 6:47You know, the the planning cases we've we found are are great,
- 6:51writing a will for somebody and and and setting up an estate plan is important work.
- 6:56It's great work.
- 6:57~ but it is more of a high volume, low revenue part of the practice where we see that we make more money is on the administration or on the litigation work ~ where our attorneys
- 7:09are billing hourly and and what generates that kind of work.
- 7:12And do they come from people that we've done estate plans for coming back to us because we've done a good job.
- 7:17Or are they referrals from other attorneys?
- 7:19And we really didn't have that data.
- 7:21So we're sort of looking at it now almost for the first time and saying, all right, where is it that that these are coming from?
- 7:27Rather than saying, you know, I I think I have a feeling that this is where I get them from.
- 7:31It's really taking a a closer look.
- 7:33And the same thing in personal injury.
- 7:34~ you know, looking at our, okay, we we get referrals from other attorneys, and we have to pay referral fees on those.
- 7:42Are those the kinds of cases that
- 7:44we want to spend our time on and are they can they be profitable for us or should we be putting more of our money into marketing so we can capture those cases earlier on.
- 7:53Those again, those are the sort of analysis that we we are doing and and need to continue to do to really, I think, position our firm in a way that that we can be the most
- 8:03successful.
- 8:05Yeah.
- 8:05That you guys are breaking it down by practice area.
- 8:07I feel like sometimes when we come and we talk to clients and they're like, we just want to market the whole firm.
- 8:12And it's difficult, sometimes for that understanding that every single practice group has its own type of marketing.
- 8:17And even within that practice group, to your point, it could just be actual ads versus referral sources.
- 8:21It's two different things for everyone.
- 8:22~ and I have a feeling there are people listening that are going, we've been thinking about doing this and have been relying on that gut check versus the data.
- 8:31Has there been anything that's come up, you know, without sharing all the details, that's been surprising that you would.
- 8:35say, hey, you really should rely on the data because we thought that it was X, but it turned out that was not the case.
- 8:42yeah, absolutely.
- 8:43And and I think ~ the the biggest thing is okay, which of these practice groups actually make money versus not?
- 8:51~ and and that's was sort of the biggest eye opener is when we we started breaking down, okay, this is how much we're actually paying a a paralegal to do this work and this is how
- 9:01much time the attorney is spending, and we we break down those hourly costs on those flat fee matters.
- 9:06~ that's where we really sort of delved into it and said, wait a second.
- 9:11maybe we need to increase our our flat fee charges or sometimes it's it was our flat fee charges are actually doing pretty well here that that's a that's a great situation.
- 9:20~ and our contingency fee cases that's that's another piece of it and it's really looking into the particular cases themselves.
- 9:30all right what kind of cases do we do we do the best on?
- 9:32~ and there are some that we we do really well and and
- 9:37Can can get in and out quick for a a a small, a relatively small settlement for a variety of reasons.
- 9:44And there are others that take more time and ~ require us to to really work them up and invest in them and and hire experts and and go the distance as far as, you know, maybe
- 9:55potentially all the way to trial.
- 9:57And do we treat those cases the same when they come in or or do we maybe handle them differently based on what they are?
- 10:04And then being able to identify, okay, these are the cases that.
- 10:07need to be treated differently so we can make the most money for our client in in a personal injury case as opposed to ~ having the small case litigated all the way through
- 10:16and then the client's unhappy because well the expenses were five thousand dollars and we're only getting you twenty five, then not a very happy client.
- 10:23Whereas if we can get them, you know, 17 after a few months, maybe that's a better ultimate recovery for them.
- 10:32Yeah, and that all ties back to client satisfaction too.
- 10:34So it's another added bonus outside of profitability that you guys are getting from that.
- 10:39I would be curious, and I know just to kind of go back, it like it sounds like you're changing so many things and doing so much there.
- 10:45And I'm wondering ~ what kind of team structure that looks like.
- 10:48Like if you have someone on your team that's helping you with that, or you are really just diving in and dealing with all of it.
- 10:54Absolutely.
- 10:54And you know, I can speak for at least on our on the personal injury end.
- 10:57~ Megan Steingold, who is is one of the partners here, has been instrumental in helping me sort of reshape that practice group and sort of help steer the day-to-day practice of of
- 11:10that because I it went from being that practice group leader of personal injury to having a different role.
- 11:16And when she took it over, she said
- 11:20I I don't know that this is working, even though she's saying it to me, who, ~ it was it was one of the groups that I was running for a long time.
- 11:26And ~ I I will say one of the things that we did last year is we went to ~ Morgan and Morgan's RevCon, which is their ~ CLE in in New York City that they have in September, and
- 11:41they broke down for us how they set up their personal injury practice, and it was sort of eye-opening.
- 11:48where they've got their their pre-litigation and their litigation teams.
- 11:53And w we sat through sort of that that presentation.
- 11:57We went back and we said, okay, we we hear what they do.
- 12:00Obviously their scale is is ridiculous and there's no way that we're w they get seven thousand calls a day.
- 12:06We're we get seven a week, being up in Sussex County, New Jersey.
- 12:11So it's a question of, okay, how do we how do we take what we learn there and and
- 12:16make it work for us.
- 12:17And we reassigned our our paralegals and and she reassigned our paralegals and divided up our cases and changed us into that format where we've got the pre-litigation paralegals
- 12:31that can review the cases and identify, okay, is this a case that we need to move to litigation earlier?
- 12:38Is it a case that we need to resolve and and move on?
- 12:41Or is it a case that maybe we made a mistake on
- 12:44intake and we can't do something or maybe something changed and it it's a big thing that changed and let's identify it and make a decision on it rather than keep it and hold on to
- 12:53it for years and and have that mistake keep coming back to us.
- 13:00Yeah.
- 13:00And it sounds like you guys are implementing change pretty quickly too, which I know sometimes at firms that can be a challenge of, getting the ship to turn a little bit.
- 13:07So it sounds like you're taking the ideas back and just running with them.
- 13:11Well, I I don't know.
- 13:12It it it's one of those y as soon as you you think about it, you want it to change very quickly.
- 13:17And I and I think the I I think that's the biggest challenge has been it it isn't overnight.
- 13:23You c you can't just flip a switch and okay, everything is good.
- 13:26Because even when you implement a change, there are always hiccups and there are always exceptions.
- 13:32And the exceptions are what people come to you with and they give you the reasons why it shouldn't be the plan that you
- 13:38set forth.
- 13:39And I think the the hard part about ~ the leadership position is either you have to you have to make the decision whether or not, okay, this is an exception, or like, no, I think
- 13:49you're wrong about this being an exception.
- 13:50We're going to use the normal path.
- 13:52Whether you're right or wrong ultimately, that's that's a that's a different question.
- 13:55But that's that's one of the things that I think has been the hardest part about ~ being in this management role is you have to you you set up your your systems.
- 14:05And again, especially in law, there are always exceptions and determining, okay, is this particular situation one of those exceptions or is it something that we need to force into
- 14:17our regular system and that'll be the best outcome?
- 14:19always the challenge with any process is how much do we deviate from this and will
- 14:23it come back to haunt us later.
- 14:25~ how are you getting everyone on board with all of the change?
- 14:29Have you found any kind of pro tips for getting everyone excited about the changes or ready to implement them?
- 14:37I I think typically there's been a lot of anxiety when we start talking about it.
- 14:42And I I think one of the things I've learned is from announcement to rollout, that needs to be a relatively short period of time because the anxiety about a change is what really
- 14:55is the the most divisive part about any change in an organization.
- 15:00Once you you've made the change.
- 15:03People are generally able to get behind it and and understand it.
- 15:08But I think having, you know, is telling people, okay, we're going to make this change, and then it's a month, two months, three months, and you're still sort of working out the
- 15:17process is not the best way to do it.
- 15:21And that's something that I definitely have learned the hard way.
- 15:23It's you've got to be ready to go before you tell the people that are going to be affected, this is how your job is going to change.
- 15:28This is how your day-to-day is going to change.
- 15:31that's a great piece of advice because I think sometimes, you know, people say, ~ give them some time to get used to the idea.
- 15:36But that also leaves
- 15:38a lot of room for unknowns and questions to pop up, especially if you don't have the answer.
- 15:42And then and then maybe you you've you've thought through and got this very solid plan and then they come to you with, Well, what about this exception?
- 15:49Well, what about this exception?
- 15:51And they're asking you to make decisions based on hypotheticals, which is really the worst thing to do.
- 15:58so tell me some more.
- 15:58So I let's talk a little bit about kind of that.
- 16:00I'm super curious because I haven't heard of a lot of people doing that co-managing partner role, but also that seems very proactive and probably one of the smoothest ways to
- 16:09do a transition.
- 16:10~ what did you find during that period?
- 16:12Did you think that was like helpful for you?
- 16:14What was that like?
- 16:15It it was helpful in the sense that you know a lot of the a lot of the things that we implemented were implemented at that phase.
- 16:23For example, the the document management system.
- 16:27So it was it it didn't take a hundred percent of my energy to set that up, ~ which was ~ definitely a a plus because then I could also practice and also ~
- 16:41watch some of the other aspects of of the firm as well.
- 16:45I didn't have to be, you know, fully involved in in the complete day to day.
- 16:49So again, some of the changes that that I wanted to implement, ~ we were able to get going before I had to be responsible for everything.
- 16:58Which is a good place to be in, especially I'm I'm curio like curious if you're still practicing as much as you were or that I know that the managing partner role can sometimes
- 17:07be a little bit more day-to-day than practice.
- 17:10Yeah, not as
- 17:11much as I was.
- 17:11And and my hope is that again, we're like you said, we're implementing quite a bit and we are trying to get ourselves set up.
- 17:19My hope is that once we get sort of past this initial phase of getting getting ourselves up and running, I'll have more time to be able to jump back in and and do more practice
- 17:30work.
- 17:30I haven't given it up, but I'm definitely not doing as much as I I was before.
- 17:34Yeah, there's only so many hours in the day.
- 17:36~
- 17:39what else would you say is different from this role that than you ~ had envisioned going in?
- 17:46again, I think it goes back to the you have an idea and you think, I can implement this and that will be exactly what we need and and this will solve so many problems and there's
- 17:55not one any one solution.
- 17:57~ in order to to make a firm successful, you've gotta try so many different things and you've gotta be okay, ready to fail too.
- 18:07~ one of the examples I think is ~ early on, maybe maybe a a year and a half ago, ~
- 18:14when I in the co-managing partner phase, we our a receptionist got promoted and so we had an opening in that spot.
- 18:21And I was getting bombarded on Instagram with ads for ~ receptionists, legal receptionists that are remote that, you know, that will will handle everything.
- 18:32So we said, all right, let's let's give this a try and see ~ what it's like.
- 18:37Maybe we can save some money by not having an in-house receptionist.
- 18:42And it was an absolute disaster.
- 18:44So the first week ~ we you know we we set it up and and they were answering all the calls that were coming in and ~ they were not getting you know the name of the firm right.
- 18:56They were transferring us all over the place.
- 18:59and and generally people were pretty unhappy with it.
- 19:01~ and then the second week it was just sort of more of the same and then I got the bill and it was like this isn't cheaper at all.
- 19:10This is in fact gonna be more expensive than just hiring somebody.
- 19:13~ and so we again we we we tried it, made that made that determination, or we're we're gonna see if this works and complete disaster.
- 19:23And so we moved back and we hired a receptionist to come and answer the phones.
- 19:27And and I think that is I think one of those lessons is you you have to be ready to say, okay, this didn't work.
- 19:34Let's go back and and reassess and and you know, maybe it's we go back to how we were doing before, or maybe it's we try something completely different.
- 19:44Yes, yeah.
- 19:44I know in the beginning I think I was very guilty of holding on way too long in the hopes that things would change, where and I think pulling the ripcord would have saved us a a
- 19:51lot of headache, a lot of money, ~ made our team happier.
- 19:54So which is a difficult thing when you're like,
- 19:56but I I wanted this initiative to work, but does not always pan out.
- 20:01~ so let's talk a little bit.
- 20:03I know effortly, you know, a lot of things are changing and we you had talked like little bit about marketing.
- 20:07Obviously we're on the marketing side.
- 20:08So I would be curious ~ how you guys are seeing the AI world impact if you guys are seeing any imp impact on your side with how clients are finding you.
- 20:17Absolutely.
- 20:18And I think the biggest impact even from the beginning of the year until now is ~ the AI in in search.
- 20:26And when people type in you know, personal injury attorney near me or or any kind of attorney near me, you get the answer on on Google with the the AI write up right away at
- 20:37the top of the screen.
- 20:38And you need to be in there and figuring out, okay, how do we get in there?
- 20:41How do we how are we one of the the firms listed?
- 20:45is is really critical to getting the calls and and getting that that's ~ your message in the door and getting people to ~ getting those potential clients to to reach out.
- 20:56And so we we actually we started the year getting more calls than we've ever gotten and then noticed, hey, wait a second, this has dried up and made a shift as far as what we
- 21:12were doing, made a shift in strategy.
- 21:14focusing more on social media.
- 21:17and, you know, it a lot of this is is beyond me and and I'm sure more in your wheelhouse.
- 21:21But apparently there's been shifts in the Google Ralph algorithm recently and and everything else.
- 21:26And we've ~ been, I guess, changing the way that we are advertising and and trying to get back to, okay, how do we get back to getting all of those calls that we were getting
- 21:37before that now seemingly ~ are going somewhere else?
- 21:41And and I think that is that's the biggest challenge and probably something we will always be working on is chasing that that growth ~ through the internet.
- 21:51And and you know, it's our firm one of the one of the the shifts that I'm trying to make with our firm is from you traditionally we had ~ more institutional clients.
- 22:03We were ~ counsel for a lot of towns up in in this area.
- 22:07~ we had a few corporate clients.
- 22:11That work has more shifted into consumer-based.
- 22:16Our our personal injury, our workers' comp, and our in estates and trust practice are our three biggest practices.
- 22:22And those are all practices where you need people in the door.
- 22:27And so we're trying to emphasize that and and really increase our our web presence ~ in a big way to get more people in the door so we can help more people.
- 22:36I mean, at the end of the day, that's that's what we are.
- 22:39We're a service business.
- 22:41And if people don't know we exist, we can't serve them.
- 22:44And so that's that's really one of the biggest ~ challenges is not only shifting the mindset of the people that work here to no, we've to go out and get these clients.
- 22:54We can't just wait for them to come in the door and no, you're responsible for getting them too.
- 22:59And and number two is analyzing are are they are they coming in properly and what do we need to do to to get them, to get more of them in or to get back to where we were before.
- 23:08Where they were coming in.
- 23:10Yeah, that's fantastic that I think your mindset of we're just going to keep figuring this out as we go is probably the right one to have right now because even as marketers, we
- 23:18have no idea what's going
- 23:19to happen.
- 23:19And like it's a wild, wild west in marketing.
- 23:22And I think what we've seen from the beginning year to now is not what I would have predicted in January.
- 23:26And we have no idea what's going to happen.
- 23:28So we're kind of all just
- 23:29figuring it out together.
- 23:31so I know that you said the the trust and estates practice.
- 23:33So you guys have obviously grown that over time.
- 23:36~ how do you ~ view that kind of marketing and what you're doing there?
- 23:40And I'd be curious too, because one of the things we've also been hearing from some of our trust and estate clients is less AI for marketing, more clients using AI to say, Hey, this
- 23:48is what I ran through or this is what I asked Chat GPT about.
- 23:50Are you guys seeing clients come to you with that?
- 23:53Across the board.
- 23:54~ and and really in the personal injury world, we'll get clients that say, well, Chat GPT told me this is what my case was worth, which is the the most difficult thing in the
- 24:03world, because then you have to say, Well, here's why your case isn't worth that, because Chat GPT generally seems to inflate those values, and we have to say, No, it's not because
- 24:12of X, Y, and Z.
- 24:14And you know, those aren't the best conversations to have.
- 24:17You don't want to
- 24:17have to tell somebody, your your case isn't working out the way that you you wanted it to or or that the internet told you it should.
- 24:24but I will say, yeah, you also get the clients that will tell you, so this is the next step, right?
- 24:29And they'll they'll give you a a ~ a pretty close estimate of how the litigation or the the process will play out, but there'll be plenty of mistakes in it.
- 24:40or there'll be a lot of omissions or they it won't understand the specific details to the the county or the local practice or even you know what we heard when we went down to court
- 24:51on Wednesday how the how the the trials are are moving forward.
- 24:57So it it misses a lot of the nuances.
- 24:59And that's the part that I think we're having conversations about nuances that we never had to have before with clients.
- 25:06I think that's the biggest part with with AI.
- 25:08Yeah, I think that that's the difficulty.
- 25:10It can help them become, more educated about the process and maybe ease some of those fears.
- 25:14And I think we're probably going to see more and more people using it, but trying to explain why it's not accurate.
- 25:19the good news is I don't think the need for lawyers is going away ever.
- 25:24that is always going to be a thing.
- 25:26No, definitely not.
- 25:27I from the from how AI works, I mean definitely I don't ever foresee a world where
- 25:32that's not needed.
- 25:32It's really the personal touch.
- 25:33And I think more so too, we're seeing people that want that personal touch and that personal relationship that even if they, people look at all the people that used could go
- 25:40on legal Zoom and use just a find
- 25:42a document, but they still want to talk to someone and they want to have that peace of mind to know that they talk to someone, an expert, and it's done correctly.
- 25:50so I would be curious as we I want to be mindful of time.
- 25:53So I know we're as we're wrapping up, I'd be curious, in this journey to managing partner, if you had to give one piece of advice or one thing that you've learned, what would you
- 26:02kind of share with everyone?
- 26:04I would say it's it's patience.
- 26:06It's ~ again, not everything is going to work and not everything is going to work instantly.
- 26:13Some of the the changes that y you make are gonna take time to to ramp up and they're going to take you need time to to really collect the data to see if the changes you're
- 26:28making are are working or were not working.
- 26:31And I think that is
- 26:32both the biggest frustration that I've had and ~ I think also the biggest ~ the the the biggest bright side is or the or the the biggest triumph is pushing through s you know
- 26:47maybe a challenging beginning and seeing, okay, here we are at the end.
- 26:51This d this does work.
- 26:52This is a you know, even even though there were there were issues at the beginning, some people weren't happy or ~
- 27:01you some things weren't handled as well as we would want them to be handled.
- 27:04Ultimately we get to a point where where we are ~ we're stronger.
- 27:09And I think you know that the changes that we made in our personal injury group as far as reorganizing it goes are are a big a and a big example of that.
- 27:16Now we've got clients that are happier generally because we are moving cases and identifying cases a a lot ~ a lot faster than we used to be, which you know not only sets
- 27:29us up for
- 27:30the be the ability to handle more cases in the future and sets us up for growth.
- 27:35~ but it also ~ again keeps clients happier because they're more involved in the process and they see how things move move forward more than than we were doing before.
- 27:47Whereas, you know, somebody might sit for a year and a half and then say, okay, we got a file suit.
- 27:50And they say, well, okay, well, why why?
- 27:53And whereas now I think we're we're more involved in telling them, okay, this is the process.
- 27:57We're gonna send out your medical evaluation.
- 27:59This is how much we think
- 28:00the case is worth, whether or not we get that off or not, it's really beyond us, but let's let's see what they have to say and then we'll we'll decide what our next step should be.
- 28:10Yeah, the transparency and communication goes a long way.
- 28:12And I also think
- 28:13it sounds like having the right tools in place.
- 28:15I know you mentioned that you guys are using FileBy now makes a difference to help help you because it's very difficult to do all of that manually, especially across a larger
- 28:23firm like yours.
- 28:25Yep, absolutely it is.
- 28:27Awesome.
- 28:27Well, thank you for having our for coming on with us today.
- 28:31But I appreciate you joining us.
- 28:32This was super insightful.
- 28:34I think the personal injury breakdown and kind of this team structure is something that I hadn't heard of before, but I've also never been to a Morgan and Morgan conference.
- 28:42So but that that was super interesting.
- 28:44But thank you for joining us today.
- 28:46Yes, thank you.
- 28:47I appreciate it.
- 28:48And ~ I can I can I give a plug?
- 28:51Yeah, absolutely always.
- 28:52right.
- 28:53So ~ Wednesday, October twenty eighth, we are hosting a small business forum that is focused on AI.
- 28:59~ we've got some great speakers.
- 29:01It's gonna be ~ relatively fast.
- 29:04This the the we'll we'll start with networking, ~ then we'll do our speakers, which are limited to about fifteen minutes.
- 29:11So we'll get four or five speakers in in in a relatively quick period of time, ~ talking about artificial intelligence.
- 29:17~ topics include
- 29:19AI in the workplace, ~ setting up AI vibe coding, which is beyond me at the moment.
- 29:25So hopefully not after we after we have this ~ this seminar.
- 29:29~ and then ~ talking about what small business owners need to know.
- 29:34And finally, ~ what can you learn from this presentation that you can actually use tomorrow when you show up at work?
- 29:42~ so we start at four o'clock on Wednesday, October 28th at Perona Farms in Andover.
- 29:48And we have presenters from four thirty to five forty-five and then networking afterwards.
- 29:53So come to our website if you'd like to sign up and it is free.
- 29:57if you're a a small business owner or just interested in the topic, we'd love to have you attend.
- 30:01Yeah, well, that is super timely with everything we were talking about with AI.
- 30:04And if if there are any other business owners like myself, I know I'm sitting here going, no, I didn't know I signed up to wear this hat and to learn about this also, but we have
- 30:11to.
- 30:12So
- 30:13that is a great opportunity to do it, especially if you hadn't haven't a chance to really dig in.
- 30:17I think there's a lot of acronyms, a lot of ways to use AI right now.
- 30:20We're all figuring it out.
- 30:21So that'll hopefully cut the learning curve.
- 30:25All right.
- 30:26Well, make sure you sign up.
- 30:27we'll make sure that we put the link for Tim's website and the link to that registration in the show notes so you can sign up there too.
- 30:33So thanks and join us on the next episode.