Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Giving people the expectation that they have to have thissecret personal life that doesn't infiltrate on their career, that holds peopleback, and it also holds companies back.
Sonya Palmer:
Newer firms that are willing to adapt to that and willingto be flexible and meet clients where the clients are at, they're the ones thatare going to succeed.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
If you really pay attention and track what client concernsare and what client needs are. It's almost like it's 90% client service, 10%legal representation.
Sonya Palmer:
For the eighth consecutive year, women outnumber men inlaw schools across the nation, yet this wave of change has not reached theshores of power. Women hold just 25% of seats at the table as board members andmanaging partners. But tides are turning. Women in law are no longer meeklywaiting for an invitation. They are boldly striking out, creating a future wassuccessfully defined on their own terms, and law firms fit into their lives mapthe other way around. As this new generation of trailblazers rises, we standwith them, ready to amplify their voices and fuel the transformation. This isLawHer. I am Sonya Palmer, your host and VP of operations at Rankings, the SEOagency supporting you in claiming your rightful place at the top. We'rethrilled to present the second miniseries of season two, Titans of Tech. Fromsolo practitioners to managing partners, from courtroom warriors to techinnovators, we are sharing the stories of women who are redefining what itmeans to succeed in law.
Let's uncover their strategies, celebrate their triumphs,and learn from their journeys together. For too long, women in law have feltthe pressure to conform to traditional practices, long hours, rigid schedules, andoutdated systems, led to belief that success means sacrificing personal lives,families, and often their own well-being. But what if we could rewrite thoserules? What if you could practice law on your own terms and still achieveremarkable success? Today's episode challenges status quo and opens up a worldof possibilities. We are joined by Miriam Arrington-Fisher, founder ofArrington Law, a thriving immigration firm, and author of Mom's a Lawyer.Miriam's story isn't just about success, it's about revolution. She's livingproof that we don't have to change who we are to fit into the legal profession.Instead, she's changed how she practices law to fit into her life, leveragingtechnology and innovative work arrangements to build a firm that's both highlysuccessful and deeply supportive of work-life balance. From embracing virtualassistants to reimagining client service through tech, Miriam shows us how touse modern tools to practice law our way.
Her approach isn't just about convenience, it's about creatinga new paradigm where women can thrive both professionally and personally.Whether you're dreaming of starting your own firm, feeling stuck in atraditional practice, or anywhere in between, this episode is for you. Join usas we explore how to break free from outdated norms, harness the power oftechnology, and shape a legal career that aligns with your values and yourlife. It's time to stop fitting ourselves into the old mold of what a lawyershould be. With Miriam as our guide, we'll discover how to reshape theprofession itself on our terms. Let's dive in.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
I left the firm that I'd been working at and started myown practice in 2016. I had a newborn and I was going through divorce, and sothat set some real parameters on my time of what hours I could be working, andthat really forced me to be very creative in setting up my practice in a waythat accommodated that.
Sonya Palmer:
Your firm is known as the people's lawyers and has beenserving the community for 15 years. How has your mission evolved over thattime? What has been the key to maintaining that connection to the people youserve?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
It's interesting because we just had a staff retreat lastweek where we talked about making sure that we were aligned with our mission,and I feel like the current state of our firm is the most aligned and the mostcommitted we've ever been. For me, it took a few years really for me to gainthe confidence of fully committing to what my vision was and how we wanted toserve clients. When I first started the practice, I really just was replicatingwhat I had seen in the past of the old school of how law firms serve clients,which in my opinion, didn't really have a strong focus on being client centeredwith client service. And once I learned a little bit more about developing ourown vision and leaning into that, I felt more comfortable committing that weare going to be a little different and we can do this and succeed this way.
So we've always placed a high premium on customer service,on client service. Pretty early on in my growth stage of the firm, I separatedthe legal team from the client service team, which was very unusual for smalllaw firms at that time, and it is a significant overhead expense to have basicallytwo teams running within a small law firm, but I really felt like that's how wewere going to distinguish ourselves. And we've really leaned into that andthat's been a huge ingredient in our success because it is genuine. You can'tfake that. You can't fake believing in your work. You can't fake caring aboutyour clients. And time again, the feedback that we get from clients are,"You guys really cared, and we felt that, and you made us feel that everystep of your case.
Sonya Palmer:
I like that you talked about replicating because that'sokay to start. You have to start somewhere, so if you mimic, and then evolveand fix the things that don't feel genuine or feel like you, because I feellike a lot of women who want to start their own firms, they don't want tostart. Mimic someone, replicate someone, and then adjust it to as you find yourvision. What you do. Day one doesn't have to be what you do your entire career.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Absolutely. And having just the ability, the adaptabilityis really important because personally when I started my law firm, I didn'thave a fully fleshed out vision and business plan, and I think very few lawyersthat start firms do. I really started my practice under the gun, but evenpeople that weren't quite in that situation, at some point, you reach a levelwhere you think I'm going to start my own practice or I'm going to hang ashingle, and most of us don't have business backgrounds, and so we just do whateverybody else is doing. And you should always be learning and growing, and Istill am reading books and listening to webinars and podcasts. And everyquarter, I make some improvement in the firm. I'm always looking to, how can wedo things differently? How can we be more aligned? How can we improve? And I thinkany firm that doesn't do that is not going to grow or survive.
Sonya Palmer:
Do you have a particular setup that you follow orframework that you use to define the vision, core values, things like that?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
I recently reread Traction, which is an EOS framework.Definitely have shiny object syndrome, which is common among entrepreneurs, andso there's two ways that I temper that. One is I have a leadership team thatbalances me out. It's me, the chief lawyer, who's very process oriented, andthen our director of operations who would be our implementer. And so the threeof us all bring something different to the table. So I'm always looking for thefuture, the vision, the grand plans, and they're like, "Okay, how are weimplementing that? What's our current process? How can we improve what wehave?" That's, I think, an important element to have to have in any firm.
Sonya Palmer:
We're an EOS company. I agree, not purists. I don't thinkyou can be a purist for any of those frameworks. You have to find what worksfor you. But the visionary integrator, I don't think that's something that youcan not follow. That is extremely important, having a visionary as someonethat's going to decide where the business is going, and then someone who's goingto carry that out.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Our current director of operations has been with us forseveral years. She started first as my executive assistant and was really justoutsized for that role, moved up from there. But a few years ago, we wereworking with a coaching program, and they came out and they did a Colbyassessment and determined that basically her and I are perfectly aligned. We'retwo halves to a whole. And the way that our coach phrased it was that I wouldbe the person where I see something in the future and I'm jumping off a cliffto go get it, and she's running after me with a parachute, and that's reallyhow we operate.
Sonya Palmer:
Yeah, I think it's very important for women who want tostart their own firms, if they don't have that person, to try to immediatelyfind them.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yes. Yes.
Sonya Palmer:
And you are a team of women lawyers and mothers. How hasthat unique identity shaped your firm's culture and approach to immigrationlaw? And has it changed over the last 15 years?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah. When I started my firm, there really weren't a lotof resources for how to build a successful practice. As a working mom, therewas these two ends to the spectrum. There was the old school approach tolawyering, which was workaholism and always being accessible. If you had kids,you had to just figure it out. I remember when I was pregnant with my firstchild, a judge was giving me some friendly advice and she said, "Remember,when you're at work, you're at work. And when you're at home, you're athome," which sounds nice, but if you actually have experience with kids,it doesn't really work that way. Sometimes you get calls from the school nursewhen you're at school or things like that, or when you're at work. And then theother end of the spectrum was working moms, work from home, work while yourkids are napping, take a break from the career.
There really wasn't anything in the middle that reallyspoke to me. I felt like I started my practice without really a clear blueprintfor what I wanted to do, which was I wanted to have a successful practice. Ilove practicing law. I wanted to make a good living and work more or less fulltime, but not in a way that really prevented me from being the kind of parentthat I wanted to, and also needed to at the time, especially back then, I was asingle mom. So when I started the practice, it was really very much based offof what I needed. And then as it grew and as we added more people, I saw anopportunity for us to retain that and scale it. I just leaned into that. And abig part of leaning into anything with your firm is the confidence to say,"We're going to do it this way, and we're going to be successful doing itthat way," always keeping an eye on compensation, on benefits, oninvesting in our team beyond what many law firms do.
We have people that have been with us for years who whenthey started, they didn't have kids, and now they have two kids, so alwaystrying to be at the top of what we could offer in terms of leave and PTO andflexibility. We are in office, but people have flexible schedules as needed. Soif a paralegal has to pick her kids up from school, maybe she'll come in earlyand leave early. That sort of flexibility, which is the same flexibility that Ienjoy, we extend it to the staff. In the early days, initially I worried thatclients would view it as a weakness. If we were the working moms, maybe wewouldn't be as accessible or as available, and that was completely unfounded. Ihave not found that to be the case at all.
I think that in the current climate with businesses beingon social media and people wanting to identify more with a business as aperson, being authentic to who we are has been a strength. A lot of our clientshave families, so they identify with us. I've joked when I talked about thisbefore, everybody likes moms. Everybody trusts moms. We prove instantly that weare committed, that we're professional. We have very quick turnaround times,highly professional staff. We're in office. We're full-time. It's never been aliability. It's always been a strength. And I think people connect with us andthey know that's who we are, and it gives us credibility and trust with ourclient base.
Sonya Palmer:
Absolutely. It sounds like you've created a really strongculture. If you treat people like adults, they behave like adults, and when youoffer that kind of flexibility, or I've even seen the word autonomy being used,you're going to attract very talented people because they need that. They wantthat in their lives. And talented people are going to be good at their jobs.They're going to take care of their clients, they're going to be good lawyers,and that autonomy alone will attract them and help inspire them to continue todo good work. Also, the advice that the judge gave you, I don't know that Iagree with it.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
They can't see, but you're shaking your head.
Sonya Palmer:
I can understand within the legal field, thatcompartmentalization would be extremely important, but when you're anentrepreneur, if you get an idea at 10 AM on a Sunday while you're eatingcereal with your kids, you can't really afford to just be like, "No, I'mat home." And it's the same thing. If one of your kids is sick on Fridayat noon, you can't afford to not go take care of them. So I don't know that Isubscribe to that.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah, it's one of those cliches I think that people say itsounds good, but yeah, it's just not realistic. And as a business owner, thebusiness is a big part of my life and I have three kids now, and they knowthat. They even help me out sometimes when we do events, and I want them to bebought in that this is our livelihood, and I think it's special. So I don'tthink it's necessary to insulate your kids from your work either. It's my stafftoo. My litigation paralegal, she has two-year-old twins. What am I going tosay? The daycare calls, of course she has to leave. Of course, that's justhuman basic decency. And giving people the expectation that they have to havethis secret personal life that doesn't infiltrate on their career, I think thatholds people back, and it also holds companies back, because like you said,talented people, they want to be with other talented people, and they want tobe in environments where they're respected. I know that businesses, smallbusinesses often operate from scarcity mentality.
When I'm talking with other law firm owners, a lot oftimes I hear concerns of our business can't handle that, or we need the peopleto do X, Y, and Z. And the other point that I think is important to make isthat it's not an either or. We operate full time in office, so we're notloosey-goosey. Everybody's on Zoom in their pajamas. That's not our firm. We'reclient facing. But when you have a team, you can structure the team in a waythat somebody is always covering. There's wonderful technology available nowthat wasn't available eight to 10 years ago when I started my own practice. Wehave virtual staff in other time zones. People can leave and go home to theirfamilies, but then we have another shift in another time zone. You can have aclient portal. There's so many different opportunities and options for firms toprovide the same level of representation and client service without sacrificingthe work-life balance for their employees. It's not even possible. It's easytoday.
Sonya Palmer:
I agree. I run operations for marketing agency rankings,and very different, but also the same. One of the things is just reply. Ifyou're not at your desk, just let me know you're not at your desk. Okay?"Hey, I'm not. I will be in two hours," and then keep thatcommitment. And I think when you're dealing with customers and clients, thatfollow-up is so much more important that if you say, "Hey, I'm going tocontact you tomorrow morning," and then contact them tomorrow morning,that is sufficient. That's all they want.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
That is a rule at the firm that we've had for years, whichis that client communication needs to be acknowledged in the same business day.And you're right, it's not I'm going to drop everything and pull up this casefrom two years ago and answer your question and get you the document. It's justI got your call. It's important. We're going to call you back tomorrow morning.
Sonya Palmer:
And then do it. Yep. That follow up. I think there'sprobably a study or something that's been about what customers are reallylooking for in that regard, but I think that they don't want to be ignored.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
I love to see any law firm that's focused on customerservice or client service because I think that's such a superpower, and it'snot something that we're traditionally taught and it just goes so far. When youread the Lawyer's Digest of bar complaints and things like that, communicationis one of the big complaints that you see. And at our firm with our immigrationpractice, we get a lot of clients from other firms, and one of the topcomplaints that we hear people say about other law firms is, "I couldn'tget through to anybody. Nobody called me back." If you really payattention and track what client concerns are and what client needs are, it'salmost like it's 90% client service, 10% legal representation.
Sonya Palmer:
I think you are absolutely correct, and I think that'sgoing to separate firms even more in the next few years. For those that listento every episode of this podcast, they've heard me say this 20 times. Thepandemic reset that because everybody now, they want to talk to a lawyer thesame way that they order a pizza, right? And I think the newer firms that arewilling to adapt to that and willing to be flexible and meet clients where theclients they're at, they're the ones that are going to succeed versus the onesthat are trying so hard to push that traditional, you're going to come to theoffice, we're going to meet between nine and five Monday through Friday.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Right. Responsiveness, I think you're exactly right, ourexpectations... And even I find that for myself as a consumer, I... Sorecently, I was looking for a lawyer for a business deal, so I wanted to hire alawyer and I got a couple of referrals, and I emailed them. And I'm the warmestlead possible. I'm an attorney, my time is valuable. I have money. I want topay to help me with this matter. Tell me the next step. That was literally... Ireached out to three law firms with that exact message basically, not one ofthem called me back to this day. This was like a month ago, and I sent a couplefollow-ups. Meanwhile, I'm watching our phones and our metrics and I'm like, wehad two missed calls yesterday. Who's called the... When do we call them back?Are they in the client management? I spend a large percentage of my timetracking our communication, and our leads and follow-through. And I thinkyou're right, great lawyers are going to be left behind because they're notgreat customer service managers.
Sonya Palmer:
If we could solve intake for lawyers marketing, and we'dwork with almost exclusively personal injury lawyers, a personal injury lead isexpensive. That's a very expensive lead to get. And we, on this side, we get sofrustrated when they're squandered, when a call does not go answered or theydon't follow up. So I agree. I think the people that are... Even just payingattention to it, the awareness of our intake's really good, our intake needsimprovement is that first step. Yeah.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
It always needs improvement, right? From my point of view,until we have 100% capture, 100% conversion, we need improvement.
Sonya Palmer:
Miriam's commitment to supporting other women in lawextends beyond her own firm. In 2023, she published Mom's a Lawyer: How ToStart a Firm and Take Control of Your Life, a beginner's guide born fromcountless informal mentoring sessions with fellow women lawyers. This passionproject showcases Miriam's dedication to lifting up others in the profession,but her efforts didn't stop there. She's developed additional resources to helpwomen navigate the challenges of starting and running a law firm whilebalancing family life.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
So I wrote the book, and then I just got a great responsefrom it, and I was getting emails and messages from people across the country,men and women, even people from outside of the US. And there's a digital coursethat I've created, and it's a companion to the book, and it's designed to helpsomeone start a firm in 90 days or less. So it's very practical, it's nottheoretical, it's checklist and those sorts of things to really help someonewithout a significant initial cost to just get up and running. And so that'sbeen really fun to work on. After doing the book and creating the course, Ialso started consulting formally one-on-one with lawyers, where before I wasdoing it informally, and then I developed it into a little bit more of aprogram.
And right now, it's all one-on-one, so I do work withlawyers typically who are thinking of starting a firm, or they have started afirm and they just don't know how to get it up and running or get it to be whatthey want. And I do that in addition to running my firm. So I'm still full-timeCEO of Airington Law. And then Lawyer Like a Mother has grown into a reallygreat side passion project of mine. And they really go hand in hand because I'mstill doing the day-to-Day running of the firm, and I get a ton of energy fromthat. And then it's also really rewarding to work with other lawyers that areearlier in the process.
Sonya Palmer:
I love that. I think scaling a law firm is very similar toscaling any other business, but starting a law firm is very different fromstarting any other business, so having a checklist and a blueprint to start itis extremely helpful.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah, I will. I really created it as what I wish I had.
Sonya Palmer:
Great. Yep. Your site is in Spanish, not English. Nearlyall websites start in English and have a little button you click to translatethe website into Spanish. What motivated you to take that approach? How has ithelped you better serve your clients?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
That is a relatively recent development, I would say inthe last year, and it was along the same leaning into really who we're servingand niching down to a degree and really being authentic to our clientele.Earlier in my career, I practiced a lot of criminal defense and some civillitigation, civil rights cases, and always done immigration. And as our firmgrew, it became clear to me that in order to really provide the level ofservice that I wanted, and also to scale, that you have to have focus. That'snot to say that you have to only have one case type, but you do have to focus alittle bit more. And our immigration practice was the most profitable, and it'ssomething that is just the whole team is really passionate about. So we madethe decision to actually scale out of our other practice areas.
So we stopped accepting criminal defense cases andfinished up cases that we already had. And then with our civil cases, that's avery small and specialized segment of our firm, but about 90% of our firm rightnow is immigration, and our ideal client is a Spanish-speaking immigrant with afamily or humanitarian-based case. And marketing is such an interesting part ofthe practice of law, and it's something that I love working on. It's so fun andinteresting, but it was also something that was very elusive to me for a longtime. I always felt like it was a...
What's the phrase?
... like a moving target. And I realized, after years,that one of the challenges was that we were marketing to too many differentclients. And even though in our hearts we did love doing these different casetypes and serving these different types of clients in different communities,it's very hard to convey that. And it's not convincing because if you'retrusting someone with a life or death situation or a very important situation,you want to know they help people like me, they're passionate about my type ofcase. And it was, I think harder to convey that with multiple practice areasand multiple case types. So we leaned into immigration, we scaled out of ourother practice types, and then we looked at who are our clients and who do weserve most frequently? And it is Spanish-speaking clients from Mexico, CentralAmerica and some countries in South America represented maybe 80% of our clientlist.
And on that constant search for authenticity, does ourmarketing reflect that? Are we marketing to the people that are the bread andbutter of our firm? And last year, I think at the NTL conference, I started, Imet and started working with some marketing folks who do exclusively Spanishlanguage marketing. And it was a little bit of a jump to just completely revampeverything. And we do get people that ask about that. Sometimes people willsay, "Hey, something's wrong with your website. It's only showing up inSpanish." But I just felt good about committing to that because I wascommitting to the clientele that we serve.
Sonya Palmer:
Amazing.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
And there is a button where you can turn it into English.It's the other way around, right?
Sonya Palmer:
Yes. No.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
It's not like this one for-
Sonya Palmer:
Marketing within the legal industry is insanelycompetitive. I think it's the most competitive. Outside of car insurance, thatis incredibly competitive. So what better way to turn a click or a view on thewebsite into a client than to immediately build that trust and rapport. Andwhat does that? We talked earlier about meeting the client where they're at. Ifeel like that definitely gives you an advantage because they're justimmediately going to be like, "Whoa, I can trust this person." So Icompletely understand how that would work.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Thanks.
Sonya Palmer:
I think it's great.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah, I'm really glad that that comes across because itreally was like we're going to just commit to who our clients are. Andhonestly, if people go to our website, it means all they know that we speakEnglish too. That shouldn't be a concern as much. It's if you identify whoyou're really trying to reach, if you lose a few other people along the way,they just weren't the right fit.
Sonya Palmer:
In your experience, does providing legal services in theclient's native language, do you think that impacts the outcome of their case,the overall experience of the legal system?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
10,000%. It's a huge strength of ours. It's a huge sellingpoint, and it's something that we continually hear from clients and leads as aprimary reason about why they came with us. I don't want to minimize otherfirm's efforts. I think any effort to reach people where they are in a helpfuland appropriate way is good, but I do see a lot of businesses, but also in thelegal community, it can be a little cringey, the se habla Español. If you're aprofessional firm and you're providing legal representation, I believe it'simportant for every person at the firm, every level of the firm to be able tocommunicate with clients. And if you're an attorney and you don't speakSpanish, but you have an admin or an intern or a VA or something that speaksSpanish, that might be enough to get someone in the door and it might be enoughto sign them on, but it's not enough to form the level of relationship andtrust and confidence that you can when you speak to someone in their nativelanguage.
And when somebody calls our firm from intake to theconsultation to the onboarding, everyone is speaking to them in their nativelanguage, and that's very different than someone who calls a one 800 number,talks to a Spanish speaking operator, and then everything else is in English.In law, and I love being a lawyer and I take it's a huge responsibility and ahuge honor for somebody to trust us with their legal case, and I don't see howyou can have a comparable level of comfort and trust if the attorneys and thelegal staff don't also speak your native language.
Sonya Palmer:
Throughout our conversation, Miriam has touched on thecrucial role of technology in modern law practice. It's not just about keepingup with the times. It's about enhancing efficiency and improving clientservice, and ultimately allowing lawyers to focus on what they do best. Miriamexplains how tech has transformed her firm's operations and how they'veimpacted day-to-day work and overall efficiency.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
In our day-to-day, most of our clients like to come intothe office. About 80% of our consultations are in-purpose. We're not a remotelaw firm in that sense, but there are a couple important things that we'veimplemented in the last four to five years. One is to have the capability tooperate remotely, which we learned during COVID. That was important. It's alsobeen very important to, because of our approach to being family friendly, ifthere's a snow day or if school's closed or something like that, of coursepeople have PTO and they can just take off, but we also give people theopportunity to work from home with laptops and things like that if they wantto. As I mentioned earlier, from a client service standpoint, having folks inother time zones or if there's a language need that your firm has, havingpeople in other countries. The use of virtual assistance, I know for lawyers,skyrocketed during COVID and since then, and we were certainly a part of that.We actually have an office in Guatemala City now.
We started with using virtual assistance during COVID, andthen scaled those into positions, and now we have five people in Guatemala thathandle a lot of our client service. And so that is a really important tool forfirms to scale, because obviously when you're working with exchange rates, itcan be very cost effective economically to scale with virtual assistance inother countries. It also extends your workday. So you can have people on thephones from seven AM. to 10 PM, but your team is not necessarily working thatwhole time. That's really critical. Case management, client portal, software. Ithink when I first started practicing law, Clio was maybe brand new or was justcoming out, and people were mostly using it for escrow and timekeeping. Now youcan interact with clients. Clients can upload things from whenever isconvenient for them. So some of the softwares that we use. We use MyCase forcase management, we use HubSpot for sales and marketing leads, and of course,clients can pay electronically, they can docu-sign.
And some of this stuff, I think probably to the folks thatare listening to this podcast, that's become very standard, but we're actuallya small segment of the legal community. There are a lot of law firms that don'teven use any technology at all, so it's a huge opportunity.
Sonya Palmer:
Do you think there's a challenge? You've talked a lotabout your core values, the culture of the company, authentic, genuine, caringabout your clients. How do you convey that? How do you keep a personal touchwhile using so much technology?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
That's a good question. I think you have to have both. Sothe technology doesn't replace the humans. The technology increases efficiencyand accessibility. And AI is a whole separate topic that I'm sure there's a lotof people that can speak about it more intelligently than me, but of course,like many firms, we are looking at that, not to replace humans and staff, butjust how can we increase efficiency, turnaround time, things like that. So eventhough we have all of these ways that clients that we try to make it easier forpeople to hire us and retain us and interact with us, when they call, they'regoing to get a live person. We have a full-time client care manager for everyopen case where clients get regular personal phone calls from a live person inour office. Her name is Andrea, and she'll call and say, "Hey, just wantedto give you a little update. We got this," or "It's stillpending," or whatever, making sure that we're using technology to enhancebut not replace.
Sonya Palmer:
You've mentioned virtual assistants a few times. And isthat the same as Law Clerk that you're using?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Law Clerk is a platform, a freelance platform, and so youcan upload a task if you need something researched or you need a memo or amotion drafted and you don't have the bandwidth in your own office. I thinkit's a great tool for solos if they don't want to hire, they don't have enoughwork or money to bring on a full-time associate, but they're getting boggeddown in legal work. You can upload a bid for, I need help drafting this motionto dismiss, or whatever. In our firm, we've utilized it, especially as we'vephased out practice areas, so that we can continue to handle the workload, butobviously we're not going to be hiring in practice areas that we're phasingout. So I think that there's a lot of different stages of business where thingslike that can be useful. For virtual assistants, there's a variety of differentoptions.
I started early on with a company called Get Staffed Up,and they really leaned in during COVID, and I've had a number of people overthe years through them, really high quality. I know that some law firms hiredirect. I like to use agencies because I like to make sure that everything iscompletely compliant with the tax laws and the labor laws and all that sort ofthing. So I think it's a very valuable service that those companies offer. Andthen it's also important to me to make sure that people are being compensatedappropriately. I'm certainly happy to benefit from a favorable exchange rate,but not at the expense of people not being paid properly for that. So that'swhy I've chosen to work with companies in the past. And then we just got to apoint where my needs were such that starting to talk about from my own entitymade sense.
Sonya Palmer:
Remote culture in general is... You can work with the bestin a zip code, you can work with the best employees in a country, or you canwork with the absolute best people across the world. When you're hiring, youcan hire not a talented individual that's within 20 minutes of your firm, butyou're literally open to the entire world to pick.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Exactly.
Sonya Palmer:
How has utilizing freelancers virtual assistance impactedyour full-time staff?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
It's always enhancing, not replacing. I've never laidsomebody off because, oh, I found somebody cheaper to do it virtually. That'snever been the way that we've implemented it. It's okay, so if we have aparalegal and she's currently doing X number of cases, and then we hire avirtual admin that can help her, then she can prepare double the cases. The samething in particular with customer service. That's something that can be doneover the phone, or typically would be done over the phone anyway. It opens thedoors to, like you said, a world full of talent. And so the team members thatwe have are 1000% bilingual, perfectly fluent, and so that's a great servicethat we provide to our clients, and I don't think I would've found them within20 minutes of my office.
Sonya Palmer:
Miriam's approach to leveraging technology and virtualassistance is both innovative and pragmatic. She's already implementing robustquality control measures, ensuring that while her firm benefits from theseresources, the leadership team handles oversight. For instance, Miriam has asenior lawyer who oversees all legal work, maintaining accountabilityregardless of whether it's produced by in-house staff, freelancers, or AItools. This approach allows her firm to reap the benefits of modern workarrangements while upholding the highest professional standards. But Miriam'squality control efforts don't stop there. She's developed a comprehensivesystem to integrate remote team members and maintain consistent quality acrossall aspects of her firm's work. Let's delve into the specifics of how Miriamensures seamless collaboration maintains her firm's high standards whileleveraging these modern tools and work arrangements.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
We have a variety of things that we do to ensure qualitycontrol. One is we do extensive trainings. So I have an overseas team, but Itravel there in person several times a year to meet with them, to do teambuilding. I bring people from our Virginia office there so that they're fullyintegrated, and I'll go down for a couple days and do a training so that I feelcomfortable. These are people that are working on my client's cases and I'mimplicitly endorsing them, and so we all need to be comfortable with eachother. And it also shows that they are a valued part of our team, that weconsider them part of the firm. The same thing with anything that... Whether itwas a legal intern or a law student or a freelancer, that needs to be reviewedand checked. We would never send something out where someone at our firm, aparalegal hadn't pulled the cases or checked the sites or things like that. Itcan definitely increase efficiency and help, but it's not a substitute for whatI view as still our moral and ethical obligations to clients and to quality.
Sonya Palmer:
I think you're ahead of the curve.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yes.
Sonya Palmer:
I think you're going to see more and more quality control,quality review roles, mid-manager roles that are literally going to pop up.That's going to be their job. And instead of dedicating a single person to atask, you're going to have a person that's quality review for five bots, fivefreelancers. I think you're going to see more and more of that. And I agreeabout when... Even if you do hire freelance, virtual assistant, part-time,bringing them in, I know it might make sense to cut a cost corner, but giving thema company email, adding them to tools, making sure they're a part of thecompany culture meetings, including celebrating their birthdays, theiranniversaries, I think goes a really long way.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah, I actually love that, the quality assurancedepartment. I think that I love lawyers, I love being part of this community,but as a whole, I think lawyers can be a very fretful group. And anytimethere's a new technology or a new advancement, there's always, "Well, whatif this horrible thing happens?" or "What if this disasterfalls?" And that can't be the approach. We have to adopt. We have to usetechnology. We have to modernize, but you still have to put in the time and theeffort to have controls in place. But a lot of lawyers, they get really stuckin they're the only ones that can do the research, they're the only ones thatcan do the writing. What if someone makes a mistake? What if someone misses acase? What if... And just accepting the fact that law can be like other fieldswhere, to a degree, you have to trust the people below you, but then you justhave checks in place to make sure that everything's going smoothly, but I don'tsee how you can scale without that.
Sonya Palmer:
No, I completely agree. I think you have to adapt thetechnology, and I find the ones that are resistant to it are carrying aroundtechnology that people were previously resistant to. There's an iPhone ineverybody's pocket. 15, 20 years ago. Everybody was saying the exact same thingabout that as they're saying about AI today. And I do think the sort of you'resnubbing your nose to new technology, that then makes the danger of thattechnology even more real. You have to face it head on because there aredangers within AI. And if you're just going to be like, "No, we're notgoing to do it," then you're going to miss the stuff that's actuallyharmful, like privacy data breaches, the hallucinations. So I think you have toadapt it in a responsible way or you get left behind, I think. I don't think youcan fight it.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
Yeah, that's a great point. I was looking at it from astandpoint of if other people are using it and you're not, you're going to getleft behind. But that's a good point that you raised where even if you don'twant to use it for whatever reason, you don't want to grow your firm, you stillneed to be knowledgeable enough about it or you could miss things.
Sonya Palmer:
I think it's amazing, but I get nervous about differentthings. Whether or not it's coming from people's jobs, I think people willevolve. I think there will be new jobs that we haven't thought of yet, but Ithink we have to deal with the privacy protections, the data issues. I thinkall of... We need, I can go on a tangent. The government needs to be paying attentionto this stuff, FTC, so I hope people adopt it.
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
In law in particular, the kinds of that we have andprivacy and things like that are critical. I think from an entrepreneurialstandpoint, I always operate in an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset.And there's always some people that are like, "Oh, this new thing is goingto put us out of business or be the end of our business," and I don'tthink that history has shown that. You adapt and evolve and pivot, as everyonesaid in 2020. And staying on top of things is then you're on top. That's whereyou want to be.
Sonya Palmer:
Yep, absolutely. As we wrap up, I like to look to thefuture. What gives you the greatest hope and optimism for the future of womenand the legal industry?
Miriam Airington-Fisher:
I've been practicing law for 15 years. I've had my ownfirm for eight. And when I started, any number of resources out there justdidn't exist, and I'm so happy that they do now. You don't have to look anyfurther than this podcast and you look back on the guests, there's so manysuccessful women who are staying in the field and revolutionizing it. And Ididn't mention this earlier, but one of the motivations for me to write thebook was the ABA study that came out in 2021 that showed the percentage ofwomen attorneys that leave mid-career. And we have a sort of a brain drain thathappens mid-career. Lawyers are pretty much 50 to 60% women coming out of lawschool. But then when you get to the top, it's a much smaller percentage. Sowhat's happening in the middle? And it's people are leaving because theprofession was not accessible to us with overwhelming burnout and lack ofwork-life balance. And everybody has to do what's right for them, but what Ithink is so empowering is that those of us that stayed are changing it.
And I'm very proud of us, of our generation, and I loveseeing what my colleagues are doing with their firms and with giving us thatvisibility and just saying law can be different. We're not the ones that haveto change. Law can change.
Sonya Palmer:
Miriam's story serves as an inspiration for women in lawfor seeking to chart their own course. Her success demonstrates that it'spossible to build a thriving practice while prioritizing work-life balance andstaying true to one's values. Embrace technology to boost efficiency, but neverat the expense of personal client service. Consider leveraging virtualassistants and remote work to extend your reach and flexibility. And mostimportantly, don't be afraid to challenge traditional models to better serveyour clients in your life. Women lawyers are at the forefront of reshaping lawfirms to be more inclusive, efficient, and-focused. By embracing technology,prioritizing client service, and creative supportive work environments, they'renot just adapting to change, they're driving it. So whether you're dreaming ofstarting your own firm, looking to integrate new tech, or simply seeking betterways to serve your clients while managing your personal life, remember small stepscan lead to big transformations.
If you found this content insightful, inspiring, or itjust made you smile, please show this episode with the trailblazer in yourlife. For more about Miriam, check out our show notes. And while you're there,please leave us a review or a five-star rating. It will help others discoverthe show. And I'll see you next week on LawHer, where we'll shed light on howanother of the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climbed to thetop for field. And until next time, stay inspired, stay empowered, and keep making waves in the legal industry. You've got this.
