Jack Newton:
You canconvert leads to clients and automate as much of that process as possible.
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome toPersonal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO ofrankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want thetraffic, rankings and cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Onthese special toolkit episodes, we dive deep into conversations with theleading vendors in the legal sphere, the masterminds behind the technologies, servicesand strategies that help law firms not just survive but thrive in today'scompetitive landscape. Do me a favor and hit that follow button right now tosubscribe. You'll be the first to get every new episode delivered straight toyou the moment it drops, giving you the edge. Let's get started.
Meet legaltech pioneer, Jack Newton, CEO and co-founder of Clio, the world's largestlegal practice management software. Since creating Clio in 2008, over 150,000legal professionals have trusted Clio to help grow their practice. Jackdelivers insights on emerging industry opportunities, using data to makeinformed decisions and choosing solutions that drive long-term success. Cliorecently launched a PI specific product that I think practice owners of any sizewill find invaluable. Here's Jack Newton, CEO at Clio, on how the Cloud changedthe trajectory of his career.
Jack Newton:
It was reallyclear to me as a technologist ... My background by the way is computer science,machine learning. This is what I'm steeped in. So I come to legal from atechnologist's perspective. And what was clear to me in 2007 was the Cloud wasthis once in a generation technology wave that if you could jump on that waveand ride it, you could do some pretty incredible things. What I wanted to honein on was what is an industry that is ripe for transformation and maybe evendisruption with the Cloud. And phoned up Ryan, my lifelong friend, and said,"Hey, this Cloud thing's going to be big. What industry should we look atbringing it to?"
And I describeus at that stage more or less being like two hammers looking for a nail. Wewere convinced about the Cloud, looking for an industry that could really betransformed by leveraging the Cloud. And Ryan at the time was working atGowlings, which is one of Canada's largest law firms, about a thousand lawyers.And he said, "I think lawyers could use a lot of help withtechnology." The light bulb moment was looking at the legal industry,looking in particular at how mobile that industry is, how there's many solosmall and medium-sized firms that don't have dedicated IT staff, they don'thave servers, they don't have the support. And the Cloud was really an epiphanyfor that segment of customers and that's the origin story for Clio.
Chris Dreyer:
I guess Cliostarted off with Clouds and file storage and document management, but todayit's significantly different, right? So would you put it more in the casemanagement document storage side or is it now end to end? I mean, the CRM downto the project management. What is really the main components of Clio today?
Jack Newton:
So the breadthand depth of both the market we serve and the product we provide has expandedvery substantially over the last 15 years. What used to be our only product isnow called Clio Manage. So that's the ... we call it the hub of everything wedo in Clio. And that's still your core LPM/case management system. What welaunched back in 2019 was our second product, which is called Clio Grow, whichis a legal CRM. And this is all about tracking your leads, nurturing yourleads, converting them to clients, tracking where you're deploying your adspend, what your highest ROI ad spend channels are. And really our view withbringing Grow to the equation is that Clio can provide a comprehensive view ofyour client journey, all the way from your marketing spend and intake all theway through to what's your lifetime value of that customer after you'vefinished billing them and maybe after they've become even a repeat client foryou over time. And let that feedback loop drive decision making around what youshould spend on advertising for example.
We've recentlylaunched a number of new products, including Calendar Rules, which helps youautomatically docket all of your key dates around a case. We've launchedLawyaw, which is our document automation platform. We recently at Clio Con inOctober launched Clio File, which is an e-filing solution built right into ourcore LPM. And we launched our first AI product, Clio Duo, which is an integratedAI assistant integrated directly into Clio's products as well. So Clio hasgrown from a sole product back in 2008 to a pretty broad and expansive andcomprehensive group of products today.
Chris Dreyer:
One of thethings that I really liked being the host and hearing what you're saying is,hey, it's built for the solo up to the enterprise. Because I have looked atsome of your competitors, some of the other options and it looks like there's aextreme cost education process that it goes through to even use some of thosetools and it wouldn't make sense at all for a small firm. And I like that Cliohas the capabilities to do small to enterprise. So if we were going to startwith Clio Grow, let's talk about some of the core features that you think ofand I think of on a CRM. Obviously the data. How does the data integrate to saya website and the intake process of a firm? Where does Clio ... just opening itup to you to start.
Jack Newton:
So you sparkup Clio Grow and you've got basically two choices. You're going to wire this upto an existing website that you've got and you want to make sure you'refunneling all your leads into Clio Grow or you don't have a website baby, whichis the state that a surprising number of lawyers are in. And we actually helpyou stand up your own website in a matter of minutes using tools integratedinto Clio Grow. So we call that Grow websites. There is a huge amount ofopportunity for lawyers to ... I describe it as digitizing their entire intakeworkflow. I think the days of saying, "Here's my 800 number on a billboardby the interstate," are numbered. And at the end of the day, even if theysee that billboard, they probably want to go to your website and they want todeal with either a chat bot on your website or they want to deal with an intakeform on your website.
So a key partof Clio Grow is ... again, whether it's with a new website that you stand upwith our own tools or integrate into an existing website, we help you createthat intake form that brings that lead right into Clio Grow, into what we callthe lead inbox. And then from that inbox you're able to triage and with aKanban board kind of system work your leads through the pipeline. You canautomate big pieces of that advancement. You can do email nurturing campaignsto help convert those leads. And most importantly, you can make sure thatyou're jumping on those leads, even with an automated, email within a matter ofseconds. And as we all know, the time is a precious commodity when you'retrying to respond to these leads, especially in the PI world. Clients are goingto go with ... And we've done the data at Clio. I'd encourage your listeners toalso check out our legal trends report. And if you just Google for that, you'llfind it. It's free of charge.
But we go in depthin terms of what helps lawyers win business and the response time to inboundleads is, next to your reputation, the single biggest determinant of whetheryou're going to win that lead or not. And when I say reputation, I also meanyour Google My Business profile, which is another part of what Clio Growoffers, which is we help you stand up and automate everything around yourGoogle My Business profile and make sure that you've got a great Google MyBusiness profile and your leads, again, will come right from Google MyBusiness. We also let them schedule an initial consultation with you right fromGoogle My Business or right from your website. So this is a really coolcapability of Grow as well where there's essentially an integrated version of... Your listeners might be more familiar with Calendly, which if you've gottenan invite, you get to choose one of five times that works for the person on thecalendar.
We'veintegrated that kind of capability right into Clio Grow so your clients canschedule time for an initial consult based on your own live real-time calendarto get that intake meeting booked. That gives you just a high level of what theworkflow looks like. And Clio Grow's mission as a product is to help make sureyou can convert leads to clients and automate as much of that process aspossible. Maybe the last thing I'll say about Clio Grow that I'm super excitedabout is our partnership with Google where we integrated Google local serviceads directly into Clio Grow. And you can deploy LSA campaigns right from Cliogrow into local service ads. And again, for anyone that's not familiar withthis new type of ad unit that Google's launched, it's really powerful becauseyou only pay for leads that you generate from the campaign as opposed to pay-per-clickwhere you could be lighting lots of money on fire and never actually convertinganything. This is only for a lead that reaches out to you and actually engageswith you for a certain amount of time.
Chris Dreyer:
Localservices, ads or LSA present an awesome opportunity on Google because they'reat the top of Google. They hold the best virtual real estate when it comes tolocation, location, location. Not to mention they are pay-per-lead, notpay-per-click. LSA positioning is determined by region, response and reviews,which means prompt intake and great service fuel this marketing flywheel. Byintegrating with solutions like Clio, automation boosts response rates to newclient inquiries. While legacy channels remain extremely relevant, LSAs form anindispensable component on the client journey for PI practices. And combinedholistically, they enable injury firms to scale efficiently. Now let's hearfrom Jack on how Clio improves response times to drive this flywheel.
Jack Newton:
We haveemailing and texting built in. The other thing I'll comment on, Chris, that Ididn't mention about the Clio platform and part of what makes it so powerful iswe describe Clio as the operating system for legal. And one of the ways westand behind that claim is not just that we've built this comprehensiveend-to-end solution for law firms but we've actually built an integrationplatform on top of that that allows third party vendors to tie in and tointegrate in with Clio in a really deep way. So even if we're not providingsome of the functionality you might want, whether it's text messaging orscheduling or maybe it's reputation management post engagement, you want toplug in Google or QuickBooks or BirdEye or you name it. CallRail is anotherintegration partner that's very popular.
We have over250 integration partners that tie into Clio and expand Clio's capabilities inreally powerful ways, either from a functionality standpoint or in some casesit's in a practice area specific way as well. So if you check out ... If youjust Google "Clio app directory", you'll see this incredible list ofintegration partners that any one of our customers can light up in an instantand have this really powerful extension to Clio's capabilities.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's movedown the client journey a little bit more to the case management side. Someconsumers get frustrated because they don't get the communication. I love thatyou said you've got the Kanban approach. [inaudible 00:11:18] you can drag itto probably a different stage and then an automation goes out. Talk to me aboutjust the case management, some of the key features that come to mind on thatside.
Jack Newton:
We give you asingle comprehensive view of your case and the case status in one location.Your data lives in one place. You never need to enter your data more than once.The data that you enter in Clio Grow, for example, flows right through intoClio Manage. And then if you're automating a document workflow using Lawyaw, itdraws from the same data in Clio Manage. So there's this idea that it's yoursource of truth, your system of record, where you know the data is always mostcorrect and most up-to-date. We make managing affairs in your law office easy.So communicating with colleagues is easy. Assigning tasks to colleagues iseasy. You have one document store where you know your most up-to-date documentsare available. We also are, I would say, unique in the marketplace in thatwe've invested significantly in tools that help you communicate with yourclients more effectively as well.
So we have atool called Clio for Clients, which is a native iOS and Android app that yourclients can install. If you check this out on the app store, both on Apple andGoogle, you'll see it's got basically a 5.0 rating 4.9 rating from thousands ofclients that love this product because it makes doing a secure message withtheir lawyers easy. It makes setting a document or scanning a document withtheir phone to their lawyer very easy. It makes billing and payment superstreamlined. And it just helps them feel more connected in real time to theirlawyer. And lawyers love it because it's a single conduit that gets them intouch with their client in a way that is not as personally invasive as textmessaging where you might start getting those calls at midnight or textmessages off hours that are stressful. These messages from Clio for clients aregoing to your whole law firm, so your assistant or your partner can respond tothose messages and not just you.
So it's agreat way of putting the weight of your whole firm behind your clientexperience. So that's another huge upgrade. For personal injury lawyers inparticular, what we've heard from over the last number of years is we love howcomprehensive and how strong Clio's core LPM capabilities are, but we needbetter support for contingency building, we need injury calculators, we needmore in the way of PI-specific functionality. And if you just added this quoteunquote "small amount of functionality" to Clio, it would be theperfect fit for us. And we've spent the last year building out this PIcapability and we're really excited to bring it to market. We launched it atClio Con back in October of this year. The response has been tremendous.
We alsolaunched with new integration partners that talked about that applicationintegration ecosystem. So we have some new PI-specific partners that are comingto the party with us, including EvenUp, which helps automate the generation ofdemand letters, as I'm sure a number of your listeners are aware of. So thatties right into ... And again, you don't need to re-upload data. That feedsright into EvenUp and you get your demand letter pushed right into Clio. Wealso partnered with a really cool startup that Bob Simon is supporting andbacking called Attorney Share. So this is a referral network that you can plugright into Clio and easily refer out and take in referral cases through thistrusted referral network that Attorney Share is building. But that's a littlebit of the highlight reel of what Clio Manage offers.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of timesyou're in more jurisdiction, you need to monetize the lead, so you've got theintegration to Attorney share, which is a marketplace and that's fantastic onits own. But what kind of capabilities does it have to work with your peers interms of transparency and just the referral relationships?
Jack Newton:
We see thisreferral network as a really key aspect of how especially PI lawyers work withone another. And what we've thought about Clio Grow as is essentially therouting protocol for how leads move around and how they get accepted and sentout. So referrals are really a first class citizen in Clio Grow where referralswill show up in your lead inbox and you'll be able to prioritize them and rankthem. And in this integration with Attorney Share, and there's other referralnetworks we'll be plugging into over time as well, you'll be able to again seewhat referrals are available to you. And then take them right into Clio Grow.Again, without having to re-enter any data, without even having to touch akeyboard. And have this referral and all the associated case data waiting foryou to review and potentially schedule an initial intake meeting or whateverthe next step would be with that client.
Chris Dreyer:
All thesecapabilities are amazing. I think any individual that's looking for moreleverage from a software capability ... There's so many different ... There'smarketing application. There's leverage from a labor perspective. You canenhance your team with the AI with the tool. In the market, there's your leaddocket, Filevine, your Litify, and Clio. There's a few others, but typically Ihear the decisions on those three. Where does Clio stand out amongst some ofyour peers? Because I know you've analyzed them. I know you want to stay aheadof the pack. What do you say to those individuals?
Jack Newton:
We don't spenda lot of time thinking about or worrying about the competition at Clio. We'revery focused on our customers and what they're asking for and innovating ontheir behalf. We've been doing that for 15 years now and we have seen a lot ofsuccess with that approach. We're two to three times larger than our nextclosest competitor in the marketplace. We're by far the largest legal practicemanagement provider on the planet. And as a result, the commitment I can maketo any customers when they're doing this bake off and thinking about who do Igo with, I can promise you that we're going to have the highest innovationvelocity. Because we are benefiting from this flywheel effect where thanks tothe fact we're the largest provider in the market, we can invest the most inour product. We have an engineering team that is larger than most of ourcompetitors' entire company to give you a data point.
So we're ableto invest more in the product. We're able to make the product better andinnovate faster than any of our competitors. And that's a virtuous flywheelwhere that in turn brings more customers into our orbit and we're able to keepaccelerating that flywheel of innovation and working really closely with ourcustomers to, again, build what they're asking for, but also build on theirbehalf, innovate on their behalf where they may not understand what's possiblewith technology. AI is a great example. But we can build deep empathy for theproblems they face and understand how we can bring the power of technology,bring the power of the Cloud, bring the power of AI to bear to really solvethose problems for our customers. So when I get asked that question, Chris, bya customer, that's really the commitment I've made for 15 years, which isbasically you will not regret choosing Clio.
You'll be ingood company with thousands of your peers. We've got over 150,000 legalprofessionals on the platform. Will be innovating so fast, you'll probably askus to slow down because it's hard to keep up. And that's proven to be asuccessful formula. And hey, there's the bake-offs and feature matrixes and allthat that folks can go check out. But I really think that it's more about therelationship. But I won't get in front of you or your audience and say Clio isthe right choice for anyone regardless of their situation. The right choicemight be one of the companies you mentioned. Everyone's got their sweet spot.Every firm has a different set of needs. And you need to approach thispurchasing decision with a lot of gravity because it is like getting married inthe sense that you're going to be with this provider for five or 10 years.
And if you getit wrong, if you get a year into this and realize I made a bad choice and Ineed to switch, or worse, you get three or four or five years into it andrealize all my data's in here, I'm firmly entrenched, and this company is not...I mean, sometimes you see companies aren't viable, they end up failing, theyend up going in ... they get acquired by a PE firm and stop innovating andstart ramping prices. You can end up in a very ugly situation very quickly. Andit does get as messy as a divorce in terms of ... Not that you need to worryabout data migrations with divorces, but you have a whole lot to worry aboutwith a software product and a complex product that makes the switching costextremely painful. So I think doing your research, doing your homework, andreally doing that bake off, but also importantly engage with the company or thepersonalities there, personalities you want to engage with and work with forthe long-term. Because it is really a long-term commitment.
Chris Dreyer:
I recently ...I found that our CRM wasn't ... And we're not talking volume where a personalinjury law firm could field thousands of leads. We're talking a hundred. And itwas still a very big decision because of the data migration and a transparencyand getting up to speed. So on that end, let's say the scenario that they havea CRM, but they're really not happy moving over to Clio. What's it look likefrom a ramp perspective of implementing it, understanding it from an intuitiveperspective, what's that look like? Because a lot of times this is a bigdecision for many attorneys.
Jack Newton:
Yeah. I thinkthe first thing you want to do is get familiar with the new product in a lowstakes way. So don't start using it on the first day in production where you'relike, I need to start taking these leads and converting them. They're all realleads. They're all real clients. Give yourself the time of playing around withthe platform for a month. Set up a test website with a test intake flow and dofire drills with your staff. Make sure you can actually use the software, thatyou can be responsive to clients, that it feeds into it manage as the LPM, thatyou can see that data flow and know that that data flow is watertight. Becauseevery one of those leads is worth thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars.There's real stakes here. So make sure those flows all work.
Make sure thatyou understand the software, give yourself time to just tinker with it and playwith it and do that in a way that's not super high pressure, i.e., inproduction. And then once you've got the ropes learned, I would say the secondpiece is, and you can do this all in parallel by the way, but map out the datamigration. You can either work with a third party to do that data migration.There's a lot of great professional services firms that do this. Clio happensto offer data migration services free of charge. So part of our onboardingprocesses, offering free data migration. So we can take data from whatever CRMyou're in today, bring that into Clio Grow or Clio Manage as the case might be.That applies to your LPM as well. So if you're switching both CRM and LPM orcase management system, we can do that all in one fell swoop.
I tend torecommend doing the migration over a weekend. So you wrap up with one system onFriday and you're on the new system on Monday. You might have a bunch of yourinternal people and a bunch of third parties working like crazy for two days,but making that a very clear juncture is a good idea. And then I usuallyrecommend keeping your old system up and running for a period of at least threemonths, if not even up to a year, to make sure that if you realize like, oh, Iforgot this bit of data, you can go back and retrieve it or maybe even do asecondary data migration to get that data into your system.
And then we'rejust about on the new year. This is a bit late in the game to be thinking aboutthe data migration but I also recommend trying to align those switching pointsaround a month end and in some cases a year-end where you can say, hey, I'veeffectively [inaudible 00:23:00] a very clear demarcation point, switched fromone system to another, and you know your books are correct in the old system.And going forward from a certain date, you can start referencing the newsystem.
Chris Dreyer:
You've got theClio Cloud conference coming up October 2024. Tell us just a bit about whatpeople can expect there. And then final question, where can people go toconnect with you?
Jack Newton:
Yes, I'm gladyou brought up the Clio Cloud conference. This is another reason to go withClio actually is one of the most innovative and fun and engaging andinformational conferences in legal is Clio Con. It's widely regarded, includingby luminaries like Bob Ambrogi as the best legal tech conference full stop. Andit's October 7th and eighth this year in Austin. So this is I know a littleways off, but if this conversation has peaked the interest of anyone in youraudience, a really immersive way of learning a lot about Clio but also aboutthe future of legal in general. And just to get a great sense of what thecurrent trends are is checking out Clio Con.
Go tocliocloudconference.com. You can sign up for your tickets. We have a phenomenalkeynote speakers lined up for next year. We've had a long lineup of pastkeynote speakers. As somebody that's into marketing, we've had Seth Godinspeak. We've had Gary Vaynerchuk on stage. We've had just an incredible arrayof really powerful keynote speakers. And to your final question, you can findme on Twitter or I guess X now, at Jack_Newton. I'm Newtonian on Instagram. Andif anyone would like to shoot me an email and follow up on anything they heardtoday, I'm Jack@Clio.com.
Chris Dreyer:
There was aton to take in from today's conversation, so let's recap. Time for thepinpoints. Attract more leads with LSAs. Local services ads present a greatopportunity for personal injury practices, with LSA's prominently displayingtop performing firms above Google searches. This paper lead pricing createstargeted ready to convert leads. Integrating solutions like Clio will boostresponse rates, driving reviews, and lower your CPAs.
Jack Newton:
Clio Grow'smission as a product is to help make sure you can convert leads to clients andautomate as much of that process as possible. And you can deploy LSA campaignsright from Clio Grow into local service ads.
Chris Dreyer:
Make informedchoices. Use data to optimize your marketing and labor spends. Bring everythinginto one system so you can see that entire client journey from initialmarketing spend to lifetime value. This helps maximize ROI on ads andstreamline your operations.
Jack Newton:
So there'sthis idea that it's your source of truth, your system of record, where you knowthe data is always most correct and most up to date.
Chris Dreyer:
Take yourtime. Switching systems can be like getting a divorce, messy and expensive. Soyou need to approach the decision carefully. Make sure you understand the newtools, test everything out, and take the time on the data migration.
Jack Newton:
Everyone's gottheir sweet spot. Every firm has a different set of needs. And you need toapproach this purchasing decision with a lot of gravity because it is likegetting married in the sense that you're going to be with this provider forfive or 10 years.
Chris Dreyer:
All righteverybody, that's it for this toolkit. For more information about Jack andClio, head on over to the show notes. Before you go, do me a solid and smashthat follow button. Subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks for listening toPersonal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO ofRankings.io. Catch you next time. I'm out.
