3 Things You Need to Do Now to Outpace Your Competition
Every year the company Clio, which makes my case management software, publishes a Legal Trends Report. This 60+ page document is a must read for any law firm that wants to remain competitive in the legal market. After reviewing it, these three things jumped out at me as surprising and compelling. They are trio of actions that you need to take in order to be competitive in your legal market, and in fact blow past your competition. Here they are.
Start Leveraging the Use of AI
According to the report, in 2023, only 23% of lawyers reported using artificial intelligence (AI) in their firms. For 2024, that percentage jumped to 79% (although only 25% has described their adoption as “wide” or “universal”).
Use of AI platforms like ChatGPT can be scary to many attorneys, especially those who heard the story of a lawyer who was sanctioned for using AI to write a federal court brief. That brief made bogus legal arguments and invented fictional cases to support them. But despite the stories, you still need to move forward at full speed towards adoption of AI in your practice.
Keep in mind that AI is not limited to just ChatGPT. There are other AI bots like Claude and Perplexity that you should look into. In addition to those, major platforms like Microsoft have adopted AI into their software (and if you have Microsoft products, you should look into Copilot).
Adopt a Flat Fee Billing System
Legal billing has been moving towards a flat fee model for years now, and this was reflected in the legal trends report. Virtually all of my practice is based on flat fees, and I only bill by the hour and require retainers on open ended matters where I cannot accurately estimate the time needed to render the service.
Let’s face it; one of the biggest fears and objections your potential clients have is the expense. In their minds, lawyers are expensive, and they may have convinced themselves that they can’t afford you. By quoting a flat fee upfront, you can much more easily overcome the objection and get more potential clients to convert to paying ones.
Be More Responsive to New Client Contacts
The statistics in this year’s legal trends report were shocking in this regard. They stated that 67% of email inquiries by potential clients go unanswered by law firms! It’s even worse when it comes to phone calls. The data shows that only 40% of firms actually answer the phone when someone called. It’s bad enough when you lose a potential client due to an intake fail by your staff, but it’s worse if you are completely unresponsive more than half the time!
Spend the next couple weeks looking into this in your practice. What percentage of calls are answered by a human being and what percentage are sent to voicemail? Look at your email and see how many potential new client contacts are actually responded to. You may be surprised.
For phone calls, I recommend using a service like Call Ruby or Back Office Betties to cover the phones when no one else your firm can answer, such as after hours, at lunch, or when all your other lines are busy. That way, and actual human being will answer the phone and, although they may have to take a message, it’s a person doing it, not a machine.
As for the emails, the vast majority of my law firm marketing is through my website. It captures all contacts through online forms, then sends the information into my contact relationship management (CRM) program. That program automatically generates a customized email based on what particular legal service the person is calling about. That way, the contact gets an immediate response without my having to do anything, and then send me a message to reach out to them.
An Automatic Leg Up
Taking action in these three areas will put you have your competition as they struggle to keep up. They may not even be keeping up at all, as they continue to be afraid of AI, refused to adopt flat feed billing as the future, and consistently ignore potential clients reaching out to them for help. Even a little bit more effort in these areas can pay significant dividends. Block out some time on your calendar in the next couple of weeks to address these areas, and started implementing strategies to adopt them right away.
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If you are interested in finding out more about how AI can help your practice, how you can craft flat fees to make more money, or how you can improve your client intake systems, I can help! Just click on this link to schedule an initial, no obligation call with me to discuss your situation and what value I can bring to the table.
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