Improving Legal Firm Productivity by Embracing Technology with Scott Stevenson

automation legal firm podcast productivity Apr 29, 2021

The emergence of digital technology has shifted how business transactions and services are done. With innovations being developed everyday, the legal community now faces the challenge of collaborating with clients online. However, this would not be a massive challenge if we choose to embrace progress and modernization. Through technology like automation software, your law firm can improve the quality of your services and be more efficient.

In this episode, Scott Stevenson joins us to talk about transaction inefficiencies in the legal industry. He also shares how he enabled more businesses to perform transactions digitally and inexpensively through Rally, a collaboration and automation software. In our technology-oriented world, clients want us to be tech-savvy. Scott has helped his clients make this shift and manage their law firms.

If you want to know more about how technology can help streamline processes and services in law firms, tune in to this episode.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

Learn more about the importance of technology in shaping your legal commodities.
Discover how the legal industry is shifting into subscription-based billing as a business model.
Explore the advantages of automation software in managing your law firm.

Resources

Episode 105 - Effectuating Real Change through Courses with Joey Vitale
Episode 131 - Best Of: Getting Over 1,000 Google Reviews with Sam Mollaei
Episode 160 - Let Your Clients Do Your Drafting, How's That for an Idea with Tucker Cottingham
Episode 163 - Legal Industry Predictions for 2021
Episode 175 - Challenging Paradigms in the Practice of Law with Marc Snyderman
Connect with Scott: Website or Twitter
Rally — Sell Legal Services Online
Zapier
LegalZoom
Rocket Lawyer

Episode Highlights

Solutions Scott Specializes In

Scott primarily works with transactional practices that do not involve litigation.
He helps legal firms provide their clients with routine services covered mainly by subscription fees.
Scott’s company specializes in small and medium business solutions or SMBs.

Scott: “We're trying to give clients more of that self-driven experience, but with real experienced counsel actually providing them advice and overseeing the process. So that's a huge part of the value we're trying to provide.”

How Law Firms Implement the System

Scott helps legal firms provide necessary tools such as templates of legal documents which clients can modify.
They also offer advertising services and information storage for frequent clients.
After the legal firm and its client engage in the transaction, Steven’s company does the billing.
Listen to the full episode to learn more about Steven’s automation software engine.

Configuring the System

A lawyer or law firm will review the document and consult with the client for further review.
Steven’s company collaborates with the client on their platform to generate the documents.
He highlights their client portal, which stores legal information about every transaction made.

Transactional Practice as a Replacement of Management Software

Transactional practice does not intend to replace practice management software.
Recently, they have launched an integration with Zapier enabling them to synchronize data with practice management tools.
Scott reiterates their focus on the legal workflows and not on the accounting work.
There can still be client confusion, especially with their automation software engine.

Scott: “And no, another interesting point I make is that this doesn't necessarily mean the end of high expertise, bespoke matters.”

The Business Model

Scott thinks the idea of productization has taken over the legal industry.
Many industries are shifting to monthly or annual subscription models of billing, which are not new.
Many firms implementing Rally have a lot of routine and monotonous work.
Capturing big hourly billing opportunities using Rally helped Steven's company observe their client's progress.

Scott: “I think there's generally a sense, and everyone, every lawyer, gets this sense at some point that they want to be able to like productize their knowledge. Billable hours are great, but you only get paid when you work the hour.”

The Legal Market

Scott describes how a large part of the legal market remains untapped.

Scott: “There is a massive opportunity to bring down prices on certain services by expanding demand dramatically and just have more volume, more clients.”

He further explained how more people are starting businesses in the legal industry. Most people don’t consult legal agencies.
Accessibility and affordability to these services are important.
People have become extremely impatient because of digital technology.

Scott: “I think a lot of firms don't realize just how big a deal getting an instantaneous solution is for a lot of people, how impatient society has become because of digital technology.”

The legal industry has not yet evolved in this fast-paced service production.

Building Relationships with Clients

If you take the monotonous labor work off your plate, you can give your clients more personal touchpoints.
Decreasing the amount of time you spend on drudgery lets you give clients special attention.

Moshe: “Who says that the relationship has to come first? Nobody said that you can’t develop a relationship with somebody who went on your website, bought a document, and never spoke to anybody in your firm. You can have a process behind that.”

What’s Special About Rally

Scott: “Rally actually can become kind of their hub, it can become where the minute book is stored, where all their kind of historical legal matters are stored. So we also want to make Rally very sticky so that clients are retained and they keep coming back.”

Rally focuses on client collaboration, the client portal, and requests, while other platforms don’t.
They place special care to provide client value.
Getting clients is important but equally crucial is getting clients to return.
To know more about how Rally values their clients, listen to the full episode!

What You Can Expect from the Software

Buying Rally will not magically give you billable hours.
You can expect plenty of customer support.
They do training sessions for the automation software engine intended for law firm usage.
They also have a marketing resource that helps manage customer projects.

Scott: “There’s a lot of work beyond buying a product, like Rally, that you have to do to make a model like this successful. And we provide a lot of support on that. I’m pretty confident saying, the amount of support we provide is very significant because we’re a smaller company.”

Advice from Scott

Subscription-based billing business models are a growing trend. Take it seriously.
Talk to your clients and see what they’re looking for.

About Scott

Scott Stevenson is the CEO and co-founder of Rally, a collaboration and automation software engine. It assists law firms with their document production, digital advertisement, and integration of their website to their services.

Scott has a 10-year background in software engineering and product development. He graduated from the Memorial University of Newfoundland. He previously worked and initiated software development efforts as the Director of Engineering in NOCLand, a monitoring and operations network.

Scott has helped law firms give their clients the best-in-class digital experience. His company's services are client collaboration tools, client portals, and payment integration for flat fee services.

You can reach Scott through his website or Twitter.

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