In this Financially Legal episode, host Emery Wager interviewed Gary Allen, who recently retired from a multi-decade legal career. Gary’s extensive experience includes building a million-dollar practice in environmental and land use law at Givens Pursley and co-founding LeanLaw to help other firms operationalize the best practices he learned the ha…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Emery Wager explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, we welcome Jared Correia to the Financially Legal Podcast. Jared, the CEO of Red Cave Consulting and the Cofounder of Gideon Software, shares strategies for selecting t…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Emery Wager explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, we welcome Kim Bennett back to the Financially Legal Podcast. Kim, the Cofounder of Fidu, shares insights into the innovative subscription legal services management pla…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In the latest episode, Dan interviews Dorothy Radke, Director of Strategy and Marketing at SimpleLaw, a cloud-based case management software designed to streamline the complexities of runn…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, host Dan Lear discusses the world of QuickBooks, a cornerstone in both small business and small legal tech ecosystems. This episode features Matt Bright, a Senior Product …

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, we dive into the world of legal case management software with Clever Case, a tool designed by attorneys for attorneys. Host Dan Lear speaks with Brett Spooner, the CEO and…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, Dan speaks with Harsimran Singh, Founder and CEO of Lawcus. Lawcus offers a comprehensive solution, combining legal practice management, client relationship management (CR…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, Dan speaks with Dov Slansky, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Litify, a legal operating solution that helps law firms, in-house legal departments, and governme…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, Dan speaks with Dragana Milovanovic from Matter365, a user friendly cloud solution that fully integrates all data from Microsoft Office 365 applications into a matter-cent…

In this special series focused on legal case management software, host Dan Lear explores various case management companies to help firms make informed decisions. In this episode, Jonathon Fishman, CEO of LeanLaw, shares insights about their financial operating system designed for small to medium-sized law firms. For more information and resources o…

How, if at all, do compensation, diversity, and transparency overlap? How can these competing priorities be reconciled? Jim Meadows from Culhane Meadows doesn’t have the perfect answer. But he’s giving it a solid try. With 75 lawyers and 11 office locations, Culhane Meadows is the largest full-service women-owned law firm in the country. And in eac…

Plaintiffs' lawyers are often bold, brash, larger-than-life characters with billboards, regular TV ads, and ambition to match. But they're also visionary creatives. They excel at building something from nothing and carving out a new and unique path for legal professionals - often where no path existed before. But that creativity needs to be leavene…

Two episodes into our four-episode series with law firm CFOs one theme that's emerged is collections. Specifically, how much money lawyers and law firms leave on the table by failing to implement processes that ensure that the firm gets paid for the work it bills out. Kevin Krese, CFO and COO at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, is thinking furthe…

One thing every law firm needs is money. And I don’t think that I’m going out on a limb suggesting that money and financial health are common elements across most successful firms. In this episode, the first of our series of interviews with law firm CFOs, we speak with Scott Shaffer of Winterfeld IP Group. We dig in with Scott on law firm collectio…

What’s a lawyer doing running an offshore virtual staffing firm? Starting in 2011 Brett Trembly built a successful business law firm, Trembly Law Firm, in Miami, Florida. They now employ 30+ people and nearly a dozen lawyers. Along the way, Brett not only realized that there was a shortage of companies offering law firm staffing, more importantly, …

On this special episode of Financially Legal we’re announcing the launch of our integration with Lawmatics. Lawmatics is a Legal Intake Solution, Marketing Automation, and Law Firm CRM software all in one. Today they are announcing the launch of their time and billing module with Lawmatics payments powered by Gravity Legal. We talk with Lawmatics C…

Why do lawyers struggle to get paid for the work that they do? Whether it’s the low collection rates that we see in the Clio Trends Report to lawyers offering too steep a discount, to lawyers refusing to sue their clients, and on and on, “Show me the money” is definitely not the #1 mantra for many of our fellow lawyers. Julie Steinbacher doesn’t kn…

In this, the fourth and final installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we move to the 5th and 6th essential parts of a law firm: physical plant and financial metrics and controls. The topic of physical plant naturally brings up the question of “whither physical law firms in the time of COVID?” We a…

Have you ever considered the role of profit in a law firm? No, I mean, really thought about what it is, why it exists, whether it should be a part of your firm, and/or how to grow it. If so, then this episode is for you. Brooke Lively is the founder and CEO of Cathedral Capital. Her mission is pretty simple: make law firms more profitable. And she’…

In this, our third installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we explore the 3rd and 4th essential parts of a law firm: production and people. While we begin with production, we quickly veer into a conversation about people involved in production and whether every solo or small firm lawyer should try…

In this, the second installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we dig in on the first and second essential parts (of the seven essential parts) of a law firm: sales and marketing. As a reminder, in interview #1 we discussed the eighth and final part of a successful law firm, the owner. In this episod…

RJon Robins is the CEO and Founder of How To Manage a Small Law Firm, the largest provider of fractional executive (CEO, CFO, COO) services for small law firms in the country. This episode is the first of a four-part series with RJon on the seven essential parts of a law firm. These seven parts are sales, marketing, production, people, physical pla…

How can a lawyer represent criminal defendants and abuse survivors? Judie Saunders represents children and families victimized by powerful systems *and* criminal defendants. Check out this week's episode of Financially Legal to find out how Judie built a practice representing the marginalized against powerful entrenched systems.…

Small law firm owners may not be familiar with the terms "docker," "container," or "Kubernetes." They may even be a bit fuzzy on the definition of “the cloud.” But most firms know that, along with significant opportunities, new technologies often present security risks, interoperability challenges, and significant costs in terms of time and money t…

We all know the cliches and the tropes: Lawyers are terrible business people, lawyers went to law school to avoid math, law firms aren’t businesses, etc . . . . Many of these statements are true in some pretty fundamental ways. But they’re also really damaging. Super accountant-to-law-firms-extraordinaire, Chelsea Williams, has the remedy. Combinin…

One of my lawyer mentors once told me “if you don’t like to sell, don’t be a CEO.” Many solo lawyers set out to make a difference or have an impact - not to be a CEO. But whether you want to call them CEOs or managing partners, or partners, or business owners - the fact remains that they are heads of their respective businesses - effectively, they …

What started as conversations between two friends - actually a law professor and his student - evolved into a movement. Maximum Lawyer boasts a 5000 member Facebook group, over 200 hours of podcast content, two sold-out conferences, a paid community, and a course to help lawyers and firms grow. Oh, and did I mention that the prof and his former stu…

Sam Glover, the founder of the popular legal website, Lawyerist, once told me that he started the website to complain about a practice management system he was frustrated by. He gave birth to a technology blog that’s morphed into a large and well-known legal industry website. But Lawyerist is way more than just content. There's also the free-to-joi…

Over the last few years, the social media landscape has become an almost impossible environment to navigate. The founder of the lawyer community LawyerSmack, Keith Lee, saw the social media meltdown coming and decided to try and do something about it. While it started out as a free extension of his popular Associates Mind blog, LawyerSmack has beco…

Here on Financially Legal we often focus on the nuts and bolts of finance and economics but some the biggest obstacles to economic and business success are mental - not financial or even business-related. If ever you’ve wondered if it's your mindset that's holding you back, then this episode is for you. We dive in on mindset - and we’re doing it wi…

What if I told you there was a tool that could automatically increase your firm revenue by 1%? What about 2%? What about 3%? What about even half a percent? (if you’re not great at doing math on the fly, for a firm that grosses $1,000,000/year, one half a percent is $5000). Law firms that accept electronic payments and implement a cost-shifting tec…

There’s probably no principle more important to growing and scaling a law firm than delegation. Whether it’s identifying the tasks that need to be done, teaching and coaching others to do them, or simply letting go, you’ll be hard-pressed to grow your legal business if you can’t delegate. If you’ve ever wondered how delegation might work in your fi…

If you’ve ever wondered how to tie together different systems in your law practice, you need to know about Zapier. Like the machine that makes Pee-Wee Herman’s breakfast in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure or the idea of the Rube Goldberg machine (a reference that dates me even MORE than Pee-Wee Herman) Zapier uses “if this, then that” logic to connect othe…

Lawyers are no strangers to tools - even technology tools - but few choose to build their own. In this Financially Legal episode, host Dan Lear explores why six firms chose to pursue a DIY path for practice management, how they went about building what they built, whether they’d recommend that other firms do the same, and what the future of practic…

This episode of Financially Legal is a departure from our usual. Normally we talk about law, economics, and even finance as applied to the practice of law. Today, we’re talking about one specific legal issue that has some financial underpinnings. Specifically, the GameStop short squeeze. If you’ve been paying any attention to the news - or especial…

If you’ve considered or are considering a virtual, remote, distributed or cloud-based law firm model, this episode is for you. Parlatore Law Group’s mission is right there on the website: “Our mission is to provide our clients with the highest quality legal services at a reasonable rate. We do this by removing all the barriers, bureaucracy and bloa…

“I was told there’d be no math.” It’s a common joking refrain for law students and even practicing lawyers. “I went to law school to help people,” so many lawyers tell me. But a firm needs to pay for you - and itself - in order to keep helping people. Let’s face it: law firms are businesses. And the better a firm runs, the more people it can help. …

Allen Rodriguez is a legal product development strategist who has been serving the legal industry for over 18 years. He’s currently the Founder and CEO of the law innovation agency One400. Before that he was the Director of Attorney Services at LegalZoom, where he helped LegalZoom figure out their, now very successful, subscription and lawyer-assis…

Nika Kabiri is a JD, a PhD a decision science consultant, a teacher, and a writer. If that’s not enough for you, just know she’s a rock star. Previously Nika was the Director of Strategic Insights at the online legal marketplace Avvo. Whether through market research, tireless and effective advocacy, or her amazing public speaking skills in that rol…

Subscription-based outsourced fractional general counsel sounds like a mouthful, but it’s not really that complicated. A fixed monthly fee for part of a lawyer’s time offering business advice to a company. Beth Lebowitz believes that this model is as good for lawyers as it is for clients. In fact, she’s so committed to it that she’s founded both a …

Lawyers can usually think of lots of possible reasons why trying something new in your practice is “against the rules.” Megan Zavieh is a California state bar defense attorney (who lives in Georgia!) and she’s not treading lightly. Instead, she’s launching a subscription legal services offering, cheering regulatory changes related to non-lawyer own…

It’s common for dentists or doctors to sell their practices but far less common for lawyers to do so. And a Zillow-like marketplace for law practices? Forget about it. And yet, that’s just what Tom Lenfestey is doing. Tom has built his business, The Law Practice Exchange, to increase liquidity in a market for law practices and evangelize the buying…

Our recent podcast on how lawyers talk to clients about money inspired Gravity Legal’s own Emery Wager to think about how lawyers had talked to him about money. A client of many lawyers at Gravity Payments (our parent company), Emery came up with a list of five things he wishes lawyers would do when they talk to clients about money. We dig in on th…

Greg Garman is a busy man. One of the founders of a 20 person law firm in Las Vegas, Greg is also the co-founder and CEO of LAWCLERK, an online marketplace for freelance legal help. In this episode, Greg shared some great insights on how and why he thinks right around 20 lawyers is the sweet spot for a small law firm. He also makes a convincing cas…

Conventional wisdom is that there are really only two reasons that marriages end: sex and money. Sex with a client is frowned on and talking about it - except, perhaps as a part of the representation - is probably not a great idea. However, conversations with clients about money can be some of the most important conversations you have with them. Ho…

Jacqueline Horani is a lawyer engaged in integrative consulting and plain language law in New York City. Inspired by the integrative law movement, Jacqueline is building a practice around the practice of conscious contracting, which focuses on identifying and integrating the parties’ values directly into the contracting process. She also has built …

Geri Green and Cynthia Chandler have been fighting for marginalized individuals both in and out of courts for decades. In this episode of Financially Legal we talk about how and why, according to the 2019 Clio Trends report, civil rights attorneys realize so little of what they work (20% - the lowest of any practice area) and collect for so little …

Seth Bloom is the Sr Director of Attorney Services at Levelset. If you’re not familiar with Levalset, it’s a company that helps all kinds of contractors, but particularly those in the construction space get paid and focus on what they like to do. It’s most relevant for legal professionals because those contractors often file, manage, and – when thi…

Erin Giglia is the Co-Owner of Montage Legal Group. As you’ll hear, Montage was founded more than a decade ago to exploit a “gap in the marketplace between freelancers and law firms.” Since then the model that Erin and her co-founder Laurie established has been emulated, adapted and admired by firms and freelance legal business across the legal sec…

Kim Bennett got burned by hourly billing. She lost a bunch of money and, having come up as a young lawyer in a corporate, in-house role, the model didn’t make sense to her. One day she pitched a client on a recurring monthly fee and, to her surprise, they accepted. That’s right, we’re talking subscriptions again. But where the guest from our last s…