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Amy Kleinpeter is a consumer law attorney in Austin, Texas. Her primary focus is consumer financial issues such as debt collection and credit report problems. Since moving to Austin, she has expanded to include auto fraud. When asked how that came about, she said it was “based on the competition since moving from Los Angeles. When I started in Austin, people found out I did auto fraud and sent me cases.” Her cases cover a wide range, including lemon law, warranty issues, financing and misrepresentations in the purchase.

Moving from Los Angeles to Austin makes a good case for wanting to use a cloud-based practice management platform, but Kleinpeter had an eye-opening experience during a two-and-a-half year employment lawsuit. As she explained it, “counsel asked for my hours, and I realized I had to get the data from three different systems and put it all together. And, oh boy! It took days to get that all together. And it was very embarrassing. One attorney thought I was making my billable hours up while the other attorney believed me but I don’t think he fully understood why it could take so long – but I had changed systems so many times to find one that worked, so my data was in many locations and multiple formats.” No lawyer wants to be embarrassed about accounting for his or her time, so when asked if Clio helped keep better track of her time and billing, Kleinpeter agreed. Clio makes her bills “look really professional and pretty, and I think that scares [defense counsel] as they have a hard time arguing that I should not have spent so much time. We can work it out instead of going to the fee settling round. In the end you have to make your bills look good to get a higher amount paid, and that’s what Clio does.”

Good-looking bills is certainly a benefit of using Clio, but we’re also curious to know what led lawyers to pick Clio over other options. The answer often has to do with how helpful and responsive our Support team is, or the fact that Clio is a cloud-based platform that integrates with other services like Google Apps, Dropbox and Box. For Kleinpeter, “Clio was a way to get around that ‘Oh we have a Mac version but it’s older’ or ‘We don’t have a Mac version’ excuses I heard from other companies.” Joining a growing trend, she was also influenced by another technologist: her husband.  “Clio is built on Ruby and my husband is a big Ruby guy and so I was like ‘OK I’ll try that.’ I’m around people who think highly of Ruby so that was an influence.”

Ruby on Rails is an open source framework, which is another legal trend as tech-savvy small firm lawyers look to cut costs while not giving up much function.  Lawyers are choosing open source software like OpenOffice or LibreOffice over Microsoft Word, or building law firm websites using the free software, WordPress.

Though she uses a Mac in her office, Kleinpeter has an Android smartphone. Clio and Google sync and allow her to have all her contacts easily accessible from her phone. “So if I’m on my way to meet a client somewhere, and am running late, I can call. And in this day and age, people expect you to keep them informed. Those little things really make stressful days much easier.” Little things that help lawyers deliver good customer service.

Read the full interview here:  (more…)

Congratulations to Clio’s most recent Rewards Program winners!

Letisha Luecking Orlet
Letisha Luecking Orlet, P.C.
Nashville, IL

Christopher G. Hill
The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, P.C.
Glen Allen, VA

Moira Dickinson
The Dickinson Law Offices
Houston, TX

#ClioRewards: Letisha Luecking Orlet

I’m always happy to talk to people about how great Clio is working for me!!

Tell us a bit about your firm. 

I am a solo practitioner and have been in business for about a year now. Most of my practice consists of divorce and custody cases; however, I also handle wills, contracts, and real estate work. This is my second career, having spent ten years in finance as my first. My last semester of law school I took a class on law firm management and during that class I gave a presentation on which case management firms were available. That is not the first I learned about Clio, but that is when I really started to research Clio and begin testing it.

What is your favorite aspect of using Clio? 

Clio is truly a wonderful management program and I am so happy with it. I started my practice using it, so there was no transition for me. Recently, I began concentrating on automation of documents. I have automated all of my divorce documents and cut my doc preparation time down to a fourth of the time it used to take me. I’m so excited by this! I’m going to continue working on some of my other documents and get those automated as well.

I also love the billing feature. I’ve recently spent some time learning the different features available for billing and cut my preparation time there as well! Overall, Clio is a wonderful product! When I need tech support, I’m answered right away. The developers are open to suggestions and implement them. Clio has everything I need in one place and truly makes my life so much easier! I can’t imagine using anything else and I recommend it to everyone I know! Thanks for such a great product!!

#ClioRewards: Christopher G. Hill

Tell us a bit about your firm.

The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC is a solo (meaning me) firm with no other employees. I am a Virginia construction attorney, LEED AP and Virginia Supreme Court Certified General District Court Mediator. My main focus is the representation of contractors, subcontractors and material men in the construction industry.

What is your favorite aspect of using Clio?

The portability and cloud based access. This allows me, as a solo practitioner, to keep up with things even on those days I can’t be in the office.

Read Chris Hill’s #GoneClio interview.

#ClioRewards: Moira Dickinson

Tell us a bit about your firm.

We are a boutique IP firm located in Houston, Texas. We primarily file patents for oil or gas drilling tools, but also serve as a kind of “general practitioner” for our clients. I work with two other full-time attorneys, my father and younger brother, as well as our lovely support staff and “Of Counsel” attorneys.

What is your favorite aspect of using Clio? 

I love the ease of accessibility of Clio, both the site itself and the people who run the company. 

What is the first app you installed on your new iPad?!

The first app I installed was Pandora, got to have those tunes!

 Read Moira Dickinson’s #GoneClio interview.

Refer your colleagues now!

I’m a bankruptcy attorney, and a little over a year ago, I gave Clio a try. I chose Clio because they took the time to answer my questions, they helped me set up my account–they were real people. I’ve been almost perfectly happy with the choice I made since then. They had a great product when I started using it, and they’ve been making it better and better.

I say, “almost” because there was one little issue that came up for me. It was such a small issue, but it was like a paper cut: tiny and superficial and unbelievably annoying. The problem was this: if you used custom matter numbering, and you included the month the matter was opened in the number, the first nine months only consisted of 1 digit, while the last three months consisted of 2 digits. The problem with this is that January looks a lot like October and when you’re filing, October, November and December would come before February.

I called Clio to point out the problem, but I got off the phone feeling like there was little chance that this would ever be addressed. It’s understandable; I’m sure they have a lot of other work to do, and this was such a small issue. I tried to just deal with it.

Try as I might, I just couldn’t adjust to the inconsistency in the matter numbering, so I started looking for their competitors. Clio support noticed this, and reached out to me. A Customer Support Manager called me within minutes, and she told me that she would address the problem. In approximately 24 hours, my issue was fixed. I was sort of shocked. Who does that? I would never expect a company to actually update their software because I really, really want all months to consist of two digits.

So, while I was temporarily frustrated with Clio, I am once again amazed by how responsive and helpful the company is. They really go above and beyond. I’m very happy to be a Clio customer.