Tell us a little about how you started.

I went to law school because I wanted to put sex offenders in jail. I didn’t become a prosecutor though. I found other work more interesting and wound up finding I just didn’t have the stomach to handle either side.

I learned about solo practice as an option in law school, and was more attracted to it. I’m a child of a small business person. My father ran a fishing tackle artisan shop out of the home, so I grew up in an environment of self employment as a normal part of life. I didn’t make the connection with solo practice until law school. Jay Foonberg’s book was the drug “Keeping and getting good clients.”

After graduation, I worked in a medium sized firm, learned a lot there but knew in my heart I was ultimately going to setup my own practice.

I’ve been licensed in Maryland since 1994. I set out on my own in 2009, and before that I did a variety of work, from corporate support in DC to a broad-based middle class full service law firm, business and tax advice to criminal defense to traffic court, assisting large firms in international cases.

That’s quite a variety.

It is. So my background is an odd mix of different experiences. I’ve help represent billion dollar corporations and homeless people. I decided, for family reasons, to set up my own practice in 2009. I now have flexibility to be with my children.

Nice. What did you use before Clio?

I didn’t fully perceive the need for a comprehensive system for practice management. Things that Clio does, I did through various means without thinking of them as something that could be unified in a practice management set, particularly one like myself could access.

Big firms had systems that stayed on their servers, and I’m familiar with some of those programs like Needles. I once worked with one enormous and bulky program and found it cumbersome and difficult to learn. An unhelpful tool. But it didn’t occur to me that there was something I could access.

For escrow accounting I use Quickbooks, which is poorly designed for escrow accounting. I put notes in a paper file. For calendaring, I used Google Calendar, and still do but now it integrates with Clio. To do lists are kept on my cell phone or scrap paper.

So I didn’t have a good unified system. I still got my work done but it wasn’t the quality of time keeping and follow through that Clio has helped me achieve. In 2009, when starting, I had fewer files than I do now, so the need for something like Clio is more urgent now than it was in 2009, even though Clio was very helpful.

What made you decide on Clio? Did you try out any other solutions?

I heard about your esteemed competitor Rocket Matter, and I have nothing bad to say about them but I tried Clio, and the design was pretty intuitive. Things seemed to make sense in Clio. Tried it out, set up a sample client, entered data and it was simple. No unnecessary bells and whistles. I like simple tools.

What I liked about Clio was its intuitive design. I’m a picky guy, few things I’d like to tweak or relabel, but as a whole it was simple and efficient. Stored what I needed to store, presented what I needed. It’s easy to access, and I can use it from my iPhone. Reports it generated, for the most part, what it did, it did well.

It’s accessible without a whole lot of barriers. You don’t need to read a manual to learn it.

And if I made a mistake, fixing it was easy. I’ve worked with programs where if you create a mistake, the mistake becomes unfixable, causes further problems and you have to call support for what is really a simple data entry error.

Timeslips, if there was a billing mistake, you were stuck with the mistake forever. Clio is a much more forgiving system, it seems. So I began to use it more, decided on a file numbering system, made it easier to correspond between data in Clio, physical file folders and my escrow management. Reconcile and create report confirming reconciliation of escrow accounts ethical requirement. Clio made that task much easier.

I look forward to Clio’s continuing advancement of product.

What problems did Clio help your firm solve?

Escrow accounting Clio has helped with a lot. Makes escrow reporting easier.

One of the great things that Clio has done integrating with Dropbox. Not just in terms of Clio having just a storage capacity, but its ability to receive documents from Dropbox. I set it up the other day, and once I got in there I realized oh wow! This is incredibly powerful! The documents usually integrate with the Matter files, and I was stunned at how good it was. I started clearing out material from my hard drive into Dropbox knowing it would go into Clio. I’ve started setting a file in Dropbox for client archiving material, a way to get it into Clio.

It was like Indiana Jones looking at the Ark: Wow. I’m a big fan of that.

Integration with Google Apps is helpful. Integration with Google Calendar is helpful as it acts as a calendar backup.

Diligence is impossible if you don’t know when something is supposed to get done. And my malpractice carrier asks me every year “do you have a calendar?” “does it have an independent backup?” Yep. Backs up to phone, Google and Clio. Calendar system constitutes compliance with that concern of liability carriers. Half of malpractice has to do with calendar and clock. Number of days to file a motion, statute of limitations, etc.

And the statute of limitations function in Clio is an extra moment to check the date. Great thing. Adding that one alone was a morally upright act by Clio, for the interest of the entire bar and clients. One more opportunity to make sure the date doesn’t get written incorrectly. There’s an extra warning.

One thing that would be helpful would be if Clio can create an escrow reconciliation report that goes back to the beginning of time, all clients past and present. Great thing to be able to do. Also create report for specific client. Great thing to be able to do. If it were able to identify clients open, or positive escrow activity in last 30 days, I could do an analysis but have that print out from part of the reconciliation report. Instead, I cut and paste off a screenshot, essentially, the clients that are now closed.

I think I follow. Can you give an example?

Baker and Delta were closed clients back in 2009, so escrow account balances are $0. They still show up in current report if I print it out. If I want to incorporate data into a current activity report, I have to spend a lot of time grabbing the data, throw it into a Word doc, then go through and itemize. Open or closed client? No activity, closed client so I cut it out of the report.

It’d also be nice to have a search function that would allow removal of clients that are closed or have $0 balance, no activity in 90 days or a $0 balance for 30 days so clients that are essentially in the archive do not get commingled with current, active clients.

Ah. OK. Will make a note to pass on that suggestion. So, what did you find to be Clio’s most valuable feature?

For me and my low overhead, light practice, most valuable feature is probably the simplicity of keeping track of accounting per clients, escrow and operating per client. The per Matter escrow and operating accounting features are the most valuable to me.

I can see an argument for others. The to do list is pretty good. System for setting up Matters is pretty good. Numbering systems are good for keeping track of files. Having Clio’s numbering system become my numbering system has made administration easy.

Per Matter escrow accounting single most valuable feature for my own practice model. Close with that is the Billing functions, which I regard as integrated with escrow.

What benefits have you realized from Clio that you didn’t anticipate?

It’s an intangible one. The benefit is the psychological benefit of debraining my practice so my brain is only engaged in the things its good for.

With everything I’ve got going on, running this practice, being a father to my children and having some type of personal life, trying to have what in the 11th grade we would’ve referred to as “having a life.” The more I can disengage my brain from anything the better. If I don’t have to remember something, I shouldn’t have to remember it at all. Should be recorded outside my brain. Using Clio to store Matters, having it be the repository for Client Notes, to do lists means my brain is not trying to be a hard drive, not trying to be an online cloud storage.

Now, legal analysis, judgement calls, my brain is free to do that. Shouldn’t be using lawyer brains as storage memory, not for work. We shouldn’t be remembering the name of a witness. Clio should remember it. And then we can go back and get that data.

Clio lets me use my brain for what it’s good for. I can disengage my brain from things that Clio is better at doing.

Have Clio & “the Cloud” changed the way you practice law? If so, how?

Don’t know that it’s changed the way I’ve practiced law as a whole. It’s changed how much I enjoy practicing law.

Clio makes it easier to move towards paperlessness. Indirectly, Clio handling the admin back end has given me more confidence and willingness to take on cases that were a little tougher. I kind of straightened my back and say “yeah this is actually something I can take on.” I was intimidated by the shear administrative burden of a case. Now I know that I can trade punch for punch.

I handled a federal wage case against Jackson Willis, the same firm that Walmart uses. They were very professional but tough. Having Clio increased my confidence to be able to say “yeah, I can fight these people.” I can go to federal court where the stakes are high, even though I’m a solo with no employees. Wouldn’t have taken on without good administrative backup from Clio.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

It wasn’t too hard. Signing up was fairly easy. Payment method is straightforward. Sometimes it’s a little unpredictable what day of the month payments will debit the account but it can be weird to look at the bank balance and say “gee that doesn’t make sense.” Not a big deal but sometimes surprising. Might be helpful if Clio were a little more swift in its clock billing.

There is a difference between setting up and getting comfortable with it though. Took a little while to get comfortable but a good deal less than if I’d bought Amicus Attorney. Getting generally accustomed to the Clio interface didn’t seem to take too long. Fairly straightforward.

Has Clio improved your firm and the service you offer your clients?

I believe it has. It’s made it easier for clients to get documents. Sometimes I share documents, with some clients. There’s the communications email portal, and email address created for every Matter. I’ll CC it on ordinary emails so that they land immediately into Clio’s backup.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

Yes. Just the other day, there seemed to be a problem with the physical layout. Either Clio or the browser, not sure which one it was. Gave me some advice on clearing my cache, which didn’t make any sense but they’re Support, but whatever happened it went away. Menu bar at the top of the welcome screen was misaligned so buttons were unclickable, sliding them below the image that’s part of the welcome screen. Don’t know what it was, in the browser or something experimental Clio was doing, I couldn’t get it to go away. But Clio Support was helpful, do this, do this see if it goes away, was very happy. A pleasure working with them.

Would you recommend Clio to your colleagues?

Yes, and I have done so and will do so again. Meeting with a young law student who wants to setup his own practice. Still in law school but starting to think “what do I need to do now” and when I meet with him for coffee, he’ll probably ask “how do you do it,” talk about escrow, marketing, what tools I use, website hosting, what practice management I use.

Mac or PC?

Macs exclusively.

Eighteen months ago I wanted to upgrade my computer and I’d be using a PC. In college I used Macs exclusively, and I had heard a number of good things about lawyers using Mac, and decided I wanted one.

I didn’t want to have to deal with viruses, the bugginess of Windows annoyed me. Not that Macs are perfect, but I made the choice to buy a Mac laptop, and I’m extremely happy with the choice. Everything a Mac prints can be a PDF, which has saved my practice an untold amount of time and money on conversion software. Saved my practice a great deal of aggravation, too. I like the style of the Mac, I like it’s efficiency and it’s intuitive interface.

The latest #GoneClio Podcast highlights Paul “Woody” Scott, founder of The Scott Law Firm, based in Louisiana. Jack and Woody talk about Dropbox and its integration with Clio, disaster recovery and how digital and the cloud can save on overhead in your firm.

Listen:

Paul “Woody” Scott, The Scott Law Firm

First, congratulations on the launch of your firm!

Thank you!

Did you decide to incorporate?

Yes. I formed a LLC, which is a PLLC, or Professional Limited Liability Company, in Arizona.

Why did you pick a PLLC?

Mainly on the advice of my accountant.

Good plan. So, what did you use before Clio?

I worked for a different firm before, and it used TimeMatters. I started my own firm in June, and learned very quickly that TimeMatters was way outside budget. I couldn’t justify the cost with my firm just being me. I was looking for alternatives, and my accountant recommend I at least look into Clio. I did the trial, really liked it and went ahead and signed up for it.

Wait. Your accountant recommended Clio?

Yes. My accountant, Paul Carlson, does a lot of work with small law firms, and Clio makes it easy for him to log on and take care of the money side of things.

What else made you decide on Clio? Did you try out any other solutions?

It’s easy to use. I was worried about doing something new, with everything that I had to learn starting a firm from scratch. I was trying to limit new knowledge I had to take in. Clio is easy to work with, and it offers everything I need to manage my case load, which is growing. TimeMatters maybe offers a handful more features, but they were features I never used which didn’t justify the increased cost.

I also like the fact that Clio is mobile. I’m mobile. I work from home, and meet with clients at my executive suite I rent so being able to take my laptop and access files during client meetings is a nice perk as well.

Cost, ease of use. And if I had questions, never had a problem getting answers from customer support, either by calling or sending an email.

What problems did Clio help your firm solve?

I didn’t really have any problems. I’m starting from scratch, and the number one problem most firms have is bleeding money, waiting to turn a profit, but I haven’t had that problem. I’ve been able to really maintain my costs so that everything I take in is profit.

Overhead is really low, and part of that is paying only $49/month for Clio, which is something vital to running my firm.

Wow. Good for you! Sounds like you really enjoy being solo.

I love it. Been kind of a whirlwind the last 12 months. I got engaged, was planning a wedding, moving. I got married in March, and starting the firm seemed like something that’d be a really huge undertaking. Going step-by-step, it hasn’t been as big. I create my own schedule, I’m in charge of how everything is run, my name is on the firm, and I don’t have to take on cases or clients I don’t feel strongly about. I’m incredibly lucky to be in this position, and am taking full responsibility/flexibility of being my own boss.

What advice would you give to others starting out?

Be aware of your limitations, don’t bite off more than you can chew and yes, you can do it. Having made it through law school, you have enough up there you can figure it out. If not, there is someone always willing to help.

Can you give some examples of someone willing to help?

The Solo and Young Lawyer Division of the State Bar of Arizona. It’s been good to meet other solos and young attorneys, and start a relationship with these people. And it’s been helpful to meet people who are solos who practice in different areas of the law.

You do have to look for support though. It is not just going to fall out of the sky and into your office. And it is easy to get overwhelmed, so you need to be willing to make connections and follow up. It does go a long way. I get a lot of calls from people who need service I can’t provide, and it’s nice to send them to someone I’ve actually met, shaken hands with and feel comfortable sending referrals.

What did you find to be Clio’s most valuable feature?

I very much appreciate that my client documents are on some cloud based server so I can still access them. A benefit of having that cloud backup system beyond the four walls of my office.

And a small thing, but a favorite: I love the assigning of an email address for a matter. I was used to a 2-3 step process in TimeMatters in order to see emails for client files. As soon as I set up in Clio, I set up the Matter email in my email contact list, personal email and Clio email. So every correspondence related to that Matter, I bcc the Clio email address and then it’s just there.

My third favorite feature is the bill generator. My bills look so professional. I am easily able to show charges and any payments from their trust account. It’s just the easiest thing in the world, and I can’t imagine anything easier.

What benefits have you realized from Clio that you didn’t anticipate?

I never imagined it’d be so easy. It’s how I run my firm. Calendar syncs to my Android phone, and I love the calendaring system. I don’t have a paralegal or assistant, it’s just me, so I like having everything at my fingertips. I don’t feel overwhelmed by it, and don’t find it confusing.

And any questions I have are answered right away.

I just didn’t anticipate it would make things so easy, and wish I had done this a long time ago.

So why did you want to start your own firm?

I wanted to work part time, start a family and take some classes. I wanted to be a lawyer on my time. I didn’t want to bill an exorbitant amount of money, have a ridiculous hourly rate. That’s not why I wanted to be a lawyer to begin with. Now I can charge what I want, and charge what my clients can afford.

I don’t have a lot of bills to pay on overhead. $49 a month for Clio, $181 a month for an office, so if someone needs help, I don’t have to turn the person away.

Ah. So why did you become a lawyer, to begin with?

I wanted to become a lawyer because I like helping people. Particularly in family law, people get taken advantage of in a really low point in their lives. The system is kind of frustrating, it takes a long time and you need someone there to help you through it. Having been the product of a split family in a way that helped me and sisters feel safe, I feel can help do what’s best for the family instead of draining the bank account or dragging a custody battle through the mud.

I just really wanted to help people see that, and do it in a way people can afford. No reason why what I offer needs to be out of the reach of 99% of the people.

Have Clio & “the Cloud” changed the way you practice law? If so, how?

Not particularly. I do appreciate having my calendar right there. While I’m in court and setting up future hearing dates, I need to know right then if I’m available and I can. I’ve just taken advantage of Clio to run my practice.

Sounds like you’re on the go often. How do you stay connected?

I have an Android tablet and phone, though I’m not a big fan of touch screens at all. I think they’re totally cool, I’m just bad at it and need a keyboard. I do have a Mac laptop, though, I need something with a little more functionality for me.

I’m the last known person who can’t master a touch screen. My Android phone even has slide out keyboard.

And Clio does work on my Android tablet, and my Android phone. Thing with iPad/iPhone is that they don’t use Flash.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

Really easy. On a scale of 1-10 easy, it’s a 10. I’m not even super technical. I used to consider myself technically challenged but I’m not as bad as I thought I was. I’m not a tech genius at all, but I can’t afford an IT guy so I need to be able to call someone and get an answer. Clio is very user friendly, but I’ve been able to get a responses from Customer Service without any delay, including the message boards. Those are great too.

How has Clio improved your firm and the service you offer your clients?

I’m sure it has. I’ve taken calls at Starbucks. I have a Google Voice number that rings to my cell or home phone. I don’t need to say “need to call you back when I’m in the office,” I can pull it up right there, wherever I am.

I went on vacation, took my laptop and people called me and I was able to pull things up with no issues. The sooner you can get them an answer, the better. My clients are decent people going through a crappy time, and being able to rely on one person to answer their question is all they want.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

They’re great. Haven’t had a question that didn’t get answered, haven’t had to wait more than a few hours to get feedback.

Would you recommend Clio to your colleagues?

I would. I did in an article printed in the Arizona Attorney Magazine. The state bar offers a great service, the Lawyers Office Management Assistance Program, and I recommended Clio to new attorneys and attorneys starting out solo. I met with one of the program’s attorneys who came to look over everything I had set up and she was impressed with everything I had going. She asked about Clio, I told her how awesome it is, and in the process of writing a feature story about various law office management programs for the magazine, she asked if I wanted to write a couple paragraphs about Clio. So I wrote 250 words about my experience with Clio. It was included in the magazine, and I when I read other reviews of other systems, mine was the only one entirely positive.

I love that I don’t need to install stuff, don’t need to pay for upgrades and don’t need a new installation and an IT guy to come out and explain everything that’s new. With TimeMatters, you have a certain number of licenses that can be on at one time. As the old firm grew, we couldn’t
all be on it at the same time. People had to log off, in the middle of the day. It was incredibly annoying.

Mac or PC?

Macs, Android Devices and PCs. I’ll use whatever I can get my hands on, whatever works.

Fair enough. And finally, is there any advice you’d like to pass on to those considering going solo?

Do it sooner rather than later. The benefits definitely outweigh the costs.

The latest #GoneClio podcast on the LegalTalk Network has Clio co-founder Jack Newton and Andrew Kawel, founder of Kawel PLLC, talking about switching to Mac to minimize time and frustration doing certain non-billable and labor intensive tasks, Dropbox, Google Voice, Google Apps and the cloud.

Listen:

Andrew Kawel of Kawel PLLC.

Tell us a little bit about the legal department of Multnomah County

Multnomah is an Native American name, like many names in the Pacific Northwest.

Our county attorney office is located in the city of Portland, Oregon, and have about 20 attorneys, 3 paralegals and 2-3 support staff.

It’s easiest to think of us as a corporate law office that handles internal legal affairs. We do a lot of contracts and that sort of thing along with research for elected officials and counsel to department directors.

What did you use before Clio?

We were using ProLaw. In the fall of 2010, we converted from Outlook Exchange Server to Google Mail (GMail) and wanted a system that worked with GMail. ProLaw doesn’t and they said they had no plans in the near term to modify or integrate with GMail. So we found ourselves in a bit of a bind. We wanted something like ProLaw but that integrated with Google Mail.

So how did you find out about Clio?

We found Clio through a Google search as we prepared to solicit bid proposals through our procurement process.

Really. How does that work?

We have a very defined purchasing process. In this case we needed to find three credible vendors, one of them a minority or women-owned emerging business, if possible. Sometimes there isn’t a minority or women owned emerging business in the business field, but we must make an effort to find one.

By doing a Google search we identified three vendors, Clio being one of them, and sent them all invitations to respond to our request for proposals. We also posted the request for proposals to our website. The responding vendors were  given an opportunity for a formal demonstration, and then we selected the vendor we thought best suits the criteria.

What made you decide on Clio?

It is cloud-based and tightly integrated with GMail. We demoed Clio and the others. And then we brought in some other attorneys for more demos and a webinar with Clio training staff as well and it was clear to everyone that Clio was a great fit.Being cloud-based was a big selling point. With ProLaw, it’s a client-server system that we were finding increasingly costly to support.

How so?

With Prolaw we had to install the client application on user computers so they can communicate with the ProLaw application and database installed on separate servers. That means that, whenever we brought on a new attorney, or got new computers, we had to make sure to install the client application, and make sure it connects with the correct locations, and so on.

That sounds like a hassle.

It was. And to login from somewhere outside the office required more steps. In addition to an Internet connection users needed a VPN, or virtual private network, connection to get to their desktops at the office and then finally to ProLaw.

But since Clio is cloud based, we just need a Web browser and an Internet connection. So when we bring in new attorneys, or get new computers, we just give them Clio credentials and they’re set. No VPN. No client server app. They just open a Web browser and go.

And Clio’s integration with Google Mail is a cleaner integration, which helps a lot.

Has there been any cost savings from the switch?

Where we are saving money is through support and licensing costs. Before, with ProLaw, we had to run a host server and pay an annual support fee in addition to runing a SQL Server database instance. And we also had to run a server for Outlook Exchange. By switching to GMail and Clio, we don’t need to pay the ongoing licensing for Outlook Exchange Server, and our server costs are greatly reduced.

The savings is really in the total cost of ownership. By switching to GMail and Clio, we save on licensing and support. There’s an economy of scale in those savings. We don’t need to run dedicated servers, and we don’t need support a locally installed application by using cloud based services like Clio.

So how is it going so far?

We’re six months into it and have no complaints. Again, Clio is cloud based so our attorneys can work from anywhere. Clio has freed up our attorneys quite a bit. They can work from home, the courthouse, or anywhere else with an Internet connection and call up a document or contact information or an appointment.

And moving to Clio is part of a larger effort as well. We try to be close to the cutting edge to reflect our community’s interest in open source and cloud computing, and moving to Google Mail, and then Clio, is part of that.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

It was pretty easy. We had Clio staff train a set of our paralegals, our training manager and an attorney. They learned a lot and we used them to train staff, a kind of train the trainer method. And all the training with Clio staff was done remotely.

Our only snag was with data migration. Our ProLaw database didn’t match fields 1 to 1 with Clio’s database, so we had to do a lot of data mapping since we wanted to bring as much history as we could over from ProLaw. We ended up merging fields to get it to work. We’re happy with it.

You know, the data migration and training were our two main worries. It was pretty easy after that. The user interface is pretty intuitive, and the Clio training group did a good job of training us.

However, it did take some people several days to transition. It’s best to think of it as a Bell Curve – a few picked up Clio with no problem, a few struggled at first, and most were in between those ends. For those who struggled it took a little more time to learn how to associate emails to a Matter, docket items, connect to Gmail and sync the calendars and generally feel comfortable with the application.

And reporting was a challenge, initially, for one of our employees. But we were taught how we can do a big data dump and import the information we need into Excel. That works fine. Clio doesn’t have a native report that suites her needs, but as long as she can download the information, she can report on it.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

Just the matter number issue. Haven’t had to call for anything.

Mac or PC?

We use both. Staff are given Dell computers here at the office, but a lot of them use their own equipment including Macs elsewhere. I know of one attorney who uses an iPad all time, no doubt there are others.

In partnership with the Legal Talk Network, we’re pleased to bring you this month’s installment of the #goneclio Podcast. Last month, we interviewed Beate Weiss-Krull of Weiss-Krull Law, a general practitioner based in Portland, Oregon.

Listen as Clio co-founder and CEO Jack Newton and Beate Weiss-Krull talk about how #cloudcomputing helps her manage her US and German cases, her switch from PC to Mac, ScanSnap and other #paperless productivity tips.

Listen to the podcast:

Beate Weiss-Krull

So tell us a little bit about you and your firm.

I’ve wanted to be an attorney since I was a kid. And after struggling in Manhattan for a few years as a professional musician, I decided that when I did become an attorney I wanted to work with and help artists and musicians. I felt like there were so many artists and musicians who needed legal advice about intellectual property and performance and recording contracts, but that legal counsel wasn’t readily available to them.

That was my idea from the start, but when I got to law school, I was quickly discouraged by people telling me it wouldn’t work, that it wasn’t a viable practice area. So I put it on the back burner, and focused on other areas of law that I was interested in. I still took IP courses, but also focused on business law, constitutional and criminal law, anything that seemed interesting. I even worked in the criminal prosecution clinic, with a justice-for-children project, and competed on the First Amendment Moot Court team.

Wow. Sounds like you made the most of what law school had to offer.

I was probably a total geek, but oh well. So I kept up with the business law thing when I worked for big law; I worked in the business litigation group at first, though I ended up with the construction law group—certainly an area of law I never expected getting into. But I was happy, because I thought big law was it, what I was going to do, probably because it’s what I saw growing up, what I saw my parents doing. And when my father went solo, later in his career, it reinforced my desire to be in big law.

How so?

Because I was able to see the difference. And I didn’t like seeing my father struggle.

Interesting. So how did you get from big law to solo practice?

Having gone to Ohio State for law school, I really wanted a judicial clerkship. It’s something they drilled into us as students, I guess. So I jumped at an opportunity to clerk for one of my law school mentors, who was someone I really respected and admired. When I took that clerkship, I planned on leaving after a year, and going back to big law, but then the economy crashed, and employment prospects were nil. Luckily I was able to keep my clerkship, which was beneficial for more reasons than just staying employed. As an appellate court clerk I saw everything under the sun in terms of types of cases, and I had the opportunity to write some rather groundbreaking decisions. Not only did that give me great insight into appellate practice, but also into the various areas of substantive law that was the subject of those decisions.

But after several years of clerking I was beginning to feel complacent, and I felt like I had to move on. I started interviewing with firms, but didn’t like my prospects, what I was finding. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have dreamed of going out on my own, but I felt like I’d handled enough cases and made enough professional contacts that I could make a go of it.

So I initially joined my father’s solo practice, which was family law and criminal defense. I also brought in some business litigation matters. And after a short while I decided that I wanted to move back to Jersey, to the New York City area, so I could open up my own practice focusing on entertainment law, which comprises a lot of the other areas of law that I’d gained experience in. Of course I knew that I wasn’t likely to sustain a brand new practice on entertainment law alone, but since there are so many areas of law within the entertainment realm, I figured I could take lots of different kinds of cases.

Interesting. So what did you use before Clio? 

Daylight, which I have mixed feelings about. Daylight does a couple of things really well, but what I kept finding was that the things it didn’t do well it almost didn’t do at all. For example, great contact management, fantastic, but very poor task management. Also, it doesn’t sync well with anything, which I think is because of the complex field mapping choices.

Daylight has so many different choices, ways to customize it, but the more you customize it for your own practice, the more volatile the platform becomes, and it become even more difficult to sync it with other apps. One thing that drove me crazy was that my iPhone address book started showing virtually all of my contacts’ phone numbers and addresses as “other.” When you’re looking for so-and-so’s direct dial or fax line in a pinch, it’s maddening to try to find the right number.

Sounds frustrating.

Yeah. But Daylite seemed like a good deal at first. A little less than $200 for the complete software. Every once in awhile I’d have to pay for an upgrade. So if you compare it, on the surface, to any other practice management system it sounds great, especially for someone just starting out, because it’s a one-time investment and you’re done.

But what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was going to have to pay consultants to set it up and show me how to use it. After paying several hundred dollars just to get it to work, I was still having some of the same problems, and what was even more frustrating was that the more proficient I got with Daylight, the more I realized that it didn’t do what I needed it to do.

For example, Daylight integrates with Apple’s Mail program, links every email automatically to each contact, project, or matter. It’s really nice to pull up a contact and automatically seeing every email you sent to or received that person. Really great, but there are catches.

Anything you get on a mobile device, Daylight won’t save it, and the email won’t be linked. You have to physically tag it on your desktop, so you have to mark the email as “unread” on your mobile device so you remember to process it when you get back to the office. It becomes a bit of a bear, even more so when you’re out of the office for a number of days.

What made you decide on Clio? Did you try out any other solutions?

I’m not sure where I started hearing about Clio, but probably on Solosez. I got hooked up with Solosez about six months before I opened my practice because I wanted to be proactive—thought I could learn a lot from all those successful solo attorneys, and avoid some beginner mistakes. I remember hearing them talk about Clio, but I think I was still like, “no,” because of the fact that it cost $50/month, $600/yr., which to me sounded outrageous. I pretty much wrote it off all together.

Then I started working with LegalTypist (Andrea Cannavina), she just kept singing the praises of Clio. As my virtual assistant, I wanted her to be able to work with my practice management system—Daylite—but because of the uniqueness and complexity of Daylite, she couldn’t use it. Not to mention the fact that I would’ve had to purchase an additional license. On the other hand, she told me that if I used Clio I could get a free account for LegalTypist, and that we could be all hooked up to work together. So I signed up for the Clio free trial. It felt really easy (to use) right off the bat. I could share things with Andrea. There was no real learning curve.

I never tried Rocket Matter, although it was recommended to me. Some folks even said it was better than Clio. I think it was more expensive than Clio, which is why I initially dismissed Rocket Matter, but now that I’ve been working with Clio for about a year, and I’ve read dozens and dozens of raves, reviews, and complaints about practice management systems, I know I’m better off with Clio.

If I can’t figure out how to do it on Clio, it’s probably because you can’t do it. I’ve emailed questions to Clio support, and they usually respond by saying “we don’t have that capability yet, but we’re working on it.” Made me feel better, like I wasn’t an idiot. Daylight, on the other hand, I couldn’t just figure it out. Tried reading support articles, watching screencasts and the like, but just couldn’t figure it out.

What problems did Clio help your firm solve?

First and foremost the ability to have an account for my VA, for LegalTypist, and to be able to delegate tasks that way. The fact that I can store all my documents in there for a given matter; although there are some features I’d like to see Clio add to the document management system, it’s far better than anything I had before. It’s better than using straight DropBox because I can see when the client has downloaded the document.

Clio doesn’t require extra configuration. I can share documents with clients, same file with client, and co-counsel and VA. I can set different permissions. I’d like to figure out a way to make it so that any document I add to Clio gets added automatically to its corresponding DropBox folder, and if I change either document it updates all copies. Maybe I can figure out an Apple script to automate that. Right now I drag and drop documents into Clio and Evernote, that way it’s guaranteed to be backed up or available in a couple places.

You use Evernote?

Yes. I don’t think I could live without it.

How do you use Evernote in your practice?

I drag all PDFs—correspondence, exhibits, everything from my ScanSnap—into Evernote. I can use the arrow keys to move documents around, and Evernote makes is available on all of my devices. It makes me more efficient because I can see what’s inside the file without actually opening it. So even if I don’t remember what I named the document, I can find it easily, more easily than I can on DropBox for example. I always have copies everywhere, which is great. And the ability to tag files is also helpful too. I can’t wait for Clio to implement tagging, by the way. Tagging helps me to keep folders organized. Helps when keeping a paperless office.

I’m also trying to build a library of my own forms, so having everything in Evernote makes it really easy to find the form I’m looking for. I would love to see an integration with Clio and Evernote. That would be awesome.

Will make a note of that. More lawyers seem to be using Evernote in their practices these days.

Yeah. I also use Evernote to keep track of phone calls. They’re searchable, and I can encrypt it if I want.

You prefer tracking phone calls in Evernote than in Clio?

Clio does let you do that, but I don’t like the way you have to do it. It’s too formal of a process, and doesn’t allow you full-text searching. If you forget the date of the call, or what you named the subject, it can take a while to find what you’re looking for. That’s why it’d be great to have an integration there. Then you wouldn’t need to do anything. Each client file could be in Evernote, and that’d solve the problem of the local copy and a copy on Clio servers.

I talked to Jack and Rian about it, and I think they said it was on their radar. Echosign, too, would be a really great addition.

Good to know. What did you find to be Clio’s most valuable feature?

Hard to narrow it down to one thing. I think it’s kind of the triumvirate of the client file. The way you can put all the documents in there, and then share whatever with whomever using Clio Connect, and the integrated billing.

Client Triumvirate. Great name.

Thanks. You know, different services do different things well, but I don’t think any service is coming close to doing that like Clio: getting documents, sharing documents, and getting bills out are all pretty important. Pretty critical to my practice anyway.

What benefits have you realized from Clio that you didn’t anticipate?

The document management I wasn’t really hip to before I starting using Clio. I’m sure it was advertised, I just didn’t realize what the capabilities were. Also Clio Connect—I thought it was just for bills. Didn’t realize its capabilities. Also, the LawPay integration.

Have Clio & “the Cloud” changed the way you practice law? If so, how?

Hard to say. I don’t really know another way. I have a lot of friends whose practices aren’t technologically driven, and I know for a fact that I couldn’t revert to that, to running my practice in the antiquated fashion that they do. I guess it works for them, which is fine, but it wouldn’t work for me. I would feel like I was handcuffed. So I suppose Clio has changed my practice quite a bit, I just can’t describe it because it’s the only way I know.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

It couldn’t be much easier. The learning curve is next to zero, which is another real plus to the system. It doesn’t take much to learn how to use it. Pretty dummy proof. Hardest thing was getting my calendar and contacts into it, but most of that was developing my own sync strategy.

What do you mean by that?

I think that everyone has to come up with their own objectives for data syncing, based on whatever is important to them.

From my own experience, I used to think the more devices and apps that you can sync, the better you are, but that’s really not true. When you try to sync too many different databases you really create opportunities for things to get fouled up. Once I figured out what needed to sync in order for my life and practice to function smoothly, it didn’t take me long to get things in sync with Clio.

My difficulty wasn’t specific to Clio, though. It would’ve happened regardless of what system I was switching to. I spent quite a bit of time playing with different options and variations of syncing with Google, which was the key to make it work with Clio. If I do say so myself, I believe I came up with a ninja setup, at least for Mac users.

Oh? Now curiosity is piqued. Will you divulge some details?

The thing that keeps it all together is BusyCal. You can use the iCal app but it lacks some robust features for business that BusyCal has. I think it’s partly because BusyCal uses its own WebDAV server, whatever that means, but it integrates seamlessly with Google, and Google Calendar, and that’s your conduit to Clio.

You’ll have to do a little bit of work, ask yourself some questions on how you want to setup your calendar. For me, I have my main calendar for the firm, and put everything in it unless it’s clearly not firm related. If it’s personal or family related, I put that in a different calendar. It still shows up in Clio, as a household event or whatever, but it won’t show up to whomever, like my assistant won’t see that.

Right now, it’s just me and my assistant on my Clio account, but I do anticipate having more people eventually, so it’ll be nice to be able to keep my personal life sectioned off.

The other key to my organization is keeping all my tasks in OmniFocus, which also syncs easily with BusyCal. Just follow the instructions. For me, an added benefit of using OmniFocus is that I can use it as the go-to app on my iPhone: If you set it up to show appointments and tasks, you can edit them via the native iPhone app, and everything just fits together really well.

Daylite had a great mobile app, which would give you a snapshot of your daily tasks, appointments, projects, whatever, but Clio’s mobile “app” leaves a lot to be desired—doesn’t work without an Internet connection, for example—but using OmniFocus solves that completely, and I also get the powerful task management capabilities that OmniFocus is famous for. So by integrating OmniFocus with Clio I’ve turned a negative into something very positive.

OmniFocus?

Yeah. I can just empty out my head, don’t have to think about it, don’t have to worry about it. It’s in OmniFocus, and will come up on my screen when I need it to. It’s a GTD thing.

How has Clio improved your firm and the service you offer your clients?

It’s just the ability to share. Share documents, bills, accept payments if I need to. I didn’t have those capabilities with Daylite.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

Much. A lot. My first experience was trying to get my data migrated, so I had several email exchanges and phone calls, a couple conversations with George Newton, and with Rian, over the same issue. I pretty much ran into a wall syncing contacts and calendars, and ended up with 2-3 copies of everything; just couldn’t figure a way to get it to work. But it was only after spending time with Clio’s support team that I was able to find the solution that I did, so I’m grateful for that. The Support team was really patient with me, willing to help. It was really great.

Support is really great at Clio. I guess it’s not really a selling point, because you rarely need Clio’s support. I think I needed it though because I’m extremely OCD about my data, and the fact that I was coming from Daylight, which is not where most people are coming from. My experience would’ve been different if I’d been coming from Outlook, or Amicus. But for that, and some advanced features I’m trying to figure out how to use, I wouldn’t have been in touch with Clio Support at all.

Clio Support gives a real response, though, which isn’t just regurgitating or telling me to do what I’ve already done to fix the problem. I appreciate the fact that I don’t get that canned, BS response when I contact Clio Support.

Would you recommend Clio to your colleagues?

Absolutely. I mention it to people, but for many, email tests the limits of their technology. It’s tough to get people like that to buy in. But what happens is, when I’m working with someone else and they see how easy it is to do something using Clio, they get interested. So I expect it’s only a matter of time before people start asking me about Clio.

Mac or PC?

Mac. Everything Mac.

And is there anything you’d like to add?

Yeah. We were talking about costs earlier, $600/year, which seems like a lot of money, and perhaps it is, for someone who has a solo practice or has no present practice management system. But I spent close to $1000 getting Daylight up and running, not counting time spent trying to figure things out. Sure, costs were going to go down, but I still needed a consultant. If you average those costs out over several years, the difference between Daylite and Clio isn’t as staggering as they first seem. And I think that’s important for people to consider.

I was at an ABA conference in Denver a couple months ago, and one of the presenters, Ross Kodner or Jeff Allen or Brett Burney, one of those guys had a great comparison of the costs of cloud-based SaaS v. traditional software apps, and it was kind of an eye opener because although cloud services were generally a little more expensive, the difference wasn’t nearly as significant as you might think.

Tell us a little bit about your practice.

I started my own firm in 2006. I do estate planning, advise small businesses and do consultations in German. There is a large German population in Portland, Oregon. I also represent clients in Germany, and go to Germany one or two times a year.

That’s interesting. How does the international aspect work?

Clio makes it possible to communicate with clients in Germany.

Nice. Did you use anything before Clio?

I first used a regular paper file to keep my time, and then I changed to Quickbooks. I put time in Quickbooks and ran billing through Quickbooks. It was more time consuming than now, and I’m just so amazed. For example, in Germany, I had a client say “hey we did this thing last year” and I just had it on Clio and I was able to just look at it and tell them what we did. I was just amazed.

For estate planning, though, not so thrilled about being on a virtual environment. It’s no problem having the questionnaire but some worry about information on the web. For those clients, I have a paper file, but that’s a client management/education thing. What if the house burns down? What if someone breaks in? Privacy laws are very tight in Germany, too.

What made you decide on Clio?

I was on Twitter, and for me I knew had to do something. Billing at the end of the month stressed me out. Saw chatter about Rocket Matter, saw chatter about Clio, talked to Bev at the Oregon State Bar, looked a little bit more.

What sold me was the Clio Connect feature. I just really liked it, and I’m partial to yellow and red. Sunny and cheery. The Clio Connect feature, though, “wow that is just the coolest thing ever.”

What problems did Clio help your firm solve?

Billing. Love that the billing is all integrated. Thing I don’t like is interface with Quickbooks. Done all my billing but haven’t done the transition to Quickbooks. Quickbooks is still a continuing issue for me. Would like to see something more intuitive.

Will make a note of that. So, what did you find to be Clio’s most valuable feature?

I like the integration of trust accounting and billing. Best thing since sliced bread. Integration, tied to Matter. Email to Matter. Bill it to the Matter. No extra steps. I can receive payments against the clients, take it out of trust. I’m really just a fan. Using Clio is the best thing I could’ve done for my practice.

One thing I would like to see, maybe just have a “help” thing, how to make a password secure, link it to a password generator. Then everyone will be a lot safer.

Will make a note of that as well. What benefits have you realized from Clio that you didn’t anticipate?

I didn’t anticipate the whole Matter would be filed virtually. I would not have imagined it’s that user-friendly and intuitive either. I never figured out how paperless law practice would be until I used Clio. I didn’t think it’d be as comprehensive, and thought I’d still have to keep paper files. The administrative time that is gone now is just unbelievable.

Have Clio & “the Cloud” changed the way you practice law? If so, how?

It allows me to serve more clients than before because I have more time to manager more Matters. Virtual assistants to hire on an hourly basis on the side would be great.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

Very easy. Nothing memorable or stood out as a pain. Just quick, easy. No issue. Just easy. To be honest, I don’t really remember it. There it was, free trial, had a Matter with a client to try it out and it was just awesome. Just started from Point X and from Point X on it worked.

How has Clio improved your firm and the service you offer your clients?

It’s amazing. It’s just great. Much quicker. I don’t have to figure out how I’m going to send email in a safe way. I can upload documents to the assistant at my office, she just logs into Clio and downloads and that’s that. I just connect, upload and there it is.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

Yeah, I had a couple of questions before. Then I had help and that was good.

Would you recommend Clio to your colleagues?

I have on numerous occasions.

Mac or PC?

I upgraded to a MacBook Pro from a Toshiba. Don’t know how I ever worked with “Mr. Toshiba.”

Nice. Anything else you’d like to add?

I’m German and I will tell you the truth at all times. I’ve been very happy and very pleased with Clio.

In partnership with the Legal Talk Network, we’re pleased to bring you this month’s installment of the #goneclio Podcast. Last month, we interviewed Jason Kohlmeyer of Rosengren Kohlmeyer Law Office, a small law firm based in the region hub of Mankato, Minnesota.

Listen as Clio CEO and co-founder Jack Newton and Jason discuss Jason’s transition from working at a Minnesota-large law firm to his own small law practice, and how #cloudcomputing apps, like Dropbox and Evernote, help make his firm efficient.

Listen to the podcast:

#goneclio Jason Kohlmeyer

Meet Jason Kohlmeyer, a founding partner of the Rosengren Kohlmeyer Law Office, based in the region hub of Mankato, Minnesota.

What Prompted You to Start Your Own Firm?

I’ve been a lawyer for 11 years, and Chris Rosengren has been a lawyer for 13 years. We both worked in large firms before opening up our own. We realized we could do it ourselves, so we started our firm in September of 2008 and from day one, we’ve been talking about efficiency. You get efficient by trimming overhead.
We focus on three things:

1. Plaintiffs Worker Compensation
2. Criminal Defense
3. Family Law

How many people work in your firm?

We have three lawyers and four staffers.

Did you incorporate?

Yes. We’re an S-Corporation.

Did you use anything before Clio?

Yes. The old firm used Amicus. They had Time Matters for about 6 months, but no one could figure it out so they shifted to Amicus. It was kind of cool, and they used it from ‘02-’09. When I started Kohlmeyer Rosengren, we dropped $6000 on Amicus for the accounting side. It was OK but after the first year we got hit with a service contract, about $2000, which was pretty steep.

We looked at Clio and Rocket Matter seriously. I didn’t like the every month concept, but we broke down the service plan (we were always calling for service with Amicus), and with no extra costs for upgrades or support, we saw it was more economical. And the transition to Clio was insanely easy. We’d only been around for a year, so we didn’t have a whole lot of information, but they exported the stuff from Amicus and imported the stuff to Clio. It took a little time but it was pretty darn seamless. Never crashed. Internet 99% up, so we can be working from home, too. It’s just fantastic.

What made you decide on Clio? Did you try out any other solutions?

I called up Rocket Matter initially. I thought their website was too basic, and I wanted to know what I’m signing up for. Their big pitch was “sign up and you’ll figure it out” and I didn’t like that. I do like not having to pay the same price for staffers though. Clio saves up front with low cost. Anyway, the big thing was Outlook integration. Rocket Matter didn’t do that at the time.

What problems did Clio help your firm solve?

Number one thing in terms of immediacy was billing. Every year I teach a class on how to get paid in tough economic times (like the last 4 years). Clio lets us look at what we’re billing in a day and what we’re collecting instead of just showing hours. We’re big on branding so having our logo on our bills was a big deal. Couldn’t do that with Amicus.

Oh, and having client contact information, and being able to integrate email made Clio so much easier than Amicus. And the speed! Amicus, even though we had a server, every click took forever. Four seconds from Matter to phone number. Clio is faster. I can click on the Notes while talking to a client, and they pop right up so I can see they have 3 kids, and I can ask about them while talking to the client. It sounds like I know them.

What did you find to be Clio’s most valuable feature?

Ease of access to the data in the cloud. Absolutely the best feature of Clio. Sitting at home,  might wonder “what time is the hearing?” and can just hop on my iPad and check. Or I just remember a task, and I can whip out my phone and add it while sitting in the local drive-thru.

Search is pretty darn quick, too. Amicus was just painful. I couldn’t do good conflict checks. With Clio, someone calls, quick search and boom, there’s their name and information.

What benefits have you realized from Clio that you didn’t anticipate?

Backup. We do have a server for on site storage of backup hard drive. But if the firm burns down tomorrow, all we need to do is go down to Best Buy, buy some laptops and we’ll be good to go. All the billing is there, and all client contact information is there.

Have Clio & “the Cloud” changed the way you practice law? If so, how?

Yes. Looking back, pre-Clio and post-Clio, Clio has been the catalyst that said this is prime time, the way of the future. So as long as we have an Internet connection, we can really do almost anything in the cloud. We use Dropbox and Evernote to help go paperless. If we’re sitting in any courtroom with wifi or 3G, we can do a quick search in Clio and find what we need.

Also, we never really tracked what our staffers did in terms of time/billables, either. Now, we run a report in Clio every Monday and we can see what they’ve been doing. If they’re not reaching hours, we have a chat with them and see if they’re billing for everything. Doing that has probably paid for 5 years of Clio.

How did you find the process of getting up and running with Clio?

Pretty darn good. Bulk of it was so self explanatory. Here’s the name, type it in. Watch the videos. That’s one of the things that made us happy with Clio. With Amicus, we bought all the training materials and it sucked. Drop a few grand on a product, and then drop more for training that isn’t very good. With Clio, you just watch a 3 minute video and you know how to do something.

How has Clio improved your firm and the service you offer your clients?

We never really hopped on Clio Connect, we just don’t do that. But we do email the bill directly, which helps on paperless side quite a bit. Just the constant “we know what we’re talking about,” that a client has 3 kids not 2 kids. Knowing how many kids are involved in a case makes you look smarter. Five or ten cases, easy to remember those things. If you have 40 cases, though, you don’t remember everything.

We populate the Notes feature. Time we put on the bill for the client, but the Notes are in house. We do so much email so we’ll cut and paste something important into the Notes. Clio helps us stay on top of the files better so they don’t get as lost as they used to. The Notes provide a quick history, an update on the case. Easy to stay on top of a summary. Notes are really easiest way for small practitioners to stay on top of things.

Have you had any experiences with Clio’s support team?

Yes. I know my staff emailed 25 times but we always got an answer back, either a phone call or an email. I never felt like we were being upsold too, either. Clio Support is always pleasant, and easy to talk to.

As an example, we had a weird glitch. A trust account was $4.18 off, I had some time so went at it to try and figure it out. I emailed Clio Support, and got a standard type of response. And then, a couple hours later, I got an answer that they were working on it, escalating it. It was like they cared. They called back, and it was nice. The problem got resolved.

I never remember being happy when getting off the phone with Amicus support.

Would you recommend Clio to your colleagues?

Absolutely, though not to my competitors. I want them to be inefficient. All my buddies that aren’t competitors, though, you bet. Anyone outside the market, I’m pushing Clio all the time. I’m constantly a Clio cheerleader.

The hardest sell is those who use Outlook. If they haven’t bought into the practice management idea, it’s a tough sell as they don’t really get it. Rocket Matter is a little wittier, though, in their advertising. Clio could work on that.

Mac or PC?

PC, though partner has iPhone and we use iPads. Still PC. It’s just what we know. We sarted super cheap, went to a Dell outlet and got a PC-based server for the printer. We knew the PC system already, and it’s cheap and reliable. But now, it matters less since we’re in the cloud.

Final thoughts?

We really enjoy the product. And it was cool to email suggestions and then see some of those suggestions implemented. We made a bunch of suggestions to Clio, and they always followed up. Sent suggestion once about documents and got a great response on why they can’t do documents, and what they’re trying to do instead of just throwing the suggestion away. It was neat that they responded like that.

You almost feel like you have a stake in the company. Almost like a buy in, you get that emotional buy in. Whenever Clio releases a new features, it’s kind of a big day at the office. We get excited. The pictures feature, we had fun with that. We put actual staff pictures, which was kind of neat.

All and  in all we love the product, the company and dealing with you guys. Be a little wittier in the advertising, though (wink).