Case Management and Accounting Tech: Implementation, Migration, and Integration

Episode Notes

Transcript

Adriana Linares (00:04):
Welcome to another episode of New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m Adriana Linares. I have been a long time host of this show, and I’ve had many guests, many friends, many experts, many vendors, many lawyers, and I’ve had only one time in the past, the expert of all experts, the OG Allan MacKenzie, who’s going to be on today. I am embarrassed that I’ve not had Allan on since 2017 with his immense and broad amount of knowledge about legal technology and practice management programs. Allan, welcome back.

Allan Mackenzie (01:03):
My head must not get any larger, or this headset is going to pop, so I’m going to ask you to stop now, please.

Adriana Linares (01:10):
Well, I’m so glad I can’t believe it’s been that long, but in case someone out there has not been listening to New Solo since 2017, remind everyone what you do and where you can be found and all the things that you love talking to lawyers about.

Allan Mackenzie (01:24):
Oh goodness, I love talking, period. But talking to lawyers, I’ve been in the legal community since the IBM model D typewriter and carbon paper. I put myself through school as a legal secretary. You can find me and my colleagues and references to you at Efficient Legal. It’s not efficient legal.com, just efficient legal. And we have been, you and I have been working together in many different forms and traveling and riding the surf wave of what technology is. And so I have done lots of things. I’ve always had a shingle out, but I’ve done everything from being that legal secretary to being an Acting IT director. For some firms that you and I know that were more than 600 people, but you and I have a soft place in our hearts for the solo small because we know that they’re the ones that get out and work with the people

Adriana Linares (02:19):
Well, and it’s also the place where you can actually implement change and get projects finished. Unlike a lot of the times that Allan and I have had projects at large law firms, which I always refer to it as you know, that saying about the Golden Gate Bridge, that as soon as they stop, they finish painting on one end. It’s basically time to go and start repainting on the other end because it’s a never ending project. Keeping that thing spit shined. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but it’s the analogy. And when you work with or at a large law firm, that’s always the case. I mean, I worked at two of Florida’s largest law firms for many years, and I don’t think we ever actually completed a project that’s frustrating and hard, and God bless everyone who still does that. But we have always enjoyed being able to start a project, finish a project, and then help affirm advance to the next project.

(03:05):
So having said all that, the things we’re going to talk about that I wanted you to come on and help us with is a really good case management update because you work with all the case management programs much like I do. We have our favorites, we have our, oh, I don’t know if I would pick that one sort of conversations, but I want to ask you just some general trends. Then we’re going to talk about accounting and time and billing. There’s been some innovations, implementation, some new features that have come along in accounting that we had not seen for many years, and then we’re going to spend the third segment talking about is issues, implementations, migrations and integrations, all the isians that we love. That’s the plan where this conversation actually goes. You never know with me and Allan because we are literally like family. So we could start laughing because we can actually see each other because it will bring back a memory of being trapped at a law firm in Huntsville, Alabama together. Who knows? So Allan,

(04:01):
You spend a lot of time, I know one of your specialties is not just implementing case management systems with law firms, but you actually do a lot of data migrations. So if a law firm wants to leave case management program A and go to B, whether they are at the same tier meeting two modern practice management programs, or you do a lot of implementations, moving firms from what I call traditional practice management to modern practice management programs. So maybe you go from, what was it, an old client profiles format, which I think that I haven’t heard that name in a long time, but let’s just say a server-based program like client profiles over to something like my case. So what I want to ask you is let’s talk about modern case management programs right now. Smokeball, Clio, my case, Zola, rocket Matter, all the main players, and I think that’s most of them. Did I leave any of our favorites

Allan Mackenzie (04:55):
Out? Oh, we could talk about Leap and we can talk about some other ones that are specific to certain practice areas. Like our old friend Needles now has its own program called Neos. So there’s personal injury and other things that are unique out there, but the concept is all the same. We’re moving from, in this case, you’re talking about older systems and things that are under control of the network to things that are cloud-based. And that opens lots of doors and looks at affordability because everyone, whether it’s a solo practitioner or now the trend, larger law firms are actually looking at

Adriana Linares (05:32):
Damn time

Allan Mackenzie (05:34):
At the smaller. Let’s use that small stuff simply because it’s out there and cheap. But there are shock points and there are shock points in that. Good. The document can be versioned automatically, and that’s wonderful. But then if you’re not used to that and you have documents out the wazoo that don’t match in a folder system, your accounting names because you decided, eh, we got a client open for that one, it doesn’t matter that they have two different cases. One case in the accounting system, two cases and documents, that becomes a challenge because everything’s saved matter ally our favorite word, but so we have to look at ironing out the wrinkles in the data in order to get the migrations over, and that’s where we at Efficient Legal have been feeling everybody’s pain for years and have come out with a whole bunch of workarounds to make that happen.

Adriana Linares (06:30):
Before we talk about the issues,

(06:33):
I want you to give us a good update on just case management systems in general. So I think let’s talk about some trends that we sort of saw to sort of jog your memory. So case management systems have evolved to include things like dashboards, document assembly workflows, task lists. Now I’m seeing some growth in accounting capabilities, which I want to leave for later. But aside from things like document management, task flow, credit card payments, payment plans, what are some of the most recent trends that you’re seeing that’s keeping up with the Joneses game? So Clio produced this feature, now everybody has that feature. Are there any things, aside from the typical, and maybe that’s where you can start with us, is the typical things you look for in a case management system, which I think if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you don’t need to go in depth, Allan, but sort of give us a shallow quick update on that. This is what you’re looking for. But now what I’m seeing a lot of and people are asking for are these things,

Allan Mackenzie (07:37):
Well, without going into those word forms that we’ve talked about, things like texting and being able to text from the case management system and then document it, but have the case management system on your phone, so your phone does respond with the text, but a, it’s documented. All the people working in the case can see it, and you don’t have to give your personal phone number out. I’m happy about that.

Adriana Linares (08:08):
So let me just step back and fill in a couple of holes here. As we all know everyone, your case management system creates, Allan said the buzzword that we love a matter centric environment. We have been using the term matter centric since Allan and I met and in Florida at Broad and Cael, which no longer exists. It’s now Shepherd Mullins Broad and something matter centricity means every single thing related to a matter, you might call it a case or a file is in one central location. Your case management Nirvana is in matter. Centricity means everything related, dates, deadlines, details, parties, documents, and now what Allan is saying is on top of that, text messaging is becoming part of this little ecosystem in your dashboard. Tell us how that works.

Allan Mackenzie (08:55):
So basically you’re assigned a number and in the communication blob in any of your case management systems where you can initiate an email or save an email in, you can now initiate a text. And so you provide your contact cards with a good text-based number. You check off that this is, this number receives texts, and you just initiate a new communication with that text, type it in, it goes out, ping, it comes back, ping, and the whole text, whole text chain is available for everyone to see. It’s not just on your phone. But more than that, it’s documented and there are reports available to it. So if the divorce judge wishes to see the texts that go back and forth, it’s all doable and it’s there and it’s not cluttering up your phone and you don’t have to do transfers. Now, some of the fun add-ins that I have seen just amusing in the divorce industry, I have seen an automatic log in that says if you text your spouse, it will be forwarded to the lawyer and put in the case.

Adriana Linares (09:58):
No. Yes.

Allan Mackenzie (10:00):
Yeah, fun stuff.

Adriana Linares (10:01):
So the text messaging feature though, which sounds wonderful and a lot of lawyers think, I don’t want to text message with the client, but I think the fear has always been what phone will we use? Feel comfortable? Everyone. It’s a firm texting number, everyone sees it, and the case management system is obviously intelligent enough to text from the matter from the dashboard and put it back into the same matter. So these robots, they’re brilliant. Ellen, does this come with every case management system? All of our favorites that we’ve mentioned,

Allan Mackenzie (10:32):
It is slowly being adopted. I’ve seen it in some and still not in others. Again, it’s always interesting. There was an attorney, the resident attorney at a certain case management system who sat in the audience at a tech show and quoted me instantly when I mentioned a case management system name and I said, well, blah, blah, blah, like such and such a system does blah, blah, blah. And what came out of that was a post that says, Allan Mackenzie declares blah blah, the industry standard. Excellent.

Adriana Linares (11:08):
I think it rhymes with shmi.

Allan Mackenzie (11:10):
Yes, it does indeed. And there’s a difference between the word favorite and most often picked by the client. Okay, so let’s just say that it is shm. Yes,

Adriana Linares (11:23):
And look on this podcast, we are not afraid to name names. We call it out. We tell the truth and we try our best to help my listeners make good decisions about technology. Okay, so great. I love text messaging as an important feature that you’re looking for. And when you’re shopping for case management programs, everyone, or you’re thinking about moving to a different one, this is something that you want. This is just going to become a standard. It’s an important way of communicating. And if you have heard me say this before, what are the three ways that you communicate with your client? Phone calls, text messages, and emails? What are the least three non-secure ways to communicate with your clients? Phone calls, text messages and emails. So the more that you can put into your case management system where your communications are not only secured, but they’re also just not all over the place on your phone, your assistant’s phone and every other phone that you might have or every other person’s phone that’s involved with your firm. Everything’s in one centralized location. I love hearing that about text messaging, but what you can also just sort of catch us up on, and this is going to sort of fold into the integrations conversation because it’s part of communications, is phone calls. I think that a lot of times when attorneys are looking for case management systems, we forget to think about phone calls and integrations. So give us an update on that. Remind us what that looks like and why that’s important.

Allan Mackenzie (12:45):
So when you plug into any of the case management systems and you see something like an email address, it’s obvious that if you click on that, it’s going to ask your computer what is the default email program and launch an email. And yeah, we have wonderful instant automation. So with the idea of phone systems being IP phone systems and the extension can be on your computer. There’s been a door that’s been standing there, a jar that very few people have walked through, and we are beginning to see people walk through it. So let’s take a phone system like Dialpad, Dialpad, integrated phone systems. Can you have a desk set? Well, you can’t see it. The chair is there. I’ve actually got a RingCentral phone that’s made by Polycom. It’s great, but it can also be on my computer. So how does that integrate? One of the best things I’ve ever seen right now, and let me introduce a name to you that I hope is going to become a big name for everybody, and that is, it’s spelled funny Ion ION eight

Adriana Linares (13:51):
Eight. Heard of it.

Allan Mackenzie (13:52):
Yeah, yeah. Energize your firm. So the idea is is that with little bits of add-ins, not only can it pick up the phone, and Clio had an integration for a simple one that said, if the Dialpad phone comes up with a caller, ID launch a communications log and link it to the proper matter because it recognizes the phone number. And you think that’s great, but you haven’t seen great. I know attorneys are sometimes thinking about confidentiality and they hate recordings, but what if you had the recording for just a minute and the recording did a transcript and the phone call was typed out for you in the communication log?

Adriana Linares (14:39):
Brilliant.

Allan Mackenzie (14:39):
We’ve got that now, and that is beginning to happen one by one, the phone companies are knocking it out. I’ve been doing pricing lately. I’ve looked at Dialpad, I’ve looked at RingCentral, and I’m looking at other systems because I’m going to implement that here. I’ve got to have it.

Adriana Linares (14:56):
Love It.

Allan Mackenzie (14:56):
I’ve just got to have it. And along that same line, even though we’re solo smalls, sometimes solo smalls are serial entrepreneurs and they can tie that into other parts of their lives. So I’ve got a two person law firm that happens to own a collection agency, and we’ve turned around and done that at the collection agency and basically streamlined 20 people overnight. It was just glorious.

Adriana Linares (15:26):
I love that. So the idea here is you pick a voiceover piece service that integrates with your case management system. This is the important part, and it’s going to have your basic features, but you’re starting to see some development in transcribing those conversations. I mean, Microsoft Word transcribes a recording brilliantly. Of course Zoom has been transing, our meetings so brilliantly for a while. So this makes perfect sense. So this goes back to the idea of every single part of a matter is going to end up back in a centralized location on your dashboard

Allan Mackenzie (16:02):
And the whole business about, oh, time entries. And we’ll get to time entries later because I know that time entries and accounting are on your list, but the whole idea of documenting things and having it well documented and having it documented automatically, I’ve been living without an executive assistant. My lovely Alison has been on medical leave for a year, and I have lived without her, and I’m slowly, how do I make these things possible? And this is it. This is it. Transcription is just delightful.

Adriana Linares (16:38):
Now, light bulb for all of you attorneys that are listening and paralegals and legal assistants and everyone else, just think what you can do with a transcript when you’re doing a search for keywords in your case management system or specifically inside of a matter. Now all that becomes searchable, right?

Allan Mackenzie (16:56):
Yeah, exactly.

Adriana Linares (16:56):
Okay, this is very exciting. What about internal communications? I know that all these case management systems also have the ability to keep internal questions, answers to dos, but basically what we would call maybe text messaging or something you might do inside of Teams or in

Allan Mackenzie (17:14):
Slack.

Adriana Linares (17:15):
Slack, yes. So these case management systems, I think I know Clio does for sure. I’m assuming everyone else does too. I don’t see a lot of usage of it. And I think it’s because you’re trying to get people to create a new habit where they’re not either just emailing somebody a quick note or texting or yelling it across the room. Can you talk to us about that and tell us why we should use that more if we have

Allan Mackenzie (17:37):
It? So one of the horrors in my life used to be people using a OL instant messenger, which was not secure in law firms to ping each other. They love the idea of something like texting, and that’s Time matters. Had it internally for years and it never took off, but it wasn’t the right time. So the idea is, yeah, Clio has it, the instantaneousness of it, and what it does is it varies. Do you want it to log into your case management system? Great, use the native stuff. But then again, it’s not open. And sometimes people who use something like Slack, because some of the software companies that I interact with ask me to get on their own Slack channels and talk with them. So can you use the communications system internally? Yeah. Do you want to open it up to documenting stuff about the case and communicate with the client yet another way? Oh Lord Matter centricity, save us. So the idea is, okay, once again, I’m going to drop that same name again. Inate. Inate has now developing an engine that works across multiple platforms so that you can bring in best of class. Your clients are a certain business type. You are in intellectual property, and they’re, even though you’re a solo, and this is happening with one of my clients right now, even though you are a solo, the solo, your major client is wanting you to talk to them on teams because that’s what they have. Okay?

(19:14):
Now, Clio integrates with teams for sort of document storage, but can they package things together? What we’re now seeing, thanks to the opening of the code, if you will, application program interface. What we’re now seeing is that there are people going, I need a solution. My client demands that I work with Asana, or my client demands that I work with Slack. Isn’t there a way to get Slack into my case management system?

Adriana Linares (19:49):
Oh, what a dream.

Allan Mackenzie (19:49):
And the answer is there is now, just like quick QuickBooks and Clio worked out a deal, or if you wanted to get a bigger deal, you could go and get the add-on from one of my favorite consultancies. I’m just going to give a shout out to Spring in Fort Worth, Texas, who makes detailed accounting information for reports in the accounting system rather than in Clio happen IN eight is developing this new engine that they can put into pace and tweak and create a communication channel that populates the records in both systems.

Adriana Linares (20:28):
Nice

Allan Mackenzie (20:28):
This takes us back to when we used to do this in-house, when we’d spend 70 or $80,000 putting in World Docs or iManage, but having it talk to the elite accounting system so that every time a new case came on board in billing, it would also come on board in document. That is what we’re beginning to see. Now we are beginning to see a willingness across the board of the case management systems to open themselves up to other things. Now does that mean you get to use that communication? Well, yeah. Does that mean the communication only exists in Slack or that time entry only exists in your time entry program? No. It means if it’s done right, the record is created in both places so that it can be used in both places. And so you can have best of class, at least according to your own opinion. Now, is anyone going to go back and reintegrate with Word perfect? I just had to put that joke in there somewhere.

Adriana Linares (21:31):
No, all of you out there listening and hoping the answer was going to be yes, the answer is no. We’re sorry, but

Allan Mackenzie (21:38):
Right. But at the same point, you and I know the power of word and we talk about it and all of the document assembly stuff that happens out there, the specialty stuff for wealth docs and wealth counsel and the specialty stuff that goes on for medical records processing, all of the things, that’s a word ish stuff. Now, is there an argument based on your clientele for using Google Docs

Adriana Linares (22:06):
Perhaps? Well, it’s funny you say that because there is, and I have these clients, they work in Silicon Valley, they work in San Jose or San Francisco, and all their clients are technology clients. So yes.

Allan Mackenzie (22:18):
So there it is. And is that a reasonable, and can you put a hook into Google Doc inside your case management system? That’s what we want. There are still some challenges on splitting your data because isn’t it nice that if your documents are part of your case management system matter centric, then a search technology like, oh, those two scary little letters that still make me fall ai, is it better or worse to have your documents in one place and the rest of your data in somewhere else? Well, there might be some advantages, but there’re going to be some opportunity costs. And if all of the information like the transcript of that phone call is sitting amongst your documents as well in the same silo or bucket or whatever analogy you wish to use, then we can point search engines added across the board and we can also point AI at it across the board. So caution to doing a technology that is split off and partially connected or technology that is split off and fully connected. There’s a difference and there’s going to be opportunity cost and you have to wave carefully. But even this word guy, and again I’m a word guy, is beginning to see that as long I’m not interested in tables of contents and tables and authorities making numbering work every single time that a Google Doc might be a good thing. Now I breathe fire when it comes to Google Sheets, but that’s another story.

Adriana Linares (23:57):
And we are not encouraging the use of Google Docs listeners. We’re really not. We’re just saying that sometimes there is a reason that this happens to your firm. Okay. Any other major things you can think of that we should be excited about as far as case management programs across the board or any specific products? Like I’m happy to hear about iion eight out of your mouth. That means a lot to me. And by the way, everyone that is spelled ION and then number eight and I think it’s dot net.

Allan Mackenzie (24:21):
Yes it is. It is.net. It is.net. They’re one. There are all kinds of other fun things. I’m a fan of Faster Suite for Clio, but I’m also a fan of their secondary company, the Universal Migrator. Which one? At the A tech show. I saw that there are other things going on out there like people cringe when we say that Clio and other things want an accounting system. Now what used to be Zola is one of the few that has a full on accounting system built in. Or we can

Adriana Linares (24:58):
Wait, what are they now? If they used to be Zola?

Allan Mackenzie (25:00):
Okay, they are now, oh, don’t make me do that. Don’t make me think of their name.

Adriana Linares (25:06):
Starts with a C.

Allan Mackenzie (25:08):
Yeah, rhyme with

Adriana Linares (25:10):
Carrot.

Allan Mackenzie (25:10):
Carrot, yes. They’re now Carrot. They’re now carrot. But there’s also for folks that want to spend a lot of money and are really greatly streamlined, there’s also center base and they have built in accounting systems, but everybody else is like, well, let’s work with a real accounting system. Your case management system only does billing and maybe only does trust accounting. And so we’re not paying the light bill from it. What are we going to do? Well, the QB is still out there, but here’s something that’s very interesting.

(25:43):
The QB is now saying that they will allow you to link multiple company files to have a master corporation. So if we go and look at one of my clients who owns a law firm, he’s a serial lawyer, he owns a law firm in one state, and that state is one of the few that collects sales tax on fees. New Mexico, New Mexico does that. But he also owns another law firm in Denver. And so they have to be separate systems. They have to be, but what if they each had their own QuickBooks and the corporation as a whole wanted to know how their profitability was. It’s it’s starting to come together.

Adriana Linares (26:33):
Have you veered into accounting? Because I need to take a break if that’s what’s happening.

Allan Mackenzie (26:37):
I have veered into accounting as an example.

Adriana Linares (26:40):
Okay, let’s do that. Let’s take a quick break and we’ll do a little bit deeper dive on accounting. We’ll be right back. I’m here with Allan Mackenzie. Okay, we are back with Allan Mackenzie from Efficient Legal, one of my favorite humans on the entire planet. I know you guys hear me say that a lot, but I mean this time Allan’s like top five. He’s definitely top five.

Allan Mackenzie (27:01):
Oh, dear.

Adriana Linares (27:04):
Allan, So the big announcement last year was that Clio had announced that it had accounting. Meanwhile, my case has had built-in accounting, Zola, which is now Carrot has had built-in accounting. Of course, all of our traditional practice management programs have built-in accounting, which is why it has been hard for many, many law firms to leave. And I will just pitch this previous podcast. One of our dearest friends, Debbie Foster, came on New Solo last year and we did a podcast specifically about when we walk into a law firm and we can’t get a law firm to change or even implement a case management system because the CFO, the COO or the bookkeeper doesn’t want to change accounting systems. Okay, lawyers, hear me out. You own the freaking law firm. If you want to change or add accounting, I mean, sorry, case management, you need to do it. And if that is at the cost of A-C-F-O-A-C-O-O or the bookkeeper who’s been with you for 20 years and only knows how to do one thing one way, you need to put your big boy and your big girl pants on and realize that you’re not doing your firm a favor. Oh, sorry Allan, am I ranting again? Anyway, there’s a podcast about that.

Allan Mackenzie (28:15):
You and I had a client in common who was a mid-size firm, but had an accounting department of six simply because every single partner over their own vision had to have the accounting reports done differently so that they could understand it.

Adriana Linares (28:33):
I cannot,

Allan Mackenzie (28:34):
Every check had to be divided into five different sub-accounts.

Adriana Linares (28:39):
People listen to this lawyer. Math is the dumbest math I’ve ever seen. So alright, anyway, let’s go back. There’s a whole podcast on what to do when you have a roadblock called a bookkeeper, keeping you from modernizing your firm. But back to this. So it’s been hard because traditional practice management programs literally did everything. And as I always say, the genie came out of the bottle 10 or 15 years ago and it’s not going back in. But now I’m seeing some of those integrations. So let me just ask you flat out, if you have a firm that calls you and they’re like, Ellen, I insist that accounting be built in and I need full-blown accounting. I don’t need toddler accounting, I don’t need Pop Warner, I need NFL accounting. Which case management programs am I getting? I’m a solo small firm.

Allan Mackenzie (29:26):
You’re a solo small firm. I’m going to shove QuickBooks down your throat simply because there isn’t anything else. And the deal is, is that the kind of information you’re looking for comes out of the case management system. That’s what you have to get used to. The report is not a drill down on your income statement or balance sheet. It isn’t. The report is available on your dashboard at all times. You’ve just got to accept that when you do your monthly meetings, there will be two PDFs, not one

Adriana Linares (30:04):
One from the case management system and one from QuickBooks.

Allan Mackenzie (30:08):
One, a breakdown of the fee income by biller, a fee income by practice area. Practice area or responsible attorney. We don’t have to have that as a drill down for the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper can still get what they want and we can have the management team have what they want. Now, are there ones that are involved? Certainly Carrot has it built in. But here’s the next question. Can this accountant, bookkeeper that you want to be involved with handle the nervous breakdown of a change of accounting systems regardless of the fact that it’s built in? It’s not the one that they were on before.

Adriana Linares (30:55):
This is an excellent point, right?

Allan Mackenzie (30:56):
Yes. So they are going to have to get used to it. There are detailed, wonderful accounting systems with all kinds of nitty gritty. CLIA is new to the game, and so their drill downs are not where some people would want them to be yet. So we don’t go there. You go to Carrot or you go to center base

Adriana Linares (31:17):
Or you use QuickBooks

Allan Mackenzie (31:19):
Or you use QuickBooks

Adriana Linares (31:21):
And

Allan Mackenzie (31:21):
Realize that it’s about expense accounting and it is about overall income statement. But we’re going to go back to the horror. That is how you’ve decided to incentivize people. And it involves three spreadsheets, a calculator and flipping a coin

Adriana Linares (31:46):
And a psychologist and a lot of drugs because you people are crazy with the way you do your accounting sometimes. It’s just astonishing. I will say this just so we don’t have to talk about it too much. Peggy Gruy, one of your favorite people and mine, who is our sort of OG of law practice accounting and QuickBooks and integrating with all the systems. I have two episodes with her in the backlog of New Solo. So if you really want to do a deeper dive, go look for those episodes. And then a while ago, I’ve had Amanda Moore, one of my best friends and a CPA, come on and do sort of a finance 1 0 1. And these are the reports you should be asking for. This is what you should be looking for. So if you are a new attorney or you’re new to running your own practice and you don’t really know where to start with finance and accounting, those are a couple of great episodes to go back and listen to. They might be a couple of years old, but believe me, the information is just as relevant and helpful then as it is today.

Allan Mackenzie (32:43):
And your case management system, this is my favorite pulpit thing. Your case management system is also about you. You are your own client. So every administrative thing that you do inside your firm deserves its own matter. And any hourly employee that you have, or if you yourself are an hourly employee, need to put in time against those administrative matters.

Adriana Linares (33:08):
That’s right

Allan Mackenzie (33:08):
And there. And then turn that into the export that goes to Paychex or whoever it is because then you have your complete breakdown of everything that’s happened in your firm and you have the modules that are going to make certain of your past guests who are really into the metrics of what goes on in your firm. Very, very happy.

Adriana Linares (33:33):
And let us pray that every law firm has that person that wants the health, the data, and the financial health of the firm being presented them at the end of every month. I think we should also say that we mention Clio a lot and we love Clio and we’re sorry if you are not a Clio user. And that’s annoying. It’s just just very hard to get out from under Clio.

Allan Mackenzie (33:55):
It is, and it’s just because when I offer solutions to people, Clio is usually one of them in the 2, 4, 6 or eight, however, package that they want. And it has been chosen at my firm more often than anything else.

Adriana Linares (34:11):
Yeah, me too. Do you have a second popular?

Allan Mackenzie (34:13):
I have a second popular that has gone back ways. When I went and did implementations together, it used to be called Zola and now it’s called Carrot. Simply because the interface and the unique way in which it handles emails, there is an email interface that talks to your Outlook or your Gmail account.

Adriana Linares (34:32):
They all do that.

Allan Mackenzie (34:33):
But what it pops up with on the screen is a link of little pop-up dialogue boxes that says, I think that this email belongs connected to the following three cases and two contacts. Do you agree? And go? Yeah. And it stops.

Adriana Linares (34:50):
So it’s kind of like how Net Documents does it’s predictive filing.

Allan Mackenzie (34:53):
Yes,

Adriana Linares (34:53):
It’s the same concept. So it’s got a little AI built little robot in there, keeps an eye on what you’re doing and says, Hey, I think I can help. That’s great.

Allan Mackenzie (35:02):
So do I have other favorites? I have for certain firms that are really, really, really automated process oriented, they’re of a practice area where it is the same set of 16 documents over and over and over again. Then that firm with growth and high volume is center base.

Adriana Linares (35:23):
I want to just mention really quick so we can move on to our last segment, that there are practice specific programs that I know you really like. So can you mention a couple of those?

Allan Mackenzie (35:32):
So we’ve talked about in certain things like including some Florida firms of ours, the trust and estates people have loved actionstep for years. Okay.

(35:44):
And simply because the whole flow of the interface is about the design, the flow, and it’s visually arranged that way. Now can you go into a system now and look at the Kanban board method? Can you get into the Clio thing and look at the Kanban board for a practice area? Yes. Can you do that in CRM, like Lawmatics or some of the others out there? One of my new favorites that I’m getting into is Zoho now and again, integrations and all that stuff. So there are ones that I love out there and there’s some of our old favorites that just invented the book on personal injury. And that one we mentioned earlier today amongst ourselves is Neos, which used to be Needles.

Adriana Linares (36:33):
Yes.

(36:34):
Now a couple of you listening out there might be hearing the words action step and center base for the first time because these are not typically mentioned when it comes to solos and smalls. You can go look at those, but here’s what I’m going to say about those. And Allan can agree, disagree, or fill in some blanks. Those are not turnkey. They require a lot of customization. They require a long-term relationship with a consultant. They’re much more expensive to implement. But if money is no object and you want things done the way you want them done is if you had built something. These are two programs you can go look at or you can call Allan about them. Did I summarize that enough?

Allan Mackenzie (37:04):
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. We’re we’re talking about things that are automated. Well like insurance defense and things like that where it’s repetitive and there are packages of documents that you have to do. Yeah,

Adriana Linares (37:14):
Yeah. Okay, great. We’re going to take a break. We’re going to come back and talk about issues. Alright, we’re back. I’m here with Allan Mackenzie from Efficient Legal. Allan, we talked about just some new and exciting kind of trends and what’s happening with case management. We covered some accounting, time billing, some passive timekeeping integrations.

Allan Mackenzie (37:35):
When you talk about integrations, there are a couple of flavors out there. There are, and we’re going to go back again, sorry. People, Clio, they brag.

Adriana Linares (37:45):
They have the most

Allan Mackenzie (37:46):
And they have the most and they have the most that they sell. They don’t sell, they market them, they list them all. It’s like we are so proud of the openness of our platform that we’re going to list all these things that some people have made and can augment your life and make you happy. Like the integration with a telephone system, right? Or

Adriana Linares (38:10):
Process survey

Allan Mackenzie (38:11):
Or process or

Adriana Linares (38:12):
Records requests.

Allan Mackenzie (38:13):
Records requests. Which again, there are lots of things that do that. Or one of my favorites, oh, my firm data. All the customer reports you ever want. Peggy, bless her heart, love her and her husband and what they’ve done with it. So

Adriana Linares (38:29):
There’s a small team of people. They own a company called My firm data.com. They pull your data out of many programs or specifically only Clio,

Allan Mackenzie (38:39):
My firm data. That branded product is only Clio at the moment.

Adriana Linares (38:43):
Yes. And then they give you all those customer reports that your bookkeeper doesn’t even know how it was created. They were created in, what was that old program we used to use with the forward slash

Allan Mackenzie (38:53):
Crystal Reports?

Adriana Linares (38:54):
No, before that.

Allan Mackenzie (38:55):
Before that with the forward slash

Adriana Linares (38:58):
Before Excel. What was it called?

Allan Mackenzie (39:01):
Oh, oh, Lotus 1, 2 3.

Adriana Linares (39:03):
Yes,

Allan Mackenzie (39:07):
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m going to start having flashbacks now. So

Adriana Linares (39:12):
You have a bookkeeper who didn’t even create these reports, they were just converted from Lotus 1, 2, 3, and that’s who’s controlling the modernization of your firm. But anyway, I digress. So my law firm data can give you or my firm data those reports in a cleaner, more

Allan Mackenzie (39:27):
Modern fashion and let you create your own

Adriana Linares (39:29):
And let you create your own.

Allan Mackenzie (39:30):
Yeah, that’s the good thing. So that’s saved our rear ends. Now, most firms, if they’re worth their weight, are already hot to trot to create the same thing that my firm data does within their own on system. Because as you and I know, law firms have their own accounting rules.

Adriana Linares (39:53):
That’s

Allan Mackenzie (39:53):
Correct. Lawyer math, lawyer math, and the napkins that they were designed on have been encased in glass

Adriana Linares (40:00):
Petrified. They’re like Banksies hung up. There’s clear glass on top of them so nobody can throw a can of tomato soup at ruin them. That’s what’s going on there. Do I lie?

Allan Mackenzie (40:13):
You don’t lie.

Adriana Linares (40:13):
Here’s the point of this conversation. When you’re picking your case management program or whatever case management program you’re using now you need to go look at integrations, integrations, integrations. You know how in real estate, the holy grail of real estate is location, location, location. For me, when it comes to a case management systems, it’s integrations, integrations, integrations. So whatever you’re using, typically you can go to the homepage, scroll all the way down to the bottom. There’s literally going to be a link that says integrations. If you’re looking at three or four products and you have a multidisciplinary firm and you’ve got real estate and estate planning and you’ve got family law and you want to start with a base program, but yet you need some integration, some specialty add-ons, make sure that you’re looking at what these programs integrate with. Unless you’re picking a case or a practice specific

Allan Mackenzie (41:03):
Program. And make no mistake going to a case management system or changing your accounting system requires one thing first. Every report that you rely on, you have in front of you and you say to the integrator or the Adriana of your life that this is what I have to have out of the system.

Adriana Linares (41:24):
It’s very important that you do this. So let’s just sort of pivot just a little bit to implementations and or migrations, which I actually don’t. I don’t do any migrations or implementations anymore. Allan, I send those people to you. But the point here is if you’re starting from scratch, this isn’t important to you. But integrations are if you’re moving from another program, even if you’re moving from just Excel and Word, you have data somewhere and you want to put as much of it as is important and necessary. Not all of it people, because I know that you all like to keep haystacks in case you ever need a needle, but you’re going to take the relative information, you want to put it into the case map. So that’s migrating data and then implementing the system. So Allan, as a migration and an implementation specialist, what are a couple of the things that we need to be reminded of? And one of them you just said, which is you don’t just accept what the salesperson is going to tell you that their migrations team can do. You have to do what things.

Allan Mackenzie (42:24):
Yep. Yep. You have to do what things. You have to know the reporting that you need out of it. So you have to say, these are the reports I run at the end of every month or every year. These are the things I have to happen. The second thing is, is that don’t sit and assume that less is cheaper. We want, for instance, a list of all of your clients. All of them. Why? Because you have to do conflict checks, checks, conflict, check. Yes, that’s right. And is it easier to move only some of your cases? No. It is 10 times harder for me to do a portion that is based on some wild variable that I have to invent something that says, don’t bring this stuff over because the stuff does not come over. A matter is not a suitcase. I don’t wave a magic wand and say, here is a matter. Bring everything that comes with it. A migration happens by data type, all contacts, then all matters, then all notes, then all emails, then all documents. And if I have to wade through each one of those barefoot, my bid on your project is not going to be anything that you wish to pay.

Adriana Linares (43:53):
But you will have to because your data has been in such shitty shape for all these years that it’s the only way it’s going to

Allan Mackenzie (44:00):
Happen. My favorite filing system in the whole world, just that we can laugh, was out on a drive. It wasn’t a folder by client, it wasn’t a folder system by matter. It wasn’t even a folder system by attorney. It was a folder system by document kind. So there was a folder for letters and each document had to have the client name in the name of the file.

Adriana Linares (44:28):
I cried. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Come on people. By the way, naming conventions, we can do a whole episode about this. Seriously, Allan and I could have had a TV show for law firms about what we have seen. Okay. Naming conventions. Everyone, they don’t work. You will never get everyone to comply with your dumb naming conventions. Okay, you’re going to start. We’ve had this conversation. You’re going to start the name of a document with a date. Okay. Let’s think about all the different ways that people date things, a conversation for another day. Okay. Allan, I’ve had you here for a long time. Before I let you go, I just want to want you to give us a quick AI update from case management perspective. I don’t want to talk about co-counsel and justice texts, which we covered. But back to sort of bringing this conversation full circle to where we started, which is there’s a lot of development that’s going on with these case management programs. They’re all touting ai. I’ve heard a lot of great things about a lot of ’em actually. So I want you to tell us just sort of what you’re seeing, what we’re looking for, what you’re hoping for, remind everybody’s probably not the panacea yet, but

Allan Mackenzie (45:29):
Maybe So in general, here is the challenge of ai.

Adriana Linares (45:35):
Well tell us what they’re telling us it can do inside of our case management program.

Allan Mackenzie (45:40):
So here’s a perfect example. I would like, I’m getting ready to have a meeting with Adriana. Please go and find the last 10 emails I’ve had with Adriana. Don’t summarize them, but give me the action items that were assigned to me in those 10 emails. Go, perfect.

Adriana Linares (46:01):
Nice. Yes. What a dream. How is it

Allan Mackenzie (46:03):
Pretty damn good?

Adriana Linares (46:04):
Yeah, I’ve seen a couple demos and it is actually pretty damn good.

Allan Mackenzie (46:09):
The one that I don’t have yet is, please tell me, give me a list of all the open matters where absolutely nothing has happened for 10 days,

Adriana Linares (46:18):
No activity,

Allan Mackenzie (46:19):
Very good, no activity. But here’s the point you talk about there is AI in your case management system, but there is also Microsoft’s copilot. It’s great, it’s great. But the problem is what is the AI allowed to see? This is where we go back to, it sees the house that it’s allowed to live in. So copilot will look at SharePoint and my documents. They’ll even look at exchange and the other tools that are there. But if your emails or your time entries are in case management, but your documents are in Dropbox, can you use the same AI against everything? And the answer is no. So my point is, is that with the integrations that are happening, I still want to, wherever possible have center base or my case or anything else, have everything in it that includes the emails, the task, the notes, the time entries, the calendar phone

Adriana Linares (47:23):
Transcriptions,

Allan Mackenzie (47:24):
The phone transcriptions and the documents. And so that I can run AI against the entirety of my firm’s data and including the internal text messages. Yay. So all of that is together and I don’t have to go and have two separate ais and ask the question twice because one is not allowed to talk to the other. That kind of crossover is still scary because we just got theBar associations to stop hyperventilating at copilot.

(47:59):
Have we? Yeah. Well we’re getting closer. Alright. Pass the Xanax. We’re going to we’re we can say in copilot, look internally or look at externally. This is not to say that you’re not going to go buy your favorite will or contract review software ai. That’s different. That’s entirely different. But looking at your own internal firm data and putting AI in your organization based upon all the metrics that are in your organization is something that is a worthy goal. And why I encourage basing on the core, if you’re not happy with how tasks work, if either wait a minute or integrate other tasks that actually put their information in your tasks and let your case management system be the center of your ai.

Adriana Linares (48:53):
Like it. Well Allan Mackenzie, I very much appreciate your time. I know you’re a very busy man. Will you remind everyone how to find friend, follow you and of course get in touch with you? You guys. Allan is one of my favorite people to refer Migrations, implementations, questions about case management programs. What do they call you? No, not the curmudgeon one. You have another nickname?

Allan Mackenzie (49:17):
I have the Google of case management,

Adriana Linares (49:19):
That’s the Google of case management.

Allan Mackenzie (49:23):
I’ve used everything, if you remember Word perfect macros to save your documents. That’s me.

Adriana Linares (49:32):
Allan used to write those and he still writes macros and Word. Your website is

Allan Mackenzie (49:37):
Efficient legal. That’s it.

Adriana Linares (49:39):
A great place to connect with you. I know you’re on LinkedIn, I know

Allan Mackenzie (49:42):
You’re

Adriana Linares (49:43):
Active with the A BA. You’re past chair of the A tech show and a frequent speaker at conferences and events. So if you ever get to run across Allan, you have not wasted your time getting to listen to him. But please reach out to him if you have any questions. He’s very generous with his time. Might be a little slow because we’re busy, but promise he will respond to you. Allan, thank you again.

Allan Mackenzie (50:04):
Thank you. It’s a joy always.

Adriana Linares (50:06):
It is. It’s lovely to see you everyone. Thanks for listening to another episode of New Solo. Hope to see you next month. And if you have found this podcast helpful, please share it with your colleagues and friends. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of whatever it is you’re doing and we’ll see you next time on New Solo.

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