Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now, here's the founder and CEO of 10 golden rules, Jay Berkowitz.

Thank you, Jay. I'm so excited to be here with you today.

Why don't you start out and tell everyone a little bit about your background and some of the interesting, you know, points in your life that that got you to Miami and got to where you are today. So

I am actually a born and bred in Miami. And I'm one of those. I'm the one and I'm one of those strange people that actually lives in the house that I grew up in. So I've been here 60 plus years, I live in an area called Coral Gables. And I'm very lucky to really be in walking distance to what we call downtown Coral Gables. And, you know, I've lived my life, certainly on the streets, but really fortunate to be somewhere where as we say, we will know someone in common. And that even happened to me and my husband. So you think that you know you walk this course in life, and you never know who you know, and who's going to come up in your future that you're meeting today. So I'm one of those people that I love people I I've been since a young child, somebody who really had no hesitation to talk to people to walk up to somebody. My mom wants to say at two years old, I was ordering my own sandwiches that Howard Johnson so that's a little bit different. But for the majority of my professional life, I have been involved with law firms. I started in a law firm when I was 16 years old. And I was very fortunate to no matter what I tried to do to get out of the legal business, I always somehow migrated back to legal. And I tried. In fact, I was in the dive industry for a little while I sold men's clothing for a little while in the state of Florida and Georgia. And I worked for Coulter electronics. I started their telemarketing department, I kept trying as hard as possible to get into another arena other than a law firm, but it was always there. And it was my safety net keeps bringing

you back. Right, right. Yeah,

a lot of people certainly don't start that way. But I ended up in the last firm that I worked with. I was a firm administrator of a five office national law firm. And I was very fortunate to meet this young attorney who created a software program and really to manage the firm's own cases. And I got to share in that. And after five years, I decided that it might be more fun to actually be in software development. And so I joined national case management software company by the name of Trowers and was the CEO and for years led sir Only through my customer relations to be able to enhance and develop our product into what it is today.

Yeah, and I guess, trial works was so predominant and so well known and well regarded for so many years. And so active in the industry, like almost everybody I talked to and I, I say, Oh, do you know Patrice? Oh, yeah, no, Patrice. I'm trying to. I'm trying to make a great introduction for Patrice. By the way, I gotta give a shout out to Steve noodle Berg. And Steve is one of the best networkers in the country. And he connected Patrice and I. So Steve, we got to put on the ball in the show notes so that Steve gets a link. And when he hears about this guy, because yeah,

absolutely. And you know, I found the because of our trial works customer.

Yeah, there you go. And Steve's been on our webinars, and we're actually trying to get rebooked and get them on the podcast because he hasn't been on the podcast. And there's a great webinar about building your book of business. And becoming a rainmaker. And Steve was one of the panelists on that. So if you if you want to understand how to really build your own network, especially if you're a younger attorney, and and the partners are saying, hey, like, if you want to be a partner, you got to figure out how to bring in your own book of business. Or even if you're an established attorney, and you want to hear from one of the best, that panel is awesome. So, you know, tell us a little bit about trial works. And I know, there was, I got to know of the company. I guess I met Rob, through some networking and some conferences and whatnot. And then around the time of the merger with needles, tell us a little bit about those years and how that all came about. Yeah,

cool name, and it sounds like the matrix, right, Neil always loved the name. So folks who, you know, let's go back and talk about those young attorneys, you know, we've got a great client, two young attorneys, who just starting their firm, they're about a year in, they're as busy as all get out, because the firm they left is sending them a ton of smaller cases. So they're doing great, you know, they're signing 20 or 25 cases a month, and we, we got their local service ads, and they're, you know, they're starting to get really busy. So, you know, for somebody who doesn't know about case management, maybe give us the basics on what the tool does, and and who should be using it.

Sure. So the idea of a case management database is to be able to tract facts, issues, documents, calendaring, expenses, be able to put everything that you need to know about a case in one place. And the concept of being able to detail the specifics about whatever type of case that it is be able to track certain detailed information is to be able to then use automation tools, you know, what can you do to automate the workflow of a case? What can you do to automate the document generation of a case, and, you know, the concept of then as a benefit, because now you've represented these clients, to be able to market to them and so you at the same time have been building this, you know, contact management database because you you have this information based on your client. And so you find many firms who still to this day don't have a specific case management software program. They're still using a Windows folder structure, and in a lot of situations, creating a Word document that maybe has Some case details about that case they're using repetitive copies of documents were very often, unfortunately, they'll leave some information that pertain to the previous use of that document. And so sometimes you're you're ending up reducing something that's, that's not accurate. And so what a case management database is going to do for you is that it's going to allow you to work more efficiently, because you're not recreating the wheel all the time. You can search through documents, you can use previous pleadings, anything that has been, certainly to the benefit of your clients and use that in the next case that's similar to that case that you had previously run. So there's all kinds of benefits when it really comes to using case management.

That sounds great. And you touched on something that we were talking about the other day with Microsoft, you mentioned that some of the old platforms are not going to be supported by Microsoft, what are the software's? And what's the time period on that? Yeah,

important that firms who are still running their shop on Word, and Excel, really start thinking about one of these cloud based solutions for all the earlier reasons, but also because of this end of life issue. That's right.

So let's stick with the theme of the young, two very bright young attorneys starting their personal injury practice, right? When did these programs become cost effective? And at what point in their practice? Should they start looking at these programs and, and which ones are good for the startups.

So we we tried to define, you know, a brand new attorney net new coming has maybe just right out of law school and hanging your shingle. And sure you can get along with a Microsoft Office Suite and be able to manage your cases from that as you begin to build your your clientele. But within a very short period of time, definitely by here too. You need to invest in a case management program. And there's there's a lot of good products that just help you organize your appointments, your calendars, the details of your client, the details of their injuries or why you're, you're managing their case. So there's there's lots of products that are available. You know, you probably can get some pretend $12 A month right now still very much just basic. The tracking of your caseload? Oh, that's great.

And what are the some of those products, some

of those products could be anything from a Microsoft Planner, where you're actually using, you know, planner boards to be able to associate tasks and track contact information. And so that might be a higher cost version of your existing Microsoft database. Some of those other type of products could be, you know, depending on the type of law that you're actually practicing, could be clearer to, to start with my case, there's some basic software programs like that, that actually does offer a low cost, especially for starting customers.

So that was my conversation, when we were talking was that I found that because of the built in feature sets of Clio being able to send an invoice to a client, because you're you're working on an hourly basis, or maybe a flat fee basis, it makes it very simple for the client to be able to click a link and then make a payment for you. And so there's a different concept, obviously, for a contingent firm, but for programs that are similar to that, that allow you to just use the built in features. So case management, software developers, there's many that now integrate with hundreds of different third party sources. But to be able to start with a program, you know, it really has been my experience that that Clea was really very good with that. I like my case, because I know a lot of folks that work in my case.

So for whatever reason, we default to personal injury a lot on this on this show. So I don't want to put you on the spot, which I did the other day, of course, but so I'm going to give you the really easy question, in this regard. So you included Neos, and we're going to include Neos, because that's your former employer and, and we know those guys, so we'll include Nielsen like the top four or five, who are some of the other ones in the top, you know, four or five, who someone should look at when, when they're at that next level. You know, maybe you're on a system that's driving you crazy, I hear this all the time, won't mention any names. And folks are looking at three or four solutions, who should be on their solution set.

So I think for me, the major players at this point, file vine smart advocate, no doubt, I include Neos, there's some new folks that are on the market. There's a company by the name of sin case that I see a lot of traction with. And they've got a great reputation. That's, you know, certainly building as they move forward into the personal injury space, and certainly solidify, you know, we have to include them. I mean, certainly having a product that's based on, Salesforce gets them a lot of accolades, and certainly power behind what the software programs. Yeah,

and our experience with Salesforce is as using it as a CRM for a smaller company. Like I'm not Dell or IBM. Salesforce is a huge platform, and it has a million capabilities. But also, a lot of complexity comes with that liquify sometimes gets grouped into that a little bit because it's built on Salesforce, right. So I think the integration has been challenging for some with little five love, Jerry Parker and the team over at Smart advocate. Those guys have been on our webinars and we hang out with them a lot at different conferences and stuff. And also big fan of file vine in particularly my buddy, Dr. Kane Elliott, who developed the AI products, the artificial intelligence products over there. And I don't want to try and trip Patrice up with with defining the AI so I'll just refer you to my interview with Dr. Kane Elliot, who talked about AI and talked about their demands AI product and His second launch was an AI product he built out of a personal passion area, because his wife was an immigrant. And so he was frustrated with how many documents, the same documents he had to fill out, over and over and over in the immigration process and how many potential misses there were in the process for the attorneys. So he, the second day I piece they built demands eyes, really for personal injury. And then the second piece they wrote was for immigration attorneys. And they have a brilliant team, I've met a couple of them. And they're cranking out the AI products over there. And everybody's working in AI. I know, smart advocates working in AI, and Nielsen's doing some work there. So we want to duplicate there, you know, and back to some of the basic things like, again, you know, what do these things do? Right? So they do document management, they do billing, and they do some process management is would that sum it up as simply as possible? Yeah,

I would say process workflow management, you know, being able to track tasks, but also be able to track, you know, deadlines.

So kind of gives you reminders, or something like that.

Right? Absolutely built in reminders. And many of these programs. Now, not only do you get the reminder, but you actually get the associated a form that needs to be created with that particular document. I mean, for that particular task so that you can create that document all within the same process window that's appeared for you.

Yeah, I don't know if I was listening on a podcast or reading one of his books. John Morgan, of course, from Morgan Morgan, the biggest PII from the country. I guess he's an investor and lit a fire help to create lit a fire. I'm not sure

he created solidify my understanding.

So one of the things he said, that was, you know, sort of certainly powerful to me, is one of the biggest complaints that customers have about most lawyers and in particular PII. But, you know, I've had the same issues with I think, I think every lawyer is like, the really good lawyers keep you informed of what's going on in your case. But when you're frustrated with lawyers, it's you always have to call them and find out what's going on. And so he said that he built into solidify and notification process. So a young lawyer is going to be just as good as as a very seasoned, and very effective lawyer effective communicator, because it's going to give him all those touch points where he or she should be reaching out to the clients. Is that consistent with what you know about that product?

I know that certainly, that was one of the ideas that was put into solidify at the very beginning was to make it a client portal slash referral network, so that attorneys really had the ability to be able to actually share cases within the system. So that those two features I think, is what really started little by, at least, in my opinion,

awesome. So, you know, I jumped right into the My favorite areas, which is technology tools. But tell us a little bit about your transition. So you were at this very large, very successful case management, you know, Pro works, needles became Neos became one entity, and then you transitioned into your own consulting business. So obviously, you know, very, very clearly everyone knows Patrice would be an awesome resource. If you're looking for help selecting a case management or selecting any technology for your firm. But tell us what else where can you help.

you guys leave it if you see Patrice benefit. Well,

thanks for that, Jay. And I just really couldn't, in my mind, consider that I was anywhere near ready to walk away from my legal community, because I have had so much fun doing it. And for me, it's always been a kind of a challenge with all of my clients to stay ahead of technology. I used to love to be able to have these conversations with attorneys who wanted me to be able to add some new feature in the program. And I would say, oh, you know, I already thought of that. And so we've been working on that already. And that is going to come out. And so I had a lot of fellows who tried to challenge me and always try to bring me something new. So it was a great idea. And so when I did decide to retire from assembly and think about having my own business, I'm wanting to continue to be able to help firms. And one of the things for me that had always been apparent was that unfortunately, there was very little planning by a firm to actually go into the software. You know, it's very lucky to meet attorneys at you know, national convention state conventions and to We'll talk to them and and sell them my product. But so many times, we would always suggest to them come back, let us do a, you know, a full demo for you just one on one. But we would also want to do a demo for your staff. And some took us out on it, some did not. And it was always a crisis, because the attorney had a concept of what he thought the firm needed, and didn't really have a conversation with the staff to know what they needed. And so that's one of the services that I offer is that if you think you want to change your software, let me help you evaluate what you need for your farm. And what's the best type of software that you need to run your business. And actually accept that you need software to run your business effectively. And to be able to put the tools in place, make the jobs easier, have your staff members and get the benefit of Reporting Analytics, everybody knows that's what we need. At the end of the day, you need to know how fast you can turn in case from the day that you settled it to the day that you get a check. You need to be aware of how much money you're investing in a case to make sure that it was worth your time at the end of the day. So that's what I can do to be able to help you I can talk to your staff, I can have them be very honest and have a conversation on what works for them, and what they don't use what's going to be a waste of money. That's

fantastic. The other question I had, what are some of the other technological assistance areas you can give? You know, like, will you help a firm pick their telephony system, their IT system and things like that? Absolutely.

You know, I think that that's just been another side effect, really for, for me and technology to be able to have the concept that your phone system can port into your case management system. So that when the call notification pops up, you know what client it is you have a suggestion of what case maybe they're actually calling about, even the defense counsel, the same idea that can all happen. So being able to choose your telephone system, being able to help you choose the right accounting system based on what your business actually needs. I am very fortunate that through the years, you can imagine the amount of tech people that I've come by some good, some bad. And so if you don't have anybody in your area that actually handles technology, I can find somebody that will be able to help you to that. So my outreach, I mean, there's probably not any type of software or utility, or, you know, even your copy machine, print auditing or anything like that, that I haven't had some engagement with somebody that I would be happy to report to your business. That's

great. And you touched on something that's another personal interest area of mind, which is the connection between intake and the case management. There's a product called Lead docket guest file, Vine acquired it. And then there's some, you know, critical integration opportunities. What I mean by that is like, if you can track every phone call, every chat, and now even every text, every text, frankly, should be a part of the, you know, of the software, because so many times the attorneys are using cell phones, to text with clients, and a lot of that type of stuff. And you know, it should all be done through a professional system. So, talk to us a little bit about that, you know, I don't know what you call it, like I call it like an interstitial, like the connection between the intake and the case management and talk a little bit about the role of lead docket, because I know I work clients absolutely love that piece in the puzzle.

Right? You know, the concept. Now, as we know, many people prefer to text rather than pick up the telephone, they feel like it's instant access. And so most every law firm has the ability to be able to have a client go to their website, enter information and and then be able to have that pushed. I mean, in some basic form, you're you as the attorney are getting an email then that says somebody filled out this form and they're interested in the business. The idea of products like lead docket, I think and taker would be another good example, that their software is going to Be so intuitive and to your personal business, you can personalize so much of that information that then a client is going to see that you can immediately engage with that individual while the software is pushing through an integration directly to your case management and creating that intake. So by the time the attorney or the staff person gets connected to that person, that case is already created, they can start entering the detailed information directly into the case management, they have an idea whether that person has already called before if they have been a former client, and that connection of engagement, will make the difference in whether that client actually uses your services or goes to somebody else who didn't have one of those products.

Yeah, and we spend a lot of time focusing on those five star Google reviews. And, you know, it's not a subtlety anymore. If you can't be knowledgeable when it when a client calls in a or at the very least, but be, you know, ideally, you can be proactive and reaching out to clients with news on their case, right before they're ready to call you and get frustrated. That's the way you get those five star reviews. So you know, these, these things are not. And by the way, you know, if you listen to some of my other shows, and all the marketing stuff, those reviews in Google, are pretty critical for your SEO for your local search engine optimization for whether you're coming up with maps. And now they're a key determinant on whether or not you're coming up in those top positions for Google screen in the local service ads. So when when I talk about reviews, it's like mission critical on the business side of your business, and the marketing side of your business. So having the right system, the right technology system, and having the right systems, the way you operate your business, is mission critical for the front end and the marketing side to today. And Patrice, you can expand on that or I can get to my next question.

Yeah, the only thing worse than switching your whole business operating system is having to switch it again here later. So I get the choice, right, you gotta call Patrice. Because, you know, having a pro, I'm not kidding, like having a pro like Patrice, if you are considering making this major change, to walk you through all the different products and and then help you with the integration and get it right. You know, it could be a real game changer, because I've seen firms, you know, switch to particularly one of the, one of the software's we didn't list for Teresa's top five, and then switch back again to one of the other ones. And that's a real business disruption, like our crazy high level business disruption. So in terms of getting, you know, getting us on on schedule, and getting us done on time, we have our own time schedule. Those of you listening to the podcast, probably want to hear from Patrice all day. But one of the questions I love to ask my guests is, tell me about a pivot or major life decision that took you in a direction and what you learned from that, you know, we mentor the students at our group, the strategic forum, and we always ask this question, I love the results. Or, you know, another way to say it is what's the recommendation for your young self, from one of the more of the life decisions you made, and how it turned out? I

think I'm gonna go back to high school on this one. And I'm gonna say be careful how you judge technology. I was fortunate enough to have a business machines class, and I learned how to use the court reporting transcribing machine and I was good at it. I've learned how to take when I was in fourth grade so it made sense to me and and I was really very good at it, but I made the decision not to pursue a career as a court reporter, because I couldn't believe that that machine was going to continue. You know, we just had started with recording, then you had computers that had floppy disks in it. And so I just believed that that was going to be one job that was going to be phased out. And little did I know that today, we still certainly have our court reporters. And, you know, we've seen a few changes in that technology. But so that's one thing that I would say, Be careful how you make a decision not to take a life's career, because you think it's going to be phased out that there's a lot of conversation about that today, no doubt in what AI is going to take a job. But that's

awesome to have a vision for your future. I was lucky, I had to get a, like a science credit. And none of this stuff. I was not very technical or scientific. But there was a great course on in the computer science department on power of computers and computing and computer systems. And it was taught by the department head. And I remember, it was like a spring course. And I learned so much just about, you know, the concept of computer systems. And that was so valuable for me for the rest of my, my career, because I didn't need to code but in my job I need to understand, okay, you know, what is the code for a website as it pertains to SEO? And I have that master of the schematic in my head. Still from that, that training? So a couple more quickies? Are there any apps or any personal productivity tips that you would share with everybody?

A couple of the things that I use? I mean, there's no question. I'm a Microsoft 365 person. And so everything that I do is Microsoft based, Windows 11 desktop, I am one of those people that is not afraid to test software. So I've been a Windows and Office Insider, sometimes that means I get updates every single day, sometimes I get updates that make computers work, I have to revert back. But you know, I did have that personality that allows me to do that. Since I've been a consultant, I have to say that I changed some of the things that I actually use, I do use a timekeeper called Spotify. And so I've set it all up. But I also utilize the tracking portion of classifiers. So it actually watches every web page that I go to every single thing that I do. So again, it gives me a little insight. You know, if I'm kind of having an off focus day, you know, I can go back and reflect on that

I do use Facebook on those days are

actually LinkedIn. And we know what my focus is these days. Thank God for Lincoln, I really appreciate it. But I use QuickBooks Online for my billing and accounting. So nothing really special there. I have developed pretty good use of Canva. So it makes it nice to be able to put some posts together there, put some graphics together my brochure the on the ball group helped me with but it gives me the ability to take pieces of that and create other materials. Yeah,

right? It really it really is. It's a great product. And so with that I use I do use a I photo editing software program that's called Luminar luminar.ai. And again, it has great features and capability. But also it has templates built into it. So it's really great to be able to take a photo that's not great. Not so perfect. And easily make it you can remove things out of the background and and modify what you need to really pretty.

Love it. Another quickie. What's your go to business book recommendation? Anything you recommend, again to those folks starting out?

I'm gonna say that for the for the last five years, I really made an effort to learn an awful lot about working with other people. And one of my most favorite books is called never split the difference by Chris Voss love it. And he was a FBI negotiator. And so it really, you know, everything we do, you know, I mean, especially being in the legal business, right, everybody's negotiating. And one of the things that I did, I ran customer success. And so I recommended everyone reading this book. Because talking to a client, clients are happy clients are frustrated. And so being able to have that voice, kind of that calming voice and having ideas about how to address volatile situations, sometimes, you know, what's, uh, it was a great reference for me so that

Chris is awesome. Like that book starts out in a bank robbery with like lives and the negotiation that lives at stake. That's great. Any blogs, podcasts? YouTubes you love you're never miss subscribe to?

Well, you know, I think I'm sure that Simon Sinek would love me to say that every single person in the world listens to him. But if there's somebody who actually doesn't, you definitely need to because there's just so much about people and how to be a better person from him. So I love that. I do watch. I believe his last name is Bill, you, Tom Bill, you bi l EY EU. He does a lot of podcasts. He interviews a lot of people I'd like to say he's all about people and potential. So I do enjoy that. And Victor Antonio, I mean, somebody who's really motivated sales, enjoyed him and Dan Martell, who really helped me as a moving into what I said with a software developer into this vast world, even understanding that terminology. And we have to give credit to Steve Nuttall Berg and on the ball because I listen to his podcast every single morning. Yeah,

the daily huddle, right. It's awesome. You got it. If you need a boost of energy, Newberg and the crew, the daily huddle is awesome. We're getting down to the short strokes here NFL team, Miami Dolphins, not abuse the fans having a great year. And last one, where can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to reach out?

You can go to legal pad.com I am happy to schedule a virtual coffee with anyone I'll talk to you know, really, as I say, I'll talk to anybody. I love to just have conversations and meet new people. No question. You can find me on LinkedIn at the same time. Great

links will be in the show notes. So it'd be easy but it's legal Pat pa t shirt for Patrice legal pet.com Patrice, this was awesome. A lot of fun. And I'm sure everyone will enjoy both your knowledge and your personality. So thanks so much for spending the time. Thanks,

Jay. It's always great to be with you. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. Please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 Golden rules.com That is podcast at t e n Golden rules.com