What does it take to gain a competitive edge in the modern legal landscape? From intake to settlement, legal work is defined by efficiency of process and availability of information. Brooks Derrick and Jared Correia discuss how you can grow your law firm by embracing process and technology in this episode of Taking the Stand.
Jared Correia owns and operates Red Cave Consulting, where he works with legal professionals to improve their practice. Brooks Derrick is a personal injury lawyer practicing in South Carolina.
Full Transcript
Brooks Derrick:
Push pause, we have a train coming.
Eric:
I actually like it, it gives that nice-
Jared Correia:
Eric's like, leave it in that.
Eric:
... real, yeah, leave it in.
Jared Correia:
Just turn to a Johnny Cash song.
Eric:
Hello everyone and welcome to today's podcast. We are thrilled that you are joining us and Brooks Derek and Jared Correia, thank you so much, our two guests. We're really excited about today's conversation, appreciate your time.
Jared Correia:
Thanks, me too.
Brooks Derrick:
Thanks for having us.
Eric:
Let's get some introductions out really quick. Jared, you are from Red Cave Consulting, that's your company and a partner of Filevines. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.
Jared Correia:
I'm a business management consultant for lawyers. I've been doing that for about 15 years, so I help lawyers to run more effective, efficient businesses to make more money, essentially. That's pretty much the simple version. I've probably worked with 4,000 law firms over the course of the last 15 years. I like doing this, it's fun and I like working with partners like Filevine.
Eric:
Awesome, awesome. Thank you for being here.
Jared Correia:
Thanks.
Eric:
Brooks, you're the managing partner of your own firm, you're a customer of Filevines, tell us a little bit about yourself and your firm.
Brooks Derrick:
I'm a personal injury lawyer. I'm located in Simpsonville, South Carolina, which is a small town, right outside of Greenville. It's in the upper left hand corner of the triangle of South Carolina. We have a practice of two full-time folks and a couple little part-time people that help us out, but that's how we are.
Eric:
Awesome, great. Well, this is a unique show because not only do we have a consulting partner but we also have a Filevine customer and so, having these two personas is pretty special. We haven't done this before on this podcast, so very, very excited to hear both your angles, both your perspectives but first, you two did some work together, hence this podcast and why we're delving into this. How did you two meet and get started working together?
Jared Correia:
Well, I'll start. I have a subscription model for consulting where I work with folks on a monthly basis. So, we have a couple of calls, do a couple of follow ups, get task lists that we want to run through and I found that, that's been really helpful in terms of keeping law firms aligned with their goals. Brooks made my day, one day, where I just had some more money in my account one day. Popped up that I had a new consulting client. I don't think we even talked-
Brooks Derrick:
No, we didn't.
Jared Correia:
... before you bought into, which is my favorite thing in the world but fortunately it worked out. That's the way we met at first and then I have a discovery call with clients the first time we chat and then we just have these recurring conversations, so we built the relationship up from there. Did I get all that right, Brooks?
Brooks Derrick:
I think so. I just listened to your beautiful voice on the legal talk network podcast and I think, I actually sent you an email saying, what do I need to do? And I think you kind of said, "I'm not going to talk to you unless you pay me."
Jared Correia:
That sounds about right. That sounds like something I would say, actually.
Eric:
That's awesome.
Brooks Derrick:
So, I just logged in and sent you some dough and next thing you know we were fast friends.
Jared Correia:
Right.
Eric:
So Jared you've been doing this for a long time. You mentioned that in your introduction.
Jared Correia:
Yes.
Eric:
Consulting with law firms and you are also a lawyer by trade and you left that to start your own consulting firm specifically in legal, if I'm not mistaken?
Jared Correia:
Right, that's all correct.
Eric:
You've done this a lot. You've worked with a ton of law firms, maybe from your stance, what are the most common gaps that you see in terms of a law firm wanting to achieve specific results and then not achieving those, and you come in, are there common threads firm-to-firm-to-firm that you see and consult on?
Jared Correia:
Oh yeah, it's funny you mention that. I've got firms that I work with everywhere. I think I've worked with firms on every continent except for Antarctica but I'm working on it, so the idea is, the way I've structured this consulting business is to assert myself as like, if I were a partner of the firm that actually knew how to run a business and so, having these regular conversations would be like a meeting you'd have with another managing partner, who is really keen on business management, so that's kind of the way I view consulting for me.
Jared Correia:
In terms of holes, there are common threads across practices, across the world frankly. One of the chief things I see is that people don't have goals. A law firm's revenue goal is often, "Let me make as much money as I possibly can." Which is good but not really a revenue goal, so setting up goals is the first thing I talk to people about and then just more generically, I would say that the three gaps I see most commonly today, as we're talking is, lack of processes, not using data to make decisions, everything's ad hoc, everything's reactionary, like your hair's on fire and you're trying to put it out and then the third thing is just not thinking critically about the business. The work is coming in, I just keep doing the work but I'm not thinking about what the future of my business looks like or how I can be more effective in the way I run it today and that's common, probably every law firm I talk to.
Eric:
So, just this constant and persistent need to continue working in the business, rather than taking a break and maybe working on your business and those are two very different scenarios that you talk through with firms. Okay, so Brooks, a lot of law firms, I imagine, they have their processes set, the way they do things are set and so, when you first interacted with Jared and Jared comes in and you start adjusting some of these processes, change in process management and change is really difficult for many firms and their staff, how do you navigate that? How did you help your staff understand, this is what needs to be done if we want to get to where we want to go?
Brooks Derrick:
I think it's all that. That kind of stuff has always been percolating in my mind but all of those processes and things, they were all stuck in my mind. I was the kind of boss, I believe, that, like most lawyers are, where everything just stays in and folks come down and say, "Okay, now we got to this point in the case, what needs to be done next?" And I'd say, "Well, search for this complaint or this discovery request or this letter. Search for that on the system, you'll find it. It's probably in Mrs. Smiths file from eight months ago, find that letter, figure it out, send it to USAA and that was the problem, everything was stuck in my head but I had this desire to have things perfect. This perfect process of perfect automation and that, oftentimes got in the way of me doing the stuff that I needed to do to make things actually work and I think, when I got involved with Jared, that helped out a bunch.
Brooks Derrick:
Right before the pandemic started, a week or two before W-H-O actually announced there was a pandemic, we hired a second paralegal, so it would be three full-time people and bringing her into the mix really showed how crappy all of our systems were because it was hard to delegate work to her. Then, we all went into our respective corners and it was just crappy. She was waiting on work, kind of like, what do I do today and I was trying to do the things I needed to do around here and send work to her and because the other paralegal didn't know enough to tell her what to do, other than things that she knew that she was supposed to do, it was just crap and so, when I got matched up with Jared and we met on Tinder.
Jared Correia:
I don't remember that, no.
Brooks Derrick:
I liked what he said a minute ago, he's like the managing partner in a law firm but he's the one that knows how to make the stuff work and so, I just needed someone that I could talk through all of my imagination about what I wanted and then to figure out, a lot of this stuff is just superfluous. We need to really work on each little, small step along the way and so that was the biggest help and it wasn't hard for my staff to get on board because they were going, "What the hell am I supposed to do next?" It was an easy thing for them to get on board with, I think.
Eric:
So, they felt the need, they saw the need and then it was, "Hey, let's round the wagons. This is an all firm effort, from the top down to make sure that our processes are aligned." Let's talk about one of those things that came out in our preparation call, was that the intake process is one thing that you and Jared really homed in on, you focused on to true that up. What exactly did you two do together and what did that look like?
Brooks Derrick:
Jared? I think the biggest thing was just mapping out the process. That's another thing that I think a lot of lawyers, it's all stuck in our head. We know how that little progression works but it's all stuck in our head. So, if there's anybody that gets plugged into that process, that's not, it's new or doesn't know what's going on or anything like that, they don't understand like, these are the calls to make, these are the calls to get Brooks involved on or these are the calls to just sign up, or these are the calls to say the lawyer referral service or these are the calls to have them call Brian Johnson, criminal lawyer in Greenville or whatever the case may be, instead of message, hang up, walk down the hall, "What do I do with this?" That kind of thing and I think that was the biggest thing with Jared, I think, is mapping those things out.
Jared Correia:
Yeah, I'll tell you, it's probably exhausting to talk to me about intake and Brooks can probably attest this because I get very granular. I like to go down to lead type, lead source, intake method, just everything but, what I think is interesting is, so Brooks is a Filevine user, he does a great job utilizing that program but I always tell people, before we get even to the tech, leave the tech aside for now, just write down your intake process, just push it out. Tell me how it looks right now today and then we'll fix it. If I see gaps, we'll figure out those gaps and then use that. So, this is my process. When I talk to lawyers about technology anyway, create a wishlist and you have some tech already, we'll make it work related to that wishlist and then if there's new tech you need on top of that, we'll find it. In 2021, it's not a lack of technology, it's usually a lack of a system. So, create the system first and then attach the technology to it.
Eric:
So, and you're actually already hitting this a little bit, Jared, but is there anything that you want to go deeper on this topic in terms of how did technology overall or Filevine support your work as a consultant and then support your work as a lawyer, Brooks? What's Filevine's role in this whole process that you've described?
Jared Correia:
You can start this one off, Brooks, if you want.
Brooks Derrick:
I think the biggest thing for us with Filevine originally, was thinking about all of the automation that we could potentially do with Filevine but in actuality, what Filevine has been amazing with, is just being able to organize the cases along the way and the different phases and then being able to have all of those communications and information and documents, everything in one repository and getting all of that stuff there so that when the nurse is looking at the medical records, she can make notes in there and everybody sees it. That's the kind of thing that was very disparate beforehand, you'd have emails that might come to me or might just come to Kristen and that's been the biggest thing. It hasn't been the automation or the doc gen stuff that's really put us over the top, it's really been the the hub of communication and being able to look at everything and talk about documents and that kind of stuff. That's been the big thing for us.
Jared Correia:
Yeah, and I say, from a theoretical standpoint, you look at most lawyers who get a lead and they're like Chris Farley and Tommy Boy, they're crushing the lead, destroying it, they don't know what to do with it. What I tell people is, if you get a lead, you want to work with a client, you want to take them somewhere, most lawyers have to build the rocket ship and then launch it.
Jared Correia:
The idea is to have the rocket ship built first so you can launch it when a lead comes in. What I really like about Filevine is that you can get very granular inter-processes, phases, sub-phases, you move from A to B to C very clearly and that's supported by features in the system. You need a knee signature, you grab it, you need somebody to do video conference with them, you set that up. You got to track telephone information, you do that. Having that all in one system and being able to build out a process from A to Z, utilizing that single system is tremendously effective and Filevine is a tool that can do that and Brooks has used it effectively to revamp his entire intake process.
Jared Correia:
Yes.
Eric:
It's a sentiment that our co-founder Sharon, which is not just building the thing but really building the thing that builds the thing, which allows you, I know that sounds kind of funny, but allows you as a consultant and as a lawyer of your own firm Brooks, to get in and put the processes and the sub-categories and the phases together that trigger certain tasks to certain team members all in one place.
Brooks Derrick:
That's been the wonderful thing for us is, the ability to customize and change just about every single thing, which is also a problem for a shiny syndrome person or whatever, but being able to make all of those changes and develop an intake thing that Jared and I talked about, that's just for us, that has these few templates and these things, that's what's been wonderful about Filevine, just wonderful.
Eric:
We've been talking about processes and the approaches, let's get to the results. We first initially talked about the results. You've achieved some pretty miraculous things Brooks, because of Jared coming in, because of you and the change management you've been able to apply and the technology and Filevine supporting those processes, walk us through the results that you've been able to achieve recently because of it.
Brooks Derrick:
The biggest thing that happened to me in 2020 was not COVID, I had a second child. He was born in July of last year and we also went from three full-time employees to two full-time employees, almost simultaneously with he was born and so that, obviously was a pretty big shock to the system, both of those things, sleep wise and work wise. So, that was the impetus to start figuring out, "Okay, what do we need to do here?" And one of the biggest changes for me, was trying to focus on, not a monetary goal like Jared was talking about earlier but we're thinking about little, small process goals. One of the big things, using the processes that we had developed over the last few months or at that point in time, over the last few months, thinking about things like, let's just do one little thing, we need to send one demand out a week. Just turning that into a goal, rather than saying, I need to collect $250,000 this quarter or whatever the case may be.
Brooks Derrick:
That little thing right there is what propelled us, I think, to be able to start really churning things out and this is a two person thing. This is just, not a monetary amount but we settled 20 cases in Q4 and 13 in the month of December before December the 18th or 16th, somewhere along those lines and to give you a little bit of a reference point, we settled 40 cases, all of 2020, so we did half of our settlements in the last 90 days and a big portion of those in the last 15 days.
Brooks Derrick:
That's all because we had just made all these little, small tweaks and each one, me and Kristen and we have a nurse that does our reviews inside of our demands, each person had the task automatically kind of waterfalled to them. That's the way I say it, we do our little sub-phase move in Filevine and it creates three or four more tasks. Make all these things with the settlement process or whatever the case may be and it's still propelling us, is that little tweak with, let's start thinking about here, have these little, small process goals each day or each week, that's what's going to get us to our ultimate monetary goals.
Eric:
Was there anything Brooks, from a client's experience that changed? Do you feel more connected to your client, all these changes that you've applied, has there been any changes or adjustments you felt on the client's behalf?
Brooks Derrick:
Eric, if I called you on October the first and I said, "Eric, do you want to take this settlement offer?" And you said, "Brooks, I think this is a great idea. I'm ready to put this to bed, I want to put this behind me. I'll accept their offer." Then six months later, I gave you a check. Now, compare that to, let's do the same thing and 40 days later, I hand you a check.
Brooks Derrick:
The client experience gets a whole hell of a lot better if I can hand them a check in 45 days or 25 days or 20 days, than it would be and that's the thing that has really amped up, is like closing up all of those, because I was the bottleneck. Because everything had to come to me to figure out what's the next step? Who do I call? All those things were all inside my head and as smart as I like to think I am, I can't actually send my brain, my thoughts out to anybody else. Not quite yet, at least.
Eric:
That's great, that's great. Final question for today, for both of you, if you have thoughts on this. If there were a law firm embarking on a similar journey that you two were, say a year ago, six months ago before starting together, what's the one piece of advice that you would give that firm?
Jared Correia:
I'll track back to something I said before, which is, start by building systems out on paper. You've probably seen the movie Field of Dreams, right? The whole deal in Field of Dreams is build it and they will come. Well, law firms have the opposite problem, people are coming but ain't nothing built. You got to figure that part out first, so if you're starting from scratch and you're starting to think about this stuff for your law firm, just build out a system in your head, write it down on a piece of paper and then that will be the foundation for you to get better at intake and really at everything about the practice.
Brooks Derrick:
I would tend to agree on that. I think the biggest thing, I think I hit on this also earlier, for me, the first thing would be, know your numbers. Know how many phone calls you're getting, know how many phone calls you're losing, know how many, I call them want cases, but I think you could call them like intake qualified or whatever, but how many cases do you want out of all your phone calls, just know your numbers and then, in addition, to write out your process, not trying to figure something out, which is what my problem was a long time ago, was I was trying to work into Trello or work into these things and trying to figure out a way to do my process there rather than work the process out and then fit it into the systems or the software that I already had.
Brooks Derrick:
The last thing would be is, don't focus on a million dollars or 250,000 dollars or don't focus on a monetary annual goal, try to figure out the little things in your practice that make money, even though they're not actually money making things like a demand letter going out, doesn't actually make us any money but that act will have a direct correlation to money in three weeks or four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks so, focus on those. That's what my tip would be, just really focus on those little baby processes that you can accomplish each day or each week that will result in your monetary goal. Don't focus on this big number because it'll be gone before you know it.
Eric:
Well, Jared Brooks, that's wonderful advice, great advice. Really appreciate your insights on today's show. If there's someone listening that wants to get in touch with you, how do they do that?
Jared Correia:
People can find me at my website, redcavelegal.com, come check it out. Feel free to email me if you have any questions, I'm happy to talk to lawyers everywhere.
Brooks Derrick:
You can find me at my website too, dereklawoffice.com or on Twitter at Brooks, Derek.
Eric:
Awesome. Brooks, Jared, thank you again for your time. Thank you for the wonderful insights shared on today's show. Really do appreciate it. Thank you for joining us on today's podcast of taking the stand. Until next time. Have a wonderful day.