One of the things that I got right out of the gate when I started my law firm in 2019 was to find the right practice management software for my practice. And back in the day, I was considering a half dozen different solutions. I picked out the one that I thought was best for me and it has really served me well over the last six years. I have absolutely no intention of changing that. And it is where I keep track of conflict of interest information. There is a matter for every client. Every client has got the client’s contact information. I do my billing out of there. It has information that can be shared with my accounting firm where they’re able to see and reconcile my bank accounts versus what I’m tracking in my practice management software for outstanding invoices and invoices that have been paid. So it helps to get my books done, but it also has capabilities far beyond anything that I have needed in six years because most practice management software out there at this point is customizable to the extent that you are able to set it up with different fields and different workflows for different sorts of law firms.

I’m not a high volume shop. I’m a business to business lawyer. If I get a client or two a week, I’m a happy guy. I’m not taking 50 new clients a day. But I came out of the gate with practice management software that I had connected with my CRM, the customer relationship management database I talked about in another video. And as I mentioned in that video, the entire potential client journey from filling out a form on my website or coming into my funnel by talking to my phone answering service. All the data gets entered in and moves for the CRM. The engagement agreements are created. All the conflict check information is there. And when I pull the lever and I move the signed engagement agreement over one system ports to the other, it creates client numbers. It creates matter numbers. I’m allowed to create dozens of matters for different clients.

I have different automation setups so that as soon as I pull the lever and I transfer somebody out of my CRM into my practice management software, there are corresponding folders that are set up in my web-based document management system where I can hop online and there is created for me inside the client folder, a matter folder with certain custom sub-folders that are templates that I’ve set in there. It might be like pleadings, correspondence, et cetera, and all numbered according to the client number and the matter number that is in my practice management software. And so even though I’m not a volume practice, I am tracking hundreds of clients and I’m tracking tens of thousands of entities for conflict reasons. And I am able to do a huge variety of tasks that if you’re like me, you come from the big law firm world, the stuff that the back of office people would do, secretaries, paralegals, billing clerks, all of that stuff is centralized in practice management software.

It used to be that there was a great debate about, should we use this one or that one or the other one? And what I have typically told people is that don’t spend any time wasting brain power on should I use this one or that one? They can probably all do what most of us need. I think there’s probably a best practice management software for each kind of practice. Each one is unique. But I do think that things have changed in the last year or so. I think that Clio has really risen to be the cream of the crop. And so there are definitely other solutions out there that might be best for your practice depending upon what you do. There are certain kinds for estate planning, there are certain kinds for personal injury. But if you are a business to business lawyer like me, if you come from the big firm world and you’re not doing a lot of volume work, Clio, for a lot of reasons other than what I’m discussing in this video is a great option.

I wouldn’t spend any time or attention thinking about it. I would just go with it and save your brain power for things that are going to move the law firm forward more. And I will also just say that when I was first exposed to this sort of practice management software for the first time in 2017, I looked at it and I thought it is so incredible and it does so much of what I need from tracking iOLTA money to conflicts to keeping matters opened or all the stuff that you probably need in your practice. I thought that it would probably be a thousand bucks per seat and it is not anywhere near that expense. It’s like, I don’t know, a hundred bucks per seat per month. So do not try to keep track of your clients and your conflicts and your time and your retainer money and all this stuff.

Do not try to keep track of that stuff in a spreadsheet. This is not 1990. Anybody that is really playing to win in this day and age is going to come out of the gate right away, not just with a CRM database, but with a practice management software solution that can talk to and share information with your CRM. This is table stakes. It’s relatively easy to customize. And I think that anyone who is interested in learning more, if you just Google practice management software, you will see a lot of different options and they tend to all have a bunch of helpful videos. You don’t need somebody to help you set this up. This is not like a document management system. It’s meant to be do it yourself. And there’s no excuse, if I may say so, for launching your law firm on day one and not having a practice management software solution in place, you will save a lot of time and hassle if you do.