Andrew McDermott

It can be an ongoing effort to get clients to pay their invoices faster or even just on time. Clients run on a different timeline than your firm, so they may not understand the moving parts involved in your billing department. Before you start placing blame, you need to step back and analyze what obstacles your clients may be facing that are preventing them from paying their invoices on time. The issue could very well lie within your firm’s practices or lack thereof.

Continue reading to learn 3 simple practices your firm can implement to get your clients to pay their invoices faster.

3 steps to support your clients to pay you faster

If your billing isn’t in order, how can you expect your clients to be? Having a uniform, the automated billing process is key to setting your clients up for success.

• Step 1: Create a clear communication plan that outlines your firms billing expectations. This should be discussed at the beginning of the client relationship, preferably during the client intake process. The plan should include a scope of work, billing timeline, payment options, fee arranagements and billing point of contact. Think of common questions you get from clients that can easily be satisfied in your communication plan and build from that. This plan should also be available electronically for the client to reference.
• Step 2: Set up online payment options. If your firm is still relying on a papercheck process, it may be creating more hoops for your client to jump through. For instance, if a client is accousted to paying online, they may not have checks easily accesible to them. Online payments are not only a form of great customer service, but they will prompt your client to pay faster. Faster payments means a cleaner billing cycle and increased revenue for your firm.
• Step 3: Create workflows that help keep you and your clients accountable. Just like you, your clients are busy and can occasionally lose track of deadlines. Understanding that this is human nature, you should build in reminders leading up to payment due dates. This alert alone could prompt your client to satisfy the invoice ahead of time.

Technology is key

If your law firm is still hesitant to adopt practice management software, you may be limiting yourself and your clients from success. Particularly when it comes to billing. Closing unnecessary gaps in the paper check billing process and offering modern ways for clients to pay will ultimately lead to a higher yield of on-time invoices for your firm.

Improving time management for lawyers is an important but underdeveloped skill. It’s true, lawyers are busy. However, they tend to take on more work than they can realistically handle. This is especially true when it comes to their colleagues. You never want to disappoint your colleagues so, when they ask for help, you do your best to support them. In some instances, helping others can be detrimental to our own work.

Learning to politely relay that you’re overwhelmed with your own tasks and don’t have the bandwidth to accept more work, in other words, how to say “no” is something professionals struggle to do with any reasonable amount of confidence. They’re concerned about the consequences of their choice. When the topic comes up, many attorneys are filled with fear and dread.

If you’re struggling to manage your time due to overwhelming expectations from your colleagues, these 3 strategies will help you express your workload without leaving your colleagues out to dry.

Why do we struggle with saying no?

Psychologist Kurt Lewin found that our cultures can be broken down into two broad categories – peach or coconut. These fruits are used to describe people and cultures in the world. This symbolism shows us our differences, ones that exist at a deep and fundamental level.

“Peach people are soft on the outside but have a hard stone that protects their inner being. Coconuts have tougher exteriors, but get past that, and they’re sweet inside. Americans, according to stereotype, are peaches; the French, like the Russians and Germans, are coconuts.” Peach is synonymous with the personality trait of agreeableness.

On the off-hand, coconuts are perceived as more unpleasant. They can be difficult and disagreeable. They’re willing to tell the truth, but many times it’s done in a way that’s cold, unkind, or cruel. It’s one of the more unpalatable parts of dealing with someone from a coconut culture. These behaviors are also common in those who are disagreeable.

This theory comes down to personality and how we express ourselves. You can likely think of a few colleagues at your law firm who don’t always have the best presentation but they mean well. You’re less likely to take their directness as offensive because you know them, but it may not have always been that way. You may have taken this presentation as negative previously.

The key when presenting any perceived negative information or a no, is to balance directness with construction. It’s always important to remember the saying, “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

How to say no effectively

Mitigating personalities and determining how to deliver information to different people can be exhausting. So, it’s best to keep it neutral and stick to a few strategies that will benefit both parties. Below, are a few common scenarios and strategies to resolve them.

Strategy #1: Confirm the ask completely

“Can you help me with a consult? I’ve got a problem with…”

Start by asking questions.

You: “I’m in the middle of finishing a contract that’s due today. Are you asking for help with something that has to be done today?”

Asking questions is the one thing many attorneys forget to do. But asking questions gives you the tools you need to protect your boundaries. Once you have this information you can assist them by:

• Forwarding their request to another colleague with similar experience
• Point them to new, different or specialized resources
• Schedule a time to help, once you’ve finished your work

When colleagues make a request, make it a habit to ask questions. A complete understanding of their request gives you the ammunition you need to find the appropriate No/redirect.

Strategy #2: Confirm the terms and conditions

When colleagues make a request, they’re typically concerned with their side of things. It’s natural and understandable, but their request comes with consequences. For example:

• I’m supposed to be getting X done. Did you want me to drop Y and focus on Z?
• I can help you if I have X, Y and Z by noon tomorrow. Can you get it to me by then?
• I’ll give this a shot. X could be a major barrier,  but I’d like to try and work around it.
• Would you give me two days to figure this out? There’s a lot to unpack here.
• I’m willing to help you with X. Would you be willing to take over Y for me instead?
• I can’t help with X, but I know three people who can. Give me a day to reach out to them.

You’ve shown colleagues you’re willing to try and are open to helping them but may risk meeting deadlines of your own that could impact the team as a whole.

Saying no is important to improving time management for lawyers

How you say no matters and it’s something most professionals struggle to do. You’re concerned about the ramifications of saying no and letting others down. As we’ve seen, improving time management for lawyers by saying no doesn’t have to hurt the relationship between colleagues. It’s about having the right approach, asking questions, and laying out all of the details. More likely than not, your colleague will appreciate the honesty and offering alternate solutions.

In the legal industry, selling is viewed with disdain, yet rainmakers are treated with reverence and care. They’re the golden goose their firm fights to protect. This situation is a common problem for firms. 

Rainmaking without selling seems impossible. It looks like the kind of thing a snake oil salesman would peddle to their clients. Not only is it possible to win new clients without selling, but it’s also more effective than attempting to persuade prospects forcefully. 

Why your law firm reviews matter

Research from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center analyzed 57,000 reviews from anonymous consumers and 65,000 reviews from verified buyers of more than 13,500 unique products and services across a large variety of categories. Their findings demonstrated that reviews could increase conversion rates by 270 percent. On the conservative end, businesses that display ratings and reviews experience average revenue uplifts of around 18%.

It’s more than just having reviews. Your law firm should focus on the quality of the reviews rather than the quantity. Especially, if you’re just starting your strategy to increase reviews and have very few reviews currently. Even 1 or 2 bad reviews can severely impact how prospective clients view your firm. In fact, bad reviews put businesses at risk of losing:

• 21.9 percent of customers if you have just one negative review listed on page one of Google
• 44.1 percent of customers if you have two negative results
• 59.2 percent of customers with 3 negative results
• 69.9 percent of customers with 4 negative results

If your law firm has four negative (aggregate) results listed in Google, you will lose 69.9 percent of your customers, three reviews 59.2 percent, and so on. 

Let’s look at Mackenzie and Milford, a fictitious law firm, to see how this would affect their firm:

• Average order value (per customer): $6,500
• The average number of transactions per year: 2
• How long customers stay with the business: 3 years
• Total number of new website/offline visitors per month: 2,633
• A conversion rate of 2%

$6,500 * 2 transactions per yr * 3 years = $26,000 lifetime value (per client)

52.65 clients * $16,000 = $1,368,900 in projected revenue. 

These numbers are impressive.

How do they change once we begin attracting more four and five-star reviews? Let’s plug in the numbers we received from our research above to get a better idea. 

• Firm revenue jumps to $1,615,302 if we use Reevoo’s 18 percent estimate. 
• Firm revenue jumps to $5,064,930 if we use Northwestern University’s 270 percent estimate. 

That’s an enormous increase. 

This doesn’t require a whole lot of work either. The steps you follow are simple, repeatable, and precise: 

1. Ask your existing clients (via a third party, i.e., your administrator) for reviews.
2. Collect reviews for major platforms (Google, Yelp, Avvo) then pursue smaller niche platforms (e.g., Martindale, Lawyers.com, etc.).
3. Use remarketing/retargeting to advertise your reviews to prospects who have visited your website or viewed your ads (online or offline).
4. Present these prospects with an irresistible offer to entice them to schedule a meeting with you. 

It’s a straightforward process you can use to grow your business. Wait a minute. What if clients in your practice area (i.e., B2B) don’t rely on online reviews as much? This strategy is still incredibly effective. Work to create case studies; provide prospects with as much specificity in your case studies as you’re able to (e.g., names, dates, contacts, outcomes, etc.). Then repeat steps one through four. 

Why reviews produce exceptional returns

Clients don’t know what they don’t know. Especially, about the complexities within the legal industry and how they operate. For this reason, you have to meet them where there are and tap into what they care about most:

• Price
• Experience
• Service
• Results

Your reviews provide prospects with an inside look at all four areas. This is good news because it lets prospects know you’re a safe bet, a reliable option they can trust to handle their legal matter. You don’t need to do any selling, and your clients just need to tell the truth about the incredible results you consistently provide. 

How to get started: 

1. Create a list of passionate clients who love your firm and would happily advocate for your work
2. Create a template your support teams or virtual assistant can send feedback requests to clients on your behalf.
3. Have a trustworthy person in your office interview your client about their experience with you or your firm. Be sure to record the conversation (with their permission, of course). 
4. Transcribe your conversation, then send a snippet to your clients 
5. Include links to websites where your clients can share their reviews, add it to your email signature, and your website. 
6. Once posted, create remarketing display ads that are targeted to prospects who’ve already visited your website or clicked on your ads. Use these ads to attract new clients and request reviews from existing clients.

What makes this strategy so significant? 

• Only tagged and segmented prospects who have visited your site will see your ads
• Most attorneys aren’t using this strategy to win new clients, so there’s less saturation
• Prospects see that you’re able to generate huge wins for your existing clients
• Your business development costs go down, while revenue shoots up

It’s a simple strategy that produces exponential returns over time. 

Law firm reviews are important to your business development

This is how rainmaking without selling is done. You create and mobilize a group of passionate clients who are grateful for the outstanding results you’ve achieved for them. It’s a clear path to consistent growth. 

Business development is often a paradox in the legal industry. Selling is viewed with disdain, yet rainmaking is the expected path partners, and top performers must follow. You can achieve incredible results if you create the right framework for your law firm. 

Get your clients to vouch for you, and you’ll find business development is stronger than ever.

Customer service for law firms is key to generating and retaining a strong book of business. Many firms believe providing great service stops at winning a case, but for clients, it’s much more than that. Taking the time to evaluate your processes to ensure you ‘wow’ each of your clients will yield a greater return for your firm in the long run.

If you’re unsure where to start, continue reading to unlock the 4 keys to a successful customer service strategy.

Key #1: Maintain consistent and broad communication 

To communicate effectively, you’ll need to identify your two important details:

1. Client expectations: What sort of information do your clients want from you (e.g., documents, product updates, responses, etc.)? How often do they want to hear from you? Who needs to hear from you? Is it a single point of contact, a small group of decision-makers, or a Board of Directors? 
2. Client communication style: Your client communication style determines how you communicate with your clients. Here’s a brief table outlining three common communication styles.

You’ll need to identify these details and add them to your client intake process well before your client’s matter is underway. 

Your client may have traditional availability, future-focused communication channels, and contemporary data requirements. These details need to be flushed out ahead of time, during your firm’s intake process. This is how you provide your clients with the communication that best suits their needs.

Key #2: Relationship matchmaking

Your clients will likely have a mix of the big five personality traits. These personality traits determine whether your partners and associates will “click” with clients: 

• Openness: Clients who are high in openness have a greater degree of intelligence and intellectual curiosity. These individuals and firms value knowledge, competence, experience and data more than other personality types. Truth-telling is always important but it’s especially important with these clients due to their intelligence and natural curiosity.
• Extraversion: These clients are outgoing and skilled connectors. They value relationships and the activities that build these relationships – rounds of golf, dinners, events, etc. These clients are best matched with an extroverted partner or associate in your firm. 
• Agreeableness: These clients are cooperative, easy to work with, polite and compassionate. They’re not always as honest, open or transparent as they need to be due to a strong fear of conflict.
• Conscientiousness: These clients are highly self-disciplined. They’re reliable, trustworthy, organized and efficient. They look for well-planned and properly executed projects and matters. These clients are often traditionalists, people who prefer to do things the way they’ve always been done. 

These details matter because they can help you figure out your client’s personality and how they may interact with you. It’s best if your client’s point of contact, a partner or associate, matches your client (point of contact). I realize this isn’t always feasible, especially for small and one-person firms. In those cases, you’ll need to be all things to all clients.

If your client is agreeable, work with them, be agreeable. Have a conscientious client, but you’re not as conscientious as you’d like to be? Recruit a virtual assistant who can help you produce the results your client needs to feel secure. Customer service for law firms is about meeting clients where they are and building of what is in their best interest.

Key #3: Display competency at multiple levels

Your clients want the best attorney money can buy. You’re a credentialed and highly educated legal professional. Prospective clients assume that about you because you’re knowledgeable, you attended law school and you have lots of experience. This kind of credibility is helpful but it’s even better presented when you have demonstrated yourself as a thought leader or educator.

In addition to the broad competency we’ve just covered, you need to provide the following:

• A demonstrated ability to simplify complex information
• Demystify the law/make it simple
• Explain the available options to your client in a way that simple and concise
• A professional distance (i.e., no inappropriate schmoozing)
• Set and meet deadlines

These details are simple, but they’re not always easy to relay to your client. Especially when it comes to discussing legal terminology. Clients want an attorney who understands the law but has the competency to bring it down to their level.

Key #4: A strong value proposition goes farther than you think

Rightfully, clients expect transparency when it comes to the price of your services. It matters to a certain extent, but what really matters more is value. A strong value proposition means your clients are willing to spend more money with you than they would with a competitor.

What’s a value proposition?

“The value a company promises to deliver to customers should they choose to buy their product. A value proposition is also a declaration of intent or a statement that introduces a company’s brand to consumers by telling them what the company stands for, how it operates, and why it deserves their business.”

A strong value proposition acts as an economic moat. With an economic moat, it’s difficult for clients to leave (they don’t want to) and harder for competitors to attack your firm. 

• The brand moat. With the brand moat, customers are willing to pay more for your service because of what they get in return (e.g., prestige, reputation, quality, etc.) — the brand recognition from firms like Cravath, Swaine & Moore. 
• The secret moat. Intellectual property – copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets – anything that fits into these categories makes it difficult for competitors to compete with you. Amazon’s one-click, Google’s search algorithm and KFC’s secret recipe are all secrets.
• The toll moat. This means you have exclusive control over a market or niche. You’re the only game in town, so if customers want it, they’ll have to come to you. It’s Google’s search algorithm and its accurate search results.
• The switching moat. Businesses with a strong switching moat are tangled up in their customer’s daily life. Amazon continually adds free products and services to Amazon Prime. Customers fill these services with their data, making a separation incredibly difficult. The more clients depend on your law firm, the harder it is for them to walk away

These moats are creating in two ways: (1.) Doing what other firms can’t (2.) Doing what other firms won’t. The legal industry is a bit more constrained in this area, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable. Provide customers with a greater level of service, quality of support and you have the tools you need to create exceptional customer service value.

Customer service for law firms starts with value

As you can see, delivering exceptional customer service at your law firm doesn’t require a heavy lift. If anything, it’s expanding on processes you already have in place, such as intake. Using client intake as a deep dive into a client’s needs, communication style, personality, etc. will make providing great service simple.

Try implementing the four keys to customer service in your practice and you’ll find it’s easy to attract and retain the outstanding clients your firm needs to grow. 

Taking steps to increase law firm profitability is always in the back of lawyers minds but their daily responsibilities can quickly take up the need to focus on growing their business. However, it doesn’t have to be time consuming to enhance profitability. These 4 strategies can easily be implemented all at once or at your own pace to support your law firms growth.

1. Position yourself as a thought leaders

Education attracts client attention; information converts client attention to revenue. You can use the “teach or be taught” framework to approach partners who have an audience filled with your clients. 

Here are a few examples: 

• Business law firms can reach out to notable or up and coming education providers, including Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Insider, Fortune, Fast Company, or Success magazine. You can offer first and second-tier providers content that helps their audience and drives more traffic to your business. 
• Real estate law firms with deep knowledge or expertise can partner with local clubs, e.g., high net worth, investor clubs, real estate companies, lenders, and real estate agents to provide education. As a real estate professional, you can host events, conduct workshops, run seminars, or give talks that educate and inform prospective clients. 
• Tax law firms can create unicorns in their industries — training their associates so they have their LL.M (master of law degree in taxation), and are designated as Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). They can then use this, along with other factors, to advertise their firm effectively and educate their prospects. 

The teach or be taught framework is helpful because it positions you as the ideal solution for the specific prospects who consume your educational materials. 

2. Give what you have

You can approach publishers and content providers with a deal. You provide their audience with helpful content in exchange for a small mention or micro offer from your business. These offers can include: 

• A weekly or monthly column on a publisher’s website, app, or portal
• Hosting regular Q&As for your publishers and partners
• Creating exclusive content in a variety of formats for your publisher or partner

What’s great about this strategy is it provides you with significant leverage. The content you create for one partner can be reused, repurposed, and republished elsewhere. You can create education pieces that generate results again and again, for years on end that continue to perform, independent of your day-to-day efforts. 

3. Provide relevant solutions

This is what you do for clients. It’s an inherent part of practicing law, but it’s also a component that’s neglected by most attorneys and law firms.

Protecting prospects before they become clients is helpful because it shows clients your primary concern isn’t about money. Instead of appearing needy or desperate to close the sale, you present your firm as the quality firm it is. Model Rule 1.18 is in agreement with this. 

Client-lawyer relationship

“[1]  Prospective clients, like clients, may disclose information to a lawyer, place documents or other property in the lawyer’s custody, or rely on the lawyer’s advice. A lawyer’s consultations with a prospective client usually are limited in time and depth and leave both the prospective client and the lawyer free (and sometimes required) to proceed no further. Hence, prospective clients should receive some but not all of the protection afforded clients.”

It’s important to protect prospects without creating an attorney-client relationship prematurely. Here are a few ways to achieve this:

• Limit direct, one-on-one consultations with prospective clients
• Focus your attention on creating one-to-many interactions in a public, semi-public, or group setting
• Don’t specifically request or invite prospects to submit information about a potential representation without clear and reasonably understandable warnings and cautionary statements that limit the lawyer’s obligations

You provide clients with information in a public setting on a one-to-many basis. This means you can share more general or introductory information. You can do this in a few ways:

• Q&A format
• On forums that focus on high-level topics
• As a guest on the news, television or web show
• In speeches in a public, semi-public or group setting 
• Teach courses in a specific context for an established organization

There’s more you can do to protect prospective clients, but this is generally oriented around a one-to-many relationship.

4. Be a people connector

The thinking behind this framework is simple. You find and connect people to solutions or support they need. You provide ready access to influential people becoming an influencer yourself. Connecting people who can help each other is one of the most useful skills you can cultivate in your law firm, especially if you’re in a B2B practice area. 

The best part, there’s more than one way to do it.

• Introduce people who can provide value to others
• Introduce two influencers to each other
• Introduce two people, but seed the relationship with an idea
• Host an event (e.g., webinar, conference, speech, dinner) but invite influential and complementary partners
• Position yourself as someone who can connect others to the people, resources, and opportunities they need
• Nurture the relationships you spark

This strategy takes a long term approach. Introduce people and organizations that can help each other. Give people what they want, seed the relationships with value, then watch the positive results customers, sales, reviews, pour in.

Using these strategies can increase law firm profitability 

You promote your partnership, advocacy, education, or support publicly in a way that’s appropriate and respectful of all parties involved in the framework. The more value you’ve created, the more you promote the work, the further word will spread. Doing this generates goodwill in a way that’s difficult to quantify and difficult to dispute. 

In your capable hands, these frameworks can provide you with the peace of mind you need to outperform your competitors. Combine these strategies to increase law firm profitability and propel your firm further than your competitors expect. 

The secret to legal invoicing success isn’t about invoicing

Secret #3: Determine your client’s expectations 

1. Protecting your clients best interest
2. Determining if you can meet their expectations
3. Finding solutions to opposing expectations

Secret #2: Clearly outline your law firm’s billing and invoicing policy

1. Scope of work and anticipated fees: this should be discussed during client intake but should be outlined again
2. Important billing due dates: verbal and written communication of when your billing cycle runs will assist the client in meeting your expectations and paying on time
3. Available payment options: having multiple payment options is attractive to your clients because it gives the option to pay you in a way that they’re comfortable with. Having options like online payments or an accessible client portal, will enhance your clients payment experience.
4. What to do and who to contact if they can’t pay on time or have issues with payment: it’s important to remember that your clients are human and things come up. If they ever need anything, providing them with the proper avenue to communicate mishaps will save you a headache in the long run.

Secret #1: Automated billing reminders

Good relationship building is the key to law firm billing and invoicing