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LexReception’s Flexibility Works For You in Four Ways

A good answering service can be a lawyer’s secret weapon, but only if it brings things to the table an in-house, 9-to-5 receptionist can’t. Thanks to our cloud-based tools, LexReception’s virtual receptionists can work anywhere, giving them flexibility and 24/7 availability. Unlike office-based answering services limited to business hours only, LexReception offers game-changing perks, such as:

Stellar Customer Service, Anytime, Anywhere

Give your callers the luxury of reaching a live person any time, day or night. While a no-brainer for DUI and criminal attorneys, other legal fields gain surprising benefits from 24/7 availability too.

Peggy Hammerschmidt of bankruptcy firm Hammerschmidt, Stickradt, and Associates was skeptical when first approaching LexReception. There are no real, middle-of-the-night emergencies in the bankruptcy law and debt management industry. “There’s nothing that happens overnight or on the weekends,” says Peggy. “And I can’t fix it if it does, because we’re not open. So we’ve never thought we needed a virtual receptionist.”

Her tune changed when her virtual receptionists scheduled appointments for two callers who went on to become clients, earning Hammerschmidt, Stickradt, and Associates approximately $4,000 to $5,000 dollars within their first weekend of partnering with LexReception.

Coast-to-Coast Talent Pool

If you want to give your clients truly exceptional customer service, you need the best people manning your phones. LexReception draws from a talent pool the size of the United States. With so many candidates at our fingertips, we’re able to choose only the highest caliber workers as your virtual receptionists.

Not that we have to look very far. LexReceptionists work from their home offices. This, combined with paid learning time, a focus on work/life balance, and frequent promotion opportunities, attract the best and brightest. We get happier workers, your callers get excellent service. In fact, a recent article by Inc.com shows that remote workers outperform their office-bound counterpart.

Weather Any Disaster

Natural disaster strikes? Server goes down? No problem. Your service will always be reliable thanks to a distributed workforce that easily adapts to unexpected hiccups. A storm hits the East Coast, and our West Coast receptionists take up the slack. A city-wide power outage in Houston, Texas means nothing to our team in Portland, Oregon. Rest easy knowing nothing will stop your callers from getting through.

The Best Coverage for Lower Cost

How much extra is 24/7/365 after-hours and holiday availability? $0.00. No massive office building means no massive office lease, and we pass those savings onto you. You get talented, professional virtual receptionists around the clock without the extra cost.

The savings don’t stop there. Each LexReception plan comes with a suite of freebies including: cloud-based appointment scheduling software, chat support, CRM integration, and access to your recorded calls guaranteeing exceptional quality control.

You’re looking for an answering service because you need a better solution for your incoming calls. Our remote workforce can handle your calls anytime, anywhere at a fraction of the cost of an in-house receptionist. Check out our plans or give us a call at 1-800-245-8589 to get started!

A Solo Attorney Solution for Live Receptionist Services

Ruby® Receptionists, a friendly, live receptionist service for thousands of small businesses across North America, today announced Ruby Solo. The unique solution provides entrepreneurs and solo business owners a local phone number, a comprehensive suite of management and productivity features in the Ruby mobile app, and a team of charming receptionists at the ready to take calls when they can’t. With Ruby Solo, business owners can give their callers and customers a consistent, exceptional phone experience, while giving themselves the freedom to focus on the task at hand, and best manage and grow their business.

“The business call is more important than ever, but for the entrepreneur or owner of a small business who often works on the go, answering those calls may interrupt time needed to meet with current customers, or manage and build the business,” said Katharine Nester, Chief Product and Technology officer at Ruby. “Solo and small business owners often default to giving out their personal cell number as a way to economize, but that makes it difficult to deliver a consistent, quality customer experience not knowing when an incoming call is personal or business related. Ruby Solo is an economical solution that allows customers to add an additional line to their cell phone, keeping their personal number private, and provides a team of professional receptionists to make certain those essential business calls are answered.”

In addition to the release of Ruby Solo, enhancements have been made to Ruby’s mobile app allowing customers to track all calls and message activity in one place, and easily manage their receptionist coverage choosing to have Ruby answer all their calls, some of their calls, or act as back-up for when they are unable to answer.

Bryan Stevenson Speaks at Clio Cloud Conference 2018

Bryan Stevenson, who recently won a historic ruling that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional, will be speaking at this year’s Clio Cloud Conference. Mr. Stevenson will be giving a keynote on American injustice and issues present within the current criminal justice system.

Bryan Stevenson’s work is truly inspiring. He is an example of how one person can make an impact, transform the legal practice, for good, and change someone’s life in a profound and lasting way.

Why does this matter? America has the largest prison population in the world – and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t believe the criminal justice system that puts the men, women, and children in these prisons is broken.

As the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Mr. Stevenson has led many initiatives that focus on eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting the abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, as well as aiding children prosecuted as adults.

Under Mr. Stevenson’s guidance, EJI has won reversals, relief, or release for over 125 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row.

But the work is far from over. Over 2,225 juveniles (age 17 or younger) in the United States have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, children as young as eight have been prosecuted as adults, and some 95,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons in America annually.

EJI currently is seeking to end the adult prosecution of any child under age 14; to end the placement of any juvenile under age 18 in an adult jail or prison; and to abolish life imprisonment without parole and other excessive sentences imposed on children.

The stories he shares matter. If you want to learn more about how Bryan truly makes a difference, you will want to get your Clio Cloud Conference passes today, because with speakers like Mr. Stevenson, the event is sure to sell out early.

Sample File Closing Checklist

Closing a client file is pretty simple. You just have to gather everything into one place, notify your client of the end of the representation, and archive the file. There is a bit more to it, of course, but a checklist can help you follow the same procedure every time and get valuable feedback from your client.

When To Close Files

Promptly. One of the important things you will do as part of closing a file is formally terminating the representation. The longer you wait, the greater the chance the—technically—open and ongoing attorney-client relationship leads to a misunderstanding. The risk may be small (or great, depending on the client), but you can head it off entirely by closing your files and notifying the client promptly when your work is done.

Usually, it is easy to identify the point at which the representation has ended and your work is done. In litigation, your work is probably done when you give your client their portion of the settlement in full. Or when you get a verdict (post-trial motions and appeals are probably separate matters, although that may depend on your retainer agreement). If you are preparing estate plans or business formations, your work is probably done when the documents are signed and filed or delivered. If you are negotiating a deal, your work is probably done when the deal is signed.

The point is, you know when your work is done, so close the file.

Gather The File

No matter how hard you try, The File is probably scattered all over the practice. Even in well-organized practices, emails need to be gathered from multiple users, original documents need to be reconciled with scans, statements need to be generated and added, etc. It is possible to minimize the extent to which the file is scattered, but your file-closing procedures will probably involve more than just moving a folder from one file cabinet to another.

Gathering The File does not need to take long, but you should have a procedure for doing it. If you have a clear paperless workflow, it will be easier than if you have to scan piles of documents before you can close the file.

Return the File to Your Client

You don’t have to return the file, but there aren’t many good reasons to keep it unless you like storing things. There are exceptions to this, of course. Estate planning lawyers may keep official, paper copies of the wills they prepare. Business lawyers who expect more business from their clients may keep the official copy of the business’s record. But get rid of all the paper you can, keep only digital copies, and give the client a copy of their digital file, too.

Give all the paper back to the client.

Also, notify the client how long you will keep their file. Ten years seems to be a commonly-recommended time frame. You should tell your client something like this:

Enclosed are all original documents in our possession and a CD with a copy of our digital file. Please note: we will destroy our copy of your file in ten (10) years without notice to you.

Find Out How You Did

Call your client. Yes, pick up the phone and have an actual conversation. Don’t just send a survey by email. Ask what you could have done better. Be persistent. Get a real answer. Even happy clients can offer you suggestions for improvement.

Take the answer seriously. Depending on how frequently you close files, sit down with your staff and consider how you could improve client service for all your clients based on the feedback you receive.

(Bonus points: do this in the middle of your representation, too.)

Sample File Closing Checklist

Most importantly, follow the same procedures when closing every file. Make sure to complete a file-closing checklist every time. There is a lot to do, and a checklist will ensure you (or your staff) don’t miss anything when closing a file. You can use a paper checklist, but it is more effective to use practice management software that lets you use task-list templates to ensure consistency.

Sample File Opening Checklist

Client onboarding is the process by which you bring a new client into your firm. If you don’t have a client onboarding process, you should.

You should welcome new clients, set expectations for the attorney-client relationship, teach them anything they need to know about working with you, and complete the administrative tasks necessary to open their client file. A little effort up front makes for a positive experience, makes it less likely you will miss things, and makes it more likely your client will become a promoter.

The backbone of your client onboarding process is your file-opening checklist. Here are the things you should check off as soon as possible after a new client signs your retainer agreement. (I’ll be using MyCase as an example of how to implement a file-opening checklist in your practice-management software.)

Welcome Your New Client

Your client welcome package can be digital or physical. Either way, you should give it to your client as soon as possible after they sign your retainer agreement. You could hand your client a folder, send them an email, or mail them an actual package.

At a minimum, you should include a copy of their retainer agreement, your preferred contact information, and any tasks you need the client to complete. If you want to do something a little extra to make new clients feel welcome, you might include a care package with a thoughtful gift.

Align Expectations

Give your clients a roadmap to their legal matter. This could be a conversation (that you will probably have to have more than once) or it could be a timeline you prepare for them.

Tell your clients how often they should expect you to check in, and commit to returning their calls and emails within one business day. If you don’t want clients to expect you to respond immediately after hours, make sure they know that at the outset of your relationship.

Also, make sure you and your client are on the same page when it comes to the outcome of the representation. If you are pursuing one goal and your client is hoping for another, they are probably going to get angry.

Talk to Your Clients About Computer Security

Make sure your client knows how to get access to your secure communication portal, and make sure you follow up as necessary to get them up and running with it.

Since clients’ comfort level when it comes to technology may vary, you might want to help them set up their login credentials in person. It would also be a good idea to discuss basic computer security with them. Make sure they know not to open correspondence from you on their work computer, and show them how to set up their own, password-protected account on their home computer so their family cannot access your communications and other information about the case.

Administrative Tasks

Finally, you obviously need to take care of the administrative bits, like making sure you have scanned all the documents from your new client, entered all the relevant contact information into your practice management software, given them a receipt for any retainer, etc.

Get it All Done

The key to making sure your client onboarding process goes off without a hitch is to use a checklist. Every. Single. Time. The good news is that your practice management software should have templates that let you build your file-opening checklist once and reuse it on every new case.

Now, all you have to do when you open a new case is apply the Workflow.

If you do that every time you open a new case, you will never miss a step.