AI Let the Founding Partner Step Back, So He Could Move the Firm Forward

Alex Almazan had just finished checking his bag at the airport when an eight-figure real estate deal arrived in his inbox. A new client had just sent him a contract to review. Typically, he would have called his office, asked someone to take a first look, and then followed up after the flight.

Instead, Alex ran the contract through Clio Work, Clio’s legal AI tool, and reviewed the analysis. Twenty minutes before his flight boarded, he called the client. The deal closed before the plane left the gate.

Alex is the founding partner at Almazan Law, which spans six practice areas across Miami, Tampa, and West Palm Beach with a team of thirty. He once spent up to 18 hours working six, sometimes seven, days a week, building the firm to where it is today. At the time, he was the go-to for every legal question from his team, and any spare moment he had was spent reviewing emails that went out to clients.

Now, he lends his legal expertise to cases at points where it’ll make the biggest impact, and spends more time building the business and making sure it’s running more efficiently and profitably.

Out of the weeds

Alex has been using Clio’s legal practice management software for eight years, and he signed up for firm-wide access to Clio Work within forty-eight hours of its announcement at ClioCon.

Now, Alex oversees more than 500 active matters at the firm, and he’s the responsible attorney on zero of them. His daily practice, in his words, is no longer to practice. Instead, he’s focused on engaging with clients and becoming a thought leader to other law firm owners who are also using AI in their operations.
“I’ve already had conversations with clients where they want me to help train their in-house team. It’s changed the entire dynamic of how I’m looking at the next ten years of my practice.”
Before Clio Work, Almazan would not have had the confidence to step away from his firm in the way that he does now—for example, heading to San Francisco for three days to speak at a worker’s compensation conference. Clio Work provides informed legal analysis and strategy that his team can rely on.

A renewed focus on client service

Whether pulling key information from medical records for a workers’ compensation matter, generating date lists for a real estate deal, or compiling summaries and drafting motions for litigation—doing the work quickly was once seen as a liability, a red flag for sloppy work. Now, the firm uses Clio Work to complete these tasks quickly and with confidence.

“It used to be that the faster you did things, the more negligent you probably were,” he says. “That’s not the case anymore. You can actually tout speed. You can actually value and price based on speed.”

The call at the airport was an example of how Alex can turn speed into business for his firm. It’s also changed the nature of the business. The firm has increased profit margins by doing better work in less time, and delivering results that often save clients money.

All of this gives the team bandwidth to be more proactive with clients. One of Alex’s pet peeves is when clients email the firm because they haven’t had an update. “Those happen less often now because we’re getting back to them before they wake up one morning and realize they haven’t heard from their lawyer in two weeks.”

Building a firm worth working for

Since adopting Clio Work at his firm, Alex hasn’t had any turnover among his staff. He credits the firm’s retention in part to the shift in what work looks like at his law firm.

Alex is quick to acknowledge the grueling pace of litigation work in particular, where he spent many years trading away time with his family. But with AI, firms no longer need to ask young lawyers to put in 250 billable hours each month, only to have them burn out and leave in three years. Now, his staff go home at 5 p.m. to be with their families, and that’s the way he wants it.

AI has also become central to Almazan’s hiring. Now he screens for AI proficiency during interviews. He wants people who are ready to work this way, and he thinks other firms should follow suit.

“If you’re a young lawyer and you’re working at a place that’s making you bill 250 hours a month, run,” says Almazan. “Go somewhere that allows you to use this technology to actually do the things that I wish I could have done.”

Two kinds of firms

In Almazan’s mind, there will be two types of firms in the coming years. There will be those that continue doing the work the way they’ve always done it, and then there will be the practices that are being founded right now by young lawyers in their late twenties, ones that use AI right from the beginning.

It’s the firms that have been using AI since the start that Almazan is worried about. These are the firms that will scale the work of their legal teams with a handful of AI agents. Eventually, they’ll eat the lunch of the firms that don’t change.

Firms that adapt and embrace AI move faster, take on more work, and keep their people. This is how Almazan is thinking about the next ten years of his practice, and how he can best create advantages for his firm.