‘Get to the Actual Case Work’ by Automating Routine Work

Automating Routine Tasks with ‘One Overarching Software’

When Sarah E. Wilson first started her solo practice, she knew that she’d be taking on a whole realm of new administrative responsibilities—in addition to being accountable for the overall success of her firm.

What she found in Clio was a set of solutions—that included Clio Manage, Clio Grow, and Clio Draft—that could capture important client information and automate several routine tasks, so that she could spend more time on her most important work.

“I was moving from a large firm to a solo practice and was looking for something that could both handle my case management and integrate with other tools.”

How Sarah uses Clio to save time on important tasks

With Clio, Sarah has been able to create an ecosystem of efficiency that saves her time—allowing her to deliver on what her clients need, when they need it.

1. Engagement letters on-hand immediately after consultation

Before Clio Grow, her intake had been very manual. “I had my initial calls, and just took everything down as notes. That is something I’ve never looked back on.”

Now, she collects all of her client information through intake forms, which allows her to generate a client engagement agreement immediately after a consultation.

“When I implemented Clio Grow, I spent far less time on the client intake.”

“As soon as I have the prospective clients fill their intake form, their information goes directly into Clio Grow, and that’s auto-populated into the client engagement agreement. It’s much more automated, and there is less that I need to manually change from case to case.”

“I have developed forms for each matter type.”

2. Drafted document sets in minutes

With the information Sarah collects with her intake forms, she’s able to create a matter in Clio Manage, which is where she manages all of the details of her client’s case—and which allows her to draft documents quickly in Clio Draft.

“The time savings are the biggest thing with Clio Draft.”

“I draft many pleadings to file in court cases as well as do a lot of contract drafting. Before Clio Draft, I was repeatedly using search-and-find to replace terms in Microsoft Word.”

“Now, when drafting a set of documents—which might include 10 separate documents—Clio Draft imports the case information into the whole document set, rather than me having to go through each document individually.”

3. Billing and payments made easy

When starting as a solo, Sarah was hesitant about handling the billing and collecting payments on her own, as it wasn’t something she had handled previously. Now, she’s able to get bills out faster and more efficiently than when she worked at a large firm.

“It’s very quick for me to get my invoices out—and to get payments in. It’s usually the same day.”

“I often receive feedback from my clients about how simple it is for them to use the online payment system. They say it’s very easy to go through the online payment process rather than having to find a check and send that out.”

“It’s a simplified process for clients, and my accounts receivable is very low as a result.”

4. More connected benefits with over 200+ software integrations

Clio integrates with over 200 business softwares to help firms improve efficiencies across all essential workflows. Similar to how Sarah is able to share information between different platforms in Clio, she’s also able to integrate other solutions—such as her ScanSnap scanner and Microsoft Outlook— to avoid manually entering data and to eliminate the risk of error.

Sarah uses ScanSnap to quickly scan documents into Clio and QuickBooks Online to manage all of her bookkeeping based on the billing she does in Clio. “With ScanSnap, I’m able to scan documents right into that client file.”

5. Better organization for more efficient, and ethical legal practice

Clio gives Sarah a central location for all of her firm’s information. Not only does this allow her to automate routine tasks, but it also allows her to keep everything organized across so many clients—which also helps her eliminate the risk of something falling through the cracks.

“When I can look at my whole matter list in Clio, I think it helps not only with efficiency of my practice, but also helps me maintain an ethical practice. I can have peace of mind that I’m not going to miss things that are in my client file like deadlines or tasks that need to be done, because it’s all in one place.”

Sarah’s sees a bright future with Clio

Sarah plans to continue to grow her firm—and with Clio she sees even more opportunities to automate administrative work, which will give her more time to focus on clients.

She also likes that Clio continues to innovate its products to provide more benefits to law firms, especially as client expectations continue to evolve.

“Clio continues to innovate and come out with new products. Clio listens to customer feedback on what products would be helpful to law firms.”

“I’ve been using Clio for years now, and I’ve seen big changes throughout that time. I see that Clio is visionary, and will continue to evolve their product to adapt to client needs.”