How Clio Helps GW Law Keep Track of 50K Client Service Hours Per Year

Andrea R. Johnson, Managing Attorney & Associate Program Director of the Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics, GW Law

With tens of thousands of client service hours contributed annually, the last thing you need is clunky software. This is exactly why The George Washington School of Law (GW Law) relies on Clio. One of the largest clinical programs in the U.S., which involves over 250 students per academic year, GW Law’s cohorts receive unparalleled hands-on legal experience. 

By adopting Clio, GW Law gives students the practical skills and technological fluency needed to succeed in the modern legal landscape. The school works with Clio through Clio’s Academic Access Program (CAAP), which offers free access to instructors, administrators, and students in both clinics and classrooms. Or, as Andrea R. Johnson, Managing Attorney & Associate Program Director of the Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics, puts it, Clio is “accessible to law schools in a way that makes innovation possible.”

That innovation sees students and alumni alike possess solid timekeeping hygiene, a deeper understanding of case management best practices, and skillsets suited to any practice type or firm size.

How Clio helped

Costly and clunky → Cost-effective and creative

“As a Clinic, we routinely look for ways to minimize costs without compromising great functionality, particularly with our file and document management system.  We found our previous system had limitations—it was more costly, clunky, and less intuitive than Clio. We knew we could better support students and clients. It’s been a lot easier to get our students up to speed when using Clio, and to think through creative ways to leverage its features for the range of practice areas we have. As we explored the other options, we quickly found Clio to be very generous in how they treat law schools. We’re proud to have over 50 years of Clinic alumni who we’ve trained and who are known as strong practitioners in their fields. With Clio, our student training has become even more effective than it already was. Clio has given us a more streamlined, adaptable platform.” 

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Unanswered emails → Unmatched support

“From a training standpoint, I love anytime I can work with a vendor that is not just an email address that I never connect with. If I have a problem and need to troubleshoot, I prefer direct access to a  company representative. Also, if they do not have a library of videos, it really slows us down. A large part of what I am doing is overseeing the management of approximately 250 students cycling in and out of Clinic enrollment every year. It’s quite a heavy onboarding and offloading task for the Clinic’s Administrative Manager Milagros Tudela and me. So, to be able to have help with the training, getting people up to speed quickly on the system, and using the videos has all been really beneficial.”

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Specific sectors → Setting students up for success

“We’re doing pro bono work, while teaching students strong professional responsibility habits—from accurate timekeeping to organized case management—to strengthen their client advocacy and readiness for practice. Much like the private sector law firms that employ our graduates, public sector employers also expect junior attorneys to hit-the-ground running with these skills to assist with grant funding compliance and resource allocation. It was perfect timing for us to transition to Clio. Our students go off to do both public interest and private sector work, and we train them to be ready for whatever comes their way. We would be doing a disservice to them to not have a tool where they’re getting used to great timekeeping hygiene, file sharing with co-counsel, and matter management systems.”

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Battling with bandwidth → Better billing

“The skills students learn in Clio—especially file organization and timekeeping—ring true once they graduate. Our graduates report that they’re so glad they learned how to bill properly, because now they’re doing it for real. They enter firms and are immediately prepared for conversations about billable hours, which makes them feel confident even early on in their careers.”

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Additional benefits to using Clio

“We are a community of one law firm with many different practice areas.”

GW Law operates its clinic as if it were one large law firm, which makes teaching ethical requirements essential. Clio has proven critical because it allows them to securely wall off case files. It’s inappropriate, from GW Law’s perspective, for a domestic violence student to be poking around in the files of a small business client, for example. Andrea values the opportunity to create the necessary boundaries while reminding  students “we are a community of one law firm with many different practice areas.” GW Law aims to instill a shared sense of professionalism across its Clinic, while maintaining strict boundaries that protect confidentiality and client trust.

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“We do not feel like we are in the dark.”

Andrea also notes that the Clio team is particularly accessible, that she and the Clinic’s administrative team do not feel like they are operating “in the dark.” She credits the multitude of training videos, responsiveness of Clio’s support or CAAP teams, and the regular hosting of or attendance at industry events as facets of GW Law’s success in working with Clio.

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“A huge draw.”

GW Law also found it easy to transition to Clio, with Andrea calling it “a huge draw.” And one not to be taken lightly. “It’s a hefty task to transition your files over,” she acknowledges. But, like the training offers and industry connections, once you are already working with Clio, support is available in a myriad of ways.

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