How a ‘leap of faith’ switch to Clio transformed Azorra Limited’s practice

Download This Article as a PDF
Loading ...
CS Landing Page Header - Azorra Ltd crop

Azorra Limited

  • 2015

    Year Founded
  • 11-20

    Number of Staff
  • 2023

    Started Using Clio
  • London, UK

    Location
  • Fixed fee

    Hourly

    Recurring Billing

    Retainer

    Fee Types
  • Commercial Law

    Corporate

    Employment Law

    IP

    Practice Areas

By moving to Clio, Azorra Limited has transformed its operations. Now, with Clio Manage and Clio Grow, the practice effortlessly saves time, works more efficiently, and grows its business.

Azorra Limited isn’t your average old-school law firm. Exclusively focused on clients in the live events industry, the London-based legal practice follows a forward-thinking strategy in everything from its client service to its hybrid working model. As such, the team also seeks a high level of innovation from their legal software.

As CEO and Founder Kirsty McShannon explains, Azorra’s previous legal software couldn’t support their vision or workflows in a way that worked for the firm.

“We needed a flexible, modern solution that worked for our firm. We work in a face-paced sector where we need to be efficient, and the system we were using just didn’t fit for us.”

The limitations of old-fashioned, frustrating legal software

For both Kirsty and Azorra’s COO, Caroline Pesch, using their previous legal management software was a frustrating experience.

“We signed up without much due diligence. They had a very attractive offer but there wasn’t the option to test the system and interact with it to understand its functionality and its limitations. As it turns out the system could not offer what we needed it to or expected,” says Kirsty. 

Coming out of the pandemic, the firm grew from just Kirsty to seven people within just 18 months. They realised they needed to improve their processes and efficiency as the firm grew, so they decided to sign up with a legal management tool.

However, they soon found that the software’s clunky document management features, lack of internal permissions control, and cumbersome interface were causing more pain and frustration than they were helping. The system didn’t allow them to easily invoice non-traditional fee models such as fixed fees or ongoing retainers. 

“We thought that it would provide all of these features, but they didn’t provide all of it. We wasted a lot of time and money”

A more efficient solution: Clio’s intuitive legal software

When it became clear that without a new platform the business was being held back, Kirsty and Caroline started looking for an alternative solution—“That’s when we found Clio.”

“It was quite a leap of faith for us to go to a new provider because we had some trust issues,” says Kirsty.

While they’d tested Clio before choosing their previous platform, they hadn’t had the time to fully explore how Clio’s intuitive features could benefit the needs and requirements of legal users.

However, having used a legal management platform, they had a clearer idea of the features and functionality that Azorra needed—and that Clio could deliver.

“We genuinely wish we went with Clio from the beginning. It has transformed how we work.”

Azorra’s smooth transition to Clio

While initially hesitant to try a new software provider, the Azorra team decided to trust Clio.

Fortunately, Kirsty, Caroline, and the Azorra team quickly understood the difference. Adopting Clio was smooth and simple.

“The training was built around us and what worked for us—rather than what worked for the trainer,” Kirsty says. “People were always accessible for follow-up questions and answered them efficiently, succinctly, and helpfully. The onboarding process with Clio was just streets ahead of the previous provider. It was tailored to us and what we wanted to get out of it.”

As for the other members of the practice?

“They love it,” Caroline says. “I get emails from the team to say, ‘I just love Clio,’” Kirsty adds.

“The Clio platform itself is way more intuitive and user-friendly. And because we’ve had such brilliant training, it was easy to get going with it.”

Clio’s reliable, solution-focused support

Beyond the initial transition to Clio, both Caroline and Kirsty appreciate Clio’s helpful and responsive support team.

“What I found brilliant was the ability to chat to someone at any time,”  Caroline says. I can just say, ‘I’m trying to do this,’ or ‘Could you help me?’ or ‘This is what we’d like to do.’ The team is super knowledgeable and very friendly.

Clio’s award-winning support team is available 24/5—that’s all day and all night from Monday to Friday—to serve you by phone, email, or live chat

“I would say 98% of the time, the support team was able to provide the solution right there and then. There’s always a solution. Even if the platform doesn’t do exactly what we want it to do, they will always come up with a workaround or a solution.”

Clio gives clarity and control over documents

Before using Clio, Kirsty found that substantial time and effort were wasted creating and tracking new versions of documents. With Clio, it’s easy to work with documents with confidence that you have the correct version.

“In Clio, you just launch a new one, and it saves it as a new version. You can then go back into all of the different versions, easily download them, and easily compare them.”

“Clio has given me a feeling of control over the business. I didn’t feel that I had that with our previous software. It’s given me a sense of security that the documents we’re working on are the right versions.”

Optimised performance across the board with Clio

From fewer emails to reducing the need for constantly uploading documents, Clio streamlines processes and improves efficiency at Azorra.

“Time will always be against us, given what we do, but I think we can be more efficient by using tasks, setting deadlines within tasks, and giving feedback on something that someone’s working on,” Kirsty says. 

As Caroline explains, these time savings also extend to the client onboarding process. With Clio Grow, client onboarding and follow-up times are quicker and more responsive. Once the client says yes, having everything in one place makes it quick and simple to set up matters in Clio Manage.

“You press a button, and then 50% of the creation of the matter in Clio Manage is already there.”

20% of time saved per day with Clio

With Clio’s platform, Azorra Limited has slashed administrative time by an impressive 20% daily. Tasks such as document versioning and deadline setting have been simplified, allowing the team to focus more on client needs. This newfound efficiency not only streamlines internal operations but also enhances client service.

“When you think about doing that over hundreds of contracts over the year, 20% of our time is probably saved by using this process.”

Clio makes remote work seamless and secure

Clio’s cloud-based software makes remote work easier and more efficient, improving the overall work environment for the team, which operates on a hybrid model.

“With everybody working remotely, we needed to make sure that we had a sound document management system in place where all of our contracts were stored, where we could easily access each of these documents, and, ideally, that we could also use it for time recording purposes,” Kirsty says.

With Clio, the team can work seamlessly on documents without the added back-and-forth and added risk of saving documents locally to their desktops.

“Clio supports one of our core business pillars – allowing our team to work flexible and remotely with access to their documents and time recording tools on desktop and mobile so it doesn’t matter where people are. It gives me a huge peace of mind knowing that our documents are all in a secure Clio system.”

The right solution for law firm growth

Now that they’ve made the switch, it’s clear that Clio can support Azorra’s future growth and success.

“Clio is the bedrock of our systems and of our processes,” Caroline says. 

To law firms considering making the move to Clio but who may be delaying the switch out of fear of change, Kirsty offers the following advice:

“Do not hesitate. It has been transformative for our business. We were not a great place previously, and it felt like everything was holding us back.”

“I would recommend Clio to anybody. Take the leap of faith and book a demo with Clio—you won’t regret it.”

Interested in learning more about what Clio can do for your firm?

Book a Demo