MyCase Customer Spotlight: How Thomas Orr Law Offices Reduced Bookkeeping Costs by 50%

Our customers are at the heart of everything that we do at MyCase. That’s why we take the time to get to know them and share their stories and secrets of success with you whether in webinars, customer testimonials, or on this blog. As part of that process, we love to interview our customers to learn about their practices so we can learn how MyCase helps their law firms grow and succeed while also enabling them to provide the best possible service to their clients.

In today’s post you’ll learn all about attorney Thomas Orr and his law firm, Thomas C. Orr Law Offices, P.C., how the firm has grown and changed over the past few decades, and how MyCase has played an integral part in that success.

Let’s talk a little bit about you and your law firm:

Sure. I’m a lawyer, and I’ve been in private practice since 2000. Before that I worked in government service. I started off without any kind of case management software, but adopted MyCase in 2013. My practice is very eclectic. We do a lot of landlord tenant, and handle some personal injury cases. We also handle some transactional matters.

So you’ve been with MyCase a long time, which is great to hear! Now let’s talk about your firm. What would you say sets your firm apart from other firms?

Well, we’re a small firm, and we try to give big firm services in more of a boutique setting. We handle some areas of law that very few other firms in town or in the state do. We also do a lot of landlord tenant work on the landlord side. Overall I think that we’re just service oriented and we try to be receptive to all kinds of different clients.

And where is your firm located?

My firm is in Missoula, Montana.

Now let’s talk about MyCase. Can you tell me a little bit about why your firm chose MyCase?

I had been with another firm for three years before I started a private practice and when I started my firm I really needed the support features. I needed case management, calendaring, and bookkeeping was also a really important aspect of it. So was trust accounting, along with the billing and invoicing features. Before MyCase I had spent a lot of money on bookkeepers and decided that I needed some support in that area. MyCase provided the perfect product for that.

So how has MyCase helped you run your practice more efficiently, particularly when it comes to the billing?

I now have a staff member who does the invoicing, and MyCase helps with accurate bookkeeping, and being able to respond to clients. The really nice thing about MyCase is that most of my clients use the portal and pay through that the portal. And so I don’t have to chase them around. We get checks in quickly and those are easy to account for. And, there’s really very little mistakes made in entry of of books and accounting

How much time would you say the MyCase saves your firm – whether it’s you or your firm’s administrative employees – each week?

I know for a fact that my accounting costs have gone down by probably 50% from what I was paying eight or ten years ago. So I’m really happy with it.

That’s great to hear! So what would you say are some of your favorite features that you can’t live without?

Definitely the trust accounting. I also like the fact that when we get documents in we are able to immediately put them up and then our clients get a note that we filed something on their behalf. It cuts down on a lot of minor calls from clients wanting to know what’s going on. It really helps save time in that regard as well. Also, MyCase does a very nice job with our website and web design – we really like that.

And with payment processing – you said that your firm uses that. Would you say that when you use MyCase payments it saves time throughout the billing process ?

We’re saving a significant amount of postage and time. We used to send out hard copies of invoices and then have to wait until the payments came in. So it really streamlines that system.

Did you find that during the pandemic your clients were more inclined to pay online because of the touchless payment process or that it helped you get paid more quickly?

Yes for the most part. It’s nice that our clients can get invoiced and then they get reminded through MyCase if they haven’t paid their invoices.

So you use the auto-remind feature that’s built into MyCase. That’s great to hear! Next question: Have you recommended MyCase to other attorneys?

Lots of them, because I’ve just been really happy with the whole program. It’s very cost efficient and cost effective for us. I just don’t know how a small firm could live without MyCase.

That’s awesome! And then last but not least, what do you hope to accomplish with your firm over the next five years?

Well, that’s a great question. I was looking at sort of moving into retirement in the next five years, but I took on a partner and we’re building a new office, which we’re going to be moving into quite soon. Then we’re hiring more staff. So instead of phasing out, I’m sort of scaling up and we’ll be using MyCase as part of that process.