MyCase Customer Spotlight: How MyCase Saves Addair Law Hours Everyday

Our customers are at the reason for everything that we do at MyCase. That’s why we like to learn about 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 interview our customers to gain insights and learn about their practices. That’s how we help 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 Tom Addair and his law firm, Addair Law, including how MyCase has helped the firm has grow, thrive, and provide its clients with top-notch representation.

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Can you tell me why you decided to go to law school and become a lawyer in the first place?

I’ve always had a knack for arguing so I figured might as well go ahead and put it to use by helping people. So I finished undergrad with degrees in business, worked a little bit in Kansas City, and then went to law school. I moved back to Manhattan, Kansas after law school.

Ok, so now tell me a little bit about your law firm – where it’s located, how many people work there, and areas of practice.

Sure – after five years of prosecuting I opened up the law firm in 2005. Right now I have three other attorneys that work for me and we have a staff of five including paralegals and a receptionist. We’re going through some transition right now, and have a new paralegal starting on Monday, and I’m probably going to be hire another attorney by the end of this year.

That’s lots of growth! So what would you say sets your firm apart from other law firms?

We strive very, very hard to make sure that we provide a level of service to our clients that they won’t get anywhere else. So they’re not just another case or not just another number here at Addair Law. The people that work with me, and our clients, are all family. We make sure that our customer service to those clients portrays that.

That’s great. So now let’s talk a little bit about MyCase and how you use it in your law firm. First, can you tell me why your firm chose MyCase?

My my wife is actually an attorney as well, and she works with me now. But before that she had her own practice and was using MyCase. I had been through several other software programs for case management, but none of them gave me what I really wanted, which is a fully integrated program that allows me to do case management, but also allows me to do billing, and time tracking. I also wanted something that allows me to communicate and share with my clients without needing five or six different programs.

Take messages from MyCase, for instance. My clients don’t email me anymore, and that’s a godsend. If my clients want to get ahold of me, they send something through MyCase’s messages. And even if I’m not in the office, I can go anywhere that I’ve got online access and message those clients back. So that’s just a small example of what I was looking for and wasn’t able to find until I came across MyCase.

That’s wonderful. So you’ve already touched on some of the great features in MyCase, and we’ll talk about those more in a minute. But first, can you tell me why you like working in the cloud and using cloud-based software rather than premises-based software?

Sure. I’ll be honest that wasn’t one of the things that I was really looking for. Whether it was premises-based or cloud-based, I just wanted a software program that would work; but it’s nice that MyCase is cloud-based. With MyCase we have unlimited storage, and MyCase gives me the ability to have access to my client files wherever I am. We’re almost fully paperless because of MyCase, so if a judge asks me a question about something that I don’t have in front of me, MyCase gives me the opportunity to have it at my fingertips. If you have a software program that’s not cloud-based then obviously that doesn’t give you the flexibility to be able to pull it up at a moment’s notice.

Right – and how did that work being cloud-based when COVID hit?

Well, I brag about MyCase because we had it set up long before COVID, and we also use VOIP for our phones. So COVID hit, and we shut down the office in the beginning of March of 2020, but my firm never closed. We were open at home for over three months. We conducted business like we weren’t gone. COVID and MyCase is also giving me the opportunity to say that once we get all through COVID, I can take a month vacation and still run my firm, and still run my cases and make sure that I have my finger on the pulse of what my firm is doing. I don’t know that there’s any other software program out there that gives you that opportunity.

Well, that’s wonderful. And it’s great to have a disaster backup plan in case there is ever some sort of future reason you might need it; it’s nice to have that built right in. Ok, so tell me a little bit about how MyCase helps you run your law practice more efficiently with your colleagues and your staff.

There’s several things that MyCase does. Workflows and templates are a life changer. When a new client comes in, they’ll fill out a lead information form. Then we have a workflow and that workflow generates my entry of appearance, my motions and orders for discovery, and a driver’s license request for a DUI. All of that used to be done manually.

Now, my paralegal clicks two buttons and gets the 7 forms that we need to open a case so it definitely frees up time and allows them to be able to have more time to work on items that truly need worked on. You also have the ability to message not just clients, but with the new feature you can in-house message paralegals and attorneys so you don’t have to be in the same office or yelling down the stairs to find out if somebody got something done. That has been extremely helpful.

Also everything is integrated, and MyCase is continually try to figure out ways to take away those mundane tasks so we can do what matters most.

Can you quantify how many hours a week that MyCase saves your law firm in terms of efficiency?

I can tell you that we looked at the timeframe that it takes to open a case compared to what it takes now with MyCase and the templates. Opening a case would normally take you somewhere between 25 and 35 minutes to enter all the information and type of all the documents, but with MyCase, we can have it done in 5 to 7 minutes now. So you figure we open maybe 3 cases in a day, so there’s an hour and a half saved right there.

Also anytime we have an issue, we contact MyCase and share that we really like to see this functionality. We’ve probably seen 30 to 40 changes over the last year and a half that we’ve suggested that you guys have actually implemented!

That’s fantastic! So, what other features would you say are your favorite ones that you can’t live without?

I love the fact that if I get police reports, I’ll put them on MyCase and I share them, so everything that we do, every piece of evidence, we can share instantaneously. Not only can we share it, we can comment back and forth on the document, whatever it might be. So again, it’s not just the messaging, but also the sharing of evidence, the sharing of ideas, the collaboration that you can get with a client through MyCase. It’s second to none.

MyCase also has a special feature called financial insights, which gives me the opportunity to tell exactly what each paralegal billed, what each attorney brings in, and what kind of case they’re working on. So it gives me the opportunity to truly pinpoint the areas that were doing well at the areas that we need to address. It gives you a true overview of your firm without having to spend hundreds of dollars calling your accountant to ask how we did last month.

So have you recommended MyCase to other attorneys?

I’m part of a Facebook group for lawyers and anytime there’s questions on there that I know MyCase will solve, I tend to chime in. They probably think I’m a MyCase rep, quite frankly!

Well, that’s great, and we really appreciate the evangelism because that really means a lot to other attorneys and to us. So thank you so much for that! And last but not least, I’d love to hear what you plan to accomplish with your firm over the next five years, especially with some of the new transitions that you’re making right now. I’m sure that you’ve got some big plans.

Absolutely. The idea is that we’re going to continue to grow the firm, not just locally here in Manhattan, but regionally, across the state, and possibly open up some other satellite offices. So MyCase is going to give me the opportunity to connect all of those offices and those attorneys, and then monitor those attorneys through MyCase.

That’s wonderful as well. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me and share your insight and knowledge of MyCase. You’re clearly are taking advantage of every feature.

Absolutely. I appreciate the fact that MyCase is so responsive to our needs so thank you guys for doing that. I really appreciate the fact that you understand who your clients are and are willing to do what it takes to make sure that MyCase makes our lives easier!