Thriving Midwest Firm Saves 100+ Hours Per Month With MyCase

A partnership with MyCase

When we started our firm, we initially signed up with an on-premise software and had a server set up in our office. There were just three of us, and we had to deal with a host of issues: the cost of upkeep, maintenance, the inability to connect to WiFi, and on top of all that the server was constantly breaking.

I remember distinctly what pushed us into the cloud was when we got our annual service contract; it came out to $2,500. That’s when we knew we had to make a change. Following a detailed analysis of all platforms, I decided to give MyCase a try. Man, I love it. At this point, I can’t imagine not having MyCase. I especially can’t imagine having to deal with COVID without having MyCase.

What role did MyCase play in your firm during the COVID-19 outbreak?

During the onset of the pandemic, we actually closed our physical Rochester office. Now, we’re back up and fully staffed again at both our Mankato and Rochester offices, with the exception of two people who now work remotely. We give our team the option but most of our staff prefer the office to working from home.

MyCase made the transitions in and out of the office so easy. All I had to do was go to Best Buy and purchase laptops for staff members who didn’t have them. Then I said, “here are your MyCase login credentials,” and that was it.

How has your intake process improved over time?

I recently created all of our digital intake forms in MyCase — and the turnaround time saved is immense.

Prior to using MyCase for intake, we had our 10-page divorce packet scanned in as PDF and emailed to all prospective clients. It wasn’t even a signable PDF – just a regular old PDF that clients would have to print out, fill out, and send back, after which we’d enter their information into our system. And then it hit me: ‘This is just stupid. Why are we doing all this extra data entry for no reason?’ We digitized our intake forms using MyCase, and it’s reduced the time it takes to onboard a client by up to 8 days.

We digitized our intake forms using MyCase, and it’s reduced the time it takes to onboard a client by up to 8 days. – Jason Kohlmeyer, Partner/Founder, Kohlmeyer Hagen Law Office Chtd

How are you using MyCase to stay on top of your financial performance?

Before MyCase, we just showed up and hoped for the best. Now, every week we run the Fee Allocation Report in MyCase, which gives us an accurate picture of each staff member’s financial contribution to our firm.

In addition, all employees receive a notification email informing them of where they stand against their monthly target and whether or not they need to pick things up. We then do the same thing with the Time & Expenses Report to ensure everyone hits their targets. Once we started running financial reports in MyCase, we saw a significant increase in revenue.

What benefits have you experienced since cutting down on paper documents?

We’re 100% paperless. I don’t have a single printed out file in family law. Once a prospective client submits their information, we can easily pull up their kids’ names, for instance, when we’re discussing family matters – which reflects really well on us.

Having our forms in the cloud also saves us so much time with initial pleadings and intake. If you’re counting across all paralegals and attorneys, we’re saving 20 to 40 hours a week using digitized forms in MyCase.

How is MyCase helping you with your billing & invoicing?

In the old days, it would take two staff members two days to prepare all of our invoices, print them out, and mail them to clients. Looking back, that was a huge time waster for us. Compiling and sending automated invoices has given us so much time back.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dealt with clients behind on their payments who claim not to have seen their bill. But through MyCase, I can see exactly who has seen their invoice, when they opened, and when they’ve made their last payment. I like that quite a bit. As far as billing goes, Payment Plans, which allow us to automatically bill clients on a regular basis, were a game changer for us as well.

How do you keep your cases on track?

I’ve read just about every book on systematizing law firms, so one of the big, new features I really got excited about to help with criminal and family cases is Case Stages. It allows us to organize and view our cases by stage such as pre-in, pre-filing, filing, motion, discovery — all of which I’ve tailored to our practice.

About a year ago, we also really started focusing on tasks in order to keep cases moving. We can see the status of each of our action items and everything that needs to happen next and by whom. In doing so we’re able to coordinate our week as a team, plan out next steps on each case, and identify whether or not anything requires immediate attention.

We’re saving 20 to 40 hours a week using digitized forms in MyCase. – Jason Kohlmeyer, Partner/Founder, Kohlmeyer Hagen Law Office Chtd

Why recommend MyCase to fellow legal professionals?

I don’t think people realize how awesome it is to have everything accessible from the cloud wherever you go. A recent article in the State Bar Journal mentioned an attorney whose small town practice burned down and how absolutely devastating it was. If we had the misfortune of having a fire or disaster at our office, we wouldn’t miss a beat.

You need the cloud to stay competitive. Otherwise, you’re just going too slowly; your competitors are going to be more responsive to clients, faster, and probably cheaper because they won’t be paying so much in overhead cost. All in all, I just can’t imagine not using MyCase to run my business.