Transitioning to a Remote Office with Ease During COVID-19
New York City, NY
A Bit of Backstory
The tagline “Treating you like family since 1976,” posted on the office door of Spodek Law Group P.C, speaks volumes about their longstanding dedication to helping clients. Passed down from father to son in the early 2000s, the family-run firm has undergone considerable changes since its early days, but perhaps none as uniquely challenging as adapting to a global pandemic. Though their NYC-based offices remain closed until further notice, the 10-person boutique firm continues to provide a comprehensive legal service to its clients. Managing Partner, Todd Spodek, shares the pivotal role MyCase has played in Spodek Law Group’s successful transition to a fully remote office amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Partnership with MyCase
When you call my firm, you are likely in the middle of the worst experience of your life; you’ve likely hit rock bottom. To combat that reality, we make sure that from the start, our clients feel comfortable and trust that everything is under control. And to be honest, MyCase, which we’ve been using for the better part of a decade, plays a big role in that.
As soon as a client retains our firm, we walk them through the onboarding process, how they can communicate with us 24/7, how they can find their documents, how they can review their billing, and how everything will be in one place. They appreciate this because it shows them that we’re in control. They like that amid a horrible situation, our firm is going to walk them through it — especially during unprecedented times such as these.
How has MyCase eased your firm transition to a remote office?
We were able to transition to a fully remote office with zero business disruption. For instance, with the exception of an in-office consultation, our onboarding and client experience processes are exactly the same. We’re fortunate because we’ve been using MyCase for seven years, so being able to access our cases from anywhere has become the norm. I can’t imagine what a firm would do if they didn’t have MyCase in the midst of COVID-19. It would be so much more difficult to operate, keep everything organized, and communicate in a seamless way.
We were able to transition to a fully remote office with zero business disruption.– Todd Spodek, Managing Partner, Spodek Law Group
How are you using MyCase to keep your finances stable?
My paralegal manages the reports in MyCase, so anytime I need him to, he can tell me where we stand financially in any given month.
Immediately when the pandemic hit, I started going over all of our finances. I was getting frantic about our monthly revenue, so I asked my paralegal to do a quick financial analysis using MyCase. We quickly determined that we were at two-thirds of our revenue goal compared to the past two years. That’s not bad at all given the circumstances. I’m amazed at how well we’re performing and having all of our financial data available on demand is instrumental to our success and my peace of mind.
Having all of our financial data available on demand is instrumental to our success and my peace of mind.– Todd Spodek, Managing Partner, Spodek Law Group
How is MyCase helping you keep cases on track and organized?
If it’s not in MyCase, it doesn’t exist. If there’s not a note, if there’s not some sort of entry for the phone call or for the email, it doesn’t exist. We operate with MyCase as our base point, meaning, when the time comes to review a case, we’re able to see all notes, messages, emails, documents, motions, subpoenas, etc. associated with that case. Everything we do, we document. So everything goes back to MyCase and that helps tremendously with managing our cases.
It also helps to see the progress of each case. If, for instance, another attorney takes over a case, they don’t have to start from scratch. They can see all case progress, documents, and communications in an instant.
How is MyCase helping you manage your staff?
Everyone on my staff has MyCase open all day and is working off of it to manage our cases from their home offices. What happens is we meet every morning around 9 or 10 AM and I screenshare our MyCase account, and we walk through the calendar and action items for the week. For example, there might be three priority to-dos on the divorce side, one on the civil side, one on the criminal side – and we plan accordingly. All of this is imperative when you’re unable to be in close proximity to one another.
I also manage their billing. Both divorce and civil teams bill hourly, and because MyCase has great functionality for reporting, I can pull up their hours, see what clients they billed. I can also see which clients will need a replenishment soon. I love the fact that there are alerts in MyCase that remind us of past due payments – that’s fantastic.
How are you taking client payments?
I only want to deal with digital payments. It’s much more organized. The fact that the ACH is free with MyCase is a huge benefit. We use MyCase for credit cards and for ACH – 95% of our revenue is through MyCase, and then maybe 5% is cash. Sometimes clients simply insist on paying cash, but I prefer online payments hands down. I absolutely love it.
On hourly cases, for instance, we use the credit request. You’re able to request X-amount, and then you can bill an invoice from that credit so it shows the amount requested and what it’s billed towards.
Tell us about your current onboarding experience
Prior to this pandemic, we set all new clients up on MyCase, meaning our onboarding process is exactly the same pre and post COVID. The onboarding experience is intake, retainer agreement, and then eSignature in MyCase to square everything away – and all of that can continue to be done while we work away from the office.
The attention span of the average consumer is five minutes. Once you make things complicated, they’re gone. So, when you call me when you want to become a client, I’m setting you up in five minutes. Thanks to MyCase you won’t have to wait.
I was in the park with my kids recently, and I got a call from a potential client. I talked to this guy for an hour with my kids bouncing off the walls. I set him up on MyCase, he paid, and he signed up. He was ready to go, and I set him up right from my phone. Clients like that because it makes it as easy as possible for them and demonstrates that you know exactly what you’re doing.
Which newer MyCase features are you particularly excited about?
As soon as email integration got implemented, our entire team began using it every day for all cases. It’s remarkable because someone could call me and say, ‘Hey, Todd, can you look over the Jones’ divorce?’ And I can quickly pull up all the emails from every attorney and every case. That’s really fantastic, because who wants to go look for this stuff?
I have the whole firm on my phone whenever I want it.– Todd Spodek, Managing Partner, Spodek Law Group
Why recommend MyCase?
It’s a great product. It’s a really great product. And I cannot fathom how a lawyer can operate without a case management system. It seems like the equivalent of having a hard-line fax machine. How could you possibly still use one of those? I still have a lot of friends who have servers. Imagine paying for a server. You’ve got to go back up your whole system. And I’m just like, “How could you possibly spend the time and money when the whole world makes it so easy online?” I have the whole firm on my phone, literally, whenever I want it.
