In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jay McAllister discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"Technology has to work as an ecosystem - the software, the hardware, the services, the scheduling, everything has to be self-contained. There can't be any redundancy in there, as far as systems or services that do the same function. At the end of the day, you're paying for all of those things." — Jay McAllister
Connect with Jay McAllister:
Website: paragonus.com
Email: Jason@paragonus.com
Phone: 815-556-1145
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jaymcallisterit & linkedin.com/company/paragon-tech-inc
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCo7-PTYl-HY2ZGrMCQ-C3gQ
Facebook: facebook.com/Paragontechit
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Jay McAllister 0:00
We don't want our users to have to be doctors of technology in order to use the platforms and the systems that work so cohesively together. So what we need to do is we need to figure out what functionality is needed by the firm. And how do we accomplish that with as little moving parts as possible. Now what that does, is it creates less costs, less to manage, and less downtime because you're not having things constantly break on you.
Narrator 0:28
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode your hosts, author and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:50
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin, I'm your host of the show, and hope everybody's having a great day today. If you haven't heard Fretzin does a couple things, we focus on helping lawyers with their business development through coaching and training programs that are pretty involved the goal to help you be that lawyer. And the other thing we do is peer advisory where we put successful lawyers together with other successful lawyers who are feeling stuck or alone, and help them to work as a team to solve each other's problems, business development, marketing, growth, challenges, time management, etc. It's going really well. So if you're interested in either of those, please check out my website, feel free to contact me at Steve@Fretzin.com. But more importantly, I've got a terrific guest today, someone who's going to talk in depth about technology in the legal space. A friend of mine, Jay McAllister, CEO of Paragon, how's it going, Jay?
Jay McAllister 1:40
Hey, it's going well, Steve, thanks for having me here today.
Steve Fretzin 1:43
Yeah, it's good to see you. You know, we're having a beautiful day outside, we're talking about how lovely it is, and the weather and everything and getting out for walks.
Jay McAllister 1:51
Sounds like a lot, the fact that you're willing to take this time and sitting here with me when it's 65 degrees outside.
So
Steve Fretzin 1:58
You don't want to take this outside, we could just take our microphones and our computers and just take a walk.
and
Jay McAllister 2:02
I'm good with it if you are man.
Steve Fretzin 2:03
alright,
Maybe we'll try that at a later time. Help me out here and give a little more background on how you got into the technology space and in working with lawyers and law firms. Because that's an interesting story.
Jay McAllister 2:14
Well, it all started when I was 10 years old, my dad said you got to get in the technology space and work with lawyers and law firms or you're kicked out. That's it. That's how it works for most of us that were never lawyers. Now, you know, it's honestly, it's super interesting. I've always been a technology fan from the time I was like, in third grade, I was I had this little system called an Action Replay. And essentially, at that time, your cool factor was determined by how many Pokemon you had. Right? We're all on these Gameboy advances, right? So I got this system called an Action Replay. And I figured out how to code it in order to give me more Pokemon than all my friends. So naturally, it made me like the resident IT expert in third grade. Naturally, the other thing again, this was this, this affected your cool factor. So all my friends wanted the same thing. So what they started doing is they would take their lunch money, and they would pay me to do the same thing for their video games as we go. entrepreneur, a young age. Yeah, you know, it worked out really well, until about two weeks later, when I was so many parent phone calls, calling the school who would then call my parents to say he's got to stop. We don't know what he's doing. But none of the kids are eating. They are all talking about Pokemon.
Steve Fretzin 3:23
They're starving to death, but they're enjoying their Pokemon.
Jay McAllister 3:28
And that's how it all started, man says like, just throughout my high school career is just taking all the technology classes I could find and eventually deciding, I guess it was my, in my freshman year of college, I decided, let me take my technology skills, I can use these skills to help attorneys to manage some of the issues and technology concerns they have in their firms, and ultimately, increase revenue and profitability. Okay, and so like me, you're not a lawyer, but you decided to work in the legal space because you saw a need and you saw kind of a gap in their game. Yeah, you know, and also, when I got my first car I was, I was a speed fan got a bunch of speeding tickets. So I met a lot of attorneys, I figured it was a good spot to start guy and to expand my network.
Steve Fretzin 4:12
I was gonna say, you know, you also could have just gone to some bar associations, but you know, whatever works.
Jay McAllister 4:17
But yeah, everybody has their own way. I guess.
Steve Fretzin 4:21
I've been divorced six times. That's it. That's how I'm meeting attorneys these days.Very expensive endeavor.
Jay McAllister 4:27
Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah. Hopefully, the ROI is there for you.
Steve Fretzin 4:31
So let me ask you. So as you've taken a deep dive into the legal space in the technology space, what have been some of the main challenges that you're seeing in the space that they really need help on? What are the things that are tearing them apart and eating up their time?
Jay McAllister 4:46
Hmm, that's a great question. And I think if there was one succinct answer to that, and it was known by all attorneys around the world, the world would be a better place. Okay, I think to be honest, and it's something that's constantly asked what is the cause factor that can take us from being where we're at now to being at that next level, and I think 100% of the time, maybe not say not 100, let's say nine, let's go at 90% of the time. Okay, it's time management time isn't attorneys best friend, and also worst enemy? Why do I say that? Well, on the best friend site, billable hours, being able to capture that revenue, and translate that into revenue for the firm is obviously goal at the end of the day. But also where it can be a negative the time aspect is not having time in the day to be able to handle those mission critical activities that actually are going to create revenue, rather than those attorney development hours. So it's difficult sometimes to find the balance between those highly necessary functions. So we're like the top three areas that lawyers waste time because they don't have the appropriate technology to help to solve that issue. collections for sure. If you're billing and accounting, and honestly, the time entry itself, when that process is a manual process, I find that it will fill the attorneys time with doing things that aren't necessarily making money for the firm. But just in order to capture that time accurately. They're having to, you know, it's been their resources and their time. So there's a billable hour where they can bring in the money, there's the business development time that you need to put into in the marketing time to develop the clients and develop the business. And then there's all the administrative burden and technology being one of the main ones. So they're spinning their wheels on collecting, billing, and accounting and time entry. Anything else that jumps out is another thing that's eating up their time. Another thing that's eating up attorneys time, I mean, obviously, from the professional development standpoint, you've also got to find the balance between being able to get out there and network be in the right places with the right people. And balancing that all at the same time with handling your caseload and being an attorney. Now, obviously, this varies, you know, there's, there's, it gets even more granularly, depending whether you're working in a big firm, or whether you're a solo practitioner on your own, and then it becomes even more critical to balance time between those activities.
Steve Fretzin 7:07
Yeah, I was thinking about things that I get into sometimes like CRM, email management, software's like I was asking one of my clients today that she has a software for auto scheduling. And she said, Oh, yeah, use calendly. And I was like, Oh, thank God. And I use one as well. And it's just been huge, just not having to go back and forth and have to, you know, what's good for you, to me, J and J? Oh, yeah. Thursday? Well, Thursday is no good. I'm busy then about when, and you go back and forth three, four times, you've already got 20, 30 minutes involved in this one person to schedule with. So I think there's some stuff like that to that automation. That's been really big in the last, I don't know, a couple years. But it sounds like you're really focused on on some of the core elements of managing and running a law firm that eats up time for the whole place.
Jay McAllister 7:55
Yeah, you know, we look at it as a technology ecosystem as a whole. So I think a company that does that really well as Apple, Apple has their ecosystem, they have their suite of devices and software that all work really well together. And they create this whole cohesive system that enables you as a user to get things done, and more in less time. And to accomplish things that other people may look at. As guy's got superpowers, he's able to take a video, and then go home. And that same video was on his computer that he took on his iPhone, I look at law, firm tech is the same way. It has to work as an ecosystem, the software, the hardware, the services, the scheduling, everything is is has to be self contained. And there can't be any redundancy in there as far as systems or services that do the same function. Because at the end of the day, you're paying for all of those things. So, you know, from a technology standpoint, we really look at everything, there is nothing that falls outside of our purview, purview in the technology space, because all of those elements are critical to ensuring that at the end of day, the attorney and their support staff can operate as efficiently as possible.
Steve Fretzin 8:57
Okay, so you're you're you're feeding me my next question, which is, what are kind of the key ingredients then to operating a profitable law practice?
Jay McAllister 9:05
Well, one of the things you touched on right there, which I think was a magical thing you said was talking about the scheduling. You know, I like to give a quick example here, there was a client that we helped not long ago. And essentially, this is a mediation firm. And the scheduling was the major downfall here. Now this person was was typically scheduling between themselves, their client, the spouse, their attorney, and potentially another individual. So you're talking about five people potentially needing to be in one schedule. So when you talk about that, going back and forth, you multiply that by two by three by four by five. That process can be a really time consuming process with 10, 20 emails back and forth just to communicate. So one of the things we implemented for this client is a tool called free busy, and what free busy does, it's similar to your calumnies or your outreach programs or a bunch of different programs out there that have functionality but one of the things that free busy does really well is it handles multi participant scheduling very efficiently. So what that person's now doing this mediation firm, they're actually sending out a meeting poll that all parties have access to. And once somebody selects their availability, it actually will then restrict the availability down to the last person that entered until you get to the last person in that sequence. And you have, you know, a series of three to four times that work for everyone. So again, I think a big part of our job is understanding the tools that are out there, knowing what the benefits of them are, and then being able to curate and pair that with the correct service offering for the correct firm for the correct area of practice for the correct size, and make sure all of those things are jiving together. Because at the end of the day, it creates an ecosystem where everything is working, and rowing in the same direction.
Steve Fretzin 10:50
So almost sounds like you're acting as a doctor of technology where you go in you try to identify where their gaps are, where their ailments are, and then you can put together an appropriate package. So that might be a multi person scheduling is eating up X amount of hours, or their billing is all over the place and disorganized and disarray. And so you can help organize that is that is that sort of how you work to remedy the issues of the firm?
Jay McAllister 11:13
Well, you know, I certainly have never heard anyone refer to me as a doctor technology. So well, you can take that if you want.
Steve Fretzin 11:19
It's not a matter of that's I'm sure that's trademark somewhere. But you have to check equity with an attorney if you know any.
Jay McAllister 11:25
You have just elevated me to a level of importance that is probably not good for my own ego.
Steve Fretzin 11:31
I could have said guru.
Jay McAllister 11:35
Let's stick with guru it's better for me
Steve Fretzin 11:38
A Sherpa. Technology sherpa I'm sure that exists. And you know, these people grab up all these trademarks fast.
Jay McAllister 11:44
Exactly. Yeah, we might want to move quick on this. So I'm sure you've got some IP attorneys, you've got
Steve Fretzin 11:49
I've few in my pocket that I can set you up with. So, so good, very good. So what's your core competency? Or philosophy, I should say with technology? And how are you seeing it to effectively elevate the performance of the attorneys in their support staff? So as a team, how is it all working cohesively to improve the way that they're doing business?
Jay McAllister 12:10
Great question. Wonder if you really come up with some some awesome questions here. And I and I got a I think that's half the battle, knowing the right question to ask, right? It's like the old adage of what is the answer to life? What is it Life, the Universe and all things is 42. And it's like this is nonfiction novel that was created. And the whole point of that story is that 42 is the answer to life in the universe. The problem is, we don't know the right question to ask. So it seems like it doesn't make sense to us. But we're just not asking the right question. So I think that's a big part of it right there. But But I digress. I think, you know, as far as the kind of one guiding principle, the technology for the technology to work, people have to use it. For people to use it, it has to be simple and intuitive enough where anyone can jump in and not necessarily have to be and what what did you call it a doctor of technology, we don't want our users to have to be doctors of technology in order to use the platforms and the systems that work so cohesively together. So what we need to do is we need to figure out what functionality is needed by the firm? And how do we accomplish that with as little moving parts as possible. Now, what that does, is it creates less costs, less to manage, and less downtime, because you're not having things constantly break on you. So we look we take that approach of simplicity with everything is actually I'm a big, I'm a big science nerd, which, as you could imagine being the technology and the science nerd growing up like girls did not view me as like the I wasn't like the one that wasn't prom king, let's just put it that way I was never lend itself well to that. But one of the things that did do Is it just gave me this awareness of how all the different systems kind of come together, and how all these different philosophies and practices can be used in order to solve issues another area. So one of the things that I was just a couple weeks ago, listening to an interview with Ilan Musk, which he's obviously I mean, he's a lot of things, although I don't think he has doctor technology. I think I might have that one on him. But he is he's an aerospace engineer. And you know, yes, Tesla and all these different companies, the boring company. Well, one of the things he does, he has this amazing engineering background. And one of the things he said was that when you look at a rocket, you can see this, they're separate stages of a rocket. And he said, the traditional approach, like if you look at a NASA rocket, you will actually be able to see different departments of NASA based on the stages of the rocket, because each department has their own purview and jurisdiction, and you can actually see that in the stages that are present there. Well, the problem is the organizational units don't talk to the other organizational units. So you'll have points of failure that have happened, like in the challenger incident when the ice sheet fell off and hit the foam and you know, and it caused that catastrophic failure was because there wasn't good communication between the multiple departments. Well, the thing he said is that they take a different approach over In his company, SpaceX, because they're looking at each person who's working on it has to have a general awareness of the entire system. Now what that does is it makes it so that someone is not optimizing a system somewhere, that should probably be just be deleted. So that's kind of how I look at technology. We don't want to spend our time optimizing something that needs to be taken out of the equation all together. If they're, you know, in the scheduling example, rather than trying to figure out how can we send out emails quicker or faster between multiple parties, let's just figure out a system where we can send out one poll, that way it takes care of itself, we're not optimizing on a system that doesn't necessarily need to be there.
Steve Fretzin 15:36
Well, all I can tell you what. So here's what I've learned so far, that if I want someone to work on my technology, I need a technology nerd to help me because someone that's into Pokemon Hitchhiker's Guide, Elon Musk with rockets, like you're the guy that should be helping me with my technology, the person that's, you know, doing country in western and then ride horses, I think you're right, you need to know the whole system. And one of the things that I think you may run into are the internal IT guy that works at the law firm who really wants to be the know it all at the firm and and be the one in control and everything? How do you work with those individuals to add value to the firm and help them solve problems, when you've got kind of this person who has been super helpful to the firm, but maybe doesn't know what, you know?
Jay McAllister 16:23
Easy, we make them the superhero of the story, it's all about elevating that person, and making them reach their full potential, they can't do that, if they're bogged down with issues and tickets. And, you know, dealing with systems that have redundancies, you have your Google admin account set up for your email. And then you also have office 365. And some people are one, some people on the other, you know, those kind of systems are things that we see all the time in play, where there are multiple things that have a similar function, and they all exist. And again, what I find that firms typically do is that they bolt on technology as needed, you know, when a functionality arises, hey, we need to be able to do XYZ, they go out and vet a system purchase that and bolted on Well, what you wind up is this, this Frankenstein like creature that has redundancy all throughout, because there's multiple systems at play that were chosen at different times and things aren't clearly documented. And it winds up making this system that kind of work kind of doesn't, you wind up having issues and headaches and slowdowns and downtime. See, what we do is we try to look at everything holistically, what is the functionality? And then we work backwards and break that down and find out what are the optimal pieces of technology that we need to implement in order to get us where we need to be. and have that again, be that cohesive ecosystem.
Steve Fretzin 17:41
Yeah, I mean, not only a doctor, but I don't know if you ever watched the show house, that's a great show. And you know, that's it, he does, he'll look at all the different parts of everything to try to figure out why is this person, you know, having this issue, and it's, he's got to go around a lot of different directions to figure it out. But at the end, you know, he always does. So one of the things that I wanted to sort of pick up on too is that lawyers, as you mentioned earlier, you know, they struggle with technology, because there's so many moving parts, there's so many different elements to it. And I think one of the key things that I know I'm looking for, and I'm not a lawyer, but I still need simplicity, I can do a scheduling program, or I can do you know, basic level technology, if it's simple, if it's something that I get set up, and then it just runs and works. And I just have to click the link. And that's the way I work. So how do you work with technology to keep things simple for attorneys? Because I think that's what they're looking for.
Jay McAllister 18:30
Sure. Well, one of the biggest parts of that is being as you have to be as white glove as possible. And what do I mean by that? Well, when we implement a technology system or a series of systems, one we're putting together to sip the system, that's the most simple as it can be functionally simple as it can. And to, we never just say, thank you for your, for your business. Here's your completed system. And off to the races and good luck. Right, we will actually hold the attorneys and the support staffs hands throughout the entire process, training them on how to use the systems, but not only the how, but the why, why does this benefit you? How is this better than what you're currently doing? Why would we enter time entries into a practice management system rather than using paper time cards? Well, this is the benefit you get and you get the flexibility to work from home out of the office or from the beach. You know, why would we implement a document management system? Oh, well, because you have the ability to store documents in a clear, easy, concise fashion and to be able to recall those documents quickly and simply without too much hassle. You know, why would we store that PDF in OCR format, which is optical character recognition, because now allows you to search for key terms in that document. So now you're not searching physically through a file cabinet. You're able to go into a computer typing a couple keystrokes, and there's a document that you say so again, it's it's as much as the what the system is, as it is the why are we doing it and then showing the progression of it. These are how these systems all work together. And this is how it will impact your, your day. And, and, and ultimately give you more time back.
Steve Fretzin 20:07
And one of the things that I want to and I don't know if this is a wrap up situation, but one of the things I wanted to kind of discuss is return on investment. And I know when I interview a lawyer and I start asking questions, and I get into the weeds, and I identify 200 hours a year spent on networking and business development that landed very little business, or I understand that their close rate should be seven out of 10. And they only got 6/10, or 4/10, or 2/10. And what I do is I start putting together the math, I'm not making up the math, they're giving me the math, I'm just taking their numbers, and adding it up and doing some basic level math stuff my 14 year old would do in asleep that I have to take some time with a pen and pencil. But you know, we end up coming up with these pretty big numbers. And part of the reason I do that is for them to understand their time is money and understand that while my fees might seem high at the time, and they're not, because when you look at all the efforts and time and energy and disappointment that's put into business development, and it could all be turned around. But they have to make an investment of time energy money to do that through him working with me, for example. Okay, but that's an exercise that I find that I find to be really helpful. Because otherwise it's just Oh, that's a lot of money. So in it in changing technology, there's obviously investments involved. How do you do that with the firm's you work with? And do you have a story or an example of something where you implemented something that just that really turned them around?
Jay McAllister 21:32
Yeah, I mean, again, I think the big factor here is we talk about it as discomfort versus impact, we will never, ever recommend switching to a new solution. If it causes more discomfort than impact on the firm. It's never a good idea to do that. And especially when you're dealing with some of these legacy systems that have been in place for years, sometimes, you know, we had a client who was using a system called time matters, really old timekeeping system. And you know, it's been used, but by the firm for years and years. And you know, we were implementing a new practice management system to speed up that process and, and help them to categorize and document their time spent doing activities.
Steve Fretzin 22:12
So, Jay, that's a good example of ROI for me, do you have an example in technology of how the technology and the efficiency of things that you insert into firms, gets them a return on investment cuts costs, or makes them more efficient, which equates to money?
Jay McAllister 22:29
Sure. Yeah, I think the important thing to consider here is always there is a balance between impact the potential impact a technology can have, and also discomfort caused by making the switch and it's something that you cannot ignore it. So often, I see it companies ignore that this is technically a superior solution. So let's ignore every other piece of information or data point that we have, knowing that this is going to cause slowdowns and discomfort just by making the switch. So that's the first thing we have to measure that and we have to make sure the client is aware of, this is what you're up against, there will be two hours of training per person in order to get up to speed on this new system. And that has to be made upfront, make clear upfront, you're doomed for failure, if you don't do that, so yeah, I think that's the first thing, you know, a big one, just to give you an example of that. We worked with an intellectual property for a small firm here in Chicago, about about 15 to 20. Lawyers, and they were having they're really struggling with their docketing process. You know, I know you work with a lot of attorneys across the board in different different disciplines. And you know, an IP law docketing is very, very critical to make sure you miss you can't miss the filing deadlines. There's specific dates in which you need to respond and send information and you know, it's in there very, that you have a clear, concise schedule from the beginning. So this company was doing this all through their Google Calendar, just scheduling those dates, well, anytime a date would change, they would have to go back, find the entry, change the dates, and then change the successive dates after that if the schedule shifted up or down. So what we did is we implemented a docketing system for that company. And we were actually able to just by changing the docket system alone, we were able to save them 1.3 hours per attorney per day. Now, you know, per day, yeah. So you translate that into a weekly, you know, you're looking at almost seven hours, you know, per week. And that's real time and real money. So at the end of the day, we're just trying to quantify whatever the impact is versus discomfort. And in that case, you know, it was it was, you know, the partners decided that this was the route they wanted to take, and that why ended up working really well for them.
Steve Fretzin 24:40
Well, Jay, it sounds like you're really working intelligently to help solve problems for law firms and in to kind of put in the right solutions. If somebody wanted to ask you questions or or have you come in to evaluate their situation? How do they get in touch with you?
Jay McAllister 24:56
Sure. Well, I can always feel free to email me at Jason@Paragon.com and so always feel free to email me there or call at 815-556-1145. And, you know, really the experience that you'll get is you'll get somebody who is interested in the success of the firm wants to know more about you, how you operate, and the challenges that you face. And I mean, it really is for me, you know, I think it's, I always try to focus on what are the what are the major changes that can be made with a minimal amount of effort to get the most amount of functionality? And that's how we look at everything. So you know, it's, it's, I think it's critical in the technology space, especially when there's so unknowns out, there's so many unknowns out there about how technology works, what can be used, what's beneficial, what's not, a lot of times people just need a voice of reason, in order to kind of elaborate on some of the things out there and to know what to stay away from because there's a lot of those shiny objects out there. That may seem great. But you know, on surface level, but don't really have a real a real purpose or place in a legal setting.
Steve Fretzin 26:05
Yeah, well, Listen, man, you're a specialist, you're intelligent, and how you handle technology and helping these firms. And I appreciate you being on the show and sharing your wisdom with my audience. And hopefully, you guys are listening, taking some notes, what Jay is saying and can get in touch with him if you need some assistance. So thanks again for just coming on the show and helping out my audience.
Jay McAllister 26:24
Thank you. Thank you. And I didn't even know I was gonna walk away with the brand new title of Dr. technology. So
Steve Fretzin 26:28
You're the doctor of technology.
Jay McAllister 26:31
Can we get that on a shirt or..?
Steve Fretzin 26:33
Oh that's shirt absolutely. A computer be a computer with a stethoscope? How about that? I just put that together for you. So I'm in the wrong business. I should be. So listen, man, thanks again. Hey, everybody, listen, appreciate you being with Jay and I today on be that lawyer. The goal is for you guys to be confident organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Be that lawyer, Take care everybody be safe. Have a good time. Talk to you later.
Narrator 27:02
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life Changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today's episode, check out today's show notes.