Regina Edwards | Tech Tools for Family Lawyers

How can family lawyers use technology to create work-life balance and provide a seamless client experience?

Regina Edwards, owner and managing attorney of Edwards Family Law in Gwinnett County, Georgia, created the Facebook group Lawyer on the Beach to help other attorneys do just that.

Now, she’s here to share her favorite tech tools and processes with you.

She’ll cover:

  • Designing an intake process around your ideal client
  • Running a firm remotely
  • Why she uses flat fees
  • Automating the process of declining clients
  • Using tech for trial preparation
  • And more

The PowerPoint and other documents referenced during this episode can all be found by joining the Lawyer on the Beach Facebook group and by accessing the link in the “About” section of the group.

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Regina Edwards: With family law, you know, obviously I’m not going to win every case. But I think if the client knows you sort of laid it out there and they can visually see all of the hard work that you have done to prepare your case, that is going to satisfy you know a lot of them and to say, well, at the end of the day, the judge didn’t see it our way.

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast, your source for the latest news and trends in family law in the state of Texas. Now, here’s your host attorney Holly Draper.

Holly Draper: Today I’m so excited to welcome Regina Edwards to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast. Regina is the owner and managing attorney of Edwards Family Law in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Regina graduated from Tulane University School of Law and has 21 years of complex family law litigation experience.

She was one of the first attorneys in her area to go completely paperless in 2008. At the same time, she switched to flat fees. She’s slightly obsessed with tech tools and constantly tests new systems. This led her to create the Facebook group lawyer on the beach, which is about tech tools and processes to help create the work life balance that so many of us crave.

Regina uses tech to not only allow her to have a great work-life balance, but to also provide a seamless experience for her clients. She enjoys traveling the world, having traveled to more than 45 countries, and speaks three different languages. She enjoys reading, watching football, running, yoga, hiking, and camping and spending time with family and friends. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Regina: Thank you for having me.

Holly: So I’m super excited to have you today because I’ve been in the lawyer on the beach group for a really long time. And I’ve been connected with you through Facebook for a long time. But I’ve watched a lot of things that you do. And I think many of us who practice family law would really benefit from hearing about that hearing about the processes and all that. So I’m so glad you decided to join us today. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background?

Regina: So my dad was in the army. So we moved all over the place. And we were in Germany for a few years. Florida, Virginia and New York. So I was kind of all over the place, so that just kind of instilled in me my love of travel. And my parents, when we lived in Europe took us pretty much everywhere.

So I didn’t want that to stop, you know, just because I became a professional. And once I had my own law firm, I just kind of decided why can’t I do this. And in 2015, I just decided I wanted to take a mini sabbatical for six months, and moved to Arizona. And then I didn’t want to come back. I kept running my firm from Arizona in Georgia for the next three years. And then eventually I did move back.

But then I still go out there periodically at least once a quarter for an extended period of time, because I just really love it out there. But that really taught me how to run a firm remotely, which came in really handy when COVID hit because we didn’t miss a beat. It was just a regular Tuesday for us.

Holly: So I know that you have transitioned as part of your process of kind of going paperless and being virtual, that you have transitioned to flat fees. Tell us a little bit about that. Why do you think it works for you and that process?

Regina: So we transitioned, I want to say in 2010 maybe. So it’s been a really long time. So I’m glad I’m talking to family law attorneys. Because when I do this group for everybody, I always have people screaming at me from other practice areas how it doesn’t work. Which it can, but I promise you it specifically can work for family law, because I’ve been doing it for a really long time. And I promise you I’m eating very well. So, you know, honestly, the impetus behind it was I just didn’t think that if this was a reasonable way to charge for legal services. I just kept thinking back to when I was a newbie attorney, it would take me so long to research a particular issue. You know, why would the client pay more money for that? For example, if someone asks me a complicated UCCJA question, I don’t have to research anything. I am going to know the answer off the top of my head. So you know, why would someone else at $250 an hour are spending eight hours researching what I already know, why should they be paid more for that knowledge that I already have? And the other reason is I hate billing. I hate sending bills. I hate arguing about a bill. I just want to do what I want to do on the case when I want to do it and not have to worry about well am I doing this too early? Is the client going to you know think that I should have held off on this? I just I literally didn’t have time for that. So we transition to flat fees and it’s been wildly successful.

Holly: So do you do, you know if somebody comes in and they have a divorce case, is it just it’s going to cost you X dollars for a divorce case? Or is it broken down into you know this much for temp orders, and this much for mediation or whatever?

Regina: It’s definitely broken down. So on my Facebook group and on the YouTube channel that’s associated with the Facebook group actually have a two-hour flat fee webinar that explains my entire process plus my fee agreements are on the websites. What I think I know I think in Texas, you may have to put the flat fees into operating and transfer them over later. It’s either that or you just have to disclose it in your fee agreement.

I don’t know what the Texas rules are because I don’t practice in Texas. I don’t have to know. But I am telling you that you guys have to read your rules and make it imply. In Georgia, we don’t have that rule. All we have to do is disclose the client that we are putting it in operating and that we can use it immediately. So we don’t have to wait until the work is completed to transfer.

So you, you can’t just take my fee agreement and start using it if it does not comport with your bar rules. So we do usually charge an initial fee that takes through mediation, and I do limited representation agreements. So I am agreeing upfront only to represent them through mediation. Because it often happens that at mediation, I decide I don’t want to represent them at trial, because they are completely unreasonable. And this happened to me on Friday, and I said, I’ve completed the stage that was paid for I’m withdrawing good luck and be best.

So it’s usually one upfront payment through mediation. And that’s usually anywhere between 10 and 20,000. And then I charge for trial based on the issues remaining, because at mediation, we may settle some of the issues and not all of them. And if it’s only some of the issues, it’s going to cost less than I have to do everything. But some of my fee agreements are online. Again, I have a whole two hour presentation that I could do on flat fees alone, but that’s, all those resources are there if you want to take a look.

Holly: And so don’t forget about it later, Regina has a lot of great resources online about a lot of the issues that we’re going to talk about today and flat fees. And I’m sure there are others as well. Can those all be found through the Lawyer on the Beach Facebook group?

Regina: Yes. So if you go to featured posts, there’s a link. So I use Egnyte, e g n y t e, as a sort of link share thing, it’s very similar to Dropbox, but way better. So there’s a link there that has all the resources, there’s a whole bunch of folders, it’s really overwhelming. But usually you can pretty much find what you’re looking for there. And the YouTube channel is the same lawyer on the beach. So all the videos that are referenced are also going to be on that channel.

Holly: Perfect. So today, we’re gonna talk about kind of a little subset of what you do and what your presentations have been about. And that would be using technology in our family law practices. And I know that I’m not great about using technology. I’m sure I’m better than some, but I could certainly stand to be better. And you know, when you implement that, you implement one piece of technology, like, wow, why did it take me so long to adopt this because my life just got better.

So I know, there’s a lot of tips and tricks that our listeners will be able to take from today’s show. So why don’t we start with, start at the beginning kind of with intake, and talk to us a little bit about your intake process and how you use technology there.

Regina: Of course, and anyone I’m going to be referencing a PowerPoint, it’s not necessary to listen to the podcast. But if you do want to look at the PowerPoint, you can go to tinyurl.com/rietxbar. R I E are my initials. So tinyurl.com/rietxbar if you want to reference kind of, you know where I am in the PowerPoint presentation, but it’s not really necessary for this. So intake is really a good area, if you want to start with any area of your firm to try to kind of what I call techify firm.

So the easiest thing to do, I think, is to take kind of one spoke of the wheel. And this will be the intake wheel, and then really sort of apply tech to it, and then move on to other areas of your practice. Because if you try to do everything at once, it’s going to be very kind of overwhelm. And I’m glad this is focused towards family law attorneys, because usually I have a lot of caveats for PI and criminal, which I think takes a little bit of a different process than what I do. But I can tell you that this definitely works for family law.

So you design an intake process that best serves your firm and your client. And you have to identify your criteria. For example, I cannot work with people that are not tech-savvy. The only exception is I do do a ton of pro bono cases for domestic violence victims. And I meet those people where they’re at. Like, I’m not asking this poor woman that was just punched in the face to go to Kinko’s and, you know, PDF me something. I’m not doing that.

But for my paid clients, I ask them in the beginning of the process, if they are comfortable with technology, if they are comfortable with scanning, if they know how to scan into a PDF, and some people say no, and some people say I don’t want to do that, I want to drop off, you know, grocery bags full of paper. That’s great. I’m not the attorney for them. So I will refer them out. But that’s the client that I’ve decided that I want and that best fits with my business model.

Especially since we’re paperless and we’re flat fee we really need to maximize, you know, the fact that we, our money is supposed to be spent on working on the case not scanning documents. So that is something that’s going to be very personal to you to figure out who your ideal client is and how you want them to work with your firm and then you design an entire intake process, you know, based around that. So one issue with intake is, you know, a lot of times lawyers let clients go to voicemail that is where clients go to die.

A lot of people, a lot of people expect an immediate response. So people sometimes confuse immediate response to well, I need to call them or I need to answer the phone. That is absolutely not true. They just need to get an immediate response. So it’s coming from my firm, but it’s without me, it’s with me not lifting a finger. Which is, you know, kind of my goal during the intake process.

Holly: And it’s really without anybody lifting a finger, right?

Regina: Correct. So I’m on slide nine of my PowerPoint. So if you’re listening to the podcast, you may have seen a famous meme where there’s a couple sitting in a divorce lawyers attorney, and the guy says, I want half the value of the house and the kids every other weekend. The woman says I want him thrown into a vat of lava filled with special piranha that can live in lava. So the point of this is, I want the guy in this scenario and not the woman.

So we try to screen out from the beginning unreasonable people that have unreasonable expectations. And you can do that through an automated process. So I’ve included on slide 10, a pretty detailed intake process, and you don’t have to follow it exactly. But I’ll just kind of generally kind of tell you where mine is. The client visits my website, there’s a website chat available, or they call the office. My answering service does some initial screening, and I’ll talk about what’s in my intake form, then it goes to me.

And there’s also an automatic conflict check with law Maddix, which is what I use. I do not schedule anyone for consults at that point, even though I know a lot of attorneys are. Once they pass conflict checks, they’re signing people up for consultations. That’s just a personal choice, I wait until longer in the process. And that’s partly because I’m very, very picky about who I want as my clients and I’m getting about 15 to 30 calls a day.

So I can’t schedule all those people even if I wanted to. So I have to do some initial screening. Then after the conflict check, I actually do a quick review. And I’ll tell you guys how I do that of the clients and sort of screen them down. And then we go through the, you know, signing the agreement, retainer and all of that. So what I love about the answering service, is I can I give them instructions up front of cases to decline without even going any further.

For example, I do not handle cases where DFCS is involved. And DCFS stands for Department of Family and Children’s Services. I think other states call it CPS or something. I just don’t do it at any level for any reason for any amount of money. I just don’t. So I refer those out and I get about two or three calls like that per day. So that’s time that I’m saving my intake people calling them back.

So I have a detailed intake process map, which is on slide 11, if you want to review it, but it’s pretty much the mapped out visual version of what I just described. And you can actually download and copy it if you want to. So in terms of using software, the most important thing is, well, not the most important, but it should be affordable, it should be customizable. It should be very easy to use and monitor and comprehensive and it should integrate with what you’re already using.

So it’s possible that whatever system that you’re using, whether it’s PracticePanther, pretty much all of the case management systems are going to be able to do what I’m doing with lawmatics. I do not use a traditional practice management system, which is why I’m using lawmatics because there’s I don’t have that functionality anywhere else.

Holly: So if lawmatics is not a traditional practice management system. What is it?

Regina: So it’s a CRM. So they’re actually trying to become a traditional practice management system, because they have now added billing and they’re adding some some tasks and some workflows, they’re just not really there yet. So they started out with I think the creator of it actually created MyCase also. And then he sold MyCase. So it is essentially gathers data from potential clients and then sets up whatever workflows.

And the workflows are pretty much magic. But like I said, there’s plenty of other systems that do that. So don’t think that you have to switch if you already have. So Dubsado is a non-legal related CRM that I was using before Lawmatics, Clio. Clio grew. A ton of people have. They can do exactly what I’m going to describe doing with Lawmatics.

Holly: Yeah, that’s the one I use.

Regina: Yeah, and MyCase of Filevine is because pretty much all of the major practice management systems have some CRM at some point. I’ll talk briefly about online calendaring. I’ve included on slide 15, a list of all the different ones. I use Calendly and Acuity there’s a bunch of others. Doodle, Setmore, Bookafy, Appointedd. I personally just like Calendly and Acuity and there’s also some calendaring availability in Lawmatics as well.

But if you want someone to be able to just kind of jump on your calendar, and also scheduled themselves, you can do that. I personally do not because I don’t want people to just jump on my calendar. I need to pre-screen them. If you don’t mind people jumping on your calendar, you can send out a form and give them homework, you know, before they actually have the appointment.

So I’ve included on slide 16, an example of an intake form that describes, you know, this is what the phone consultation means, or this is what the Zoom conference is going to be. This is what you need to do in order to prepare for the meeting. So they’re getting all of that information as they’re scheduling the meeting. So for my intake forms, and this is on slide 17, but I have embedded in my intake forms the information that I absolutely need to know, other than the basics.

Obviously, I need to know the names, phone numbers, email, but I need to know what county they live in. Because I don’t practice all over Georgia. I’m very lazy, gas is expensive, I’m not doing it. So I practice mostly in Gwinnett. So I need to know what county the person that’s calling lives in. And I need to know what county the other side lives in. For venue purposes. I need to know if they have children with the other party because I really am declining a lot of custody cases and referring them out.

So if I can refer people out at that first level without me having to call them back. It’s great. I also want to know if there’s a case in progress. If they say yes, we are going to look it up before we call them back. So I can see if it’s a judge I hate, great, I can decline it. If it’s opposing counsel, I don’t want to work with I’m declining it. So that’s why that information is very vital to me. I also ask how do you plan to pay your fees.

So if we hear pro bono, the answering service can say we’re not accepting pro bono cases at the moment. And that’s it, they’re gone. So we give them an option, check, credit card, borrow from family, friends, borrow from the bank retirement funds, whatever it is, I at least need them to know that this is a business transaction. Like you can’t just call my firm and just ask me to work for free. And I know that sounds, I don’t know how that sounds. I don’t care at this point. But a lot of people do it.

And we really kind of head them off at the pass, very politely. I ask if there’s a potential that they and the other party can reach a full agreement on all issues. I don’t mind taking contested cases, but I am at this point in my career, I am not interested in the all-out knockout drag-out war. So I will decline, you know anything where there’s, you know, abuse allegations or parental alienation cases, because honestly, those are just very, very draining, and I don’t want to do them anymore.

So these questions, do kind of help screen those people out. And I say in order to provide fair flat fee billing, we are a paperless law firm. You have to be comfortable with email, scanning, and use of a client portal in order to be a client. I just noticed a typo, so I’m going to have to edit that later. Is that okay? And the client can say yes or no, and it’s fine if they say, no. We just refer them to someone else.

So these are the things that are important to me, they definitely don’t have to be important to you. But whatever is important to you put that in your initial screening form and your answering service or whoever’s doing the first pass at the client, it really can help sort of narrow the people that you actually have to call back. So you’re not calling back sort of cases that you really wouldn’t take anyway. So I have a script.

And I’m not going to go through my whole script, but the link for the script is in the PowerPoint. And it is extremely detailed for the answering service. So the more information I give them, the better. So what clients want to hear when they’re calling in family law cases, because they think it’s an emergency, and it’s absolutely not an emergency. But we have to at least let them feel like look, you’ve hated this person for 10 years, like you can wait 10 minutes for a callback people come on.

So but we do make sure that they get a response right away. And I think it’s a good idea to sort of set expectations. We don’t take any calls on the fly. We probably could I absolutely do not want to, number one, because I don’t want to. And number two, because it helps me get the client that I need. So if a client calls an attorney’s office and expects to talk to the attorney that second, that is not my ideal client, because that is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

And I need patient clients. I need clients that know that there’s going to be delays, there’s going to be sometimes we’re waiting for the court to do something. In general, they need to be patient people. So if I have someone call and demanding to talk to an attorney right now, we decline them from the beginning. But we do tell them that we only call people back during a one-hour time slot per day. And if they’ve missed today’s window, then they’ll get a call back the next day.

Like 95% people are okay with that. And 5% people aren’t, and they can go elsewhere and that’s totally fine. But whatever your expectations are, make sure that they are outlined in the script that you give the answering service and make sure that you can meet them. Don’t tell people you can call them back the next day if you if you’re not sure that you can. So I won’t go through my entire intake form but you can see how detailed it is.

Holly: I know you mentioned using an answering service. We have an answering service but it’s kind of a backup. In my experience with using an answering service was that they’re not always that good. And they’re not that great at appearing like they know that they’re part of us, you know. What have you done to alleviate that problem?

Regina: So I have a much higher tolerance, then from what I see a lot of attorneys complaining about their answering service. I’m like, look, y’all, your expectations are way too high. The answering service is the point of them is to gather information for you to be able to take it from there and do the next steps. So there’s some things that they shouldn’t be messing up, obviously. The name, the email address.

And because I have these very detailed intake forms, all they have to do is ask the questions on the intake form and fill them out. Like that’s it. From there, I feel like it’s on us. So that’s why I have these workflows that kick in immediately after. So on slide 21, my next one is they immediately get an email, which is point two five after which is an email and a text message, basically introducing them to my firm, giving them expectations going forward, and then sending them videos that are relevant to their case.

So at that point, honestly, the answering service kind of becomes irrelevant, because they’re not waiting for us to call back. We’re telling them what the next steps are, they’re getting information about our firm. And if, and I specifically say in my response, if this is a modification or a contempt, or it’s a case in progress, I need to see the documents that have been filed. So they already have been given homework and they have an upload link.

So at that point, it doesn’t really matter if the answering service wasn’t like super, super friendly. Or if they stumbled a bit over the script. Like it literally doesn’t matter. So and I know, people like have low tolerance for that, I just don’t. If they’re getting the information and putting them in the workflow. I’m good.

Holly: So does your system automatically take it from you know, the call center answering service plug stuff into a form? And the system can tell this is an intake for a potential client. And then these email triggers start. Or do you need to have a person, another person go in and start the workflow process?

Regina: So neither. So the answer is I put a delay on my response. So it’s about 15 minutes. So this is an example of an automatic response that they possibly could get. And this is just one example. And I’ve had a couple and this is on slide 24. But it’s, thank you for calling us blah, blah, blah, some nice words, here’s the link to send us some documents. You can read more about Regina here, here’s a video, here’s some stuff about custody cases, you can schedule a free 20-minute discovery call.

So within those 15 minutes, I sometimes go in and I stop the workflow because someone’s saying, I’ve got eight DUIs and I don’t understand why I have supervised parenting time with my kids. Yeah, we’re just gonna stop the workflow and just send you a nice declination from there. So that actually happens a lot. If the initial email goes out.

And it’s still a case that I don’t want, then I have another button that I just pushed, which is a decline. And I have a whole bunch of different reasons to decline. And I have a whole bunch of canned emails relevant to that declination. So if it’s, you know, they’re too far out of the county, I just hit one button, and they get a really nice email saying, I’m so sorry, we don’t service your area, here are some other resources. So the answer is the answering service will drop them into the workflow.

But there is a delay, so I can go in and delete, or add as necessary. But it’s not that huge a deal if it goes out. And I really don’t want the case because it says in that initial text, if there is a case that we end up not being able to help you with, we will send you a text and we will send you an email explaining why we can’t help. So I’ve kind of covered all of my bases. So slide 25 is just an example of all of the different sort of canned emails that I have. And honestly, it really doesn’t matter what my emails are.

The point is, it’s a lot. And it does take a while to sort of set up a system like this. But once it’s up and running, it’s extremely easy. It’s one button for me to refer to someone else. It’s one button for me to decline based on county. One advice, which has nothing to do with tech is don’t ever decline on the merit. Ever, ever, ever. Even if your staff talks to the person and they are just absolutely insane. You can’t say anything that makes it about them, even though it absolutely is about them.

So my favorite way to decline it, which covers all bases, because you can’t really do a consultation and say, oh, we don’t have space for this because they’re like, well, why did you do the consultation? So what I usually say is after reviewing the information you sent me and the notes, it’s our opinion that your case will take a great deal of time in the beginning, and we simply don’t have that time right now to dedicate to your case. And we need to refer you to someone else who may have the time that’s necessary to devote to your very important case.

So we try to make it seem like their case is very important, which it is. But the reason we’re declining them is because we don’t have time to dedicate to it at the beginning. So we don’t decline on the merit, we’re never going to decline on the merit. And I found that that’s an easy way to kind of avoid that one star Google review when people are mad that we won’t take their case.

Holly: So the chart you had with all the canned emails, what program are you using to do your canned email responses?

Regina: That’s Lawmatics. So I’ll talk about Lawmatics, next. But again, if you’re using Clio grow, or anything else, I am very sure they have the same thing, you just have to plug it into there. So my initial email is this, which says, hi, this is Regina Edwards with Edwards Family Law, we offer fair flat fees, if we can help, we will call you soon. If you reached us after hours or over the weekend, someone will call you the next business day. We close at 4pm daily and 12pm on Fridays.

If we can’t help we will text and email you. We need to review your court documents if there’s a case in progress and/or if you are trying to change or enforce a court order, and then we send the link for them to upload the document. And then we send our YouTube channel. So that’s the text that they get. And that is the email that they get. So no matter where they fall in the spectrum of if I want the case, if I don’t, this email sort of covers everything.

And it gives them expectations of what to expect going forward. We did just used to send emails and people don’t read emails. So we kept getting calls from people saying I called and I haven’t heard back and I would say, look, well, we sent you an email and they say, well I don’t read my email. Okay. So we started doing simultaneous texts and emails, and that really cut down on a lot of that. So people respond to the text when I’m referring them out. And they’re saying thank you, thank you for the referral.

My automation is set up so not only does the referral get an email, the referral source, gets a text and an email with the client’s name, information, all of that. And that’s just all done with a click of a button. So I use Lawmatics. So slide 29 is just sort of the visual pipeline. All of the CRMs have this. It initially goes into my pipeline, once I review it, I drag it over to the pipeline for my staff to call back.

And then I have a whole bunch of different ones like the fee agreement is sent. We’ve called them or waiting for a callback. The consult has been held, the consult has been scheduled. Just different sort of, you know funnels so we can see where everything is at any given time. And then we can just move them back and forth between the funnels. So I believe most CRMs have some sort of functionality like this, but it’s really helpful just to kind of see at a glance where everything is.

With Lawmatics I can, there’s an activity timeline. So every single action on the case is visible by everybody else in the firm. So that way, if one of my people is calling back, but they didn’t do the initial consult, they can immediately see what has gone on. Fee agreements, we send with two clicks, all we have to do is send in, all we have to do is add my name as the attorney and the client’s name. And it goes out. And I have different fee agreements for a bunch of different scenarios.

So I’ve got like about 10 of them. And we just send them out with a couple of clicks. So whatever program that you’re using, if you’re using a program is going to be able to do the same thing. It’s just a matter of taking the time to sort of build all of that out. And this is just an example of the sort of format on slide 33, the format of what the email looks like, because it’s kind of pretty stylized, and all that.

So it looks good on a phone and it looks good on the computer as well. So it has the information that they need. But it just kind of looks cute. So that’s kind of the end of my intake spiel. Just kind of general advice. After 22 years of doing this, it is okay to turn down clients for whatever reason. If your gut is saying, ooh, this person seems like a pain, the behind. I promise they are. It doesn’t get better. It’s like going out on a first date and the person like farts at the table and is rude to the waiter.

Like, I promise you, it’s all downhill from there, you’re not gonna want a second date. So if someone is kind of acting in a way that is really inappropriate in the beginning, just turn down the case. I mean, you’re not going to regret turning down a case. You will regret accepting some cases after you ignored your gut.

Holly: Right. I agree 100%. We have kind of a list of red flags that we give our intake people and some of them are hard like we’re definitely not taking this and some of them are just bring this to our attention. You know, this client mentions narcissist multiple times in this in the consult or the intake, I want to look at this before we sign them up. And I think for newer attorneys, especially, you may not know the red flags. Ask those of us that are more experienced. We can help you identify those red flags. Maybe you won’t make the same mistakes that we did.

Regina: Absolutely. And I find that the community, the family law community is super helpful. I mean, I definitely have, you know, mentees that call me and say hey, what do you think about this? You know, and I’m more than happy to give, you know, my opinion about it. I mean, it’s divorce law, we’re not going anywhere, there’s enough food for everybody. Um, so I don’t really see it as competitive. So I don’t mind you know, helping somebody out. So definitely, if you’re newer, don’t, you know, be afraid to reach out and ask somebody else about, you know, their opinion.

Voiceover: This episode of the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by the Draper Law Firm, providing family law litigation in Collin, Denton and Dallas counties and appeals across Texas. For more information, visit draperfirm.com, or call 469-715-6801.

Regina: So part two is about client communication and just kind of different ways to sort of communicate better with clients through tech. And what I want to emphasize is, is people think it’s sort of robotic, and it’s impersonal to kind of use tech to communicate, and I disagree. So it’s really to supplement the client experience.

And also, when you think about it, how many interactions do you have with people on Facebook or Instagram, where you kind of feel like you know the person even though you really never met them in person. So I think it’s sort of the same thing. So you may, especially if it’s, you’re following a celebrity, or there’s just someone that you just really enjoy following on Instagram. You know, you follow their relationship, and they break up, you’re like, oh, my gosh, what happened like you’re so you’re invested.

So I think there is a way to be personal, using technology. Obviously, it’s not going to replace all of it. But it can replace the things that it can replace. So you know, the goal is obviously not to completely take the lawyer out of the situation, but to automate as much as you can. And then obviously, fill in the gaps, but you’re really only doing what’s necessary to kind of, you know, keep the relationship going and move the case forward, taking up less than your time.

Holly: This an area that I know we could really stand to improve on. And I think, you know, how many times have I told, given the exact same spiel to a client about mediation or about discovery, or about whatever you say the same things over and over and over. And if you can automate that and have video or whatever, I can save a lot of time, I imagine.

Regina: Yes. So we’ll talk about that later. Because I highly advocate the use of videos. So one tool I do use, I have a digital business card, which is dibiz.com/regina. So if you go there, you’ll see my business card, it’s got videos, it’s got all of my information, you can download my information to your phone. But that’s what I give out instead of actual business cards. And I find it’s pretty helpful because the information is just all there.

My biggest thing in family law is you guys, gosh, you’ve got to get a communication policy. Because I hear all the time, this person calls me 58 times a day, and they’re calling me on my cell phone at you know, 2am in the morning. So it’s like, alright, well, let’s unpack this. How did they get your cell phone number. Problem number one. Don’t ever give your cell phone number. Just don’t do it, there’s just no reason to.

There’s enough tech tools that you can use to communicate information in a very timely fashion that goes to their phone that does not expose your phone number. And the thing is, it’s hard to sort of backtrack. If you start texting your client all the time, it’s hard, it’s hard to put on the brakes later on, because now they’re used to it. So the key is to cut that off from the very beginning.

So this is my communication policy, you don’t have to use it. You don’t have to like it, but you need to get a communication policy. So this is mine. We don’t accept unscheduled phone calls. I don’t care if Oprah Winfrey is calling. And once we do her prenup, she is not going to get me on the phone. She’s going to get my answering service. She’s gonna go into the funnel, I will review it. And obviously I will assign my paralegal to call her back immediately because I would consider that a priority call.

Holly: Oprah if you’re listening, I will take your call.

Regina: Yeah, Holly will take your call. That’s fine. Sorry, I just, I just can’t. And I’ve decided and people have asked, well, aren’t you worried about losing clients? My answer is always no. And they say, well, don’t you think people call someone else? I’m like, yes, but that’s not what you asked me. You asked me if I was worried about it. And I’m not. I do not care. So I get enough calls that it’s okay. If someone is impatient and they want to call someone else, that’s fine. That’s not my ideal client. So we don’t accept unscheduled phone calls.

My communication policy is written I give it to them a bunch of different ways that we’ll talk about. And I explain why. And the easiest way to get buy-in is we don’t say, well, we don’t want you calling and bothering us. Like that’s obviously not what we’re doing. What we’re saying is look when I’m doing deep work on your case, when I’m focusing on your case, preparing your case for mediation, preparing your case for trial, I don’t want someone else calling in or interrupting my flow.

And trust me, you don’t want that either. Because when I’m in my flow like that’s only going to help you. So that’s how we explain the communication policy. And we really are able to get buy-in. So this is my policy, I explain what an emergency is, if your kids have actually been kidnapped, like by a cartel or something, not that your husband decided to take the kids to his mom’s house for the weekend, that’s not kidnapping folks.

So that’s not an emergency. So we define what an emergency is and what people need to do, if there actually is an emergency. No one’s ever used this policy in 13 years of having it because it’s never an emergency. So we say yes, these things are important. But these are not things that, you know, we need to respond to on the weekend or after hours. It can wait. So in terms of actually getting that policy out, these are all the ways that I do.

It’s in my email signature, it’s in my email auto-response. It’s in my videos, which is in my client guide as well. It’s in automatic drip campaigns, it’s in the fee agreement. It’s in the firm guide, it’s in the texts that they get. And there’s probably a whole bunch of other ways that you can give the communication policy that I haven’t thought of. But those are just a few. So, you know, it’s not a surprise, in terms of, you know, I didn’t know that you did not accept phone calls.

So slide 45 is one of my email signatures where it says email is checked twice a day, and not after hours on weekends. And it says we close Fridays at noon. So that’s always in my email signature. That lets everybody know, opposing counsel, judges, you know, this is when I check emails, and we’re just not available after hours and weekends, it’s not really a problem.

This is another example of an email signature where I, for example, I have spring break coming up. I don’t even have kids, but I take my vacation along with the spring break schedule of Gwinnett. County, because usually, that’s when the judges are out anyway, and my clients are out. So I just kind of sync my vacations with spring break of the county that I’m in. But it’s in my email signature. We are closed April 4th to 14th for spring break. So it’s not a surprise to anybody.

And of course, before we go on break, we’ll make sure that the case is at a point where there’s no reason for them to be contacting within 10 days. We’re either gonna do the mediation or do whatever we need to do before we leave. Or we’ll at least set the mediation for after we come back and say, look, we’re on vacation now, but your mediation is scheduled for April 16th. And we have a preparation meeting on April 15th.

So even though there’s a gap of time where we’re not going to be responding, their needs are going to be taken care of ahead of time. And the link to my client guide is there as well. And I have an auto-reply on the weekends. We close Fridays at noon, we respond to all messages on Monday, and I leave the intake forms and the client guide there as well.

So it’s just kind of a way to sort of deploy the client guide. And on slide 48, you can see examples of my client guide. If you just want to download it, it’s tinyurl.com/eflguide, and it changes all the time. And that’s because things happen all the time where I need to change it. So what I like about this is the link never changes. But obviously I can add things to the guide. And the client is always getting a updated version.

Holly: So is your guide, I noticed you have a timeline in there for the case. Do you have a different client guide for each different type of case that you have or have you found a way to make it sort of applicable to all of your family law matters?

Regina: This is pretty applicable to all my family and law matters. And not only that is I always beat this timeline. So unless it’s a really knockdown, drag-out fight, it is very rare that I have a case that takes longer than a year. Even though that might be standard for I think other firms, especially if you’re billing hourly. So in general, most of my cases last about six to eight months, because I’m super motivated to get it done. Like I don’t even wait for discovery requests to come.

I tell my client you need to gather this, this and this and this because it’s coming. Because once I get the discovery request, we’ve already gathered a whole bunch of things. And we can respond to discovery usually well before the deadline because we’ve already planned for that. So my foot is always on the gas and trying to get these cases out and done. And I think our clients kind of appreciate that.

But having a timeline hope so they can see sort of where they are in the process. And you know, I love being able to send in closing letter and saying, hey, we estimated your case would take a year I’m so happy we were able to get you your results within eight months or you know, whatever. So the communication policy is also in my client guide as well as a big list of what to do and what not to do. Your list may be different.

I have something in bold red here written, which I had to add two weeks ago. Do not under any circumstances, email the other side’s attorney, do not contact the judge or file things on your own. Because I had a client that thought it would be really good idea to send a really horrible email to his wife, copy the other attorney on it and then file something with the court. So I quickly had to withdraw.

So then I added that because I thought that was common sense, but it’s not. So I’ve added that to my client guide that these are things that you just don’t do. So you can add obviously whatever you want to your client guide but I think it is helpful to have one and then you’re not repeating the same things over and over again. So it’s like, how do I do this? How do I do that? You could just send them a link.

You know, great question, here’s the link, instead of going to your whole spiel over again. So the next thing I kind of wanted to talk about was sort of techifying discovery responses. And this is something that you probably would just want to go to my channel to look at the video, because there’s no really way to kind of describe how awesome it is to be honest.

But I use Pipefile. And I have a discount code, which is beach law. But what it does is it gathers all the documents for you pretty easily. So you, all you’re really doing is entering in your client’s email, and the request and you send them a link, and they upload to those particular folders. So in Texas, do they have mandatory disclosures?

Holly: Yes.

Regina: Okay, so you would love this. So we have this in one of our counties in Fulton which are mandatory discovery disclosures, which I mean, they don’t change. So you pre-load them into the system, and then all we have to do is send it to the client. So it’s just a couple of clicks, and then they get all of these requests. And these are, you know, what our county requires. The financial affidavit, the tax returns, w two forms, pay stubs, and then the client uploads to those particular sections.

So the benefit of this versus you just saying, hey, here’s the request, and here’s a link to upload stuff, they’re just gonna vomit a whole bunch of crap on you, and you have to go through, yes, rename it and organize it everything else. But Pipefile does it for you. So it will create folders based on whatever you call it. So, for example, you know, interrogatories, is everything will go in there. Or business, anything related to the business, it goes into that folder.

And it also will tell you, it’ll give you a check mark, a green checkmark, if the client has completed that section, or red X, if you have not. Which is this has cut down so much time, because I’m sure we’ve all experienced this in family law. You send them the request, you send them, hey, give us this stuff, they give you like three pieces of paper. And they’re like, you know, you didn’t give us everything.

I don’t know what you want for me. And it’s like, you can keep referring back them back to their request. But honestly, they don’t want to do that work. So this system does the work for you. So they have to actively upload documents into this folder or say it’s not applicable in order for it to be closed, you know, with a checkmark. And then as the attorney you can go in and you can, you can change it.

So for example, if they upload, if it asked for pay stubs for the last one year, and you only get one pay stub, you can say you can reopen the request. And then just add a quick note, you gave us x we need y and z. So it’s very, very clear to them what we need. And it just, it’s so much easier.

Holly: Will this integrate with like Dropbox, or Ignite or something?

Regina: Yes, I’ll get to that. It does. So the benefit of this is again, you can go in and accept or reject for any reason. I only accept a PDF documents so they can’t upload JPEGs. You can turn off that feature if you don’t want to be as ornery as me. But you know, if something is blurry and you can’t see it, you can reject it and say this is blurry, please try again. So it, it just sort of cuts back on the emails. And it cuts back on a lot of the time, because otherwise I was having my paralegal write these very detailed letters about what was missing. And there was just this disconnect.

They weren’t reading it, they weren’t going through it thoroughly and marking things off. They would go through the letter and then send us four out of the 12 things that we asked. And then we were constantly having to go back through and figure out what was missing. So this makes it a lot easier. The client can also navigate through the system to see what is approved and what’s rejected. It’s literally idiot-proof.

And the bottom line is when you’re done, you’re going to get a completed folder that you can export to Dropbox to Google Drive, or to just a zip file. I use a zip file because I use Ignite. So I just take the zip file and just shove it into my system. But yes, it will export directly into Dropbox, if that’s what you want. So it’s completely organized already.

So the folders will contain the documents that are relevant to that particular section. And we’ve had really, really good feedback from our clients about this in terms of it’s really, really easy to use it and my perception is if people aren’t using it is they just don’t want to give you the document.

So we can weed that out pretty quickly. But it definitely cuts down on the back and forth because when we say I don’t know what you’re missing, it’s like yes, you do. Click on the link and it says specifically what you’ve given us and what is missing. So that has really shrunk down the discovery process for us, which allows us to sort of move the case forward, super quickly.

Holly: Does it give people an option of, for example, I need your pay stubs for last year? Well, they weren’t working the whole year. So they don’t have pay stubs. Does it give them the option of saying, I don’t have any pay stubs for these months.

Regina: Yes. They can put it in the notes. And then they can also, you know, in the actual responses, they can do that as well. So we’re looking at the responses. So if they put in the responses, I’ve only been working at this place for six months, then we’re not going to ask them for pay stubs for a year. So when my paralegal is going through it, she’s obviously looking at their responses, as well as the documents they given to make sure that we’re not asking for something that they say they don’t have.

That’s honestly rarely the case. It’s just usually they just didn’t feel like getting it or like, it’s, it’s too burdensome. I don’t want to have to do it’s like, well, you’re getting divorced, and you’ve been married 20 years, so you got to give it up. All right. So another thing I’d like to talk about is automating client communication.

And on slide 68, and also on my YouTube channel, you’ll see a video which I’m not going to play, but it’s a video on how to fill out your financial affidavit. So I’m assuming in Texas, there’s, you have to fill out something that says what your income is, your assets are, things related to the children, because it’s relevant for child support and/or alimony purposes. So same thing here. It’s very detailed.

I go through step by step how to fill out the financial affidavit. And this link is included in their client guide, or if someone doesn’t read it, which is probably like half the people anyway, and says, I don’t know how to fill this out, it’s like, great, thanks for asking, here’s the link. Then they have it, so you don’t, you know, we’re not spending a lot of time, you know, going through all of that. So I’m a huge fan of sending videos of things to clients to kind of, you know, expand their knowledge without it taking up any of our time.

The next few are examples of starting on slide 73 of things that I use in my practice to sort of help with the workflow. This is really just kind of a souped-up task list. I use a monday.com for this. But if you are using any practice management system, you’re going to have some system that allows you to do it. So there’s different sort of philosophies of how to apply workflows. Some people will start with a date of events, and then have a bunch of tasks that go backwards in time based on that date.

I personally don’t do it that way. But if you are doing it that way. So for example, if you have a trial on April 3, then you would have a task that says, you know, financial affidavit needs to be completed, whatever your rule is 10 days prior, and then go backwards from there in terms of when to get the information and when to send it to the client, etc. I personally don’t like to do it that way. Because it gets very unwieldy for me. I just have a task list. And before trial, I just go through and I just make sure that everything is done.

It usually only takes me about an hour or two at the most prepare for trial, which people think is insane. But because we’ve kind of prepped the stuff all along, that’s really all it takes. And I can go through and I can just slaughter this task list in a very short amount of time. So if you want a copy of the task list, it’s on slide 73. It probably will work for your jurisdiction, because I’m assuming all jurisdictions you have to have a parenting plan, child support worksheet, child support addendum, whatever it is that you call it.

But whatever it is, in your case, there’s going to be a checklist because you know, even though we are, you know, we like to think of ourselves as innovators, there’s some commonalities in all cases. So if you have a task list, just make sure that you know all of it is, is checked off and done. So you’re not forgetting anything. And I let the client see the task list so they can see what we’re doing as we’re going along.

So, kind of the last thing I’ll talk about is I like to give transparency to my clients. So one of the ways I do that is I kind of took this idea of a task list, and I created it in a document, and it’s a Google Doc. And I’ve also have one in Excel as well. And it has all of the information about their case. And it’s helpful for us so we can see on one piece of paper sort of where everything is.

But we also give the client access to it because it’s a Google sheet, so they can see as well. So we include information about, you know, basic information about where the county is, the judge, the next court date, etc. but also information about their children, what the current status is, and what the next steps are. So they don’t have to ask us what are we doing, what’s going on, because it will always be updated.

And all they have to do is click that same link. And they can see. Then we have different modules for the different areas of the case. These are all the things that we have to do for onboarding, these are all the things that we have to do for the initial filing.

These are all the things that we have to do for discovery. And they can see as things are getting checked off. Same thing for mediation, prep, trial prep, it’s all there and they can see it. We have a marital balance sheet and it’s within that same document that they can look at as well. So we don’t ask them to fill it out. We just ask them to look at it.

So we find it super helpful when we’re going through our mediation prep to pull up the marital balance sheet to make sure that everything is correct. So they can visually see what our offer represents. And then sometimes during mediation, I use it to visually show them what the other side’s offer is. So we can say, oh, that’s insane. They want you to only take 20% of the assets. Or sometimes it’s the opposite, it’s I don’t think they’ve done the math.

I think you’re coming out ahead on this, let’s not share that sheet with them, but will just say yes, and sign and run for the hills. So I really like sort of having these sort of visual aids throughout the case and to give to the client, so they can see kind of what we’re doing, you know, as the case is progressing, and they usually have fewer questions,

Holly: Do you usually have a different spreadsheet for each different kind of case, or is it sort of one size fits all?

Regina: It’s sort of one size fits all. So I’d rather delete than add. So I just have a huge one, which is family law with children. And I do have one without children too. But as I go along, I’ll just delete what’s not necessary. So if I’m showing this marital balance sheet to a client, and they don’t have any retirement accounts, I just delete that section. So it’s easier to just delete chunks than to add them later. So I just kind of start with a big bloated thing with everything. And I just delete down as necessary.

So you know, they don’t feel bad about all these different categories of assets, stocks, that they just don’t have. So I’ll talk a little bit about trial preparation, and how I use tech for that I don’t. I got crazy with the automations here. So I’m a huge proponent of proposed orders and proposed findings. I give them to the judge ahead of time I give them to the client ahead of time, and I share them on my screen using PowerPoint during trial.

And it helps organize your thoughts and drive the case, I think it helps keep you on track. We’ve all had those cases where you’re going you have this agenda, you get everything written down and you end up down some crazy rabbit hole that you’ve never saw coming and you kind of have to get back to Main Street.

So I feel like having the proposed order in front of you sort of gets you back to Main Street and make sure that the evidence that you’re presenting all relates to really what the case is about. And sometimes the other side is sending you down a rabbit hole on purpose because they don’t want bad facts to come out about them. So they’re just kind of muddying the waters.

But I think having sort of a clear direction, written direction of where this case should be going, I think is very helpful. Also showing it to the client ahead of time is helpful, because that means you don’t forget anything like Buffy the dog or you know, whatever. Everything is on there, they’ve approved it. So they at least know that everything that they are asking for has been put in front of the judge. Whether or not the judge agrees is totally different story.

But at least they’re not leaving saying oh my goodness, you forgot to ask about my broken Christmas ornament from 1955. Like, all the things that are important to the client are going to be on there. Communicating with clients during the hearing, if you’re on Zoom. I don’t know that people I did not know that people did not know that the chat feature is not private. So even if you’re chatting with someone, and you’re just using their name, it’s not private.

So the person that hosts the meeting, which is usually the judge can see it. So it’s fine if you need to send a quick message, like sit up straight or take your hat off, or get out of bed. But nothing else. And you definitely can’t communicate with them while they’re giving your testimony because you can’t coach them and definitely not saying anything derogatory about the other side or judge.

But I did find out recently that someone didn’t know that. So these are the tools that I use either text, portal, a shared Google Doc, Google Hangouts, or Slack in order to communicate with the client during the Zoom hearing. I do like to remind people, if you don’t know how to try a case of Zoom or in person it’s going to show. And it is kind of glaring on Zoom, because we’ve all seen people sort of fumble with exhibits. And I’ll just give a quick overview of some ideas for exhibits to make that a little bit easier before we close.

So I pre-number all of my exhibits. I’ve decided a long time ago, I am not the kind of person that can number exhibits on the fly. I don’t care if they are out of order, I don’t care if I’m missing one. They’re all getting pre-numbered once the stickers on there it’s not coming off. I also like to make them very, very detailed. For example, you know, number one, you have the date, final consent modification order and parenting plan.

Email from mom to stepmom regarding February dates, just very, very specific in case the judge needs to take something under advisement and they’re looking for something particular, it’s gonna be really irritating for them if you get 12 emails and they’re all entitled email between parties. So I make them very, very specific in the title names to kind of help everybody out. I digitally insert the exhibit numbers and I use a PDF portfolio. Where is that. I use a PDF portfolio to show the exhibits.

So this is Foxit Reader so I can have the list of exhibits on the left side and I can just click through them immediately because I have seen people that are using Dropbox and they’re closing in and out of files. And it honestly looks pretty unwieldy and a tad unprofessional. So if you have a PDF portfolio, all you have to do is share your screen once. You don’t have to keep clicking out of your screen to show exhibits.

It’s just all of your PDFs can fit in one portfolio, you can see the name of the exhibit on the left side and the actual exhibit on the first side. And you can just click through them very seamlessly. So I have found that that is super helpful. Judges love it and makes you look really organized. That’s just kind of my advice in terms of if you have a whole bunch of PDFs to show, definitely do it in a portfolio, because it’s going to make it go a lot easier.

Holly: Do you do the same if you’re going to a hearing in person, do you just electronically share it?

Regina: Correct. Yes. So if I’m going to hearing in person, so one of the reasons I like Gwinnett also is because they have had this technology for at least I think 12 years where all you have to do is plug in a dongle to your computer, and you can share your screen on the screens in the courthouse. So well before Zoom hearings, I was still doing this electronic presentation of, of exhibits.

So I will send a Dropbox link of the exhibits to opposing counsel at least a week in advance and I say I am not bringing hard copy or not doing it. I’m not wasting trees. If you want to, you can go ahead and kill trees over there because I’m not doing it. So I really only bring one hard copy to court which is for the judge. But I will send the judge a link if they asked for it, and I send the court reporter a link as well.

But in the courtroom, I can share on the TV screens the exhibit and it just makes it a lot easier. Because if you have another side that’s being you know, they really don’t want to see like I have an exhibit here. That’s called Liar McLiar Pants. And they want to say, oh, I can’t read the number on that exhibit, you know, I can say, you know, are you sure and I can blow that sucker up. So they really can see it.

So yes, even in person, I am definitely using technology during my trials. I’m using PowerPoint to do opening statements. I’m using, all of my exhibits are electronically shared. I find it just, you know, honestly, is a pretty sort of impressive presentation. Because with family law, you know, obviously, I’m not going to win every case. But I think if the client knows, you sort of laid it out there.

And they can visually see all of the hard work that you have done to prepare your case, that is going to satisfy you know a lot of them and just say, well, at the end of the day, the judge didn’t see it our way. As opposed to you know, if you’re fumbling around, if you can’t find exhibits, if there’s something that’s really important that is not getting presented to the judge, that is what is going to stick in the client’s mind.

And they are going to be convinced the reason they didn’t win custody is because you didn’t present a bank statement from you know, 16 months ago. So I just kind of, to eliminate all of that this sort of helps with all that. So they know we have laid it all out there. And at that point, it’s out of our hands.

Holly: So I very much aspire to use technology in the courtroom in that way. My fear, and I’m curious how you got past this, maybe you never had this fear. But my fear is that I’m going to show up with my one copy for the judge, and I’m going to be prepared to present it all electronically and something doesn’t work.

Regina: That has not happened yet. But that’s why I always have at least one copy. Because the worst thing that happens is I just got to get more steps on my Fitbit by walking around the courtroom. You know, showing it to opposing counsel and then to the judge, then to the court reporter. So to me, that’s the worst that can happen. So as as long as the worst-case scenario, isn’t that bad, I’m fine with it. But I have not, knock on wood, I have not had that happen yet.

And that’s one of the reasons I really only want to practice in this particular county is because their IT department is on it. And if I have a trial where I need to use technology, and if for some reason it’s not working in that courtroom, they’ll move me to another courtroom to make sure that it works. So, but yes, definitely have a backup plan just in case technology fails you.

Holly: And I think sharing exhibits in advance certainly eliminates some of the risk of technology not working because the other side has had a chance to see it. And then you have your one copy. But yeah, that’s my one hesitation of truly diving all in on that. But so we’re just about out of time. But I wanted to ask you I have one last question I ask everybody who comes on the podcast, and that is if you could give one piece of advice to young family lawyers, what would it be?

Regina: I say the same thing anytime anyone asks me and it is you don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. And that sticks in my head a lot. So you know, sometimes you’ll get opposing counsel that just wants to argue about everything. And if I get an email and I look at it and it has nothing to do with advancing the case forward, it’s just your client is a piece of crap and here’s all the reasons the client is a piece of crap.

But there’s nothing in there about advancing the case forward. For example, you know, he hasn’t paid child support and we need him to pay child support. I don’t, I treat arguments like parties. It’s like I can just decide to go or not. So sometimes my response is just have a nice day or I’m feeling extra, I’ll just say be best. But I just I don’t engage in that. It’s not good for my mental health. It’s not good for my clients for me to get into a pissing contest with the other attorney.

It’s not helpful. I don’t know anyone that’s ever been shamed or you know chastised by a govern yourself accordingly, type of, you know, correspondence. Like, who are we doing that for? You’re just doing it to show your client, you’re big and bad. And if that’s the kind of dynamic you want to have with your client, that’s fine. I don’t have to buy into it.

So knowing when you don’t have to respond, I think is a skill that you learn, you know, as you grow older. And at this point, people know me and people know who I am. And they know they’re not going to bait me into a stupid argument. And they know I’m charging a flat feet. So I’m sure as hell not gonna go back and forth with you 15 times when I’m not getting paid for it.

Holly: Well, I think that is excellent advice. So where can our listeners go if they want to learn more about you?

Regina: So you know, if you go, if you sign up for lawyer on the beach group. It’s only for lawyers. Sometimes it takes me a while to go through and admit people, so, but you can always reach out to me there. We have a lot of resources. It’s a great community. If you have questions about technology, or really anything related to the practice of law. We also talk a lot about life/work balance. It’s just kind of a great community I think of attorneys we’ve assembled there, but that’s the best way to reach me.

Holly: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know I’m personally going to go dive in on the discovery piece of our discussion as soon as we get off, but for our listeners, if you enjoyed this podcast, please take a second to leave us a review and subscribe to enjoy future episodes.

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