In this week’s podcast, LEGALTECH MATTERS host Adriana Linares talks with Liz McCausland, former insurance defense attorney and now solo practitioner specializing in bankruptcy. Liz discusses the importance of networking and building relationships in one’s personal and professional life – and the tech tools that enable her to run her solo practice. Read transcript
The Power of Networking, Relationships, and Tech for Firms of All Sizes
On Fri 13 Jan 2023Meet our Host and Guest
Adriana Linares
President LawTech Partners
Adriana is the President and founder of the consulting group, LawTech Partners; she has worked as a legal technology and practice management consultant for several years.
Liz McCausland
Owner Liz McCausland, P.A.
Liz was a partner in a mid-sized insurance defense firm when she left to start Liz McCausland PA, where she concentrates on bankruptcy and mediation. She has practiced law for over 20 years, is a Past President of the Orange County Bar Association, and serves on the Executive Council of the Florida Bar’s Solos Small Firm section.
Welcome to LEGALTECH MATTERS, a literary podcast dedicated to creating conversations about trends, technology, and innovation for modern law firms and companies big and small.
00:00:14:03 - 00:00:36:18
Adriana Linares
Welcome to another episode of LEGALTECH MATTERS. My name is Adriana Linares. I'm one of the hosts of this Litera podcast. A couple of months ago, I interviewed Rick Keller, who is a former congressman and an attorney in Florida. We talked about his book and the power of networking, and we spent a few minutes talking about another attorney who happens to be a dear friend of mine and actually introduced me to Rick.
So I thought it'd be great to bring Liz McCausland on to follow up a little bit on Rick's episode and the things he talked about. But really importantly, Liz is one of the most amazing and talented human, not including her lawyering work. She's busy, she's active, and she's very tech savvy, which I think is an important part of the discussion that I want to have with her today.
So welcome, Liz. Hi.
00:01:03:05 - 00:01:04:24
Liz McCausland
Hi. Thank you. I appreciate it.
00:01:05:05 - 00:01:17:18
Adriana Linares
Oh, man, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. So, Liz McCausland, you're an attorney in Florida. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your practice and especially deciding to go solo real quick, if you don't mind throwing that in there in your short, short bio.
00:01:18:03 - 00:01:41:04
Liz McCausland
Okay. I'll try to keep it brief. I am what I call a recovering insurance defense attorney. I started my practice doing insurance defense. I did that. I worked my way up to being a partner and then realized that that really wasn't my calling. It was why I became a lawyer. So, I switched entirely and started practicing bankruptcy. And I mediate as well.
And I blended those two together. And I have kind of a niche practice where I mediate mortgage modifications in bankruptcy. I helped start a program that is now in more than five states where people who are having problems paying their mortgage can seek a mortgage modification in bankruptcy.
00:01:59:04 - 00:02:07:17
Adriana Linares
What do you mean? You helped to start a program that sounds entrepreneurial and the type of thing that another lawyer might say. How did she have the time to do that?
00:02:08:10 - 00:02:29:15
Liz McCausland
Yeah. So in 2010, when I switched my practice to bankruptcy, we were having an unprecedented amount of foreclosures. They were kind of clogging up the bankruptcy system because a lot of people were saying, I keep trying to get a mod but the bank will get back with me. And so, our court had the foresight to create a committee to look into it.
And I was on that committee. We started the program in Orlando, Florida, just in the middle district division there. And it was so successful. I think at that time we were getting 75% approvals, mortgage modification. So, we were keeping a lot of people in their house.
00:02:46:02 - 00:02:47:24
Adriana Linares
Wow. Yeah, that's impressive.
00:02:48:04 - 00:03:16:21
Liz McCausland
Yeah. So since it was a problem throughout the country, some other Florida adopted it throughout Florida and then some other states adopted it and now it's still going strong. We used to travel and teach the other states how to start their program, teach the attorneys how to modify mortgages. And we haven't done that lately, thanks to COVID. But we're looking at trying to get back involved in that, especially post-COVID, with a lot of people having suffered from not being able to pay their mortgages.
Adriana Linares
That certainly sounds like a worthy cause, which you get behind a lot of worthy causes. Liz, I don't know how you do it all, but I just saw on Facebook that you successfully completed your gift drive. That's among the many, many things that you do, which is, you know, running your small practice, being a technology consultant for other attorneys, active with the Florida Bar solo small firm committee.
On top of that, you managed to do a gift drive for some needy children. So that's pretty amazing. Talk to us about Rick Keller and why he is a good friend and an important figure in your life. He and I touched on it briefly, but I really thought it was a story for you to tell.
00:04:00:12 - 00:04:28:15
Liz McCausland
Okay. Well, now, Rick is one of my dearest friends. Rick was a congressman in 2005 when I got a call that my mom, who had traveled back to Vietnam for a family wedding, was missing. And after a little bit of digging, we found out that she had been pulled over on the way to the wedding and arrested. And, you know, we had not gotten any report of her arrest.
It was when family members noticed that she didn't show up for the wedding and did a little digging. And I tell people all the time, there's no handbook for when that happens.
00:04:38:07 - 00:04:38:13
Adriana Linares
Sure there’s not.
00:04:38:13 - 00:04:55:14
Liz McCausland
I had no idea what to do. Like, how do you report a person missing in a foreign country? So, the call came in the middle of the night due to the hours’ time difference. And so called the State Department. They weren't open yet. I mean, it was it was a flurry of activity in the beginning.
And in the beginning, we were told this happens all the time. She's an American citizen. They will charge a fine. Sure, sir. And those words became, you know, days became weeks, weeks became months. And Rick, as I mentioned, was the congressman at the time. We had a senator at the time, Mel Martinez, who was a child, who had left Cuba, had made sure of Cuba many years ago.
So he understood what a communist government was like. And I was just very fortunate at the time to have the two of them in office and help me navigate all of that. She ended up being in prison for 14 months.
Not charged with a crime for many of those months. Wow. Wasn't until right before her release that she was actually charged with anything. And that was as a result of some negotiations that Rick did. Rick and Mel and I just was very fortunate at the time that Vietnam was applying for permanent trade with the United States, and we had some bargaining power.
She was released and brought home. But at first, when, you know, our deal was she would be found guilty and then released. And she was found guilty and then sentenced. Wow. Work camp. And my mom is so scary. Six days and with heart problems and everything else. And Rick called me up and, you know, very late one night and said, they are saying they're going to send her to a work camp.
And I think it's basically a game of chicken. They want to see if we're going to release her. But if we release her, then we have no guarantee that, you know, if we go forward with the vote, we have no guarantee they'll release her.
00:06:40:15 - 00:06:42:03
Adriana Linares
And interesting, you.
00:06:42:06 - 00:07:01:17
Liz McCausland
Know, he's like, my bags are packed. I'll go up and hold up the vote and what you want me to do? And so I asked him to give me a night. And the next day they did release her. Wow. Or I had to make a decision. But Rick was, you know, ready to fly and stop the vote on permanent trade with Vietnam.
And he even had a conversation with them about what that would do to them if the permanent trade wasn't in place.
00:07:09:09 - 00:07:17:00
Adriana Linares
It's unbelievable. It's just amazing that you had these two I mean, they must have been strangers at the time. Right.
00:07:17:14 - 00:07:19:07
Liz McCausland
They were strangers, you know.
00:07:19:07 - 00:07:20:05
Adriana Linares
In your corner.
00:07:20:13 - 00:07:45:09
Liz McCausland
I came to them through friends. And ironically, I'd gone to law school with Rick's brother, but didn't really know him well. And but in the end, it was. I came through to them through mutual friends, really good friends. And my law partner. And in the end, I still owe so much to both of them. I still, of course, just a debt that I don't think I can ever repay.
But their friendship means the world to me now.
00:07:48:06 - 00:08:07:11
Adriana Linares
And I can't imagine they're looking for you to repay that debt. I'm sure they're very happy with the outcome. And on the anniversary of your mom's release, you always, always go out of your way to publicly thank them over and over again for everything they did. It's a harrowing story. It's really amazing that something like that could happen.
But back to what I say all the time, which is forming relationships and networking, and you never know who you're going to meet or who you're going to become friends with. That's going to be able to help you in situations like that, or even less serious situations, which I can't imagine, you know, thinking of anything more serious than something like that happening to our moms.
But no one recognizes more than you do how important relationships and networking are. And I think it's the type of thing that young attorneys especially have to hear, because a lot of times they think, well, I'm going to get my clients and my resources and everything through social media. I'm going to do some advertising. You want to talk for just a minute about how important networking and relationship building has been to you and your entire career so far, apart from what we just spoke about.
But just it's really part of who you are is building relationships and bridges.
00:08:58:19 - 00:09:18:24
Liz McCausland
I in fact, when I was the Orange County Bar president, which was kind of the theme of my year because if anything, what I learned through bar service was that the relationships you build can help you down the road and you never know how. So, I would have thought I would have had to call on those relationships to get my mom home.
But on top of that, I never would have been able to open my practice. You know, here I am, a litigation attorney who totally switches what she does and becomes a bankruptcy attorney who's going to send a bankruptcy case to me. Of course, I didn't network in those fields. And so but what I found is I have never advertised I've never had a drip campaign or anything because I get all of my clients through word of mouth, either through past clients or through other attorneys.
And that is the number one thing I tell all young attorneys is your number one referral source a lot of times will be other attorneys who don't do what you do.
00:09:59:03 - 00:10:15:04
Adriana Linares
It's true. And it's funny that you brought that back up again because I had made a note when you introduced yourself to ask you what made you decide, okay, I understand why you decided to leave a bigger firm and being a partner. That can be really stressful. But you could have stayed in an area of law that you were familiar with.
What made you do a total pivot? Why did you pick bankruptcy? Was it scary? I mean, I know the answer is going to be yes, but walk us do that, because I'm sure there's a lot of attorneys out there thinking about doing something like this to actually take the leap. Must be, you know, it's terrifying.
00:10:33:11 - 00:10:54:00
Liz McCausland
Oh, I remember my dad saying, why don't you open your own firm? I'm like, No, I've never thought about doing that. But again, I go back to relationships. So, what happened was I was at my firm and a friend of mine did coverage for a South Florida attorney where she would go to the bankruptcy court when he couldn't go.
And there was a day where she couldn't go, and she asked me to go for her. And she, as my friend, knew that once I went, I would never try to take her business, you know, to contact the guy and kind of.
00:11:07:23 - 00:11:08:10
Adriana Linares
Sure.
00:11:09:01 - 00:11:21:07
Liz McCausland
So, I would go to these hearings and everyone there was so nice. All the parties were working together. You know, it was very different than the opposite. Yes. Litigation is not always civil.
00:11:21:11 - 00:11:24:17
Adriana Linares
Yeah. I was just going to say I like to call it uncivil litigation. Yeah.
00:11:25:09 - 00:11:38:10
Liz McCausland
Yeah. And in bankruptcy, everyone's kind of working together. And I thought, this is such a nice court. Well, the bankruptcy judge was Judge Gennimen, and I knew her from a women's lawyer group.
00:11:38:19 - 00:11:39:09
Adriana Linares
There we go.
00:11:39:17 - 00:11:54:20
Liz McCausland
I called her up and I asked her to lunch, and I told her I was thinking about leaving my practice and doing something. And I was exploring bankruptcy. And she immediately said, do it. We need you. Oh, not only that's.
00:11:54:20 - 00:11:55:11
Adriana Linares
Encouraging.
00:11:55:21 - 00:12:05:11
Liz McCausland
Yeah. And not only that, when I got back to my office, she had reached out to another practicing attorney and said, you will mentor this girl.
00:12:05:16 - 00:12:06:06
Adriana Linares
Wow.
00:12:06:15 - 00:12:30:13
Liz McCausland
Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure to this day, this attorney would have loved to have said no. But when the judge suggests that she's going to mentor, she's going to mentor. And now that that attorney is a trustee here locally. So I started kind of down that path and I was just going to do it in at my firm in conjunction with my other work.
They were always open to me bringing any kind of business in.
00:12:34:17 - 00:12:47:16
Adriana Linares
That's great. Very supportive. You've always said that about your previous partners in that firm, that they were really important in helping you grow as an attorney and always so supportive and that I think it's just nice to say that out loud because it's important.
00:12:48:02 - 00:13:02:15
Liz McCausland
Yeah. And they were great. They were great. And I never could have started my practice without them. At that time they were merging with another firm. After speaking to that firm, I decided not to merge with them and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
00:13:02:15 - 00:13:04:22
Adriana Linares
I was just going to say, how hard was that?
00:13:05:13 - 00:13:13:06
Liz McCausland
I was I mean, I was crying, you know, And these are two guys who were like, stop crying, please stop crying.
00:13:13:11 - 00:13:14:12
Adriana Linares
We don't know what to do.
00:13:14:20 - 00:13:39:06
Liz McCausland
You know. But they were so gracious. They gave me my furniture. They gave me my computer. I mean, a legal business is the easiest thing to start, right? All you need is highly agree. And they gave me all the tools I needed to start. My associate at the time happened to own a building and he said, please go use my building for six months’ rent free.
00:13:39:12 - 00:13:41:02
Adriana Linares
What? Yeah.
00:13:41:02 - 00:13:41:16
Liz McCausland
I mean.
00:13:41:16 - 00:13:42:15
Adriana Linares
It's. It's.
00:13:43:01 - 00:14:06:16
Liz McCausland
I could never have started without the people in my life who helped me start out. And then so now, you know, if you want to become a mediator, you have to shadow people. You have to do a certain amount of mediations with someone else. And it's sometimes hard and it's sad. It's sometimes hard to get used to let you shadow them and observe their mediation.
I always say Yes.
00:14:09:05 - 00:14:12:01
Adriana Linares
Course you do. You're paying it right back. That's how you are.
00:14:12:22 - 00:14:32:07
Liz McCausland
Because even when I wanted to do that, you know, a mediator I used when I was litigating and mediating these personal injury cases allowed me to shadow him without question. So, I always do it. It was hard. It was very hard, but it was made much easier by the relationships I built in my life.
00:14:32:21 - 00:14:47:09
Adriana Linares
I just think it's so important to always remind people that you run a very tech savvy law office, Liz. You are a true solo without an assistant, at least right now. I think when you get really busy sometimes you might bring an assistant on and then there are times when you realize that maybe you can do it alone.
And I think there are, of course, so many lawyers that do it by themselves. And then there are some that hear about attorneys that do it by themselves and they don't know how. But technology is really important to you. So, tell us a little bit about how and why technology matters. And then I definitely want to hear what some of your favorite technology tools are.
We could buy have a whole conversation about that.
00:15:08:12 - 00:15:31:11
Liz McCausland
I know. I know. Well, let me back up for a second. I do have one insisted. She is kind of a part time. She has one task and she works from home and she is actually the assistant I had in the defense firm when she retired. She came to me and now she works for me. Just setting my mediations, that is it.
00:15:31:13 - 00:15:31:23
Adriana Linares
Okay.
00:15:32:10 - 00:15:56:13
Liz McCausland
And so, I do have one assistant, but you're right, I have had assistants and then not had assistants. And now I am really, truly a solo. And I will say it's not as hard as people think. You know, I enjoy it. It's stressful, but it's a different stress than being in a firm and being a partner. And I'm sorry, what was your question?
00:15:56:13 - 00:16:05:10
Adriana Linares
Just how you use technology to enable you to be a global, successful, low stress attorney?
00:16:06:06 - 00:16:29:21
Liz McCausland
I use it in so many ways and I know we are truly in a great period of time where you can work from anywhere, so you can really try to have that work life balance if you believe in that. And I do look at my practice to say, okay, what are the things that must happen each time and how can I make those kind of foolproof?
And one of those ways is using technology. And so, I have an online calendar that clients can book with, and it saves on phone calls. The update on, you know, it sends reminders out for me. I don't have to make those calls. And I used to have to and things like that. So I just look at my practice and think of what are some foolproof ways that I can implement and systemize how people come into my office.
So that's what I think everyone should start with. Your first contact with that client and what you want it to be like. And so I first looked at how do people come into my office? They usually come in through referrals, so they're calling or emailing, and then from there, how do I want to capture their information? How do I want to get them scheduled?
What do I want them to fill out? How can I make that easier for them? So I use a calendaring system where they can schedule with me and then it sends out the forms that need to be filled out. It captures the information and puts it into my case management system, conflict checks. And then now a lot of people want to do their consults by Zoom.
Sure, that immediately sends out that Zoom link. So that's one less thing for me to do later. And then, of course, the other things that most people have, you know, a phone system that I can answer from my cell phone or from my office or anything like that, I use a case management system.
00:18:01:05 - 00:18:24:01
Adriana Linares
I think that's important to remind people. There's certainly a lot of attorneys and that don't use case management systems. And there's a phenomenon between big law and small law where a big law doesn't really use a case management system. They really rely on a sophisticated document management systems and Office 365, maybe some, you know, ancillary tools and services.
But and that was a big surprise to me, although it's been 20 years, right, since I started my company where I started in big law, then I started helping solos and smalls. I was like, wow, there's so much more technology out there for solo and small firms than there is for big law. And I mean that in a sort of big picture way.
And so back to case management systems. If you're an attorney out there that does not have a case management system Liz, when you hear about these people, how do you encourage them to look at modern case management systems that are secure, cloud based and very affordable today?
00:19:01:19 - 00:19:24:00
Liz McCausland
They're so affordable. Like I know this thing to start is a law firm and I give this talk to new lawyers about how to start their own law firm. And I kind of subtitle it don't do what I did. So the first thing I did was start my firm and not have a case management system. And I mean how much time I wasted without having.
00:19:24:00 - 00:19:24:23
Adriana Linares
I can’t imagine
00:19:26:04 - 00:19:43:15
Liz McCausland
And, you know, having a good case management system. Now, obviously, look at what you need and, you know, don't buy all the bells and whistles if you don't need all the bells and whistles. But having a case management system that includes document automation, includes a secure portal for your client.
00:19:43:17 - 00:19:44:20
Adriana Linares
Oh, I'm a portal pusher.
00:19:45:04 - 00:19:49:23
Liz McCausland
Yeah, no, I know. And we are a target for everyone.
And so having that portal through the case management system, having time, you know, coming off insurance defense, where a time system and billing system was so important, that was the hardest thing for me as a new solo lawyer. How do I get my bills out and how to make sure I count for my time? And I do a lot of flat fee work now, so I don't need it as much, but when I do need it absolutely worth its weight in gold and then, you know, I'm able to take payments through my case management system, which is huge, especially when COVID hit, because in bankruptcy, people used to pay me in cash, you know, or.
00:20:30:00 - 00:20:31:07
Adriana Linares
The good old days.
00:20:32:02 - 00:20:48:20
Liz McCausland
And so, I would win with mediations. I was having a lot of people send in checks, but when offices were closed, that was a problem, not for me, but for them. And so having that ability through my case management was key.
00:20:48:20 - 00:21:13:19
Adriana Linares
Yeah. And I guess I should mention, too, in case there are attorneys who might be listening and wondering about case management systems, there are a handful of excellent services today. You can expect to pay somewhere between, I don't know, 50 to $80 a month per user. And they should do things like manage dates, deadlines, details, party information, your calendar.
They should have that portal. They should have some sort of document storage system in it. And importantly, that portal that you mentioned, I mean, what are the three ways that attorneys typically communicate with their clients emails, phone calls and text messages, and what are inherently the least secure ways to communicate with clients? It's those very methods and case management systems can really, really help.
The last thing I'll say about that, which is if you are looking at case management systems and this is going to lead to a question to you, so get ready. There's less services that are general and then there are some that are practice specific and sometimes you have to marry the two to get that that tech cocktail that that you really like.
But an important factor is integration. So, when you pick a case management system, what else will it easily automatically inherently communicate with to make your life easier? So, Liz, what are some of your favorite add on services or tools, whether they integrate or not? But specifically, there are some I'm sure your calendaring system talks your case management system that's important.
Your phone service probably talks to your case management system. Are there any other types of tools or services that you tell lawyers they cannot live without?
00:22:28:02 - 00:22:33:24
Liz McCausland
As you said, this could be a whole other podcast, really. But I love Text Expander.
00:22:33:24 - 00:22:35:05
Adriana Linares
Oh, I was hoping you say that.
00:22:35:19 - 00:22:38:22
Liz McCausland
Without a doubt. That is the one I use the most.
00:22:39:00 - 00:22:41:21
Adriana Linares
$40 a year people, $40 a year.
00:22:41:22 - 00:23:05:08
Liz McCausland
And it is worth its weight in gold. I have so many different snippets of, you know, for instance, when someone calls me and they want to schedule an appointment, I'm able to say, you know, I can send you a link and then you can choose a time that's convenient on your calendar to meet with me and just give me your email address and I'll do that.
Then I have a whole paragraph. I type four letters. I usually start all my snippets. They call it my shortcuts with the letter X and then, Oh, nice. Yeah, three more letters and then a whole paragraph with the link with instructions. A welcome you know. And thank you for calling in seconds in seconds, shoot it out.
00:23:29:04 - 00:23:58:16
Adriana Linares
So, if you're listing you don't know and we've been speaking pretty cryptically so we'll define it really quick Text Expander is a platform agnostic and browser device, an app agnostic service that allows you to store boilerplate text kind of like macros of the old days. So there are phrases, clauses, terms, names, cities, addresses as case captions that you use over and over again that you often have to go find.
The last time you sent that email with that welcome paragraph in it, go pull up the document that has the certificate of service laid out the way you like it. If you're doing a lot of that tools like Text Expander and I don't know who its competitors are. It's been around a long time. It's popular among lawyers are amazing.
And so you could go to Texas banter dot com learn about it and I always plug my friend Brett Bernie's course called text expander for lawyers dot com. Brett Bernie was an attorney and is now very well-known very successful and dear friend of ours technology consultant he does litigation support technology support and he also is a very heavy with Mac and helping lawyers who want to practice with Mac.
So if any of those things sound interesting to you, just Google Brett. Bernie, but specifically if you want to learn how to use Text Expander on steroids, then you want to check that course out. I live and die by Text Expander. Can you think of another service that we have to make sure attorneys know about?
00:24:59:22 - 00:25:22:20
Liz McCausland
You know, I think it depends on a couple of things. But I will say there are things that we already have in our tech deck that people aren't using, maybe because they don't know about it. Yeah, but, you know, I was talking to a group of women lawyers recently and they didn't know about the copy menu. So, you know, the copy in.
00:25:23:01 - 00:25:24:02
Adriana Linares
The clipboard.
00:25:24:07 - 00:25:43:03
Liz McCausland
Clipboard. Thank you. I couldn't think of the word, and they didn't have their clipboards turned on. And I use that all the time. I just use it all the time. And I use little programs all the time that just make my life easier. I wish I'd written down the name of one that I can't think of.
00:25:43:06 - 00:26:03:04
Adriana Linares
That is all the way. I'll give you a second to think and I'll describe for just a moment the Windows clipboard, which seriously, if you're a Windows-based attorney, you have got to learn how to use the Windows clipboard. It became a thing a few years ago. A couple of versions back for Windows. It's been around for a long time.
That used to be called the Spike. And but anyway, long story short, they baked it into the Windows operating system and it is a way for you to activate the clipboard. It's the Windows key. Plus the, as in Victor, it'll pop up and say, Oh, you haven't turned on your history and it will capture and store up to 24 copies or cuts that you have done so that you can reuse them anywhere else on your computer.
It is a time saving productivity tool like no other. Now it's different than Text Expander because it doesn't store those cuts, those clips for longer than your active Windows session. So it's not the type of thing you're going to use for text that you're going to use over and over again. But of course, as you're working on a document, copying from one, pasting it to another, if you're doing research and copying, copying, copying from another research document and pasting into your word document, it can really help you.
So yes, I think that clipboard is incredibly helpful. If you're a mac user, it is not built into Macs, but there are certainly add ins. I think I use one called clip it on my Macs. So definitely a major productivity tool. Anything else you can think of? Yeah. Well.
00:27:11:23 - 00:27:31:07
Liz McCausland
On that tool in particular, it's really great for offices that are large and won't let you buy just like text Expander for you. Or if you're in a government setting where they won't let you buy individual software, etc. So it's really great for things like that. I use Loom.
00:27:32:02 - 00:27:33:24
Adriana Linares
Oh sure. Yeah. I know you love talking about Loom.
00:27:34:02 - 00:27:54:05
Liz McCausland
I do, because I think it's a great training tool and I like that you record anything once and I'll explain what it does. But then you have it, and you don't have to. You're not reinventing the wheel each time. So it's particularly good when I hire someone new or when I'm trying to teach another attorney and their staff how to do something.
Either tech wise, I will make a Loom for them and send it to them and then they can have it forever. And what it does is it's a screen recorder. You can have your face on it. You cannot have your face on it, but it will easily create a very short video for you that you can then send to the recipient.
00:28:14:07 - 00:28:14:14
Adriana Linares
In a link.
00:28:14:15 - 00:28:34:08
Liz McCausland
Yeah, in a link. And then they can keep that link and watch it over and over. So, when you've got a new person coming into your office, it's a great way to onboard them on how to do their job. And you just have a library of videos. It's free up to, I think, ten videos and then after that you have to pay for it.
But again, a very nominal cost. And then you have these videos and the great thing about it is as you switch staff, you don't have to retrain actors after you've shown them once and they don't remember and they're too embarrassed to come back to you, they can just go click the link. You watched as many times as they need to.
And so I really like it as a tool for onboarding, training and then just communicating, you know, in this virtual world, you can do a quick video every morning. Hey staff, welcome. And having a good day, here are my top three priorities today. Let's get it out the door. You know, see me with any questions and then be done.
00:29:11:04 - 00:29:27:20
Adriana Linares
Let's talk for just a minute and sort of close out with this is this is an important part of who Liz McCausland is on top of everything you mentioned, which is now you do technology consulting and support for other lawyers and law firms. You really enjoy that. I know you do. So, a lot of attorneys are going to again here.
How does this woman do it all? Your good friends wonder that all the time, too. But I know that you love speaking on technology training on technology, and you help other lawyers start their solo practice. You're a Clio certified consultant, so you help them on board. Clio, talk to us a little bit about just why that's important to you, why you like it so much.
00:29:49:19 - 00:29:53:06
Liz McCausland
I think I am a teacher and a tech geek at heart.
00:29:53:13 - 00:29:58:21
Adriana Linares
Yeah. You've never met an app you didn't try. Is Liz's sub line?
00:29:59:03 - 00:30:22:10
Liz McCausland
Yeah. Yeah. In my bio it says, you know, I've never an app met an app. I didn't try but nuances of Excel still you know get me every time but I just I couldn't find information when I was starting my firm. You really had to dig for information. And then of course, even today, now that so much information is out there, it's information overload.
And, you know, you can watch YouTube videos, you can go on to Facebook pages, etc., and you get all kinds of suggestions which are great, but it's almost too much. And so I like giving kind of an overview of here's what I tried, here's what's failed, here's what I suggest. It's different for everyone but start here. And I'm a believer in giving very practical advice that you can start with.
And so, I just enjoy it.
00:30:49:01 - 00:31:04:23
Adriana Linares
I really know and you're good at it, and it's helpful to have another attorney talking attorney talk to you. Help me a lot. I refer a lot of work to you, and we work together very closely. So I know how much you like it and how much people enjoy working with you before I let you go from you.
00:31:04:24 - 00:31:08:19
Liz McCausland
So, I have you to thank for a lot of my interest.
00:31:09:02 - 00:31:27:15
Adriana Linares
Well, we have a lot of fun together too, and thank you for always being so willing to help and being such a great partner. Liz and I work very closely together. Before I let you go, tell everybody where they can find friend follow you, learn more about you or just reach out if they have any questions, especially about starting law practice or are looking for some consulting help.
00:31:28:02 - 00:31:51:03
Liz McCausland
Okay. Well, you can find me at Liz at Liz law firm dot com. That is my personal email. If you email me, I'm happy to get back with you on anything that you might have a question on. You can also find me at Liz at law tech partners dot com that is more for your tech questions if you are someone who just you know doesn't know where to start, please feel free to email me.
I'm happy, happy, happy to help you. We also have a Facebook group that's called the Adaptable Attorney, and it was started during COVID for people who are trying to adapt to our new world. And so I feel free to join that. I accept everyone who asked to be in there. So please feel free to join that and then ask your questions in there as well.
00:32:15:22 - 00:32:23:15
Adriana Linares
Well, thanks so much this. Totally appreciate your time. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode of LEGALTECH MATTERS on the Litera podcast.
Thanks for listening to LEGALTECH MATTERS. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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