MyCase Customer Spotlight: Texas Criminal Defense Group Save Hours Every Week With MyCase

Our customers are our top priority at MyCase. We love to learn about their practices and share their stories and secrets of success with you whether in webinars, customer testimonials, or on this blog. One of our favorite things to do is get to know our customers, learn about their practices, and then share their experiences with you. In our Customer Spotlight series, you can learn how MyCase helps law firms grow and succeed while also enabling them to provide the best possible service to their clients.

In today’s post, you’ll learn about attorney Stephen Hamilton and his Texas-based criminal defense law firm, Texas Criminal Defense Group. Stephen and I talked about his firm, how and why the firm chose MyCase as its law practice management software, and how MyCase has played a part in the firm’s success.

I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me today. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

I’m a board-certified criminal defense attorney. I practice in Texas, and we handle criminal law and also personal injury cases along with some family law matters. What sets us apart from other firms is we have no fear when it comes to the courtroom and trying cases.

Next, tell me why your firm chose MyCase.

In 2009 we began to go paperless and we used one of your competitors for a couple of years. It was an okay product but did not necessarily do everything that we wanted.

Then we looked at MyCase, made the switch, and we’ve been with MyCase ever since. In November it will be 10 years.

That’s wonderful. I love talking to longtime customers! Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose cloud-based software as opposed to premises-based?

What really started to move the ball was all of the advances that have happened over the past 10 years with cloud-based software, and there are so many different features available in cloud-based software. With the internal messaging, we get a much quicker response from clients. We can tell them, where we are in their case and what we need from them, and they can then upload the documents or provide the necessary information. That has been tremendously beneficial over the years.

I could talk for hours about how great I think MyCase is with things like client communication.

There’s also texting and email built into MyCase, which is great. I’m not really worried about the compliance anymore because we have systems in place with MyCase. There is no way I would ever go back to a paper file or a standalone server file. I probably would stop practicing law if I had to go back and do it that way!

Please don’t do that! Let’s stick with MyCase and keep practicing! So next can you tell me any other ways that MyCase has helped your practice with efficiency?

Sure, it starts at the very beginning of a case. For example, MyCase added lead management a while ago; MyCase is always adding new features. Now we use the MyCase intake form so that a new client can set up a consultation appointment right on our website, so that saves us time. Then we run the leads program so we can see what’s coming in. And with the new eSignature tool in MyCase, our clients can just sign documents electronically. Then with two clicks, the contract, the waivers – all of it – goes out the door.

What MyCase really does at the end of the day let us focus on handling cases and doing a better job for our clients.

We’re also in the process of working through your new integration with MailChimp so that we can automatically send email drip campaigns to new clients so they know what’s going to happen in their case.

Well, that’s great news. Can you quantify how much time your firm saves each week?

The billing features have been a tremendous benefit and time-saver for us. So if somebody wants to hire us we can generate an invoice, and we’re able to track and run reports and set up automatic payments, which is amazing. Another thing we do to save time is track payments online since MyCase is the sole provider of our online payments.

About three years ago, we ran some numbers and it was pretty clear that each lawyer was saving about 12 hours a week with MyCase. And when you looked at the paralegals and staff, the time saved is probably at least that much, if not more.

Love to hear that! Have you recommended MyCase to other lawyers?

All the time. I always champion MyCase and try to help other lawyers understand how it’s been beneficial to me. One thing I tell them is that a lot of the suggestions that I’ve made to MyCase over the years have been adopted by MyCase.

Over the past 10 years, I have never had a bad experience with tech support.

Every time I call customer support, they’re really nice and they take care of me. That’s very different from what I hear in so many of the online lawyer groups I’m in, where there are complaints about customer service with some of your competitors.

Well, that’s great. And we really do appreciate it when our customers spread the word, so thank you so much for that! Ok last but not least, can you tell me what you hope to accomplish over the next 5 years or so?

My firm is in a growth pattern, and what we’ve learned over the last year of COVID is that the practice of law is at a changing point. For example, we’re now holding hearings and motions –  pretty much everything except the criminal trials – over Zoom.

My hope is that we continue to grow, and use technology wisely so that we can help more people. And I have every belief that MyCase will continue to grow right along with us.