Estate Planning Firm Grows Caseload 150% with MyCase
Walnut Creek, CA
A Bit of Backstory
Nestled in the East Bay region of San Francisco, Feldman Law Group is a force of advocacy in their community. With a long-standing passion for special needs, Managing Attorney Aaron Feldman built a practice catering to those who are particularly vulnerable. He explains, “An uncle of mine with disabilities was part of the early independent living movement in California, so I had involvement with him fighting bureaucratic battles. When I started this firm, I knew that that was the direction I wanted to go.”
After switching to MyCase, Aaron saw new efficiencies in managing his practice that allowed him to help more clients in need — a notable improvement on what he was capable of with his former solution. Using the Intake, Lead Management, and Payment features in MyCase, Aaron shares how Feldman Law Group has dramatically grown its caseload and revenue over the last few years.
A Partnership with MyCase
Prior to MyCase, we were using Abacus as a firm management solution and it was very expensive, clunky, and cumbersome to use. I wasn’t very happy with it at the time. Then sometime in early 2012 or 2013, I attended a conference where one of the keynote speakers told us that if we didn’t get on board with a cloud based product, we were falling way behind our competitors. Following that conference, I started researching software and decided that MyCase was the best fit for my firm.
The features and competitive pricing are what hooked me initially; the remarkable customer support and product development are what keep me.
What sets you apart from your competition in the field of estate planning?
One of the ways our law firm stands can be attributed to the things that MyCase allows us to do. For example, because of the systems in place through MyCase, we’re able to communicate better with our clients. They feel like they’re getting a better level of service from us because we are able to stay in contact better than our competitors are.
What role has MyCase played in the growth of your firm?
The ability to do things efficiently has increased the volume of cases that we are able to handle, and that has just fueled the profitability of the firm. From 2019 to 2021 I have grown my caseload more than 150%. More importantly, my revenue has doubled.
My team and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago where all of a sudden we had four estate plan signings in one day. A couple of years ago that would have been a good month. Now we’re able to have 10 to 15 estate plan signings over the course of a month and yet we don’t feel overwhelmed at all by the volume that we’re handling.
Because of MyCase, I have never been this busy. At the same time, I’ve never had things this under control.
Why does your firm accept payments in MyCase?
I probably have two or three clients a month that send me a physical check in the mail. And most of those clients are about 90 years old. But all my other clients pay electronically and because they pay electronically, if I send out an invoice for the billable work that I do, I get paid very quickly. Usually within three or four days, my invoices are all paid. MyCase Payments has helped collections go way up; my bills get paid rapidly and they get paid fully. That’s been a great help!
From 2019 to 2021 I have grown my caseload more than 150%. More importantly, my revenue has doubled.
How has MyCase reduced the turnaround time of your client intake process?
When I have a consultation with somebody who wants to become a client, I can create a fee agreement from a template, turn that into a PDF, and send out for electronic signature in minutes. Then the digital intake forms customized for our practice areas go out automatically and are easy for clients to complete. And better still, the initial fee requests which new clients can deposit electronically, are seamless.
The features that MyCase continues to add and develop have enabled me to handle a higher volume of clients, which has fueled the profitability of the firm.
What would you say to an attorney who is on the fence about MyCase or other cloud-based software?
Now that everything is within MyCase, it makes it easier to communicate with my staff about what’s going on. They can see the direct communications, emails, text messages, notifications, all in one place. The same thing goes for communicating with clients and that really makes things much more efficient.
Earlier this year, the attorney who shared my office space moved out and I used to talk to his office manager all the time about MyCase. She would tell me that they use five different systems to do what MyCase does. For the life of me, I don’t know why they continued to do that, because they have a billing system separate from their lead database, separate from outlook, and separate from everything else. And none of those systems communicate with each other. So that’s the difference MyCase makes.
What is the biggest difference MyCase has made in your business?
The biggest difference it has made is to allow my firm to grow very robustly, particularly in the last couple of years. Because of MyCase, I have never been this busy. At the same time, I’ve never had things this under control.
