Clio Cloud Conference 2016: Key Highlights

The 2016 Clio Cloud Conference just wrapped up. We’re happy to announce that with 700 attendees, and amazing keynote speakers including Kimberley Motley and Gary Vaynerchuk, it was the biggest and best Clio Cloud Conference yet!

The Speakers

This year’s Clio Cloud Conference featured some truly amazing keynote speakers, including:

• Our very own Jack Newton, who introduced the Legal Trends Report and a few other exciting changes coming from Clio (more on that below).
• Melanie Heller of Bloomberg Law, who believes there’s no better time for small law firms to leverage technology and compete with Big Law.
• Kimberley Motley, a strong advocate for justice, and the only foreign litigator working in Afghanistan.
• Gary Vaynerchuk, a self-described hustler who speaks volumes about the power and importance of social media.

Other popular speakers included:

• Fastcase CEO Ed Walters, who spoke about robots working in law and the legal implications of artificial intelligence.
• Jules Miller of Evolve Law, who spoke about what legal practitioners can learn from Silicon Valley when it comes to hiring practices.
• Bryan Wilson, the Texas Law Hawk, who talked about using creative marketing to attract clients.
• Andrew Arruda of Ross Intelligence, who spoke about how artificial intelligence is impacting the practice of law.

The Key Themes

The Clio Cloud Conference featured four distinct educational tracks this year to help attendees get the most out of the conference. These tracks included:

• Legal Technology
• The Business of Law
• Clio University: Introductory
• Clio University: Master

The Master track was a new addition to the conference this year. Geared toward those who already know the basics of Clio, it aimed to help users get more out of the software so they can take their practice to the next level.

Here are a few key session takeaways:

• Lawyers should be using technology to provide better legal services.
• Lawyers get paid faster if they accept payment by credit card.
• It is possible to have a traveling law practice, if that is your goal.
• Recommendations are powerful, and lawyers can get more of them by being active on social media.
• Lawyers deserve access to data to make better business decisions.
• You need to get your potential clients’ attention before you can do anything else.

The Fun Stuff

Our Clio After Dark events were a hit, as always. From acrobatics to dueling pianos, there was plenty to take in. Hangover kits, yoga, and live music brought a new degree of enjoyment to the conference.

A few other fun things that happened:

• We gave out some stylish socks.
• Kelly Hayes of Burgeon Legal won our 2016 Clioday contest! 
• Clio’s annual conference Bug Smash fixed a bunch of bugs and brought in several new updates to Clio—based on feedback received during the conference. Props to #TeamClio for pulling these together on a tight deadline!

New From Clio

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Clio Cloud Conference without new changes and announcements from Clio.

Jack announced the release of the Legal Trends Report, the first data-driven report on the legal industry. For the first time, lawyers will have unprecedented insight into how the legal profession is evolving and how they can make better business decisions.

He also spoke about a few exciting new features in Clio, including a recent mobile app redesign, to help lawyers navigate more quickly and smoothly to what they need. Notable features included:

• Access to Clio’s new Advanced Tasks, which allows lawyers to add task types, task statuses, and time estimates for more sophisticated reporting and tracking.
• A Global Create Button, to allow attorneys to create a new entry from any page on the mobile app.

Finally, Jack announced Clio Apollo, the first ever ground-up redesign and rethinking of the Clio web app. “The feel we’re trying to land with this redesign is something that is simple, yet clear,” he said. “We want an interface that is intuitive, and simply put, every action input in Clio should be obvious.”

Clio Cloud Conference 2017 … in New Orleans!

We took a vote, and the results are in—next year’s Clio Cloud Conference will be held in New Orleans. If this year’s conference was good, next year’s #ClioCloud9 in the Big Easy promises to be even better.

We look forward to seeing you there.

We published this blog post in September 2016. Last updated: February 3, 2023.

Categorized in: Clio