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How 402 Legal Uses Clio to Spend Less Time on Administrative Tasks and More Time Making a Difference

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402 Legal

  • 2011

    Year Founded

  • 2-5

    Number of Staff

  • 2011

    Started Using Clio

  • Nebraska, USA

    Location

  • Flat Fee

    Hourly

    Fee Types

  • Business

    Immigration

    Practice Areas

Growing a business and supporting a community

Karine E. Sokpoh, Managing Attorney at 402 Legal, started her law firm two years out of law school. Despite not feeling prepared to manage the business side of her practice, the firm has flourished. Aside from growth, Karine’s greatest source of pride is the wider impact her firm has had in her community.

Originally from Togo, Karine knows what it means to immigrate to a new country, what it means to uproot from your network, family connections, and social capital, and what it means to have to rebuild and start a new narrative for oneself. She also knows how important it is to have the support of others in building new opportunities.

“I believe we are all capable of greatness. We are capable of doing such unimaginable things, outstanding things. However, we don’t all have access. It behooves us to create access for others, to create paths for others, even when they themselves can’t see them.”

How Clio supports 402 Legal in helping others

As the first winner of the Reisman Award for Diversity and Inclusion, Karine has been involved in several initiatives throughout her education and career. She currently leads Pitch Black, a Shark Tank-style competition in Omaha where BIPOC entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas, get coaching, participate in workshops, secure funding, and earn bragging rights for their business.

Karine also led the Midlands Bar Association, an association for Black attorneys in Nebraska, supporting the local bar association in helping new Black attorneys entering the profession, as well as providing pro bono legal services through Law Day and the Volunteer Lawyer Project.

“Clio helps me with my mission and my advocacy by reducing the time I spend on administrative matters such as billing. That time and that energy is being redirected towards advocating for my clients in court or building a community.”

1. Reducing the burden of administrative work

Running a business takes up a lot of time and energy that Karine would rather be putting towards her most important work, like supporting her clients and her community. Clio reduces the burden of administrative work so that she can focus on her passion.

“402 Legal is growing, and growing faster than anticipated. Being able to have a system like Clio that reduces administrative tasks is great for us as we add more attorneys and more paralegals. Clio helps tremendously by helping keep all of our information in one place.”

2. Making it easy to bill and collect payments from clients

It’s not uncommon for law firms to spend days on billing. Without the right tools, generating, approving, sending, and collecting payments requires a lot of repetitive work that needs to be done for each and every client.

“Clio lets you do the bill, get it approved, and then you can send it to the client right from the Clio interface without having to download it, save it, and then send it by email. Clients can also pay you directly through Clio.”

3. No more spreadsheets to manage and keep track of her work

Karine hates having to manually input and keep track of numbers—especially given how time-consuming it is. Clio takes that work off her plate, while giving her a better way to manage her firm’s finances.

“If we didn’t have Clio, we’d be in the wonderful world of spreadsheets. And if anybody knows this about lawyers, we don’t go to law school because we love numbers. It’s the opposite. Clio saves me from spreadsheets.”

4. Easy to set up—and more affordable than other software

Karine looked at multiple software solutions when she started 402 Legal, but she liked how easy it was to customize Clio to suit her needs. She quickly set up templates in Clio that eliminated the need to regularly retype information for routine tasks.

“We chose Clio over the competition because it’s easy to use and set up, and the cost was on point.”

“Once we decided to use Clio, it was very easy to set up. There wasn’t any need for lengthy seminars or workshops to learn how to use it. It was very intuitive. It was just plug and play.”

5. Automate work across 200+ integrated apps

With the number of immigration cases that 402 Legal deals with, DocketWise provides a range of purpose-built features that are invaluable to Karine and her firm. Since DocketWise integrates directly with Clio, the two platforms can share information, saving her from having to retype information in more than one place.

“Clio is great with integrations. One of my favorites is DocketWise. I like that I can create a file or a matter in DocketWise and it will be in Clio right away. I don’t have to duplicate efforts and create a separate matter in Clio. It also integrates with Clio Payments.”

How 402 Legal plans to automate more with Clio Grow

Karine and her firm have just purchased Clio Grow to help automate follow-ups with clients after a consultation and when they first reach out through her website.

As a dedicated intake software, Clio Grow will help keep track of all prospective clients in one place, while opening opportunities to set up online intake forms and handle e-signatures. The goal is to open up even more time to focus on the impactful work Karine and her team loves best.

“I could not imagine running this firm without Clio. I would be spending half of my day on administrative tasks. It would not be productive. If you’re considering adopting Clio, it’s simple. Do it. Do it yesterday.”

Interested in learning more about what Clio Complete can do for your firm?

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