A Blessing in Disguise That Led Connie to Increased Efficiencies with Clio

An entirely different cloud experience

In 2022, Connie Babcock, Business Manager at Peter Johnson Law Office, was looking to transition away from their server-based legacy software.

They went with a cloud-based solution that offered many of the benefits of being able to work flexibly from anywhere, but the solution itself had its problems.

“I discovered a pretty major bug. Some of our data had disappeared, never to be found. It was a pretty major issue, the kind that gets you sued. When I raised it, they told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

With their deadline to transition fast approaching, Connie and her team turned to Clio—and never looked back.

“I could have given them time to fix the bug if they respected my concern. As soon as I reached out to Clio I was having an entirely different experience.”

“We pivoted completely to Clio.”

How moving to Clio was a blessing for efficiency and productivity

Connie and her team were deeply invested in their migration process with the other company before they turned to Clio. They discovered that, often, what a company claims on paper doesn’t always live up to reality.

“The other solution had an integrated accounting module and CRM, and we were trying to reduce our tech stack. But the truth is, I’d rather have an integrated tech stack of applications that work wonderfully than one application that’s clunky.”

1. Simple, reliable data migrations

Clio offers a range of options for data migrations—including services from knowledgeable migration specialists—but for Connie, it was just as easy for her to do it herself. She used a simple data migration tool that allowed her to upload all of her firm’s previous data to Clio with virtually no hassle.

2. Clio is easy to learn

When trying to learn how to use their previous cloud-based solution, the number of small—but significant—inconveniences added up to bigger headaches for the firm.

“Here’s one. Middle names weren’t a standard field. You had to add it as a custom field, but because it was a custom field, it was in the custom field zone of the contact screen. So your eyes had to go from the first name, down to the middle name, and then back to the last name. It was just weird to have it as a custom field.”

“The interface of Clio Manage is just very intuitive. You’re never hunting for what you need. You could be in a contact and you can see their matters, or you could be in a matter and you can get to the contacts. Everything is just so well interconnected.”

“There was never a question of how to get the client’s address, or how to see what trust requests we have outstanding. Opening and closing a case is just a click, and not a procedural process. You can reopen a case if you have more time to add.”

“Everyone raves about Clio and its usability. It really was a no-brainer.”

3. An intuitive interface makes it easy to find anything instantly

Since Connie was able to migrate all of her firm’s data into Clio, she has a single source of truth for the entire office. Clio’s intuitive search feature—combined with powerful filtering capabilities—makes it easy to find important information based on the smallest detail.

“Sometimes, you don’t know how you’re going to find what you’re looking for. If someone asks, ‘Do you know a client call that we had 10 years ago? I need to remember what that matter was about.’ Because we were able to bring so much of our data over through the data migration, it’s made a world of difference. I don’t have to go back to our previous solution to look things up.”

“The full-text search makes it easy. I know that when I search a word, I’m going to get context. I’m going to get matters. I’m going to get notes. I’m going to get documents. It all pops up in the search results.”

“The ease of filtering information is a huge benefit. Clio’s filtering is second to none.”

4. A half-hour document review takes less than a minute

“The previous procedure, as is the case with so many firms, is to find a case that’s sort of similar, open the document you need, and then replace the names throughout. Well, there’s an actual liability risk there.”

Now, with Clio Draft, Connie creates templates for the team, so that anyone can create documents that auto-populate client-specific information at the click of a button.

“How does Clio Draft make my life easier? Automation, automation, automation.”

“Every template we make reduces the risk of the wrong document being used, or a name or pronoun getting missed. You don’t have to spend time going line by line, paragraph by paragraph to make sure you don’t miss anything.”

“There’s a trust factor with Clio Draft. I know I put this in there, therefore it is.”

“Clio Draft has added the most value in terms of being able to automate and streamline.”

5. Streamlined intake that centers more on the client

“Our previous client intake process was a piece of paper on a clipboard. The biggest pain point was simply trying to decipher the client’s handwriting—taking their written words and spending the time to type them in.”

“Now we just send them an email with a link to a Clio Grow form.”

“The receptionist doesn’t have to call them on the phone to repeat their email address because they can’t read the handwriting.”

“Everything needs to be spelled right. You don’t want to have ‘Aidan’ with an E when it’s supposed to be with an A—because it makes a difference to the courts.

6. Clio Payments simplifies collections

“My number two item every morning is to check online payments and link them to matters. That’s all I have to do—click on the payment, link it to a matter, and it’s done. I don’t have to do any trust entries. I don’t have to do any recording. I don’t have to do anything—just link it.”

“We used to allow clients to call in and give us their credit card over the phone, but that has liability risks. With Clio Payments, we made it a simple procedure to send them an automated email that says, ‘Here’s the link to make your payment. You can use check or credit card.’”

“We get paid tremendously faster.”

“We have clients on weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payment plans. Those have helped, because clients that forget to make payments, they don’t have to think about it—and I don’t have to think about it. I just see them when I review those online payments in the morning, and they’re already linked to the matter.”

The team couldn’t be happier with Clio

It’s been a long journey for Connie on her team in finding the right cloud-based solution, but in the end, they couldn’t have been happier. After months of struggling with another solution, Connie has been able to migrate her entire firm to Clio—and in doing so has discovered advantages she hadn’t even dreamed of with her previous systems.

“Clio is tremendously innovative. I can’t imagine any firm having needs that can’t be met with Clio.”