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Growth in a time of uncertainty—How Torrey Pines expanded their staff, revenue, and clients fivefold with Clio

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Torrey Pines Law Group

  • 2013

    Year Founded

  • 11-50

    Number of Staff

  • 2014

    Started Using Clio

  • San Diego, CA, USA

    Location

  • Flat Fee

    Hourly

    Fee Types

  • FDA Regulatory and Technology Transactions

    Patent Law

    Practice Areas

Torrey Pines Law Group knows intellectual property. As founder Kevin Buckley notes, his colleagues are “some of the best and brightest” out there. Of their 22 employees, approximately two-thirds are either patent attorneys, FDA regulatory advisors, or patent agents.

Founded in 2013, Torrey Pines Law Group has always considered patent work its bread and butter. Kevin founded the firm to help scientists and entrepreneurs bring innovative concepts to the market.

“That’s why we’re in this—to help our clients bring those therapies and life-saving cures to people in need.”

Pivoting in uncertain times

As it turned out, Torrey Pines’s foundation was a catalyst for exponential growth during a period of uncertainty. At the start of 2020, they were a small shop with three to four employees practicing intellectual property and patent law. Sensing the impending crisis, Kevin did what any great client-centered lawyer would do and reached out to his clients. Many of them were pivoting quickly—they had treatments and diagnostics designed for other diseases, like cancer, that could also help people suffering from COVID-19. They needed to move quickly to get these therapies to market. In response, Torrey Pines needed to move quicker.

“Our reaction was to quickly grow our team and get all of these different facets of the legal pipeline assembled to help our clients based on their needs. That’s why, in addition to our patent practice and intellectual property protection, we added FDA regulatory and technology transactions to our services.”

Seizing the opportunity for growth

Torrey Pines has reaped dividends through their recent growth and diversification—they’ve added new practice areas and grown their staff, clients, and revenue five-fold since 2020! Torrey Pines’s growth story extends far beyond the firm’s four walls. By pivoting to meet their clients’ needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, Torrey Pines helped get critical therapies to market, providing an essential service during an uncertain and unpredictable period.

How Clio Supported Torrey Pines’s Growth

Torrey Pines’s growth story is a compelling reminder of how important client needs are in any scaling strategy. Clio couldn’t be happier to present Torrey Pines with the “Best Growth Story” Reisman Award—and to highlight how the firm used Clio’s software to its full potential to achieve this growth.

Seamless processes for scaling businesses

To get clients through the door and get their life-saving therapies to market as quickly as possible, Torrey Pines needed to anticipate their clients’ needs, and meet them where they were. With Clio, they developed a pipeline to quickly handle an influx of new clients so they could address matters as quickly as possible–while also providing a best in class experience for their clients.

“Clio has streamlined the entire process of getting clients in the door looking for conflicts of interest, and then getting the meetings with these clients so that we can almost instantly, within days get these clients actually served by our professionals. We now have a growing, world-class roster of clients. And, in part, it’s based on using Clio software.”

Top-notch security for clients and insurers alike

Privacy and data security are critical considerations for any law firm. However, given that Torrey Pines’s clients are often working on highly-classified projects or have other security concerns, they need to be able to accommodate those needs. As Kevin notes, “Clio has become the gold standard” for law practice management software, and its security is no different. Additionally, Clio’s software is recommended by over 70 bar associations and law societies worldwide, so you can put your trust in a tried-and-tested system.

“Some of our clients are working with top secret innovation, so we need 128-bit encryption. That encryption comes with Clio. So we feel very secure on a technical level working with Clio, but it’s also the optics. Malpractice insurance carriers, regulators, and bar associations are going to be looking at what software or processes you’re using as a basis for all of your document management and whether your system is secure. If you’re using the gold standard, Clio, you’re going to be okay.”

Endless integrations for specialized practices

Torrey Pines offers highly specialized services, and with a global client base, they must often cater to the unique needs of their clients. Thankfully, with Clio’s legal software and 200+ third-party integrations, Torrey Pines can handle nearly everything their diverse client base throws at them.

“Our clients have specific needs and are all different. Some clients can only pay through a credit card. Some overseas clients have to wire money. Some clients want to operate where their documents are, run through a highly-secure Google Drive folder. So the integrations with Clio are really, really important to us. ”

Hiring and training made easy

With more and more clients coming through the door, adding new hires to the mix was essential for Torrey Pines. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the staff onboarding process needed to be done remotely—and with Torrey Pines moving at a dizzying pace, new employees needed to get up to speed quickly.

Kevin notes that Clio makes it easy to set up each new employee with access to everything they need to do their job effectively. He estimates new employees can be “totally onboarded” in a day with Clio.

“Using Clio and the Clio software integrations, we’ve been able to onboard our personnel, whether it comes from the officer level all the way down to purely part time administrative, much more efficiently and much quicker compared to other products.”

Client needs: a guiding star for growth

For Torrey Pines, client needs will dictate their future. As Kevin notes, “growth is constant at our firm and it’s because we are reacting to our clients.” As medical technology and therapies advance, Torrey Pines will find new and innovative ways to service a broader client base.

“We aren’t just growing in San Diego or Southern California. Our clients are international. And as we represent more and more clients internationally, we have to be prepared to represent them internationally. Our clients could be a researcher in Australia who’s doing clinical trials or some people that need clearance in Japan. Then that allows us to help more people get more therapeutics to market—to get novel therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices. Growth is constant at our firm and it’s because we are reacting to our clients. We’re very good listeners and we grow in response to what our clients need.”

And, while Kevin attributes much of Torrey Pines’s success and growth to preparation and awareness of his client’s needs, having the right software is also a key driver for success. As Kevin notes, “if you have a software product like Clio, that is a huge leg up and pretty much ensures success, at least from an operational perspective. In addition, it provides the scalability that you’re going to need. You have to have Clio, in my humble opinion, to succeed.”

Regardless of what the future holds for Torrey Pines’s growth, Clio’s customizable and scalable software will be there to support them.

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