Checking In! Four Years Later, Solo Practice Aloha Divorce Is Thriving

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

So if I was starting today as a New Solo, I would entrepreneurial Aspect, change the way they’re practicing leader, what it means to be, make it easy to work with your clients, New approach, new tools, new mindset, New Solo, and it’s leap. Making that leap,

Adriana Linares:

Welcome to another episode of New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m your host, Adriana Linares. Today we’re doing a recap show and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m actually going to do a couple of these in a row because I realized that listeners hear me say all the time on this podcast, we’ll have to have you back in a year or two, and I haven’t really done that. So we’re going to do a couple of updates with some guests from past episodes. So I’m starting with the very affable and kind and nice attorney who likes to do amicable divorces through her practice called Aloha Divorce, Cassandra Koening

Cassandra Koening:

Hi. Hi Adriana. Thank you for having me.

Adriana Linares:

Well, I just think you’re going to be a great first recap guest for this series that I’m doing because you were on in 2021. It was an episode recorded in October of 2021 where it’s titled a first year recap from a new family law practitioner, and you had gone straight from law school to launching your solo practice.

And it sounds like you must have had that practice for a few months. You did because when I go back and listen to it, you already had your technology in place. You knew that you wanted some work-life balance. You were very intent on setting boundaries to make sure that you didn’t get run over by your practice as you started it. So I’m going to encourage listeners to go back and find that episode and listen to it to get all the details of how things were then. So that’s past Cassandra, and now we’ve got present Cassandra, and I want you to give us a quick update, but leave me some space to ask you some questions and what’s happened over the past four years?

Cassandra Koening:

Oh, so much. Well, we have two babies. Jameson, McKayla, Jameson is almost three, and McKayla just turned one. Oh my goodness. Those are the biggest. Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

But you’ve gotten married because your maiden name was Michelle and now Kanig.

Cassandra Koening:

Yes. Yeah, I got married first and then had babies traditional.

Adriana Linares:

Well, your law firm practice and its approach has not changed, which is aloha practice, sorry, Aloha divorce. And why did you decide to call it that? Just give us a quick little fun update on that or reminder.

Cassandra Koening:

Sure. The meaning of Alohas, hello and goodbye and with love. So saying hello to a new chapter, goodbye to a past and doing it with respect and dignity.

Adriana Linares:

I love that. And you are based in Southern California still?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes, San Diego.

Adriana Linares:

So you got married, well you got out of law school, you graduated from law school, you started your solo practice, you got married, you had two babies. And how’s it going today?

Cassandra Koening:

Oh, it’s going very well. Yes, I’m happy I took this solo path and having that work life balance really makes a difference.

Adriana Linares:

How did you achieve that? Because I think that’s something that attorneys struggle with even years and years after being in practice, having that ability to spend time to yourself and with your family. So that was part of your goal when you launched and when I interviewed you four years ago. So what ideas did you have back then that you implemented and actually worked, or what lessons have you learned where you’re like, that was such a cute idea, but that didn’t work?

Cassandra Koening:

Sure. Well, first I would listen to your podcast New Solo religiously. I would be taking notes from the tips the other attorneys were doing. Then I would go Google whatever they were recommending sign up. So that helped. Oh, the LawClerk Legal was great when I was first needed more business and having a supplemental income, something I’ve done recently also to supplement business when things are slower is I signed up for A RAG. It’s basically an yeah. Oh, so you know ar a, okay. I do. So for people who don’t know it’s insurance, but legal insurance for bigger companies like Scripps, all those colleges around here, they get to have this legal insurance. So when they go get married, they need a prenup or they’re separating, needing a divorce, they can actually go through their insurance to get that covered for them. And I’m one of the attorneys for ar a.

Adriana Linares:

So you registered with AR a as an attorney who’s willing to provide services and then they pay you and their customers or clients are able to create appointments. Are they online? Is it all email and text-based or how does it work?

Cassandra Koening:

It’s typically email. I treat ’em just like any of my regular clients. So if they want to meet in person, I’m happy to do that. But no one wants to do the commute, find parking, yada yada. Just zoom is typically easiest.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing. So let me also just go back and explain in case listeners didn’t catch what you first said about LawClerk Legal. So LawClerk Legal is a company that provides contracted paralegals now and attorneys to attorneys who need help in their own practice, but they then need those attorneys to be the Contractable attorneys, which you work through LawClerk Legal. So when you started, and that was actually a tip that came from another San Diego attorney, Philip Ello. I remember when I interviewed him, he had done that to also help supplement his practice when he was launching. So that sounds like that helped you when you started. Then do you still do work with or for them or have you flipped the table where now if you ever need help, you’re using contracted attorneys?

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah, I don’t need that anymore, so I haven’t needed the extra help. So I’ve just still completely

Adriana Linares:

Solo. Yes, and I want to come back and talk about that. And then but now you do on occasion take up some work through Arrack?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, that’s very smart. That’s very good. So when you launched, you were solo and I can’t remember, were you planning to just stay a solo thinking, okay, I’m going to launch a solo practice. Eventually I’ll hire a legal assistant, a paralegal, or I’ll grow the practice? Or has your intent from the beginning been to be a solo and stay solo?

Cassandra Koening:

You know what, I didn’t think too much about it. I figured I would stay solo, but you never know. I feel like growing when you say you have a staff, it feels more prestigious or something. It would be nice if I had a huge law firm, but I don’t really want it anymore. I thought it was this glamorous lifestyle. I’m like, well, no, it’s not. It’s a bunch of headaches and I like to keep it lean and mean and just

Adriana Linares:

Me. That reminds me. I have a friend in town who’s about my age also never been married, no kids, and I don’t think she even dates that often. And the other day we were having drinks and I said, why don’t you even have a boyfriend joking? Because people look at me at my age. I said the same thing to her. She just looked at me and said, I don’t want any problems. It sounds to me like you don’t have employees, you never got employees. Not only did you not need them, but really because you didn’t want any problems. Exactly. That’s true. That’s a good point. Okay, so how have you done it? Because I think there are a lot of solos that are overwhelmed, overworked, probably getting not paid because they don’t have the time to send out their bills and chase the money. So can you tell us how you have done it and been as calm and cool, as chill as you are and stayed a true solo without freaking

Cassandra Koening:

Out? Yeah, so when I first started I was taking all different types of divorce. I was hoping just the name Aloha Divorce would steer some prospective clients away. But no, I would get some nasty divorces and I would take, I was a little desperate. When you’re hungry, everything tastes good when you’re starving. So I started to get more stressed out of that. The parties were fighting, I was getting gray hair. The only person really benefiting was my Botox lady. She was just thriving financially where everyone else is just aging horribly. But yeah, so I stopped taking on those types of cases. Instead I refer them to particular attorneys that I know like and trust. So I don’t leave them high and dry to go back to Google, but I won’t take those anymore.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. So you’re lucky that you have gotten to the point where you can pick your clients. Yes. Think it’s important for listeners to hear how and why you do that, and then how do you filter them? I mean the conversation is obvious, but are there certain red flags? Surely people must call you and be like, oh no, it’s going to be super amicable. We are in this together. I hate the mother effort, but oh no, it’s going to be super amicable. So what are your red flags,

Cassandra Koening:

How they speak about the other party and why they’re looking for a divorce? If there’s domestic violence involved remotely, that’s a clear red flag or Yeah, it’s just telling me why are you here? Why do you want a divorce? Have you tried relationship therapy or anything like that. I also don’t want people to get divorced if they’re unsure. So one of my questions actually is in certain scenarios is whether or not they did see a marriage therapist or if they try to work out their problems. Obviously I can’t tell them what to do, but I think that’s fitting in some cases.

Adriana Linares:

You want to make sure it’s not a rage call.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

Exactly. Where did you learn these things? Have you always been like a good people person and you have a good radar or did you take some classes? Did you read some books? Did you do some studying to just try and figure out how to be better at understanding people? Because imagining most of these conversations happen over the phone, not in person, so you’re really just picking up voice signals, not body language.

Cassandra Koening:

Okay. Well, I think it’s probably a blend of a bunch of different factors. I was a psychology major in college, so that probably helped. And then I was in sales for banking, so that made me a little bit more personable. But then I always try to continue my education. So I think since we last talked, I become a co-parenting specialist, which is a training, a class and certification that you have to get. I also got certified as a mediator as well, which is very in depth training with working with emotions and handling different conflicts.

Adriana Linares:

Do you recommend doing that type of additional training and certification to attorneys that you talk to or hear about today that are either young or just interested in becoming more informed, educated and helpful?

Cassandra Koening:

Of

Adriana Linares:

Course,

Cassandra Koening:

Even in your own personal lives, you could use that training.

Adriana Linares:

Were those expensive certifications to get

Cassandra Koening:

Somewhat like five grand maybe for one of ’em, like three grand for another one.

Adriana Linares:

And do you find that your clients that find you or get to you, and I’m going to ask you how they get there too in a minute, see those certifications on your bio, which I saw on your website, and that’s a plus if all things are equal between a couple of attorneys that somebody is deciding on, do you think that puts you over the edge?

Cassandra Koening:

Absolutely, because when people call in and they find me, they’re like, oh, I loved your website. I like what you stand for. It’s exactly what I’m hoping to do. I want to do it as peaceful as possible. So yeah, I think it works.

Adriana Linares:

Excellent. Okay. And before I forget, I want to go back to the fact that you’re still a solo. So you have this nice website. I know you’ve got a good technology stack that we’re going to talk about in the end, but what are the other ways that you manage to triage calls like that? How do clients contact you and then how do you manage those potential connections and then weeding out the angry, not going to be so amicable potential clients from those that you do want to work with?

Cassandra Koening:

They contact me a bunch of different ways. Sometimes they’ll fill out an intake form on my website. Sometimes they’ll email me. Sometimes they’ll cold call my office trying to get ahold of me. So it varies definitely. But once I have a lead call in, I always follow up, make sure we get an appointment scheduled and I send out an intake form. I’ve been using a lot of templates to save time and trying to get more efficient. So I have a standard intake and calendar link for prenups and then for divorce, I just always just send out the same exact things to

Adriana Linares:

Everyone. Oh, we should mention, so obviously your practice is more diversified than just helping people separate. You also do prenups and I think there’s a couple more things on your website.

Cassandra Koening:

Parents and plans like transportation agreements, marriage, settlement agreements. For a while I was only doing prenups. I was loving them so much and not a lot of family law attorneys like to do them because they’re afraid of getting sued down the future if the prenup doesn’t hold. But the way I look at it, if you just do your job, do your CLEs on prenups, stay up to date, you don’t need to be afraid of them. You can do them. That’s

Adriana Linares:

True. That’s very good. So you are definitely a lifelong learner and to collect certifications, information and training. I do. I live with the lawyer who loves to collect law licenses, so I know what that’s like. How do your clients find you? Cassandra?

Cassandra Koening:

Mostly just Google. I’ve been working hard on my marketing and trying to keep my SEO up and just stay in front of mind and it’s just been organic, which has been nice. And then of course other attorneys still always refer me.

Adriana Linares:

So when you talk about keeping up your marketing, one of the important things I’m sure you’re going to tell us is you have a very nice website. Do you maintain that yourself now that it’s been built or do you pay someone to help you maintain it and add these blog posts? You have a lot of nice blog posts and information on here. So tell us a little bit about the strategy behind your website.

Cassandra Koening:

So I maintain it myself. I do have an aunt in New York who owns a marketing firm, not just for attorneys, just a general marketing firm. And sometimes I call her and pick her brain and geek out on just strategy and she teaches me things about Google Analytics and navigating those waters. So she’s been helpful, but I do everything myself.

Adriana Linares:

Do you manage your own Google Analytics account?

Cassandra Koening:

I have helped me with that, yes I do. I do manage it.

Adriana Linares:

There’s a lot of lawyers listening going, what? I pay somebody a lot of money to do that or I can’t imagine doing that. Can you give us some feedback on doing it and maybe why it’s not so hard?

Cassandra Koening:

Sure. I’m pretty new to the Google Analytics game, so I’ll give you that disclosure, but once you just YouTube, just look it up and figure out how to do it. And the nice thing is you’ll be able to see where your clients are finding, are they typing in your name? Are they going straight to your website? And that allows you to strategize of how you want to market and you can see what’s slacking and what needs improving. But yeah, you don’t need to pay anyone for that.

Adriana Linares:

This is a perfect Southern California chill. You don’t need to pay anybody for that to figure it out yourself. But the thing is, you actually have the time to do these things. You have the time to filter your own leads and decide what to do with them and write blog posts and manage your website. So we need more on how you’re able to do that.

Cassandra Koening:

Well, I think that I enjoy it. That’s the problem. I really just enjoy the process. So for me, it doesn’t feel like it’s taking time away from me. It’s me being creative and it’s kind of the fun aspect of being a business owner.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing and great. Of course, we all want to hear that you enjoy doing that part of the business because that’s where a lot of attorneys either don’t find the fun in that or just don’t have the time. But what about your workload? I can imagine some attorneys are going, well, she must not be that busy then, but it sounds to me like you have as many clients as you want or need at any given time, or are there lulls and valleys and peaks just based on life and marketing? What’s going on? Yes.

Cassandra Koening:

So when I get those low peaks, just how it happens, that’s when I’ll start taking more AR a clients or that’s when I’ll go to LawClerk Legal so I can stay afloat and meet that kind of threshold that I would like to maintain. But for when they’re talking about where do you find the time? It’s 9:00 PM I’m having a glass of wine in bed on my laptop, just doing my marketing stuff at night. It’s just like a casual, casual thing. Or if I’m walking the dog, I’m asking chat GPT for some marketing ideas and it’ll talk back to my little headphones, just multitasking. Really

Adriana Linares:

Interesting. We’re going to take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors. We’re going to come back and I’m going to talk to you about more about your marketing strategies. Okay. Welcome back. I’m here at Cassandra Koening. She’s a solo practitioner who’s had her practice for about five years. Went directly from law school to running her solo practice, still solo, seemingly successful and happy. What kind of marketing do you do? Are you paying for any marketing? Instagram was important to you when we talked for five years ago. And so tell us a little bit about what channels you’re using to continue keeping your name out there and staying top of mind

Cassandra Koening:

When you say I pay for market. I don’t pay for a marketing agency, but I do pay for that little verification check mark. I consider paying for marketing or I pay extra for the chat GBT plus teams. Yeah, plus. But on top of that, the teams, it’s more protective. So I consider in my marketing budget, other things I like is Canva. I use Canva for brochures, literally everything like my website, my social media. Sometimes about once a year I try to sponsor a golf tournament and be one of the sponsors. I enjoy golf and that’s where I can get all those printouts right from Canva. And the nice thing about Canva is once you do the legwork, you put in the fonts you use, you put in the colors that are on your websites, the branding stays consistent with the brand kit. So it does a lot of that heavy lifting for you. So I would definitely recommend Canva.

Adriana Linares:

I mean Canva is $120 a year and one of the best places you can put your money if you are into creating your own marketing materials. There’s a lot of AI though built into Canva now I use it all the time too. And it can create reels on Instagram. It can create PowerPoint presentations, it has ideas about slogans and taglines. And so I 100% agree with you that if you’re a DI wire and you’re looking for tools, I mean Canvas work, you used to have to pay it for Adobe Creative Suite, which was $800 a year and it had not a lot of AI back then. So Canva’s a great way to spend your money. Do you spend any money on Google ads, Instagram ads or Facebook ads?

Cassandra Koening:

No, they’ve never really worked out. And from my research, from listening to other marketing podcasts and talking to marketing people in our fields, from what I understand, once you start paying for those Google ads and you stop paying, it’s like the mafia, they’re going to shut you down. Same with Yelp. I don’t want to go on Yelp because if you start paying for Yelp and once you stop paying, then all the bad reviews are showing none of the good reviews will be showing. Oh my God.

Adriana Linares:

Crazy. Yeah, I have heard that about Yelp. I don’t know that I’ve heard that about Google yet though, and I don’t know if that’s true, but yes, I have read that in the Reddit posts about Yelp. Okay, so you don’t spend any money on ads, but you are regularly posting to your social media sites. You’re occasionally hosting an event or being a sponsor for an event and you get word of mouth and referrals is another good way for the clients to find you. And when somebody Googles divorce attorney and they’re in the San Diego area, are you coming up organically somehow? I hope so. I haven’t checked. I hope so. But you said you can at least look at Google Analytics and see what types of searches people are putting in and finding you through there.

Cassandra Koening:

Where I’ve been getting a lot of leads recently, I’ve joined the collaborative practice group of San Diego and they must have a really strong SEO or something because people are finding me through this kind of like a networking group that I’m part of. And so

Adriana Linares:

You joined this group and they create a profile for your firm somehow and then somebody’s Googling something, ending up on that website, but then picking your name off the list of members?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes. It’s interesting, there’s a list of collaborative style attorneys on there, but there’s also collaborative style financial advisors that help go through that divorce process or even the prenup process when you want to join teams and kind of do it more again collaborative.

Adriana Linares:

So kind of off topic, but just for my own curiosity, and I’m sure most listeners already know the collaborative divorces are different from a normal divorce in that obviously they’re amicable and people are going to hopefully be nicer to each other. Why did you decide that that was going to be the approach you took? I have one other attorney that I can think of that I interviewed and she’s actually in Canada who very specifically has this niche in family law practice for amicable divorces. So when you were thinking about your practice, were you like, I just want that kind of practice because I don’t need the stress? Or did you look around the family law playing field and say, well, this is a niche that nobody seems to really be focusing on. I mean obviously most attorneys would probably want that kind of divorce. I don’t know, maybe the money’s not the same, but can you just explain to me how you got there?

Cassandra Koening:

I guess it’s my philosophy and my personal beliefs and standards of just trying to everyone, like you were saying before, we just don’t want problems. We want on the relationship. I don’t want any problems. Exactly. Yeah. So just the way it should be when you’re litigating or fighting, it’s not just the financial stress of having to pay all these attorney fees, it’s also the mental anguish of having to deal with it. You’re getting served again with court papers, that’s stressful. I don’t care who you are, no one likes that feeling. So if you do it in a more strategic collaborative approach, one of the major benefits too, it’s private, you don’t have everything, well, I should say as private as could be, you still have to file the petition, but you don’t have every argument on the court docket where you can pull it up and anyone can buy it and listen to your problems or look at your problems where

Announcer:

This

Cassandra Koening:

Is kind of like behind the scenes, we work it out, we negotiate like adults

Adriana Linares:

With adults.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

The phone leave, they could all be that way. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the past four years?

Cassandra Koening:

I think it was what we were talking about before and just not accepting every type of being able to turn,

Adriana Linares:

Being really picky about your clients.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the biggest lesson.

Adriana Linares:

Is there anything you wish you’d done different between now and then when you started? I mean obviously as a solo you can change anything, pivot anything, add anything, remove anything. But is there anything you wish you had done when you started?

Cassandra Koening:

You know what? When I started I felt like I had to have an office where outside of the home where clients could come and meet me, it would be more professional where in realistic, I was the only one in the office. The clients weren’t coming. It was still just me, myself and I. No one wants to come. Like you know what? It was such a big expense that was not necessary. So what I did instead is I made it a hybrid. So it’s through barrister executive suites, it’s in Del Mar, and I can reserve a conference room whenever I need to meet clients there if they want. And I still get my mail receptionist when you call my office phone, it’s a receptionist answers for me. So that was nice. And then all the mail that gets sent there is just forward it to my house. So it’s easy. But yeah, I guess what I would change is not have that expense and realize you could really just work from anywhere

Adriana Linares:

Because your clients don’t care.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

Where you are. I’ve been saying this for years and I am happy to hear you say it now. I mean it was something I was certainly saying when we were all trapped at home when attorneys were freaking out. But I live with an attorney whose clients don’t care where he is literally ever. And we were in Europe and his clients didn’t know and they didn’t care as long as he was responsive and delivering the deliverables that they were expecting at a time. I understand that sometimes with certain practices like an estate planning practice or something, you have to meet in person because there are certain things that have to be still wet sign today. I hate that word or that term, but I’m happy to hear another attorney say, it’s just not necessary and my clients really just want to hear from me regardless of whether it’s in person or not. Okay. What else? Any other lessons you learned?

Cassandra Koening:

I got better with a bit more strategic with my marketing as far as networking events before, after marketing. Love it. Yeah, I would just go to every type of networking event, just see what sticks.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, sure.

Cassandra Koening:

Just where I’m like, you know what? That is kind of a time waster. I’m not getting any leads. So in my Clio grow, I can actually keep track of where I’m finding these leads and who’s referring me. And it really is all typically other attorneys. So if I’m going to a business development that typically doesn’t lead anywhere, so now I’m looking for more niche events to go to.

Adriana Linares:

Very good. That’s very smart and helpful too for others to hear because, but I mean I feel like when you’re launching, you kind of have to try everything, not really sure. And maybe a recommendation from another attorney isn’t going to necessarily work perfect for you. So I guess I would add to our list of things to consider if you were launching or thinking about doing something differently is you definitely have to just figure that out and take the time and work the time in to figure out what kind of events are opportunities are going to be the ones that work for you.

Cassandra Koening:

And the other thing that I did differently that I took the advice I think on one of your podcasts, I forget who was speaking, was I started paying for a bookkeeper instead of doing my own bookkeeping. Yes.

Adriana Linares:

I cannot say that enough to attorneys do not even think for one second that you were going to have the time to reconcile your QuickBooks and your checking account at the end of the month because not only are you not going to have the time, that’s not what you’re going to want to do.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah, definitely do that because I would spend a whole day stressing out, dreading this and then those are hours I could be doing anything else. So yeah, anything else would be better.

Adriana Linares:

I totally agree. Okay, we’re going to take another quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors and I’m going to come back and ask you about your technology that you’re using because for me that’s obviously really important. It’s my favorite thing of every conversation, but it clearly sounds like you’ve got a good technology stack and you know how to use it and allows you to keep that work-life balance allows you to do a lot of things on your own so you don’t have to pay other people for the things you don’t want to do. And we’re going to dive in and talk about that when we get back. Alright, we’re back here with Cassandra Koening. Cassandra, tell us about your tech stack. So you’ve mentioned Clio and you also mentioned that you use Clio Grow. So when you launched, did you have Clio? I think you did, you had a business plan, which I meant to ask you about, but we can sort of lop that in now to your tech stack.

Very few attorneys actually create a business plan. I guess maybe because it’s like a lot of it can be copy paste. So you had a business plan that you started with and you had a plan for what your practice was going to look like. And I’m sure you had to at that time sort of dig around for technology. I cannot remember if you had Clio at that moment in time. You must have. I did, yes. Okay. Did you have grow then or did you add it later? I had grow then too. Okay. You launched full package, you’re a Mac user. Tell us about how you’re using Clio and specifically about Clio Grow and how it helps you keep an eye on those leads. And do you send out your engagement and retainer letters through Grow?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Because you said you use templates and forms.

Cassandra Koening:

Yes. I’ve been trying to get better at that. So yeah, I’ve been using Clio, grow Clio, drafts, Clio, everything. The more I use it the better. And Clio just keeps getting better and better and better. So if you stay with a company, I know I talked to one other attorney where she used to use Clio, then left and now she’s stuck in a hard place where she’s using five different platforms for all these things. I was like, come back, come back. It’s fine. And what else I really love about them is they’re client portals. I have it on my website and my clients love it because it’s a secure portal. When they want to give you a social security number or a bank statement, anything really confidential, I’ll have them do it on the portal as opposed to an email because it more, it’s more encrypted or secure.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. Totally stole my thunder because I was going to talk about your client portal link on your website because if anyone’s been listening to this podcast for a long time, everyone knows I’m a portal pusher, I love portals and I cannot stand it when somebody says to me my client won’t use a portal, everybody uses portals today. Nobody is refinancing a house through email. Nobody is talking to their wealth councils over email. Nobody is talking to their doctors and getting their test results over email. Everybody’s logging into a portal to do that now. So on your website, when I went to look at it today, you literally have as a top level navigation button, client portal. And when I click on that, it takes me to a webpage that says Clio Connect. And then there’s a little information here, Aloha Divorce, clients have the option to create an online secure client portal, 24 access, you can pay your invoice, blah, blah blah. So I love portals because they do create that secure channel for exchanging information with your clients. I’m assuming you don’t text with your clients or are you using the texting inside Clio or the portal?

Cassandra Koening:

Sometimes I do text clients, especially for prenups because it’s not a high conflict or anything and the wedding’s coming up, it’s just easier for everybody.

Adriana Linares:

Do you use your cell phone for that or Clio texting or Clio portals?

Cassandra Koening:

I know I shouldn’t, but I do use my cell phone. Okay, that’s okay. I do.

Adriana Linares:

So you don’t mind when certain, well you have nice clients and Amazon clients and people getting married and they can have your cell phone. They probably send you memes all day long like,

Cassandra Koening:

Hey, you thought you might like this? Yeah, and I think that’s the type of relationship I want to maintain with clients and I think that’s what sets us solo apart from a big firm where you could have that comfortable and formal relationship, you can have better access to your client or your attorney because that’s what you’re paying for. You don’t want to, you pay top dollar for huge firm where you can’t even get ahold of your attorney, you’re just speaking to a LawClerk.

Adriana Linares:

But it suits your style too and it suits your life. And I think that’s what’s always important for listeners to remember. Not every tip is going to work for everybody. Lemme go back to Clio real quick. So you’re using all the parts of Clio, the form on your website that you mentioned when somebody hits a form, is that the Clio form?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. So let me explain this to listeners who might not be familiar with all the products that Clio has, but just know that whatever practice management program you’re using, if it’s a competitor of Clios, which they have a lot of good competitors, chances are your product will do the same and it should, your platform should. So you pay for Clio Grow, Clio manage and Clio Draft. You take a form, Clio helps you create to put on your website that captures initial information about a potential new client, right?

Cassandra Koening:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

And then that information goes, they hit submit and it lands in your Clio Grow Terrible name by the way. So Clio has a couple of different products. They’re called Grow, manage and Draft Grow is a terrible name for a product. But lemme just explain. That means you can think about it. That’s your CRM, that’s your client relationship manager. That’s where the leads come in and you triage the lead from there and either goes over to manage, so the information moves to Clio manage also terrible name but manage the matter is the way I try to remind people that that’s what that means. Alright. They fill out a form, it lands in your Clio Grow, which is step two really of the products that you’re using from them. What happens when it lands in your Clio Grow? Do you get a text, do you get an email? How do you know there’s a new lead there?

Cassandra Koening:

I get an email and then I do a quick conflict check based on the questions, who’s the opposing party? And then once the conflict goes through, I send an email to the client with a calendar link to schedule initial consultation. One thing I really love that I start using is Calendly. Oh, I love it. That’s

Adriana Linares:

One I use.

Cassandra Koening:

Yes. So I actually, I forgot what I use, but I have it connecting to my C Clio too. You can do that some. I forget what product, we’ll connect those two, but there’s a third party. You probably mentioned

Adriana Linares:

Like a Zapier, but I think that’s

Cassandra Koening:

It.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, so you have a Zap that Zapier, which is a third party connector, just like you explained that when they make an appointment using your Calendly, it puts it on your Clio calendar and well it also puts it on your Gmail, whatever service you’re using.

Cassandra Koening:

Yes. And it also takes their information, their name and puts it into CLIA for me.

Adriana Linares:

Right. So the key here is the client is making the initial contact. They are hopefully correctly spelling their first name, their last name, their address, any other information. Then that data you never have to type again because it’s gone from your website into Clio Grow, grow. Then once the conflict check has been cleared, how are you doing your conflict checks?

Cassandra Koening:

I’m just looking in my Clio grill.

Adriana Linares:

Right? So you’re doing a search and said Clio does these universal searches. And remember everyone, if you’re not using Clio, your practice management program should do all these exact same things. You’re doing a search for a name and it’s searching your grow. Maybe you’re going over to Clio manage, which is the other piece of Clio. Once they become a client, clear the conflict check, do you send the retainer agreement and it gets signed off. And then you move that data from Clio Grow, which is the client relationship manager into Clio manage, which allows you now to manage the matter dates, deadlines, details, parties, and then all of those pieces of data you are putting into Cleo’s document, assembly, mail merge program is called Clio Draft. Yes. That’s amazing. And this is how and why you don’t need a legal assistant. Exactly. It all flows freely. Okay. So you’ve got the suite of products from Clio. You use Calendly to help you with your calendar appointments. Do you take payments over Calendly?

Cassandra Koening:

No, because I do free consultations.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. You do free consultations and then do you flat fee or hourly?

Cassandra Koening:

It depends. So prenups are flat fees because when I had my own prenup and I was shopping around for attorneys and they were quoting me, but they couldn’t quote me exact amount, I’m like, well, I have to budget the flowers. I got to budget the venue. I need to know how much this prenup is going to cost me. And finding someone that could do a flat fee made a big difference because when you’re going through that process, everyone, majority of people have that Excel sheet budgeting, so just have a little line item for prenup.

Adriana Linares:

Do you find that it’s helpful for prenups seem to be one of those things that people are tippy-toe about? Right? So do you feel it’s helpful when you’re able to say just that which is, well my prenup and you speak about it so casually, like doesn’t everybody have a prenup, even I have one. Do you think clients connect better to you when they hear that you had one too or

Cassandra Koening:

Have one? Absolutely. Because they know that I can go through those feelings and I’ve been there even though I’m an attorney still, and I’m like, wait, you’re asking for what? And I think it makes me a better attorney for going through that experience so I can actually be more empathetic and more understanding.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. What other products do you use or tools and services that help you run this successful solo practice that we need to know about?

Cassandra Koening:

So something that you noticed when we were on our Zoom call was the Otter ai. It says Cassandra’s note taker.

That has made a huge difference with saving time for me. I discovered it originally when a lawyers club of San Diego asked me to write an article for their monthly website for an event that I was going to. And it’s an event where it’s a judge hosts a dinner at her house and it’s very informal and you get to know each other. But the thing is, I wanted to be able to speak to that. I didn’t want to be in the corner taking notes. I wanted to participate. So I googled shopped around and I found ot ai and it allowed me to hit record the event and then summarize it. It even labeled the speakers who was speaking, which is really nice. I of course had to get their permission before you record it, but yeah, everyone appreciated it just saved a ton of time. And then I would take that the transcript,

Adriana Linares:

Put

Cassandra Koening:

It in chat GBT and say, write an article about this event. And voila,

Adriana Linares:

I use chat GBT every day, all day for all kinds of things. And we didn’t get a chance to talk about that, but it sounds like you use it for administrative reasons and helpful things. I mean, it’s just amazing. Before I let you go, let us know what are your goals now. Okay. You’ve had your practice for about five years and what are your goals for the next couple of years? What ideas do you have? Are you planning to grow or change anything?

Cassandra Koening:

Goals probably not really growing.

Adriana Linares:

Yep. We like being solo.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah, lean and me growing the bank account, sure. But it’s growing with more problems. But yeah, that’s it. Just maintaining that work-life balance and being around for my kids and also being around for my clients and just trying to do it the best I can.

Adriana Linares:

Well I think you’re doing a great job. You sound happy and balanced. It’s admirable. So congratulations on building your practice the way that you wanted to build it and seeing it through and it just sounds great. Remind everyone how they can either follow up with you or keep an eye on you. Do you have an Instagram? Are you on LinkedIn? Those types of things.

Cassandra Koening:

Oh, I’m on everything. So if you just type Aloha Divorce on any social platform. Twitter, Instagram. Blue Sky is a new one. I’m on Blue Sky now. LinkedIn as well. Yeah, just aloha divorce. I should be the only

Adriana Linares:

One hopefully.

Cassandra Koening:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

All right, well this was a great update and catch up. Thank you so much. You’re an inspiration for many, so I appreciate your time very much. Well to check in another four years and see how things are going. Yes, thanks for having me. You’re welcome. Thanks everyone for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode of New Solo. See you next month. I’ve been

Announcer:

Running from nine to five my for all this time. Anyone clock me? I was thinking this was the way to go and you put up your puppet show. I say.

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