Summer Assignment: Get Comfortable With Video and Launch Your Content

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 making that leap. Making thatLeap leap.

Adriana Linares:

Welcome to another episode of New Solo on the Legal Talk Network. This is Adriana Linares. I’m your host with a little bit of a scratchy voice today. So pardon me, but my guest does not have a scratchy voice. Actually, my guest has a wonderful podcasting voice.

Jared Correia:

Oh, come now.

Adriana Linares:

Come on now. Jared Correa. What’s up?

Jared Correia:

May I say, just quickly as an aside, may I say that my favorite George Harrison song is called Dark Horse, which he named a record company after, and he record that song. His voice sounds different because he had a cold that day and one of the best George Harrison signs there ever was. So

Adriana Linares:

There you go. This is my sexy librarian voice.

Jared Correia:

I was going to say, people are going to be into this. I know. You’re going to have to now reproduce it. I

Adriana Linares:

Know. I’ll have to go to more concerts and yell at the top of my lungs all night. Just kidding. That’s totally not what I was doing last night. I only wish

Jared Correia:

A last sucks. Sucks getting old, doesn’t it? It’s the worst.

Adriana Linares:

It sucks getting old. I’m fighting it. I turned 52 this year.

Jared Correia:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

Well that’s just what happens. We get old.

Jared Correia:

I feel the same way. I’m 47. I don’t do shit anymore.

Adriana Linares:

It’s just terrible.

Jared Correia:

If I get a cold, it’s because I’m sitting around the house doing nothing. Oh

Adriana Linares:

Gosh. So Jared Correia, what do you do? Tell people you haven’t been on this podcast in a couple of years. We’re good friends. We go way back long. We send each other business. We are two peas in a pod, but for you actually have a law degree and I do not.

Jared Correia:

Well, one of us made the right decision. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t

Adriana Linares:

Me. I hear that a lot about marriage and children too. Isn’t that funny?

Jared Correia:

Oh, I made the right decision about those things. Kids are great. Family’s great law degree probably could have done without it. Yeah. So primarily I do business management consulting for law firms. So if you’ve got a law firm and you want to figure out how to make more money live for better lifestyle and all the things that go into that, I help law firms with that. And I’ve got a bunch of clients on subscription. Then I’ve got lots of clients through bar associations that I have a member benefits with, and I’ve been doing that for God almost 20 years at this point. Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

You’re like the twin me except male and with a law degree.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, exactly. That’s what it’s like. We’re like, I’m trying to think of those twins in the comic books. Remember how they always used to have twins

Adriana Linares:

On the super Twin Powers activate?

Jared Correia:

Yeah, exactly. Smoke. Yeah, we could be the super twins. Yeah, you would be smoke and then I would have to be something else.

Adriana Linares:

Well, you’d be water. How else would you get under the door? I’m smoke. I’m getting under the door today. See, I was thinking you have to be water

Jared Correia:

More fire and water. I was wondering what the equivalent to smoke would be.

Adriana Linares:

I mean, we have to work together, so we have to have complimentary superpowers.

Jared Correia:

Oh, right, right, right. Okay, so I shouldn’t be vapor. I’ll just be water.

Adriana Linares:

You could be vapor. Yeah.

Jared Correia:

I’m glad we figured that out.

Adriana Linares:

You also have a podcast, which we’re doing a podcast swap. So I was your guest on your podcast.

Jared Correia:

I got two podcasts.

Adriana Linares:

Tell us about them.

Jared Correia:

You were on one called Adventures in Legal Tech, which is for Above the Law, and we just talked about legal technology. It’s somewhat tame. And then I have a new podcast that I started called Legal Late Night, which is kind of like a more segmented show, like monologue, interview, fun stuff. And that’s kind of wild. I’ve been known to drink on episodes.

Adriana Linares:

I’m drinking right now.

Jared Correia:

I

Adriana Linares:

Live in New Orleans. We wake up, wake to drinking. So

Jared Correia:

It’s okay. That’s why we’re not doing a video show because

Adriana Linares:

That’s why there’s

Jared Correia:

No video. We both have jugs of bourbon here. No, that’s not true. That’s not true.

Adriana Linares:

They don’t know. So your podcast on Above the Law, you also write for Above the Law, and I picked out some topics that

Jared Correia:

And you had

Adriana Linares:

On there. What do you mean? Yes and no, do you not? I see all these articles You’ve written

Jared Correia:

What I have to Well, they forced me to, I like to do this stuff. Yeah, I do too. Audio is so much better.

Adriana Linares:

This is when people call me to do things. I go, look, I don’t read and I don’t write, but I can talk and I can make videos. It’s like all day, but don’t ask me to read and write. Those are two things. This girl just stopped doing a long, long time ago.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, you don’t have to anymore

Adriana Linares:

And you don’t have to.

Jared Correia:

That’s why we’re the power twins. We don’t write. We don’t write. We’re literate and we don’t write.

Adriana Linares:

And why would you With the power of the robots today, I don’t do anything without AI anymore, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. What I actually want to talk about is how do law firms can leverage video content to drive business. And I think at this point in the marketing and client development stage, everyone’s figured out that they’re never going to write a blog every day or every week the way you were told to do 20 years ago. Okay, so blogs are out and I’m sorry again, I don’t read and I don’t write. So I definitely am not interested in blogs, but I will listen to podcasts all day long. I Have a paid subscription to YouTube. It is my single most important source of truth. Oh, if you like YouTube, pay the $15 to never see an ad again. It will change your life.

Jared Correia:

I haven’t delved into this. So there’s YouTube TV also, right?

Adriana Linares:

Yes. That’s not what I paid for.

Jared Correia:

Is that a different thing? Okay.

Adriana Linares:

Yes.

Jared Correia:

Gotcha.

Adriana Linares:

I just mean the YouTube that we all know and love ad free YouTube, $15 a month, it’ll change your life.

Jared Correia:

Interesting. Look at the tips. Tips raining down.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, that’s your first tip. If you like learning things from YouTube, which is the only reason I go to YouTube is to learn things.

Jared Correia:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

It’s amazing. So

Jared Correia:

DirecTV Stream, I’m there as well. I have the DirecTV Stream also

Adriana Linares:

For regular entertainment, which I barely even watch anymore because I just can’t

Jared Correia:

Life sports. That’s really the only reason I have

Adriana Linares:

DirecTV. That is literally the only reason. Okay, so can you talk to us about video content for law firms?

Jared Correia:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

How do we get started? I’m a lawyer. I’m listening to this and I’m like, yep, I’ve been thinking about how do I do this? Can I create one video, put it on YouTube, put it on Facebook, put it on Instagram, and put it on TikTok? And then just, how do I even start?

Jared Correia:

Let’s start here. Every asshole has a smartphone, right? I mean, look, even I have a smartphone. We’re not on videos so people can’t see it, but I’m holding up my smartphone.

Adriana Linares:

What happened? You used to have a flip phone.

Jared Correia:

I had a flip phone for many years. They made it really difficult to get a smartphone, to get an non flip phone. And I’m like, all right, fuck it. I’m just going to get a smartphone. So I, it’s like if you got an iPhone, the camera quality on this nuts, just get a tripod, take some videos and see how it goes. The captions will be added

Adriana Linares:

For

Jared Correia:

You,

Adriana Linares:

The robots,

Jared Correia:

You can do some light editing to it. It’s so easy to do. And you and I came to this conclusion years ago. I stopped writing aggressively a long time ago. Every time somebody asks me to write something, I’m like, do I have to? Can I just say something into a microphone or say something into a camera? And the people who do this well, they’ll record like 10, 15 hours of video and just chop it up into segments because people like these short form videos and that’s money all day long. That’s brand building. It’s not the same as publishing an ad where somebody’s going to see a call to action and click on it. But it’s amazing for brand building. And look at all these platforms. You’ve got Instagram reels, which is owned by Meta. You’ve got YouTube shorts, you’ve got TikTok. There’s so many places where you can put short form video. LinkedIn’s emphasizing video now

Adriana Linares:

As well. Yes, that’s right.

Jared Correia:

You can use it all over the place. This is the new best way to communicate, I think as a business owner, if you’re trying to cement your expertise,

Adriana Linares:

100% agree. So easy. You can also, if you have a Zoom subscription, which I imagine most people do, or maybe you’re using teams or maybe

Jared Correia:

You’re, it’s like 150 bucks a year, just get it.

Adriana Linares:

Just get it. But on top of that, it’s my

Jared Correia:

YouTube tv,

Adriana Linares:

But you need both. You can record video clips, which I use video clips on Zoom all the time. As a matter of fact, here’s another idea for using video and tell me what you think of this. I have gotten, I already love it. You’re going to love it because guess who hates typing? I cannot. I just hate it. And I’ve hated it for a long time. So to the detriment of my business where I have held off sending a long email, I didn’t want to write it before we had the robots. But on top of that, now I actually will record a short video for a client to answer their question. So much easier. Oh, much better. And they love it. Idea. I don’t have to look amazing. They don’t care what I look like. They don’t even have to watch the video. They can just listen to it. But on top of that, if I want to share my screen really quick, I’ll say Here, lemme show you real quick. So I think becoming comfortable with video should be everybody’s goal this summer, whether it’s to create these short form content for all these platforms or just to communicate with your clients in a new cool way that is going to endear them to you

Jared Correia:

Using Zoom for that you said?

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, I do.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. I mean Zoom’s good for that. I’ve also seen people use Loom or video ask or something like that. And I think to your point, I mean I look like shit most of the time. So you don’t have to be looking great here to do this. Throw on a baseball cap, just talk.

Adriana Linares:

And they don’t. And let me tell you, they will appreciate it. I know that most lawyers are going to care more than you and I do, and they’re going to at least try to look at

Jared Correia:

That. That’s their biggest problem.

Adriana Linares:

That is. So I love that idea. Can you give us, I’m a lawyer, I’m listening to this. I’m like, okay, but what am I going to create short form video about where would you start, God, I mean I have an easy answer for this, but I want to hear yours.

Jared Correia:

I mean, what are you not going to create content about? There’s so many options. Easiest way to do this, I think, and this is not the only way to do this, but I think you got to decide what your audience is going to be. So if it’s referrals from other attorneys, that might be different. But if you’re looking for clients, which I think most attorneys are like informational stuff for client, literally just start Googling the questions that people ask you on a regular basis. And then the people also ask feature in Google is fucking money. So scroll that you scroll halfway down the page.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, tell us about

Jared Correia:

That. And it’s like, oh, here are four other questions that people ask. They’re similar to that question, like actual search results. And then you click on another and they give you four more. You click on another one, they give you four more just endless streams of content. So literally answer those questions and you will never run out of stuff to talk about

Adriana Linares:

And it’s just content ideas. So you go to them, you can do those search to either actually create a video answering the question, or I always tell lawyers, what are your frequently asked questions? You know exactly what they are. When somebody calls you, what do you ask them? So maybe the content is your top 10 frequently asked questions, which by the way, after you record those videos, you can drop them into chat, GPT until chat, GPT to create an article for your website of your 10 frequently asked questions. The way we can manipulate and reuse content today is unprecedented. It’s amazing. Okay, so

Jared Correia:

On top of every a transcript y’all, which you can take and shape,

Adriana Linares:

Take shape and drop it into something and then copy and paste it in good format, please onto your blog. But then you can also, what I don’t see enough lawyers doing is when you call me, this is what I’m going to ask you. So instead of you answering the frequently asked questions, how about how to work with your lawyer, how to talk to your lawyer, I guarantee you that your authentic self will come out as they like to say someone might actually call you.

Jared Correia:

I think it’s easier to be authentic on video too. I feel like a lot of people when they’re writing, they try to assume an identity of an author, and I find that fewer people when they’re on video, it’s easier for them to act naturally.

Adriana Linares:

It’s true. I love that. Okay, I think we have set summer goal number one for all my listeners, which is get comfortable with video one way it’s so easy.

Jared Correia:

Just do it. Just do it, do it.

Adriana Linares:

Hey, I have an idea. Adam Lockwood is producing our podcast today, and Adam, guess what he does? He makes podcasts and videos, so we literally have an expert on creating good content. He’s the one who slices and dices our conversations up. Hey Adam, do you mind popping in?

Jared Correia:

Yeah, sure. How’s it going everybody? Adam Lockwood, Adam Lockwood Superstar finally gets his due.

Adriana Linares:

God, I hope somebody adds the clap track to this when

Adam Lockwood:

He, I mean I’m the

Adriana Linares:

Crowd goes wild.

Adam Lockwood:

Yeah, I can put it in there for myself.

Adriana Linares:

Could you? The crowd goes wild. Listen, you listen to a lot of podcasts, you edit them and I know you’re editing video a lot even though maybe we don’t do it for my podcast. Do you have any suggestions for making it easy for lawyers to just get started?

Adam Lockwood:

What Jared said, everyone owns a smartphone. It’s so easy. The barrier to entry is so low and you get really great content from that. I would say just do it. A tool that we use a lot like producing shows and especially with video is Riverside. I think Jerry de said that offline that you use Riverside on your show. It’s a great way and you can use your phone to capture video on that. And it has things that can break up the video for you into little clips and everything. It’s fantastic.

Adriana Linares:

And you can do it all on your phone.

Adam Lockwood:

Yes, you can do it on your phone, you can do it through your computer. There’s different ways to connect it and all that. Yeah.

Jared Correia:

Does it cost money? I don’t want to get, yeah, Adam,

Adam Lockwood:

You know the price of Riverside? It does. I believe it’s like $30 a month.

Adriana Linares:

It’s nothing.

Adam Lockwood:

Yeah, it’s cheap.

Adriana Linares:

Okay.

Jared Correia:

No, I don’t want to go too far a field here, but one of my favorite things about Riverside is the filters. So if you’re not comfortable being yourself, I just put out a

Adriana Linares:

Video. You can make yourself

Jared Correia:

One of our, even better, we just put out a short video of this podcast we did where I am Claymation and we have another one where I’m a puppet.

Adriana Linares:

Cool. But how interesting and fun. So I think lawyers could come up with a shtick. There’s this one guy that I really like on Instagram. He records all his videos inside his car, which I’ll tell you right now, I do not like selfies inside of cars and I don’t know why people just don’t get out of the car. But that’s this guy’s whole angle. And I guarantee you what he did one day he was probably waiting for his kid to get out of school or something. He’d been thinking about these videos and finally he said, I’m just going to do it right now here. I’m going to take one minute. And he records these one minutes how to deal with a person who’s a narcissist and he’s a lawyer, he’s got good content. And then he must just have said, well, that was easy enough. I’m just going to do it from here. So I think, and now you

Jared Correia:

Got a theme.

Adriana Linares:

Now you got a theme. Everybody sees you when you’re flying by doing the Doom scrolling in his car and I’m like, oh, here’s this guy again. And I know he gives good content, so I’m going to stop and listen. Okay.

Jared Correia:

It’s funny, I don’t like the, I’m always people record a lot of videos when they’re driving in cars.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, no,

Jared Correia:

That I don’t love that. I

Adriana Linares:

Don’t understand.

Jared Correia:

I’m like, I don’t want to get sideswiped by some asshole who’s doing a YouTube video for their

Adriana Linares:

Business. How while you’re stopped

Jared Correia:

Just parked

Adriana Linares:

Do it safely. Lawyer,

Jared Correia:

Public service announcement.

Adriana Linares:

I think they will though they’re lawyers, they’re

Jared Correia:

Overly cautious. They’re risk averse. Yes.

Adriana Linares:

That’s good. Adam, thank you for your pearls and I think bringing

Jared Correia:

In great work, Adam.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, I will use that opportunity to say lawyers don’t be cheap. Remember, good stuff costs money. So you can try to use some free tools and that’s fine. But sounds like this is a simple tool for $30. I mean, come on.

Jared Correia:

It’s

Adriana Linares:

Like two glasses of wine. Okay, we’ll be right back. We’re going to come back and I’m going to talk to Jared about one of my other favorite topics, which is outsourcing some help. He’s got some good articles and has talked to a lot of experts about using outsourced help and how to do it right. We’ll be right back. Okay. Jared, you had a couple articles over there on Above the Law on outsourcing. Do they give you your topics or do you get to pick them?

Jared Correia:

Usually I pick my own stuff.

Adriana Linares:

You had one on how remote staff can help law firms, small firms punch above their weight and helping hands. That’s an example. I always mean that’s what I always say, the value proposition of remote work for law firms. I think we’re more comfortable with this now. Lawyers are, especially since the P word, the old pandemic really did some good to a couple of

Jared Correia:

Things. Oh, pandemic. The old pandemic. Yeah. God.

Adriana Linares:

But I think a lot of lawyers are still trying to do everything, especially if you’re a solo or small. And where do you find the help? I always tell them, and maybe you have some suggestions, ask your peers. So if you’re on a listserv with your bar association or some trade

Jared Correia:

Association,

Adriana Linares:

Ask your peers who they’re using. A lot of times you’re going to find that there’s an attorney who might have a contracted assistant, but he only needs him or her part-time and they’ve been looking for someone else to split them with so that they don’t leave to get more work. So give us some ideas of where we go to find this outsourced help. How do we make sure we’re complying with our ethics obligations and how do we give them access to our data without giving them access to all our data? I think that’s probably the biggest hurdle.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, that’s one of the biggest hurdles for people for sure. I think one of the bigger hurdles though is just getting over the mindset change. A lot of people are like, don’t want remote workers. Seems like such a big deal to people and especially, so we’re talking about a couple things here. One is remote workers who are US-based, but then I see a lot of law firms that are using offshore remote workers and there’s some real value there. You can get somebody who’s an attorney in another country that you’re paying like 15, 20 bucks an hour or two to work as a paralegal.

Adriana Linares:

You’re doing good work. You should feel bad about how little you are paying them for the good work that they can produce.

Jared Correia:

Just to be clear, you can pay them more if you want.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah.

Jared Correia:

But yeah, it’s funny, I hear people say that and then you hear other people who are like, oh, they’re the equivalent of a multi-billionaire Ecuador. So it’s really funny the way people frame this, but in terms of, I think people feel better if they get a remote work protocol in place. So what does that mean to me? Okay, like you talked about, how did you give access to data to someone who’s not in your office? I have some bad news. You have to understand the technology you use, which is consistently been a problem for attorneys. So there’s a lot of things you can do in terms of software, both protecting the data and then also walling it off when people are in your system. And I think that latter part is something that no one thinks about. So the first part is how do you protect your systems from inappropriate logins? Have people set a strong password, put on a second factor of authentication. If you have an MSP that can monitor activity for you, that’s great. But then when somebody’s in a system, you’re the admin. If you’re running the firm, you can wall people off of certain data sets. You can cut people off from financial data, you can cut people off from certain files, you can give them access to only certain files. So I think you need to dive into how you manage profiles or accounts in whatever systems you’re using.

And then when I talk about a protocol, I’m also thinking about documentation. So why couldn’t you have a remote work policy in your firm, have a device management policy in your firm, have a written information security program in your firm, have an AI policy in your firm, everything that relates to how remote workers are going to be held to account in your firm. That should be documented in some fashion. And I think once people start to go through those hurdles, they feel a lot more safe and secure about it. Because honestly, if you get a remote worker who’s working 3000 miles away from you, it’s not any different really than having somebody who’s working two days a week in the office and lives down the street.

Adriana Linares:

And here’s a revelation. The attorney are literally the remote worker to your client. You are the

Jared Correia:

Remote worker, everyone. Your mind’s blown.

Adriana Linares:

Yes. Let’s meta this. You are the meta remote worker and yet you manage to get their job done for them. Their files get produced, their work gets done. I’m going to bring this back to a comment that I make on my podcast all the time about a best practice or a protocol in the world of technology, but specifically when it comes to security, and it’s called role based access. It’s beautiful. You give some, isn’t it? I love those words together, kind of like forced compliances are another,

Jared Correia:

We need t-shirts.

Adriana Linares:

So role-based access is exactly what it sounds like, but it’s literally the thing that law firms are the worst at. So you hire a new receptionist and you go, here’s my password. Have at

Jared Correia:

It, check my email. For me,

Adriana Linares:

That person’s role is not to write your email. I mean maybe it is,

But the point being role-based access means you give someone access to information, data systems, lists and documents based on the role that they are playing in your firm. And you don’t give them anymore and you don’t give them any less. You give them just enough to do a good job. And today’s modern practice management systems have permission sets that you can create to allow people to have role-based access. And that’s another actionable item I will give everyone is if you have been using Clio, Smokeball, my case, whatever, and you haven’t gone in to set permissions, it’s pretty easy. Go into your settings, go into configuration and make sure people in your firm have the access to what they need. I mean, you don’t want to make it hard for people to work, but

Jared Correia:

But this is also a data security issue because

Adriana Linares:

Hundred

Jared Correia:

Percent look at if everybody has access to everything, that’s how people are embezzling money from you. That’s how you’re creating conflicts that don’t need to exist. This stuff happens all the time.

Adriana Linares:

Yes, your administrative malpractice risk is quantified by I don’t know how much. If you haven’t set up role-based access to everything, I mean it’s a no-brainer. Okay, that’s very good.

Jared Correia:

How about workflows? I think this is another big thing.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, I would love to talk about workflows and automation. Do you think those two words scare people, automation and workflow?

Jared Correia:

I don’t think workflows do because I have a lot, and you probably are the same. I have a lot of people who reach out to me and they’re like, oh, I need workflows. That’s something I should have. But automations, I think people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about the human touch? And I’m like, yeah, that’s great. I really want the human touch of eight emails being exchanged before I can set up a meeting with my lawyer. Hard pass.

Adriana Linares:

Hard pass.

Jared Correia:

I mean, you should have workflows and processes anyway and you should have people assigned to segments of those workflows and processes. But that becomes even more important if somebody’s going to be a hundred percent remote because that’s the only way you get transparency and insight into what they’re doing and people want to shortcut that. They don’t want to do it.

Adriana Linares:

What do you suggest for existing lawyers who, hold on, not the dead ones.

Jared Correia:

Well, let’s start with the dead lawyers

Adriana Linares:

Now we freaking can’t help the dead lawyers. Sorry.

Jared Correia:

Sorry,

Adriana Linares:

What I meant

Jared Correia:

To, you’re a dead lawyer. You’re listening to this. We apologize.

Adriana Linares:

We want to know why. What I meant, what I was thinking in my mind, I was segregating, seasoned, experienced lawyers with new lawyers. So if you are a new lawyer or you are launching a new law firm, you have to do this. What we’re suggesting literally right now,

Jared Correia:

Do it right away. Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

Right now, from the minute you launch, you

Jared Correia:

Are documented. You ain’t going to do it after

Adriana Linares:

You are not because that’s the second part of this conversation is you’re going to tell people how to. But if you are thinking about launching or launching now, I remember there’s this attorney in Oregon, his name is Robert, that he called me right when he launched his new firm and maybe he was still working his previous job, but he wanted to get a heads up and I made him, and I should ask him if he did at that time, I was like, write it down, write now as you’re doing it, as you’re setting it up, write it down, you can record it into your phone and then you can drop it into a robot and have them create a list. Step one, step two, step three. Just record it with

Announcer:

Your voice for that.

Adriana Linares:

So if you’re starting out new, you must do this right now and that has to change as you’re developing the system, you want to update that. But if you don’t start with a draft and start with something, you’re never going to do it. Okay. So that’s what you do when you’re starting. What do I do, Jared? When I’m an existing, again, not an existing

Jared Correia:

Living existing attorney.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. How do I make that happen now? I don’t have time.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, well you’re fucked. No, I’m just kidding. So I think AI is great for this. Let’s do the robots. Can we start there?

Adriana Linares:

Yes. I love the robots.

Jared Correia:

There’s no client confidential data that you’re putting in to this. This is just process management. Even for casework, like substantive casework. You can put this into a free AI tool, free generative AI tool. And I do this with clients of mine all the time now. Actually when AI first came out, people are like, are you going to be replaced by ai? And I’m like, maybe I don’t know. Does that mean I get to retire? That’d be great.

Adriana Linares:

That would be amazing. But

Jared Correia:

What happens is I find myself iterating with AI with people and being like, oh, have it, do this, have it, do that. It’s missing this. And it’s been really helpful actually. So I think if you have not the foggiest idea of what a workflow should look like, you could pop into a generative AI tool and say, Hey, I’m a estate planning attorney with 10 years experience. I’m launching a firm in New Orleans and I need to get workflows in place for a basic estate plan and a taxable estate plan, whatever. It’ll pop it out for you. It Will. And then you revise it. And you could do that in a generative AI tool or you could do that in a project management software like Task eight or Notion or something like that with AI features and then you can take it up to a next level. AI is great for workflow, AI is great for what’s the next best action that I take? This is phenomenal for that. I know. I dunno. Last thing I’ll say is lawyers. Lawyers like to have shit written down. So I feel like if they have a hard time getting to the point where they’re writing out a workflow, so basically it’s like having somebody else write it for you and then you revise it.

Adriana Linares:

It’s easier for a lawyer to write an 80 page brief than it is for them to write eight steps down to starting an estate plan. It’s unbelievable.

Jared Correia:

Which is nuts to me. It’s

Adriana Linares:

Kind of

Jared Correia:

Nuts. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Adriana Linares:

So here’s what the robots can be helpful and by generative robots, we do mean chat GPT by the way.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, just use chat GPT or Google Gemini or whatever.

Adriana Linares:

Or if you’re in Google Gemini, and like you said, you’re not giving away any data, you’re not sharing confidential information. Ask it to get this flow started for you. By the way, that’s another thing you can use those robots for is I’m a lawyer. I want to create some short form videos about estate planning. What are the top 10 questions? This thing will give you the questions and you can ask it to give me a sample script just to get you started. You are not asking it to help you with an area of law that you’re not familiar with or good at. I mean you could but better to start with what you know because then your answers are going to be safer, your content is going to be better. You know what you’re talking about.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. I do have some rules for workflows that I tell people all the time

Adriana Linares:

We want them.

Jared Correia:

I think one is that they always have to terminate at some point. A phase has to end or the workflow has to complete before it moves on to the next people forget that all the time. Who

Adriana Linares:

Doesn’t love a great

Jared Correia:

Checkbox check? My favorite example is the never ending intake process of every law firm. And whenever I talk to a law firm and I’m like, okay, here’s a new concept for you. It’s called a lost lead. At some point you got to reach out to people later. Now it’s not the time. That’s an endpoint of a workflow and I tell people it’s got to be every task has to have an owner. I’ve seen law firms try to do this is a category of employee owns this task, this is something for an associate attorney to do. And then it never gets done,

Adriana Linares:

Never gets

Jared Correia:

Done. And every task got to have somebody who oversees the task, who’s moving it forward. And then you need to have a transparent way to display it so you can see it on a recurring basis, what’s next, what’s hot? That kind of thing.

Adriana Linares:

I think that’s a great segue to our next segment about getting the most out of your software that you’re already using, which is one of my favorite topics.

Jared Correia:

Talk about evergreen content, right?

Adriana Linares:

Let’s talk about it.

Jared Correia:

Let’s do it.

Adriana Linares:

We’ll be right back. Okay, so more actionable items were shared. Get on those task lists. Use those robots Chat two. BT is still my favorite, but I do pay for copilot so that it sits inside of my Microsoft 365 subscription.

Jared Correia:

Can I ask you for the nubes out there?

Adriana Linares:

Sure.

Jared Correia:

Three copilots really, right? You got the free generative AI copilot, you got the pay generat of AI copilot, and then you got copilot for enterprise, which is the overlay piece you’re talking about. The last one, is that

Adriana Linares:

Right? And I paid for perplexity, I paid for all of them.

Jared Correia:

Wow. Why wouldn’t I? Excuse me.

Adriana Linares:

They’re so cheap and they’re so helpful. Copilot at $30 a month inside of your Microsoft 365 subscription is amazing.

Jared Correia:

Oh, I know. I don’t know why more people aren’t taking advantage of that. It’s peanuts for ai.

Adriana Linares:

It’s peanuts and it’s, I think we should just address real quick, I don’t want my client data out there. Well, yeah, duh. We don’t want your client data out there either, but when you’re using Microsoft 365, they keep your data and your conversations with the robots and everything else inside of your own Microsoft 365 tenant. So if you’re looking for the safest way to check all the boxes about confidentiality and privilege information and doing the right thing, start with copilot.

Jared Correia:

I tell people that all the time. If you’re worried about using AI in a confidential fashion, just use it with the softwares that you already trust that you have a service level agreement with Bank solved. What should we do next? World hunger. Maybe

Adriana Linares:

I’d like to address homelessness

Jared Correia:

Actually. Let’s do it. Okay, all next segment. We solving it all.

Adriana Linares:

I don’t understand how this is still a problem in this world. It makes me crazy. I dunno. Sad.

Jared Correia:

It’s a bunch of billionaires out there. Just put money towards homelessness instead of the bullshit that you’re doing right now.

Adriana Linares:

Let’s fix that problem. And the animals too. I don’t know who

Jared Correia:

Wants that. Yes, let’s save the animals.

Adriana Linares:

I’d rather save the animals. Sometimes you and I have another favorite topic that we love talking to our clients about, which is making sure that they are getting the best out of their software. Where do we even start with that?

Jared Correia:

Let’s start by recognizing that you have a problem. You’re not getting what you want out of your software right now. I don’t know. I don’t blame attorneys for this or business owners. It’s hard. That’s not your job. So I feel like, and I can be this way too, I feel like if I have a software, it needs to work out of the box. I need to intuitively understand it and then when I feel like I do the stuff I need to do on it, there’s not a whole lot of pressure to look into other feature sets. If I get into a productivity software and I can send an email, make an attachment and create a calendar event, do I have a lot of, am I thirsty for new features like Microsoft Copilot? Probably not. But I find that the best business people and the best attorneys are the ones that remain intellectually curious about software. So I guess at the very least, if you got an issue that comes up, maybe check to see if it is already solved in your existing suite. And the example I give a lot is like, okay, somebody comes to me and they’re like, I need an eSigning

Adriana Linares:

Tool. Oh, this is one of my favorites too.

Jared Correia:

I need to buy an e-signature

Adriana Linares:

Software. I have Clio, I have Adobe Acrobat and I have DocuSign, but I need something to make it easy to sign documents.

Jared Correia:

Always like, Hey, I have tremendous news for you. You already have it. You just need to use it. So then you just got to learn how to do it. People have very low tolerance for that, but I think that, so first thing is just realizing that you’re not using your software to its fullest extent. Second thing is if a problem arises, look to your existing tools first. And I don’t know my favorite thing, I’m weird. I know,

Announcer:

But

Jared Correia:

My favorite thing is I like looking at software settings from time to time and just being you

Adriana Linares:

Read by mine, just twists.

Jared Correia:

What’s the new stuff? Yeah, this is Vapor and Smoke. The Power Twins. The power twins of Legal Tech.

Adriana Linares:

I was just going to say that. Here’s another actionable item. Attorneys, what are you using? Let’s just start with your case management system, which hopefully this day and age, everyone has one. Literally go into the settings because now you’ve probably been using it for a while. And make sure you’ve set up your performance goals. Make sure your time zone is right. Make sure your name is in there. Make sure your client and your matter name display the way you want them to be displayed when you’re looking at your list of matters.

Jared Correia:

I love it.

Adriana Linares:

Start right there.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, I think it’s like, I dunno, the biggest thing is staying curious about this type of thing. If you don’t, you’re, I mean, I don’t know if you get left behind per se, but you keep getting more inefficient by degrees over the course of time, which is going to affect you because I mean legal businesses, like any service business, what I’m trying to do is be as efficient as possible and get out as much work as I can. I need the hours, even if I’m using flat fees or project rates, part of the component is how long it takes me to do things.

Adriana Linares:

Of course,

Jared Correia:

I think you got to stay on top of the software to be as efficient as possible,

Adriana Linares:

And I think a lot of what you’re looking for is probably already there. Another place that you can go check for settings is in Outlook. They’ve made some changes. If you’re using Outlook, first of all, I don’t know how anybody runs their law practice with Gmail, which by the way, I am a Google Workspace subscriber and I use Gmail. I love Gmail, but I don’t really know how efficiently it’s better than Outlook. Actually, I can tell you it’s not. I know it’s not because I use them

Jared Correia:

Both

Adriana Linares:

All day long.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, I like both of them. But yeah, I think Microsoft’s a lot better.

Adriana Linares:

The Outlook interface is just built to move information around. You can drag an email onto a date and turn it into an appointment. You can drag an email onto your address book and it does a little bit of parsing to help you create a contact. It’s very hard to do those things with Gmail. I mean you can, but it’s not as easy as drag and drop.

Jared Correia:

Well, plus you got really high level tools in Microsoft that don’t necessarily have an analog in Google, like Power BI and Dynamics if you want to be a power user

Adriana Linares:

And speaking of that, you are probably paying from Microsoft 365 subscription. You have probably never clicked on the little button on the left-hand side that says apps and you have probably never scrolled through the tens of apps. Oh, this is another good one.

Jared Correia:

So, so much stuff

Adriana Linares:

In there. Think mentioned

Jared Correia:

It. Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

You talked about e-sign, which I’m surprised Microsoft doesn’t have a good e-sign solution for us. So attorneys

Jared Correia:

Don’t actually, yeah, that is,

Adriana Linares:

Don’t go looking for that. They don’t have it.

Jared Correia:

But usually that’s a case management software functionality for most law firms.

Adriana Linares:

But you know what they do have that You’re paying for a booking software. So if you are paying for Acuity or Calendly, guess what you’re paying twice for? Because it’s part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. It’s literally called bookings. It’s not very creative.

Jared Correia:

Well, I’m looking at it right now. I click the button at the top left hand side of the screen and miraculously see all kinds of features.

Adriana Linares:

There’s whiteboards in there, there’s Kanban boards in there. Now don’t use that stuff for your case management. Your case management software fills that void. But there are a lot of tools that you can use in there, and I do not see enough law firms using teams to the extent that it should be used.

Jared Correia:

Although I will say I hate teams. Can I be honest?

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. Everybody actually hates teams for meetings, just so you know. I think Zoom is better, but I think the other things that Teams does, have you looked into loop components

Jared Correia:

In teams? No, I have not.

Adriana Linares:

In Microsoft, imagine this dream. You have an Excel spreadsheet where you’ve calculated some financial,

Jared Correia:

Well, first of all, none of my dreams start with an Excel spreadsheet, but please go on.

Adriana Linares:

That’s crazy because mine do and I do not understand how any business owner on this planet does things without Excel. Let me just say that. So let’s say you got crazy and you created a little spreadsheet, just a very simple calculation, maybe custody or a divorce settlement. Okay, you guys do this all day. You created in Excel. Now with Microsoft, you can take that and create what’s called a loop terrible name, and you can pace that loop.

Jared Correia:

Microsoft’s good at that.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, super good at that. You can take the loop. It becomes like a living element that you can now paste into an email, into a teams group.

Jared Correia:

Oh, that’s cool.

Adriana Linares:

Into Excel. Oh, you put it on Excel into PowerPoint or into Word and wherever anybody updates that loop component, it updates it across all the locations that that little loop is living. You can do that with bulleted lists, with tables, with paragraphs. They’re amazing. So everybody, here’s another thing you need to do. Go to YouTube, which you have now decided to pay $15 a month for because it is worth every single penny and do a search for loop components and especially there’s a guy named Kevin Strat Vert who does great short form content and how to make the most of Microsoft. I’ve talked about him before. I don’t know him. He is not my friend. I wish he was not yet. Not yet. He used to work at Microsoft and started making so much money from his YouTube that he literally quit his job at Microsoft and is a full-time content creator on YouTube. And he makes great, there’s not a lot of music, there’s not a lot of flashing and crap that I cannot stand in these videos. He goes straight to the content in short form teachers go how to use it. So go find his video on

Jared Correia:

Components. Well shit, I guess short form videos work.

Adriana Linares:

Amazing.

Jared Correia:

There you go. I like how there’s a Microsoft Loops guy.

Adriana Linares:

There should be a Microsoft Loops lawyer out there. Anybody looking for a niche?

Jared Correia:

Take that.

Adriana Linares:

Take that.

Jared Correia:

That’s a free one.

Adriana Linares:

Grab it. Now

Jared Correia:

The stuff that’s in Microsoft, I mean Google Workspace is a less robust product, but Google Workspace has a lot of shit in it too. There’s so much stuff that people are just not aware of. If you’re only using these things for email and calendar.

Adriana Linares:

Yes.

Jared Correia:

I mean a lot of attorneys don’t even use document and storage with their productivity software, which is crazy.

Adriana Linares:

No, they’re paying for a Dropbox.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. Why

Adriana Linares:

Are you doing that? People you’re paying for Dropbox where you already have some just as good and more integrated services with either Google Workspace or I believe Microsoft 365 is what everyone should be using in my opinion. You can have Google, but I think the suite for law firms, unless you work in a tech environment, I have some law firms that work in Silicon Valley and their clients are tech clients, then that makes sense. But if you’re an attorney launching your practice, it’s Microsoft 365. I think that’s where the game

Jared Correia:

Is. I feel like a lot of people have both. And I say to you, why not have both? Why relatively cheap? Just have both.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, I do. So I use Gmail for my email, but I put it into Outlook, by the way, because I like Outlook better. It’s

Jared Correia:

Easy. I get it, I get it.

Adriana Linares:

And Gmail is just a, ah,

Jared Correia:

Anyway, Gmail is, do I have time to shit on Gmail a little bit?

Adriana Linares:

The

Jared Correia:

Search function of Gmail.

Adriana Linares:

Oh,

Jared Correia:

How atrocious is that?

Adriana Linares:

I can’t, can’t even stab threaded content in Gmail. Okay, you go to a conversation and you want to reply to the second or third instead of the most recent even. I get confused and very annoyed and I don’t do that a lot with technology. I have a lot of patients,

Jared Correia:

But this is why you need a case management software. So you can also organize your emails on a case by case basis. Well,

Adriana Linares:

Your case emails should be in the case management system

Jared Correia:

As

Adriana Linares:

We make the world a better place by really encouraging every attorney to work on a matter centric environment where everything related to a matter is in one central location. And there’s really only one way you can do that. And that is with your case management system

Jared Correia:

And that’s why you can’t use the productivity software to run your practice. Boy, see, you wanted to stop, but for your audience, I tried to squeeze a few more tips out of you before you finished.

Adriana Linares:

I know I never

Jared Correia:

Worked. I did that for you everyone.

Adriana Linares:

I mean I could go on for hours and often I do. And with Adam here producing our podcast today, he won’t mind.

Jared Correia:

No, he’s not one of the super twins, but I think he’s probably like that guy who manages

Adriana Linares:

Super

Jared Correia:

Twins.

Adriana Linares:

Definitely. He’s like our twin pimp.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. Yes.

Adriana Linares:

For audio and video

Jared Correia:

Twin Pimp. This is great. You got to have some merch coming out of this podcast soon. I feel like

Adriana Linares:

I got to talk to Lisa. Lisa, I need merch.

Jared Correia:

Can I be the first one with my twin pimp shirt?

Adriana Linares:

Yeah.

Jared Correia:

I want to be the first one.

Adriana Linares:

Definitely. I’ve always wanted to make a t-shirt and when I was the chair of a VA tech show, I wanted a t-shirt stand where we made. We sold.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. Why didn’t that happen? It’s a fucking great idea.

Adriana Linares:

I know, but let me tell you about the t-shirt I want.

Jared Correia:

This is going to be good.

Adriana Linares:

This is going to be good because

Jared Correia:

Oh my God, this is going to be the best t-shirt ever. Now it’s really got to be good because you’re building it up.

Adriana Linares:

The t-shirt is going to be called file names and it’s going to have top 10 file names that I see inside of every single yellow folder I’ve ever looked in. It goes like this. Do not use, do not use this one, use this one. And then the files that start with the date, where the date first file is zero four slash 15 and the next one, this is how naming conventions work. So great actually says March, it’s zero four, so it’s literally the T-shirt is best file names for lawyers and those are

Jared Correia:

That. Ah. Will this have a back and a front I think for this shirt

Adriana Linares:

And there should be a pocket in the front.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, definitely.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, you can

Jared Correia:

Put your three and a half inch floppy disc. It’s going to be a big pocket.

Adriana Linares:

Do not use, why do you save a file called do not use? I never understood.

Jared Correia:

Oh, that’s like a very lawyerly thing.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah.

Jared Correia:

How many times have I seen the do not use file?

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. And how about the use this one in all caps?

Jared Correia:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

With the date, because that’s the newest use. This one,

Jared Correia:

I feel like it goes without saying that it’s just got to be all caps

Adriana Linares:

For all of these. Its obvious. All caps.

Jared Correia:

What a great show

Adriana Linares:

And this is why you need document assembly, workflows, forms and templates. People to avoid do not use.

Jared Correia:

This is why you need to listen to a New Solo.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah,

Jared Correia:

It is great Content

Adriana Linares:

Version control. It’s a whole nother thing that the super twins can talk about next time.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, I’ll be back. For version control.

Adriana Linares:

I love

Jared Correia:

With my do not use t-shirt, I should have a T-shirt that says do not use as a human

Adriana Linares:

Right. I like the one that says loading because let me tell you, I’m still loading.

Jared Correia:

It’s a double entendre. Do not use me.

Adriana Linares:

Jared, tell people where they can find friend and follow you. To get more of this valuable content,

Jared Correia:

Just go to my website, red cave legal.com. Google me if you can spell my last name, you’ll find me. I’m everywhere. I’m one of the super twins. I love it.

Adriana Linares:

Vapor, goodbye Vapor. It was awesome having you on the show. Best regards, smoke

Announcer:

Goodbye. Smoke from nine to five. My tongue for all this time. Anyone clock? I was thinking this was the way to go and you put up your pocket show. I.

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