In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jared Correia discuss:

  • The evolving role of AI and technology in legal practices
  • Common obstacles lawyers face with adopting and implementing tech solutions
  • Strategies for improving law firm efficiency and productivity
  • Trends in business development and billing models

Key Takeaways:

  • Lawyers hesitate to adopt AI due to risk aversion and limited tech savviness, but starting with free tools like ChatGPT can ease the transition.
  • Flat fee billing models align with AI efficiencies, as ethical guidelines discourage charging for time saved through automation.
  • AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Google Duet AI reduce time on repetitive tasks, allowing lawyers to focus on strategic work.
  • Large firms often beta-test AI in specific practice groups, while smaller firms use off-the-shelf or custom solutions.

“I have found that most attorneys…it’s a talent acquisition problem these days, not a work acquisition problem. They need to find more lawyers to do the work—another way to look at it is, maybe we need more technology to do the work and deploy that.” —  Jared Correia

Got a challenge growing your law practice? Email me at steve@fretzin.com with your toughest question, and I’ll answer it live on the show—anonymously, just using your first name!

Thank you to our Sponsors!

Rankings.io: https://rankings.io/

Rainmakers Roundtable: https://www.fretzin.com/lawyer-coaching-and-training/peer-advisory-groups/

Episode References: 

The Rest Is History Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rest-is-history/id1537788786

About Jared Correia: Jared D. Correia, Esq., a former practicing lawyer, has been a business management consultant for law firms since 2008, working with thousands of firms globally, from solo practices to Big Law. An internationally recognized legal technology expert, he is the founder and CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, serving lawyers directly and through bar associations. Correia has hosted The Legal Toolkit podcast since 2009 and The NonEventcast podcast for Above the Law. He also contributes to the NonEvent legal technology hub, presents for legal organizations, and writes for law firm business management publications.

Connect with Jared Correia:  

Website: https://www.redcavelegal.com/

Email: jared@redcavelegal.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcorreia/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/red-cave-legal/

Twitter: https://x.com/jaredcorreia & https://x.com/RedCaveLegal

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Steve Fretzin: Hey, everybody, before we get to the show, I want to do a Q and a for Laura in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who’s asking I’m living out of my inbox and my productivity is way down. How do I change this? I wish I had more than a minute or two to tell you this, but a couple thoughts. Number one is try to clear out any junk in your inbox, meaning newsletters you don’t read.

[00:00:19] Steve Fretzin: Any spam you’re getting, you know, always go and unsubscribe to everything you can clear it out as best you can. Number two, if you trust someone like your assistant, get them in your inbox and have them handle a lot of the things that you’re going through at 500 an hour and they are making a lot less and they can handle a lot more.

[00:00:36] Steve Fretzin: A lot of the stuff that is not critical for you to see. And number three is great ideas have multiple email addresses. I picked this up from my friend, Walt Hampton. He’s been on the show a bunch of times, but the idea is that maybe you’ve got one email address for your clients, another for networking and another for other people.

[00:00:53] Steve Fretzin: And that way you can prioritize your inbox and really manage who you want to get to first. Which ones it’s okay to let go. So number of different ideas and answers there. Again, I’ve got more, but I only have a minute to tell you a couple of things that might help you get out of your inbox. So hopefully this helps you, Laura.

[00:01:09] Steve Fretzin: Take care, everybody. Enjoy the show. And again, if you have a question, please just email me at Steve at Fretzin. com and I will get it. On the show with only using your first name. Thanks everybody. Enjoy the show. Take care

[00:01:24] Narrator: You’re listening to be that lawyer life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice Each episode your host author and lawyer coach steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive Helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results Now here’s your host steve Fretzin 

[00:01:45] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, welcome to be that lawyer with I am Steve Fredson and this is the show for you, the lawyer that’s going to help you get things to the next level really and quit just sitting billing hours and just being on that hamster wheel.

[00:01:59] Steve Fretzin: Let’s actually create marketing and create business development and create a career for yourself where you can be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Jared, do you like the way that I worked my way through to my tagline? Or not 

[00:02:11] Jared Correia: as oppressive, confident, organized, those are really good skilled rainmaker.

[00:02:16] Jared Correia: Yeah, those are all good things, by the way. I mean, I think that’s what 

[00:02:19] Steve Fretzin: people want. So yes, that’s why they need to continue to listen. And we are in for such a treat today. You guys, there’s. Maybe like a handful of people that I can say every time we talk, we’re having a great time. We’re having fun and we’re learning from each other.

[00:02:34] Steve Fretzin: Today’s not that day. Unfortunately. Sorry, everybody. Sorry, buddy. That was just a bait and switch there. No, I’ve got Jared Korea. You guys, he is one of my best and favorite guys in legal. And when, every time we get together, sparks fly. Man, it’s just so good to see you every time we talk. Real. 

[00:02:49] Jared Correia: Yes. Same.

[00:02:50] Jared Correia: I’m glad to be back on the show. It’s been a while. 

[00:02:52] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, it has been a while. I’m pretty sure I kept you off for a reason. I just don’t remember what it was. That’s what I do. I 

[00:02:57] Jared Correia: just lie and wait. 

[00:02:59] Steve Fretzin: I say you’ve been sitting by the phone waiting for me to call. Right. I think it’s because you’re always dropping, dropping F bombs.

[00:03:04] Steve Fretzin: I don’t want F bombs on my show. I won’t swear. 

[00:03:07] Jared Correia: No, 

[00:03:08] Steve Fretzin: it’s not like that. I think, you know, shit is fine. Like things like that. It’s just, there’s certain words. If we just say them over and over, I’m going to get, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Bad things can happen. I won’t get you in trouble. All right.

[00:03:17] Steve Fretzin: You get me in a little, I want a little trouble. Like I want to be, I want to, yeah. Like I don’t want to rob the bank, but I wouldn’t mind just like giving someone a note. I 

[00:03:27] Jared Correia: don’t know if that’s the way to say it. We’ll make that work. No, that works. That’s slightly 

[00:03:30] Steve Fretzin: dangerous, but not quite, you know, pulling out a gun.

[00:03:33] Steve Fretzin: All right. So guys, one thing I love about Jared, everybody is that he’s got such amazing podcasts and his podcasts are so much fun. And he just says whatever he wants and does whatever he wants. And I remember you did a show. Where you spent 10 minutes talking about quantum leap. Now, anyone under 45 has never seen that show, but maybe you should go back and check it out.

[00:03:53] Steve Fretzin: It’s 

[00:03:54] Jared Correia: it’s on Roku for free. 

[00:03:55] Steve Fretzin: It is. Okay. All right. And assuming someone has Roku, I mean, not everybody has Roku. 

[00:04:00] Jared Correia: Forty five, you’ve probably got Roku. You can 

[00:04:02] Steve Fretzin: probably buy it. You can probably buy it. Yeah, right, if you’re over 

[00:04:04] Jared Correia: sixty. 

[00:04:05] Steve Fretzin: And the quote of the show today is, oh boy, and you want to give some background on that quote because no one understands what that is.

[00:04:12] Steve Fretzin: Steve, I would love to. 

[00:04:14] Jared Correia: Alright, Quantum Leap is this amazing show. It’s the scientist who develops a time machine. He tests it out before it’s ready, dot, dot, dot, then he’s stuck in time forever, so he keeps hopping into and out of other people’s bodies to, quote, set things right that once went wrong. And every time he hops into somebody’s body, he looks in the mirror, he’s somebody else, and he says, oh boy, that’s the start of every show.

[00:04:35] Jared Correia: Insanely progressive show. For the late 80s, early 90s, they covered some wild topics that people still have a hard time discussing today. Yeah, they would 

[00:04:45] Steve Fretzin: get, yeah, race and people with disabilities. Like I remember there’s all these cool shows and I think there was one where he stole a Beatles song. I think it was like either yesterday or something like that.

[00:04:54] Steve Fretzin: And I was like, and he was playing and they’re like, I don’t know if that’s going to mess up the timeline. I mean, 

[00:04:57] Jared Correia: it was imagine I’m a super fan. Steve, I 

[00:05:01] Steve Fretzin: was testing you. Yes, you know, the show. All right. 

[00:05:04] Jared Correia: That’s all right. I’ve seen every episode like ten times. Oh, my God. Some of my favorite shows of all time.

[00:05:08] Steve Fretzin: You know, I wanted this show to be about legal tech and AI, but we may just have to talk to you for a few more minutes. I mean, the problem is that there’s so many shows and so many streaming services. And what we end up doing is we find a show that we love And that is reviewable over and over again. And for my wife and I, it’s been Big Bang and I was one of these guys that hated Big Bang, didn’t like that show, thought it was stupid.

[00:05:29] Steve Fretzin: But once I got through three or four episodes, I go, wait a second, this is brilliant. This is some of the best writing and acting you’ll ever get in a comedy. And and we’ve watched it now four or five times through the whole 12 or 15 seasons or whatever. 

[00:05:42] Jared Correia: This is important before we get to legal tech.

[00:05:44] Jared Correia: All right. I’ve never seen a single episode of Big Bang Theory. Really? However, my daughter started watching Young Sheldon. Okay. And I thought it was really good. Okay. So, I’m telling you, Big Bang Theory is 10 

[00:05:57] Steve Fretzin: times better than Young Sheldon and Young Sheldon, give it some props. Okay. So you’re going to check that out.

[00:06:02] Steve Fretzin: And I kind of get my past father, Larry, the great late great Larry, the lawyer to watch and he had no patience for it. But if you want to nerd out, I mean, especially around shows and Star Wars and science fiction, it’s, you know, four or five nerds. That are just trying to find their way. And it’s absolutely brilliant.

[00:06:18] Steve Fretzin: I would say it’s like literally like Seinfeld and maybe like mash and then really it’s, it’s right up there in the top five, in the top five. 

[00:06:27] Jared Correia: So you’ll check it out. I’ll watch the first episode today. I promise. 

[00:06:30] Steve Fretzin: Well, I’d like five, not today, but like watch five, like give it a chance and they know that it’s going somewhere.

[00:06:35] Steve Fretzin: Okay. All right. Everybody, Jerry Korea, CEO of red cave law. Firm consulting, you’ve been such an amazing player in the, in the legal space for, for longer than me. I’ve been 16 years. How long have you been doing this with legal? 

[00:06:49] Jared Correia: We might be around the same. I think I started doing the consulting stuff in 2008.

[00:06:54] Jared Correia: Okay. That’s when I got in. That’s what, again, 

[00:06:56] Steve Fretzin: I didn’t push all my chips in until nine. We hit it at the right time. I honestly, we did. I think there’s a lot of people flooding into it and I’m not saying they’re too late, but they’re not the grandfathers of the, Legal marketing in this dev world, like we are 

[00:07:09] Jared Correia: well in this all social media stuff, like when we started like social media was just starting to happen and that’s a massive advantage and I was so crowded.

[00:07:16] Jared Correia: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I had my start my podcast in 2009, like I remember people podcasting your way way ahead of the way ahead of 

[00:07:24] Steve Fretzin: the curve. I started five years ago. I think I’m celebrating five years in like February. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, 470 shows or something insane. Oh, my gosh. Time. But it’s, I, God, I just look back, I wish I’d started five years before I did.

[00:07:38] Jared Correia: You were still ahead of the curve though, even five years ago. Oh yeah? 

[00:07:41] Steve Fretzin: Okay. I’ll take it. I take anything I get at this point. I have a teenager, so I’m getting beaten down on a regular basis. Like, I got, I got, I got any, any props I can Steve, let me, let me lift 

[00:07:49] Jared Correia: you up. Lift me up, 

[00:07:51] Steve Fretzin: lift me up. You know, it’s funny, because I, and I’ve said this before, like, I get paid a lot of money to help lawyers grow their law practices, and I am dealing with some of the most amazing, smart, Wonderful people in the world and they’re telling me how much I’m helping them and how great things are and their business is thriving and all this and then I come home and my teenage is like, I don’t want to hear it.

[00:08:10] Steve Fretzin: I want to, you know, I don’t want any advice from this guy who gets paid to give advice. So. 

[00:08:14] Jared Correia: Yeah, my son’s 13, like he doesn’t, he’s just about to be 13. He doesn’t care about me at all. Everything I say is stupid. I get it. I’m right there with you. 

[00:08:23] Steve Fretzin: But by the way, it’s fine if I take him on a trip or fishing.

[00:08:25] Steve Fretzin: I’m the greatest dad in the world if we’re doing that. If 

[00:08:30] Jared Correia: you’re paying for something, 

[00:08:31] Steve Fretzin: yeah. He’s having girl problems now and I like have some experience of dealing with dating and girls and he didn’t want to hear from me. Figure it out, buddy. All right. So let’s get into this. Let’s get into this. Cause otherwise we’re going to blow through the entire mean.

[00:08:42] Steve Fretzin: It’s already been. I 

[00:08:43] Jared Correia: know. I know. All right. I’m ready. Here we go. 

[00:08:46] Steve Fretzin: All right. So we’ve got legal tech. We’ve got AI. We’ve got all these things that are changing and legal. And I think there’s a lot of caution and a lot of hesitation from lawyers to integrate these things. Yeah. Why is that? And then how should they be thinking about it?

[00:09:03] Steve Fretzin: Versus in question is probably good, but you know, 

[00:09:05] Jared Correia: I think there’s probably two things about lawyers that make this difficult. The first is they’re risk averse generally. Yeah, I mean this hasn’t changed. We’ve been doing this for like 15 plus years, right? This has always been the same. Lawyers are paid to spot problems.

[00:09:19] Jared Correia: But the issue is they spot all the problems in business management as well. So, you know, you do biz dev. They’re like, well, you know, I don’t know if I want to do that seems a little bit risky to get out of my shell and try something different in terms of marketing and technology is even worse. And I think it’s even worse because the second thing is like, they don’t really understand it.

[00:09:36] Jared Correia: Like lawyers are not super tech savvy. And I will tell you, like even some of the younger lawyers I talked to a lot of the younger lawyers I talked to, they may be on social media. And they may be playing video games, but they don’t know how technology works in the construct of business. And there’s still a barrier, as far as that’s concerned.

[00:09:54] Jared Correia: And now what’s great is that they’re more willing, I found, to learn about this stuff and try different things, but there’s still that barrier. So, I mean, that’s why I think lawyers don’t use AI as aggressively as they could. That’s why I think it’s still a pain to get lawyers to adopt document assembly, which has been around for so long.

[00:10:10] Jared Correia: Bye. It’s the industry, I think, more than anything else. And it’s not just the legal industry, like, I think CPAs and doctors are probably pretty similar too, honestly. 

[00:10:17] Steve Fretzin: Okay. So then how should they be thinking about legal tech and AI if they’re thinking the way you’re thinking? 

[00:10:23] Jared Correia: I mean, I spend a lot of time pushing the envelope with attorneys, as I’m sure you do as well.

[00:10:28] Jared Correia: And I’m like, let’s try this. Let’s do this different thing. And if I can get through to people, then they’re like, Oh, wow, this was good. But the problem is like a lot of people that come back to me, they’re like, Oh, you know, you were saying this six years ago and I finally started doing it and you know, it turned out all right.

[00:10:45] Jared Correia: I’m like, well, a lot has happened in the last six years that you should also know about. I think the biggest thing for AI though, specifically with that, legal tech generally is a little bit different, right? So if I want to buy like a new case management software. For example, like that’s a big investment and then I’m like, I got to port all my data over like that’s harder to get around than if I tell somebody, Hey, you know, chat GPT, it’s available for free, test it out, see what you think, just pop in some prompts like it’s easier to get to and to just test and try.

[00:11:17] Jared Correia: So what I’ve been trying to do, which I think has been working a little bit as I’ve been telling lawyers, like there are free generative AI tools out there. Just start using them. Get familiar with how they operate, figure out how to build a prompt, figure out how to iterate with the system. And if you can do that, like, the way these tools work in legal is not all that different.

[00:11:35] Jared Correia: And then that is usually the gateway drug to AI for a lot of people. And then they start doing stuff like building their own products. Yeah. 

[00:11:42] Steve Fretzin: Right. So Jared, give an example of a prompt that you either have done or that you have worked with an attorney on. What were you trying to accomplish? What were the prompts?

[00:11:50] Steve Fretzin: How, and how, what was the result? And how did, what did you actually, what’s the output? 

[00:11:54] Jared Correia: Let me give you two quick ones, because I think this is how a lot of people start in this, is, like, they use it for something in their everyday life. So I get in trouble for this, I hope my wife is not listening to this podcast.

[00:12:04] Jared Correia: She’s not listening to this show. Okay, good. My daughter has a science fair project a couple weeks ago, and she’s like, I need three things that roots of trees provide to the environment. And I’m like, oh, GPT. There you go, answer the question. Yeah, and then the other thing I said, which lawyers have been getting a little bit of trouble with, is I said, okay, give me your sources.

[00:12:22] Jared Correia: Okay. What are your three sources? So we basically like got the answer from chat GPT, put it on the science fair thing, but we vetted our response, which was helpful. Okay. So one example that a lawyer could use AI for, there are many, let’s say you want a case summary. For example, you don’t have to worry about hallucinations.

[00:12:38] Jared Correia: You know the case, you put the entire case into chat GPT. You say, Hey, summarize this case for me in two paragraphs. And that’s one use case you could do tomorrow, right? Yeah. I’ve seen people say also like, Hey, summarize this legal concept so that I could explain it to someone with an eighth grade education level.

[00:12:57] Jared Correia: Right. And so that could be like the rule against perpetuities. Maybe you’re an estate planning attorney and you have no idea how to explain that to one of your clients if it comes up. Well, now you’ve got a real world answer to what that looks like, and if you get a response from the AI, you can then also say, hey, like, change the tone, make it more aggressive, make it less aggressive, add bullet points, like that type of thing.

[00:13:20] Jared Correia: Those are two use cases off the top of my head of, like, dozens that you could try. 

[00:13:24] Steve Fretzin: For me pushing the envelope with my clients is, can I get them to post on LinkedIn? Can I get them to like just write something or do a quick video or something? And I explained to them, I go, you know, do 10 things, like 10 problems that people come to you.

[00:13:37] Steve Fretzin: Let’s say estate planning. So 10 reasons people need an estate plan. Okay. That’s a great example of you could put that into chat. GBT, right? You get 10. responses, each of them can be blown out. And you could say, you know, create a LinkedIn post around this sentence, you know, about, you know, reasons why people need to stay plans.

[00:13:56] Steve Fretzin: And it can literally give you 10 posts. Now you’ve got 10 weeks of posts. Five minutes or less, 

[00:14:04] Jared Correia: it’s going to take you more time to find the data or add the prompt and it will for AI to generate an answer for you. That’s how quick it is. I’ll do you one better. I got a guy I know who sold a couple products into the legal space who’s actually on the real housewives of Miami.

[00:14:18] Jared Correia: Okay, and he built this AI tool, which is basically like a biz dev manager. For law firms. So what it does is you plug in your client information, it searches the web for information about your clients, and it can automatically post things on social media. It can automatically send gifts to your clients.

[00:14:37] Jared Correia: He was telling me he’s got a firm in Toronto that they’ve set up. And basically if some, if one of their startup clients raises more than the million dollars, the AI system automatically reaches out to them and says, Hey why don’t you use our box of the Maple Leafs game for November 23rd? And like no human needs to intervene at all.

[00:14:54] Jared Correia: Now, the interesting thing about this is this can all be automated, like you don’t need a human in the middle of this process, but he was like, when I started working with lawyers, they were like, we want to approve every post, so they had to build in like an authorization tool, so the lawyers could come in and be like, check, this is okay, check, that is okay, which is good and bad, right?

[00:15:12] Jared Correia: That’s 

[00:15:12] Steve Fretzin: important. Well, I think especially for people that don’t trust yet, because you got to have the trust that something’s going to work and it’s going to get you where you want to go and not get you in trouble, as you mentioned from the beginning, the risk aversion. 

[00:15:23] Jared Correia: But this is like lawyers in a nutshell because they’ll have that and then they’ll be like, I’m too busy to check it.

[00:15:28] Steve Fretzin: And then they’re paying for the software 

[00:15:29] Jared Correia: that they never use. 

[00:15:31] Steve Fretzin: No one’s getting the the box at the Maple Leafs game. Everybody’s checking the box. Nice. With proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm, Rankings. io prides itself on proof, not promises mentality.

[00:15:45] Steve Fretzin: The best firms hire Rankings. io when they want rankings traffic in cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases, and schedule a free consultation at Rankings. io today. Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here. Man, I thought I was a good marketer, but maybe not. Lawyers have been approaching me asking, what’s the Rainmakers Roundtable?

[00:16:07] Steve Fretzin: Well, I tell them this is a special place created exclusively for rainmaking lawyers to continue their journey of prosperity. Our program is unique as every member has A significant book of business and is motivated to grow it year after year. Where else does this exist? If you’re a managing partner who’s looking to get off your lonely island and talk shop with America’s top rainmakers, please go to my website bresson.com and apply for membership today.

[00:16:34] Steve Fretzin: Alright, so we’ve got some value in in the ai. How are law firms then? Able to get over that hump and actually use it successfully in helping them save time on their work. And do they want to save time? 

[00:16:50] Jared Correia: Oh man, that’s a loaded question. 

[00:16:51] Steve Fretzin: Totally loaded. Can we do that first? 

[00:16:53] Jared Correia: Do they want to save time? 

[00:16:55] Steve Fretzin: Hit it.

[00:16:55] Jared Correia: So basically, like, the ethics opinions are kind of out now. I think you have like 13, 14 jurisdictions that either have ethics opinions or ethics guidance on AI. And they basically said that you can’t charge back the cost of AI software to your clients, which I thought was coming, like that’s viewed as loss from overhead.

[00:17:15] Jared Correia: And then the other thing they’ve said is you basically can’t make up hours, like if with AI, it takes you one hour to do something you did for five hours, like you can’t charge five hours to the client, which seems rather obvious to me, but here we are. So 

[00:17:27] Steve Fretzin: it might, but it might be, it might be a plug for flat for more flat fee billing, right?

[00:17:32] Steve Fretzin: Because it’s not about how long it takes. It’s about efficiency and. You know, 

[00:17:36] Jared Correia: yeah, I saw a video of a guy who was like 

[00:17:39] Steve Fretzin: coming up with taglines and he’s asking, let’s just make up a number and say he’s charging 100, 000 to come up with a tagline. And it’s like, do you care if I come up with it in 5 minutes or 5, you know, years, like you want it done efficiently or whatever, pay the money.

[00:17:52] Steve Fretzin: And as long as you get the result, as 

[00:17:54] Jared Correia: long as it’s good, I mean, yeah, that’s the thesis that. A lot of business owners operate on just not lawyers. So it’s funny. These ethics opinions are like, they’re not outright suggesting it, but they’re kind of like, Hey, maybe now would be a good time to think about flat fees, subscription services, legal products.

[00:18:09] Jared Correia: And I would agree. Like, you know, you hear this all the time. Like it’s a billable hour dying. I, I always say, God, I hope so, but I’ve seen people say that so many times and it’s never, but it’s not actually gone anywhere. 

[00:18:20] Steve Fretzin: It’s not. But I think there’s also a lot of lawyers that would like to take the low level work and delegate it to someone or to an AI and focus on the, and get paid for the brain work.

[00:18:33] Jared Correia: Well that, so that’s the other way to look at it is, okay, now I have more volume of work that I could take on. And maybe that’s bifurcated in the sense that like the rote stuff is going to go to a machine or an associate attorney and the high level stuff, like the strategic work is going to come to me as the managing attorney in the firm.

[00:18:52] Jared Correia: And I can charge more for that and then that becomes a business development problem, which is where somebody like you fits in, right? How do I get more high level work? Because now I can take on three times as much. That could be a good problem for a law firm if you’re looking at it in that way. And so I think there’s two ways to solve it.

[00:19:10] Jared Correia: Change your billing model or take on more work of the type that you want. 

[00:19:13] Steve Fretzin: Right, but you have to have the delegation and the AI and the legal tech in place because that’s where the time management, you know, benefits you. That’s a real struggle. I mean, I’m really, I mean, I don’t know that lawyers have been busier than they are right now ever that I’ve experienced in 16 years.

[00:19:33] Steve Fretzin: I feel the same way. Yeah. Yeah. So how do we start to help them use AI so that they can focus on business development and focus on the things that are high level? 

[00:19:42] Jared Correia: Yeah, I mean, so you’re right. Like. I just want to underscore that point, which you just made, which I think a lot of people are not talking about necessarily is that like, I’ve never seen lawyers busier ever.

[00:19:51] Jared Correia: And I don’t know if that’s like a lot of lawyers retired during the pandemic or what that was all about. I haven’t seen studies on that. That’s going to be part of it. But I have found that most attorneys, like it is a talent acquisition problem these days and not a work acquisition problem. They need to find more lawyers to do the work.

[00:20:06] Jared Correia: And the other way to look at that is to say, Hey, maybe we need more technology to do the work and we can deploy that. I’m still how our firms using AI. Like I said, there are people who are just like, you know, slow pedaling their way into it, which is going to be problematic. But then I think there’s like two ways to do it.

[00:20:21] Jared Correia: And it usually depends on the size of the firm. So a lot of the smaller firms are using off the shelf AI tools, like just stuff that you can buy in the marketplace. And at this point, like most major software providers have either what I would call an AI overlay feature. Which is AI attached to a lot of the different products that they’ve already released.

[00:20:41] Jared Correia: Like Microsoft, for example. Microsoft’s got Copilot. Google has something called Google Duet AI. So what that does is if you buy that additional package, you’ve got AI features in all the tools you’re using in those suites. And then some products, like Filevine would be an example. They’re a case management software.

[00:20:55] Jared Correia: They’ve released like six different AI tools. They have one for demands. They have one for deposition summary. They have one for accessing the support tool. And that’s the two ways I’ve seen it done. Now, as you get into bigger companies and bigger law firms, OpenAI has their own API. As do some of these other AI service providers.

[00:21:14] Jared Correia: And so you can start building your own products. So what I’ve seen is the bigger firms to start building, have started building their own internal AI tools, and smaller firms are buying off the shelf software. Now that’s not 100 percent in either direction. I have a solo attorney I work with right now, and we built a billing program for him using AI, my case, and Notion.

[00:21:35] Jared Correia: And it is really good. But he built that from scratch. Like he just pulled these two softwares together used integrations. Now he’s got an AI billing engine and our thesis on that was like we can’t wait for these off the shelf companies to do this Because it’s going to take too long. So we’ll just do it ourselves 

[00:21:51] Steve Fretzin: Okay, but I the thing I hear a lot of cool 

[00:21:54] Jared Correia: stuff you can do 

[00:21:55] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, but the problem that i’m hearing i’ve got lawyers at mid market in big firms and they’ve got IT teams, they’ve got structure, right?

[00:22:05] Steve Fretzin: So like the idea that they’re going to check this out, even something as simple as an auto scheduler, which we know will save people a tremendous amount of time on getting appointments with clients, getting appointments with prospects, networking, whatever, they can’t get that over the finish line because they’re handcuffed and how do lawyers at mid market and big firms get through that to the other side?

[00:22:27] Steve Fretzin: Cause there’s efficiencies. They just maybe can’t get to them. 

[00:22:30] Jared Correia: I’ve seen a few ways that’s happened. Some of the mid market to larger firms, they have a technology division as well. So non lawyers working on just technology, building tools for the firm. That’s a good group to go through. So if you’re a lawyer who’s tech savvy, or at least interested in tech, they love you.

[00:22:47] Jared Correia: Right. So you go talk to those folks. You’re like, Hey, I want to build an AI product. And they’re like, amazing. Whereas if you go to the managing partner, the managing partner is like, get the hell out of here. AI is not going to affect me. I’m going to retire before that happens. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:23:00] Jared Correia: Shouldn’t you be cranking at your desk? So you might be able to build a product with that team. And just beta it to a small group within the firm. And that’s the other way I’ve seen this done. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a beta of an internal product. It could be an external product that you’re using.

[00:23:15] Jared Correia: But there are about working groups. There are technology committees. There are practice area groups and all these larger firms. And the way I’ve seen this be most effective actually, is some of these practice groups just launching something and being like, Hey, we’re the employment law practice group.

[00:23:30] Jared Correia: We’ve got a use case for AI that we want to try. We don’t want to launch this in the whole firm, but can we do it through the employment law group, see how it goes. And then if it’s bad, you can be like, I told you so. And if it’s good, then we can maybe launch it for the whole firm. And I won’t even take credit for it.

[00:23:44] Jared Correia: That’s the way I’ve seen it work really well. And then the other thing is, you know, I’ve also seen lawyers like. Use AI or technology tools in their personal lives or related to hobbies that they have and then they come back to the firm and they’re like, Hey, I know we had a bake sale at my kid’s school and I used AI to generate the schedule for the bakers and like we used AI to figure out what the pricing model was going to be for this and it worked really well and that’s not a direct sell.

[00:24:12] Jared Correia: But if you can do stuff like that continuously and be like, Hey, I use AI in my personal life. I’d like to start using in the practice. Here’s a win I’ve had, like I’ve seen that work as well. And ideally it’s a combination of all those things. If you can do it. 

[00:24:25] Steve Fretzin: Okay. And you know, with the few minutes we have left, I would love to hear what you are recommending for lawyers.

[00:24:33] Steve Fretzin: And obviously this shows about growth and business development and being that lawyer and all that. So I think if you can, you know, keep it to keep things that are gonna, you know, make them money, save them time, you know, help them with marketing. What are some of the legal tech tools that you are either that are new or that you’re recommending on a pretty regular basis?

[00:24:49] Jared Correia: Okay. I really like this task management product called task aid. It is AI based task management. And so workflows are a great use case for AI, whether it’s a case workflow, like how do we work through this specific case or whether it’s an administrative workflow, if we’re talking about saving time, like if you’re a process oriented law firm, you’re going to save time.

[00:25:14] Jared Correia: So if the idea that we talked about before is like, okay, I’m going to bill hourly, I want to increase my volume. What’s the best way to increase your volume? Well, it’s figuring out what your top line efficiency is, like whatever your practice looks like right now, get as efficient as possible. And you really can’t do that in a modern business unless you have process management features available.

[00:25:34] Jared Correia: The other thing I’d like, so so some of the really new products that are coming out, and Spellbook is an example, they have what they’re calling an AI associate. There’s a company called Harvey AI that does something similar, but the idea is that, okay, there are these partner level tasks, and then there are these associate level tasks that are somewhat lower level, so, you know, can I farm that out to a technology instead of an individual?

[00:25:57] Jared Correia: And this gets a little bit deeper, but, you know, the way that most people think of AI right now is generative AI. Which is, I prompt it, I iterate with it, I tell it to do different things, like, I’m entirely involved in that process, but there are these things called autonomous agents, which don’t necessarily need continuous prompting.

[00:26:13] Jared Correia: You could say to that agent, like, do this broad task, like, build me a marketing plan and launch it. And so you’re not doing like blog posts one by one going ahead and posting it to LinkedIn like you always did you build this autonomous agent and it just takes care of the whole program for you and maintains it.

[00:26:30] Jared Correia: Like there are companies right now that have launched like early versions of that for law firm associates, law firm assistants, and you could look for something like that. So when I talk to people about how do you get more efficient, I say, okay, let’s look at the team you have right now and let’s get the people as efficient as possible.

[00:26:45] Jared Correia: And then let’s also look and see what technology you can use. To get more efficient as well. And then the other thing I was like the lowest hanging fruit here, I think By the way, is productivity software. So, a lot of lawyers have case management softwares, a lot don’t. And I mentioned this before, but both Microsoft and Google, which are the only productivity softwares that law firms use.

[00:27:05] Jared Correia: So, I’m talking about email, calendar, document storage, VoIP, EAMS. They all have these AI overlays for a relatively inexpensive amount of money. I think it’s 30 bucks a month for both. If I get Microsoft Copilot, if I get Google. Duet AI, I can do things like write a sentence and have it generate an entire PowerPoint for me.

[00:27:23] Jared Correia: If I’m a BizDev person, how long does it take you to do that right now? Or you’re giving that to your assistant and they’re not able to do other things like billable work, potentially. So, those are three off the top of my head that I would be looking out for. 

[00:27:35] Steve Fretzin: Those are three good ones and a great way to wrap up the show, everybody.

[00:27:39] Steve Fretzin: So much value outside of the TV talk from earlier, so much value in that 

[00:27:44] Jared Correia: was still my favorite part. I, me too, me too, 

[00:27:46] Steve Fretzin: being honest. No, but this is like, this is an area that lawyers, as you know, struggle in and they’re just overwhelmed. And like, I, I did a post this morning about, you know, how frustrating it is to have, you know, 500, a thousand unopened emails and how difficult it is to be a lawyer, knowing you’ve got another 300 coming in today, you got a thousand you haven’t dealt with.

[00:28:05] Steve Fretzin: And whether it’s AI delegation, you know, just figuring out a strategy to get, I mean, that these are the kinds of things that I think people are coming to the show for. So I 

[00:28:14] Jared Correia: throw one more at you. Yeah. Because you said email. I did. I 

[00:28:17] Steve Fretzin: would love that. 

[00:28:18] Jared Correia: Take a look at front. If you haven’t. Front is basically a ticketing system so that you can manage your email without having to, and pass along assignments to other people, without having to share your inbox with your secretary or your paralegal, which is a dangerous thing to do.

[00:28:35] Steve Fretzin: So is it, is it like when something pops up, you sort of like give it a title or a name and then it automatically moving forward? Forward knows that that’s got to go to someone else that you 

[00:28:43] Jared Correia: could do it that way. Or you could assign individual emails to people. So like software companies, they use these ticketing systems anytime a support request comes in and there’s a buffer product called Zen desk, which helps a lot of these companies to manage that, which is more expensive, but front like a smaller business version of that.

[00:29:00] Jared Correia: And it basically is like a support slash ticketing tool for email, but a lot of attorneys use it to assign to staff. 

[00:29:07] Steve Fretzin: Okay. I love it. Wow. All right. Well, that’s a great way to wrap up the show. And then let’s move to our games. So you and I were talking about, you know, how the politics have changed and how, how horrible it is.

[00:29:17] Steve Fretzin: I’m committing that I’m going to like, stay away from like news for a while and just focus on me, focus on my family and stuff like that. Right. And so podcasts, like I’ve deleted five or six. Basically, like politically charged podcast that I was listening to regularly that were really intelligent and important, but I’m taking a break.

[00:29:36] Steve Fretzin: So what’s next? So yeah, I need some entertainment that isn’t necessarily political. So game changing podcast is called the rest is history podcast. So what is that? 

[00:29:47] Jared Correia: I love the show. I’m a big history guy. Like if I, like I do business consulting, I do software, but like if I had my pick of jobs, I would love to be like history professor.

[00:29:57] Jared Correia: That’d be amazing. I could see that. I 

[00:29:59] Steve Fretzin: want to be in that class. 

[00:30:00] Jared Correia: It’s these two British dudes and they discuss like all kinds of like history topics across all different eras, all the way from like ancient times to like, they’re doing a series right now on like 1968. In America, and it’s a history podcast and it’s extremely thorough, but it’s also like really funny.

[00:30:20] Jared Correia: These dudes are like hilarious. It’s actually one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Really? And I’ve never even 

[00:30:25] Steve Fretzin: heard of it. And I’m gonna, as soon as we hang up, I’ve got a client meeting, but then right after that, I’m gonna. Check 

[00:30:32] Jared Correia: out some great episodes. Yeah, and they actually just I think they are currently on a tour the two hosts of North America.

[00:30:37] Jared Correia: I love that they’re doing like you 

[00:30:40] Steve Fretzin: and I go on a tour. We’re going to travel around the country and we’re going to just get up on stage and do our podcast together. How cool would that be? I’m working on it. Don’t you worry. I’m totally up on board with that. Getting up on stage and presenting. I would still do it, but like that’s not as much fun as this like on a stage just talking.

[00:30:55] Steve Fretzin: You know about whatever we wanna talk about in lawyer and maybe lawyer stuff, maybe. Yeah. Jared, if people wanna get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you? They wanna, what are your podcasts like? Share a little bit and we’ve just got a minute left. Oh, sure. 

[00:31:06] Jared Correia: Can go to my website, rick cave legal.com.

[00:31:09] Jared Correia: You can just email me too, Jared rick cave legal.com and then I’ve got a, the Legal Toolkit podcast on Legal Side Network and some new podcast stuff coming up soon. Watch out for that. 

[00:31:18] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Awesome. And let’s also take a moment, tease that one. 

[00:31:20] Jared Correia: What was that? I’m just going to tease that one. Leave it there.

[00:31:23] Steve Fretzin: There you go. And I want to thank our podcast sponsors. We’ve got LawHer with my friend, Sonya Palmer, kicking ass for women and making sure they’re getting ahead. And of course, Rankings. io, great marketing company, getting, bringing in leads and Chris out there hustling. Thank you so much, man. This is a blast.

[00:31:40] Steve Fretzin: I just every time we get together on the podcast or off. I’m just I’m always inside and out. I’m smiling. So that’s right. 

[00:31:47] Jared Correia: Yeah, this is amazing. Thank you. Thanks, brother. 

[00:31:49] Steve Fretzin: All right. And thank you everybody for hanging out with Jared. I hopefully you had some fun today and got some real good legal. You know, tech tips and AI tips that I know we’re going to stick out in and take action on this stuff.

[00:31:59] Steve Fretzin: That’s what this is all about. When you’re being that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Take care everybody. Be safe. Be well. We will talk again soon.

[00:32:11] Narrator: Thanks for listening to Be That Lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin. com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.

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