In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Randa Prendergast discuss:
- Committing to your processes no matter how busy or slow your firm is.
- Why many lawyers struggle with billing and accounts receivable.
- Perceived value in your costs with your clients and setting expectations around billing with them.
- Handling difficult AR and collections with clients.
Key Takeaways:
- Lack of processes, lack of time, and thinking emotionally about your costs are three of the biggest issues around lawyers receiving their proper payments.
- Lawyers make exceptions more than any other professional industry leading to higher levels of AR. You are not being exceptional when you make exceptions.
- You can have your clients on ACH and autopay as long as it is kept securely. This will nearly eliminate your AR.
- Book keeping and collections should not be done by the attorney. They are delegatable to other professionals.
“We want to remove the attorney from this process as much as possible. I only like to bring them in on making decisions about stopping work because of non-payment. So all the tasks up until that point should really go to a legal assistant, admin, billing clerk, or something of that sort, not even a paralegal.” — Randa Predergast
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Episode References:
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About Randa Predergast: Providing expert services in law firm and case processes (including implementation and training), paralegal support, and billing clerk services on a 1099 basis.
Connect with Randa Predergast:
Website: https://mrsjunelegal.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mrs-june-legal-llc/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/attorneywhisperer/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@attorneywhisperer
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Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Steve Fretzin: Hello, my Be That Lawyer friends. Before we dive in today’s show, I have a small favor to ask. My mission in the legal industry is to help legal professionals like you take law practice growth seriously. I hope you’re finding value in this podcast and it’s aiding you in growing your law practice. Now, it only takes a moment to make a positive impact on someone’s life.
[00:00:19] Steve Fretzin: If you’re enjoying the show, please help us spread the word. A kind review or five star rating would go a long way in helping us reach more of your amazing colleagues. Thank you for your support, and now, let’s get on to the show.
[00:00:35] 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, more efficiently. Greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
[00:00:57] Steve Fretzin: Well, hey everybody. Welcome back. It is the be that lawyer with Fretzin podcast. I am Steve Fretzin, your host. We are here twice a week to help you to be that lawyer. Someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. And I have a Randa waiting in the, in the, in the wings here. How you doing Randa?
[00:01:12] Randa Prendergast: I’m well, how are you?
[00:01:13] Steve Fretzin: I’m doing well, doing well. Just got back from my trip to Boston. Got to see Margaret Burke. I got to see Steve Sackler. It was I was almost very close to seeing Jared Korea and then he, he was, whole family was sick. So that was out. But Boston’s a beautiful city. Have you been to Boston?
[00:01:29] Randa Prendergast: I haven’t. I was recently talking with the one and they said they’re from there, it was over email. So I was like, do you have an accent? They’re like, no, not, unfortunately. It’s like a hit and miss. But that was like my best, big first question.
[00:01:41] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Beautiful city, very clean, and just a lot to, a lot to see in a couple days.
[00:01:47] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, you know we love to start with the, with the quote of the show. We’ve got a very straightforward one Randa, that you gave to me. We, I think we kind of tweaked this a bit back and forth between, you know, as far as what we’re putting out here. But. Essentially, the quote is, no pain, no change, you can lead a horse to water, can’t make him drink.
[00:02:03] Steve Fretzin: I mean, there’s a number of things that lead to, you know, why maybe lawyers are slow to change. Why people are slow to change. Do you want to expand on that?
[00:02:10] Randa Prendergast: Yes, just naturally working with attorneys specifically. I mean, this is across all businesses, but specifically attorneys. They, they have a hard time with change sometimes, but obviously they’re connecting with us in some way.
[00:02:23] Randa Prendergast: They do realize they do need to make a change, but the most that we can do is provide the tools. We can’t actually force them to do anything. So. It’s our goal to identify if people are open to that and if they’re going to follow through because otherwise we’re not able to help them. And it’s really important for my business success, you know, law firm owners and attorneys are open when seeking out where it’s not going to be helpful for anyone.
[00:02:50] Steve Fretzin: Well, and I almost push people away. You know, I try to qualify people That are not going to participate at the highest level to just don’t do it Like just don’t invest don’t put your time money energy in something If you’re not willing to make the time put the change in and so i’m almost like finding people at their breaking point Where it’s like you have to kind of get them to the point where it’s do or die or that it’s just like hey Another year goes by like this.
[00:03:15] Steve Fretzin: That’s not a good thing That’s not that’s not working for me and get them to sort of admit it verbally Did you find that that’s that’s helpful getting people to that breaking point?
[00:03:24] Randa Prendergast: Absolutely. I do get people also that I do get some They’re like, oh i’m i’m slowing down. My law firm’s typically slow during these months I want to start working on it, and I have to reiterate, like, it is a commitment, and even though you’re slow, you need to make sure that you are committing to the process and, you know, do or die moment, make action, but when you’re slow, and you’re kind of like, yeah, I should be doing this, sometimes you tend to not prioritize it either.
[00:03:54] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s gotta be important. You know, whether you’re growing your book of business, whether you’re trying to get organized within your income up with processes, and we’re going to be hitting a lot of that today. All really, really critical stuff. So Randy, give us a little bit of your background because and just so everyone knows render print a guest is old friend of mine, CEO of Miss June Mrs.
[00:04:12] Steve Fretzin: June legal. And how long have we known each other? It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be five years, six years, something like that.
[00:04:18] Randa Prendergast: We’re close to that. Yes. Yeah.
[00:04:23] Randa Prendergast: Beginning of the pandemic.
[00:04:24] Steve Fretzin: Okay. Okay. So, so, and, and you know, we’re not doing the same things, but we’re really both fully committed to helping attorneys and give us, give us the background and, and kind of where you started and, and how you ended up working in legal and doing what you do.
[00:04:37] Randa Prendergast: Sure. So I’m a recovering paralegal.
[00:04:40] Randa Prendergast: I used to work for a bunch of solos mainly and family law. Solos are my heart, my bread and butter. I love them so much. I want to see them win. So I was used to wearing many hats, you know, doing paralegal work, also do being the billing clerk, all the many hats in the law firm, I decided to transition to contract support.
[00:05:05] Randa Prendergast: And there was a huge need throughout the legal community for that type of work. There’s a lot of flexibility for law firms there. So I outgrew myself doing that work. I decided to help place our legal support. I, I soon realized I was not as successful with that as I wanted to be because wall firms did not have processes in place.
[00:05:28] Randa Prendergast: So my contractors didn’t have the tools that they needed to be successful. So that’s where it was. I my second part or like my business was born and doing legal consulting We provide expert services and law firm in case processes Including billing and billing clerk services and we do implement implementation and training Yeah.
[00:05:49] Steve Fretzin: So really important. And, and, you know, you got into that space because you saw in similar to me, right. Saw a deficit in an area and why are lawyers, and I’m not going to pick on them maybe more than I’d pick on anybody, but let’s, but Hey, why not? You know, when in Rome, why are they so bad with, why are they so bad with billing processes and AR?
[00:06:10] Steve Fretzin: And in some cases have, Fifty hundred thousand. I mean a solo could have fifty a hundred thousand dollars sitting out there That they need to like survive and yet it it’s hard for them to collect. Let’s go good Why why are those things happening?
[00:06:22] Randa Prendergast: Lack of processes lack of time Thinking maybe they are too emotional and they’re billing and collections that happens a lot, especially within probate family law some specific areas practice areas.
[00:06:39] Randa Prendergast: I see that a lot You Maybe they also feel like they’re not worthy of getting paid that much. We, it’s like a mindset issue a lot of times too. And they’re always wanting to give exceptions, which I find is extraordinary because other areas or other businesses, there’s just no exceptions, right? We, you know, they hear this time and time again, they don’t get to go to the doctor or have their procedure without.
[00:07:04] Randa Prendergast: You know, making payments. They don’t get to go pick up their vehicle from the mechanic. Right. Without paying their bill first, right? But for some reason, attorneys offer a lot of exceptions. When you offer a lot of exceptions for payment and collection, then you end up with a lot of AR.
[00:07:22] Steve Fretzin: Is that stemming from an issue About like the difficulty of talking about money Like I know, you know, i’m in gen x and like we didn’t ask our parents like how much did you make?
[00:07:31] Steve Fretzin: We didn’t really talk money. They didn’t talk money with us So I know that there’s people that have angst about having money conversations. Do you think that’s a part of it?
[00:07:41] Randa Prendergast: Could be for sure but then also like when you’re in law school You don’t talk about that portion like you don’t talk about like how to run a business and you don’t talk about Collecting money and you don’t you don’t have those hard conversations like You do realize when you talk to a potential new client that you’re going to be asking them for thousands of dollars up front.
[00:08:01] Randa Prendergast: So no one really knows how to form that conversation to where they sell, they are selling themselves and are confident in that.
[00:08:09] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. What are the mistakes that lawyers are making? It could be on the front end during the engagement at the end of the engagement that’s causing AR to pile up what are like, I’m thinking I’ve got a few in my head, but I’d like to hear what you say, and then I’ll chime in
[00:08:24] Randa Prendergast: clear communication at the beginning with your potential client of what it’s going to cost.
[00:08:30] Randa Prendergast: Of what you charge hourly is going to be key I always think that it’s best to reiterate what billing or how you do your billing in the very beginning So that starts on that very first consultation call like we’re going to collect at that ten thousand dollar retainer for you This is our frequency of billing.
[00:08:49] Randa Prendergast: This is how you’ll receive your bills. This is your expectation of replenishing your retainer another good opportunity to put that information in front of the client again, it is reiterating it in your fee agreement, and then once they sign up, another opportunity for that is putting it and maybe a welcome letter of like how your office operates.
[00:09:11] Randa Prendergast: So you have three opportunities right there to say, Hey, this is how we’re going to do billing. And you’re setting that expectation from the beginning.
[00:09:18] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I just came up with a, not a quote of the show, but I’m going to give this one to you. This is a freebie for you, Randa. You can take this, write it down.
[00:09:25] Steve Fretzin: I’ll put it in the show notes, whatever. But as you were talking about how people make X, how lawyers are making exceptions, I wrote down, you are not being exceptional when you make exceptions.
[00:09:36] Randa Prendergast: Oh, that’s a good one. Well, no, that’s a team
[00:09:39] Steve Fretzin: effort right there. You and me, we can, we can take credit for that together, but that’s, that’s, we, we think we’re, you know, we’re, we’re by being the nice guy or gal and we’re doing what we think is right for our clients.
[00:09:51] Steve Fretzin: But it ends up, it ends up being, now they’ve, now they’ve, now you’ve set the precedent, now you’ve set the tone for, I’m not exceptional or I’m not, you know, needing to be paid because I must be loaded or I must have, you know, some, something going on in my favor when in fact there are attorneys that are in debt, there are attorneys that, that can’t make their payments because they’re sitting on a pile of AR they can’t collect.
[00:10:15] Randa Prendergast: Well, and to that, like there’s a perceived value of having set processes that you’re not willing to go outside of a first up on. Right. And there’s also perceived value in your pricing structure and your retainer collection. So you don’t ever want to really be the lowest that’s perceived value of, you know, I need this money.
[00:10:37] Randa Prendergast: I’ll do whatever I need. You also don’t want to offer all those exceptions because it’s giving that same vibe to your potential new client.
[00:10:45] Steve Fretzin: So let’s walk through the, the life cycle of, of a client. What are some things that we should be doing to set the tone at the very beginning when someone says, yes, I, lawyer, I want to work with you, or I’m going to sign this engagement letter.
[00:11:02] Steve Fretzin: Is it something that needs to be said? Is it something that needs to be written in the engagement letter? What, what are the things that sets the tone for the removal of the AR issue?
[00:11:10] Randa Prendergast: Sure. So like I said, I think it needs to be three ways to communicate with them said during the conversation reiterated during the, in the fee agreement itself, that they’re signing and then in a welcome letter, if you, and then there’s going to be other times throughout the life of the case that you’re going to have these conversations, right?
[00:11:30] Randa Prendergast: If you’re saying to them, Hey, we build twice per month, then They should get a belt by her month. So you’re holding to that process. See from the very beginning. Some other things that really you know, tell the client. These are our processes and we’re hearing to them is. Having what I call billing, billing maintenance tasks or tasks that happen in between billing cycles, so you’re not just sending them an invoice and just hoping that they pay right.
[00:12:01] Randa Prendergast: You’re doing that follow up in between saying, Hey, here’s your agreement that you say you’re going to pay. And then you’re also evaluating at some point, you know, stopping non essential work to stopping essential work to a drought, and you’re not letting billing cycles just pass you by without those conversations or those touch points.
[00:12:21] Steve Fretzin: I mean, is it legit for lawyers to ask and receive ACH information and credit card information with the understanding that, you know, Hey, when you get a bill, we’ll just, we’ll auto charge it as we go. Is that happening? Should it be happening? Is that legit to do?
[00:12:39] Randa Prendergast: Yeah, absolutely. The only thing that I want to caution about is you don’t want to keep any of that information in written form.
[00:12:47] Randa Prendergast: A lot of case management systems offer for that information to be stored securely. And then also look at the case management system or wherever it’s being stored securely. So like Clio, for example, will store that information. But when the client checks the box, it just simply says we have the permission to use this payment information for our agreement.
[00:13:10] Randa Prendergast: So you always want to put written agreement into your fee agreement if you’re going to be running payments automatically through a payment plan or just when you’re doing invoicing.
[00:13:19] Steve Fretzin: And I just, I just want to stop on that point with your, with your caveat that it needs to be done in a secure way, that you can have all of your clients on ACH and credit card auto paying you with no AR at all, because it’s automated again, unless they shut down the card or shut down the checking account that they have.
[00:13:39] Steve Fretzin: That’s what I do. I only take one or two checks a month and you know, that’s on under protest. And so my, you know, my bookkeeper, you know, their job is still legit, but it’s like their collections for me is almost zero.
[00:13:53] Randa Prendergast: Yes. So when we set up building processes, I always make that recommendation. Like I said, I, I will give the best information and recommendations, right.
[00:14:03] Randa Prendergast: But they have to put it in the process. And a lot of times I hear, I get, you know, Well, my clients won’t like that because, and I’m like, well, you are setting the tone for what kind of clients do you want to. So if you just say, this is how we operate, build it. And they will come, they, people will hire you.
[00:14:24] Steve Fretzin: Make it a policy, right? Randall, like tell everybody, like, this is our, this is our like doctors do it all the time. This is the policy moving forward of how you’re going to whatever, get information or access the doctor or communicate or whatever. And we’re like, okay, we just follow along. So I think it’s like,
[00:14:40] Randa Prendergast: yeah, I
[00:14:41] Steve Fretzin: mean, you just give it a, you know, give it, don’t just give it a try, make a decision that this, that like, Processing checks is a very tooth year 2000 thing to do, right?
[00:14:54] Steve Fretzin: And there’s better ways. That’s like scheduling appointments back and forth right now. We all use autos. At least people should be using auto schedulers, but they’re not. So they’re spending how much time going back and forth. How does Wednesday look? Not good. How does Thursday look? And we do this for what days?
[00:15:09] Steve Fretzin: No, no more. You got to draw a line at some point.
[00:15:12] Randa Prendergast: So to that, you know, people get discouraged when they’re like, someone’s like, Oh, well. Smith and Smith, they don’t do it that way. Great. Maybe they’re a better fit for you. Right? It’s okay. Not everyone is going to be your client and you don’t want them to be like, if they’re asking for exceptions out of the gate, they’re probably going to be really big problems for you later.
[00:15:36] Steve Fretzin: I’d say when I got a better response, I’d say, well, they’re not as smart of a law firm as we are.
[00:15:40] Randa Prendergast: Yeah, you want to go with a smart law
[00:15:42] Steve Fretzin: firm? You want to go with a dumb law firm? It’s not taking money Thing.
[00:15:47] Randa Prendergast: Yeah, absolutely I’m, so I like it But that’s the thing is people get so wrapped up when they get turned down because they want to enforce a policy But people who understand, you know, well, this is how everyone else operates I’m going to operate this way with my attorney also, so it’s not you just have to put your foot down
[00:16:06] Steve Fretzin: Really?
[00:16:07] Steve Fretzin: So it’s, it’s setting expectations, communicating policy. Okay. And then what, what’s happening? Yeah.
[00:16:15] Randa Prendergast: You got to enforce the policy.
[00:16:17] Steve Fretzin: That’s
[00:16:17] Randa Prendergast: where a lot of law firms like fall short. I think is they do all this heavy lifting in the front and then They’re reviewing bills and they’re not getting a replenishment on their retainer or You know They’re not getting an invoice paid and they’re continuing to work or they’re not doing a follow up Or due diligence for their law firm and their cash flow.
[00:16:38] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, I mean think about it this way everybody It’s I mean i’m on ach or credit card for everything every subscription. I believe I have is all auto pay I’m, not it’s not like i’m not checking my accounts like I know what’s going in and going out You But it’s just it’s easier for everybody you think it’s it’s like they’re not going to want to do that And it’s in your head.
[00:17:00] Steve Fretzin: Everybody wants to do who wants to write a check to a lawyer Let me just let me think about nobody. Let me take a second. Nobody. All right, what’s easy now granted Do they still want to like review their bill and all that? Yeah, I mean Imagine they want to look at what’s going on, you know some of them But ultimately as long as you’re on the up and up and you’ve built that trust, you know They have the ability to look at their bills and they can communicate This bill was more than I think it should be and here’s why then fine then refund them something if you need to or Or credit to the next month, but you you have your money in the bank at that point and you can make adjustments
[00:17:36] Randa Prendergast: Yeah, and to that like I like to talk about billing cycles.
[00:17:39] Randa Prendergast: I think smaller or shorter billing cycles is Really helpful, not only just for the law firm and cashflow purposes, but also it provides more consistency and communication to your client. I’m in legal billing, you know, it’s very specific on what you’re doing and you get to see all the activity descriptors and that’s kind of like a mini update to your client, what’s going on in their case, so also like provides better customer service, you know, they can see what you’ve done in the past two weeks instead of waiting for a month or whenever you get around to billing a month and a half, God forbid two months, right, or longer.
[00:18:14] Randa Prendergast: It also provides smaller, more manageable payment. You know, they don’t have to pay as much upfront. So, you should really, if you’re going to do the retainer method, it should be a true retainer, evergreen retainer. Not collecting 5, 000 and having them replenish at one. It should be a replenishment to 5, 000 every single billing cycle.
[00:18:38] Randa Prendergast: It just makes the case more or the payments more manageable for your client and then also Mitigates going into ar when you have the smaller billing cycles to one and a half billing cycles Is when you’re starting to have those conversations about hey, do we need to stop work or do we need to withdraw from this case?
[00:18:56] Randa Prendergast: You’re not going more than that. So you’re it’s about 30 days. You’re giving your client with a lot of reminders, right? To say hey, this is you sign up for this how we operate We need to make sure that we get paid or maybe we’re not good.
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[00:20:56] Steve Fretzin: At Fretzin, we use GetStaffedUp for marketing person and you know how good our marketing is. Learn more at GetStaffedUp. com slash BeThatLawyer. And it’s, it’s so interesting that there are some lawyers that are working with no AR and there’s lawyers that are having, you know, that have massive AR. And there’s a lot of obviously ways we’re talking about it.
[00:21:18] Steve Fretzin: What are you seeing as the, the firms that have no, like basically no AR, like what, what’s, are they doing what I’m saying? Like ACH and credit card, are they doing that, that auto replenish? Like, what’s the key there?
[00:21:29] Randa Prendergast: Sure. They just started consistent in their invoicing and they make decisions to withdraw.
[00:21:34] Randa Prendergast: They take, I think there is a lot of emotion and billing and money and stuff. So they’re taking that completely out. That’s why we started providing billing clerks because it’s ready for to hide into their cases to say, Oh, you know, Jane is going through this horrible custody battle and she doesn’t have a lot of money.
[00:21:55] Randa Prendergast: And so either cutting down their bill or not billing them enough or on a regular basis. So it’s just consistency, but it takes a lot of time to be consistent. And then it’s also hard conversations with your clients when they’re not doing, holding up their end of the bargain.
[00:22:12] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And who’s collecting?
[00:22:13] Steve Fretzin: Is it always the attorney? Should it be the billing clerk? Like who should be calling the clients and getting the money? Because what I’m finding is that a lot of attorneys are killing their time, chasing after the dollars and having those tough conversations.
[00:22:29] Randa Prendergast: So absolutely we want to remove the attorney from this process as much as possible.
[00:22:34] Randa Prendergast: I only like to bring them in when we’re making decisions about stopping work because of nonpayment. So every, all the tasks up until that point should really go to a legal assistant, admin, billing clerk. Something of that sort, not, not even a paralegal. I bring in a paralegal just before the attorney to evaluate the case.
[00:22:53] Randa Prendergast: Just look at upcoming events, really. Like if there was a hearing or trial, or if they’re going to through discovery to kind of determine how important it is to get this full replenishment, right? Cause that’s part of it too. And then right before bringing in the attorney or yeah, so the paralegal then bring in the attorney finally.
[00:23:12] Steve Fretzin: You mean, do attorneys feel like they have to make those difficult phone calls because they have the relationship and it might be awkward if, if someone else calls them to, to talk them about the 50, 000, 100, 000 that they might owe, let’s say it’s a mid market firm or something that they’re, they’re way behind.
[00:23:29] Randa Prendergast: Yeah, I think so. And I think that they think the client’s going to come with a lot of questions about why they’re built the way they build We’re build and that the attorney is the only person who can answer those questions, right? But it’s really just taking a look at past invoices to see what kind of work has been done, right?
[00:23:49] Randa Prendergast: Well, you’re about this because we’re collecting the discovery you are about this because we are preparing for a hearing on the state, right? It’s not that hard to reiterate the things that have already been done You And why they were done, you know, after that, if there’s some complex issue or a client, like threatening for some reason, you know, we always rope in the attorney for that reason.
[00:24:10] Randa Prendergast: They are the one who’s has the name on the door. So, and we talk about how to work through that. So some of those offerings those like when you’re trying to. I say it’s a collection workflow or past clients that owe you money, right? A billing collections or a retainer collections. It’s kind of, you’re still actively representing them and you’re just trying to get paid on a regular basis.
[00:24:32] Randa Prendergast: So a past collections workflow, you already represented them. The case is over. You want to consider, you know, like we usually do like a 90 day cadence of sending them in it this is your final bill with the letter. Then maybe like if there’s some pushback offering an automatic payment plan, right, that just runs automatically.
[00:24:54] Randa Prendergast: And then if there is even more pushback, even like a settlement amount or letter, depending on what the attorney wants to offer, but in those scenarios, unless there’s a big, I’m going to, there’s something like I’m going to contact the bar or something like that. We keep the attorney completely off it.
[00:25:09] Steve Fretzin: Okay. So that’s a note to everybody listening that, that. Things like bookkeeping and collections really shouldn’t be done by you. There’s those are the delegatable things that need to be done by professionals that, you know, aren’t charging five, six, seven hundred dollars an hour.
[00:25:28] Randa Prendergast: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:25:29] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Any, any kind of, we have time, I think, for one more tip, Ren. Anything jump out at you is one more thing that you’d love to share with everybody about, about collections, AR, dealing with difficult people. Maybe that’s a good one. There’s lots of difficult people out there.
[00:25:42] Randa Prendergast: Sure. Sure. Yeah. So if, you know, from a legal tech standpoint, just make sure all of your systems are talking to each other and we’re Minimizing manual labor.
[00:25:55] Randa Prendergast: A lot of attorneys, you know, have payment processing somewhere else aside from where they actually send out their bills and that causes a lot of, you know, human error or you get behind because you’re not keeping up with those tasks. So you really want to find something that is, that works all together, whether it’s the same system or, you know, leveraging legal, legal tech and like zap or something, a third party to connect everything.
[00:26:22] Steve Fretzin: Okay, but having a practice management system, a software that’s handling the client, the case, the billing, everything all in one is probably the smart play.
[00:26:31] Randa Prendergast: Yes, absolutely. And that helps too. Like if you want to bring in that outside VA admin or billing clerk, they have everything that they need in one spot to, to help you.
[00:26:42] Randa Prendergast: And then they also can have the opportunity to look at, you know, we, we hire billing clerks that have legal, you know, have worked in a law firm. So they are familiar with legal ease. And so they can review you know, the matter, the case to answer the client’s questions about things that have happened to.
[00:27:00] Steve Fretzin: And this is your jam, right? Like helping lawyers not just collect, but like coming up with the systems and the processes and getting all this automated. So it’s like they have no more AR. They have every system in place to do all this. This is your jam.
[00:27:15] Randa Prendergast: Absolutely. Yes. It’s
[00:27:18] Steve Fretzin: Well, everybody, you’ve got a great resource here that you should be reaching out to.
[00:27:21] Steve Fretzin: If, if, if you find yourself doing things that you absolutely should not be doing. And by the way, it’s, it’s negatively affecting you because your time is not only, is not only poorly spent that way, but also you’re not good at it and you’re not, you’re not using systems. So awesome. Really great. And if we want to move to kind of our final thing here, Randa, the, the game changing book, and this has been brought up on the show for a reason.
[00:27:45] Steve Fretzin: It’s the go giver. Is that bob berg? Mr. Bob berg. Okay. What’s your deal? Why do you like that book so much?
[00:27:53] Randa Prendergast: You know, it was just so profound after I read it. I was like There’s so many different people in this space trying to help attorneys. There is no reason why We can’t all help attorneys and also why not be able to give tips for free, right?
[00:28:10] Randa Prendergast: that’s podcasts because i’m like You know, maybe there’s that solo out there that is like, man, this is all awesome, but like, I can’t even fathom paying someone right now this, but I just need to get started. So I was just so profound to me and to be like, not everyone is perfect for me and I’m not perfect for them.
[00:28:30] Randa Prendergast: So I’m happy to refer and, you know, from a giving her. And then I’m also like happy to just point you in the right direction of information. Just so you know, and then later, if you need help and you’re in a better situation, we can come back and chat, or maybe you can help me out just by referring my name, just because I’m not ready for you right now.
[00:28:51] Randa Prendergast: Doesn’t mean someone else. So it’s just amazing when, when you give what you can get back.
[00:28:58] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, I’m, I’m a big fan of the book and I’m a big fan of Bob Berg. I think if I, you know, and I’ve written a book on networking myself. You know called the attorney’s networking handbook. The thing that I really love is I love being a giver and we, I think you and I are on exactly the same page.
[00:29:15] Steve Fretzin: The mistake and the misstep that I think people make is that they spend way too much time with people that, that are never going to reciprocate. It’s not that we, that we shouldn’t help everybody. However, you also have to be respectful of your time. And you have to say, you know, there’s someone who wanted to meet with me.
[00:29:32] Steve Fretzin: And I basically said, look, I’m not going to, I can’t have lunch with you. I’m too busy. I can do a 15 minute zoom. That’s about it because I’m really focused on meeting prospective clients and strategic partners. That’s how I spend my day. And I’m at seven to 10 meetings a day. So if you want me, you know, it’s going to be in a bite sized bid.
[00:29:49] Steve Fretzin: You can’t just say, Hey, let’s grab lunch because I’ve got this unlimited amount of time. So I think we have to be careful about our time as we give and we give intelligently.
[00:29:59] Randa Prendergast: Right. Absolutely. I completely agree. And that’s why you do your podcast. Right. And that’s why you do other things. So they can re you know, those people can refer to those, you know, outlets instead of taking your physical time.
[00:30:13] Steve Fretzin: Right. Well, and also it’s like, there’s, there’s, you know, limited amount of time that you have to network. If everybody wants to meet you, that’s lovely, but ultimately you have a business to run. You have, you know, and every time you meet with someone, you try to give them one or two good contexts that takes time.
[00:30:26] Steve Fretzin: So, The math doesn’t work out for everybody to just be out there helping everybody selflessly a hundred percent of their day. We’ve got to, you know, again, do it intelligently. So Rand, as we’re wrapping up here, want to thank our wonderful sponsors Rankings IO that has this amazing PymCon coming up conference coming up.
[00:30:44] Steve Fretzin: We’ve got Lawmatics, which attaches to Right. The Cleo’s in the, in the law, in the practice Panthers in the smoke balls of the world and of course get staffed up. So there we are. We’re giving people, you know, virtual assistance and marketing and all that help. So I’ve got three amazing sponsors.
[00:31:02] Steve Fretzin: Rand, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to talk to you about what you do and check in with you. What are the best ways for them to reach you?
[00:31:09] Randa Prendergast: Sure. They can go to mrs. June legal. com, or if you search and Google attorney whisper, I will pop up on LinkedIn, Facebook, all the places. So connect with me on LinkedIn.
[00:31:21] Randa Prendergast: That’s a really good spot. If you don’t have LinkedIn, check out mrs. June legal. com. You can schedule with me there. You can sign up for our newsletter and just check out other podcasts.
[00:31:31] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and the saying is time is money and you’re actually trying to help them with both right save time and get their freaking money You know
[00:31:43] Steve Fretzin: Another thing for you. Time is money. You’re on both ends. But just thank you so much for, for coming back on the show, sharing your wisdom. I mean, I think everything that you and I spoke about can directly impact the time and money, right? Of the lawyers that are listening to improve their business and, and treat it more like a business and just spend less time.
[00:32:03] Steve Fretzin: You know worrying about how to get the money in and just and just come up with smarter ways to do it So good stuff there.
[00:32:09] Randa Prendergast: Yes. Thank you for having me.
[00:32:10] Steve Fretzin: Oh, of course, of course All right And thank you everybody for spending time with randa and I today on the be that lawyer with frets and podcast We’re having a great time and hopefully you are and again, you know getting some great takeaways to help you to be that lawyer Someone who’s confident organized and a skilled rainmaker Take care, everybody.
[00:32:26] Steve Fretzin: Be safe. Be well, and we will talk to you very soon.
[00:32:32] Narrator: Thanks for listening To be that lawyer life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin 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.