Our co-founder, Emery Wager, recently joined Ruby Powers on the Power Up Your Practice podcast for a conversation about how law firms can rethink their financial workflows, from getting paid faster to getting settlement funds into clients’ hands.
One of the biggest opportunities is collecting earlier instead of chasing payment later. Evergreen retainers, stored payment methods and automatic billing, flat fees, and subscriptions can all shift payment earlier in the client relationship. More frequent billing can also keep balances manageable for clients while reducing the amount of revenue sitting in accounts receivable.
The same opportunity exists on the other side of money movement. Technology has transformed intake, case management, document creation, and other parts of the legal workflow, yet settlement disbursements at many plaintiff firms still end with a printed check. Moving this process online can give clients faster access to their funds while reducing the operational and security issues that come with printing, signing, mailing, and tracking checks.
Modernizing these workflows does not have to happen all at once. Firms can start with a single client or matter, understand the relevant ethics and security considerations, and expand from there.
The conversation also explored what law firms can learn from the experiences clients already have in other industries. Automated reminders, simple digital payments, transparent pricing, and clear expectations around when money is due are commonplace elsewhere. Bringing those same principles into legal can make the financial side of working with a law firm feel significantly easier.
The episode closes with a leadership principle Emery carried from his time in the Marine Corps: go to the point of friction. As a business grows, the most valuable place for a leader is often wherever progress is most likely to be made or lost.
Thank you to Ruby for having us on Power Up Your Practice and for a great conversation about building a more modern law firm.
