Originally, Century Park Law Group was using case management software from another provider. When they encountered Filevine, they immediately saw the difference modern case management can make. “The software platform that we had was stuck in the ‘90s, I think” says Tabibian. “Filevine was way into the future compared to everything else that’s out there.”
In 2016 they began using Filevine. Immediately, new avenues opened up for them. “First of all, it was web-based,” says Tabibian, “and we didn’t have to host our own server.” This reduced their IT needs and overhead costs and increased their mobility
“Secondly, we loved the ability to send and receive text messages from the client case file,” says Tabibian. The firm’s clients usually prefer receiving a text to a phone call. It allows them to respond at their own convenience, and ends the back-and-forth phone-tag that used to cripple productivity. “Our clients also like to see they’re working with a firm that’s technologically savvy.”
And above all, the firm appreciated Filevine’s unified case file. Tabibian explains, “you can text to and from the case file, you can email into the case file, you can scan paper documents there, you can upload all your documents and photos. It’s just much more streamlined than anything else that we had before. And it has features that nobody else has.”
For Century Park Law Group, this immediately resulted in more efficiency. “Once we got Filevine, we were able to do intakes quicker,” says Tabibian. “We were able to communicate with clients quicker. We just started growing—Filevine’s what enabled that growth.”
Tabibian says that with the increased efficiency of Filevine, the firm quadrupled both revenue and caseloads in a span of three years.
Filevine’s Automation Saves Big Bucks
To demonstrate how this rapid growth occurred, Tabibian zeroed in on one common task: sending a letter of representation to an insurance company.
Without Filevine, someone would draft a new Word document or bring up a template, insert the new information, print it out, and fax it or send it by mail. Then they would save a copy to the file and close it. “This is a time-consuming process for something that’s very simple and mundane,” says Tabibian.
Now, the firm uses Filevine to click a button and auto-generate the representation letter, complete with a signature and any other needed case-information. They email it, and it saves straight to the case file. With Filevine’s new Fax Feature, they can also fax it right through Filevine, again automatically archiving the paper trail.
Tabibian concludes: “Something that used to take somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes to complete now takes one minute.”
Saving 10 minutes at a time on one repeated task really adds up. If the firm is sending 10 rep letters a day, that’s 1 hour and 40 minutes of work saved each day. Over a year, that’s 433 hours. “If you’re paying someone $15 an hour to work here, automating that one task alone saves you $6,500 each year.”
These savings are repeated along each recurring task which Filevine now automates for the firm. As attorneys and staff free up their time, they’re able to focus on higher-value priorities, provide better service to clients, and handle higher case loads with less stress.
Filevine’s Part in a Paperless Office
“Five years ago we took the leap into becoming a paperless law firm,” says Tabibian. “My first reason was because I don’t want to kill trees. I don’t see any reason to have to hurt the environment. When I started practicing law I saw how much paper gets wasted, and I wanted to end that.”
Also, Century Park Law Group doesn’t want to merely keep up with new changes, “we want to be in front of them,” Tabibian says. The firm commits to using state-of-the-art technology to improve the experience for their clients.
And finally, explains Tabibian, “it’s a lot more efficient to not worry about files lying around. Not only do you cut the time you’re searching for the right file, but multiple people could work on the same file without having to grab the folder.”
Tabibian sees Filevine as the perfect match for a paperless office, making their process even more streamlined and accessible. “We can meet with our clients anywhere. We connect to Filevine on our tablets, so I can be on the road, meet with my client, and have access to their entire file right there. I can assign tasks and take notes anywhere.”
“It’s just so much more efficient.”
It’s Only the Beginning
Even with the benefits the firm has already seen with Filevine, their real enthusiasm is for the future. “We got Filevine because of all the cool features,” says Tabibian, “but there are some we’re only beginning to utilize.”
Century Park Law Group’s dedicated office manager, Wendy Mejia, is undertaking a firm-wide project to streamline tasks and amplify the use of Filevine. “Wendy is my number one,” says Tabibian. “She was with us from the first day we started, and now she’s taking our practice to the next level.”
Ms. Mejia is uploading additional case templates to Filevine and finding better uses for the Tabs functions. She is moving processes that used to happen in Outlook and Google into Filevine. “It’s already becoming more efficient,” Tabibian says. “And that means I don’t have to hire on additional staff. That alone is a big cost-saver for us.”
Tabibian believes “it’s wiser to hire an employee dedicated to making better use of Filevine than to hire new employees to work cases in the same, inefficient manner.”
Century Park Law Group was also one of the early adopters of Filevine’s new Fax Function, which sends and receives faxes through Filevine. “We’re excited to see how much more efficient this is going to be for us.”
Tabibian believes that Ms. Mejia’s work will have big payoffs. “We’re now into our next stage of growth. In 2019 we plan to grow again, maybe doubling our volume. That would make us 20 times what we had when we started the first year,” says Tabibian. “With Filevine, we’ll be able to manage that growth with greater ease.”
“What people don’t realize,” says Tabibian, “is that case management software can be more than a warehouse of information. I tell this to friends of mine all the time. Everybody gets case management software to do the basics. But Filevine isn’t a warehouse—it’s a workshop full of tools to make your practice more efficient.”