Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
Legal Staffing Evolution: From Traditional Models to Innovative Solutions | Zuly Murphy
Feeling overwhelmed by the endless grind of law practice? Wondering if there's a smarter way to manage your firm? You’re not alone! In this episode of Life Beyond the Briefs, we dive into the game-changing world of legal staffing with Zuly Murphy-Avilés, the visionary CEO of Pro Finder International.
Zuly shares her journey in revolutionizing how law firms operate, revealing how outsourcing to a bilingual team in Puerto Vallarta can elevate client communication and streamline your operations—especially in high-stakes cases like personal injury.
Get ready to uncover:
The Outsourcing Advantage. Discover how shifting to virtual staffing isn’t just a trend; it’s a lifeline for small law firms looking to boost efficiency and profitability. Zuly breaks down the nuts and bolts of optimizing workflows, so you can ditch the management headaches and focus on what you do best: practicing law.
Cost Savings & Scalability. Learn why embracing remote staffing can lead to significant cost savings while providing the flexibility you need to grow. Zuly emphasizes that adaptability is key—overcoming resistance to change is crucial for thriving in today’s legal landscape.
The Human Touch in a Tech-Driven World. As AI reshapes our industry, maintaining personal relationships with clients becomes even more vital. Zuly highlights how a culturally aligned, bilingual team can enhance service delivery without the risk of burnout.
Connect with Zuly
Want to dive deeper into how Pro Finder International can transform your firm? Reach out to Zuly directly on LinkedIn and send her a message. You can also book a free appointment through their website at profinderinternational.com.
Ready to transform your legal practice and reclaim your time? Tune in for actionable insights that will inspire you to break free from the billable hour grind.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to reshape your future—hit play now!
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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
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We can tell a client that actually somebody answers the phone right away and somebody that gives an answer, even if the answer is I don't have your answer yet, makes a big, big difference. Clients are more happy, less anxious, they're more cooperative and as well at least the personal injury side of things because we've worked with bankruptcy and now with personal injury since last year we are learning a lot about the buildup of a case from the very beginning. That's where the key is, where you are able to create this relationship with the client and obtain everything that you need at that point. Then you're able to go through the rest of the process smoother and it pays off when you actually care about the client and you let them know that you care.
Speaker 2:What's up, my friends, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Life Beyond the Briefs, the number one podcast for lawyers choosing to live lives of their own design, and today I'm talking with Zuli Murphy-Aviles of Profinder International. Here's the problem that most lawyers have when they hire a VA is we just create additional tasks for ourself? We send information out, the project comes back. We have to look at the project, we have to make changes. Well, what if you could outsource an entire section of your firm Think marketing, think back office records collection, think all of the paralegal work to a team of people in Puerto Vallarta who are bilingual and can add that Spanish-speaking component that your firm has been missing? Well, that's exactly what Zuly has built at Profinder International, and today we're going to dive into all of the best practices around outsourcing whole sections of your business, documenting all your processes and creating a scalable law firm.
Speaker 2:If that's exciting to you, let's dive in beyond the briefs. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. Today's guest is Zully Murphy-Abalace, testing my high school Spanish. Zully is the CEO and founder of Profinder International, and today we're going to be talking about a different way to staff assistance for your law firms. I know so many law firm owners who have gone the virtual assistant route have dipped their toe in the water and have come back frustrated. And Zuli has built a different business with a different model that is working and scaling your entire team to offshore in different departments.
Speaker 1:Zuli welcome to the show. Thank you, Ryan, for having me. Your Spanish is very good.
Speaker 2:Put the accent on the right syllable. So tell me about Profinder.
Speaker 1:Well, brian Profinder is a company that started in 2014, when we actually met our first attorney client, who came down to Port of Yard and looking for a new short option.
Speaker 1:It was a very new word. Back then, I think he had been in a meeting with other law firms and they were discussing this strategy and he was really interested to make this happen. He was not very sure what route to take or how to start. We met then and I actually was working at that time as a GM for a recruitment agency and we worked internationally with countries like Canada, abu, dhabi, and we were hiring people from Mexico to cover for those decisions, so the international part was not scary at all. However, working with a law firm that you know, typically you think of like paralegals, in an office with files that are actually hard copy, so we started there and trying to understand what he wanted. It's very different how law works in Mexico than in the US. The system is different and obviously we were from a period of trying to understand what he wanted and that's how we got there.
Speaker 2:When you think back to 2014,. I mean it's crazy how much the world has changed in just 10 years. And you're talking about paralegals working on hard copies. I mean, my old firm was kind of the same way. 2014 was about the time where I started trying to go paperless. Let's stop carrying around these big red wells of folders. Let's scan everything in as a PDF. We were sending CDs to insurance companies as demand packages. I don't even know that an insurance company would take or be able to scan a CD now, 10 years later.
Speaker 2:So the world has changed and that's really opened up this whole world of virtual staffing options. And so many lawyers have brought on a virtual assistant. And then you know we're not very good traditionally at training the people who are actually in our office, and it's even harder when it's a virtual assistant. So your company solves that problem by and it's even harder when it's a virtual assistant. So your company solves that problem by installing your own systems, installing your own trainer of a team of people. It's not just a one-off person. So let's talk about what makes Profinder different in the virtual assistant and the business process outsourcing market.
Speaker 1:When we started working with this first law firm, we realized that problem immediately. Firm, we realized that problem immediately when he was looking for a solution. If we were just going to hire for him and his staff in the US an assistant that will work day in and out, remotely, it was just assigning an additional task to somebody and keeping an assistant busy it's like a full-time job. So we understood that then and we realized you know what? That's not a solution. We're giving an additional task. So when we identified the real solution was to actually create documentation, to understand the system very well, to understand the workflows, to understand who's responsible for what, who's accountable, and then we are able to just develop the system where we train, and then we are able to just develop the system where we train, we document and train and then we supervise. That way, the attorney and the people, the senior staff of the firms, don't have to worry about anything.
Speaker 1:And then you make everything more factual. Right, it's very easy to say that something is not working and put a name to it when you don't have a system or a process. However, when you do have everything documented, you are really easy to go and fix the issue so it doesn't happen again and when you write something down and then you train your staff and you actually make available, not just for the staff that works remotely but for the staff that works in your office, what is the process and the version? That is the one that everybody should be following in just one place. It makes everybody's lives easier.
Speaker 2:Here's the problem with most small law firm owners is that we love the idea of systems, we hate creating them and we absolutely hate being made to operate under the system. So what is your process for coming in and learning a law firm's system, or maybe helping to create one that doesn't actually exist?
Speaker 1:It's funny because a lot of attorneys think that they need to create a new big thing. In reality, there's things that are working in the firm and they're working very good. So that's the first step. We need to identify what's working very well and to preserve that. If anything, just make it more efficient. If you're doing three steps, to maybe diminish one and save some time, and the rest is to actually identify the things that don't involve the attorney per se. Those are the first things that we'd like to set up. It's not about giving more tasks to the attorney or having the attorney to get out of his way completely in the way that he has been running a law firm. It's about the support staff around him. Those are the ones that need to be falling into a system first that does not interest him or super disturbing. And, as I said, the key for us is to actually become helpful, make everything more efficient, but without giving more work to the attorney, who is, you know, the person that needs to have its focus in the actual practice and the cases.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and it can be more work, especially in the training, right, because it's you give somebody a task, the task comes back. Maybe it's not done perfectly, and now you've got to give feedback on that, and now you've got to review it a second time, and so that does create a whole lot more work. And then, on top of that, you've asked us sometimes to document the rest of the system ourselves, and so I think, being able to outsource even that to somebody else who's like hey, just come in and watch what I do for a while and then create a system around that, or watch what the staff does and create a system around that, and then train another step somewhere in a in a different country, to operate my system with supervision, right, because part of what you're offering is is that there's a manager, I think, who's watching the team that's down in Puerto Vallarta work on these cases, that's exactly right and really saving the headaches of management people.
Speaker 1:You know, managing a staff is complex because the staff are human beings and they have lives and they have good days and bad days. So we manage all that and all the attorneys have to look for is the result or the KPI, that we actually have to follow the metrics and basically everything that is really worth. You know the time of the attorney to look Like. How many cases have we filed this month? How many cases did we actually prepare a demand for in the world of personal injury? How many times did we communicate with the client?
Speaker 1:So, depending on the law firm and what the law firm owner is expecting to see as a big result, many law firms just want the profitability. Some other law firm owners, when they go into the new shoring strategies they evolve into okay, I want the profitability, but I as well want the efficiency. I want my clients to be very happy. I want more five-star reviews and then we can just build together a strategy that takes you every. You know, as you are going through this new shoring strategy, every year it evolves to something different.
Speaker 2:Well, of course the immediate appeal is the profitability right. You can take a job that might cost you $100,000 all in in the US and I don't know what the equivalent salary or payment to an agency to do. That is Right. So that's the immediate dopamine hit that you get is that there's more profit at the end of the year. But then you know, with that comes scalability, because now that you have systems and you have been elevated to work in your zone of genius and only on the things that you're really good at, and you have somebody else operating the system, now that really adds rocket fuel to your top line revenue because you can go out and find more top line revenue if that's what you're really good at.
Speaker 2:Have you noticed? I mean, there must be low hanging fruit that you notice with the majority of the law firms that come through where you can now make suggestions of, you don't have a case management software, you don't have a good case management software. So when you take on new clients, what are the kind of low-hanging, easy wins that law firms that you can provide to law firms in the onboarding?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. In Mexico we are very used, at least with Profinder, to work with systems, with software, and we're comfortable with technology. So I think that the first commonality is that law firms have either a case management system or some tool that they are not using to its fullest. That's the first low hanging fruit I can tell you. You have some integrations that are amazing and nobody has ever had the time to look into what other things can they bring to the table and explore them to the maximum. We don't like to suggest right away, go and switch everything, because that's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:We like to just see what we're working with. We will actually go on our own and check tutorials, reach out to reps to figure out how the system works. How are we using it to this point? What else is there? And we are not scared of submitting it, even like a task, or complaining to these softwares where, like, something is not working, there's a glitch here or there. We are very good at that because we like automation. That's our base right, and that it all started in 2014 with this very visionary attorney who actually helped us see this before even the pandemic, when everything was even easier and more handy. We were already there. So that's a big advantage now that we know we're comfortable with technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the thing that law firm owners do is we go out and we buy a new case management software. With technology, yeah, that's the thing that law firm owners do is we go out and we buy a new case management software and we might know 50 or 75% of what it does the day that we buy it. Right, but then we don't come back and appoint somebody as the case management czar to learn the 100% of the thing, and then five years go by and the software has rolled out all of these new updates and all of these new integrations, but nobody has been in charge of making sure that the team is utilizing them. So I think that's a really easy win for most law firm owners is to figure out what all the things that your case management software does that you don't even know, and so good for you for having somebody who's in charge of making all of that happen.
Speaker 2:Let's talk security, because offshoring or nearshoring is always a security is always a concern. How do you protect client confidentiality? How do you protect, in my world, personal identifying information on medical records? So how do you address those concerns with law firms?
Speaker 1:Basically by working in office, and that's one of the first things. We work in office. We create teams that are not mixed with other law firms, and that's why for us, it's really important to work with law firms who are looking to have at least a team of five people, because we set teams of five people per independent space. In that way, nobody else is going to access to anything. The other thing is we're completely paperless. We don't print, we don't save any information locally in our computers. We actually only store everything wherever the firm is storing it on the cloud. We don't bring in any flash drives or cell phones next to the workstations. We actually have an area for that for each office, and the staff has a contract that allows us to say all these parts of the rules. We have supervision and that's another really important part and even the attorneys have access to that supervision. We actually have cameras and our attorneys can log in to see what the staff is doing and how everything's working.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. And so you said team of five is kind of your entry level or you want somebody to at least staff a team of five For most small firms. That sounds like a high hurdle, right. But give me a cost comparison. So team of five in Puerto Vallarta, what's the cost of you know comparable number of employees in the US?
Speaker 1:Depending on the position, but just to give you an idea it could be a 3-2-1 or a 2-2-1. For case managers, you can have two case managers for the cost of one and for other operational positions maybe intake 3-2-1. And that actually having five is not that crazy.
Speaker 1:It actually would be having, like, a case manager in the US or two in Mexico and maybe three intake people instead of one Right so the team of five is basically a team of two American employees actually getting a larger workload without having to be, you know, burned out, and having enough people to cover and to actually give a good customer service Well, and with the added benefit that everybody's bilingual. That's correct.
Speaker 2:So many law firms are looking for the Spanish-speaking intake or the Spanish-speaking paralegal, and you know I get by with. I have one person in my office who speaks Spanish, but if she's not there when that Spanish-speaking client calls, you have that frustration and so you have this added benefit of everybody in the back office is bilingual. How are you sourcing people?
Speaker 1:Well, we do different strategies throughout the years.
Speaker 1:We now have a really good and very strong recruitment process where we actually have a lot of psychometrical testing in battery that we apply. Apply depending on the position. We source people in local universities. We have really good contacts with the coordinators specifically of the career, of the law degree. We as well hire people just in the area throughout our secret sauce that I cannot share with you, but we do have our ways to find people.
Speaker 1:Puerto Vallarta is a great international city. For those who have not been here, you should consider it because it's a beautiful town. It's the third largest directly from the main cities of the US. I think it's around 50 flights per week and we have a lot of people coming here expats. I think it's the second city in Mexico with the largest amount of expats living here. Year-round, I think it's 15,000. And during the winter it's about 30,000. So here there's a lot of biculturality.
Speaker 1:People actually understand the American culture. We actually live with the music, with the movies, with the sports. It's funny and I find it really interesting when we are in meetings where we have staff from the US attorneys and other staff plus the staff in Mexico and we have conversations. I can tell that you would not see the difference, you would not even know that in Mexico we don't use the same medical system because we can say you know how much it's like everything you feed.
Speaker 1:We can talk about Fahrenheit. We talk about the things that you watch when you were little, like Snoopy. We've learned that because that's so close to our culture. Now not everybody that is in touch with that understands a little bit more in tune of, like the customer service that everybody admire from the US and the East. In the East the culture there has changed, but here we try to preserve the best parts of it right. So people actually know the importance of talking with somebody on the phone. People actually know the importance of talking with somebody on the phone. Right now it's to an extreme where you just ring somebody and it takes you through like a computer or a robot and you really want to talk with somebody. So we actually have rescued that part and that's what we feel very proud of.
Speaker 2:That will be, I think, your greatest challenge in the coming years as AI starts to get better differentiating your company from, you know, the really good AI. As we look back in 2014, and we were all in the paper 2034, AI is going to be able to do a lot of the level one, whole center things, and so, you know, continuing to find that differentiation, I think, is the challenge for people who are in the industry that you're in. So how do you think about future-proofing your business against AI?
Speaker 1:Well, we're already all about AI. We use a lot of tools, we try to be ahead and to understand how we can actually use those tools in our advantage. I think a lot of strategy and a lot of part of actually deep thinking is something that the AI is not going to be able to provide yet, and hopefully not in the few next years, which is the actually major difference of having this like crossing this technology, because you still have to use one platform to use the next one.
Speaker 1:There's not a lot of relationship between all the technology at this point, and what we're trying is just to keep up with what we do and what is coming out. We try to use it. We try to see what can be a beneficial thing for one of the departments. For example, we do have marketers working for law firms too, and marketing is always using these tools. It's always trying to see how to adjust them, but obviously you have to program it right. When you use AI, you have to give an instruction, you have to say what you want, and that is the part that is still making us different. We're very proactive. We are actually not people that just follow the system. We're always looking what's out there and giving you solutions.
Speaker 2:So I think for the time being, that's how we're going to be keeping you know there in that world, yeah, and then the other thing that you focused on earlier is the customer service aspect, right, so continuing, I think I think the firms that differentiate themselves with what is going to happen in one of two ways, like the, the temptation is to use AI and automation and technology to do all of the work, and it can for, I think, for a period of time, so that you can work less.
Speaker 2:And I think the firms that do really well over the next five or 10 years are going to be the ones that let AI and technology and automation do all of the work so that you can focus on building the human relationship with the clients and with your referral partners and with doctors. And I think that's going to be the distinction, because it's going to be quote easy to build these automated systems and then go like relax, but but maintaining that relationship is going to be what people, I think, are craving in five or ten years, because everybody's going to go to the easy button of automating.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's true and we can tell a client that actually somebody answers the phone right away and somebody that gives an answer, even if the answer is I don't have your answer yet, makes a big, big difference. Clients are more happy, less anxious, they're more cooperative and as well at least the personal injury side of things because we've worked with bankruptcy and now with personal injury since last year we are learning a lot about the buildup of a case from the very beginning. That's where the key is, where you are able to create this relationship with the client and obtain everything that you need at that point. Then you are able to go through the rest of the processes smoother and it pays off when you actually care about the client and you let them know that you care.
Speaker 2:Are you doing any Frost team best practice sharing, so without sharing client confidentialities? Obviously, are your firms that are your teammates that work in personal injury or in bankruptcy or in family law coming together and saying, hey, here's something we did that worked really well or here's something we did that was really challenging for us?
Speaker 1:We are really trying to keep everybody very. You know, at least from our point, users IP, effectively, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Would I want my team sharing best practices with them? I certainly would want the benefit, but I wouldn't want necessarily them. You know talking to a competitor firm in Fairfax about the things that we were doing. So that is. That is, I think, maybe a challenge All right. So if you're looking for firms that are going to hire at least five members and grow from there, what have you found is kind of the minimum viable like revenue number or people in-house in the US or years in practice for somebody to for that investment in your company to make sense.
Speaker 1:So I think, at least if you have between eight to 10 staff members in the US, it's a firm that actually can potentially benefit from working remotely in this new shore setup, as somebody that is already making a revenue of a million dollars. You know, we have an e-book on our website that actually my team is just going to be uploading soon, and we give there, like the good tips about the when a law firm would be ready for this type of service, and I'd like to share with you the when is when you're just walking over the same cycle and you are not seem to getting out of the same goals that you already achieved as law firm owner. Then that's when, probably, you need to be considering your starting. You know, do something new to get some result that is new. That's a really good thing to look into.
Speaker 1:So I think attorneys that already are working with some case manager tools it's important so we can work remotely. At the end of the day, we're able to just say what we need. Usually it's a soft phone line. A lot of attorneys are already working with that and we just install the same systems in our computers that are only assigned for that job, and it's important as well to know that protection of information is really important and to try to stay away, if that's one of the most important parts for law firm owners is to stay away from the actual cubicle farm where you have sitting next to each other people that work for different firms. I would not suggest that to be a good solution.
Speaker 1:For many reasons, it's not the part that they hear when they're working, but the parts when they can share during lunchtime. So you know, with other type of like associations, because if you work with somebody over and over, even if they are not assigned to the same account, it's risky, and that's why I would like to just set teams that are specifically for each law firm, separately, physically calls and maybe the lawyer is only answering new calls on nights and weekends.
Speaker 2:And then you go to 24 seven like rollover call answering and that's exactly what you described, where the person who's answering my phone, you know Tuesday night at seven 30, is immediately after that phone call picking up the phone for a bankruptcy lawyer in Kansas city and then a family law lawyer in Denver Right, and it's hard to maintain quality across all of that. And then you might have your one VA who's dedicated to you, who you can train, and then there's groups like yours where it's a much larger team that's working offshore. Do you have tips for if I'm doing a million dollars in revenue and I have, you know, eight team members convincing my team that these five people in Puerto Vallarta are not coming to take their jobs?
Speaker 1:That's a frequent one. That's, I guess, the biggest challenge that we've seen with staff in office. In reality, it's not about replacing staff, it's about increasing the amount of help. I talk with a lot of attorneys who say the same, like how am I going to convince my staff? And the question that I have for them is how many times has your staff come to you to say I need help? I am backed up. I cannot do this. It's too much work. If you have tried your options available within your location, you already tried to hire and you can't replace anybody, or you cannot increase the size of your team because somebody just left and this is happening. This career mentality is shifting.
Speaker 1:We're seeing that happening more in the US now than in Mexico, where people are not very interested to build a career in the legal world. So you can have them for four months, you spend a lot of time training them and then they're leaving and then you try to replace them and then it's the same story over and over. So if the turnover is happening, you already made every. You know, you use every strategy that you could within the same region, using the same tools that you have to your hand. Well, your employees need to understand that in order for them to do better, you need the firm to find these solutions, the NewShare staff.
Speaker 1:What's something that we work with is the culture of understanding over here, not to replace jobs, but to help firms getting stronger, to actually learn from the best that you have in the firm and to produce your work.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, we have great combinations where in-office staff continues to be there and the amount of staff in the new short setup is the one that is growing because it makes more sense, because there's more talent that is available and they're looking for a career and they want the facility for long-term. So that's how we work through it, and the other part of things is. It's very risky for law firm owners to just have a few key elements who know how your business works, because you're vulnerable, like you're just one person sick or on vacation away from a disaster, and nearshoring just allows you to not have to worry about that and to understand that you're hiring people who have lives, who will have to sometimes go on a vacation or be sick, and you need to have a better strategy than just hoping that this doesn't happen all at once, and that's one of the biggest advantages of doing the insuring through a documented system you don't fall into that vulnerability.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you've described so many law firm owners right. So, in the third straight year of doing $800,000 a year with 25% profit margin, and every time it looks like you're going to break the million dollar mark, like somebody important quits Because you're exactly right, like the receptionist wants to be a paralegal, the paralegal is thinking about going to law school or quitting the law altogether and the associate wants to be a partner. And it is hard to keep people in the USS, especially in big cities like Fairfax, hard to keep ambitious people in these critical roles that we have. But you can find ambitious people who are offshore or nearshore, who really you know culturally want to build a career and be great at that job. But it does seem like exactly what you described. In the us, almost almost everybody who's on a legal track wants to be the next thing. Do you have a sense for why that isn't the case um in in mexico or in puerto vallarta, or at least with the people that you do? You know, I know I have a theory.
Speaker 1:I think in Mexico we're kind of 15 or 20 years behind in so many things compared to the US Right now with social media, when the world's been a little different. Maybe that time is shrinking right, but before we were probably 40 years away from different industries. So I think that's part of the reason why as well. The stability of jobs, especially in touristic areas, it's kind of like difficult because you have a very stable job during the season where everybody's coming here on vacation and then slows down. So people are looking into places where you can have a career in the stability year round.
Speaker 1:After pandemic and I hate to talk about the pandemic because I'd like to just move away that chapter in our lives but we learned a lot and at Profinder we were very proud to keep the jobs in a town that is 80% touristic. We were able to keep these families up and running like normal because they were actually hired for a job that was not even happening in their cities. So you know that's why here and with our people, they want a long-term career, because they want the stability.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think that gets lost in all of the geographic arbitrage. And it's just cheaper to hire somebody who's offshore. And it's just cheaper to hire somebody who's offshore. Is that what really? What you've created is stability and career and and the ability to have you know, family and stay in one place and not have to travel to a resort and work 14 days in a row and then come home, um, and and work throughout the entire year. So I think that's amazing. Um, send me that ebook, or send me the link to the ebook and make sure that we link it. Link to it in the show description, but if somebody's out there listening and they're like this is really what I need, how can they find out more information and get?
Speaker 1:in touch with me. I suggest linkedin. That's where I answer the fastest. So if you just can look up for sully murphy every list, you will find me there and send me a message and I will. I'll schedule something we do haveendly. So we can actually. If you go to the website aprofinderinternationalcom, you can set up a free appointment and we can talk about your firm and see what and how can we help.
Speaker 2:Amazing and I'm looking forward to seeing you at the GLM Summit. This will come out after that, but I will see you in.
Speaker 1:Phoenix in just a week. Likewise, we're very excited. Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
