Family Justice Prevails: How a Family Lawyer Thrived During COVID-19

Dive into a wealth of marketing wisdom with our extraordinary guest! Discover invaluable tips that go beyond our own strategies as she shares how she rapidly transformed her law firm and attracted clients. 

In this enlightening interview, our guest reveals her journey of business growth, commencing on March 20th—the onset of the pandemic. Learn firsthand how she navigated the challenges of launching and expanding a legal practice during a time of uncertainty and closures.

Don't miss out on the golden nuggets she drops throughout the conversation! From effective marketing techniques to building a thriving practice amid adversity, this video is a treasure trove for law firms looking to elevate their digital presence.

Ready to enhance your firm's success? Hit play now and gain actionable insights that will set you on the path to achieving remarkable growth, even in challenging times.

👉 Subscribe for more exclusive interviews and SEO strategies tailored for law firms! 

Visit Their website: https://swillingfamilylaw.com/

#LegalMarketing #LawFirmSuccess #SEOStrategies #BusinessGrowth #MarketingTips #PandemicSuccess #DigitalMarketingInsights

Transcript

Hey Judy, I'm here. How are you today? I'm doing fantastic. This is Judy Goldberg. I'm Jay Rathman We have another episode of the legal authority podcast today get ready We have an amazing guest She is dropping golden nugget after golden nugget for marketing even beyond what we're doing with her And she talks about how she was able to quickly elevate her firm and get clients when she started and she started Literally the day of the pandemic starting March 20th when everything was getting shut down Which is so amazing to grow a business at that time.

Yep. So we're gonna go ahead and jump right in We're gonna introduce you to melody swelling and this this is an amazing episode. Make sure that you guys pay attention I'm ready. All right. Here we go.

Roll it Welcome to the latest edition of the legal authority podcast Presented by the legal authority .com here your hosts Jay Rathman and Judith Goldberg Welcome to another episode of the legal authority podcast Judy Goldberg is here.

My name is Jay Rathman We've got lots of great stuff to go through with you today. We have an amazing guest. Her name is melody swelling Wait to hear the story that that I have with her personally. It's phenomenal.

She's a longtime client of ours at the legal authority And of course, you know, we only work with law firms. That's why we always have attorneys on and she's really really successful and You know, she's grown her firm in the last couple years that we've been working together, which is exciting and Yeah, so I'm excited to have her her on how was your weekend?

My weekend was great. I'm really looking forward to having a conversation melody that's great. We share our Type of practice and as solos that expanded so this is exciting. This would be great. Yeah, Melody.

How are you? Thank you. Good good good to hear. So of course your practice has exploded and that's super exciting. And let me start off by saying what I was gonna tell you earlier. I remember the very first conversation that you and I had.

It was a Saturday. I was sitting at home. July weekend. Yup, Fourth of July weekend. And you told me the horror story that you had with whoever was working on your website. You basically, I don't remember your exact words, but you made me promise you that we weren't gonna do that to you and that we were gonna get behind this and really make it work for you.

I made you that promise and here we are. Yes, I had been through some big box. I had been through some personal recommendation people who were incredibly expensive and really I saw the decline on the Google results versus the increase that I've seen.

So it was a big leap, but I do appreciate the transition and what really was a good touch for me was that you gave me a current client's personal number. Yeah. And they took my call on a holiday weekend and really told me how valuable the services were.

So that was a nice touch. It was great that a client was willing to do that on a holiday weekend as well. I think you talked to Sam Rouse as a matter of fact. I think so. Yeah. It's been a few years, which is a good thing, but it's been a few years.

Yep. Awesome. So when we started, I believe you were a solo as well. It was you and your wonderful assistant, I think, right? Yes. And then since then, let's talk about your growth. Yes. So I now have three associates.

I have a senior associate and two younger associates, which is very helpful to have the different experience levels and personalities and styles and two paralegals, a legal assistant and an office manager.

That's crazy. So you're like you're going to be a Fortune 500 law firm at the rate we're going. Well, we'll see. We want controlled growth, but it's the clients at the heart of it. And you never want to be so big that you don't have that personal touch, especially in family law.

It's important for me to know if one of my associates cases has something going on. I know about the case. I can help. I can weigh in. I can brainstorm with them. To me, that's that important brainstorming session is extra important in family law, of all the fields of law.

Yeah. And we know how busy you are because I don't think myself or Steven have had a conversation with you in probably a year. You have us working with your, I believe your office manager, right? Who's fantastic.

But I mean, it took us a while to even schedule you for today. It took a holiday to help us. It did take a holiday. Yeah. So I'm very, very... grateful that you're joining us and we're going to really dig into your story here.

And this is going to be great for anybody that's thinking about going out on their own or maybe somebody went out on their own. Melody's going to tell you the right way. So let's talk about, let's go back.

When did you decide that you wanted to become an attorney and what kind of caused that? Well, so I have a Spanish literature undergrad degree. So as you can imagine, that requires some sort of graduate school to do anything where if you want to eat or pay rent.

And so I have been at the University of Georgia and they have a very literature based romance language department. Are you a Bulldogs fan? I am. I am. I'm loving the season. The last three. The last three.

The season of football for me is, you know, just Alabama losing is a season of itself. Absolutely. But I had really enjoyed the linguistics department. I enjoyed the study of the languages. I studied some Portuguese as well.

And I was going to walk on to the master's program and it was not really a good fit, although I loved the professors there. And so I started expanding my thought processes to what would be a good fit to add on with a literature -based degree.

And law school kept percolating in the back of my mind. My uncle had his own estate law practice in Oklahoma. So I was familiar with someone who had run a law firm, although he always stayed solo. That was his path.

And so I decided to go to law school because I needed that master's degree. I needed something. So it's not like you knew your whole life when you were a little girl that you wanted to be a lawyer or your family said, hey, you always argue you should just be a lawyer.

You didn't know until your early 20s that that's the direction you wanted to go. Well, I will say I have a little bit of a different journey. I graduated high school, undergrad, and law school early. So I'll say early 20s. I think I sat for the LSAT when I was 19. So a little bit different. That's awesome. But I was always precocious. I was always hard on myself because I graduated high school early.

Even when I changed grades in high school, I was still top, I believe 50. It's been a hot minute. If you can believe having practice law for 15 years, I don't I'm going back into the archives on that one.

But I was always really motivated. So I had the markings of an attorney. I had the markings of a litigator. Just no one connected the dots. They knew leadership skills. Strong, sort of hardworking child.

But I loved languages. I loved the study of how we could put something together or how we could analyze it. So it really was there. it's just I took a different path to put the label on it. Got it, got it.

So you go to law school, you get your law degree, you pass the bar, what's next? Well, so it was 2008. So the only industry that was thriving was consumer bankruptcy. So I went to work at a large for the Southeast of the United States law firm doing consumer bankruptcy in a high volume.

And the good news about that is that it really is pretty straightforward litigation. It's codified, you're doing a lot of templates, you're doing a lot of things, becoming rote. And even though it's in federal court, it kind of felt like baby court.

And then that's not to diminish our colleagues. do consumer bankruptcy because they're in the weeds doing really hard stuff and they've been through some really hard things with their clients. But as far as litigation, I didn't feel like it was exposing, in stretching my my efforts, occasionally you would get an adversary where a creditor would sue, or you'd have a US trustee audit, which was a little bit of a panic attack.

Sure. But you really had a lot of doing the same thing over and over. So it was a good transition to see what litigation is like. Because I went to law school thinking I was going to be in -house general counsel at something like Coca -Cola, and I was in due employment law or heaven forbid labor law in the south with all what three unions we have.

So I didn't really have litigation on my horizon. And getting to bankruptcy because that's where their jobs were was a way to realize this kind of roller coaster of emotions to get through a case, to get through emotions hearing as you have in bankruptcy court and make an argument and do the research.

And the interesting thing was we had a mediation in bankruptcy. And that was the big cool thing at the firm because in consumer bankruptcy you're not going to mediation. You're not really doing that.

And so we had some interesting types of cases, but I knew I was not growing there. I was going to sit stagnant and not really expand my skillset. So is that when you decided to go out on your own? No.

So I was in bankruptcy court one day and an attorney approached me about joining their smaller practice that had consumer bankruptcy, personal injury, and family law. And so I transitioned there for several years and helped out with all three departments, realized I did not like personal injury.

Anybody who sat there personally personal injury mediation will probably know the difference. It's very dry, you're talking numbers often, very different than a family law. Very high volume as well. Yes, yes.

Our demand letters, I had clerked at a personal injury firm in law school saying I knew the demand letters are very monotonous. You're doing a lot of soft tissue damage or degenerative disc disease, I believe is something you put in there all the time, which is gravity.

So I didn't love that area when I was had the opportunity to go to a mid -sized firm that practiced only family law. I took it and I never looked back. I loved family law, but I saw the writing on the wall.

That firm wasn't looking for equity partners. The owner didn't want to share. She actually had a conversation about how she wasn't going to share and all the partners were non -equity. So that didn't so then how are you a partner if you're not right?

Yeah, it's name only They mainly have some clout as Compared to the associates that it's not really much. That's crazy Yeah, and so I also found that every time her and I would talk about case strategy We would differ on what the best approach was right and I Left and I was going to partner with a friend who we realized were not Aligned for our business practices and burned in the past So I decided to set up on my own the day before Georgia shut down for the pandemic. Oh goodness I was racing to the bank to set up my IELTA account And at that time if anyone can recall we had to set appointments because the banks were already closing down that March Right, so they didn't want people March 20th.

I think that's a date. Nobody'll ever forget it changed the world It was it was crazy. It was stressful, but it was It was kind of beautiful and that I had a smaller practice. I could I was I remember Sitting there helping my at the time kindergartener do his work Which any parent who worked and helped during the pandemic, you know what I'm talking about It was a different stress.

So I'm trying to help him on his computer while I'm briefing and appellate brief And for a client, and I don't know that I would have had that flexibility and in its size firms So you started going right into the mouth of the pandemic Mouth of the pandemic that had to be nerve -wracking like my god Everything's shutting down the world shutting down and I'm starting a business and I have no income like How do I do this?

So what did you do? Well, how did you get through that? I? Figured out a lot of the tech that you need One of the greatest things I figured out to do for myself, and I was truly a solo by myself was an app called Calendly, which you can backdoor with Zapier, which is an app that talks to other apps.

There's not an automatic connection. Learning those two is life -saving. Because if you can send out your Calendly link, people can't book appointments to talk to you. But it's a way to maybe have someone on your website talk and give you the information so you can do a conflict check before you personally answer the phone.

It's a way for you to build your network resources. Instead of spending five emails back and forth, trying to figure out when you're going to have coffee with this CDFA, here, get on my calendar. It's a great tool, and that helps me a lot.

It helped me organize. If a client needed a phone call, here, just get on my calendar. Here's my availability. So how were you driving people to the website? So a lot of it was still going to be referral -based, essentially.

So I do a lot of via referrals. And a good chunk of my business has always been that way. Once I set out on my own, and that helped, it stagnates. So you're going to hit that plateau, I think, pretty quickly, where you've got to get out there and network.

And then you hired an agency to help you with your site, right? Yes. And so I had someone try one of the bigger people that target attorneys. And they... I know exactly who it is, but I'm not going to mention them.

I don't want to. No, they don't. Yeah, they... Frankenstein, my beautiful website that I had, a web designer friend who did a great job with initially, and really underperformed. I tried some of the referral lead places, I think that those, for me and my experience, were a waste of resources.

And for the people that are listening, remember, she was still brand new. So she was building her practice and spending all this money. And unfortunately, it wasn't working for you. It wasn't. I mean, it was working enough to where I was functioning, but I wasn't thriving.

Right. And so that's the difference, I think, is getting to the point where you're not worried about what if someone doesn't call today. Right. So then you were with them for a while, and then you and I had that conversation that I referenced earlier.

Talk to me about how you felt about things going forward from that point. So I had a little bit of trust issues. And... Oh, I get it. I understand why. I remember in our conversation, it was... The excuse was that Google changed the algorithms.

That's what I kept hearing for like three months. So Google changed the algorithms. That's why the call numbers are going down. That's why you're not getting the clicks. And I felt that's partially true, but there's a lot of things they could have done to anticipate that like we do.

Yeah, it's fine to say that, but at some point three months out and there's no upward momentum. No, I agree. It felt like we were just dying on the vine. Judy was in a similar situation. Yes, I went with several agencies, promises made, promises not kept.

I had them in my office every couple of months when I was so, when I finally came back from court, looking at the calendar, looking at the new clients and new consultations, where is it? Why isn't the phone running, ringing?

And it wasn't until I made contact with Jay, which is a story until itself, you can tell that. But there was an exponential change, it was an amazing change. We got some quick wins too. Yes, yes. Yeah.

Well, so I, As you said, Jay, I have truly not been as available to have the meetings on this. I've seen the reports. I've seen the emails of things that you need me to review and approve, which is something I know other firm had done.

Yep. And that... We won't post content without your approval. We just don't. Well, and just the type of stuff that you're doing is different. I felt like they were just managing the ad stand on Google.

Which, you know, I... We're not even running ads for you. No, it's doing that. So it's all organic? Yeah, everything we're doing for Melody, I believe, is organic, right? We're not even running ads for you.

So, I believe so. And so with the growth I've seen, I actually went to lunch. A colleague of mine was leaving her long -time firm. It was a very small firm. She was in partnership talks, and I think it just went sideways with the happens.

I get it. And she actually made the statement. You might appreciate this, but she's like, on Google, you're killing it. What are you doing? Yeah, that's great. Yeah, we do like that. That's cool. Yeah.

I think also one thing to think about, and this is a moving part that I had right before you, I believe. I'm trying to remember the time period. But put your office location somewhere where you're not going to be eating the same area, right?

Because there's little strips where there's all family law attorneys, all therapists. What have you, and everyone... Trying to get out of it, yeah. All together. Get out there. Yeah, that was smart.

I'm at, where I'm at, I'm super convenient to my life, to the highway, to get to the courthouses, which in Atlanta, nothing's convenient.

Everything's 45 minutes away from itself. And so where I'm at, I know who I'm competing with, and it is significantly less than some of my colleagues. who are all in the same high -rise building, which seems to me, you're paying a lot of money to then compete even more expensively on Google.

It doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Again, I mean, you don't need to run ads if you do it organically the right way. Right? So overall, how's your experience been with us? I mean, obviously, we've been together almost two years, so I think probably pretty good, right?

Right, absolutely. And it's one of those things that I'm not stressed about whether this was an investment. There's certainly ad campaigns that you do. You may try a billboard, you may try a sponsorship.

There's little things that you may try to help boost that Google presence so that people have that recognition to want to go and Google you. Yeah. But this is one that I'm not stressed about. I'm not thinking it is.

Am I getting the ROI because you just know it's coming every single month. It's coming. It's coming. We're seeing it We may talk about hey, this is we're seeing and it's responsive on the back end So when I get a response saying hey, yeah, we're seeing this do we want to try XYZ? Yep, which we really haven't even had to have that much of that conversation. I'd say Six months Probably yeah, I mean, I know Steven works with your staff a lot. I mean, you there's constant communication like weekly Does a great job communicating reminding us if we're do overdoing getting something back for approval So cool, I would say to Jay, you know, I I'm interested in practicing law I'm in the court.

I'm talking with clients and doing documents Running the business the marketing end having not been educated in marketing digital marketing particularly I needed someone to take it off my plate as a job Just do it, right?

And the only one I found was Jay. It's just amazing The response so what I'm hearing from you is that you're able to practice law Absolutely, I'm able to practice law expand on the areas I want and then have associates to help on the cases That maybe are not as inspiring, you know, it's a very straightforward Uncontested and we can help that family but do they need the most senior attorney at the firm handling it?

No, I can give some insight and they still have the value add and I can still get the cases that excite me and Using everyone's skill set and time more efficiently I think that's the biggest thing because you can work on the business or in the business Yeah, I agree.

There's a bad Yeah, that's great. So great. They're very exciting. Yeah, here's something else. That's exciting. I finally just published a book Congratulations, it's kind of cool It's all about law firm marketing, right?

And I'll send you a copy, Melody. And actually, anybody else that's listening, just go to thelegalauthority .com slash book and fill it out. You don't even have to pay shipping and handling. I'll just take care of it.

I'll send it to you. But it's a cool resource. It's on Amazon for $30, so why pay for it if I can give it to you for freeing, right? But we'll send you a copy, Melody, just so that you have it. I know at heart you're a lawyer, but you understand the marketing side.

You get it, more than most attorneys do. Well, thank you. Well, I have a question for you. For those that are listening, the new lawyers, the lawyers that are practicing a while and they need some new tips, can you point to any particular thing in your practice that you did or came about that was pivotal in your success?

Yes, I actually can. Know your clients. Know what client that you're wanting to attract. So we have a saying at our firm that we keep the children at the heart of the solution. Yep. We call that an ICP, ideal customer profile.

Yep. And so what happens is we work really closely with some mom Facebook groups and mom networking groups, so business leaders that are moms. And what happens is that they share knowing that who's going to be sharing your name in the rooms when you're not there is the ones that you want to be concentrating on.

So if that's, you know, a mom's group for a family law, that's usually a pretty popular area. Yep. That's very helpful is knowing who I want to attract, who I want to work with, what type of cases I want.

And then finding all the components that can help me get there is that sponsoring a mom festival, local mom festival. Great ideas. So I'll drink some school PTOs because I'll tell you, for family law, the schools are a resource.

Absolutely, because the moms are so involved with their kids, they're at the schools. And teachers. Yep. Teachers have family lives too. That's so awesome. Teaching kids to the horses. Yep. Excellent.

That's a brilliant idea. I never would have thought of that. Wow. That is a brilliant idea. I'm in the schools as a guardian of light. I want them to be familiar with me so that if I'm asking to meet with a child or asking to see documents, they know my name and say she knows what she's doing.

Yep. And so it's a win for my entire practice, not just my course practice, my custody practice. No, I think that's a brilliant idea. Facebook groups that focus on moms and so forth. That's, I mean, that's your audience.

That's my audience. And I love the dad groups. I can't personally join them because I am not a dad. But knowing and having your staff know, have your paralegals have cards. One of my paralegals, her husband is a very good friend.

master marketer for his own business. She's got cards so when she goes with him, someone will say, oh, what do you do? And she says, I'm a paralegal, we do family law. Here's my card. Yep, hand your card to everybody you meet, I agree.

Everybody. The biggest thing I've also found is have a digital card. I have been out with my small clutch on the weekend and I run into a mortgage lender who says, we need to get a coffee, do you have a card on you?

No, I don't, that's not the right purse today. This is something that we run into. Figure out which digital card you have. Now I've got a digital one, I can just tap and share my contact information for them.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's getting popular. A lot of people are doing that because everybody has smartphones and it's so easy to share your digital card now. It is, and then they can share that link to their friend or neighbor who was asking.

Yep, absolutely. So obviously you're super successful. We've gone through the whole process. Um, you, what advice would you give somebody who was melody back in 2008 deciding that you're going to be a lawyer and passing the bar and now maybe you're working as a prosecutor or working in a small firm or, or what have you and you're kind of thinking, well, gee, I think I want to go out on my own.

What would you tell them? Take the people out who have done it before you for lunch. Ask them those questions. Ask them who they use. Ask them what they wish they had done, what they liked, they did.

Um, go to the networking events, but ask, you know, no man's at Island. And what I know is my colleagues were willing to sit down for lunch with me and talk to me about why it was a good idea. So, you know, now what's going to happen is everybody listening is going to want to fly to Atlanta and take you to lunch.

Well, you know, I do zoom coffee meetings with people all over the nation. Um, I'm part of the amicable divorce network group, which is something that's growing and I love. And so I'm constantly, anytime I see a new member, I'm reaching out.

Um, I'm originally from Texas. If I see someone that jumps on from Texas, I'm like, I want to know you. So that's one of the things just network and network within your industry because prosecutors, the criminal defense attorneys that have left, I'm sure there's enough cases, unfortunately for family law, you know, we can only represent one side of the family is what it is. Naturally, we can't represent both in at least Georgia in most states. So there's room and people are retiring and judges, you know, they can tell you what they don't like from people that have appeared in their courtroom.

Sure. I know a lot of our judge colleagues tell us that they feel very ostracized at networking events and cocktail hours and CLEs. Yep. Ask them what someone did really well to impress them. Those are the ways to learn.

Learn from successful people that have done what you want to do. Absolutely. And take them to lunch. Not because you're trying to get a job with them, but because you want to learn from them. Because I have colleagues I can call up today and say, I need a brainstorm with you.

Sure. Excellent strategies. So how much of your, say, your week is spent on getting the new client? Marketing. Marketing as in networking, consultations. Including that, yes. I'd say some weeks, a third to half.

Significant, significant amount of hours that you're not clocking. However, you're associates are. they are. And so I am very candid with my consultations that I work as a team. You know, I might be a mediator and I'm on zoom because we all pivoted to you zoom and pandemic and some people have latched on to that.

And so I might be a mediator and I take a break to grab a coffee. I'm going to be running down the hall and they can they can brainstorm with me. So it's a resource and I explain it's a great way for them to have their retainer go further at a lower billable rate.

And so if you just are candid about how it's going to be a team approach, or if it is a handoff. I think that's the best way to maximize the number of cases you can handle, because you're only going to grow so much as a true solo.

Right. No, I agree. That's right. And when Steven told me the other day how far you've come since we started working together and I know that we're just a very small part of that because you obviously do a lot of other things that are that are really successful.

You just spent 20 minutes talking about it and I think it's the best idea I've heard on this whole podcast to be honest with you. You I mean you have just exploded and you're going to keep going. I mean, I think there's probably another office in your future.

I mean, you get it on how to grow and do you control growth and all that and I'm I am super excited to just be a small part of that. Thank you. Yes, we are busting at the seams right now. And so we're certainly brainstorming.

And so what do you want to go to Georgia and help her out a little bit? No, I'm retired. I'm retired. You know, I must say when I was transitioning to retirement and moving anticipated move to Florida and I was kind of going to both places during the year.

I wanted to open up a divorce mediation practice not pass and pass a third bar, but just practice down here. And Jay was the first one that that was a good one. I called. I mean, I've known him and been doing business with him for 20 years.

So it was a natural. Use him as that resource too. Just as an extra plug because it's practice in Florida. That's great to know. Yeah, it was just amazing. And I had both for about 10 years websites that he developed for both areas, which worked out beautiful.

I mean, he really straightened out some awful moves that prior agencies had done, but only the business crystallized, which a and once the business started to come in, I said, well, I gotta get a place to live down here.

And that that made it a much faster transition for me to retirement, not full retirement because I like, you know, the action. Yeah. I mean, you work with us. I still do mediation. Yeah, and you work with us with a lot of our clients and stuff.

That's right. A lot of fun. And I'm an elected official too. But it just gives you such a, you know, he's just a great resource for other things too. So if you didn't know, I'm just plugging it in. But you seem to have a fabulous marketing strategy.

And I know that our audience is going to benefit so much by listening today. Absolutely. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. So Melody, before we let you go, anything else that you want to get out there that just any sort of advice or leave it at this for anybody that's thinking about either going on their own or who's recently gone out on their own?

I'd say it makes me nervous. And this is probably just because law schools beat it into you. But it makes me nervous for the people who hang their shingles straight out of the bar. Because law school doesn't teach you how to become a lawyer in private practice.

It doesn't teach you how to print a stamp onto stamps .com and bloke. It doesn't teach you how to set a statistics account to serve that subpoena over statutory overnight. There's those things that seem obvious.

But when you're the only one and you have to figure out how to do it, it adds so much. Or even just organizing your file the way you would want it with the apparel legal or legal assistant.

That's one of the things you really, you don't realize what you don't know.

But I'd say if you're finding yourself out of firm where you are doing the math on how much you are personally bringing in. I'm not saying what the company is bringing in from Google Leads, but direct referrals, repeat clients.

That are coming to you. They're coming to you. And you're starting to do the math. And the math is not mapping. You need to be having these lunches with your colleagues about how to get out of the rat race and find something that works better for you because your business is there.

Got it. So I'm going to leave you with this melody. And I didn't plan on this. This is just an idea because you are such a good marketer and you understand all of it. The marketing side, the operation side, like the whole ecosystem of running and building a firm.

I'm going to challenge you to think of something else that we could do that might help you. Maybe some marketing automation. We have a new platform for that. I should have Steven reach out to you on that.

Yes, that would be interesting. Yeah, so the marketing automation is like, nowadays everybody has their phone with them all the time. And what I think, and I've actually done this, is like right on your website, we should build, we call it a container, but a graphic that says, text me your case, right?

Or text me about your case. And we give you a local phone number that's tied to an app. in your phone. So anybody that's on your team that is responsible to talk to potential new clients, all they need to have is the app.

So when someone texts you about the case, about their case, whether they text you or they use your chat widget, it comes in to this marketing automation platform. We can literally automate replies and we can use AI.

So we can use some basic automation. We have all this now. We need to talk about this. Yeah, we're going to add this for you. But here's the idea. So we can come up with a campaign that's, for example, new case text messages.

That's what you call it. And we set it up so that when someone replies, we get their name, their email address, their phone number, and they text you about their case. Well, the automation then automatically says, hey, this is Attorney Melody Swing.

I have some more questions about your case. Do you have some time for a chat later today or tomorrow? That's automated. That goes right out like three minutes later. Well, what's the biggest stigma that people have with lawyers?

I can never get a hold of my lawyer. Well, now, if I'm that person that texted her about the case, I think she just took the time to reply to me like in three minutes, right? So I start saying, yeah, okay, I have time later today.

I have time tomorrow, whatever. And this is where the AI comes in. It learns how you're going to answer these people, and then it just starts doing it. It learns what you're saying to people based on what they're asking you, and it's incredible.

What are, is there a way to do it when they get their name and they're passing party or a party use name that it could do a cross -reference conflict check? Because that's what initials you got. Yeah.

Yeah, because that's interesting because you don't want to get too much information before you're clear. Right. But that is, that's fantastic. Yep. A good time saver. Oh, it's huge. And the communication.

Because we do texting. some, but it's a lot of manual right now. Well, here's the coolest thing about it, right? You have multiple people at your firm that would be potential touch points. Even if one of your associates isn't the one that's gonna meet with them, here's the point.

If six people in your firm have this app, six people are notified when a new potential client responds, whether it's in the middle of a conversation or a brand new conversation. And here's the interesting part.

So let's say I work for you, Melody, and a text comes in and the automation replies to it. And then the potential client asks another question and you happen to see it. So you just, you see the app, so you hit it, you jump on it, answer their question.

And then they have another question. Well, now you're busy, but I'm notified because I have the app. All of us are notified that there's a new question. So I can jump in there and see what that conversation's been so far, how you answered it, and then I can answer the question, because you're busy.

The person thinks they're talking to the same person. They think they're texting with you the whole time. But it could be every member of your staff. It's pretty cool. It's very interesting. Excellent.

Yeah, no leads fall through the cracks doing it that way. No, absolutely, yeah, that's fantastic. And I like that the AI learns that, you know, I haven't really explored the AI. That's amazing. I've seen the horror stories of a few attorneys trying to use it to write briefs.

Yeah, I would never do that. I mean, for what this is, I think it's perfect. I mean, you talked about Calendly in the very beginning of our call. We actually can send your calendar link to the person to actually book a 15 minute consultation over Zoom.

And it ties to either your Google Calendar or to your Outlook Calendar. So it only shows them times that you have available. If you're not gonna be available at a certain time, just block it off. Super easy.

If you're going to court. We can talk to Stephen because we've got the things that we can connect real easily, I'm sure. What do you use for a CRM? So we use Clio. Yeah, we can tie this to Clio for you.

Yeah, they've got that one link that is through our website already. So it's just one quick extra step. We can actually integrate the whole thing with Clio. We can do a two way sync. So like a new potential client comes in, we get their name, address and phone number.

When you're done with that conversation, we push that right into Clio and it creates a new contact. Okay, now you're speaking my love language and probably my office managers as well. Yeah, we can do all of that.

I know this is crazy to get into all of this on the podcast, but everybody needs to know what's available, right? I mean, things are evolving quickly. Because there's a lot of CRMs that are just as bad as what we've been talking about of that sales pitch.

They have a good talk and then you get into it and they don't deliver. Right, no, I agree. Feel free to call me over the weekend and I'll explain it. It's really, really cool, Melody. This is another reason we're, Jay, I'm listening to you and I said, Wait a minute, wait a minute.

I have to talk to Jay about this immediately. I said, wait, Judy, you're retired, stop it. This is fabulous, great resource, and you're up on everything. Yeah, well, here's the thing. That's so great.

It takes so much effort, as you know, organically to be able to push people to your website. Well, once you get them to your website, it's just as much work to get them to convert. And this is a great way to convert.

You wanna see how much time they're spending on the website and what pages they're going to exit from. And those are the important data points that you need to know. But conversions, everything. The thing that's cool about text, maybe the woman that I wanted to divorce happens to be 10 feet away from me in the kitchen.

So maybe I just wanna, she's annoying me, so now I'm gonna text you, right? Or it could just be I'm not ready to have a conversation. I'm at work my boss is over my shoulder But I thought about this.

I want to remember that I reached out to you so I text you and then boom we start this conversation I mean what a way to bring people into the top of the funnel Well, it's also it doesn't appear on your history and your email which is important to correct well It does go go not not on Google Yeah But they'll respond to it.

Yep. Yeah, I mean text messages that are read 91% of the time within 15 minutes. It's a known fact People I mean if you text somebody they're always gonna see it So awesome, that's great. Yeah, good one to end on yeah, no doubt absolutely melody swelling She has a phenomenal firm.

She's growing and growing and growing she works in the North Atlanta market So if you guys are down there, of course, you know shoot her a message through her website If you want to bribe her with lunch for some good ideas, you know she always likes to have lunch or coffee and That's another episode of the legal authority podcast, right?

So if you want a couple resources that we have I think the best one is the book, right? So I'll send you a copy of the book no charge. You don't even have to pay shipping just go to the legal authority comm slash book You can go to the legal authority comm slash podcast if you want to schedule a call with Judy or myself and we can talk about what you're doing and give you our suggestions and see if we're a good fit for each other and Also, you can leave us feedback for the podcast where you'd love to hear what you guys want You know tell us what you want on future episodes, you know, you can do all of that right from the legal authority comm slash podcast Melody, thank you so much for your time Like I feel like we got lucky to even be able to talk to you because you're so busy.

This is so great Thank you. Thank you for joining us wonderful And I just got an email popped up that there's a website lead so I feel like that's just serendipitous That's right. Okay, go get it All right.

Well, thank you so much, Melody. You still have my number? I do. Yeah. Give me a call over the weekend and I'll go through the, what this marketing automation can do and I'll have it set up for you by Monday.

Sounds great. Thank you. You got it. All right. Melody Swinling, Judith Goldberg, I'm Jay Rathman. We're out until next time, the legal authority podcast .com is where you can find us. Everybody stay safe, have a great weekend and we'll talk to you in the next episode.

Bye Jay. Thank you for listening to the legal authority podcast. As always, you can hear us wherever you get your podcast. Please also make sure that you subscribe so that you're notified for each new episode.

If you have a question that you'd like answered on the show or to talk directly to Judy Goldberg, just go to the legal authority .com slash podcast until next time.