Copka Law’s COO on Choosing Filevine for Growth (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: All right, Donna, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited to learn more about you, your journey to COPCA, and just your journey in joining Filevine as a customer. So I guess to start, I mean, how did you make your way into a law firm as the COO?

[00:00:19] Speaker 2: Well, it was quite the journey. It was not intentional to end up in a law firm. I didn't go to college thinking I would go and be a COO of a law firm. I was really an art background, but I had a business degree with that. And I remember talking to my dad, and he said, you know, you should be a lawyer. And I was like, that's a lot of school. And I remember thinking when I was younger, when I thought about that, I thought I was going to be old by the time I was done with law school, so I didn't want that. So all of a sudden, I was at a crossroads, and I decided to work in an environment. So I opened the Classifieds back in the day and saw a receptionist job for a family law firm, part time, so I could do my LSAT. I could figure out what I wanted to do if I liked that environment. And I started there. I was never part time. I ended up being a receptionist legal assistant. I ran their books. I kind of did it all. And I took my LSAT, and then life changed. And I had to kind of pivot. And my husband got laid off because the real estate crashed from his job, and I had to really change up what I was planning on doing and going full time to law school. And I had a headhunter call me and ask me if I wanted to work for Copka Law as a biller. And I remember being like, billing every day? Oof. But I mean, you have to do what you have to do. It was more money. It was better for my family. So I took that job. And when I was there, I thought this was going to be a stepping stone. I just didn't think I would enjoy it. Before you know it, I became a billing manager. Really not seeking that just happened. And then assistant controller. And then before you know it, I just kept moving up and working side by side with Bob Copka. And he saw something in me that I didn't necessarily see and kept pushing me to have more responsibility. And before you know it, I've been COO for about 11 years now.

[00:02:19] Speaker 1: Wow. That's amazing. Well, congratulations to you. That takes a lot of hard work and making sure that you're making the biggest impact wherever you can in whatever role you have, which sounds like exactly what you were doing, whether it was a biller in the beginning or what you're doing now as COO. So I can't even imagine how many changes have happened and evolutions. And it sounds like you all are across various offices. What led you to finding Filevine?

[00:02:45] Speaker 2: We needed a new case management system, the one that we were currently on, End of Lifed. They stopped supporting it, and we went to the next iteration they had, and it failed. And it was a year of chaos. We couldn't get our documents. We were losing things. Appointments were getting lost. There was 30 bugs that we discovered, and they never really got fixed. And so I had to do something because we weren't making any progress. So I was researching, what do we really need? And so we started interviewing different case management systems and doc management systems. And Filevine, I had never even heard of them when I came across it. I think they were number four on my list initially.

[00:03:34] Speaker 1: Glad we made our way up to the top.

[00:03:35] Speaker 2: Then I went to ILTA, and I got to meet everybody in person. And I got a demo. And I got the same with everybody. I had all four that I was working with all there. And I went to every one. And Filevine just stood out, partly because I was looking for something that we could grow with, that's going to bring us into the future, that was always looking to advance the technology. I wanted some technology that was going to grow with us. And I liked what Filevine was offering.

[00:04:03] Speaker 1: That's awesome. Were there any things you saw in that first demo that really caught your eye that you're still excited about?

[00:04:09] Speaker 2: I just love how customizable it is. I don't think we've even dreamed what it all can do yet. I realized it helped us with our rate management because we're an hourly defense firm. And we have between 400 and 500 different insurance clients. And so they all have different rate agreements. I never realized how we could keep it all together in the system and how it can help us report. It was just these use cases that we never even imagined. So the more we get into it, the more like, well, let's do this, right? And so that's been exciting.

[00:04:38] Speaker 1: That's been my favorite part of getting to know different customers, especially in various different practice areas, because of the ability for Filevine to be so configurable to whatever it is you do. The ideas that come from you all are the best ideas for what the future of Filevine can be. And so when I hear that, when you start to do something, you say, what if it could do? And that's what really has allowed Filevine to continue to grow and evolve. What were some of the major problems you wanted to solve with whatever case management system you were bringing on? Obviously, you said around being able to build for the future. But were there any specific things that you knew you needed?

[00:05:16] Speaker 2: Well, doc management, stuff where you can find your documents really easily, that was easy for a lawyer to work with. Storage was a big deal. Every other platform I've been on, we've had to pay for the storage. And we have been growing a terabyte a year, and that was very expensive. We just grow and grow and grow data. So to go into a system that is not going to, we can grow and not worry about, I've got to take this offline here, I've got to move this over here. And we started moving our data everywhere just so we could keep the cost down. Filevine being a one-stop shop for everything was a huge benefit to us. Before, we had stuff in SharePoint. We had stuff over here. We just kept moving things around. So that was a huge benefit.

[00:06:00] Speaker 1: That's a hidden cost many firms don't always realize right out of the gates. When they look at their software costs at the beginning of the year, and then they look at what they actually paid after all of the storage costs at the end of the year, it can be quite mind-blowing.

[00:06:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was more than everything. More than my technology I was paying for was just the storage, was just as much, if not more.

[00:06:19] Speaker 1: Well, glad we could help with that. I think that's definitely a differentiator with Filevine. You were saying you're across a ton of offices. So I can imagine being on the cloud has helped so far. How have you been working with our team to implement Filevine across all of those offices?

[00:06:35] Speaker 2: Well, the implementation go live. We had different people from Filevine come out and help us during when we were launching it to all the different offices. And that was huge to help us because being so spread out, it's hard to be everywhere and to have enough people to help all the offices. We made super trainers in every office, but having that additional help get through that because there's such different levels of technology used throughout the firm, right? Having those people that don't like the technology to sit with somebody and really work with them was helpful.

[00:07:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it does take that hands-on learning and having that resource live in each office. Anytime I've talked to a customer, they've said, as long as I get that system admin or that Filevine expert in my firm, then I feel really good. And it sounds like you guys have done that cross office, which is really exciting. Have there been any early wins from employees or aha moments that you've heard of?

[00:07:27] Speaker 2: How we're using our guideline compliance has been huge. It's been easier for us to be compliant with our insurance defense, our insurance clients. They all have their set of guidelines that you can, what you can and cannot bill for, preferred vendors. That's really helped us organize all of that and keep it in one space. And if we don't use it, we lose that money. So that has been a huge help. I think the way we use the record section, that's been huge. Like all of a sudden we've made a lot of doctrines and people can order quickly and preferred vendors go right in there. And it's just been really helpful for us to streamline a lot of those pain points that we have.

[00:08:04] Speaker 1: Were you thinking, obviously you bill by the six minutes, you were talking that earlier. Were you thinking about efficiencies and non-billable hours? Were you thinking more just about getting everyone on the same page and being more organized? What were some of those key goals you had with a system like Filevine?

[00:08:22] Speaker 2: All of them. And I know AI is, it's cured, it's coming, it's gonna have to be used. And as much as insurance defense firms don't know how to embrace it or if it's affordable, it's here and we're gonna have to. And so we already started putting our toes into that. And I loved that you have a lot of AI ready. It was just, we couldn't jump into it all right away. So I love the fact that we're gonna be building on those tools as we go.

[00:08:48] Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting to see that you've now expanded offices to many different places, but that requires the ability to make the culture spread across all of those offices, as well as work remote with various people across offices. Has Filevine aided in any way, or have you seen any ways that you think Filevine could help you all evolve and work better across those different states or cities?

[00:09:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tool that definitely aids itself in keeping everybody on the same page. We can have lawyers in different offices work together because it's all on the same platform. We are really working on integrating everybody into using the tools and using it the same way and not everybody doing it their own way, right? Like my Lexington office is working with my Louisville office, and we don't have to worry about how they work because they all working very consistently and that helps. And the tools are huge for working wherever, whenever they need to. Our culture is that as long as the work gets done, I don't know, I don't care how it gets done. And we have to be, right? It's a very competitive stage right now. We have less lawyers going into insurance defense. And so we have to be nimble with how people wanna work. So if they wanna work from home most of the time, this tool, Filevine with being on the cloud has been very conducive to that. And it's also very secure, which is a huge concern. And I don't have those worries with Filevine.

[00:10:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting thought too, because you think about even between cases, I mean, you could be in your car, you could be at home, you could be visiting across offices like we've talked about but if everyone's inputting the information in the same way, it really doesn't matter where you are or even what office you're with. Correct. So you had mentioned, I think you went about finding Filevine luckily, but your journey in finding a new case management system in a really thoughtful way. It sounded like you narrowed it down, you met with your top options, you figured out what was the right fit for you and your firm. Is there any advice you would give to someone in your shoes at another firm trying to figure out how to make this decision for them?

[00:10:51] Speaker 2: I think Filevine is one of the best tools out there. I've seen a lot. I love how customizable it is. So it meets all the practice areas needs. I've really been really impressed with how everybody's checking in with us. They wanna know what other things they can do to help improve or what tools that we need. I call or email, I get instant help. I've really, that means a lot. I was a small fish in a large company before. It took forever to get anybody to even respond. I don't feel that with Filevine. I feel like I'm very important, and I'm not that big, but I still feel very important. So if you want a tool that works really well, that is gonna grow with you in the future, and that's gonna be a business partner to you, Filevine is the way to go.

[00:11:40] Speaker 1: I'm so glad you felt that way, because we feel that way about our customers too. As much as you may feel like you're asking things of us, for us to be able to go back to you all and get advice and get ideas or have you sit here with us like you are today, I mean, it only helps us get better too. So we agree, we don't wanna be a vendor, but to be a partner and a creator and an evolver with you all, that's where the fun gets to happen. So Donna, thank you so much for doing this. We really appreciate you, and I think everyone will love learning from what you had to say today. Thank you.