Redefining Success: One Immigration Lawyer’s Path from Burnout to Balance | First Flight #5

Can a young lawyer balance motherhood, burnout, and building a solo practice? In this episode of New Solo’s First Flight series, Adriana Linares talks with immigration attorney Kim Felton, whose legal career was born from necessity and built with purpose. After facing rejection while pregnant and being let go from a hostile firm, Kim turned to contract work and eventually launched her own immigration practice and consulting company, Innovation Litigation.

Kim shares how she carved her own path using legal tech, project management tools, and an unshakable drive to create a family-friendly law firm not just for herself, but to help other attorneys do the same. Later in the episode, Adriana and ALPS Insurance’s Rio Laine discuss how documenting procedures, adopting the right case management system, and creating a positive work culture can protect your practice and your peace of mind.

Transcript:

Adriana Linares:

Hello, and welcome to New Solo and Legal Talk Network. I’m Adriana Linares, a legal technology trainer and consultant. I hope lawyers and law firms use technology better. I want to thank our partners in developing the New Solo first flight series for solo attorneys presented by ALPS Insurance. They’re interested in helping solos and small firms get the best start to their practices. We curated the best 12 episodes for new solos in partnerships with Alps. Today we’re highlighting a portion of an episode with Kim Felton, who runs her own immigration practice and a consulting firm helping other lawyers streamline their operations. There are some good tips in here. We hope the discussion gives you a fresh way to think about your case management. Stay through to the end. When I sit down with Real Lane from ALPS Insurance, we’ll get into tapping your project management mindset for running your cases so you can avoid the most common and most avoidable reason for malpractice, how the pressures of family life create opportunities and present some risks to firms like yours.

Rio and I discuss tactics for creating a work environment where your employees won’t want to sue you and be thoughtful about your pro bono work. It still has risks. And now my interview with Kim Felton, who runs a solo immigration firm in New York State, and also shares her tools for managing cases with other attorneys. Kim, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m going to call you a young attorney if that’s okay. Sure. That went through law school and had her trials and tribulations, found out she was going to become a mother during law school, got out of law school and then just decided there had to be a better way, which I’m pulling that quote from one of Kim’s articles that I read about finding balance in her life, creating a better law practice, and then finding ways to actually help other attorneys, and as much as she helps her immigration clients with their legal needs. So Kim, it’s so nice to meet you. Thanks for coming on today. Give us real quick the tweet size summary of how Kim Felton got to Onward Immigration.

Kimberley Felton:

Okay. I had my first son during law school. I found out I was going to have my second son right before I graduated law school. I needed a job, couldn’t get a job because I was visibly pregnant and I needed money. So I started doing contract work, which turned into figuring out how the legal profession is not efficient and how I cannot function in that environment. So taking control of that, I want to teach other lawyers how to be efficient, how to streamline their practice, and how to figure out where they don’t have to choose between their families and their careers. So I did innovation litigation to offer brief writing services so that I could take some of that workload and then offer consulting to teach them how to build that in themselves, which then showed me there was even more things about the legal practice I didn’t like. And being the control freak that I am, I decided I was going to open my own practice and do things my way.

Adriana Linares:

And Kim, the article that I mentioned a better Way, I’ve sought On Above the Law, but what was the full title for that? So people can Google it.

Kimberley Felton:

It is called A Better Way How Motherhood Changed my perspective of the Legal Field and what I’m doing to change it.

Adriana Linares:

So I read a little bit on your background and I know that that was a struggle for you to, and not necessarily a bad struggle, but you took on a lot at that time. What kind of advice do you have with going through that other than don’t give up and go with your gut? Oh, you can’t just

Kimberley Felton:

Not give up. You have to figure out a way not to give up. So it all started coming together in the second part of my first year. First semester was a hardcore in the books head down, nothing else mattered, and it was not good for my mental health. And so it was a nice breath of fresh air to be able to snap out of that and come back to something in real life. I found out I was having my oldest son in April of 2016 after the initial excitement, the panic set in like, oh my God, I’m going to have an infant. How am I going to do this? And there wasn’t that many resources to find about moms who had done this. So I was left scrambling and I don’t know how I did it. I recall days of sleeping on the floor and the lounge I used for nursing between my 30 minutes between classes, the hard cold floor. And I actually went back to school when my son was only three weeks old and my husband was in the military at the time, and he had to go away for training. So he left when the baby was eight weeks old or six weeks old until mid-March. So it was just me.

Adriana Linares:

Wow.

Kimberley Felton:

And at the time, I had just gotten into immigration law and that was when all the immigration changes started January, 2017. It was chaotic,

Adriana Linares:

To say the least.

Kimberley Felton:

Yeah. So advice wise, maybe plan it better, but you can’t always. Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

Yeah.

Kimberley Felton:

It’s really hard to condense it into words how hard it was, but at the same time coming away, it conditioned me for Beyond law school and it also grounded me in knowing that it’s not just about grades, it’s not just about law review. There’s other people on the other side of this that need help. So I think focusing on the ultimate end goal is a good way to get through. On my personal Facebook and my Instagram, I am very candidly honest about my trials and tribulations. When I failed theBar exam, I was out front about it. I was like, I was only a couple points away. I didn’t make it, but you know what? I’m going to own that because you don’t ever hear about it. And so it was more about just telling my personal story as it was happening. And then I started writing articles like the Above the Law article that we had discussed before called A Better Way How Pregnancy Changed My Outlook on the legal Profession and what I’m doing about it because my post law school experience was not as generous as my law school experienced.

Adriana Linares:

Tell us about that. What do you mean?

Kimberley Felton:

It was really difficult. On top of all of the things I was doing, I decided I was going to do something that they had in New York called the Pro Bono Scholar Program, and I was going to take theBar early before graduating, so that was a great idea. I can do all of the things. So I had a one-year-old trying to study for theBar still in school, and I took theBar in February and I was on top of the world thinking, this is it. I’m going to get sworn in after I graduate. This is going to be amazing. I found out a month later that I was pregnant with my second child, very big surprise. So I was a bit shellshocked. And then I got theBar results very shortly after that and I was crushed. It became an issue of not only figuring out my next move with theBar, but finding employment while I have a growing belly. That was where I was the most naive. I really believed that my credentials would outshine my appearance and they were, until I was there in person and then interviewers, their eyes would fall to my stomach. Suddenly they were going in a different direction or they’d get back to me, they never got back to me.

Adriana Linares:

That sucks.

Kimberley Felton:

When I was 30 weeks pregnant, I found a position at a local family law firm, and at first it seemed promising. It wasn’t quite the area I wanted to be in, but it was good experience. And then after I returned from having my second child, it was not a good experience. It was really hostile and it was unwelcoming. And I only lasted a few more weeks because come to find out the week I returned from maternity leave, they had started advertising for my position behind my back, didn’t find out until I was unceremoniously dismissed on a Friday afternoon, and an hour later I’m looking for a job and I see my position posted that week.

Adriana Linares:

Oh my gosh.

Kimberley Felton:

I was crushed and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I mean, financially, that’s devastating. Two kids, my husband was working, but it wasn’t enough to carry everything. And that is how I started doing services for other attorneys to get by smart. It was innovation

Adriana Linares:

Out of necessity. Here’s what I appreciate. Well, first of all, here’s what I don’t appreciate the jerks that did that to you

Kimberley Felton:

All woman firm.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, and I was going to say, it doesn’t have to necessarily, it’s so funny. I was just talking to a woman this morning and she said to me, I said, oh, I started my career at such and such law firm 20 years ago. She said, oh, do you know so-and-so a friend of hers, a woman, and she said this person’s name. And I said, yeah, I do. And I did not cringe when you brought her name from the back of my mind to the front, because when I was at that law firm, my worst experience in interpersonal relationships was with women. They were so mean to me. And I was 20 something years old. I just wanted to help. I was energetic. I knew something they didn’t know about computers and at this particular firm, which was very toxic. And not only did I suffer a little bit and not really, I mean they were just mean girls, big deal.

But I watched these associates just get pushed and crushed and the expectations set upon them were just, they were terrible. And I was in my twenties and I was young and dumb, and I thought, Ooh, who would want to be a lawyer under these circumstances? Now I went to a different firm later and it was very different. So there’s definitely something to be said about the culture in the law firm, and since then I’ve been in hundreds of firms where the experience runs the gamut. But anyway, long story short, it’s not always the men that do that to women. And I think that’s really disheartening. I mean, it’s disheartening as it is, but this makes it even worse.

Kimberley Felton:

Yeah, I agree. I had expected more support because most of them had children and then like you were saying, the expectations that were set up were not realistic. I was getting told to put my six week old to bed and drive back to the firm. I was more than willing to sit and work at my kitchen table. I never shied away from that, but I had to stop nursing. I didn’t have enough time to pump, and I was losing my supply, and it was the lack of support and the fact that this is normalized, that really bothered me.

Adriana Linares:

That’s really hard and it’s really hard to live through that when you know can do something about it. So you did something about it? I did.

Kimberley Felton:

So I discovered that there was ways to do contract work for other attorneys, and it wasn’t even something that I had considered as an avenue before, but I had heard other attorneys looking for brief writers. So I started doing that and I started getting myself on Facebook groups and passing my information around and using LawClerk legal, and it was a great way for me to get some really in depth writing experience too, and not have the pressure of dealing with the caseload.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. So you started with LawClerk Legal and then that still wasn’t enough for you?

Kimberley Felton:

No, it wasn’t. So here I am raising babies, a house animals, a husband, and bringing in brief work, and then I started to get this itch because I didn’t like the way people ran their cases. So started, that’s how I accidentally stumbled into legal tech because I knew that there had to be a more efficient way to get this stuff done.

Adriana Linares:

Awesome.

Kimberley Felton:

And they didn’t teach you in law school? Exactly. They don’t teach you in law school. These are essential skills that are coming to be necessary in the modern law practice, but we’re still practicing in the 19th century in some places. So I got this itch and I didn’t like the way cases were handled, so I started diving in and learning about startups and all of these different project management softwares, and it just kind of grew from there. So then I started offering assistance with project management and streamlining. I was like, if I’m setting this up for other people, I should be setting this up for myself too. So I set a goal and between, I set the goal. Actually long before COVID, I wanted a virtual practice because I never wanted to have to choose between my children and my job again.

Adriana Linares:

Awesome.

Kimberley Felton:

Well, I was ahead of the curve because then COVID hit and everything went virtual. I thought that was pretty awesome, except there was a lot of bumps in the road trying to figure out other logistics to it, like mail and all of these things that didn’t occur to me at the time. So I dove in even further and started looking into different services and other types of software offered, and I just saw this entire universe of options, not only just with software and technology, but ways to practice law. So I set the goal. It was in March, 2020, I was going to open up a firm and have it ready to go by October, and I did.

Adriana Linares:

Why did you, and I meant to ask you this earlier, so sorry to go backwards. Why did you choose immigration law?

Kimberley Felton:

Oh, okay. So I’ll try to make this one quick because I had found out that I was pregnant in my first year of law school. I had to have this purpose to continue because I was about to become a mom, and that was supposed to be a big part of my life. So I had gone into law school years thinking I was going to be a prosecutor. I mean, I’m talking since I was 13 years old. This was the plan, and I used to have names of law schools pinned up on my bedroom wall. I was a very nerdy teenager with a big ambition. So I start interning at the DA’s office, be still my heart. Oh my gosh, I can’t stand it. Oh, this is not for me. I felt awful being in the Courtroom, seeing people in shackles, feeling like I was contributing to mass incarceration.

The systemic racism that I witnessed was mind blowing stuff that I didn’t anticipate. And so I was like, oh, no, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I got to figure this out because I got a baby coming and law school’s really expensive. So I spoke with a mentor who mentioned a local nonprofit, and they have two fellowships there, and the only way to get into it is through two of the school’s legal clinics, which was the Domestic Violence Clinic and the Immigration Law Clinic. I am a domestic violence survivor. So that was a bit triggering to me, and I kind of shied away from it, and then I was like, oh, immigration sounds happy. I want to know. This was August, 2016. I was very naive and I reached out to the professor of the clinic to get in touch with her about the spring semester.

Well, it just so happened that right then a spot had opened up because somebody had dropped the class. So she said, it’s yours if you want it. And I was sworn into the clinic with my hand on my belly and my right hand in the air. Three weeks later, I fell in love. Oh, I absolutely fell in love. I was working on a special immigrant juvenile status case for a kid that came from Guatemala. He didn’t have a mailing address. There’s no running water, there’s no electricity. It took my heart, and then there was a bond hearing. I actually ended up on bed rest, right, very, very beginning of November. I still continued my classes on the computer and I participated through Skype, and I worked on a bond hearing with my partner. That was done while I was on bedrest, and I just couldn’t get enough of it.

I don’t know what it was about that particular area of law, but then when the election happened, I knew what that meant for immigration and it broke my heart. I had to stop watching the election because it was causing me to have contractions. I’m not even kidding. I know that. I think I understand it’s a little extreme, but the stress I was feeling, it wasn’t even about me. It was thinking about my clients and what they were going to endure. And so I hadn’t signed up for the clinic for the following semester. I had been invited back to do the second part, which is invitation only, but I decided not to because I had a new baby and I was going to do an immigration law class instead, so I could learn, but I still couldn’t get enough. So we had a capital region immigration coalition meeting.

I was pumping as I was driving. I mean, I said my son was only a couple weeks old, and this was when the Muslim ban was coming down and all of these things were happening. So I knew that I was not going to take much time off, and I ended up applying for the immigration fellowship at that nonprofit, and in February they told me it was mine. I worked there that entire summer. I stayed there. I went back to the immigration clinic, and by the time I graduated, I had over 1300 hours of pro bono service.

Adriana Linares:

And that pro bono service that you loved? Yes.

Okay. We’re back, and I’m speaking to Kim Felton, who in our first segment, we sort of rolled through her journey of going through law school pregnant and then trying to work and get a job being pregnant. And then she got the entrepreneurial itch, which I love that you got a lot of lawyers don’t get the entrepreneurial itch, and that’s okay. So we left off where you were discovering legal technology and the efficiencies that technology and specifically legal technology might bring to a practice, and you saw a better way, saw a better way to run your own life and then your practice, and is this where innovation litigation comes in?

Kimberley Felton:

So innovation litigation stemmed from the contract work I was doing. I wanted to do an LLC just to formalize it, but then yes, that’s where I started thinking about other things I could do with it because I still do contract work. I love brief writing. Some people think there’s something wrong with me. I love doing a 25 page asylum brief when it’s not my case. But then I also was thinking about how other attorneys and other moms specifically can benefit from my experiences. So with innovation litigation, I’m starting to change it, not just to being about outsourcing contract work, but about bringing me in to revamp the system and figure out how they can have, everybody wants to have it all, but it’s hard to have it all. So you have to be able to have it in good increments. So I want to be able to show them you can have the life you love and the job you love, and you don’t have to sacrifice for it.

Adriana Linares:

I think that’s really important because so many people do sacrifice one thing or another. So innovation litigation is two things then let me make sure I understand. It’s a platform for other attorneys who do immigration law to find contracted work, and it’s a consulting service that you run to help other lawyers be more efficient, find life balance, and use technology better.

Kimberley Felton:

Yes, I can either offer them that balance by doing the brief work for them, or I can show them how to build that balance in themselves.

Adriana Linares:

So when somebody calls you up and says, help me, I’m drowning. Where do you start?

Kimberley Felton:

Well, what is the most urgent thing and what is the most important thing that we need to address first and foremost, what is an upcoming deadline? What is something you need to get out of the way right now? And then the rest of it we can figure out. I always had this high expectation for the legal profession and lawyers, and then seeing the chaos and the lack of structure and even accountability. It was really disheartening for me, and that’s why I was like, I need to open my own firm because these immigration clients are not getting the service that they’re paying for. It was seeing unethical practices of other attorneys that really pushed me and feeling like I was powerless. The best I could do was work harder on the casework that was sent to me on an appeal than they did for the original petition. I wouldn’t have to do this work if it was done the first time, but I was able to help in some way. I think that because the law profession is stuck behind the times, this progress is so slow, and that is why lawyers have a bad rap. People are paying for the hourly model, but it’s not efficient. It doesn’t promote efficiency.

Adriana Linares:

It doesn’t talk to me about project management. That’s something we don’t talk enough about. What does that mean to you when it comes to managing a case? Because I think a lot of attorneys don’t think about a case as a project, therefore don’t apply principles of project management to doing that. So when somebody says to you, I think I need project management, but is that the same as case management? What do you say to them and how do you help them?

Kimberley Felton:

Yeah, I mean, it is the same thing. The terms can be synonymous, but I think when you mention project management, it’s more granular. It makes you, it forces you actually to do it step by step and to draw out the entire roadmap and see how you’re going to get there. What things do we have to do along the way? When do they have to be done and why? And it’s a really good way. I think it’s a great way for younger attorneys to really get an understanding of a case too, by not just plugging everything into Clio and then referencing the notes. But alright, so we have this legal problem. When is the next filing deadline? What do we need to have done by then? What do I need to complete before the filing deadline so I’m not scrambling the night before to meet the filing deadline?

So when it comes to project management, I’m not really partial to any kind of way or tool. I think as long as you can figure out something that works for you. I mean, I started off using sticky notes on my wall and doing a Kanban board, and I love that. I love the Kanban board because I can see everything that’s going on in one place, but it doesn’t necessarily work for other people. It could be a spreadsheet, it could be a running list. But project management is something we do every single day and people don’t realize it.

Adriana Linares:

They don’t. I’ll say real quick too, I’ll add on this. I had a client who had me create some workflows for them in Clio, and what was great about the workflow, when he gave it to me, he said, okay, here are the steps and here are the paralegal steps and then here’s the attorney steps. But he had really taken the time to put into the workflow why, which is something you said, and I think that’s important to address, which is a project management system can be used like a knowledge management system where you’re teaching someone why something needs to get done so that the next time something similar comes up, they’ve got some information in their head that they can apply to either solve a problem or redo something the right way. So it was really neat how he had, it wasn’t just this task is due in three days.

This task is due in three days because if we don’t contact this potential new client within three days, which that’s way too long, but we might lose the opportunity to service that client. So he actually had not just the sales and marketing part of the project, but also at some point he dug into the legal reasons, and this was a family law lawyer. The other thing I’ll add that I like about Clio, and I think it’s any case management system that has calendaring rules in it. Again, sort of teaching, when you use their court rules, it tells you, it lays out the rule. It doesn’t just say, okay, that’s due six days before the deadline. It tells you why and what and how. And so I think that’s another important part, like you said, of why, and I think that’s a big piece that we miss out on training ourselves and attorneys or someone else Absolutely is why are we doing this? And I think that’s a really good case for thinking about cases more like a project than just a linear process to get from cradle to grave.

Kimberley Felton:

Yeah, I mean, going back to the brief writing, that was just a small portion of an entire project, but for me, that was my project. That’s my portion that I control somebody else isn’t going to, so they need to know where I’m at at that time to be able to figure out where they’re going next. And so by breaking it down, and I’m a very visual person, so I need to be able to see things and the why part ingrains, it makes and understand it, and then you take it more seriously and you’re more accountable, I think.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, we’re back. So always a really good reminder for listeners is really want to find an area of law that you’re passionate about and that you love.

Kimberley Felton:

I think I got lucky because I just happened to stumble into that and it easily could have been something else, but I think that there should be more encouragement to branch out and try different areas as opposed to going on one track in law school.

Adriana Linares:

I agree with you. I agree. Well, I’ve always said, and I say it on this podcast all the time, the happiest lawyers I know are the ones who are practicing in an area of law that they support, that they love, that they’re passionate about. Back to mental health and wellness and all the issues that we see that lawyers can have. I think that’s just an important reminder. The

Kimberley Felton:

Statistics don’t lie. Billing out innovation litigation. I was looking at the burnout rate and how many women are exiting the profession before 10 years, and it all ties in together. Not knowing what your practice area you want, being in a toxic environment, having a family to depend on you, it’s all connected.

Adriana Linares:

I’m so glad you took the time from practicing law, helping other lawyers, helping your clients, raising your kids, and taking care of your house and husband, and I’m sure he’s helpful too.

Kimberley Felton:

Oh, he’s amazing.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah.

Kimberley Felton:

Without him, this would not be possible to be able

Adriana Linares:

To. Yeah. I read a couple of your writings. You have said he has been very supportive and an important part of your success, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate having a partner like that.

Kimberley Felton:

It’s essential, honestly, and I appreciate that a lot of women don’t have that, so whenever I get the chance to give him credit where it’s due, absolutely. I mean, we kind of reversed roles. He’s deployed before, been in the military, so my support went then and then he’s given it back to me now. That’s great.

Adriana Linares:

That was Kim Felton, an immigration lawyer and law firm operations consultant. I hope you got some good reminders about creating processes around managing cases like projects. This episode is part of the New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance. I’m joined by Rio Laine, director of strategic partnerships at Alps. I know you’ve worked with a lot of solos. How many of them write down their procedures? Why should anyone else care that an attorney is handling their case like a project? I think this is not something they’re taught in law school to think about a case like a project. And I will tell you interestingly, that when I hear an attorney talk about it, like a project or ask me about project management, and I’m always like, huh, did you go to business school too?

Rio Laine:

Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of blows my mind that this is a relatively new concept and that they’re not taught this in law school because I mean, it’s not new information that a case is essentially a project, that there are deadlines and timelines and moving pieces. I mean, if you’re not thinking of it like that, if you’re kind of just willy-nilly while all these things are, oh, I got to do this thing over here. I got to do this thing over here, well, then you’re opening yourself up to a lot of risk and a lot of mistakes, possible mistakes, missed deadlines, et cetera, and potentially some very, very unhappy clients.

Adriana Linares:

This is where case management systems can really come in handy because they help you approach a case like a project, a cradle to grave. As I also refer to cases a lot like the intake process, the substantive work process, the billing process, the closing process, all of those things are sort of built into case management systems and including some of the workflows that case management systems have developed over the past few years. We didn’t have a lot of task management that triggered another task 5, 6, 7 years ago, but all of today’s modern case management programs have added that, which helps you get that approach, sort of look at a case like it’s a project rather than just a case. I mean, we’re using the terms interchangeably, but the things that really lead to liability risk can be mitigated by using case management systems. I want to ask you about something that we don’t usually cover on New Solo because I tend to stick to policies, procedures, and technology, but Kim mentioned how she was juggling family and finishing law school and then when she was pregnant. And so I want to ask you a couple of questions about mitigating risk on a non-technology issue, which will be refreshing for everyone. I’m sure. It just seems that she had or described some issues about working in a law firm and progress as far as women in law firms today. So can you talk to us a little bit about what we need to think about when it comes to family leave, protecting the business from lawsuits and other issues that aren’t even technology related?

Rio Laine:

So many words come to, but just so frustrating that in 2025, this is still something that we are not only talking about, but that women are still dealing with. I mean, first and foremost, when it comes to your law, don’t fire someone for getting pregnant. That’s kind of common sense. I mean, that’s part of life. Just don’t do that. I mean, I found it so surprising. Well, maybe not surprising, but just also kind of interesting to hear that the firm that she had the most issues with was a women run firm.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, I’m actually not surprised.

Rio Laine:

Yeah, I mean, come on. We have to do better as women, we have to support each other. Women can be so mean and hard on each other, and that’s just so unnecessary given all of the other things that we’re up against constantly. I think ultimately though, when it comes to running your law firm, anyone who might need family or parental leave as a law firm, you need to address both the legal compliance and workplace culture to avoid lawsuits like the one that Kim could definitely have brought against that law firm. I mean, some of the ways that you can do that are first ensuring that you have clear, legally compliant leave policies, making sure that all of your policies comply with federal law. If you’re a small law firm, if you have a few staff, you might not have an HR department. You kind of have to be your own HR department.

And as lawyers, you’re really good at understanding laws, so you need to make sure that you are in compliance with those laws. Specifically thinking about things like eligibility, what’s the duration of parental leave in the area you live? What are the benefits, continuation, job protection block, et cetera. And having all of those things in writing is so, so important. And which leads me to my next point, which is to document all of those policies, make them available for everybody, and document any business decisions that come as a result of any of those policies. So if you have to lay someone off, if you’re promoting someone, et cetera, making sure you have that documented that can really help you defend against a claim if you do have a claim of discrimination leveled against you.

Adriana Linares:

This made me think of something as we’re talking about case management, when you say document everything, you create a matter called firm business or HR inside of your case management system, and make sure that you and your other managing partner or whoever, again, role-based access are the only ones that have access to this client. Let’s say you create a client called firm hr, sort of like a project. You got a case, you got a project called Firm hr, and then in there you create a matter for every employee, a matter for Rio, a matter for Adriana, and in there you use the tools that come with case management to manage that project or manage that file, or in this case, your HR file. You could also put notes in there. You can store the emails that you exchange with that person about either an issue, their behavior or their questions. You could file their leave request documents in there. Is that a good way to manage the quote project of a human that works for you inside of your case management system?

Rio Laine:

So in my past life at Clio, I actually saw that a lot of times because I mean, yeah, you’re already using the software. You don’t have to have another program. You can even create all of your documentation, your policies, et cetera within that matter. But yeah, the most important thing to your point is role-based. Not everybody has access to that. It has to be limited to your managing partners, say an office manager maybe. But yeah, keep it limited, but absolutely you don’t have to bring on another software tool, then you already know how to use it. Yeah, and there’s that audit log we talked about, right? So who’s changing what, what’s being logged, et cetera. So yeah, I love that idea. Really. Ultimately, what it comes down to is like, don’t penalize your employees for taking leave. We talked a little bit about the legal compliance aspect of it, but it has a lot to do with the culture of your law firm as well.

I mean, oftentimes lawyers are kind of conditioned to think, and they’ve been told that you have to work, work, work, work, work. That has to be your whole life, and then you burn out, and if you take time off, you lose opportunities. You get demoted, you’re excluded from different projects. Don’t do that. That’s just not good business practices. That is not a good workplace culture. It needs to be normalized for people to take parental leave if they need it. A big part of that culture too is to train any managers and supervisors on those expectations because culture has to come from the top. It has to be not only modeled, but also understood and spoken and reiterated on a regular basis. You don’t want your managers making discriminatory remarks, remarks to people because they’ve taken time off and there’s animosity, et cetera, and they need to be trained on how to address leave, what firm policies are, and how to handle sensitive situations. And all of those things really come together to create a supportive firm culture and an environment that people really want to stay in. They want to stay. They want to give you your time, and probably most importantly, they don’t want to sue you. They don’t want to sue you.

Adriana Linares:

Such a good tip. Create an environment where your employees don’t want to sue you. I think that should be the headline of this episode. Okay. Create an environment where your employees don’t want to sue you. That’s such good advice. Rio, one more question I want to ask you about. Kim. She does a lot of pro bono work, and I know that there are a lot of attorneys out there who want to do pro bono work, but maybe they worry about the liability risk that comes from doing pro bono work. So can you make everybody feel better about why it’s okay to do pro bono work and how insurance companies like Alps may see the idea of pro bono work and how they’re there to support that good work?

Rio Laine:

When it comes to kind of pro bono work and how insurance companies think about it, there’s a few things that you need to understand is that first malpractice claims still apply. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s risk free. You can still get sued for missed deadlines, inadequate representation, et cetera. Generally, pro bono lawyers are held to the same professional standards as when you’re doing paid work. Something that’s really, really important to understand as well is that there’s often a gap in coverage in insurance coverage for pro bono work. So some professional liability policies exclude it unless it’s done through an approved organization, reported and covered in advance or explicitly included in the scope of your policy. So always check your policy and or notify your carrier before taking on pro bono work.

Adriana Linares:

Well, real as usual, your insight and your help has been incredibly valuable. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure. All right everyone, thank you for listening and see you next time on New Solo first slight series presented by ALPS Insurance.