Revolutionize Your Law Firm: Embrace the Power of Pods

Are you looking for a way to organize your firm better? In this podcast episode, Tyson discusses the benefits of organizing law firms into pods or teams. 

Tyson talks about the benefits of splitting up people within law offices to really maximize the talent that exists. Within Tyson’s firm, staff are a part of different teams that are colour coded. Ultimately, it is a way of organizing an agile team that is composed of an attorney, a case manager, and a litigation assistant. There are many reasons why a system like this is effective. One reason is that it allows for clear communication. All members (especially when looking at small teams) know their roles inside and out, which means less chances for misunderstandings and better opportunities for streamlined operations. Looking at the trio of an attorney, case manager and litigation assistant, everyone has a role. The attorney focuses on complex legal stuff, case managers focus on client relations and the litigation assistants focus on the administrative work.

At its core, law is the business of people. Pod systems allow for clients to have consistent, attentive services from the same group of people who know and understand their case. This makes the client management aspect of a firm so much better. Clients can trust the people who are helping them in the journey and don't have to worry about talking to different people.

Small pods can create a close knit nature among the people who work together. People can deliver better if the dynamic and vibe of a team is top tier!

Listen in to learn more about setting up pods in your firm.

Episode Highlights:

• 2:22 The advantages of organizing a law firm into pods
• 4:25 How the pod system allows for seamless coverage
• 7:24 The close-knit nature of pods

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here

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Transcripts: Revolutionize Your Law Firm: Embrace the Power of Pods

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Hey, it's Tyson, back for another quick Saturday episode. And today we're going to be talking about an approach to organizing your teams and your firm in a way that really makes things easier to operate and to transition as you grow into a larger firm. Before I get into that, though, I do want to tell you about something that's really special that Jim and I have put together, and that is maximum lawyer and minimum time. It's something that we give to all guild members for free whenever they join the guild. And it's the roadmap to success for growing your law firm and building the law firm of your dreams. We're going to give stage one of maximum or minimum time to all of our podcast listeners. All you have to do. It's really simple. Just text the words stage 1 to 3, 145, zero, one, 9260, and we will get that out to you right away.

Speaker 2 (00:01:21) - I'm hoping that you will take advantage of it. It is a it's something that will allow you to throw gas in the fire and grow your firm into what you want it to be. All right. So let's talk pods. We do. If you if you've listened to the podcast recently we do call our teams you know red team, green team, blue team. We have colors for them and we call them teams. We don't call them pods, but they're organized as pods as what we is, what how we have them organized. And you might be wondering what is a pod? And this is not something that I've come up with or several other firms that use pods. It's something that I have learned over time. And it's it's something that allows us to organize our firms in a way that it allows you to grow over time. There's a lot of benefits to it, but it's a way of organizing an agile team that is a composed of an attorney, a case manager, and a litigation assistant.

Speaker 2 (00:02:22) - You can have them larger. I do know of firms that have them larger, but those those are the components of the three. So an attorney, case manager, litigation assistant, we practice only personal injury. We don't do other things. And so it might make sense for you to organize yours in a different way. But that's that works really well for us. And we have, you know, other divisions in the firm that do different things. But a basic pod is that that's how that's organized. And it's a really great way to organize your firm for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. So you might be wondering, okay, well, why why go with the pod system. Well let's let's break it down. So the first one is really it's going to help encourage that crystal clear communication. The team that you need. One of the biggest strengths of a pod system is the clear line of communication it establishes among team members each of the individuals. They know their role inside and out, which this reduces the misunderstandings and it helps you streamline your operations.

Speaker 2 (00:03:24) - Everyone knows exactly who they need to talk to, which is really nice. The second one is that tailored case management that you really are looking for in a team. Pods make it far easier for your team to excel in their particular roles because they know exactly what they're supposed to do, and this makes for higher quality work across the board. Attorneys can can focus on the legal stuff only the things that they can do. Case managers can focus more on the client relations and then the litigation assistants on the nitty gritty admin work when it comes to dealing with pleadings and discovery, things like that. It's all about putting people where they perform the best. It allows you to maximize your team to a great extent. The third benefit is a personal touch that your clients get. And this is something where when you're dealing with your firms, you're going to realize that as you grow, it can be really hard to maintain that personal touch. And as you grow, as you start to add pods, it makes it a lot easier.

Speaker 2 (00:04:25) - So we're obviously we're in the business of law, but we're really in the business of people. And with a pod system, clients receive that consistent, attentive service from a dedicated team that stays with them from start to finish. And this is really nice because the clients know always who they can talk to. They know who their case manager is, they know who their attorney is and the way ours is set up. Clients rarely deal with litigation assistance, but if you if you want your clients dealing with litigation assistance, you can do that as well. The fourth benefit is, I'd say, the most important part of it, and that is the flexibility that you get with it, especially during emergencies. So what happens if someone in your pod, let's say they have to take an unexpected leave, or let's say that someone goes on maternity leave. You don't have to worry about it. A member from that pod or a member from another pod can fill in seamlessly so that you can ensure that you have that continuous coverage in that.

Speaker 2 (00:05:23) - Client service. So all of the teams are trained the same way these teams are. They're set up where they can actually fill in the gaps where necessary. And that's what the great thing about this is. And that's why whenever we do onboarding, we train people in a lot of areas outside of what they'll be doing just so that they can fill those gaps. It allows for that fluidity that you need as you as you continue to grow, or if people leave or if you add new people, it allows for that flexibility. And so don't think of these pods as these rigid systems where that's their unit, they're a self-contained unit and they can't do anything else. That's not the way it's set up. It's set up where they can fill in the gaps with other teams and other roles if they absolutely need to. The only exception to that would be to a slight extent, is obviously case managers can't fill in for attorneys by appearing at court appearances, but other team members on other pods can do that, and we do that on regular basis because we have cases in several different locations, several different venues where it may make sense for one attorney since they're already going to be in one county, they can appear on multiple cases.

Speaker 2 (00:06:28) - And that's why we have that that flexibility between the teams, they can help fill in those gaps. And then the fifth one that I want to talk about is fostering some team spirit, the close knit nature of a pod. It enhances team cohesion, trust and ultimately job satisfaction. When everyone is invested in that team, you get far better outcomes and it is just the camaraderie that is built is awesome. And another thing, it's you get a little bit of competition too, which is pretty cool, where you have these different teams where especially when you start to talk about numbers, settlement, dollars, number of cases settled, you get that team spirit. We get people, you know, you know, go, go green team, go red team, go blue team. So they're they're sort of competing with each other which you know they win because they get that. They get to have some fun with that too. But then the firm wins as well because because of that competitive nature, people start to to perform better.

Speaker 2 (00:07:24) - Competition breeds better performance, which is pretty cool. So hopefully this helps you out, let you know how we set things up. And I will tell you, I mean, I've heard of a variety of different ways of people setting up their pods in certain ways. You can do whatever you want. We have a CARES team. That is what we would consider a pod as well. So you'll have different teams. It just doesn't just have to be the legal teams, it will be other teams as well. They operate the same way though, where you can fill in gaps in different areas. So if you want a law practice that that excels in communication, allows you to manage cases better, deliver better service to your clients, increase team morale, then the Pod system might be something that you might want to adopt. Make sure that you do tune into next Saturday's episode, where we're going to dive deeper into a variety of other strategies for elevating your your law practice. But until then, hopefully you'll take this pod concept into consideration and see if it works for you.

Speaker 2 (00:08:23) - And if you need anything from us, or if you want us to cover anything, make sure you do give me a text. Text me at 314 501 9260. And if it's something that we can cover on the podcast, I absolutely will remember. Consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:08:43) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.