Family and Criminal Lawyers: How to Triple New Client Retention and Boost Your Profits Overnight

**Episode 61: Family and Criminal Lawyers: How to Triple New Client Retention and Law Firm Profits Overnight”

In this episode we interview Aaron Harshman and Rachelle Ponist. They are a married couple and Unbundled Attorneys who work out of Indianapolis, and each of them run their own criminal and family law practices respectively. During our interview, we discuss how they structure affordable service options in their practice areas, and how their model can help you substantially improve client retention and overall profitability for your firm. They provide examples of limited scope services they provide for family law, and how their clients and practices benefit. Aaron breaks down a creative payment approach in criminal representation that enables him to triple client retention and bank increased revenues and profits for his firm.

Click here to watch the video version of this podcast interview on our YouTube Channel

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Critical differences between family law and criminal clients, and how to adapt your consultation and enrollment approach for each practice area
• Phone vs. Zoom vs. In-Person meetings, and which approach works best for each practice area
• Examples of limited scope services you can provide for family law clients
• A step-by-step walkthrough of the best practices for enrolling family law clients on the phone and in-person consultation
• The advantages of enrolling family law clients initially for a limited scope service only, and then allowing those relationships to evolve over time
• The value of implementing document automation software to increase your efficiency and profitability, especially for flat-rate services
• How to provide affordable criminal representation outside of providing limited scope service options (40:00)
• How payment processors like Lawpay provide automated recurring billing features to enable lawyers to offer more flexible payment terms (45:05-49:50)
• Creative payment structures for criminal law that differentiate your firm and substantially improve your client retention rates
• Best practices for an initial consultation in criminal cases that maximize client conversion, and why these strategies differ from family law (56:54)
• The importance of understanding the urgency and critical nature of criminal case issues, and how this informs the way to approach those consultations
• How to determine how much to charge as an initial deposit, and how to structure payment plans
• The financial benefits of how creative payment options improve client conversion and increase revenues and profitability for the firm
• The gap in the marketplace between high-net-worth individuals, and those who qualify for legal aid, and the financial opportunity this represents for lawyers who can profitably deliver legal services to the middle majority sector of the marketplace

Resources Mentioned:

• Lawyaw
• Podcast Interview with Amy Porter, former CEO of LawPay
• Clio Grow

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For more information about Unbundled Attorney and how our exclusive, unbundled leads can help grow your practice, visit: https://www.unbundledattorney.com