A law firm onboarding checklist covering compliance, client research, and communication. Gather documents through secure portals like Lycio or Carbon, flag red flags early, and use tools like Asana or Clio to standardize the process. Regular check-ins and transparent expectations build trust and referrals.
Chapters
Welcome back. And this week, I think this topic is probably a really good one. It's near and dear to my heart because it's about onboarding new law firm clients. And what you really need to know to have an amazing first relationship with your client. And it's really something that I think gets overlooked. We have our head down, we do our work, and we don't really think about what that onboarding experience feels like to the client. And don't forget, they've just given you a lot of money to maybe clean up a file and then to do the ongoing work. As my mother always said, "Treat people how you would like to feel." And I think sometimes, If you start off with a bad relationship with a client because it doesn't go well, that's one of the things that can really trip up the entire relationship ongoing. It's really hard to dig your way out of a bad relationship. It takes a lot of years to really reset that. I think when we grew our firm, we didn't have a formal process at first, and I could tell you it's, it's been one of the things I wish we had done. And a good relationship from the get-go with a client, it's gonna build loyalty and maybe they'll give you more referrals. They'll say, what an amazing company I work with. And I'm gonna give you some of the things that you need to know as you go through onboarding a client. So I'm talking about things that you wanna think about, maybe some regulations that are important, some preparation steps that are necessary, some timelines, some tech tools that we use, and maybe some that we use in the beginning and now we're using. So, you know, we've had firm growth. Mm-hmm. So we're no longer that 1 or 2 person firm. So different software for different size firms. But I'm gonna give you the checklist that I think is important and I wish I had thought about when we were growing our firm. First of all, onboarding. Why does this matter? Onboarding isn't just admin work. Far from it. It's foundational. It establishes trust right away with your client and makes your client feel valued and supported. Happy clients stay longer. They refer others, and they boost your reputation. From our experience at The Proper Trust, we have a solid process now, and that's going to prevent any misunderstandings, and it will build long-term partnerships with these clients. That's what we're looking for. So it also will manage some of the risks involved, maybe look at through a— really a compliance lens, and then spot red flags early on. It will protect the client from any issues they may run into and also in between our relationship as well. Streamlining onboarding will really free your team up from paperwork. It gives them a set process and it will help you focus on high-quality bookkeeping work, which will improve your productivity and also your profitability and the overall client satisfaction. That's really what we do this for. So let's start with compliance with the law firm. So they live in a world, especially the state of California. So if you look at one of the top priorities, and it's gonna be this way for every single jurisdiction, is gonna be data protection and privacy. Cyber threats are rising. They deal with a lot of personal data and data collection and storage of important details on people. And it's really important that they keep the highest level of confidentiality there. So there's no conflicts of interest and there's a high bit of integrity in the work that they do with the data that they're collecting. Same for us. We have to make sure that we are very careful because a lot of times we have these logins where we can see data that's really not for everybody to see. So you really want to make sure that this is kept really tight in the work that we do and the data that we share. So you wanna start with the detailed plan as you're starting to do this checklist. You want to outline all the tasks, the timelines, who's responsible for what, so the ball doesn't get dropped anywhere along the way. And include a full checklist of documents and information needed so that none gets missed. In that honeymoon period when they first sign with you, they're really responsive and they give you everything you need. That's when you need to get that data. Really take a moment to research your client. Learn their background, their activities, what they do. Look at records that are out there, and then fix any red flags that you see early on. If you start to see that there's gaps or places that information's missing, gather that in the beginning. I can't stress that enough because sometimes once the process gets started, it's really slow to gather that information afterwards. Answer any questions from the client openly. It's going to build rapport really quickly. And at our firm, we learned that this step is really what turns a potential client into a confidant and a partner. And these essential documents could be simple things like getting access to their QuickBooks, access to their Clio, access to their LeanLaw. It can It can be getting a copy of their tax return. How are you gonna pass that between each other? A way that's really secure. We use Lycio at our firm. We also use Carbon. Those are the ways we gather details with portals so that we're able to protect the data that we hold. Really important to have that kind of system in place so that when you're asking for documents, they're not emailing them. 'Cause a lot of times they just email things and you really don't want them doing that. It really puts everybody at risk. Mm-hmm. Create the timeline, list your milestones. Start with a consultation to talk to the client, hear what they are thinking, what their expectations are, and what we're expecting to get back. You might have to tweak that so that you're all on the same page. You want to have really everything in place. The agreements are all finalized and assign realistic deadlines. I would rather beat my deadline that I said than be missing the deadline. Schedule regular check-ins. I've heard this from so many clients. Oh, I hired this firm and then I never heard from them again. And a lot of times they may be putting their head down, doing a massive cleanup, but just a weekly check-in, maybe a 15-minute call to gather whatever details you need that you're missing, or just a quick email or message in your messaging system. This is where we're at. This is what we did. Make it in phases and show phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, and how you've completed it so they see that the process is happening. Don't leave them in the dark. That's important. So for tech tools, we use quite a few of them at our firm. Oh my goodness. When I start to look, it's really massive. If you're just starting out, Asana works really great for a practice management tool. We use 17hats, another great one, very affordable. We grew out of that. We went into Financial Sense, which is another great tool. And then we grew out of that. Now we're into Karbonne, which is an expensive tool, but it does a whole bunch of things that I couldn't even imagine, things I never even thought about. Great tool, fantastic tool. So look at what tools work best for you and start to implement them. It's really not worth trying to Band-Aid and patchwork things together to get around paying for software. It doesn't save you any money. It's the same for the client, doesn't save you any money. So for best practices, I think it's best to standardize your process with policies and checklists and then conduct due diligence with your client, train your staff about ethics and how they handle the data. And look for changes. Make sure you ultimately have a great onboarding process that's building a lasting relationship and it's efficient and it creates a successful endgame where you've got ongoing work with this client and they're referring the heck outta you. That's the dream, to have that kind of a client. And I can tell you one of the best ways to do this is next time you get a new client, use Loom and just document the process. Record yourself. Mm-hmm. Loom actually will create the SOP for you, and it's L-O-O-M, will create the SOP for you so you have something to look back on to get the process written out so that you can tweak it and improve it. So I hope this is helpful. I would love to tell you that you do this and this, but every client is different. Every practice area is different. There are some basics which I will try to put down for you, but hopefully this helps. And I hope these videos are helping. If they are, like our videos, subscribe. Thank you. To our channel. And until next week, we'll see you then. Bye now. Bye.
