Episode 6: Working With Legal Administrators

Welcome to Accountants Law Pod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge. Hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

And on another episode of the Accountants Law Pod, we are here. Actually, I am not there, but Sarah and Steve are together, which I am so jealous. So I'll let them tell you where they are right in a few seconds. But this week's topic is going to be, as an accountant or a bookkeeper, How do you speak to the admin at the firm? How do you interact with them? And they're a pivotal part of working with law firms. So that's going to be our topic today, and I'll let you two take it away and explain how you are both together today.

I'm so excited.

Go ahead, Sarah.

I was so fortunate to be able to be a part of Zero Counsel this year, and I get to fly into Denver, and lo and behold, This lovely gentleman lives in Denver, so I got to spend some time with him. And where are we?

We are at, in front of an Airstream, a 1966 Airstream travel trailer in the lobby of the Maven Hotel in Lodo, downtown Denver.

And Steve loves, he loves Airstreams because he has one, and he's going to be traveling around. We're going to be playing a game, Where is Steve, today on future podcasts. But I guess, yeah, so we can dive right in because this is Steve's topic. So, I'm going to let him talk first about how you speak to the admin. What do you— how do you interact with them in an engagement with a client that has an admin and that person's in the office that helps you?

Well, I'm excited that we have this as a subject today because the, the firm administrator is the gatekeeper to everything in the law firm. You don't want to alienate that person. You want to have them as your best friend. You want to know all of the secrets of the law firm and How to talk to the partners, how to communicate with whoever you're communicating with in the firm. And if you can't get something that you need, they usually can. You know, if you've got somebody holding information back or not getting you the correct thing, a lot of times they have the answer. And I love making friends with the firm administrators. I like being their best buddy and doing favors for them, sending them thank you gifts when they've pulled something major off for us. Just becoming part of the firm through them because they, they own the keys to the kingdom.

Do you ever feel like you're an extension with them? Like it's an extended line? Like there's harmony in that?

Definitely. And they know if you've got a good relationship going with them, they know they can reach out to you safely and share things with you. And sometimes that can get pretty interesting, but, uh, they're the They're your best friend in the firm. Don't alienate them at all. But yes, you become an extension of them and you support them.

Have you ever worked with a difficult administrator, Steve?

Oh, definitely. Definitely.

Yeah.

And, you know, the thing is, is when you get one like that, just listen. They're in the— they have the reactions to things that they do for a reason. They're often cornered. They work, I think, in my opinion, they work the hardest. of anybody in the firm. They're usually HR, a lot of times accounting. They're the right hand to the managing partner. They're the coffee maker, the bathroom cleaner, the office supply orderer, the chase-off-the-vendors person. They make sure that when somebody calls in sick, you know, they can fill in as a paralegal sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of things. They wear a lot of hats and they tend to attract— that job does attract some people who really like doing it. Professionally, all of the Association of Legal Administrators, you know, they are very serious about their profession, and I always appreciate working with those people.

Do you think anybody gets paid more if they're part of that association, or do you think that—

Yes, they do. I do. I do, because they can get certifications in certain things through the association. The firm knows that they have found somebody really professional who's going to get it. who isn't just in it for a job. And yeah, they can definitely make a better salary. That's a good question to ask.

Thank you. I don't think we've ever run into one, have we, Sarah?

Well, one we interviewed last week. They want to get back to doing the— they went too far into the accounting for the transition. They're in need of help. But I don't feel like we fully understood that role at that moment. But it sounds like that individual may present themselves in this same style that Steve is bringing up. I know for you and I, we tend to get, because of the type of mid-market firms that we're servicing, we get a sort of 2 or 3 people. We get a 1 person and then we get maybe a couple more that come along with that group. And that's fine. That's great. But yeah, we do have a— we have one in particular that comes to mind who's not necessarily a paralegal, really understands it, not the certified, But fully in the billing and the accounting and the, just the checks and balances and very good at her role.

And they're usually in, they're in the office. So when they're in the office, they're always, they know everything about what's going on in the office. And in fact, I just got off a call today where the administrator was there and I kind of joked with the client. I'm like, I thought so-and-so was supposed to come into the meeting. And then he moved his head and she was behind him. And she came onto the screen. And as we were going through the list of accounts that needed to be addressed because things weren't quite right, she and he and she were discussing it. And then they went back and forth and like, oh, that's right. I remember that when the guy died and that's why the checks didn't get cashed. And like, the stories come out and the attorney's just so busy like that. That's one thing he said was, I think that I just want to do the lawyering. I don't want to be bothered with all this stuff. So, and the administrator, like, she remembered every little detail. And that's the stuff that when Sarah and I, we usually end up meeting with the admin, we meet with the firm owners too, but that's more at the higher level of financial strategy. But with the firm owner, I mean, with the admin, we're actually sitting talking about, well, this account is negative. Why is it negative? And oh, this is what happened, and this is going to be fine. Or we did move the money later, or Okay, we see you cashed a check here, or the check was deposited in the bank on Friday. It didn't hit the bank here, but you moved the money. And those are the stories that come out of like just explaining workflow to people and letting them know that there may be a better workflow. And some of the discussions we have with admins, we can actually find ways to maybe automate some of the things they do because they're, like Steve said, they're doing all these different jobs. I hope they're not cleaning the bathroom though. I know.

Well, and could you— I don't know if it was a firm administrator, but you have a great story, Lynda, that you talk about one of the people in the firms who was really stuck in the software that she was using. And you were able to count the keystrokes and all those sorts of things. And when you can tune into what's bugging the administrator, you really can get a lot of information. And also, If you— one of the tips that I like to do is really befriend them and then let the managing partner know that that administrator helped me. They helped me fix this problem for you. And all of a sudden they see that, that nice tight-knit relationship going on and they trust it better. They trust their outside accounting better.

For sure. And one of the things, and that's a client Sarah and I have that we couldn't figure out why she was getting so far behind. And then it occurred to us that We had done a data migration and moved them into new software, and she was still doing the one she was comfortable in and falling behind in the actual software she should have been working in. And we— and like, I just like it better. I know how to do it. I've been doing it for 10 years. And we're like, okay, let's make a deposit and let's count the clicks and let's do it in the other software, the new software, the cloud-based one, and count the clicks. And it was literally like 11 to 3 or 2. It wasn't such a huge difference. And it was like a light bulb moment. that at that point that— and I have to say, like, I think she's one of our favorite admins to work with. And I wouldn't even call her an admin because she's just— she's their right-hand person. Like, she's everything to them and then some. And we, Sarah and I, both adore her to pieces.

Mm-hmm.

And you get these relationships that become so close-knit because you work with them weekly and you know all the stories and they know everything that's going on in the office. And you have to be there for them. So if there's a payroll snafu and they need you like yesterday, call Sarah. She'll answer the questions and hop in.

Well, you know, yeah, that's true, right? The other part I noticed is it opens opportunity for them to grow where they otherwise didn't have the time. I don't know if you've experienced that, but sure, I feel like that's one. But one thing I wanted to ask Is from our experience, we've had this happen where a prospect sounds all great and we meet the administrative side of it, anyone that's going to help for that cleanup and that migration, and we realize the relationship's not going to work with us because they're not willing to take that step that the owner is. So we have found we're in these weird conundrum sometimes where we're like, well, and so we started on the front end actually saying, hey, look, this is only as good as the person that we're going to be working with.

Exactly.

You do say that? Okay.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

And you know, when you— back to what you were asking about a while ago, if you work with a difficult one, sometimes you have to brutally tell the truth that, you know, this is the roadblock right now. And, you know, a lot of times it'll come out that they knew that anyway.

Yeah.

And then the other thing, to your point with the lady and the keystrokes and all that, the reason that came to my mind was the firm administrator is the bridge between the old school and the new school in the firm. And so they know a lot of times why things aren't getting done or why there's resistance to new software or new procedures and things like that. So there's that. And then when you're dealing with the difficult one that, you know, is the roadblock, you have to find your way around it. And sometimes it's Extra listening, extra patting them on the back, extra trying everything you can and documenting, documenting everything that happens so that it doesn't bounce back on the bookkeeping firm when something doesn't get done. You're like, so true, you know, we tried to do this and maybe, Mr. Firm Owner, you have another way that we can do this, you know, and they get the message. They know.

That's a very interesting point that you've brought up. You brought up a couple of good ones. They already know about it. They're already aware. It's almost like we're confirming the truth. They needed that outside counsel to give them that truth, and then they have to make a decision. Yeah.

We had it where we priced a job, and you shouldn't price a job this way, but we really like this person that we were working, the admin, and gave them a price. And based on, like, this girl knew everything. She was like on everything. She was responsive. Like, she gave us what we needed immediately. She had a complete understanding of the firm, and as soon as the contract started, she quit her job.

Wow.

And we ended up with another person who was— poor thing— was really clueless and just got shuffled from, oh, you're a paralegal today, now you're the, you know, the bookkeeper assistant. And she didn't— I mean, we had to be very patient with her, but that took us more time because we lost this person that we kind of based how we're going to work with this firm. It just didn't happen. So it's something to consider. You know, everything we do in our accounting career as business owners, you kind of adjust and pivot and learn as you go. Never put scenario, but we actually have to go back to this client and say, all right, the scope has changed based on this change of personnel, and we have to address that this is different. And that's not going to be a fun conversation, although, like you stated earlier, the client's pretty aware of that. I'm positive that this person is. And I know that that's just going to be— I think he's going to roll with it. But we just can't continue in the capacity we're in because we're really teaching this person what she needs to do in her job, which was not what we signed up for. So—

Well, and quite often, by the time they come to us, They've already tried this person at doing what we're going to be doing for them.

Yeah, true.

I know it's definitely an interesting situation. And I think, like Sarah and I, we like to live in that mid-market space, the bigger firm. And like she said, we work with multiple people. Sometimes we have an AR team, or depending on the volume of transactions, you might have multiple people that you're dealing with. And then maybe there's an accounts payable side as well. And we work with a whole handful of different people, but we have to make sure that they understand the whole process. Sometimes we create like even a Lucidchart to kind of show all the pieces. I think people, a lot of times they're trained in here, you just do AR, and here you just do accounts payable. And sometimes they're so siloed, you need to let them understand why every piece needs to work together. And sometimes that falls into our lap as well. But it's interesting, the different personalities you work with. And it's just a process, but it's part of what we do, and a good person, a good admin that you work with can make all the difference in the world.

No, it's okay.

I can tell you're in a restaurant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Even though it looks like Christmas behind you guys.

I know. Well, I'll do a little, just a quick little zoom here. Such a good topic. I'm so glad we did this. But here's the rest of this little baby air stream.

For the people who are on the podcast, she's showing an air stream, but that's decorated like Christmas with Christmas lights. For the people who are just listening.

Yeah, for those that are listening, we're, we're in the heart of Denver downtown, right? Yeah, in a really cool place.

Yeah.

So, well, this was a A great topic to start on. I feel like this— we could probably do, like you said, Lynda, sections of this. We could probably dive deeper into areas of this. We could probably make this a little micro series because we find so many overlapping moments where they could be cleaned up.

Well, and I'm really passionate about firm administrators having worked in law firms. I know that the difficult job that they have. The stress that they're under. They're always on call. You know, when the managing partner is stuck in New York in a snowstorm and can't get home and calls them on a Friday night at 10:00 and says, get me a ticket home. I mean, they deal with everything, everything. And if you can win that person over, it's as good as gold in the palm of your hands and they will do anything they can for you.

What would be your— Steve, I'll start with you. What would be your best tips for someone listening that may be just getting into this and doesn't really know How to approach that person or even how to work with them? What would be your best tips?

I always like to call the firm, especially if I don't know who the firm administrator is, because a lot of times they'll answer the phone. And if I find out I have the receptionist, then I'll say, who is the firm administrator? This is Steve, we're your accounting and bookkeeping service. Could you connect me with your firm administrator? And they do. And then I go ahead and introduce myself and they're like, oh yeah, I know who you are. And And all of that. So make that introduction, reach out, be the first one. Don't wait for them. Um, find out what makes them tick, what their pain points are. Let them know that you're here to help them, that you're here to make a difference. You're not here to challenge them on anything. Um, you're the numbers guy. So you do, you know, I let them know that we do expose things that we find. Um, and that, you know, if they're stuck on something, we can help them with it. And, and, you know, what can we do to help you? And sometimes you never hear from them again. Sometimes they become your best friend.

Well, I know when he's saying that, Sarah, I'm just thinking of you because one of the things that we run into is that that person might feel threatened that we're going to take their job away.

That's right.

I knew that's where you were going. See, we worked together.

I knew it. Yeah, I love it. No, we've worked— we have worked long enough. We still have a lot to go.

Yes, we do.

But that's a good point. They do feel threatened a lot. They're like, well, In fact, the last firm that we took on, their firm administrator was let go about a month after we took the work on. And I think she knew right away that we were going to start digging and finding where the problem was. It's a big trust reconciliation that we're doing. And now that we're a couple months out of her departure, we're really seeing that there was a lot of stuff that she was working on and struggling with that we have to unravel.

Yeah.

And bless her heart, she was there for a long, long time, but the firm outgrew her.

I think it's the idea, like you said, we're not— we uncover things. It's not the intention to uncover something for someone's loss, but you've been comfortable enough. And this is where the benefit I feel of a firm, like any of our firms, benefit of a law firm, we're looking at it through a whole new lens. We're looking at it through this compliance lens. We want to remain ethical, transparent, supportive. We want all of those things for you, and we can come in and support a role as much as we can at times, possibly take on a huge percentage and maybe allow that person a new opportunity within the firm. But we're not uncovering things to uncover them. It just has to be said right.

Right.

Yeah. So anyways, yeah. You, you know me well, Lynda. You just knew what I was thinking.

Yes, exactly. I thought about it a little earlier. Like, I remember when we were talking about it because it happened to us. We were working with a firm, and you could just sense from that person that, that she thought we were going to take her job away, and couldn't have been farther from the truth. And we spun that relationship around where we were her biggest ally and biggest fangirl club, you know, because It was, um, it was a case of the person could not do the job we were doing. It was just too big. And, um, and in that case too, we actually had this happen where we worked with an admin where the owner of the firm was not too kind to her. And it became a situation where it was hard to watch that it was like she would be berated Because she wasn't to that skillset level. And it was just hard to see. And we ended up having to part ways with working with the business owner because we just couldn't, couldn't go through watching that over and over and over, week over week. It was just very difficult.

And, um, you know, 2, 2 other tips that I have that come to mind with the firm administrator is keep a notebook of all the firm administrators that you work with. Because everybody knows everybody in this industry, in, in each individual market. And quite often a firm will ask you, do you know of somebody that can help us out in this job? And you'll have somebody in mind, and you can reach out to them and say, okay, this other firm needs someone. Why don't you talk to them?

That's a great tip.

Yeah, you know, everybody knows everybody. So, you know, Keep the door open. Don't, don't let a bridge be burned either direction.

Yeah.

You know, when they leave, sometimes when they leave, I'll ask the firm owner, I'll say, can I reach out to this person and just let them know how nice it was to work with them? And they've always said yes. And that opens the door for me to talk to them and say, hey, gonna miss you, but I'm out here if you need anything. And, and the second tip, and I've had this happen in the many years I've been doing this, is a lot, quite often they'll reach out to me and say, you know, I've thought about going into bookkeeping on my own or going into paralegal work, a paralegal service on my own or whatever. What, you know, do you have any ideas? And you've got another contact and, you know, 3 years later they're in another firm and they're like, you've got to use Steve and his company. I mean, it's just keep those relationships going and there's safety there.

That's a good tip. Yeah, this is so good.

Any final tips before we close this one out about any success? Why don't you share a success story where Maybe it didn't start out so great of a relationship and then it moved on to a much better relationship.

Well, I've got— I have one right now that we're working with where the firm split up. And it was a very sad thing to watch from the outside. And the firm administrator stayed on with one half of the company. We're still doing the books for the combined company until the, you know, the ship— when they split up, the ships always left the harbor with the anchor dragging. You know, and so it takes a few months to close it all down, and she's been invaluable to me. We've always gotten along really well. And, you know, we've had to put aside everything that happened in the split-up and still work together on the 2 separate companies now. So I consider that a success story because I didn't have to make new acquaintances and start all over again. We can finish the books up for the one side of the firm and— And she's happy. We're happy. You know, that works really well. Another good friend of mine that was a firm administrator way back when works for a huge software company in the legal industry now. And I bump into him at legal conventions and it's like an old long-lost friend. And he's like, do you know so-and-so? Do you do this? Do you do— and we all know the same people.

Yeah.

So, you know, always it's— they're just another— they're a very unique part of the law firm. And they're another great connection to have. And I, you know, for advice to new people, don't forget that you have that firm administrator there, because sometimes when you wonder why something happened the way it did, they're behind the scene knowing the answer. They're the unsung heroes.

They're the unsung heroes of the law firm that they don't get the accolades as much, but they are. I mean, they hold the place together sometimes. How about you, Sarah?

We thought accounting was at the bottom of the line.

Yeah. Say that. Do you have anybody in mind, Sarah, that you think that maybe it started out a little bit rocky but then kind of smoothed out?

I feel like we have anybody you scared of, a handful of those. No, no, I feel like we have a handful of those, um, and they go in waves. It's, it's interesting. I do feel like that it's like a mixed bag. We get—

well, we have definitely have an interesting, uh, kind of a way of working because it's 2 of us. So if one of us can't really work with somebody, we've had that happen, like the 2 personalities did not go well, um, we divide and conquer. Sarah, you take that person, I take this person. Or— and yeah, right now we actually have one that, I mean, they just think Sarah is like the icing on the cake.

Yeah.

And I'm like, okay. Good.

But, but the beauty— so here's the beauty though. We both show up, we both do the meeting, we have our strong— our strengths in the meeting.

Yep.

But one of us just really kind of—

You clicked with that person.

Takes it a little differently, you know what I mean?

And no, it works out okay. You've clicked with that person, and that really is sometimes—

I mean, yeah, Sarah and I are completely different people for the most part.

Yeah. And different personalities. And sometimes I can click with somebody and Sarah's like, you know, you write to her because I just, I just can't right now, and I'll do it. Or vice versa.

I'm like, please just take care of that.

Yes, because she just does, and it does it. And I'm like, oh, it's so simple what she just wrote, but it just, it works better that way.

And it is. And I'm going on the other side going, what the hell does that even say, Linda? I can't figure it out.

That's happened too.

This into English.

We've read, we've read it, read an email, and I'll say That's not how I'm reading it. And she's like, well, that's how I'm reading it. I'm like, okay. And I've done it the opposite. It's happened the opposite direction too, which is kind of funny.

But yeah, so there is— yeah.

Well, this was a good topic. So Steve, yes, it was you. And, um, I think Sarah will let you take us off the show.

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Definitely.

We would love that.

And we'd love to have you join the Accountants Law Lab and mastermind with us as well. So it would be great to have you there as well. And if you have topics, for sure, let us know.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Bye-bye.

See you next time.

Bye, everybody.