How a High-volume Bankruptcy Firm Streamlined its Workflow With Glade.ai

The Modern Law Firm series delves into how AI can streamline your law firm — whether it’s by saving you time and money, eliminating mistakes and redundancies or making your workflow more efficient. 

Even a larger law firm can have inefficient systems. That was the case for Van Horn Law Group, P.A. 

Read on to learn how Glade helped transform the law firm’s workflow.

A Paper and Pencil Approach

When Gary Van Horn joined Van Horn Law Group to help his brother, the founder of the company, grow the company, there was an antiquated system in place. “We were literally on paper and pencil,” Van Horn says. “When a new client came in, they printed a little label. We had those folders that were really expensive. [We used] that special hole puncher to put the paper in the top.”

For a firm with about 50 employees filing about 40 cases a month, this wasn’t feasible. It was difficult for the legal team to find what they needed. “If I saw one more email asking where a file was, I was going to go nuts,” Van Horn adds. 

A Digital Upgrade

COVID-19 required a change. Before the start of the pandemic, potential clients would come in and have a conversation with the legal team. But when the world embraced virtual meetings, they invested in software. 

“We used [a] sales-based platform to kind of manage our business from intake all the way through the filing of the case and then follow-up afterward,” Van Horn says. The result? A fragmented system. There was a mix of inefficient, dated technology and an attempt to piecemeal a solution. 

“We were using different software that we kind of tied in,” he says. “And we found out that, OK, we’re doing things a lot better, but the experience at the end of the day, we want the client to be very, very seamless and comfortable.”

The Glade.ai Solution

While the legal team at Van Horn Group could manage with their different systems, not being able to keep it simple for clients was a pain point. For the firm, it was necessary to center their clients’ experience. “We’re dealing with clients that possibly might not have not made the best decisions with their finances in the past,” Van Horn says. “Whatever we can do to take it off their back and make it easier is really, really, really important.”

Before switching to Glade, Van Horn used a variety of programs, including Calendly, Litify, PandaDoc. All of this required that clients create an account in each place. 

“[Glade] is a one-stop shop where they’re able to log in, make payments, sign up,” Van Horn says. “The client will go not only from the intake process but actually to working [on their case] and filing it [all in one place].”

Additionally, meeting with clients is simpler. They can schedule consultations easily, ensuring that every step of the process is as simple as possible for the client.