29. Be the Frontier: Exploring New Technologies to Grow Your Firm

Yosi Yahoudai (00:00):

And he was like, “Hey, uh, slip and fall at Home Depot.” Um, and I was like, “Okay, let’s go!” Um, so I took my, you know, my clipboard, and I got in my car, and I drove to Home Depot somewhere like 45, 50 minutes away. And I felt like, you know, this top, you know, top-notch PI investigator lawyer. I took out my phone and started taking pictures and interviewed her. Yeah, it was exciting.

Maria Monroy (00:28):

In law school, attorneys are taught to challenge everything. Tear things apart, break them down. But the qualities that make lawyers great are some of the worst for running a business. And what happens when you try to add life and family to the mix? It can feel nearly impossible. You don’t have to do this alone. I’m Maria Monroy, president and co-founder of LawRank, a leading SEO agency for ambitious law firms. Each week, we hear from industry leaders on what it really takes to run a law firm, from marketing to manifestation. Because success lies in the balance of life and law, we’re here to help you Tip the Scales. Today, I am live with Yosi Yahoudai. I wanted to meet with him because he uses a platform called Levitate for client success. So it sends newsletters, it can request reviews, and can really create an awesome client experience. Today we discuss Levitate. We discussed starting a law firm during a recession. We talk about the client experience. All right, well, thank you for taking the time. Now, I posted on — I had a client that sent me a message asking if I knew anything about a specific software. What’s it called?

Yosi Yahoudai (01:39):

Levitate.

Maria Monroy (01:39):

Levitate. And I posted on Instagram, and I only had two responses. You were one of them.

Yosi Yahoudai (01:43):

Okay.

Maria Monroy (01:44):

And I’m really curious, I want to hear, because it sounds amazing. So tell us a little bit about this.

Yosi Yahoudai (01:49):

Sure. Um, you know, we’ve, we’ve always wanted to, uh, do a better job of client contact. Um, not just, uh, current clients, but especially past clients and even potential clients, uh, keeping in touch with them. Um, you know, there’s so many, uh, options out there. So we just wanted a way for them to remember us. Just, like, a friendly reminder without kind of being, uh, too overbearing, um, too aggressive. So they reached out to me and explained that they were a company that, you know, sends out newsletters, um, with different templates and, um, surveys that can lead to reviews. So their big thing was, um, keep in touch with your clients, get more reviews.

Maria Monroy (02:31):
Mm-hmm. ,

Yosi Yahoudai (02:32):

And hopefully have them remember you in the next time somebody needs a referral. Um, so we looked into it, and we’ve done a couple other things similar to Levitate. Um, but they have been the best so far, um, in terms of, like, how customizable it is. So they have you, you go on, and you can choose, um, from their templates in terms of, like, topics. So they have two — they have you, you know, different areas. You have, they have one, like, educational ones. So if you see my, you know, our firm’s TikTok and Instagram videos, they have topics, the same kind of topics that we talk about. Like, “What do you do in a personal injury case?” You know, “What’s uninsured motorist?” Just, like, the, like the standard PI questions. So they’ll turn that into a newsletter and explain, like, FAQ, like a, you know, A-to-Z FAQ of all these things. Um, so it’s a great resource in terms of, like, educating your clients. Um, and then, you know, having them, you know, keeping them in mind. Um, but you can also have, like, lighthearted moments. So they have, like, holiday themes and, you know, um, you know, like, March Madness right now is going on. So, like, you can do a newsletter about that. So, and you can do it as many times as you want. They recommend one to three times a month, which, which I agree with. I think any more than three, and that might be too much.

Maria Monroy (03:47):

Um, so wait, hold on. I have a few questions before I forget.

Yosi Yahoudai (03:49):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (03:50):

Are you tracking, um, the percentage of opens?

Yosi Yahoudai (03:53):

Um, we are.

Maria Monroy (03:54):
Okay.

Yosi Yahoudai (03:55):

Um, so —

Maria Monroy (03:56):

And what’s your goal to have what percentage of opens?

Yosi Yahoudai (03:59):

You know, it’s our, we’ve done it only, we’ve done it for a couple months. Um, it’s our first time doing a program like this, so I don’t know what the standard is, is the honest truth. Um, you know, if we can, if we can keep 90 percent of our clientele, ‘cause people are going to unsubscribe, I mean, that’s just natural, you know.

Maria Monroy (04:15):

And are you removing, uh, people that aren’t opening it? Like —

Yosi Yahoudai (04:17):

No

Maria Monroy (04:18):

After X amount of times? Are you saying it’s better to remove them?

Yosi Yahoudai (04:21):

No, because people are busy. You know, people get flooded with emails, you know. I know how, I know what it feels like. Maybe they missed it or they, they don’t have time. But, you know, if in seven months, their friend has gotten into an accident and they see our newsletter, they’ll be like, “Oh wait, you know, Joe needs this. Let me open it.” And, and it might lead to a referral. So I don’t think think there’s any harm at all if they don’t open it. It’s only, obviously if they ask you to unsubscribe that you, you know, you should obviously do that.

Maria Monroy (04:49):

Well, the reason I ask, and we do something completely different, but for us, you, your URL can get flagged. So if you’re sending out these newsletters and people aren’t opening them and you’re, it impacts your percentage of open rate, then you don’t want a situation where, um, it’s flagged. Because then what what will happen is when you send out a newsletter, now they’ll all go to spam.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:13)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (05:14):
Right?

Yosi Yahoudai (05:15):

Right.

Maria Monroy (05:15):

So that’s one thing that I would look into it. You probably won’t have as much of an issue, just depending on how many people you’re sending it to.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:24):
Right.

Maria Monroy (05:25):
But that’s, like, one thing to kind of be on the lookout for.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:27):

That’s a Google thing?

Maria Monroy (05:28):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:29):

Okay. All right. We’ve got to look into that.

Maria Monroy (05:31):

Yeah. And that’s why it’s really important to keep an eye on the open rate —

Yosi Yahoudai (05:33):
Okay.

Maria Monroy (05:34):
As well. Because you don’t want a situation where all of a sudden you go from 50 percent open rate to zero —

Yosi Yahoudai (05:41):

Right.

Maria Monroy (05:42):

Or to 10%. Um, now, it sounds like this has a Birdeye similar component —

Yosi Yahoudai (05:46):
Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (05:47):
Or Podium.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:48):

It does.

Maria Monroy (05:49):

Which is how it was also presented to me by this particular client. And I’m at, we internally use Birdeye for our clients, and we love anything that’ll help you get reviews.

Yosi Yahoudai (05:58):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (05:59):

But this sounds like it’s a combination where not only, “Hey, let’s get, let’s get these reviews, but let’s stay on top of those clients for referrals.” Which I think also social media can definitely help with that. Um, I have a friend that said, “The moment I started doing all these TikTok videos, my referrals went up.”

Yosi Yahoudai (06:17):

Mm. Yeah.

Maria Monroy (06:18):

So does it integrate with social in any way?

Yosi Yahoudai (06:20):

So it’s funny you ask. They just sent out a webinar a couple weeks ago — like, either like the same week you contacted me or right around then — that they are now, um, introducing a social media integration. So they are literally working right now on our first social media custom post.

Maria Monroy (06:40):
Interesting.

Yosi Yahoudai (06:41):

I haven’t seen it yet, ’cause they’re still working on it. Um, we’re obviously going to use it. Um, I don’t know what it’s, what it’s going to look like. I wasn’t — you know, when we signed up in December, that was never discussed. I never expected that, and that was okay ’cause we know we have our own means to do social media. But now they’re trying to get into the game, which makes sense. Um, so yeah, they’re going to, they’re going to do a social media post for us custom. Um, I’m sure, based on my experience with them, they’ll have like templates, like kind of social media posts, like, you know, things that are already pre- predesigned —

Maria Monroy (07:12):

Mm-hmm.

Yosi Yahoudai (07:13):

That you can use, which is great. Um, and then I’m sure they’ll have some sort of, you know, customizable program where they’ll make custom posts. So yes, they are definitely, um, going towards that route to get social media involved.

Maria Monroy (07:26):

Now, how much involvement does this require from the firm? Are they doing everything, or you need someone that —

Yosi Yahoudai (07:33):

Good question. I mean, of course you could do it yourself, but not the best use of your time. You know, I have my intake manager do it.

Maria Monroy (07:40):

Okay.

Yosi Yahoudai (07:41):

Um, it makes most sense. You know, she’s in charge of intakes and client acquisition. Um, she works on it a couple hours a week, you know, two, three hours a week. Um, not too much, not too time-consuming. Um, everything’s streamlined now. Obviously in the beginning, you’re going to work a little more to work on your list and, you know, maybe some templates and stuff. But it’s also depending on you, if you want to just use their templates, you’re going to use, you’re going to be spending a lot less time. If you want to do more custom work. Well, that’s going to involve more time, more editing, more creating, um, but, you know, to get a good ROI out of it, I would say two or three hours a week.

Maria Monroy (08:17):

So it’s basically, you still need someone to go in there and take these templates and customize them and send out the newsletter, send out the emails to get the reviews.

Yosi Yahoudai (08:28):

Yeah. I mean, with AI now, maybe that’s not going to be. Maybe not, maybe not in a month. But for now, your humans need to do it for now.

Maria Monroy (08:34):

Okay. Has she tried using, uh, Chat?

Yosi Yahoudai (08:38):

I think we’re about to start trying it, yeah. Um, I mean, I’m being serious. Yeah, we’ll look into that now. That’s what people are saying.

Maria Monroy (08:48):

So you, you started the, to implement this because of, um, you — I don’t know what to call it. Client, um, what would you call it?

Yosi Yahoudai (08:56):

Client contact?

Maria Monroy (08:57):

Yeah. For clients. Is there anything else that you’re doing for client experience, contact, just like having an awesome, you know, client experience basically?

Yosi Yahoudai (09:06):

Um, yeah, great question. I mean, I think every law firm owner, especially PI, um, that’s a big, big component of, um, a firm. Um, so, you know, just like everybody else, we have our swag bag when they sign up. Um, so we, you know, mail —

Maria Monroy (09:21):

Wait, wait. Just, like, every, everybody does not have a swag bag.

Yosi Yahousai (09:24):
Okay, fine.

Maria Monroy (09:25):

I, I mean, I would argue that, no. So tell me what’s in the swag bag.

Yosi Yahoudai (09:28):

Oh, I can’t tell you that.

Maria Monroy (09:29):

Are you serious?

Yosi Yahoudai (09:30):

No, of course I can. Um, so we have, you know, we have, like, a presentation folder that’s, like, fully, you know, based on our firm, where their retainer documents go in. Um, like, a document holder, like, that goes in their glove compartment, you know, in case, you know, they enter an accident, they know exactly what to ask for. We have pens, uh, pop socket, um, bags, um, wireless charger.

Maria Monroy (09:54):

Did you bring me one?

Yosi Yahoudai (09:55):

You, you didn’t ask.

Maria Monroy (09:57):

I didn’t know you had a swag bag.

Yosi Yahoudai (09:59):

Yeah. I didn’t know you were going to ask me.

Maria Monroy (10:01):

Okay. What else is in there?

Yosi Yahoudai (10:03):

Like, uh, we just, uh, um, a tumbler, uh, a —

Maria Monroy (10:07):

Wow.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:08):

A power bank. It’s competitive out here. You, you’ve got to do this kind —

Maria Monroy (10:12):

I didn’t, this is not a thing nationwide.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:14):

Oh, welcome. Welcome to California. LA. Welcome to Los Angeles.

Maria Monroy (10:17):

All right. So tell me a little bit about your firm.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:19):

Sure.

Maria Monroy (10:20):

Give us some history about you and your firm.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:21):

Um, went out on my own in ’09.

Maria Monroy (10:25):

Okay.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:26):

Um —

Maria Monroy (10:27):

You look young.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:28):

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Maria Monroy (10:29):

How old were you when you went out on your own?

Yosi Yahoudai (10:31):

On my own?

Maria Monroy (10:32):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:33):

I was 28.

Maria Monroy (10:34):

So pretty young for starting your own firm.

Yosi Yahoudai (10:36):

Yeah. I had worked for a couple brothers for a year and a half doing real estate transactional. Um, didn’t think I was going to go down that route. Um, but the recession hit, um, things were, you know, very bleak. Uh, I was trying to get a job, um, because I didn’t see any future at where I was. I was at a boutique real estate firm and I couldn’t, I literally didn’t get one interview. Not one, you know. I sent out so many resumes. I mean, no, I mean, this is back in, you know, ‘0 — late ‘08.

Maria Monroy (11:06):

Yeah. That was a, a rough time.

Yosi Yahoudai (11:08):

So, you know, and so after a few months of literally not getting one, you know, response, um, I reached out to an old friend mentor who actually videoed my bar mitzvah. That’s how long I’ve known him for. And he became, he was a PI attorney, and, uh, I was like, “Hey, can I come work for you? Um, you know, like, things are really tough right now. I’ve got to, like, start my career.” And he was like, “Dude, don’t come work for me. Do what I did. Come, you know, go start on your own. Come rent an office — sub, sublease for me, and, uh, I’ll teach you everything, how to run your own practice.” And that was the last thing that I was expecting when I took him out to lunch that day.

Maria Monroy (11:48):

Wow.

Yosi Yahoudai (11:49):

Yeah. And I mean, I never ever considered that in, in these two, three months that I was trying to, you know, figure out what to do.

Maria Monroy (11:55):

That’s amazing. Who is this? Can you say?

Yosi Yahoudai (11:58):

Sure. Joseph Farzam.

Maria Monroy (12:00):

Okay. That’s — I mean, that was really kind of him in my opinion.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:03):

Yeah. And literally two weeks later, I was in his office starting my own practice, not having any idea what I was doing.

Maria Monroy (12:10):

Wow. I’ve heard a few stories like this. I’ve actually had a few guests on that, just — I’ve had some that literally started their own practice out of law school.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:19):

Yeah. That’s that’s incredible.

Maria Monroy (12:21):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:22):

That’s incredible. I mean, mine was, I would say mine is pretty similar to that, because nothing that I did as a real estate transactional attorney —

Maria Monroy (12:27):

Right.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:28):

Nothing applied to PI.

Maria Monroy (12:30):

Right. So what was that transition like to where you are today?

Yosi Yahoudai (12:34):

Oh, it’s nice. I mean, you know, we’re at 25 now. Um —

Maria Monroy (12:37):

25 employees?

Yosi Yahoudai (12:38):

Yeah. Employees. Yeah. Four attorneys.

Maria Monroy (12:40):

That’s amazing. Congrats.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:41):

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um, you know, still trying to grow.

Maria Monroy (12:44):

I’d hope so.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:45):

Every, every course, every day, every day. Trying to get, you know, better and bigger. Um, every year, it’s getting more competitive, you know. Every year, it’s getting a little more saturated. Uh, it is what it is. Uh, it’s getting more expensive.

Maria Monroy (12:56):

Yes.

Yosi Yahoudai (12:57):

Um, so it’s, it’s becoming more challenging. Um, but that’s the, that’s the name of the game, and you have to, um, you know, you have to embrace it, um, and, and not get, you know, not be defeated by it, or else it’s going to be an issue. So, um, you know, we’re, we’re fighting.

Maria Monroy (13:15):

So how do you generate cases now?

Yosi Yahoudai (13:19):

Um, so we do a mix of paid, you know, paid advertising and the PPC. We are really upping our TikTok and Instagram. Um, you know, we post two to three times a week. Um, and in addition, we do a lot of like, stories with, like, client, you know, anytime a client comes in, um, take a picture with them, video, get a testimonial, um. And you know, just a lot of engagement on social media. And then we, um, market to our current clients. So we send them a birthday card, uh, during their birthday month. Um, we send them a holiday card in December. Um, you know, they get the swag bag they got when they first signed up. They’ll get it when they pick up their last check. So just another, you know, more stuff for them to remember us by.

Maria Monroy (14:03):

The same stuff? Or do you have like a different bag?

Yosi Yahoudai (14:06):

You know, so, so much time has passed sometimes that we give the same. I don’t think it hurts. Um, you know, there’s so much in there anyways that, um, we, we do the same. We do the same.

Maria Monroy (14:17):

And do you get feedback regarding this?

Yosi Yahoudai (14:20):

People love it. Yeah. People are like, “Yeah, my phone died and you saved my phone. Thank you for the power bank.” I was like, “Okay, you’re welcome.” You know? So, um, it’s some cool stuff. Um, you know, so our staff loves it too. We have lip balm,, you know, the girls in our —

Maria Monroy (14:33):

Did you bring me that?

Yosi Yahoudai (14:35):

Again, you have to invite me back.

Maria Monroy (14:37):

You know, I, I’ll have to, I brought you a hat, a Nike hat.

Yosi Yahoudai (14:40):

Oh, okay. I want to take a picture.

Maria Monroy (14:42):

Now you’re not going to get it.

Yosi Yahoudai (14:43):

No. Um, and but the girls love the lip balm, so it’s very, very, very popular.

Maria Monroy (14:46):

That’s really cool. Yeah. So wait, let’s go backwards. Your mentor tells you, “Rent an office from me. Start your own firm.”

Yosi Yahoudai (14:54):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (14:55):

And you do that?

Yosi Yahoudai (14:57):

I did it, yeah.

Maria Monroy (14:58):

And what, what was that like? Initially.

Yosi Yahoudai (14:59):

It was scary. Um, I had moved back in with my parents to save money, because advertising back then was re — I mean, at that, you know, relative, obviously was a lot for me. Um, so I was trying to save as much money as I could. But I bought a contract where they, you know, from a lead gen company —

Maria Monroy (15:16):

Mm-hmm.

Yosi Yahoudai (15:17):

That sent me like five, six calls a month. And then what I did, which really helped, is I went on the Cali listserve and I said, “Hey, uh, I’m a brand new attorney. You know, send me all your rejected cases that you’re rejecting ‘cause, like, they’re too small for you, but are still viable cases, you know, instead of losing out on all that money, you just, you know, it’s one phone call, one email, and in, you know, six months to a year you get a nice check for referral fee.” So I started getting cases that way.

Maria Monroy (15:45):

So you remember your first case?

Yosi Yahoudai (15:47):

I do, I do. It was a —

Maria Monroy (15:48):

How did you get it?

Yosi Yahoudai (15:49):

The mentor.

Maria Monroy (15:50):

Really?

Yosi Yahoudai (15:51):

Yeah, the mentor. I mean, he was trying to help me out and he was like, “Hey, uh, slip and fall at Home Depot.” Um, I was like, “Okay, let’s go.” Um, so I took my, you know, my clipboard and I got in my car, and I drove to Home Depot and somewhere like 45, 50 minutes away. And I felt like, you know, this top, you know, top-notch PI investigator lawyer. I took out my phone and started taking pictures and interviewed her. And yeah, it was exciting.

Maria Monroy (16:15):

That’s, that’s really cool.

Yosi Yahoudai (16:17):

Yeah. And it settled, you know, obviously for, for something. Not obviously, but it settled, you know, for a small amount. But I was, it was — you know, client was thrilled. I was thrilled. It was a good start.

Maria Monroy (16:25):

That’s, that’s amazing. So what, what’s been your biggest mistake in the past, what, 14 years?

Yosi Yahoudai (16:34):

14, about, 14 years. That’s a — nobody’s ever asked me that. My biggest mistake. Not being aggressive enough. Um, being a little too timid, um, on, on trying, on growing, on scaling, You know, just, there’s so much pressure with advertising budgets and, and, you know, and overhead, and, you know, you want to make sure that everything is, is, you know, is safe. But sometimes being safe or too safe is not, is not a good thing either. Um, you, you know, you shouldn’t be, um, irresponsibly aggressive.

Maria Monroy (17:09):

Right.

Yosi Yahoudai (17:10):

But you should be aggressive, like, strategically and put your, you know, put your neck out there a little bit more. So I was probably a little too, um, passive.

Maria Monroy (17:19):

It’s scary at first.

Yosi Yahoudai (17:20):

It is. And it’s still scary. I mean, I think it’s all relative. Like if you are, you know, let’s just, for example, spending, you know, X a month and X is a lot, you know, if you double X, what’s that’s, you know, that’s — now you’re double what you did before. So I think it’ll always be scary. Uh, it’s all relative, really.

Maria Monroy (17:37):

I remember the first time we sponsored a conference, it was like the scariest thing in the world. Now we do like 20 a year.

Yosi Yahoudai (17:44):

Exactly

Maria Monroy (17:45):

It’s, like, whatever.

Yosi Yahoudai (17:46):

That’s how it starts.

Maria Monroy (17:47):

That’s how it starts. And you’re so — but I almost think it works against you. Like, the more afraid you are, I think it’s the more likely it is to fail because you — I’m all about energy and manifestation. But I feel like you block it. Like it’s better to just, like, do it and have faith and just know, like, you know —

Yosi Yahoudai (18:03):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (18:04):

“If this doesn’t work, something else will, and I’m just going to push through it, and it just is what it is,” right? And, like, you know, you’re not going to give up, right? If you have to, like, show up at Home Depot every day to take more pictures, like, you know what I mean? Like, you’re going to do it, you’re going to be okay.

Yosi Yahoudai (18:18):

Right.

Maria Monroy (18:19):

So yeah. I think a lot of attorneys are, they’re scared to spend on advertising, and not everything works, so —

Yosi Yahoudai (18:30):

A lot of, a lot of the stuff we use doesn’t work.

Maria Monroy (18:31):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (18:32):

We have to try it.

Maria Monroy (18:33):

You have to try it.

Yosi Yahoudai (18:34):

But then some stuff works and then you get excited. So.

Maria Monroy (18:36):

Right. And that’s what kind of keeps you going.

Yosi Yahoudai (18:38):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (18:39):

Like once you get that first thing that works and you’re like, “Okay, like, what else can I do?” And it can be very motivating, but if people don’t take that first step —

Yosi Yahoudai (18:48):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (18:49):

You’re kind of stuck.

Yosi Yahoudai (18:50):

Yeah. John Morgan talks about it in his book. Um, he uses an analogy, and I might be butchering it, but something about bullets versus cannon. So, you know, at first you want to just give a couple bullets, you know?

Maria Monroy (19:00):

Mm-hmm. .

Yosi Yahoudai (19:01):

Um, you know, you’re not going to go all, all out on a, on a, on the first, you know, time you try a marketing company. And if something works, then you, you know, you increase it, and now, you know, you — instead of putting a little, you’re going to go heavy. Um, so as long as you’re, you know, you’re strategically — and, and you’re responsible in how much advertising, it’s okay to try a bunch of stuff. You know, test it out a little bit. And if it works then, you know, up it up. Up it every month.

Maria Monroy (19:28):

What case management software do you use?

Yosi Yahoudai (19:30):

We now use Litify. We switched.

Maria Monroy (19:32):

Oh yes. You and I talked about the software.

Yosi Yahoudai (19:34):

Yeah, we switched. We started, we started with, you know — I started with Word in February 2009. And then we, uh, we were very proud to, to upgrade to Abacus in 2010. And then it took us a while, but then we finally upgraded to Litify in 2020.

Maria Monroy (19:50):

How’s that going?

Yosi Yahoudai (19:51):

Fantastic.

Maria Monroy (19:52):

How long did it take you to feel like it’s going fantastic?

Yosi Yahoudai (19:57):

They may not like hearing this answer, but, you know, over a year.

Maria Monroy (20:01):

I mean, that’s the standard.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:02):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (20:03):

So you’re not saying anything —

Yosi Yahoudai (20:04):

Yeah, it was a huge learning curve. Nothing against Abacus, but Abacus is pretty, um, primitive, and this is, like, you know, on top of, you know — I, I’m, not to disparage the other ones out there, but it’s, it’s — I mean, it’s all-inclusive. It has everything.

Maria Monroy (20:20):

Um, no, well, Salesforce, you can literally have it integrate with anything.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:24):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (20:25):

It’s, it’s a known thing.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:26):

So for your users that don’t know, Litify is based on Salesforce.

Maria Monroy (20:29):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:30):

Um, so it’s super customizable, which is, is it’s probably its best attribute. You can have it do — well, pretty much anything,

Maria Monroy (20:35):

Anything.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:36):

Anything you want.

Maria Monroy (20:37):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (20:38):

Uh, so even after, so we spent, I don’t know, six to nine months creating, and creating it. And we thought — my partner — “Oh, we’re done!” Right. And then no, it was, it just started. You just want to keep, like, you — the more, you try it, the more you use it, the more you want to customize it, the more features you want to add to it. So, you work with a, you know, implementation specialist, or you have somebody in-house, and you just —

Maria Monroy (21:00):

How did you do it?

Yosi Yahoudai (21:01):

Uh, we — so at first they didn’t offer this, which was frustrating, because we weren’t told this until after we signed the contract. But now they have, like, a monthly, quarterly service where you hire them to do these projects.

Maria Monroy (21:14):

Did you integrate it with Elevate?

Yosi Yahoudai (21:17):

Not yet, but we definitely need to.

Maria Monroy (21:19):

Oh, see? I just gave you an idea.

Yosi Yahoudai (21:21):

Thank you.

Maria Monroy (21:22):

You’re welcome.

Yosi Yahoudai (21:23):

Now I’ll get you the lip balm.

Maria Monroy (21:24):

Um, what have you integrated it with?

Yosi Yahoudai (21:28):

With our e-sign document, we have a text, uh, texting service that’s integrated with, or we text from the matter, which is really cool. It’s synced with our Outlook, uh, with our, um, well — yeah, with our Outlook. So all the emails are linked to it, and it’s also sync with our QuickBooks, so.

Maria Monroy (21:44):

Oh, awesome.

Yosi Yahoudai (21:45):

Yeah, so the, so anybody that needs a a check request, they’ll make the request in Litify —

Maria Monroy (21:50):

Mm-hmm. ,

Yosi Yahoudai (21:51):

It goes to our bookkeeper, and she just gets the request, and it’s, like, pretty much prepopulated, so she doesn’t have to do much in terms of, like, drafting it. And then the check is drafted, and then it’s already in Litify and obviously QuickBooks. Um, so that’s a nice little integration. Um, those are the main integrations we’ve done.

Maria Monroy (22:06):

It’s funny because I’m hearing of more and more smaller firms using Litify, whereas at the beginning —

Yosi Yahoudai (22:11):

Oh, nice.

Maria Monroy (22:12):

It was more like you had to have like a hundred users or fifty users. I think people have, like, this misconception that you have to be like a massive firm to use Litify.

Yosi Yahoudai (22:21):

Well, listen, Litify is pricey.

Maria Monroy (22:23):

I know.

Yosi Yahoudai (22:24):

Uh, Litify is pricey.

Maria Monroy (22:25):

Well, Salesforce is pricey, period.

Yosi Yahoudai (22:26):

Well, that’s the whole — and that’s why, so they have to pay Salesforce for their license, and then they need to make a profit. So, yeah. So when you’re telling me that a solo or a newish attorney — I’m very, very, very surprised to hear that.

Maria Monroy (22:37):

No, not a solo newish. I’m talking about more mid-size.

Yosi Yahoudai (22:40):

Okay. Mid-size makes sense.

Maria Monroy (22:41):

That before, that wasn’t the case before.

Yosi Yahoudai (22:42):

I would — Yeah, I would, I would highly advise against — again, sorry, Litify — you know, if you’re a new attorney, newish and, and you’re barely making it, and you know. Wait till you make some money.

Maria Monroy (22:52):

I think CASEpeer is good. If you’re a new solo PI firm and you want a case management software that’s, like, out-of-the-box solution, you’re not going to be able to do everything you can with something like —

Yosi Yahoudai (23:05):

That’s okay.

Maria Monroy (23:06):

Litify, but it’s what you need then.

Yosi Yahoudai (23:08):

Affordable?

Maria Monroy (23:09):

Oh yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (23:10):

If I could use — if I could do it with Microsoft Word and Outlook for a year, you can, you can do — CASEpeer sounds nice.

Maria Monroy (23:15):

No CASEpeer’s great.

Yosi Yahoudai (23:16):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (23:17):

We have some, some clients that use it.

Yosi Yahoudai (23:18):

I’ve heard — I’ve heard fantastic — I have good friends that use it. I’ve heard fantastic things about it.

Maria Monroy (23:20):

Yeah. Again, super different, right? If you, you are a firm that wants to scale, definitely. That’s probably not what I would recommend. Um, but great, great out-of-the-box —

Yosi Yahoudai (23:33):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (23:34):

Solution. So what are you working on now? What are you really excited about?

Yosi Yahoudai (23:36):

I’m really excited about, you know, Chat GPT and AI.

Maria Monroy (23:38):

Oh God.

Yosi Yahoudai (23:39):

Uh, well, it’s, I mean, I played with it and it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a little sca— it’s a little terrifying actually.

Maria Monroy (23:48):

So someone said this to me the, the other day. I won’t name them, but they said to me, “Look, Maria, Chat GPT is really just an algorithm. Like, it’s nothing that new or, or exciting if you really think of it from that standpoint. That it is just an algorithm that’s actually been around for a while.” Because I feel the way you feel. I think it’s really, really scary. So how do you think AI will change the PI space?

Yosi Yahoudai (24:16):

Uh, great question. You know, my concern is, you know, AI writing all your blogs and all your material. So then Google came out and said, “Oh, you know, we’re going to, we’re going to easily be able to detect.”

Maria Monroy (24:30):

Right.

Yosi Yahoudai (24:31):

Um, and I think it’s going to be a battle. I think it’s going to be a battle between Chat GPT and Google and who can — it’s kind of like a race. You know, who can outsmart who, who — Can Chat GPT outsmart Google and trick them into thinking it’s a human? Can Google catch up? So I think that’s going to be interesting. The last thing I want or anybody wants to do is to use Chat GPT to write a thousand pages of articles and then just get blacklisted by Google because you’ve used them. And that would be a disaster. Now, you know, you’ve, you’ve spent 14 years building up this great SEO and you’ve been, um, hu— you know, heavily penalized. But then it’s also very tempting, because you have this program that’s going to just make your marketing, like, so much more efficient. So it’s very, very interesting. It’s, uh, it’s fascinating, actually. And, uh, we’ll see, I don’t know.

Maria Monroy (25:18):

It is. We’re not worried about it in this point in time, mainly because, at least when it comes to Google, anything that’s your money or your life — so law, health, and finance — the scrutiny is way, way higher than in any other industry.

Yosi Yahoudai (25:34):

Yeah, of course.

Maria Monroy (25:35):

So, and even as humans, we still want — when we read an article, we want it to be coming from someone that has the authority to write the article and —

Yosi Yahoudai (25:46):

Right.

Maria Monroy (25:47):

It just gets so complicated because you have different state laws. Like, it’s just — I don’t think that Google’s going to allow that. And if it does impact the PI space, it’s going to hit it last. So we’re going to, we will see it impact it in other, you know, um, industries before it hits anything medical.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:08):

Yeah. For —

Maria Monroy (26:08):

Or legal

Yosi Yahoudai (26:09):

For sure. For sure. For Sure.

Maria Monroy (26:10):

Right? So yeah, it’s something — ‘cause it’s like, “Can I just get a bunch of free articles?” But —

Yosi Yahoudai (26:14):

Right.

Maria Monroy (26:15):

I mean, and now it — they’re watermarked.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:16):

Yeah. Yeah.

Maria Monroy (26:17):

So now it’s like, like, not really possible to — Right now we can tell the difference.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:24):

You can?

Maria Monroy (26:25):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:26):

Oh, cool.

Maria Monroy (26:26):

Well, they’re watermarking anything that comes out of —

Yosi Yahoudai (26:27):

I didn’t know. I didn’t know that.

Maria Monroy (26:28):

So before they weren’t. Now there’s a watermark.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:30):

Okay. I had no idea. Okay, good to know.

Maria Monroy (26:33):

So, but we’ll see, we’ll see how, how it plays out.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:36):

I think it’s going to be, uh, I think it’s going to be a huge, uh, topic this year for sure. And, and coming up.

Maria Monroy (26:41):

Well, before it was like, the Metaverse was so huge. What, whatever happened to the Metaverse?

Yosi Yahoudai (26:44):

I don’t know. People are buying a lot of real estate in it. I don’t know.

Maria Monroy (26:47):

Still?

Yosi Yahoudai (26:48):

I’ve read some crazy article that it’s valued in the billions. It’s just insane, yeah.

Maria Monroy (26:52):

But no one’s talking about it anymore.

Yosi Yahoudai (26:53):

I don’t know, but I don’t know what’s going on. My real estate buddy, who’s a brilliant real estate guy, was like, “It’s craziness.” He doesn’t know what’s going on either.

Maria Monroy (27:00):

I mean, soon we’ll see.

Yosi Yahoudai (27:01):

But to buy that —

Maria Monroy (27:03):

Morgan and Morgan’s billboards in the Metaverse.

Yosi Yahoudai (27:04):

In the Metaverse.

Maria Monroy (27:05):

So I, I —

Yosi Yahoudai (27:06):

He’s a hundred percent going to be in the Metaverse.

Maria Monroy (27:07):

I love the La uh, La Law Land. I can’t believe no one thought of that before.

Yosi Yahoudai (27:12):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (27:13):

I mean, come on.

Yosi Yahoudai (27:14):

Yeah, that’s great.

Maria Monroy (27:15):

I know, I mean, I know that it’s like, it’s Morgan. Yeah, I get it. We all hate him, but. But they were brilliant. I, I saw it today. I had never seen it in real life and I was like, “God, I can’t believe no one thought about it before them.” How?

Yosi Yahoudai (27:30):

It’s Mr. Morgan.

Maria Monroy (27:31):

I know. All right, well thank you so much for joining us today. Is there anything else you want to add?

Yosi Yahoudai (27:35):

That was awesome. I really enjoyed it.

Maria Monroy (27:37):

What were your takeaways from today’s conversation?

Yosi Yahoudai (27:39):

Um, eye-opening one from you, uh, about the open rate on sending newsletters.

Maria Monroy (27:45):

Yeah.

Yosi Yahoudai (27:46):

Um, did not know that. So that’s a huge thing to look into. Um, so we’re definitely going to go back and, and examine that and make sure that we’re not, you know, violating any open rate, uh, violations or anything like that.

Maria Monroy (27:57):

And if the listener could only take one takeaway from this, what do you think it should be?

Yosi Yahoudai (28:03):

Believe in yourself. Take chances, get a good mentor. And if you really want to practice law on your own, you know, do it.

Maria Monroy (28:10):

Thank you so much to Yosi Yahoudai from J&Y Law for everything he shared today. If you found the story valuable, please share it with someone you want to see succeed, subscribe so you never miss an episode, and leave a five star review. It goes a long way to help others discover the show. Catch us next week on Tip The Scales with me, Maria Monroy, president of LawRank. Hear how the best in the business broke out of limiting beliefs, overcame adversity, and built a thriving, purpose-driven business in the process.