Immigration software news and updates.

Payroll is an essential part of running an immigration law firm. Paying your employees on time and in a way that is reliable and easy to manage is key to maintaining a healthy relationship with your employees and contractors and reinforcing their sense of security. It also allows you, whether you’re a law firm owner or partner handling payroll, or work at a law firm and support operations, to stay compliant with tax and accounting rules.

Like with most things, technology has improved payroll and has made it easier than ever to manage employees, pay them, track salaries and taxes, and more. But this also means that there are many options to choose from, and making the right choice for your immigration law firm can be tough, especially with no guidance.

That’s what this article is about - diving into the top five payroll solutions that immigration lawyers have reported using. Of course this list isn’t exhaustive and there may be other platforms that are great as well. But we hope this article can at least be a starting point for you as you build out your immigration law firm’s payroll process.

Here are 5 payroll platforms that immigration lawyers use

Let’s dive into the top 5 payroll platforms that immigration lawyers have reported using.

1. SurePayroll

This is one of the oldest payroll providers on our list: its longevity on the market speaks well of its reliability as a payroll solution for small businesses. SurePayroll’s features include, but are not limited to:

• Managing employee records
• Processing payroll
• Filing taxes (although W-2s and 1099s cost extra)
• Legal compliance

SurePayroll offers a two month free trial to explore different features. Given that there are additional fees for specific services like time clock integration, it could be an opportunity to try the service out and see if you need to add extras to your subscription, and whether it’s cost effective for your firm.

There are two tiers in the SurePayroll subscription model:

• SurePayroll Full-Service: in this tier, you pay a base fee of $29.99 a month, plus $5 per employee per month. In this tier, you will need to pay additional fees for your W-2s and 1099s, which are offered for free in other services we will discuss below, so that’s something to consider. A big plus of this version is that it automatically submits payroll taxes. Full-Service also offers a two-day payroll processing service, which is half the time of the standard four-day processing timeframe for Self-Service.
• SurePayroll Self-Service: in this tier, you pay $19.99 a month for your base fee, and $4 per employee per month. While Self-Service includes everything in Full-Service, you do have to prepare your own payroll taxes.

Two-day processing outside of the Full-Service plan costs an extra $4.99 a month.

Pros and Cons of SurePayroll:

Biggest pro: Clear onboarding process. PC Mag explains that the enrollment wizard provides step-by-step instructions to ensure you onboard all your employees correctly, with easy navigation to move back and forth between sections. While it may be a multi-step process, the detail in the instructions the payroll wizard provides allows you to follow clear steps that minimize errors.

Biggest con: The extra fees for services in some of the subscription plans that you absolutely need to be able to access as part of a payroll provider, such as payroll taxes, make SurePayroll a provider that needs to be evaluated carefully. Depending on your firm’s needs, the extra fees may not justify the price you pay versus the number of employees you serve. In addition, having to pay for each employee added means that your costs to maintain this payroll provider could balloon over time, should your firm grow to a large number of employees.

Next, let’s talk about an option to supplement law firm accounting software: Gusto

2. Gusto:

This payroll system launched in 2012 and the initial goal of the founders was to create a system that would allow them to pay for themselves. Today, over 100,000 businesses use Gusto as their payroll provider. Gusto has four different plans for payroll, most of which have the same features, with some small differences depending on the plan:

• Core: This is Gusto’s “basic” payroll solution, which allows you to set up common payroll provider features like direct deposit, and run payroll reports. Direct deposit takes two days with this plan. Gusto Core also allows you to file your state and federal taxes, and issue benefits at this level. In addition, with Gusto Wallet, which is accessible at this level, your employees can see their payroll stubs and W-2s. Gusto Core costs $39 per month, plus $6 per employee.
• Complete: With Complete, you get all the features included in Core, with the additional plus of having next-day direct deposit. Gusto Complete also includes features such as time tracking, PTO requests, and electronic signature for documents. Another handy feature of Gusto Complete is the ability to send anonymous surveys to your employees and see their results over time. This could be a helpful feature for growing firms as you implement new policies and bring new members to the team. As the Gusto plans become more sophisticated when you move up tiers, higher tier plans include more backend support.
• Concierge: The most distinctive feature of Gusto Concierge is the dedicated support provided by an HR representative. Gusto Concierge clients also enjoy a dedicated phone line for customer support. This could be a plan to consider if your firm is sizable enough, but you’d rather outsource your HR management. Gusto Concierge has all the features available to the two plans below it, giving it all you need to run your payroll and assign benefits. Gusto Concierge also gives you access to their HR Resource Center, which updates you on law changes so you’re always in compliance, and also provides you with templates that can help you prepare for hiring. Gusto Concierge is $149 per month, plus $12 per employee.
• Contractor: A simplified version of Gusto which gives two-day deposit and allows you to pay per employee with no base fee. It’s a bare bones payroll administration solution that could be better suited to a lawyer that works solo but hires contractors for specific tasks from time to time.

Pros and Cons of Gusto:

Pros:

• HR support and legal compliance monitoring for specific tiers.
• Quick direct deposit turnaround, two-day being the slowest timeframe offered for direct deposit.
• Automatic tax filing.
• Built-in integrations with multiple accounting softwares, such as Freshbooks, Intuit Quickbooks, and Xero.

Cons:

• Not the most cost-effective depending on the number of employees you have.
• More tailored to larger firms; solo lawyers and small firms may find even the lowest tier being more than they need.

You can see a more detailed review with comparisons on Gusto and other competitors here.

3. QuickBooks

You may not know that Quickbooks, in addition to being an accounting software, has a payroll integration, but if you already use Quickbooks, this may be an easy add-on. QuickBooks Payroll is one of the products offered with QuickBooks online, which is why, for the sake of simplicity, if you have QuickBooks for your accounting, you may want to add the payroll integration and keep it all in one system.

Even if you don’t have QuickBooks online, you can choose to run your payroll using QuickBooks by itself. If you do have QuickBooks online, you can also integrate QuickBooks with Docketwise for an even more streamlined experience if you’re a Docketwise user, which would allow you to combine your immigration law case management with the accounting features of QuickBooks, and payroll should you choose to add it. Let’s go over the payroll component of Quickbooks.

QuickBooks Payroll has three subscription levels:

• QuickBooks Payroll Core: This is the most affordable subscription of QuickBooks Payroll at $45 per month, plus $4 per employee per month.  With QuickBooks Payroll Core, you can do unlimited payroll runs, deductions, reports, and automatic tax fillings. What we see is that as the levels go up and become more expensive, you get additional features related to support and timeframe for direct deposits, much like Gusto.
• QuickBooks Payroll Premium: Cost increases significantly at this level, rising to $75 per month and $8 per employee per month. At this subscription level, you can add features like worker’s compensation management and time-tracking, while receiving support from the Quickbooks HR Support Center. If consistent support is important to you, Elite may be the subscription tier for you.
• QuickBooks Payroll Elite: At $125 per month, plus $10 per employee per month, QuickBooks Payroll Elite offers the highest level of support from the QuickBooks HR Support Center with 24-hour assistance, a remote HR advisor, and protection against tax penalties.

Overall, you should be able to set up your payroll from scratch with QuickBooks, as it is a fairly intuitive process. Some information is mandatory, but even if you haven’t finished setting up absolutely everything, you could still run your payroll using QuickBooks if you’re pressed for time because you just got the software and your next payroll date is looming. If you have QuickBooks online, getting familiar with QuickBooks Payroll won’t be too terribly difficult, as the layout is very similar to QuickBooks online.

Pros and Cons of QuickBooks Payroll:

Pros:

• Easy setup and integrations for those familiar with QuickBooks
• Able to start running your payroll without being completely set up
• Setup isn’t overly complicated, making it fairly user-friendly for the non tech-savvy.

Cons:

• Cost can be a challenge, or simply not justifiable for firms of certain sizes.
• While setup is user-friendly, it does require a lot of manual entry. If you have a large firm, this can be a time-consuming step.
• Some extra costs to send tax forms to the IRS, which are automatically filed through other programs.

Having the backup of a large company like Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks, can be a seal of validation for some, and a drawback for others. If you are looking for a payroll provider that is a bit more like a small business, you may want to consider Payrolls Plus, a smaller payroll provider based in Florida.

4. Payrolls Plus

Payrolls Plus was founded by accountants with a combined 50 years of experience in accounting and payroll management. Payrolls Plus focuses on providing four core services through its platform: Human resources management, payroll services, tax filing, and electronic timekeeping. The Payrolls Plus platform includes tax management services, payroll services including direct deposit, electronic timekeeping, self service options for managers and employees, human resource management services including benefits administration, and many more.

Pros and Cons of PayrollsPlus:

Pros:

• Personalized service and support thanks to the founders’ accounting experience.
• Direct phone support access for clients - no outsourced customer support to enhance the personalized service.
• Software is kept up to date with labor and tax law to ensure you’re always in compliance.

Cons:

• Not a lot of customer reviews available. It may be difficult to gauge whether this platform is the best fit for you based on research.
• No trial period offered to test service out.
• “On the Go” platforms are not truly mobile - no access through mobile applications, only web-based.

We’re going to finish up with a payroll provider you may know for other services, and may have used it before, for payroll or otherwise: ADP.

4. ADP

ADP is known as an overall human resource management solution, and is used by both small businesses and multi-million dollar companies alike. Thanks to its experience with businesses of different sizes, it’s most likely that ADP will be able to accommodate your needs as a payroll provider. The newest plan that is advertised on the ADP website is Roll, which starts at $29 per month, plus $5 per employee. For businesses with fewer than 50 employees, ADP offers payroll plans through RUN, their small business division. Let’s go over the options under the RUN brand and Roll in more detail.

• ADP Roll: One of the simplest payroll provider platforms available, which can be run with a simple voice command. With a few questions, you can set up the payroll for your employees, with next-day direct deposit. Roll also offers access to your employees through their app, where they can see their payroll information. ADP Roll offers unlimited payroll runs, tax filing, and reports for new hires. Despite these unlimited features, ADP Roll offers limited support at this level (only business hours).
• Run ADP Essential: ADP advertises this as an ideal option for companies with 49 employees or less. Unlike Roll, this plan includes support at all hours. This plan includes setting up direct deposit, new hire reports, and files your payroll taxes. This plan also includes filing W-2s and 1099s, and the ability to add time tracking and benefits like healthcare. Employees also have access to their payroll information with the app, and companies receive marketing support through Upnetic, a marketing consulting firm offering website building, digital marketing strategizing, legal forms, and optimization of your business presence on Google. To find out about pricing in this plan, contact ADP for a quote specific to your business needs.
• Run ADP Enhanced: Also designed for companies with 50 employees or fewer, this is ADP’s most popular plan. In addition to all the payroll, taxes, and benefits, ADP Enhanced includes features that are focused on supporting growth. To help you in your hiring process, ADP Enhanced offers access to ZipRecuiter, one of the leading recruitment platforms, and allows you to manage your state unemployment insurance. Same as with ADP Essential, you need to contact ADP for a quote.
• Run ADP Complete: At this level, ADP provides additional support at the human resources level, giving you access to forms, support in creating an employee handbook, and live HR support. Access to marketing consulting from Upnetic is not available with this plan.
• Run ADP HR Pro: This is the program with the most features among the RUN product line, still for companies with 50 employees or fewer. In addition to all the features in all the different programs available in the RUN product line, HR Pro includes support from ADP Help Desk and free legal advice through Upnetic Legal Services.

Given that ADP offers multiple programs, all with different features, it can be difficult to gauge the pros and cons among so many different programs within the same platform. But overall, there are distinguishable pros and cons from running your payroll through one of ADP’s platforms:

Pros and Cons of ADP Payroll:

Pros:

• Highly customizable plans: ADP has a variety of features available to suit your payroll and years of experience in payroll and human resource management.
• Mobile-friendly, with Roll focusing on mobile device functionality.
• One platform to manage multiple aspects of your business beyond payroll, including hiring and onboarding new staff.

Cons:

• Not very upfront about pricing. Unless you go with Roll, their “basic” plan, you have to get a quote based on your particular business needs to be able to know what pricing applies to you.
• Even in their more AI-based options, it doesn’t run automatically, needing at least a voice command to run payroll.
• Not as affordable as other platforms. If price is either the determining factor on your choice of payroll provider, or one of them, there are other options that are more affordable, especially if your firm is small and you don’t see it growing very much beyond where it is right now.

Choose Docketwise as your immigration law firm’s case management platform

As with most technology platforms, there are lots of options to choose from. Payroll is an important component of managing your business, and whatever you choose should save you time, and be reliable. Once you have your payroll set up, streamline your immigration law cases with Docketwise.

Docketwise is here to help you with immigration forms, tracking your cases, managing your clients, and more. And as you grow, Docketwise grows with you, allowing for integrations, adding users and more. Docketwise helps you stay up to date on all your immigration cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your immigration law firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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The US State Department Visa Bulletin is highly anticipated each month and shows which applicants in the employment-based and family-based categories have an immigrant visa available. Each month USCIS publishes an update informing the public which of the two charts, the “Date for Filing” chart, or the “Final Action Date” chart controls whether an applicant’s priority date is current and accordingly, whether they are eligible to apply for Adjustment of Status (AOS) that month. Tracking the bulletin so you are aware of when a visa is available for your clients is essential to ensure you’re applying for their AOS in a timely manner.

It does mean that someone in your firm likely has to check the visa bulletin as soon as it comes out, which for a busy lawyer without much support staff, may become one more thing to keep up with in your seemingly endless list of tasks. Moreover, you have to go client-by-client to figure out who may be eligible to finally submit their AOS application.

This inefficiency prompted us to go to the drawing board and ultimately build a tracking tool for the visa bulletin into Docketwise’s platform to make case tracking even easier. By including visa bulletin tracking into each of your eligible cases on Docketwise, you are able to stay on top of eligibility for your clients and file in a prompt manner to get the process rolling. You should know that you can use this tracking feature in both new and existing clients you have on your Docketwise database.

Here is why tracking the visa bulletin is important and how our visa bulletin tracking system works.

Why does timely visa bulletin tracking matter?

There are two main reasons why it’s important to track your clients’ status on the visa bulletin:

• Helping clients get started with their Adjustment of Status application: Adjusting status is a crucial stepping stone toward permanent residency in the United States. And given that AOS requires a separate application process with which your clients will likely need your support, keeping track of the date means you can better communicate it with your clients and better ensure that they choose your firm to help them with it.
• Maintaining consistent and relevant follow ups with your clients: Taking the step to ensure that you as a lawyer are keeping up with your clients’ status updates shows your commitment to your clients; that you are available and aware of the importance of being timely in your follow ups. As a business owner, taking an action such as tracking the visa bulletin shows your understanding of a customer’s lifetime value and the potential work one client could bring you throughout their immigration journey, their family members or professional referrals.

How to add visa bulletin tracking to your cases on Docketwise for current Docketwise users

Cutoff dates from the visa bulletin are updated toward the end of each month in Docketwise for the upcoming month. To set visa bulletin tracking in Docketwise, you’ll need to add the Priority Date and the Preference Category for each matter. After adding that information for each matter, you can receive in-app notifications, which you can check under the bell icon on the top-right of your Docketwise screen.

To set Priority Date tracking, you can either create a matter or edit an existing matter. To create a new matter, click on Create New on your Docketwise dashboard, and add the priority date and preference category for your case. To save your changes, click on Create Matter. For existing matters, you’d be updating existing information instead of creating a separate matter. Simply go to the Matter you want to update by finding it by name, and click on Update Matter Details under the Matter name to enter the priority date and the preference category, and finish by clicking Update Matter.

Tracking visa bulletin status after adding priority date

Once you add the priority date to your cases on Docketwise, you’re not only able to track updates from the visa bulletin, but those updates occur in real time. You can see these updates on the Case Tracking tab of either the Matter Overview page or the Contact Overview page. Both of these pages will have a Case Tracking tab that will break down the Visa Bulletin update into four pieces of information: preference category, priority date, priority date case status (the most important, since this is where updates will show when your client’s priority date becomes current), and the name of the matter as it’s saved on your Docketwise database.

Using reports to organize your caseload

At different points in time, you may find yourself with multiple cases with a priority date that becomes current, which will necessitate some organizing to ensure you are completing timely filings. To help you stay organized, you can create a report using the Create New button on your dashboard, and choosing the Report option, then selecting Matter Reports and selecting Matters by Preference Category.

This report option organizes every case you have with a current priority date by preference category, which can help you organize your case work by categories and address all filings of the same category. It also allows you to see which cases in your docket don’t have a current priority date so you can anticipate next steps on your work based on what you are seeing in the visa bulletin.

Visa bulletin tracking is part of your immigration law toolkit with Docketwise

The ability to track the visa bulletin in real time for each of your immigration cases is only one of the many features Docketwise includes to make your immigration casework more efficient and easy to track. From a comprehensive forms library covering every immigration case, to built-in communication tools for easy client contact and leads outreach, Docketwise consolidates the work of immigration lawyers in one place.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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A large percentage of immigration lawyers are solo practitioners or run small practices. Some launch their firms after working elsewhere for some time while others go at it alone right after they graduate. Both options are viable, but given that working at a firm for a year or two doesn’t necessarily teach you what you need to run an entire practice, and that law schools don’t teach that either, new attorneys stay at bigger firms for longer, or never break off on their own at all, out of fear of failure. But there is another way: legal incubators.

Legal incubators were a response to the recession of the late 2000s, which affected the job prospects of recent law school graduates. The ABA has registered over 70 legal incubators nationwide - although some have shut down during the pandemic - most of which are run by law schools. States with large populations, such as New York and California, have the largest number of legal incubators.

To see the number of incubators in your state, check out this American Bar Association map. The ABA also keeps a directory of all current and planned incubators, as well as an option to subscribe to their listservs to hear about new initiatives first.

In 2021, the ABA ran a survey, updating a prior, 2016 survey, on legal incubators and issued a report. Most incubator law firms practice family law, but regardless of the area of law, survey respondents, which included both current and former legal incubator participants, reported high levels of career satisfaction and other insightful results.

So let’s examine the features of legal incubators so you can determine whether you, as a recent graduate or a law student, could benefit from joining a legal incubator, now or in the future.

What’s a legal incubator?

Legal incubators are designed to help lawyers develop and launch law practices while expanding access to underserved populations. This is not unlike incubators in the tech industry, for example, where startup entrepreneurs and developers are hosted by incubators through their product development stage and get access to mentorship, troubleshooting, and funding while taking their product to a point where it’s market-ready.

As part of a legal incubator, participants, who must be licensed attorneys, have access to space, mentoring, and training, with the goal of giving them practical experience so they can then start their own practices more confidently and successfully.

How exactly do legal incubators help?

How do legal incubators help new lawyers or those who want guided training before starting their own firm?

There are two valuable reasons why joining a legal incubator as a new lawyer could make sense for you:

Legal incubators help you learn things you don’t learn in law school

One of the most common challenges that recent law graduates face when they’re trying to start their own firms is realizing that practicing law on your own is not just practicing law, it’s also owning a business. Yet none of those important aspects of owning a business - like marketing, accounting, client acquisition and retention, networking, etc. - are taught as part of the law school curriculum. The result of this omission is that when the time comes to apply this knowledge, lawyers are finding themselves lost and with a lack of support. In addition, many lawyers graduate without knowing which area of law they want to focus on. Joining a legal incubator program can help you, through relevant experience, narrow down what you would like to focus on based on your interests and goals, as well as the needs of your community.

Legal incubators provide structure for solo lawyers

Many of the legal incubator participants that answered the ABA survey on legal incubators said they had tried to establish their own firm before joining the incubator, and struggled to make it on their own: The ABA survey results state that “Of the 22 [respondents] who had tried to establish a practice before joining the incubator, they identified the lack of substantive law knowledge as the biggest challenge followed by isolation or not having a support system and not being able to make significant income. The expense of space and other overhead, marketing and getting clients, and lack of business experience were also cited by some as being challenging.”

By surrounding yourself with a support system that includes mentoring, networking, and assistance with some of the most concerning aspects of opening your own firm, like setting up your own office space, you can occupy yourself with learning and growing as opposed to merely surviving. Since you can still choose your own clients while in an incubator, it also provides an opportunity to develop your expertise in the niche of law you want to focus on. Indeed, the ABA survey notes that 8% of the participants in legal incubator programs focused on immigration law.

What you do as part of a legal incubator

To further understand the value of the experience recent law graduates are getting by joining a legal incubator, the ABA survey examined the percentage of time new lawyers spent on a variety of tasks during their time in legal incubators. Results showed that most of the time lawyers are doing actual case work that would result in billable hours; in fact, survey respondents calculated this as almost half of their work hours. Next in the workload is administrative work, and pro bono work, which is a requirement of most legal incubators.

Overall, survey respondents described the work they did as part of their legal incubator as reflective of the real juggling act most law firm owners experience, where they have to wear many hats and complete tasks beyond case work, such as administrative and marketing. Education and training consisted of pro-bono work, CLEs and one-on-one work with mentors, much like what full-time lawyers do as well. In other words, lawyers who participated in legal incubators felt that they were able to maintain autonomy and feel like they were fully practicing law, despite being in a more controlled setting.

Lessons learned from legal incubator participants’ experiences

In light of the insights this legal incubator survey showed, we’ve put together a few important takeaways on the value of legal incubators and some of the challenges of the legal profession in general:

Law is a competitive career, and law schools are not adequately preparing lawyers to enter a challenging job market.

Legal incubators started to gain traction at a time when the job market was severely constrained. Even when the economy had recovered, survey respondents shared that they were still struggling to launch successful independent practices due to the lack of knowledge of business management practices and their lack of experience in case law. Legal incubators provide a structure where new lawyers can supplement those knowledge deficiencies in the business aspect of running their own practice and acquire practical experience that will position them to succeed.

Most lawyers are concerned with the sustainability of their firms.

Law firms become sustainable by acquiring and retaining clients predictably and successfully. Moreover, learning about marketing and business development is key to sustainability. For example, in immigration law, understanding that a client may bring value in the form of fees paid for case processing more than once through their journey (what is called Customer Lifetime Value or LTV) is important to ensure you are nurturing leads and maintaining contact with clients adequately over time.

Autonomy is a powerful motivator for those starting their own firms.

“Making it on their own,” including setting their own schedule, choosing an area of law, and autonomous decision-making, were the top reasons why new lawyers joined legal incubators and then went on to start their own firms. While that independence can be very rewarding, getting to a sustainable level of autonomy is also challenging. It also bears the question of whether larger firms are creating work environments that are welcoming to those lawyers who value autonomy or not. Ultimately, making your own decisions, setting your own schedule, and picking your own cases is a great way to ensure your legal career aligns with your values and your life goals. A legal incubator can be a safe environment to develop the skills and structure to make that autonomy sustainable.

Support your immigration law firm’s growth with Docketwise

The hope is that this article is helpful to young immigration attorneys or soon-to-be immigration attorneys who might want to practice on their own and are looking for a more structured way to learn the ropes. When you do, let Docketwise help you manage your immigration cases, forms, and more.

With our client relationship management and case management tools, full library of immigration forms, easy-to-use client questionnaires and industry-leading API integrations, Docketwise helps you stay up to date on all your immigration cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your immigration law firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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It’s not uncommon for immigration cases to start as one type and turn into another over time. As an immigration lawyer, this is good since it means that an approval for your client today doesn’t mean you’re done working with that client tomorrow - you may have more opportunities to do work for them in the future as they may become eligible for other immigration benefits. They may also have dependents or immediate family who need immigration legal services as well.

Given that there is often potential for a long-term relationship that may lead to multiple immigration filings or referrals, you can think of your clients in terms of all the possible statuses they are eligible for and other clients they may possibly bring in.

This concept is called the customers “lifetime value” (CLV, or LTV) - the value that a particular customer can bring to you and your immigration law firm over their “lifetime” working with you. This is a common business concept used in many other industries, and it’s one that can help you put a dollar value on client engagements and make better-informed decisions.

This article explores the idea behind CLV, what it means, and how it impacts immigration lawyers. Let’s jump in.

What’s a Customer’s Lifetime Value?

The CLV is a metric that can be used to measure the value of a client over the entire lifespan of their customer relationship with your firm, either through a case you’ve completed or will complete in the future. A customer’s lifetime value is calculated by looking at how much they will bring to the firm in business versus how much you have to spend to acquire them.

In some areas of immigration law, a client may not be eligible to file for a new status until years later. So, how can we practically look at the lifetime value of an immigration law client when that lifetime value is not apparent until much later down the road?

Past immigration clients can still mean future business

Clients you’ve helped in the past can be a source of future business - generally, there are two ways in which this can happen:

• Past clients may be eligible for a new status or extension of their current status. For example, a conditional permanent resident who acquired their status through marriage will need to file for removal of conditions. Later, when the permanent resident becomes eligible to become a US citizen or needs to renew their green card, you can be there to help. Each of these steps is a new source of revenue you can gain from that client.
• Past clients may refer you to others. Depending on your type of immigration practice, a referral could lead to you being contacted by a former client’s family member who is looking to move to the US. If a former client refers you to a potential corporate client, the potential client company may need to apply for work visas for multiple employees and more.

It may not be possible to consider all the future work a particular client can bring, especially in the beginning, but over time, considering the potential number of cases that may come down the pipeline from one client, or the number of clients they could potentially refer, it becomes easier to estimate the CLV of a given client.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Examples of the LTV of an immigration law client

Depending on the type of immigration law you practice, CLV may vary. Here are some examples, but of course, this is not an exhaustive list - it’s merely illustrative. There are endless examples, including immigration benefit filings, administrative processing, and court.

• In marriage-based cases, CLV may be determined by the end result of their initial filing (e.g. K-1 visa to green card to eventual citizenship), and whether they may eventually become eligible to file for dependents or other family members.
• In business immigration, if you handled an H-1B for someone a few years ago, for example, you should have a follow up sequence to reach out to them to file their extension, eventually discuss permanent residency with the employer. Several years later, you can reach out to the beneficiary to discuss applying for citizenship. By the way, setting up an email sequence to send automatically reminding your client of upcoming extensions or further filings and the steps they need to take is a simple way to reactivate the relationship.
• For more limited case types like DACA, EAD applications, etc., it may be tempting to think that the LTV of a client is limited to that one application, but don’t forget about renewals! Certain immigration statuses are renewable indefinitely, so you can follow up with these clients when they’re eligible to review their status, and send alerts when new laws or regulations are enacted that open new options for, e.g., a new path to residency, come up.

It’s important to consider CLV along with other business concepts when you’re putting together your immigration law firm growth and marketing strategy. Check out our Top 20 Business Terms for Immigration Lawyers to learn about and see examples of other important business terms and concepts for immigration lawyers!

Be ready to take action on your follow ups with Docketwise

As you start to look more strategically at existing and past clients from a business standpoint, let Docketwise support the rest of your practice. With our CRM, full library of immigration forms, easy-to-use client questionnaires and industry-leading API integrations, Docketwise helps you stay up to date on all your immigration cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your immigration law firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review found that how quickly a business responds to a prospective client who’s reaching out determines how likely it is that that prospect will become a paying client. Martindale-Avvo says that in general, it’s recommended to respond to a chat inquiry within 5 minutes.

In other words, time is of the essence when it comes to turning a potential client into a committed, paying one. Responding quickly creates a positive first impression of your services and your level of commitment to providing value from the start.

Thus, for your law firm to succeed, it’s clear that if a prospective client reaches out to you, you should respond quickly, and the right way. But how do you manage this lead response time with everything else you have on your plate?

Let’s look at some of the different ways in which you can respond to your leads quickly and efficiently.

Use chatbots or live chat agents to quickly respond to inquiries

There are two ways in which you can use chat to respond to leads: chatbots or a live chat agent.

Chatbots are computer programs designed to mimic human conversation, especially over the internet. You’ve probably seen a chatbot on the bottom-right hand corner of many websites you’ve visited, prompting you to ask it a question. You can program a chatbot to initiate a conversation with a website visitor after they’ve been on your site for a specific period of time or simply have the chatbot there to reply in case the visitor reaches out first. Some examples include LawDroid, Chatfuel and YoTengoBot, a multilingual AI-powered chatbot specifically designed to answer immigration law inquiries and which Docketwise integrates with.

If you’re less inclined to use a chatbot and more inclined to have a live human, you can hire a live chat agent to answer basic, frequently asked questions for which they would have prepared answers. Live chat agents are often offered at a flat rate and have free trial periods, which  allows you some time to test a service out before you commit. Some of the companies we referenced in our virtual receptionist recommendations below, like Ruby and Smith.ai offer live chat services as well.

If you want to explore the option of calls and text, these can often be done through apps that also have live chat capabilities. Here are some of our favorites, some of which we’ve mentioned in previous articles as suggested tech tools for your basic setup:

Outsource your responses to a virtual receptionist

While chat may be the best choice for some prospective clients, others prefer speaking to law firms over the phone. In order to avoid personally taking phone calls all day or hiring an army of full-time assistants, consider working with a virtual receptionist. In short, a virtual receptionist is a contracted individual, working solo or as part of an agency, whose job it is to manage your inbound calls, schedule appointments, and address basic questions. Depending on the service you sign up for, they can be available up to 24/7.

Hiring a virtual receptionist can be a way to avoid missed calls and improve your response time by having someone available to answer them as they come in, thereby giving you a greater likelihood of securing the individual as a client by addressing their immediate questions and setting up a consultation without delay.

We’ve actually written a separate blog post about legal-focused virtual receptionist services, but at a glance, a few that we recommended looking into are Smith.ai, Ruby and Helpsquad.

Ultimately, hiring a virtual receptionist for your immigration law firm can be a great way to consolidate your inbound leads and make sure that prospective clients are receiving a response quickly and in a consistent manner.

Make your calendar available with an online scheduling tool

Capitalize on the clients that are ready to move forward by providing a quick and seamless way for them to schedule time with you. Online scheduling tools like Calendly and Zoho Bookings are oftentimes free, easy to plug into your website, and will provide reminders and ways to schedule both in-person and virtual meetings, depending on how you’re running your firm. Appointments scheduled through these platforms can be set up to sync with your Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook or whatever online calendar tool you use so you can see all your appointments in one place.

Use email sequences to engage with prospective immigration clients

Setting up an email sequence (sometimes called a “drip campaigns”) is a common digital marketing strategy used to engage with a prospective client quickly and consistently. Email sequences can be set up to send an automatic email prompting a prospective client to learn about something or take a next step. In the context of immigration law, email sequences can be used when a prospective client visits your law firm website and, say, completes a contact form, signs up for your newsletter update, or downloads a free resource like a how-to guide.The email drip campaign then automatically sends subsequent messages at predetermined intervals keeping your firm top-of-mind and perhaps prompting the prospect to reach out and set up a consultation if they have any questions or need any immigration support.

Here is a sample sequence you can set up for your emails as a law firm:

• If a prospective client fills out a contact form on your website, have your sequence set up to immediately send them an email confirmation and a way to engage further, either to chat with one of your virtual receptionists or to schedule a short consultation via your calendar appointment app.
• If the prospect doesn’t take any action at that time, set up a second email to be sent to follow up after a few days asking, e.g, “Do you still need help?” If you have a free resource that can answer questions for the client on your niche in immigration law, or have a Frequently Asked Questions page, this is a great email to include it in.
• Next follow up: Restate reasons why they should contact the firm and how you can help with their question or concern. And so on.

There are a number of tools you can use to set up your email sequence - some of the most popular ones include MailChimp and ConstantContact. One thing to keep in mind is to make sure you are giving people options to unsubscribe and otherwise follow any and all anti-spam laws in your state.

Convert your immigration law clients, let Docketwise handle the rest.

Once you get a prospective client in your sales funnel, you need to make sure you have all the right tools in place to track interactions with that prospective client and then manage their entire case when they actually convert to a paying client. That’s where Docketwise comes in.

With Docketwise Leads CRM, you can track your correspondence with a prospective client, engage them at each step of their immigration journey, and manage your law firm’s growth. And when it comes time to handling the actual case, Docketwise’s leading immigration form software and menu of integrations with other industry-leading tools helps you every step of the way.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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If you own your immigration law firm, or partner with others in ownership, you are a business owner. And as a business owner, you are responsible for driving the growth of the business while providing the core of its deliverables - immigration services.

There is a lot from the business world that, as an immigration lawyer, you can find useful to learn about, such as developing marketing strategy, setting growth goals, and creating an overall experience that leaves your clients happy. Sometimes, however, business content that’s available online uses lingo that isn’t well-known to immigration lawyers, and it certainly doesn’t have the immigration law context in mind either.

Thinking about how to take all this valuable information and help you find relevance for it in the immigration law space, so we’ve put together these 20 sales and marketing terms that can help you think more strategically about the growth of your business and establishing better relationships with your prospective and existing clients.

Top 20 business and marketing terms you should know as an immigration lawyer

Here's our list of 20 of the top business and marketing terms you should know. Of course this list is not exhaustive, and we always recommend you continue to study and learn about the business and marketing side of your practice. But hopefully this is a great place to start.

1. Application Programming Interface (API)

API stands for Application Programming Interface. In technical terms, it’s a “piece of code that acts as an intermediary between two different pieces of software and enables them to communicate with each other”. An API is an intermediary between a client and the action they want to execute on a software, and the backend of that software and its ability to execute that action for the user. Most of the work that can be done with an API falls under the expertise of a software developer, but even as a non-developer, it’s helpful for you to know what API integrations are available to you on your tech stack.

The most important thing that APIs do for you is that they allow you to integrate a service without having to learn how to build that into your website or platform. That way, you can put unrelated pieces of software together, sometimes developed by two different companies, and have them work seamlessly. For example, Docketwise has a Quickbooks integration, meaning that if you use Docketwise as your forms, case management, or CRM tool, invoices created and payments recorded in Docketwise are automatically pushed to Quickbooks. If you want to explore this particular integration more closely, check out our support guide.

2. Client Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term that typically refers to software that helps you consolidate all the information about your clients into one place, and follow their interactions with your firm step by step. In other words, it’s a database of prospects and existing clients.

In our other post about why immigration law firms need a customer relationship management tool, we discussed the advantage that having all the information concerning a client in one place represents, especially when multiple staff members need access to that information. All of this information together can be used to run reports that can help you make decisions in areas like marketing or profitability based on the data of what’s actually happening in your practice.

3. Call to Action (CTA)

A Call to Action is a prompt included in a piece of content asking potential clients to take a specific action. Some examples of CTAs can be:

• Asking readers of a LinkedIn post to tell you their impressions in the comments
• Ending a blog post inviting readers to subscribe to your blog to get updates
• Reminding viewers of a video on YouTube to like, subscribe, share, and turn on their notifications so they don’t miss a new video
• A “Sign Up” button included in an ad

As you can see, not every CTA leads to an action that costs money. Many CTAs are designed to keep the client engaged with your content, in order to continue building a relationship that, at the right time, makes you the first option for a service when the client needs it.

4. Conversion

Conversion is the process of turning a prospective client into a paying client. The conversion process is not just the persuading of the client to sign up with you. In immigration law practice, it usually takes more than a visit to your website or one look at an ad for a client to decide to choose you as their lawyer, making conversion a multi-step process.

Successful conversions also involve your online presence. With more and more people searching for services online, the reviews your firm has online, how easy it is to contact you, and how responsive you are become crucial factors. Be sure to ask your past clients for reviews whenever possible! Some tips to facilitate your potential clients converting to paying clients as easily as possible include:

• Make sure your website is user-friendly and loads properly. If it’s clunky or doesn’t look good, your potential client is likely to leave quickly and find a better-looking website.
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Keep in mind that many people access websites on their smartphones, and just because it looks good on the computer doesn’t mean it’ll look good or even be legible on mobile devices.
• Establish trust through your online presence. Share quality information on your social platforms and encourage your clients to leave reviews. This will help your potential clients to see what their experience could be like based on what you know and the experience others have had already.
• Focus on a specific niche to make it easier for your ideal clients to take action and sign up with you. Ideally, the entire experience they have with your online presence will address their needs through the expert knowledge you’ve shared through your digital marketing, the positive reviews of your past clients, and a website that is easy to use and doesn’t distract them with options that don’t apply to them.

At it's core, client conversion is simply finally getting a prospective client to pay you for your services.

5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This is the cost to a company in bringing in a new customer. Knowing this number can help you calculate the return on investment you will get from onboarding new clients.

Traditional recommendations dictate that a business should set aside about 7-8% of its revenue for customer acquisition costs. With the availability of free online platforms you can incorporate into your digital marketing strategy, marketing costs are not the same as they used to be. Your online presence and the value you provide through it in platforms that are mostly free to use, or come at low yearly costs, may cost far less than 7-8% of your firm’s revenue and bring more clients for a lower cost. Be sure to check out our two-part series on digital and social media marketing for immigration lawyers if you haven’t already.

6. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Shopify, the largest host of online stores around the world, defines Customer Lifetime Value as the amount of money a customer can be expected to spend on your business throughout their lifetime. This is an important metric to know when you’re considering the investment you will put into acquiring new clients and retaining existing customers.

To calculate CLV, multiply the average value of a purchase (in immigration law, your rate for a specific type of case) by the number of times the customer will buy each year by the average length of the customer relationship (in years). It’s important to remember that in immigration law, the timeline of one client spans periods of time during which no action is needed and they are not eligible to apply for any additional immigration benefits.

When it comes to immigration law, start by looking at the first kind of case you’re handling for a client and then consider any other benefits the client may become eligible for over time.

7. Inbound marketing

According to HubSpot, a leading marketing software company, “Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.” Think about it this way: this very article is part of an inbound marketing strategy. The purpose here is to educate you, the reader, about business concepts. If you learn something from it and never reach out to us as a potential client, that’s perfectly OK. But if you do decide you’d like to learn more about Docketwise for your immigration forms and case management, and reach out to us, you would be coming in-bound to us as a potential client.

One way to start with your inbound marketing strategy is to address the common problems clients in your target market face and create digital content and experiences that address those problems. For example, look at most common search terms for these common problems, like, “RFEs for adjustment of status,” and address possible solutions in your digital content.

8. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are sets of hard data you can use to see track and measure goals within your practice. With KPIs, you can determine what’s working well, what could be improved, and what isn’t working at all. There are specific ways in which you can categorize your Key Performance Indicators to look at your firm’s performance overall.

In immigration law, some important key performance indicators to look at could be:

• Your case approval rate, or output indicators: What percentage of your cases in specific categories are approved versus denied? Are there patterns that you see emerging in cases that are not approved that could explain why they are not successful? This will allow you to see whether those factors are within your control.
• Process indicators: Are there parts of your process, like your case filing process, that need adjustment or can be made more efficient? With that information, you can implement changes in a way that addresses challenges more effectively instead of trying an unfocused solution.
• Marketing indicators: How are people reacting to your digital marketing and engaging with it? Are people spending time reading your blog or LinkedIn posts, for example, or clicking away from them? Are your posts reaching your target audience through relevant hashtags? Are you engaging with your ideal clients in the platforms they use most often? Marketing an immigration law firm can be a time consuming effort, and if you’re on your own at your firm, it’s an investment of time that you could be spending on your case work, so make sure to use indicators in order to see whether the things you’re doing to grow your business really fit your goals.

Tracking and measuring KPIs will ultimately allow you to take a data-driven approach to understanding and growing your practice.

9. Lead generation

Lead generation is the process of consistently attracting prospects to your firm through nurturing (more on that below) with the goal of turning them into a paying customer. How do you generate leads?

Once again, we return to digital marketing. Given how widely you can cast your net by cultivating an online presence that focuses on your knowledgeable and helpful interactions with others and relevant content shared. Some ways in which you can generate leads can be through an email newsletter, a live event (in person or online), or a free guide, webinar, newsletter or blog updates that someone needs to sign up for to access. When you generate leads, in order to establish the level of trust in you and your expertise that leads to signing up with you, you need to nurture them.

10. Lead nurturing

It’s not enough to get leads - those leads have to be nurtured in order to get results. According to leading creative software company Adobe, nurturing a lead involves “developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel”. Successful lead nurturing involves listening to the needs of your potential clients and understanding their pain points, providing relevant answers that portray you as a reliable source of information, with the goal of persuading your potential clients that you are the best provider of immigration law services in your niche.

How do you nurture leads in immigration law?

Let’s take an example from employment-based immigration. Imagine you work with H-1B visa clients. In the “off-season,” put out “how-to” guides on the H-1B visa process, helpful tips on completing the Labor Certification process, and updates as the H-1B application window opens and the cap is reached.

11. Net Promoter Score

Your “Net Promoter Score” is the answer to the question “how likely are you to recommend to a colleague/friend/family member/etc?”. Most of the time, this question is asked on a scale of 1 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). A simple formula to calculate your Net Promoter Score, based on the responses to this question is NPS = % of Promoters ( — ) % of Detractors. Depending on the score, results can be qualified as promoters, or people that are very or extremely likely to recommend your services, passives, who are neutral and who may or may not recommend, usually involving scores between 7 and 8, and the detractors, who have scores that fall between the neutral-negative and the very negative end of the spectrum (0 to 6).

Why is this important? According to Bain and Company, companies that are seen by their customers as delivering value in their services and are achieving sustained growth over time have higher NPS scores than the average company. Your NPS can help you evaluate the full scope of your client loyalty too - if your clients are very or extremely likely to recommend you to someone else, that means that client may be generating leads for you possibly long after their own immigration timeline is over, resulting in more business for you in the longer term.

12. Pain Point

Pain points are, in simple terms, client problems. This term is used often across industries to refer to the difficulties and frustrations encountered by the potential client for which they seek a solution, and while there isn’t usually any actual physical “pain” involved, your job is to be aware of what pain points your clients, or potential clients, may have in order to focus on providing solutions that address them. In some cases, you may actually have to first make the potential client aware of their pain as they may not have it consciously formulated in their mind or be able to articulate it.  Pain points typically fall under problems associated with money, time, support, and process.

Here are some examples of how you can address specific pain points in immigration law:

• Pain points related to money: most immigration lawyers work with flat rates, so reaffirming to clients that there are no hidden costs associated with your fee reassures them and  addresses this pain point. In addition, explaining to clients what their flat rate gets them can help them see the value in working with you more clearly.
• Pain points related to time: if you foresee that your clients may be challenged with time to meet with you, for example, providing virtual conferencing options could be a way to address that pain point.
• Pain points related to support: maintaining communication with your clients is incredibly important, and feeling supported, or not, could influence a client’s decision to work with you versus another lawyer.
• Pain points related to process: using a CRM software like Docketwise that allows you to provide actionable items like forms to complete with a simple email can help things move forward and ensure that everyone involved in your client’s case has access to the same information at the same time, making processes more efficient. When clients see that everyone working on their case is well-informed and ready to take action when needed, it reinforces the trust between you and your clients, reducing the possibility of other pain points showing up.

Solve your clients' pain points, and they're more likely to come back.

13. Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

Instead of paying a fee for putting up an ad for a specific number of days (like a traditional billboard) or on a specific part of a website, Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) allows you to pay only for the number of clicks on your ad, hence the “pay-per-click” moniker. PPC is viewed as a way to drive more traffic to your website.

One of the most popular ways to use pay-per-click advertising is search engine advertising. This shows your website as a top result for specific keyword searches, like when you see search results on search engines or e-commerce sites like Amazon, with the words “Ad” or “Sponsored” next to them. PPC advertising is a good option for small firms with a limited advertising budget, though beware that the more popular or general a search term, the more expensive it may be. Still, with the right keywords leading to an appealing landing page, PPC advertising can help improve your online visibility overall.

14. Prospect

A prospect is, in simple terms, a potential client. Whether it’s an individual or an organization will depend, in immigration law, largely on the kind of law you practice: in family-based immigration, for example, your prospects are mostly individuals, whereas in employment-based immigration, it may be a combination of individuals and companies.

This is one of the reasons why focusing on a niche within immigration law is important: it helps you determine who your ideal clients are, which allows you to focus your marketing efforts on people that have the characteristics you’re looking for in a prospect. It’s also important to remember that a prospect is anyone who could potentially be a client, based on the type of immigration law you practice, not just the people that express interest in working with you.

Some of the ways to engage your prospects include putting time into your digital marketing, encouraging your past clients to refer others, meeting prospects in community events, and reaching out to clients cold (this last one applies more to higher volume, business immigration clients).

15. Return On Investment (ROI)

You may have heard the term Return on Investment or ROI in the context of actual investments (like in the stock market, for example), but ROI also applies to business and marketing. When you’re calculating your law firm’s ROI, you’re looking at the amount you spend on a particular case type versus the revenue you obtain from it over time.

The same happens with marketing your law firm. In that context, your ROI is the money you spend on your marketing versus the revenue those initiatives generate for your firm. Understanding this concept is extremely important if you want to ensure that you’re paying for the kinds of advertising that really brings in clients. It’s also smart to consider ROI in immigration law in light of the Customer Lifetime Value, as that can affect the ROI calculation. The more revenue a single client generates for your firm over time due to multiple status filings, dependents included in petitions, and future sponsored petitions, as well as referrals, the more ROI you get from that single client.

16. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it may be one of the most pervasive business and digital marketing terms used in everyday business discussions, no matter the field. SEO has to do with the visibility your online presence has, and how searchable it is in relation to all the online searches conducted using specific keywords. Even if SEO is an imperfect science, as no one outside of search engine companies really knows how their algorithm works, understanding how to find and use keywords in a way that is SEO friendly, using links to reputable sites in your content to enhance your site’s searchability, and making your online presence friendly to search engines can help your visibility online tremendously.

One simple way to improve your website’s SEO is location. If you’re serving clients in your niche in a specific area, make sure to feature that location in your website and the digital content you share. That way, you will come up as an option when people are searching for immigration lawyers in your niche in that specific area.

For example, if in addition to finding your website, a potential client finds engaging, easy-to-understand content when they search, for “H-1B visa lawyer in St. Louis, MO,” that helps you build rapport with the client even before you have a conversation with them, as your content, positive reviews, and engagement online can help establish you as an expert. Better yet, if you’re one of the top results coming up on the first page of a search, it’s very likely that a potential client will click on your link and become part of your sales funnel.

17. Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a multiple-step process that goes from the time a potential client discovers your services to the time they become a paying customer. Sales funnels are used to track the way in which prospects are responding to your marketing and client outreach strategies, and whether they need adjustments along the way to make the process more efficient. The reason the term “funnel” is used is because on the top of the funnel, you have all the people you attract as potential clients, which then trickle down to the ones that remain to become paying clients.

The most important thing to remember is that your sales funnel should be personalized to the area of immigration law you practice. Stay engaged with your ideal clients, and get feedback from existing and past clients in order to ensure you are consistently delivering helpful content to your audience online and your communication during the process itself with a client is as helpful and clear as possible.

18. Social Proof

Social proof is both a psychological phenomenon where individuals look to others for cues on correct or socially acceptable behavior, and a marketing term that refers to people finding value in a product or service based on the value others have found. You can capitalize on social proof by showing potential clients how well received your services are, through a variety of evidence.

Some examples of social proof include:

• Having a book on a reputable bestseller list, like the New York Times.
• Specific numbers that show the popularity of a product, for example, the number of downloads a podcast has reached.
• Customer testimonials and search engine reviews. For example, you can add the number of 5-star reviews your firm has on Google to your landing page as an example of social proof.
• Features on press mentions. For example, if you’re frequently invited to comment on immigration policy to a specific news channel, showcase your position as a trusted expert in your field on your website.

Social proof is important to clients because it helps them feel reassured that they are making the right decision.

19. Technology Stack

In simple terms, a technology stack (usually called a “tech stack” for short) is all the software you use to do your job. It includes software that you purchase, subscribe to, rent, or have an account with. Your tech stack includes your email client, your website host, your social media platforms, your bookkeeping software, your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, your digital payment integrations, and so on. If it’s tech you use, it’s part of your tech stack.

It’s always important that you spend time evaluating whether the tools in your tech stack are working for you or against you. Check whether the tech tools you have in your firm are being used, how much, and whether your clients have requested anything specific that your current tech doesn’t offer. We’ve put together a quick guide on what to consider when you’re assembling your tech stack, including recommendations that are particularly friendly to use and specifically tailored to the immigration law space.

20. User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) covers every aspect of the interactions a client has with your firm, including, but not limited to, what they see when they reach your website, how easy is it to use, what kind of service they receive when they contact you, whether you meet the level of communication they can expect after agreeing upon terms, and how they feel throughout their experience working with you. As with many others of the terms we’ve covered in this glossary, the focus here is in understanding the needs of your clients, what’s important to them, what challenges may arise as you work together, and what their expectations are.

Docketwise is a tailored business solution for the immigration lawyer.

As a business owner, understanding the key concepts that drive growth through marketing, communications, and client interactions can make a significant difference in the growth your immigration law firm’s business.

Docketwise is made for the business of immigration law, a system with everything you need to keep track of your client interactions, assign tasks with ease, and see how your business is growing with analytics based on what’s really happening with your clients.

With our CRM, full library of immigration forms, easy-to-use client questionnaires and industry-leading API integrations, Docketwise helps you stay up to date on all your immigration cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your immigration law firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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Strong client relationships are the foundation of a successful law firm. However, many firms still rely on manual processes to manage these relationships—leading to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and scattered data. Without a streamlined system, important follow-ups can slip through the cracks, and valuable insights into client interactions can be lost. 

Ultimately, client relationships suffer from these poor processes, leading to lower retention rates. For a competitive field like legal and time sensitive practice area such as immigration law, having good client retention is crucial. 

The right technology can remedy these issues. A robust CRM for law firms streamlines client intake, tracks interactions, and automates follow-ups—ensuring your firm stays organized and responsive. Additionally, different types of law firms have different needs for client relationship management due to differences in client type and workload. Using a CRM designed specifically for law firms and even specialized for your particular practice area (such as immigration law) can have uniquely tailored features that will ultimately simplify your lead management, client communication, and case tracking. 

In this guide, we’ll review the basics of legal CRMs, including their most impactful features and benefits, how you can choose one, and the steps for deploying a relationship management application within your firm. 

Common Challenges Faced With Client Relationship Management in a Law Firm

Lawyers face challenges every day around converting prospects into clients: cumbersome manual processes, missed opportunities, keeping client information organized, and limited insights into where new prospects come from and why they're converting. Let’s dive into each of these and how they can bog down your team.

Manual Lead Management

Tracking leads with spreadsheets or paper notes is time-consuming and prone to error. Worse, it is difficult to identify inefficiencies and mistakes within manual processes. Adding a layer of oversight to root out process issues may be counterproductive as well—because it will consume more of your team's time.  

Missed Opportunities

Delayed or missed follow-ups can damage your firm’s reputation and limit potential growth. Your firm likely won't convert a prospect who doesn't get a quick call back, but there is potential for an even more serious outcome. One person can publish a negative review that many others may see—leading to further missed opportunities you won’t have the chance to convert.

Limited Insights

To optimize your client acquisition process, you need data. Manual systems usually do not generate enough data to give much insight into what’s working and what’s not. As a result, you must make strategic marketing decisions with limited information. You end up taking a trial-and-error approach to client acquisition, which can be expensive and ineffective. 

What Is a Law Firm CRM?

A customer relationship management system (CRM) is software that stores client and prospect contact information. This software also tracks client interactions, including emails, telephone calls, and text messages. The tracking may be manual—requiring data entry—or automated. 

The goal of a CRM is to centralize client information so you can make better decisions faster. An accessible and complete client record helps you provide thoughtful service and avoid repetitive information requests. 

Law firm CRMs are similar to general CRMs in purpose but differ in functionality. They have features that cater to the uniqueness of the lawyer-client relationship. Some of these legal-specific features include lead tracking and automated intake features, integrated case tracking, and e-signatures. 

For immigration lawyers who assist clients in their applications for naturalization, your CRM may be able to let you know when they are scheduled to become eligible to apply, and prompt you to send a follow up message to the client with the required information, questions, document requests and more. Ideally, you should send such a follow-up with enough time for the client to gather the necessary documents and file on time.

Key Features and Benefits to Look for in a Legal CRM

There are many benefits to using a CRM for law firms, assuming you select the right application for your practice area. Know that a simple repository for client contact information is not enough to generate office-wide efficiency gains. You will see better results with a legal CRM that incorporates automation, client communication, case management software integration, and reporting. 

Automated Lead Tracking to Improve Conversion Rates

Automated lead tracking records correspondence with prospective immigration clients. The resulting data describes how prospects move through the conversion process. A good CRM for lawyers should provide a clear overview of leads, with dashboards for tracking contact information, communication history, and conversion stages. 

You can use the information to improve the timing and content of your follow-ups. For example, shortening the conversion timeline by addressing common questions in the first follow-up. Your reporting can then show you whether this change improves results. From there, keep testing optimizations to maximize your conversion rate. 

Automated lead tracking also reveals process gaps that create missed opportunities. As your team refines processes and organizes lead follow-up, conversions will increase. 

Centralized Client Data for Improved Organization

Look for a legal CRM that can handle the client journey beyond lead management. Once your leads become clients, the CRM should also be a repository for client information, case details, and communication history. Ideally, the system is secure and searchable. Productivity and efficiency gains result because information is automatically organized, and team members can find information quickly.

Built-in Communication Tools for Streamlined Communication

Built-in communication tools, such as a client portal, can streamline your outreach efforts by keeping team members working within one application. Even a CRM for small law firms should be able to send emails and text messages. This feature makes follow-up easy and fosters quick, personalized interactions that can convert leads into clients.  

Using a CRM system can help you keep your client’s options mapped out so you can reach out to them when it’s time to take the next step in their immigration journey. If you have a CRM that has immigration forms integrated into it, you can follow up with your clients and send the forms corresponding to the next status they’re eligible for right with the follow up so they can start the process right away. 

Immigration law is highly relationship-oriented. By following up with your clients regularly and keeping them up to date (even when there isn’t a big update or action needed), you show that you are committed to their success in the long term and that you see your relationship with them as more than a transaction.

Automated Workflows for Increased Efficiency

Automation creates efficiency and improves results. Look for legal CRM software that captures leads automatically from your website or chatbot, records the data, assigns follow-up tasks to team members, and sends reminders. These workflows ensure no lead is overlooked. 

Automating these tasks with technology also keeps team members fresh and focused on business development, intake meetings, and client communication. 

Integrations With Case Management Software

Seamless integration between your law firm CRM and your immigration case management software saves time and improves accurate record-keeping. When your legal CRM syncs with immigration case management systems, e-filing platforms, and accounting software, your team can operate with one data set. You can avoid manual, error-prone processes such as retyping information into a second platform or updating data in multiple places.

Reporting & Analytics for Business Insights

The best CRM software for law firms provides critical business insights via reporting and analytics. Comprehensive analytics can answer these important questions: 

1. Which marketing efforts are working, and which are not? 
2. Are some lead sources producing better clients than others? 
3. Are leads dropping out of the conversion process? If so, where?
4. Do we have the staff to manage cases coming through the pipeline?
5. Are we producing positive outcomes for our clients?
6. Is the firm growing? 
7. Is the firm profitable? 

CRM-generated reports offer valuable insights into case management, marketing performance, and financial health. They help you track ongoing cases, adjust outreach strategies, and refine marketing based on real data. By analyzing client acquisition trends and conversion rates, reports reveal what’s working and where to improve. 

Additionally, profitability reports assess whether you’re bringing in enough clients and guiding decisions on rate adjustments, staffing, and overall financial strategy.

Choosing the Right CRM for Your Law Firm

Beyond the feature set, there are other considerations when choosing an immigration CRM. Ease of use, scalability, and security are important, as is the application's intended niche—you will realize more efficiency gains by selecting a system tailored to your practice area. 

1. Ease of use: The right application is intuitive. Ideally, the CRM provider will offer free training, but your team should be able to navigate the software without excessive instruction. 
2. Scalability: The best CRM for small law firms is the one that scales with your business. These are usually cloud-based systems that don't limit the clients or cases you can track. 
3. Security: Bank-grade encryption and secure, distributed infrastructure are necessary. The best applications will have continuous monitoring, automated data backups, and failover processes. 
4. Tailored for immigration law: General CRMs may have fewer security protocols than law firm CRMs. They will not integrate as thoroughly with your case management system. On the other hand, immigration CRMs can optimize your intake process by converting a lead record into a client record seamlessly. You then have a full, centralized history of that client from first communication to successful case completion. 

Immigration CRM vs. Generic CRMs

While general CRMs like Salesforce offer broad functionality, they often lack the industry-specific tools immigration lawyers need. Docketwise, designed specifically for immigration law firms, goes beyond case management by offering CRM capabilities tailored to immigration practices.

An immigration-specific CRM streamlines lead management by:

• Capturing leads from multiple sources, including website forms, referrals, and chat integrations
• Tracking follow-ups based on immigration timelines, ensuring no missed deadlines
• Categorizing leads by status (e.g., scheduled consultation, awaiting documents, not ready yet) for better pipeline visibility
• Converting leads into active cases once representation begins, seamlessly integrating intake with case management

By using a CRM tailored for immigration law, firms can better organize their lead pipeline, improve client communication, and ensure timely follow-ups critical to the immigration process.

6 Steps for CRM Adoption in a Law Firm

If your team is ready to deploy a CRM, planning the selection and rollout process is the next step. The six-step action plan below can guide you. 

1. Assess Needs and Set Goals

Start by assessing your firm's needs. You might already know about inefficient processes that can be remedied with technology. It may also be helpful to ask your team about manual lead management and client management efforts.  

With a list of process issues a legal CRM can address, you can define related success metrics. Say your list includes error-prone manual lead tracking and cases that fall through the cracks. Your targeted metrics might be higher conversions, increased client retention, and improved case success rate.  

2. Plan Implementation and Prepare Data

With your top software choice in mind, get the support of key stakeholders—this may include team members who manage leads and clients, plus the firm's business decision makers. 

Once you have support for your choice, create a project team to lead the deployment. Depending on the size of your firm and existing client records, the team could be one person or several. Key action items include cleaning and migrating client and case data, scheduling demos and training, identifying necessary CRM customizations, and setting up user roles and permissions. 

3. Customize CRM to Fit Workflows

In this step, your project lead oversees CRM customization before deployment. Tasks will include configuring intake forms, setting up automation, and customizing case tracking. The lead will also establish user roles and permissions appropriate for your team so secure logins can be created. 

4. Train Staff and Roll Out Gradually

Hands-on training and a phased implementation plan follow. Conduct training sessions and note all questions and concerns. Reevaluate the customizations and adjust them if necessary.

When it's time for implementation, begin with core features. Phase in more features as you realize efficiency gains and the team gets comfortable with the new system. Remember to track progress on your identified success metrics. 

6. Monitor, Optimize, and Improve

Stay in close contact with your team to monitor CRM usage and identify challenges. Workflows and automation may require some adjustment over time to suit the way your firm operates. The more your team uses the new system, the easier it is to identify and implement optimizations that deliver quantifiable results. 

Docketwise is the Best CRM for Immigration Law Firms

General CRMs may not fully deliver for successful immigration law firms—they can be difficult to configure for case tracking and lawyer-specific workflows. 

Docketwise is designed for the work you do—it incorporates the best CRM software for law firms, plus a full library of immigration forms, easy-to-use client questionnaires, and industry-leading API integrations. As the #1-rated case management software for immigration law, Docketwise is committed to helping you stay current on immigration cases, communicate with clients, and grow your immigration law firm with these key features: 

• Lead and case management: Collect leads automatically from your website or chatbot. The lead's contact information is saved to Docketwise instantly. If the lead converts, Docketwise uses the lead information to create a client record—which then stores communication records, filing information, and more. 
• Client communication: Send emails directly from Docketwise. Those communications are automatically tracked within the lead or client record.  
• Workflow automation: Create follow-up reminders so no communication or document management task gets overlooked. 

Docketwise is the complete immigration client management platform. Learn more about how Docketwise can create efficiencies and improve service levels by scheduling a demo today.

Law school provides little in the way of education concerning the managerial and business side of legal practice. One result is that when immigration lawyers want to eventually launch their own practice, many get stuck.

Starting and running an immigration law firm is, in the most basic sense, starting and running a business. And with that comes the need for guidance, mentorship, and the right attitude to help you thrive in a competitive field. Having the appetite to take risks, approaching situations from a perspective of learning, seeing opportunities in challenging situations, and overcoming self-limiting beliefs are all part of a mindset for success.

In this article we’ll look into four important business mindsets immigration lawyers should have to successfully run or grow their firms that law schools don't teach.

1. Expect failure and learn to reflect on it

The word “failure” can sound scary. Thinking about the possibility of “failing” in the immigration law context immediately brings to mind a worst-case scenario where your client finds themselves having to appeal a decision, face a visa denial for an employee they’re expecting, in removal proceedings, etc.

But this isn’t the only way immigration lawyers can “fail” in their practice - you can also fail in ways that won’t hurt your clients but can teach you something about your business. You may be “failing” if you’re struggling to bring in enough clients, or if you can’t get clients with specific types of cases you’re trying to add to your practice. You might land a client for their H-1B but then “fail” to have them come back to you for their Green Card application. You might spend thousands of dollars on a marketing campaign and “fail” to see any return on your investment.

When facing failures, there are two ways you can react:

• Beat yourself up and pick yourself apart regarding everything you did wrong and adopt a negative outlook about the future, or
• See failure as a learning opportunity that allows you to reflect on what may need to change to achieve a better outcome moving forward.

Failure, big or small, is part of being an entrepreneur. The better prepared you are to face it, the better off you will be in moving forward. To prepare yourself for failure without being paralyzed by constantly expecting things to go wrong, adopt these habits:

• Stay close to your support system, personally and professionally. Not only will this help you maintain a sense of belonging, but it can also help you see things more clearly when you’re having doubts or facing a challenge. Reaching out to mentors from school or an old job, or even connecting with other lawyers in a Facebook Group can help you share your concerns and feel less overwhelmed. On the other hand, staying connected with friends and family over things not related to your work can help you maintain a sense of balance.
• Evaluate failure objectively. A setback in your legal practice is not a reflection of how worthy you are of success or your innate value as a person. At the same time, reflecting on whether a setback opens up a new opportunity or is a wake-up call to make changes can also help you see things differently. Instead of dwelling on what went wrong, focus on what’s next and start taking steps to move forward.
• Take care of yourself. Immigration law is a complex, mentally challenging practice that demands high levels of effort and probably produces high levels of stress for most lawyers. Add to that the responsibilities of running your own firm and, if you’re not making a conscious effort to stay balanced, you risk burnout. Keeping yourself balanced could entail something small, like going for your favorite coffee or tea, taking a short walk outside, exercising, meditating, leisure reading or audiobook listening, catching up with a friend, and the like. The important thing is to make room for the things that help you clear your head. Self-care actions can help you keep your stress levels in check, which is good for you and your clients.

2. Cultivate Resilience

In the same way in which legal education largely focuses on the application of rules and procedures, business education often focuses on how to achieve the best results and maximize your firm’s performance and rate of success. But what we’ve seen in the past two years is that systems are fragile, and the environments where we work can be unpredictable.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lawyers in the immigration field faced extended closures of USCIS field offices, embassies and consulates abroad, and overnight changes in DHS regulation. There are always things that are outside of your control, but there are times, like during the pandemic, where the key to success is on how well you can work around challenges and bounce back. For example, think about what happened at your firm when offices were forced to close in the spring of 2020. How did you communicate with your clients? How quickly were you able to be up and running from the home environment? How much would you say you struggle to adapt to a new working environment, not only in terms of workspace, but also in adjusting to the changes in processing times?

When so much is out of your control, shift your focus from performance to resilience. Think of resilience as “the capacity to absorb stress, recover critical functionality, and thrive in altered circumstances”. In other words, how do you keep going when the waters are at their roughest? How do you make your firm more resilient?

• Look for opportunities in challenging situations. This could be offering services in a new immigration category, teaming up with another lawyer for referrals that can keep the client flow going.
• Consider change a constant as opposed to an inconvenience. Accepting that change is a given and that innovating in your practice can consistently help you create opportunities and adjust to unexpected circumstances when they occur. For example, it was most likely easier for a firm to adjust to closing their office in the pandemic if they had multiple ways to communicate with their clients (email, messaging, social media, etc.) than if they typically communicated with clients by phone calls only.
• Look forward. Think about the changes and adjustments you are putting in place during a crisis that will help you be better off in the future and how they will help you improve your practice in the long term. Resilience comes from embracing challenges as a learning opportunity and being open to what the circumstances you’re in allow you to learn.

You can’t control other people’s actions, and you certainly can’t control the pace at which USCIS works or the decisions DHS makes. Think about how your firm will operate sustainably through changing circumstances and how the resilience you build through your daily actions can help your firm grow and sustain itself in the long term.

3. Take risks, even if they scare you

Being a lawyer, especially an immigration lawyer, probably means you’re more risk-averse than the average entrepreneur. But calculated risks, and the understanding that taking risks is part of growth, can expand your perspective on what’s possible for your law firm.

For many, fear of risk is closely tied to fear of failure out of the belief that the greater the risk, the greater the possibility of failure. Cultivating a growth mindset can help you overcome, even if only to an extent, your fear of risks.Taking a risk could look like starting a social media campaign on TikTok to reach new potential family immigration clients despite not feeling comfortable on camera, or spending thousands of dollars to go to a conference in your specific business immigration industry niche without knowing whether it's going to be worth it. Without those risky moves, you can't grow.

Yes, you might feel a bit embarrassed about the idea of being on TikTok, but if your video gets 10,000 views and you land a few new clients, might it be worth it? If you spend $1,500 on an industry conference and land a new small corporate client that wants you to handle all their H-1B visas and Green Cards, might that be worth it? Risk is important for growth!

Everyone that you on social media who seems effortlessly confident had a first video or post that they were scared to post at the time, and everyone who confidently walks around conferences and knows everyone went to their first conference years ago and knew no one.

Everybody starts somewhere, and there’s no better day than today.

4. Reach out to customers

Getting clients through word of mouth is great, and many immigration lawyers have built substantial practices that way. But if you want more than that, it's important to realize that you have to reach out to your prospective clients proactively as well, even if the thought of it feels scary or uncomfortable. There are lots of ways to get started, like contacting your existing network and community to collect email addresses through free valuable content, utilizing an email campaign or newsletter, speaking at industry events, and more.

If you want to work with a high volume employment immigration client, for example, it’s unlikely that they will reach out to you randomly, like through a Google search. Which means if you want that kind of client, you will likely have to figure out a way to reach out personally. This might include attending networking events (virtually or in-person) the client might be attending, sharing valuable content targeting the client on more professional social media platforms like LinkedIn, and showcasing your results to establish yourself as an effective immigration lawyer any other way you can.

Let Docketwise simplify your immigration case management so you can focus on growth

We’ve focused a lot on the importance of developing a mindset for growth that focuses on adapting to change, reflecting on what can be improved, and moving forward. If you’re committed to applying these mindset tips and growing as a professional each day, you need a system to manage your cases that can be a constant, reliable go-to in the midst of any changes.

Enter: Docketwise.

Thanks to our client relationship management tools that consolidate all client information and communication, case management tools that streamline form-filling, case status, billing, and communication, and more, you can focus your energy on growing your immigration law practice.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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While you’re in law school, there are essentially two routes laid out for your law firm career path: joining an established law firm, or starting your own. For this discussion, let’s leave aside other practice environments such as government employment or the non-profit sector. Typically, most lawyers start with an internship in a firm to gain experience and get an idea of the niche they want to specialize in - including immigration. After that comes the decision to either stay in the law firm environment or go off on their own.

If you do decide to start your own firm, regardless of your level of experience, approaching your immigration law firm venture with the right business mindset is extremely important to your future success. That’s our focus in this article.

How can you benefit from working with a mentor? How can you grow by focusing on a niche? How can you succeed by using marketing to give value to your clients? What is the importance of always being creative? And why is it worth investing in yourself and your business, even if you can’t see the benefits right away?

Most law schools won’t teach you these business mindset traits, but they can make a significant difference in how things play out, so let’s dive in.

1. You don't have to know everything before starting your immigration firm - leverage mentors instead.

Mentors are a fast track to lessons and experience that otherwise may take years, or decades, to learn on your own, so find and leverage a good mentor or mentors as you get started and throughout your career.

State bar associations have seen an increased interest in mentorship programs for lawyers, and veteran lawyers see them as an opportunity to continue building a sense of connection to the profession as it evolves. “What you are going to learn is what I had to learn the hard way, both professionally and personally”, says Doug Ashworth, a coordinator of the State Bar of Georgia’s mentoring program.

A mentor can help you find opportunities in the profession, apply their lessons and experiences while you are building your own career, develop your leadership skills, and even share your own knowledge in areas where your mentor may need help, like new technology skills.

Look for a mentor who has weathered changes and is enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge and experiences with you. There’s no shortage of immigration policy changes today, and mentors are a great way to learn the professional expectations of everyday practice, whether you’re just getting started with your own firm or have been running a practice for some time and want to take things to the next level.

2. Find a niche in immigration law and focus on it.

It’s tempting as a new immigration lawyer to think that it would be better to offer the greatest possible variety of services to appeal to a bigger client base, but it may actually be more effective and growth-oriented to build your knowledge and experience in a market within a specific niche within immigration law, especially if you’re starting out as a solo practitioner or very small practice. To decide on your niche, think about your goals and personal values, including the workload you want to have, the type of cases you want to deal with, and whether there are agencies or departments tied to the immigration system that you’d rather (or rather not) work with, such as the Department of Labor, or the immigration court system.

And if you’re concerned about cornering yourself into just a handful of potential clients, don’t be - there are two ways in which having a niche is a net positive in the immigration law field:

• Immigration law is a federal practice, so you can always take clients from around the US or even from overseas which makes your potential client pool potentially larger than it may seem. Thanks to the availability of virtual tech tools, you can have virtual consultations with prospective clients anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.
• When you are an expert in a specific area of immigration law, you can also build your client base through referrals. Fellow lawyers who don’t work in that particular niche of immigration may choose to partner with you or simply refer clients to you, and former clients who’ve seen success with you may refer your services to other potential clients they know.

Other than working with clients and building a track record of success in your niche, you establish yourself as an expert by sharing what you know consistently to an online audience.

3. Share your immigration expertise through marketing, and don’t expect anything in return.

Share your knowledge as much as you can through actionable content that people can understand and connect to. The actionable content could be articles in a blog or newsletter, posts, comments, or livestreaming on a social network, a presentation at a community event or a guest appearance on a podcast. Considering all the different (and often free) platforms available nowadays, sharing what you know is easier than ever.

Why is this so important? Not only will a consistent and clear content presence on the internet make you easier to find for potential clients who search for answers that you may have (e.g., “what are the best visa options for chess masters?”), it will also help you establish yourself as an attorney who is committed to helping people, as an expert in your niche, and as a person who has your clients’ best interests at heart.

4. Be creative and take opportunities to innovate, risky as they may be.

2020 and 2021 saw lockdowns, border closures, executive orders, travel bans and restrictions, and of course, COVID. With all of those challenges, many at once, some immigration lawyers questioned whether they would be able to work at all and make it through this time. But with these lockdowns and closures came a shift to a more online-based business model, and many lawyers started to find new opportunities.

From litigation against the federal government due to the restrictions affecting clients to virtual consultations to reach new clients, these unexpected changes opened new ways for many immigration lawyers to survive, and in some cases thrive.

So if you’re a new immigration lawyer, or even an experienced one, approach your work and the situations that surround it with creativity and a mindset focused on seeing opportunities that allow you to withstand challenges as you go. Because the skills you will need to succeed as a lawyer go beyond knowing statutes and regulations - your law firm is also a business, and finding solutions to market challenges, working well with changed circumstances, and handling pressure in a way that lets your creative problem solving take shape in practice, is key to success.

5. Investing in your immigration law firm today is an investment in your success tomorrow

According to the Census Bureau, 99% of businesses in the US are small businesses, and about two-thirds of all jobs are in small businesses. But small businesses often have small budgets, which makes it hard to make investments in the business and lose money today even if those investments promise greater returns and success in the future.

But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Yes, it can be hard to look at the cost of, say, new tech tools that can help your business grow when you’re getting started or when you’ve been chugging along at a certain pace and you can’t even imagine that level of growth yet. It can be hard to justify adding thousands to your marketing budget when that means thousands less in your pocket at the end of each month. It may seem like a bad idea to hire contractors or freelancers to help you with something you can do today in your business, though you know that keeps you from spending your time getting more clients.

But the time you could save by hiring a freelance or full-time staff member to help with administrative tasks, or the efficient management of your caseload with a tech tool is all but guaranteed to make the investment worth it. Investing in your business, and yourself as a business owner, can help give you back the time, and often peace of mind, to work on expanding your client base, building a larger following, and growing your business.

Use Docketwise to streamline the rest of your immigration practice

When you’re getting started, and as your immigration law firm grows, streamlining your caseload and keeping each of your clients’ timelines in one place is key. Docketwise can help you streamline and digitize your practice so that you can spend more of your time working on your immigration law firm, not in it, and applying your legal knowledge to achieve the most positive outcome possible for your clients.

If you want to learn more about how Docketwise can help you streamline your practice — from client questionnaires to form-filling to case management and more — schedule a demo to talk to one of our team members.

And don’t forget to sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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