Tough times lay ahead for a lot of business owners and their clients. Some clients may be behind on payments due to the current economic situation, leaving business owners struggling with billing collections. These last few months have posed a burden on us all. How can you and your business survive?
In this episode, we speak with Elizabeth Miller, Owner and Founder of Managing the Business of Practicing Law(R), which helps solo, small and mid-size law firms handle administrative matters, including billing time, collection procedures and a host of other business functions.
If you are looking for a solution to help streamline your billing processes and get paid, then this is the episode for you.
In this episode, Elizabeth and I discuss:
How delay in billing creates calamity
Ways to structure effective retainer agreements
Smoothing out the “billing edges”
Automating retainer replenishments in software
Flexibility in client billing
Ethical and expedient ways to raise hourly rates
Testing the waters to ensure clients have the ability to pay
Running interference between clients and attorneys when collecting fees
Extracting lawyers from billing to improve the collections process
To contact Elizabeth:
Email – liz.managementconsultant@gmail.com
Website – https:// www.fromlawyertolawfirm.com
Telephone – 813-340-9569
To learn more about From Lawyer to Law Firm, visit Liz’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lawfirmadmin/
Elizabeth’s Bio
Elizabeth Miller. MBA is an independent law firm administrator and best-selling co-author of “From Lawyer to Law Firm – How to Manage a Successful Law Business”. Her book was published on May 11, 2017 and was #4 on the best seller list by May 23, 2017.
Elizabeth Miller has been working with the legal profession for over 40 years. She started her career in NYC as a paralegal and relocated to Tampa, Florida with her husband in 1985. After working a few years as a paralegal, she opened a paralegal business contracting paralegal work with attorneys, especially trial attorneys.
In 1994 she transitioned her career into law office administration when one of her clients from her paralegal business needed an on-staff office manager. She subsequently earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Eckerd College in 2007, with a major in business administration and a minor in finance. She earned her 4 year degree in 2 years and 4 months with no prior college credit while working full-time and taking care of her disabled husband. She immediately pursued in an MBA with a specialty in finance which she earned in June 2009.
She continued working as a law firm administrator for several years, before opening her business named after her best seller – From Lawyer to Law Firm. Since December, 2015, Liz has been working as an independent law firm administrator for solo, small and a few medium size firms on a retainer basis providing them with the administrative services they need but cannot afford to pay a full-time on staff administrator to handle. This includes everything from vetting, hiring, staff management, performance reviews, systematizing processes, billing, collections, trust account management and reconciliation in accordance with Bar guidelines, financial analysis and management of cash flow including annual and monthly budgeting, client development and marketing among other duties.