Answering Legal Customer Case Study: Law Offices Of Lonny Fish

Before getting started with Answering Legal five years ago, attorney Lonny Fish saw his firm constantly held back by phone answering issues. He was seeing members of his staff not handling calls correctly, losing track of messages and all too often missing out on new clients by sending them to his voicemail.

If you manage a small legal practice of your own, we’re guessing you can relate to Fish’s struggle. No lawyer can be expected to answer the phone 24/7, and if you have limited staff to help you with fielding calls, you’ll frequently end up neglecting new prospects and existing clients.

Fortunately for Fish and many other solo practitioners out there, Answering Legal is available to provide law firms with highly affordable 24/7 phone answering coverage. In this customer case study, we’ll explain how our service has helped the Law Offices of Lonny Fish improve upon its lead capturing process, and how our team works to meet the unique needs of all solo attorneys.

How Lonny Fish Utilizes Our Receptionist Team

Law firms that sign up with Answering Legal have access to our virtual receptionist team all day and all night long. This means that attorneys like Fish have a lot of options in how they have our service handle their incoming calls.

These options include:

• Having our receptionists pick up calls after they go unanswered for a certain number of rings.
• Having our receptionists pick up calls during certain predetermined time periods each day.
• Having our receptionists pick up all of your firm’s incoming calls.

The Law Offices of Lonny Fish decided to use the third mentioned option and have Answering Legal essentially take on the role of their full-time receptionist. Our service provides a highly trained virtual receptionist to speak with everyone of Fish’s callers, and keeps him in the loop whenever new client opportunities arise.

“If Answering Legal nets one lead a month, they more than pay for themselves,” Fish said. “There are a hundred people who do exactly what I do in my field, so if I don’t pick up the phone, I’ll lose that lead to someone else. Not only have they been helpful in netting me new clients, but they’ve also helped me retain current clients. I can manage my quality control more easily.”

Whenever a new prospect reaches out to Fish’s firm, we put the caller on hold and contact him to see if he wants to speak with the prospect in real time. In cases where Fish says he is available, we quickly transfer the caller over to his line. In cases where Fish is unavailable, our receptionists are able to take the prospect through a full legal intake process. They will then send over all of the info collected during the intake to Fish via text and email message.

Why Lonny Fish Has Continued Using Our Service

Since the time he began his free trial with Answering Legal over five years ago, Fish hasn’t felt the need to look for another phone answering service. Our receptionist team has become an essential part of his practice, and has helped him overcome some of his biggest challenges as a solo attorney.

“Answering Legal works best for my personality,” Fish said. “I’m not the most organized of people, so having my calls and messages organized in the way Answering Legal does is very helpful”.

Often being a great manager means knowing when to reach out for help. Fish has smartly used the advanced message taking capabilities of our virtual receptionist team to help him stay on top of everything going on with his law firm. Our service makes all of his callers’ messages available for viewing right from his smartphone. All he needs to do is check his texts or look at his email inbox.

All messages sent by our service are properly labeled, and include detailed information on what exactly the caller was reaching out about. This makes it easy for attorneys like Fish to determine which of their messages require urgent attention and which messages can wait till later to be addressed.

You’re probably wondering if a company like Answering Legal actually fits within a solo practice’s budget. Well, one of the great things about our service is that we work closely with firms to develop customized minute plans that will accommodate both their call volume and budgetary needs. There are never any unexpected charges, and you’ll always have a strong idea of what your bill will look like each month. Typically solo firms end up paying much less for our service than they would for a full-time in-office receptionist.

“At our height, we spent about $800 per month,” Fish said. “Now that my call volume is down significantly, we have a different rate. (The owner) Rob worked that out with me.”

Throughout 2020, Answering Legal has offered lower rates for firm’s that have seen a significant decrease in calls due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our management staff is always available to speak with our customers, and discuss pricing options. This is one of the biggest reasons we have attorneys like Lonny Fish continue to use us for over half-a-decade. We know communication and availability are both very important to solo lawyers, who don’t have much time to waste.

If you’re ready to check out Answering Legal for yourself, fill out this form or call us at (631)686-9700 to get started with a 7-day free trial.

You can also check out more of our case studies below:

• The Fishman Firm
• Brian D. Perskin & Associates P.C.
• Dale Carson Law
• Palumbo & Associates
• Smith & Eulo Law Firm
• Zirkin & Schmerling Law

All quotes from Lonny Fish in this blog post were collected via Clutch B2B Ratings & Reviews.