Jared Correia Talks Broken Workflows, Bad Business Decisions & AI-Enhanced Intake Systems

Welcome to Episode 20 of The Legal Intake Experts podcast! For more than a decade, Answering Legal has helped growing law firms ensure they never miss a chance to connect with new leads. Now, we’re pulling back the curtain to share our best strategies for strengthening your intake process and turning more callers into clients.

Huge news! The Legal Intake Experts is now officially part of the Legal Broadcasting Company family, and to celebrate, we welcome LBC Co-Founder Jared Correia as a guest host. As with any podcast featuring Jared, this conversation goes off the rails in a hurry, as the host share memories of watching Optimus Prime's demise, the Rugrats Chanukah special and the TV show "Revolution" (which may or may not have been terrible, depending on which expert you ask).

Eventually, the crew gets back on track, and discusses the intake and workflow mistakes that quietly cost law firms money, the problems that come from marketing without a CRM in place and the flawed processes attorneys use to select new tech solutions.

This one is half intake masterclass, half doomsday scenario planning, and fully worth your time.

Guest Info:

Jared Correia — Legal industry consultant (Red Cave Legal Consulting), podcaster, and co-founder of the Legal Broadcasting Company.

Learn more about the Legal Broadcasting Company here!

Topics Covered:

-The Legal Intake Experts move to the Legal Broadcasting Company network

-The two most common intake killers: unfinished ("dangling") workflows and zero remarketing

-Mapping every workflow to its logical conclusion — including lost leads -Firms that pay for digital marketing but have no CRM — and why that’s a two-sided failure

-Why lawyers are bad at vetting technology (price-as-quality, buying on a colleague’s say-so)

-"Vibing" your intake: feeding real leads, spreadsheets, and email data into AI

People & Resources Mentioned:

-Legal Late Night — Jared's podcast on the Legal Broadcasting Company

-Clio — legal CRM / practice management

-Claude & Cowork — AI tools referenced for intake and workflow building

-Gyi Tsakalakis (AttorneySync), Conrad Saam (Mockingbird Marketing), Kevin Daisey (Array Digital), Delisi Friday (First Call Friday) — LinkedIn regulars referenced

The Legal Intake Experts is part of the Answering Legal podcast network. Interested in learning more about Answering Legal? Click here to learn more about 400 minute free trial!

Check out the previous episode of The Legal Intake Experts here!

This podcast is produced and edited by Joe Galotti. You can reach Joe via email at [email protected].

Episode Transcript:

Nick Werker (Co-Host)

We are back once again on the Legal Intake Experts podcast presented by Answering Legal. I am Nick Werker. I have to say, I have to say that I don't think producer Joe is confident in uh my ability to carry an episode by myself uh because he created this podcast with Tony. So he's like we need another co-host. And then um we have another guest host today because Joe also doesn't believe in you.

Tony Prieto (Co-Host)

This was not a surprise. This was a long time coming. We've got Jared Correia here. Uh host of the Legal Late Night podcast.

Jared Correia (Guest Host)

Hello. Maybe Joe doesn't believe in me. Did everybody consider that?

Nick Werker

You are more of a non-belief in terms of like the tooth fairy. Like I don't believe that you actually exist like cuz you're like a pickle. You know what I mean? Like you take many forms.

Tony Prieto

Pickle Jared's the real Jared.

Jared Correia

The pickle is the real me. Yes.

Nick Werker

Yeah. You're more like the seeing is believing. Joe doesn't have like uh particular faith or confidence in me and Tony.

Jared Correia

I'm like baby pigeons. Have you ever seen a baby pigeon before?

Nick Werker

No, but I did recently hear that the history of pigeons is apparently heartbreaking and and humans abandon them.

Jared Correia

We just brought it down a level. Now I’m sad.

Tony Prieto

Well, we brought them over from Europe, yes.

Nick Werker

Yes. I don't think you need much of an introduction. Obviously, honestly, Tony probably knows the origins of pigeons, but we're going to share some news. The news is that the Legal Intake Experts is now part of a new podcast network which was co-founded by our good friend Jared. It's called the Legal Broadcasting Company. I will talk about the origin of how I came to understand the Legal Broadcasting Company for comedy's sake in a little bit. But we're really excited to be a part of it because we love Jared. We believe in everything that he does and we like podcasting a lot and there is probably no other network out there that would have the ridiculous combination of Tony and me and our thumbnails other than Jared.

Jared Correia

That was that was a selling point for me honestly. What sold me was like when you guys were the Mario brothers on a thumbnail.

Nick Werker

I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.

Jared Correia

Really?

Nick Werker

Yeah.

Jared Correia

Are you going to do a whole series of video game characters?

Tony Prieto

The thumbnails are the brainchild of our producer Joe and our uh wonderful designer Tyler and they are the highlight of Tyler's day whenever he gets to make us look ridiculous. So.

Jared Correia

Tyler, shouts to you. And we're very excited to have you on the network. We're adding shows constantly and we kind of want it to be like a clearing house for good legal content.

Tony Prieto

Speaking of networks, uh we always have an icebreaker question on the show. Um so for today, uh the icebreaker question is when you were growing up, what was your go-to TV network and what was your favorite show on that network? Jared, you're the guest you can start.

Jared Correia

Through the seas of time. I have trouble remembering like what networks there were back in the day, but I appreciate that you're even referring to a network, which obviously doesn't exist anymore because now we're in the streaming wars. My favorite show undoubtedly when I was a child was Transformers and I just talked about this on my podcast. Transformers was huge in ' 84, 85, 86, 87. And they came out with a movie in 1986 where within 20 minutes like they killed off all the characters so they created a whole new line of toys. And so they're re-releasing the movie and they're doing all kinds of fan festivals and they're calling it the apology tour. Like I remember this when I was a kid like children were like weeping in the theater. Optimus Prime had died for real. And you know looking back on it was actually pretty ballsy. It was a great movie. I still love the Transformers movie but the show was great. I would watch the show religiously. What network was it on? Oh my god. Maybe like USA. Can I Google this while we talk?

Tony Prieto

Honestly, I was looking for it while you were describing it and I can't dig that up.

Nick Werker

They buried that.

Jared Correia

Can I tell you guys when I was like when I was I was watching Transformers when I was like eight maybe maybe younger maybe like seven and I watched it on an old TV with a knob to turn the channels and it was either on four, six or eight because those are the only channels that came in without snow. That's how old I am. I loved any 80s like cartoon toy product placement. My favorite cartoons by far.

Tony Prieto

That's the power of Star Wars, right? Sell toys

Jared Correia

Right. Star Wars was the first big one and they started doing it for the shows. Yes. It's a whole interesting history behind that. But that's mine. I love I still love Transformers. They're great.

Nick Werker

I'm so ambushed by this question, but I…

Tony Prieto

We get the scripts ahead of time. You could have read this.

Nick Werker

I don’t read them. You know this. You know I don’t read them.

Tony Prieto

I read them.

Nick Werker

Well you are a much more prepared person than me. I don't read them. Uh I am going to go with because I was just talking about my grandmother who I love very much. I'm going with Rugrats.

Jared Correia

Oh. Good pick

Nick Werker

And I love Rugrats because it was… I don't know like if it doesn't really hold up if you watch Rugrats as an adult you're like wow this is really like a lot like a lot but very recently because my wife is pregnant I was talking about it must have been over the holidays where I was like, "Oh, I want to watch the the Rugrats Hanukkah episode with my kid when he's born, like next year for Hanukkah." And she's like, "I've never seen it." And so I play it for her. And my grandmother, who is an elderly Jewish woman, has also never seen it. And I showed it to her and she cried laughing for the entirety of the 12 minutes that apparently a Rugrats episode is because my grandfather or my late grandfather, however you describe people who are no longer alive, was also from like Poland and so the the grandpa in the show has a Polish accent or like a nondescript Eastern European accent.

Tony Prieto

That’s right.

Nick Werker

Oh, my grandmother was crying laughing at everything they said. Uh, I'm going Rugrats. I think they covered a lot and I can't pick Spongebob because like then you just think that I'm lying. But the the real answer is Spongebob.

Jared Correia

Just to close the loop, Transformers was not actually on any specific network. It was sold directly to local TV affiliates. So depending on where you were in the country, you'd get like the Pittsburgh channel or the Philadelphia channel or whatever. Rugrats was great. Tommy Pickles, iconic character. Um that's an excellent pick. Go ahead, Tony.

Nick Werker

Thank you.

Tony Prieto

Yeah, I'm going to go with uh something I love bad television. Um I have wasted many many hours of my life watching bad TV shows and it comes from my mom who also loves bad TV shows. And so one of the things that we used to do as a family back when we they had, you know, when my kid my parents had network cable, uh we would sit down and watch a new show that would come out. And in the like early 2010s, there was this run of sci-fi TV shows that had stupid budgets, uh like Terra Nova, stuff like that. But my favorite was one called Revolution, which is a post-apocalyptic after like power goes out. Um, awful, terrible show. I went back and rewatched it. Still sucks. However…

Nick Werker

Miles Matheson will not be talked about in this manner on this episode.

Tony Prieto

It stars it stars Billy Burke, who plays people might remember as the father of uh, Bella in Twilight. One of my favorite actors. He does an incredible job on the show.

Jared Correia

Tony, this is a deep cut, my friend.

Nick Werker

This show is amazing.

Tony Prieto

It's a deep cut.

Jared Correia

I've never seen the show. Never even heard of the show.

Tony Prieto

Don't waste your time. However…

Nick Werker

Yes, waste… This show is amazing.

Jared Correia

Wait, it's called Revolution?

Nick Werker

The guy who plays Gus Fring from uh Breaking Bad as one of like the evil generals.

Tony Prieto

Yes, it does have Giancarlo Esposito. Right after he dies on Breaking Bad. Spoiler alert. This was his next…

Jared Correia

What?

Tony Prieto

This was his next this was his this was his next role which is a real downstep. But, um…

Nick Werker

Why are you talking so badly… I love this show. We definitely had to of talked about this.

Tony Prieto

I love the show. I'm not saying that I don't love the show.

Nick Werker

I’m gonna watch it again.

Tony Prieto

I think it's on NBC. If anyone's ever… If NBC still exists, it was on NBC.

Jared Correia

Peacock. Peacock exists.

Nick Werker

Crazy. I still remember his name. The Miles Militia.

Tony Prieto

Miles Matheson.

Jared Correia

Yeah. I mean, this is I'm get I get the vibe. This is not dissimilar to like The Last of Us?

Tony Prieto

Yes.

Nick Werker

No, not yes.

Jared Correia

They're in like different different cities or like nations, but it's not like a mushroom apocalypse. It's electricity.

Nick Werker

I'm so upset right now that I we have danced around this topic for so I'm going to move on. So, I'm going to tell a story and then I'm going to let Tony ask a question to get us back on track. But one of the first times that I can remember doing a podcast with you, Jared, was I think we like had you on as a guest for our show, like the original podcast that we ever did, which is just interviewing people. And I remember asking like a very loaded question like, "What tech should lawyers be using for their firms?" And I expected you to be like, "Oh, you should use a CRM like Clio and you should do this for”... Excuse me. That was rude. Um Jared went on like a… I gotta find this because I just remembered this. He went on like 15 minute…

Jared Correia

Did I do a rant about…

Nick Werker

No, it wasn't a rant. You listed every available technology that was out there that people should be using. And I remember thinking to myself like am I going to have to learn all this?

Tony Prieto

You took the question to it logical extreme.

Jared Correia

I did. That sounds like me. I'm annoying.

Nick Werker

And I was just like, "Oh my god, this guy knows so much." And now we're gonna have to talk about this technology that I don't know anything about because he's got he's gone way past my capabilities. And so what is about to happen is Tony…

Jared Correia

Like I couldn't even tell honestly. Seems like you knew what you were doing.

Tony Prieto

The primary skill of a podcaster is a [ __ ] ability.

Jared Correia

Yeah, that's a good point.

Nick Werker

I am king [ __ ].

Jared Correia

Tell me more.

Nick Werker

Go ahead and ask Jared your question and see if you can uh replicate my confusion.

Tony Prieto

Yeah. So, focus this episode on, you know, the legal industry intake. Um, what are some of the biggest intake mistakes you see law firms making that could easily be solved by adopting a CRM system or similar technology?

Jared Correia

Look, I'm not going to do the I'm not going to do like 75 different technology platforms because one of the problems is there not that many like CRMs in the legal space that are specific to law firms. I mean, my biggest thing, okay, I got two things I've been talking about with people recently. One is like completing workflows, like dangling workflows, like hanging chads.

Tony Prieto

Hanging Chad was exactly what I was going to say.

Jared Correia

Well, I have so many people who are just like, "Hey, like I built this workflow." And I'm like, "Okay, what happens when it's over?" And they're like, "Oh, it's supposed to end." I'm like, "Yeah, it might have terminus points throughout." Like people would just be like, "Well, you know, I had a lead come in and I called them back." I'm like, "And then what happened?" And they're like, "I don't know what happened actually." Like something must have happened, but I don't know where that lead stands or anything about this. Um, and so I see that all the time throughout like different segments of workflows. So that's a that's a big one for me. Um, so I try to when I work with people, I try to be like, hey, let's be as thorough as possible. Let's map out every possible uh path this takes until its ultimate conclusion. And people don't like that. They don't want to do that. But that's one of the big ones that I see. The other one is like remarketing, honestly. Like I think part of it is like you do the intake but then sometimes you're not going to close somebody and if you don't close somebody like they fall into a black hole. But that person could come back around and cycle back through at some point. You know estate planning is a good example of this. People want to do estate planning when they fear for their lives. So if you're flying to like Ecuador for the first time, you're thinking like my plane could crash and then what would I do? But then you fly to Ecuador and you come back and you never follow up with your estate planning attorney and consequently your estate planning attorney never follows up with you. But if I'm an estate planning attorney and I contact you back through an automation or my newsletter or whatever like two months down the line and oh I got another trip. I'm flying now to or I'm going on a cruise for the first time. Cruise ships can sink. I might get the hantavirus. What should I do? That's when they're ready to buy. But people don't grease the skids and make it easy for them to buy. So those are like obviously that's a non-exhaustive list, but two conversations I've been having recently are like finalizing each segment of the workflow until the logical conclusion. This is a lost lead, does this turn somewhere else? And then the other thing is like remarketing. Almost nobody in the legal uh vertical remarks at all.

Tony Prieto

So uh a legitimate piece of advice and then a joke. For the first part for workflows. Um, I often draw out stuff that we're doing on a piece of paper. Use a whiteboard like a like old school like if you just have a whiteboard and you just draw it out, you will see everywhere that that workflow. And the second one you talked about estate planning and flights Ecuador. I'm now imagining uh, you know, the the the movie Alive with Ethan Hawke where they crash. Imagine that guy and the last scene as he's like as as they think they're going to die, he thinks, man, I really should have followed up with that estate planning attorney.

Jared Correia

Now you're inspiring all the estate planning attorneys out there. Like this is your commercial sequence. The last guy in Alive. Somebody's creeping up to you with a fork and it's like [ __ ] I should have got my will done.

Nick Werker

That's amazing. Oh my god.

Jared Correia

Yellowjackets.

Tony Prieto

Yellowjackets. Exactly. That's a more up-to-date version of that story.

Nick Werker

We could go reference for reference. This is bad. This is a not… This is a bad trio to have in a room.

Jared Correia

You got one, Nick?

Nick Werker

We could waste each other's time.

Jared Correia

Did you see they did an Alive remake on Netflix?

Tony Prieto

They did?

Jared Correia

It was like I think it was like a Spanish language cast or something.

Tony Prieto

That makes sense. I don't know why Ethan Hawke was a Uruguayan football player, but that's fine.

Jared Correia

I know. It's a little bit weird. He's got a lot of range.

Tony Prieto

He sure does.

Nick Werker

I have this weird uh phenomenon that's happened to me recently. So Tony and I have been doing this show for like seven months and we have progressively gotten like uh we started with advice on like uh how to follow up with phone calls. And all of this stuff has been predicated on you like having a CRM. There are so many law firms that don't have a CRM.

Jared Correia

It’s crazy

Nick Werker and Jared Correia

And don't even know what it is.

Jared Correia

Yes. Yes. I feel your pain.

Nick Werker

I'm talking to a law firm recently and I'm like, "What do you use?" Um, like say uh an inquiry comes in, how do you handle it? And he said, "Microsoft Teams." I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I'm like, "Is Microsoft Teams like a CRM?" And he said, "What's a CRM?" And I said, okay. Then I saw something recently, but I don't remember what it is. I truly don't remember what it is. And it might have been from you because you're like one of five people that I… There's five people on LinkedIn knows my algorithm. So So it's crazy. I log in. I see Gyi liked this. Gyi commented on this. Gyi, Gyi shared this that. Then it's you. Sometimes it'll be Conrad.

Jared Correia

Nice.

Nick Werker

Yeah, it's a couple of Delisi, Ron, uh Kevin from Array, and then like then it's the I have no idea where this stuff came from.

Jared Correia

The Fantastic Five.

Nick Werker

That's like the for you page on TikTok. Uh but I saw something about uh like a platform that you can use to get all your outdated stuff onto a CRM. I didn't inquire anything about that. I really should, but I we go so far down this thing of like, "Hey, this is how you can reach out to people who are calling you." But if you don't have a CRM, you have absolutely no idea how many times you spoke to somebody if they need a call. Like, how are you doing that?

Tony Prieto

Does that platform integrate with Rolodex?

Nick Werker

You're very funny

Tony Prieto

I think that's the level of technology we're working on right here.

Nick Werker

But that's probably what it is.

Jared Correia

The other piece of this that is really thought-provoking I think is I also run into a lot of law firms who use like they pay for advertising. So they have a digital marketing agency and they don't have a CRM. So I have two questions. First like why do you do that without having some kind of way to track how things are going? And two is why would I as a digital marketing agency owner let you do that? Like if I run that company, I'm like, "Hey, you need a CRM. I'll help you build it out." Like those are two scenarios that I can't fathom. I see that all the time. What a world we live in, gentlemen.

Tony Prieto

That's a failure on both ends of the relationship.

Jared Correia

I think so. I agree. Yeah.

Tony Prieto

Cuz how are you going to hold that person accountable? Obviously, from the lawyer's perspective, but like you said, I would not want to enter into that relationship where they could just turn on a dime and say, "Hey, this isn't working." And you say, "What do you mean? What are you talking about? Where what do you mean it's not working?"

Jared Correia

Right. We have no nobody nobody has any way to tell there's no transparency into anything that's going on. It's so problematic.

Nick Werker

You obviously deal with this. What do you do? Seriously, do because the answer is obviously, oh, I help them make a CRM, but how do you get all of their stuff? Do you just start fresh?

Jared Correia

As a consultant, the first thing I do is stick my head in the toilet. Then I towel off and return. You know, if somebody is like, so I would never get somebody who's like, I bought a… I hired a digital marketing agency and I don't have a CRM because I wouldn't let them do it. So I often get them in like the throws of I don't know what's going on. I paid X amount of money and nothing's happening. So I try to calmly say, hey, it's not too late. You want to keep working with this company? Maybe they're doing a good job. We need to get some transparency here, so you should adopt this software. Or if they're not willing to adopt the software, I'm like, "Hey, don't work with a digital marketing agency. Get your [ __ ] together first. Maybe do some content marketing. Maybe do some stuff where you're not getting paid." And it's particularly problematic because some people are running like Google ads and they don't even picking up the phone, which is crazy. So, it's wild out there. It's a jungle. I think like the problem with attorneys and I think a lot of small business owners is the way they make decisions is they hear from a colleague of theirs and they're like, "Oh, you know, like Ronnie down the hall was like, "These guys are great, so I just signed up." Like they lawyers do this [ __ ] all the time.

Tony Prieto

It’s old school.

Jared Correia

It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday at 3:35. Um, my best friend just told me this product's good, so I just bought it and then they might never use it for like three years. It is a wild dynamic. And I'm I'm I only work with lawyers, but I'm sure this happens with like CPAs and economists and all these other service-based industries, but there's almost like there's no there's no notion of, "Well, let me vet this." You know, like if I was going to buy a car, I'm not just walking into the line being like, "This one looks good.”

Tony Prieto

“My buddy said this Lambo's great."

Jared Correia

Yeah. That McLaren, I'll take that one. The green one.

Nick Werker

Thankfully, there's an institution that won't let you do that. So, I am not a consultant and I do have friends who start all these businesses and they'll come to me and the best of them are like, I have a business idea. What should I do? And I'll be able to like point you in a general direction. The worst of them will come to me and be like, well, I tried this. I tried that. It used to be this. It used to be this. It used to be that. And then I'm like, okay, well, why are you x amount of dollars in debt? Because they'll tell me like I'm in debt so I can't get a credit card and I can't and then they'll be like well I bought all this podcasting equipment to do a podcast and like it's just like the but we're so distrusting of salespeople.

Jared Correia

I think that’s part of it.

Nick Werker

So, like a salesperson will call you up with this totally viable uh pitch and be like, "Hey, for your law firm, I have a great solution for the price of like 50 bucks a month, we will help you organize your entire sales process. You could see what's working, what's not working. We'll help you set it up. We got 24 hours support." They're like, "No thanks." And then buy, I don't know, like a two-year subscription to a podcasting… like Streamyard. Like, you're going to go live on Streamyard. You know what I mean?

Jared Correia

Yeah. You buy all this stuff, you never use it, which is the lawyer's MO. Or you pass over the cheaper solution. This is another thing that lawyers do. Like, oh, that's not uh, you know, that's not expensive enough. Must not be high quality. You buy something that costs 10 times as much that you also never use.

Nick Werker

I’ve never had that problem.

Jared Correia

Oh, lawyers do that. Like especially like midsize to large law firms. You see that happen all the time.

Tony Prieto

Yeah. Because the price is supposed to be an indicator of quality and they're not going to do the research.

Jared Correia

It's the price is theoretically an indicator of quality and they're not going to do the research. And then I think the other thing is that it is like a status symbol too cuz if you're a lawyer and you can be like I I just dropped like you can be at a cocktail party and you can be like I just bought this [ __ ] for 50,000. What evs.

Tony Prieto

Yeah. Exactly.

Jared Correia

That gets you traction.

Tony Prieto

Like Mad Men. One of your three martini lunches, you talk about the the money you just spent.

Jared Correia

Yeah. Exactly. You think you're like Don Draper out there doing your thing.

Nick Werker

Three martini lunch might be like $1,000 nowadays, too, you know?

Jared Correia

Right. Right. So, I think what I think what I'm saying and what we're all saying is like lawyers are bad at vetting things, especially technology. And so honestly, like a lot of the conversations I have with attorneys, like when Nick when we had that conversation before, I'm like, "Well, okay, here's what's out there." And they're always like, "Oh, there's more out there than I thought." And I was like, "Okay, like pick three things in a category and just like take demos and ask questions." And if you want, like you got a million AI tools, like record the demo, ask your questions, throw it into an AI and be like, "Is this person full of [ __ ] This is this is so much easier to do than it used to be." If you tell the AI like like if you set it up appropriately and you're like don't just be an affirmation engine. Don't just tell me everything I think is amazing. Um like be critical, act as a like chief operating officer of a law firm with like 20 years of experience. Like if you prime the pump, it'll give you it'll give you viable answers and then you can also be like give me your sources. I have I have a client of mine who's actually brilliantly set up like a technology vetting tool for his law firm and he's built the prompts out. So whenever he looks at a new technology tool, his uh agent already knows what his criteria are. He already knows what the concerns are and he'll plug whatever data he has in there. He's like, "Look at the website. Look at the knowledge base. Here's the transcript from my demo with this company. Like tell me what you think and it gives really viable recommendations and it will say hey ask these 10 follow-up questions like the ability to do this is there like people just have to take the smallest amount of effort to get there.

Tony Prieto

But who vets the vetting tool, you know?

Jared Correia

So if you if you construct it correctly you were vetting on the backside as so it's like the human in the loop thing right if I'm an attorney who understands technology I build a tool in such a way that it's going to give me better results than it would be if I just like cut and paste a link into an AI. And then on the back side, I still have to be the human on the loop to vet it and be like, "Okay, this looks good. This looks good. That's questionable. I should look into this." But you're 95% of the way there at that point, whereas like you're 0% of the way there if you're just like, I'm taking Bill's recommendation. I like this cut of his jib.

Nick Werker

I wish people would take that same process and do it for their intake cuz you could totally you can vibe your intake doing it like that and I don't

Jared Correia

Oh, you totally could.

Nick Werker

I haven't tried it like this at all just because I have my own personal opinions and experience with intake. But say you're uh I don't know, you're like I want to I want to do my intake. I'm going to do my intake. and you go to your favorite AI tool and you tell it like what usually happens. Hey, a person usually calls me up with X thing. I usually tell them I'm going to call them back in 24 to 48 hours. And usually this is what happens. Blah blah blah blah blah. These are the channels that it comes from. This is the outcome. This is how long it takes. This is what people say when I call them back. This is when I never hear from people. you can get a really good head start or just like get all your thoughts on out onto paper about your intake doing that exact thing.

Jared Correia

I'll do you one better. If you're in Claude you can use Cowork to analyze any marketing software that you have and be like act like a again act like an experienced CMO of a law firm. Here's access to my marketing data like here's all my leads because you know we were talking before like where does the information go if it is not in the software well the answer to that for lawyers is it goes in the spreadsheet. So look at my Excel spreadsheet for all my marketing uh you could even say hey look at the email correspondence I have with leads uh look at my case management software and then say hey like analyze this and give me a an intake program and also like show me how to build it. Like what software do I use? Uh, give me instructions on how to connect different softwares, um, pull knowledge based uh, information from the various companies. Like you can do all that stuff and build a program with a tool like Co-work and other agent tools, which it can then run on its own in some cases. I've done that with law firms.

Nick Werker

I got to tell you, I have so much less anxiety because I asked that question and I assumed that it was like never gonna… it was a it was a it was an unsolvable question. Kobayashi Maru, I've used that reference before.

Jared Correia

You guys need a whole like you guys need a whole section of show notes about all the random references you make. I feel like I'm home right now.

Nick Werker

That's why we're on the network, dude.

Tony Prieto

Producer Joe would have to fill everything like here's a wiki link to Kobayashi Maru.

Nick Werker

He can take a transcript, upload it to Claude.

Jared Correia

All right. So here here's what I'm doing with the law firm right now. Ripped from the headlines, right? I have I have a divorce law firm I'm working with. They've got an intake form in I think my case and they've got an engagement agreement and they've got like three divorce uh documents that they that they draft as a complaint off the intake. So I'm building effectively an instruction manual. I have built an instruction manual for them in Claude. I vetted the documents. Um I wrote a you know lengthy prompt because I'm I would rather spend time prompting correctly than iterating over and over again and burning my tokens. And what we're building is let's spruce up the intake form. Let's make it so we're asking all the right questions. And we can do that in stages. We can do one intake form and then a secondary intake form. Then it's going to populate the engagement agreement and then it's going to populate the divorce complaint. So once the web form's filled out, the engagement agreement goes to the attorney to approve. He clicks the button, says okay. Uh that gets signed. Once it's signed, the payment link goes out and then the documents are all ready for review as well. No touch. So we're doing that with an AI tool. And basically I'm saying I only want to use MyCase whatever other product they using for this. I think it's Microsoft 365. But I could say to Claude like hey generate this stuff within Claude and uh we could use that tool as well but you don't have to because all these functions exist in softwares. We're just surfacing the functions for them. And I wouldn't do this with every law firm, but the person who's running the firm has a little bit of software background, so they know what they're doing, so they can vibe code it. But that's something I'm doing right now.

Nick Werker

I can't talk about vibe code because I'm vibe coding right now. And if I talk about it, we're never going to we're never we're never ever ever going to hang up. But I do have to…

Jared Correia

You need a vibe coding episode.

Nick Werker

We should do a vibe coding episode. But I really don't want to I'm not that guy. I'm the intake guy. I want you to do intake. I want you to get an answering service. We could talk marketing. I love marketing. I talked to all my friends about marketing. All my phone doesn't stop ringing from people asking me. It's emails. It's constant. It's constant.

Jared Correia

Yeah. I don't doubt it.

Nick Werker

But I cannot go down the rabbit hole of vibe coding because if I endorse vibe coding, then I'm the vibe coding guy. You gotta find somebody else to help you do vibe coding. You got to find Ryan McKeen. Ryan McKeen of AI Era or or uh Best Era, whatever. You go ask that guy about that. Okay. Not me. Not me. Ask me about the other stuff that I like.

Jared Correia

You're right to the point of vibe coding and then you're out.

Nick Werker

Yeah. Because if I had another thing that you're going to ask me about, man, I'm done. I'm done. Then I can't answer at all.

Tony Prieto

Because everybody's vibe coding now. And if you're the vibe coding guru, you're just going to be drowning in it.

Jared Correia

And I guess I guess what I will say is like there's two ways to approach this. One is you can go ahead and vibe code it and like build something. The other way to do it is to do what I did for this law firm, which is like, tell me how to use my software better.

Nick Werker

I like it.

Tony Prieto

Tell me what you have so that I can know how to use it better.

Nick Werker

Oh my god.

Jared Correia

Yeah. Exactly.

Nick Werker

Oh my god. That happened to me once. Actually, it happens to me more often than I'd like to admit. Uh, a few years ago, there were, you know me, I'm involved in everything here. Uh there was somebody who was calling in repeatedly leaving like like one star reviews saying I can't get a hold of anybody. Stop calling. I can't get a hold of anybody. You guys are charging my card. You're doing all this stuff. Um and every time I call you to cancel my card, you guys tell me my account doesn't exist. And every month the charge goes through and blah blah blah blah blah. And nobody can help this person. And I don't think that I went through any like proper channels. I was just like whatever. Give me the phone number. I got on the phone with this person and I'm like, "Hey, what's going on? Who's charging you? What's the charge? Like, let's figure this out." And the first thing, I don't remember the name of the company, but he read me the charge. First of all, he said it was like $35. I was like, "Dude, our minimum plan's like 150 bucks." So, like, no one's charging you $30. What does the charge on your card say? And it said something legal. And I was like, "Buddy, that is not us.” And like we found who it was and he was like, “oh, okay. So, it's this company?” and I'm like, “yeah.” So, if you could go in and like hook up all your MCPs and be like, what am I using right now?

Tony Prieto

Put in your credit card. You didn't even have to do that. You could just like take the PDF credit card statement and give it to Claude. Right?

Jared Correia

So, your vibe customer servicing is what you're doing.

Nick Werker

I did that. Yes, I do. I do that sometimes.

Jared Correia

I have an AI thought that I've been uh I've been throwing out there. I'm kind of like uh beta testing it right now, which is I think once people start to get savvy like people in general, not just attorneys about AI and they use it more regularly. Like I think what's going to happen is like everybody's going to do like their errand based stuff overnight in AI. Like I need to call the electric company. I need to pay this bill. I need to schedule this appointment. What people are going to do is they're going to be like look at my calendar, do all the [ __ ] I need to do, get it ready. I approve it when I wake up and then we'll have nothing left to do. So, we'll be back to being children again, just beating the [ __ ] out of each other constantly.

Nick Werker

Except no one's gonna have any money. I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know what they're going to do.

Jared Correia

Universal basic income.

Nick Werker

What's his name? Andrew Yang has been saying that for like 18 years.

Jared Correia

I mean if AI takes over everybody's job, it's got to be that. Like what else what else could it be.

Nick Werker

Bezos said it.

Tony Prieto

Yeah. I mean, the other option is working in the Amazon fulfillment center.

Jared Correia

Yeah, let's not do that.

Nick Werker

I love Jared.

Jared Correia

Would I would I write poetry while collecting my universal basic income and drinking big gulps? I might. Sure. The end of WALL-E seems like not a terrible uh pathway to take.

Nick Werker

And that is a good segue because designer Tyler who makes our thumbnails, that is his favorite movie.

Jared Correia

Is it? WALL-E is like so predictive of all this [ __ ] It's crazy.

Nick Werker

WALL-E's a sad movie.

Jared Correia

Yeah exactly.

Nick Werker

I'm big into CrossFit and I tell people they're going to end up like WALL-E but in the unhealthy float around in your uh giant uh what do you what do you even call that chair?

Jared Correia

I don't know. But here's the thing. Like if I was in WALL-E and I had like if I had free time, if I actually had free time, I don't think I'd be sitting in my chair all day. You tell me if I have all day to work out, I'm going to sit in a recliner all day and drink big golf. No way. I'd be like,

Tony Prieto

It's hard to lift in space.

Jared Correia

You can't set me up with a treadmill in space.

Nick Werker

I don't know. They're on like a lazy river, dude. They got to have some like engineers who are going to figure that out.

Tony Prieto

I actually I just read I mean, yes, obviously sci-fi. It's sci-fi. Um, I just read a book that takes place on the International Space Station and they have special machines that put build in resistance and astronauts in the International Space Station have to do 2 hours of exercise every morning in order to prevent their muscles from wasting away.

Jared Correia

Yeah. I mean, see that I'd be working out all the time in space. I would have like I would have my space toothpaste tube in my bicep and that's how I would put toothpaste on my toothbrush.

Nick Werker

I just want to see Jared doing calisthetic pull-ups, dude. Like those crazy pull-ups.

Jared Correia

I'd be doing those workout videos where I'm lifting the treadmills and stuff instead of backing weights. I'd be all over it. Like WALL-E would be like… I'd be the ripped guy in WALL-E.

Tony Prieto

The one ripped guy.

Jared Correia

I'd be the one ripped guy in WALL-E collecting my universal basic income. See ya in five years.

Tony Prieto

Everyone's like, "This guy doesn’t like his chair. I think his chair broke.”

Nick Werker

See ya in five years. Hey, listen. Revolution is in one year. So we're there. The electricity is going out. Jared's going to be absolutely ripped.

Jared Correia

I like how this podcast is half intake and half uh doomsday scenarios. This is great. Actually, this is perfect.

Nick Werker

I think we got enough.

Tony Prieto

You're going to need intake for your for your apocalyptic uh you know, your post-apocalyptic community, right? You need someone at the gate. They need to be able to to vibe check someone who comes in. Is this guy gonna stab us and steal our stuff? That's intake.

Jared Correia

If we must, if you're in the world of The Last of Us or Revolution, like you're trading stuff, like you're a trader of something. I think that's how everybody's making money. So, yeah. Do I need intake when I'm running guns? Hell yeah. I need a good intake system.

Tony Prieto

You won't unfortunately have a CRM, but we could go back to Rolodexes.

Jared Correia

Whiteboard.

Tony Prieto

Yeah, whiteboard.

Jared Correia

I would just raid like a Staples and like a CVS pharmacy. That'd be the first thing I'd be doing if I was if it was post apocalyptic times. Throw that [ __ ] in my pickup truck.

Tony Prieto

Everyone else is going to Costco. You’re stocking up on office supplies.

Jared Correia

I'm like, you want whiteboards? I got whiteboards.

Nick Werker

I got whiteboards.

Tony Prieto

You could be the logistics guy, right?

Jared Correia

I could be.

Nick Werker

He kind of is. In the analog age. Anyway, Jared, thank you for being with us on the show today. Before we go, can you tell our audience all the places they can follow along with you these days? Because I do think I think your like uh proverbial business card needs an update.

Jared Correia

It does. Yeah, I'm working on that right now. In fact, well, you can find me on the dark web under my handle. No, let's not do that. Uh website, which is getting rehab.

Nick Werker

How do you access the dark web, Jared?

Jared Correia

I don't even know. Like, it's so embarrassing that I would even reference that. Like if you asked me to get on the dark web, I wouldn't even be able to tell you.

Nick Werker

I'm not telling you, so.

Jared Correia

I'm too busy like doing dad stuff. So, yes, my website redcavelegal.com for consulting which is about to get a rehab. Um, and then the Legal Broadcasting Company website, legalbroadcastingcompany.com for all the podcasts that are fit to listen to, especially The Legal Intake Experts and their dope thumbnails.

Tony Prieto

And Legal Late Night with its great monologue intros.

Jared Correia

And no, the thumbnails are less aggressive, but the monologues are I don't even want to say they're further out than what you guys talked about cuz we're talking about some weird [ __ ] today. But we we explore studio space a little bit.

Tony Prieto

Thank you again for joining us, Jared. Uh and before we wrap, uh I want to remind our listeners of two things. One, you can go to answeringlegal.com to learn more about our virtual receptionist service. There's a link in the bio of this episode to get started with 400 minute free trial. And if you do have a CRM, we integrate with it. So that's a simple way to make your intake work.

Nick Werker

Tony is the king of the plug. Uh be sure to join us for the next episode of Legal Intake Experts. All episodes of the show can be found on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, the Answering Legal YouTube channel, and Legal Broadcasting Company. We'll see you next time everyone.

Tony Prieto

Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next time everyone.