Neil Tyra is an attorney at The Tyra Law Firm LLC in Rockville, MD where he specializes in Family Law, Estate Planning, Elder Law/Medicaid Planning, and Personal Injury. Neil leverages technology to facilitate his needs in order to better service his clients. “Daylite is one of the tools I use to maximize my efficiency and productivity for my practice.” says Neil Tyra. We asked Neil about tips and trends in the legal industry, and how he’s been able to grow his practice with Daylite.
Growth Market in the Legal Practice
I’m in the process of transitioning my practice to focus more on estate planning and elder law. From a professional stand point, I think elder law in particular and estate planning go hand-in-hand and are really a growth market in the legal practice. This is because you have all the baby boomers coming of age who require estate planning. If they themselves do not need estate planning, they frequently have parents who need elder law care and particularly Medicaid planning. I see a huge boom of potential clients in that area and I want to be able to position myself to take advantage of that. I came into this practice later in life, as it is essentially my fourth career. One of the things that attracted me to this industry is the opportunity to see a market need that is begging for attention, and then be able to pivot and address that need. There is little friction to prevent you from that. You just need to educate yourself and become aware of the necessary needs.
Changes in Client Expectation
Clients have more choice now than they have had in the past. You have to be able to distinguish yourself in some way to attract clients. Either you do so by the nature of the services that you offer, or the quality with which you offer that service. Ideally, it would be both. You have the practice area of service that is rather narrow and you delivery high quality service within that practice area. If you are not able to do that, then you won’t be able to meet the client’s expectation. Therefore, you won’t attract more clients.
Expanding Your Client List
I’ve leveraged technology to market my practice. I’ve used mailing lists in the past and now as I transition to a new practice area, I’m doing seminars to help educate the public and hopefully attract more clients that need my services. That also is a technology based endeavour because it involves purchasing mailing lists, using third parties to send out invitations, and then collecting all the potential client data. I then used that data for automated mailing packages in order to stay in touch with those clients and convert them into paying customers. After that point I have a base of clients and customers who further referred me to their friends and family.
Case Management with Daylite
I have used Daylite as my case management tool since I opened my practice in 2004. I’m a devoted Mac user. When I opened my practice, I looked for a case management tool that operated on the Mac platform. I started with Daylite 3. What I liked about Daylite was that I could create projects and equate these projects to my cases and link clients, attorneys, medical providers, witnesses, etc. to the project to have the whole case history right there in Daylite. For the longest time Daylite has been my case management tool. Now as I transition, it’s becoming my customer service tool. I’m collecting far more potential client contact information now with mailing programs and then using it to communicate with those potential clients. It’s proving to be very successful.
On top of that, the fact that Daylite works across multiple Apple platforms is really important to me. I have Daylite on my office Mac, my laptop, my iPad, and my iPhone so I have my entire practice with me wherever I go. I can operate virtually from any place with or without an internet connection. I have all the information I need available to me at my fingertips. If I need to make a phone call I have that information. If I want to work from a remote location I can write a letter and merge it in Daylite and it’s linked back to the contact. I can review my task list, complete those tasks, and check them off remotely. I can virtually do anything, anywhere short of meeting the client face-to-face.
Spreading the Word About Daylite
I’ve recommended Daylite in the past to other attorneys and I continue to. I think Daylite is a tool that any attorney can use. I have spoken on more than a few occasions to the Maryland State Bar Association on technical issues and in particular how to integrate a Mac into a dominantly PC world. In all of those presentations I’ve included Daylite as an example for what you can do. And the Marketcircle support team has always been great. Throughout the course of my involvement with Daylite I’ve had various questions about how to do something or an issue with something not working correctly. Support always got back to me and helped me work through that issue until I was satisfied. I’ve been very pleased with Daylite support.
