Partner Spotlight
Featured Client: Michael Carroll
This month, we’re lucky to feature Michael Carroll, author of The Naked Lawyer and insurance specialist for attorneys!
What led you to become an Insurance Specialist for Lawyers?
Two of my favorite clients (even to this day) were lawyers. After working closely with them and seeing some of the unique challenges facing this industry, it became apparent that a generic, one size fits all insurance policy couldn’t possibly provide attorneys and law firms with adequate coverage. As a business owner myself, I understand the priorities and concerns that other business owners face, and I know how a carefully-tailored insurance plan can help protect a business, like a law firm, against specific threats, so I decided to help.
How do you share your approach to insurance with lawyers?
It’s so important for attorneys and firms to understand that even within the law firm world, there is a huge difference between a 1 lawyer firm, a 10 lawyer firm, and a 100+ lawyer firm and the exposures each face. Employing a non-specific insurance approach is a massive disservice to any and all of them and, unfortunately, the insurance industry as a whole does, at best, an average job identifying risk and properly protecting any sized law firm. It’s because of this that I wrote The Naked Lawyer – in order to help attorneys identify and understand their unique needs and make sure that they are properly protected!
In terms of practice management, best practices, and security, what are your go-to tips for modern law firms?
Most law firms focus on their professional liability only and think nothing about data breach risks, employment issue risks, workers’ comp risks, etc. Only a true law firm insurance specialist will begin to know how to protect you properly so you don’t suffer financial risk or complete ruin.
What are some of the biggest threats facing attorneys and law firms today?
Cyber-security is one of the biggest threats lawyers face today, even more so than a tornado or fire or even a professional liability claim, though professional liability would be second. Specifically, any law firm that collects personal information (Social Security numbers and banking information) is most at risk. Adoption lawyers are also at risk, as they could be absolutely ruined with the confidentiality of the information in their clients’ files.
What commonalities do successful, breach-free lawyers share?
If Sony, Target, and the IRS can get hacked, then any law firm can, too. Certainly, you can limit data breach access by having secure firewalls installed on your office computers and servers. Plus, have all laptops, tablets, and smart phones password protected in case any are lost or stolen.
Why do you recommend LawPay to your clients?
Let’s face it, no business, and especially no law firm, enjoys becoming a billing office. With LawPay you can make what has always been an arduous, inexact, and grinding office workflow 100% efficient and accurate! With LawPay, all of the manual steps to request payment, receive payment, enter information into a financial management system, and go to the bank can be automated, which saves so much time and, again, is 100% accurate! In addition, the LawPay Security Series is outstanding as it absolutely promotes how to apply best practices for data breach protection in any law firm. Plus, LawPay works hard at keeping all law firms compliant, too!
How does LawPay affect the day to day business of a law firm?
Think about all of the time any business spends making “bank runs” and even then payments get lost, improperly entered, etc. And, we all know that for a law firm, saving just 2 hours a week totals over 100 hours annually which, at $200/hour as an average billable hour, is $20,000 added to your law firm’s bottom line!
To get a free copy of The Naked Lawyer, click here.