Openlegal Uses HelloSign to Stand Apart From Their Competition
Law firm uses SaaS and eSignatures to reduce administrative costs by 30-50%.
Ric Gruber and his partners Jonathan Pasky and Gianna Scatchell knew they wanted to offer legal services at a reasonable rate. But in lieu of cutting price by cutting service, Ric and his team decided to create a unique model that would attack the cost issue from another angle: decrease hourly costs by increasing office efficiency.
The result was Openlegal, a service that offers flat fee legal services for outside general counsel, VC & angel investment, patent, IP, data security & privacy, social media and litigation.
How Openlegal UsEd Online Tools To Become 30-50% More Efficient
While many legal offices solve paperwork issues by employing an admin staff to keep from drowning in contracts, Ric and his partners chose to revamp their business model by taking their legal services online. Integrating online tools allowed the team to remove paperwork pains that have long dictated the speed and cost of legal cases.
The approach extended beyond using simple cloud storage for docs and scanners for sending paperwork. Ric built and incorporated modern technology at every level of the process in order to get their business up and running. This included adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) for many of the steps along the way.
Ric explained his strategy for keeping ahead of the trends: “Using SaaS, we’ve been able to run a very lean law firm. Lean law firm instead of just a lean lawyer. We’ve eliminated substantially all need for an administrative staff.”
Due to these tech-forward updates, Openlegal is proud to offer fees that are 30-50% less expensive based on 30-50% increased efficiency. Further, the design of Openlegal makes it easy for clients to request legal services online and complete all steps digitally to get the legal services they need.
Along with using services like Clio and Google Docs, their team has used Dropbox Sign to streamline paperwork flow. eSignatures tightened up the signing timeline while also empowering the team to store and track client paperwork.
Why OPENLEGAL CHOSE HelloSign
Prior to teaming up, Jonathan, Ric and Gianna had each experimented with different eSignature but couldn’t find what they were after: a simple, efficient eSignature service. That is, until they discovered HelloSign. Ric said a few things in particular stood out about HelloSign.
- Ease of use. Dealing with so many sensitive documents and high-level clients, Ric needed an eSignature solution he could trust. HelloSign’s simple design was a big pro. Ric shared, “I’ve never had any errors with HelloSign. That’s huge. Especially when you’re sending out documents to be signed for a Series A raise. There’s really is no room for error.”
- On-brand. The clean, simple branding of HelloSign was also on par with the Openlegal standard. This made Ric and the team feel comfortable linking their firm to the brand and sharing HelloSign docs with clients.
- Easy integration and automation. HelloSign also integrated smoothly with their existing workflows, something that was particularly important to Ric. “That’s everything now with tech companies: what integrates into what? [HelloSign] syncs to GoogleDrive, Dropbox, etc. which means we can often access documents without having to open up HelloSign they’re already in Clio for our practice management.”
- Audit-trails. Document tracking and audit-trails also removed the fuzziness of document timelines. “From beginning to end, you’ll see HelloSign audit trail forms inside of our client transactions and lawsuits. So anyone and everyone with permitted access can see exactly what has been done and why.”
- 3rd-party service removed technical hassles. Ric’s an engineer, so creating an eSignature solution was something right up his alley. But even with his expertise, he’s a busy guy. Ric says he likes having a 3rd party company take charge of maintaining the service so the team can stay focused on making the business even better.
- Low cost. Finally, the low cost was an appealing factor. As Ric sees it, working with a company that’s dedicated to wading through the technical side also reduces the operational costs. “It’s always ROI and then opportunity cost,” Ric says “I pay $70 a month for a HelloSign business plan. To put it in context, most firms would bill their clients more than that per hour for their paralegal or paper clips and photocopies.”
Staying Ahead of The Curve
Though Ric recognizes the value of eSignatures, he admits that there’s still a wariness in the legal industry. But as eSignatures pick up steam he’s confident other law firms will wise up. Until then, his team is on the cutting edge of the field and excited to be pioneering the way.
We’re grateful to have the Pasky Gruber Scatchell LLC join our team at HelloSign and trust us with their service Openlegal! If you’re interested in connecting with Ric and running through the streamlined flow, be sure to visit Openlegal (and tell him we said hi!).
If you’re interested in building a paperless workflow to grow your business check out the HelloSign eSignature API.
Get started in minutes here.
We no longer support the Dropbox Forms product
Results
Openlegal Uses HelloSign to Stand Apart From Their Competition
Law firm uses SaaS and eSignatures to reduce administrative costs by 30-50%.
Ric Gruber and his partners Jonathan Pasky and Gianna Scatchell knew they wanted to offer legal services at a reasonable rate. But in lieu of cutting price by cutting service, Ric and his team decided to create a unique model that would attack the cost issue from another angle: decrease hourly costs by increasing office efficiency.
The result was Openlegal, a service that offers flat fee legal services for outside general counsel, VC & angel investment, patent, IP, data security & privacy, social media and litigation.
How Openlegal UsEd Online Tools To Become 30-50% More Efficient
While many legal offices solve paperwork issues by employing an admin staff to keep from drowning in contracts, Ric and his partners chose to revamp their business model by taking their legal services online. Integrating online tools allowed the team to remove paperwork pains that have long dictated the speed and cost of legal cases.
The approach extended beyond using simple cloud storage for docs and scanners for sending paperwork. Ric built and incorporated modern technology at every level of the process in order to get their business up and running. This included adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) for many of the steps along the way.
Ric explained his strategy for keeping ahead of the trends: “Using SaaS, we’ve been able to run a very lean law firm. Lean law firm instead of just a lean lawyer. We’ve eliminated substantially all need for an administrative staff.”
Due to these tech-forward updates, Openlegal is proud to offer fees that are 30-50% less expensive based on 30-50% increased efficiency. Further, the design of Openlegal makes it easy for clients to request legal services online and complete all steps digitally to get the legal services they need.
Along with using services like Clio and Google Docs, their team has used Dropbox Sign to streamline paperwork flow. eSignatures tightened up the signing timeline while also empowering the team to store and track client paperwork.
Why OPENLEGAL CHOSE HelloSign
Prior to teaming up, Jonathan, Ric and Gianna had each experimented with different eSignature but couldn’t find what they were after: a simple, efficient eSignature service. That is, until they discovered HelloSign. Ric said a few things in particular stood out about HelloSign.
- Ease of use. Dealing with so many sensitive documents and high-level clients, Ric needed an eSignature solution he could trust. HelloSign’s simple design was a big pro. Ric shared, “I’ve never had any errors with HelloSign. That’s huge. Especially when you’re sending out documents to be signed for a Series A raise. There’s really is no room for error.”
- On-brand. The clean, simple branding of HelloSign was also on par with the Openlegal standard. This made Ric and the team feel comfortable linking their firm to the brand and sharing HelloSign docs with clients.
- Easy integration and automation. HelloSign also integrated smoothly with their existing workflows, something that was particularly important to Ric. “That’s everything now with tech companies: what integrates into what? [HelloSign] syncs to GoogleDrive, Dropbox, etc. which means we can often access documents without having to open up HelloSign they’re already in Clio for our practice management.”
- Audit-trails. Document tracking and audit-trails also removed the fuzziness of document timelines. “From beginning to end, you’ll see HelloSign audit trail forms inside of our client transactions and lawsuits. So anyone and everyone with permitted access can see exactly what has been done and why.”
- 3rd-party service removed technical hassles. Ric’s an engineer, so creating an eSignature solution was something right up his alley. But even with his expertise, he’s a busy guy. Ric says he likes having a 3rd party company take charge of maintaining the service so the team can stay focused on making the business even better.
- Low cost. Finally, the low cost was an appealing factor. As Ric sees it, working with a company that’s dedicated to wading through the technical side also reduces the operational costs. “It’s always ROI and then opportunity cost,” Ric says “I pay $70 a month for a HelloSign business plan. To put it in context, most firms would bill their clients more than that per hour for their paralegal or paper clips and photocopies.”
Staying Ahead of The Curve
Though Ric recognizes the value of eSignatures, he admits that there’s still a wariness in the legal industry. But as eSignatures pick up steam he’s confident other law firms will wise up. Until then, his team is on the cutting edge of the field and excited to be pioneering the way.
We’re grateful to have the Pasky Gruber Scatchell LLC join our team at HelloSign and trust us with their service Openlegal! If you’re interested in connecting with Ric and running through the streamlined flow, be sure to visit Openlegal (and tell him we said hi!).
If you’re interested in building a paperless workflow to grow your business check out the HelloSign eSignature API.
Get started in minutes here.
