Transcript
00:00:00
I really think firms need to embrace AI to maintain and be competitive a lot of these cases are document heavy. And so it does take a long time to get them organized and summarized. And if we can use the AI services to help with that process, and you’re right, then focus more on the theories and the arguments and strategizing. I still think it’s very important to have a human component involved, just to understand the nuances, just to be a trusted resource.
00:00:35
Welcome back to The Transfer. This is where we have conversations with leaders in the business world who are navigating all of the changes, the challenges, and all of the technology evolution. So today, I’m very excited to have Erika Anderson with me. Erika is the owner and managing partner of The Law Offices of Erika E. Anderson. I like the name. And she specializes in personal injury, medical malpractice. Erika, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Do a quick intro. Great. Well, thanks for having me today. I am an attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
00:01:16
I’ve been practicing a little over 21 years, I think, at this point. Yeah, I’ve had The Law Offices of Erika E. Anderson, for about 11 years, we celebrated our 10-year anniversary last year. And we do about 75% civil litigation where we focus on personal injury, medical malpractice and employment laws, some civil rights. And then we also have about 25 % where we focus on estate planning and probate services. And we have 13 people, four attorneys, including me. And we have our beloved Vincent the law Dog who comes to work with me most days and he’s a big part of our marketing of the firm and clients and staff.
00:02:03
Everybody loves Vincent the law dog. The in-office dog. did see some of the pets on the website and I thought that was so fun. I heard he had a really good degree. Did he go to Harvard? Yes. Well, we have a commercial. He’s in our commercial. ⁓ It’s pretty cute. Actually, there’s some injured dogs and at the end of the commercial, we do have a disclaimer that Vincent’s not a real lawyer and none of the dogs
00:02:40
were injured as a result of the commercial. I mean, you need to have all the proper legal disclaimers. Exactly. I think no matter what. But I love that, especially for your law firm, like just, you know, if you show up here, he’s not really the person. He’s not really a lawyer. So I’d love to talk a bit about your background. you have an interesting journey prior to law. I know you started in a different field. Would you tell us a little bit about that, what that transition was like and how you landed in law? Sure.
00:03:12
Before going to law school, I got my bachelor’s in psychology and my master’s in counseling and always wanted to be a therapist and a counselor. So after my master’s, I did work with families and children for about four years doing mental health. therapy and mental health services. It was great, but it was also a little frustrating just with managed care had come into New Mexico and a lot of the treatment for the kids was being cut short. And I started being an expert witness in a lot of cases and testifying in court and really enjoyed that.
00:03:48
And sort of got to a crossroads thinking I was gonna either go back to school to get my PhD in psychology or then I started thinking about law school and my dad was also a lawyer and it just seemed to be a good fit going to law school. Initially I wanted to, you know, maybe sue managed care or kind of help in that capacity, which I did work with a lawyer and we did do some of that work, which was great.
00:04:27
And The decision to go to law school actually was probably one of the best decisions I made because it just did seem to be a really good fit where I could still help people and maybe had some more tools. And I think that counseling background does really help in just being able to connect with people and clients. You we do some cases involving mental health issues, which I really enjoy. And even in the litigation. aspect, it helps being able to connect with jurors and witnesses. you know, I think it’s been a good background to have. I couldn’t agree more.
00:04:57
It’s funny, I have you talk to some attorneys they’re like, you know, it’s always good to take a good theater class or an acting class. Right. And when you think about what you’re really doing and a lot of times trying to pull stories out, the truth navigate how someone receives compensation for some sort of issue, the psychology behind the person, the victim, what happened in the circumstances. I feel like that really matters and could be a huge asset. And also just, you know, help your clients when they’re navigating challenging situations, which I’m sure you have a lot that are coming to you under duress, right? Right.
00:05:30
And that’s definitely true because I think people are going through very difficult times in their life. We really do talk them through these issues and I do think the counseling background does help with that. Absolutely. So I’m sure owning a law firm though is a demanding journey. It sounds like you have a fairly large staff. So what has what are some of the challenges you’re facing in your business kind of in this current moment? What is what is the stuff where you’re like, man, this is some of these things are driving me nuts right now.
00:06:01
And whether it’s with law or changes in legislation, sky’s the limit, but would love to hear a bit about. Yeah, there are challenges. mean, definitely owning a business is challenging. I used to think anyone could do it. Not sure about that sometimes. Just because the employees, we have a great staff, but that’s been a journey, some ups and downs. You know, there’s just constant deadlines that need to be met in the litigation field.
00:06:38
And that’s a challenge just with everything going on with the business and meeting all the deadlines. That’s just a full time job. You know, even legislation, we do do a lot of medical malpractice work. That’s kind of come under fire, at least in New Mexico recently. So there’s some challenges. There does seem to be sort of a battle in caps and punitive damages and all of that kind of thing. Things at our firm seem to be going well, but I mean, guess those are some of the challenges and some of just the daily challenges of running a business in general.
00:07:19
Yeah, which is not for the faint of heart, like you said. I can speak from experience. You end up wearing a lot more hats, right? That’s exactly what I was going to say. There are so many hats to wear because, I mean, you’ve got to do all the marketing, you’ve got to get the business in, you have to do a good job, you have to do the legal work, collect the funds and close out the cases and win. So there’s definitely a lot involved. It’s quite a breadth of, I’m sure, that you touch on the day to day.
00:07:52
How do you find most of your clients end up finding you or coming to you? Yeah, that’s an interesting question. We do keep track of that information. it’s really pretty varied. Primarily, it comes from Google. We have put a lot of effort into SEO tools. ⁓ We’ve worked closely with a website company. so we do get a lot of referrals from Google. We have past clients that will refer us to their family and friends, some word of mouth just in the community and with other attorneys.
00:08:36
I’ll go to events and meet people there. So it’s just kind of a constant being in the community. And we do also do some advertising, like I had mentioned before, we do have a TV ad that’s been very well received. We’re gonna start, we had billboards in the past, we’ve kind of taken a break from that, but we’re gonna start that up again in 2026. I think just sort of a combination of doing the Google advertising and online advertising and then the TV and billboards. mean, people usually don’t need us until they do.
00:09:20
You want to be on the mental shortlist, right? Like That’s your marketing goal. And I think that’s so insightful to be focused on your website and ensuring people can find you when they do have that moment. Exactly. And so we you know, we have done a lot of work. It’s taken a long time. But, you know, when people are searching on line, which when people do get services, I mean, that’s what I do. And if you recognize a name, we definitely strive to get good reviews. So when people are doing their research, they hopefully call us as one of the firms that they want to work with.
00:09:55
Yeah. And that’s where they saw the billboard. Maybe they saw the ad. Now they’re doing the searching. Someone else worked with you, too. All of that’s a powerful combination, But also those many hats, like you said, I’m assuming you’re the probably leading the marketing efforts as well. Exactly. So I love when you talk about clients doing research. So I’d love to understand, you know, I can I’d imagine in your field where People have now, we have access to all sorts of information in different ways.
00:10:28
We’ve got a slew of AI tools, the chatGPT, the Claudes, the Geminis of the world out there. Have you seen any shift in like how clients come to you? Do they come a bit more informed or thinking that they’re informed because of them? That’s an interesting question. Some do. It does seem, you know, I have noticed some of the intakes that we’ve received, we do have the capability to do a website intake. And I have seen more intakes that seem like they’ve put their issue into ChatGPT and then submitted what ChatGPT produced into the intake, which is kind of interesting.
00:11:08
I’ve had other clients that want to record. our initial meeting or something like that, and then put it into ChatGPT and, come up with, how the case should proceed. So, yeah, we have, we have seen clients maybe using AI to understand their legal, claims better. And so how have you navigated that? Has it, ⁓ I guess, Let me take a step back. Has that been a good thing, you think, for the firm? is it, do you have to sometimes hasn’t been a bad thing. Yeah, it hasn’t been a bad thing.
00:11:45
But I still think it’s very important to have a human component involved, just to understand the nuances, just to be a trusted resource to get information on how it works. every state is different, every judge is different, every case is different. So just kind of understanding the legal landscape outside of chatGPT. There’s a whole bunch of other. Yeah, there’s a lot of nuances involved. So I still think it’s, know, even if people are utilizing AI to understand their legal circumstances better.
00:12:25
I still think it’s important to have a human component involved. absolutely. There’s the information you can absorb, but then there’s someone who’s lived and breathed it for 21 plus years, right? Exactly. Exactly. That’s the beauty of those tools. We can get smart fast on things, but it’s surface level. So yeah, I was just curious. You just hear more and more of all these different examples of how we… Sometimes people think they can do anything now. have these resources at our fingertips.
00:13:02
All right. So what’s something that’s working well for your practice right now? So any opportunities or areas you’re focusing on in the coming months that you’re super excited about? I think what’s working well is we just really have a fabulous team at this point, and we’ve worked really hard to get this team. And I just I’m excited for 2026 and next year, just with the amount of calls we’re getting, just with that type of cases that are coming in, the cases that we’re working on, I think we’re really doing a great job in working through those cases.
00:13:35
We’re getting great results for our clients. And so I think overall things are going very well for us and I’m excited. about that. How does it work with a, you know, do you set growth goals for the year ahead based on how the business is performing? Yeah, we do. We do an annual retreat every year in November. We just had our annual retreat and we look over, we talked about the goals from last year and whether we met those goals and make our firm goals and personal goals for the following year.
00:14:16
We do have growth goals and we’ve been meeting those every year. So that’s exciting both in the firm bringing people in and being able to do the work and financial goals and client and case goals. And yeah, I’m happy to report we’ve been meeting them. So that’s pretty exciting. That meet them and then exceed them, right? Now to push a bit. I was curious, are you dealing mainly with, You know, clients that come in and it’s all for from a personal standpoint. You have
00:14:49
business clients as well. We mostly have individual gotcha represented businesses and governments in the past. I did defense work for a while, but now we’re primarily with individuals. Occasionally we’ll have a company that will assist, but it’s usually individuals usually one on one. Got it now. That’s interesting. So. would love to shift gears now a little bit. I know we touched on the chat GBTs of the world and how that’s starting to impact.
00:15:23
But one of the things I love to explore is how businesses are starting to take advantage or try test out the many different tools that are available to us now from the kind of AI lens, right? It’s something that can seem nebulous in some ways and hearing real business owners talk about application in a real world. example is something I love to unpack a bit. So can you share a little bit about where you’re at kind of on the maturity curve of trying things? I know you gave some examples when we talked prior that I think would be kind of seem like smart places to start with.
00:15:56
How do you evolve your business with the swings of technology now happening? Yeah, again, that’s an interesting question. been going to a lot of continuing legal education classes that have been focused on AI and the law. And I really think firms need to embrace AI to maintain and be competitive since it is really moving quickly. we’re definitely using some of the AI opportunities out there. For one, we were getting so many calls on a daily basis that it was difficult for one person to, or even two people to keep up with it.
00:16:57
And so we did start utilizing Smith AI, which is they have real people that answer the phone, but they learn about our firm, they answer the phone. Then AI summarizes the call. I’ll get a report every day of the calls. And it’s actually really helped. we’ve been able to maintain now the calls that are coming in with this application. so that’s been something that’s been really helpful. We also started utilizing Supio which is HIPAA compliant, specific for law firms where you can input or download a case file and
00:17:44
it can help summarize medical records, summarize depositions, help due demands. So that’s also been something that we’ve been utilizing. At this point, we’re looking at different options. A lot of companies are specific for law firms. And so we’re looking at different opportunities from Westlaw. They have capabilities as well that can have AI help with legal research, even writing simple motions, that kind of thing. So we’re looking into those options as well and kind of interviewing some of the AI.
00:18:23
Some of the companies that are offering AI services specific for law firms and plan to go forward in 2026. There’s a few things, we’re gonna change our contingency fee agreement or agreements just to notify our clients that we may be utilizing AI services. And I think a lot of law firms are going in that direction. And if you don’t go in that direction, I think, you could kind of be left behind a little bit. And it does help. I mean, again, we’re not doing away with the human component.
00:19:00
And even Supio has a person that puts the information together and then you kind of go from there. And we’re not taking that away. We’re reviewing everything. I mean, we certainly are using it as a tool. We’re still using our experience. and our knowledge to fine tune it and tweak it and make sure, it’s a good argument or it’s gonna work with a particular judge. But it does help in, some of the, some aspects like doing a complete medical summary with 3000 pages could take a week. Absolutely. And doing a medical summary in a HIPAA compliant platform where it doesn’t go into the world wide web.
00:19:41
It’s specific just to that case. You can get a medical summary in 30 minutes versus a week. Yeah, that’s powerful. No, I And they’re decent. mean, that’s the other thing. We’ve reviewed them and they’re very well done. You know, that’s great too. Well, and it seems like a very clear benefit you could pass on to your clients as well, right? I can spend a week combing through thousands of pages of documentation, or I can be really looking at 20 different ways to solve this problem for you and going through those with you.
00:20:18
just being able to focus in on really solving versus just the net. going through and navigating all of the information I’d imagine as an attorney you’re seeing on any given day is, it seems like a very smart usage and honestly allows you to be more efficient. Exactly. And a lot of these cases are document heavy. And so it does take a long time to get them organized and summarized. And if we can use the AI services to help with that process, and you’re right, then focus more on the theories and the arguments and strategizing and that kind of thing.
00:20:54
And having the information available. That just seems incredibly powerful. I love that you’re dabbling with this kind of human hybrid AI receptionist as well. Because again, you think of folks who are in need of your services, even if it’s after hours, being able to get a sense of that situation and then having more. focused conversation, first conversation with our potential clients. That’s exactly right. And that was something that was happening too, because we were missing calls at night or on the weekends.
00:21:30
And now we have this service in place. that’s exactly right. We get the initial information. We get it into our system. And then we can follow up and get more detailed information from there. That’s what I was going to ask, if you have almost like a CRM system or like a database that you’re then pulling. all of that into so it’s exactly you have like the potential customer profile already from one call. Very interesting.
00:22:02
See, these are the examples I love hearing because I think, you know, the idea of fear around technology potentially taking jobs and it’s like, how do we superpower the humans we have doing the work is the spirit of what I think your firm’s really embracing with technology. in bringing even more support service, getting more, you know, to win those cases for your clients. It’s just, are good examples. I’m definitely not one of those tech savvy people. this is all new to me, you know. I mean, it’s new to many. That’s for sure. And well, that’s the beauty with a lot of, you know, the technology is becoming easier to navigate too.
00:22:39
It doesn’t quite take what it used to take to be able to connect systems and orchestrate things and I see that a lot in talking with different industries where there’s so many disparate systems. Now you can start to bring them together in different ways and really orchestrate things so it doesn’t create walls between your data or your customer information or your law database, right? Things can start to connect and talk to each other. So it’s about maximizing insights from.
00:23:09
you know, the research, the case, the documentation in a whole different way. So I think you’re off to a great start. sounds like. Well, thank you. We’ve been trying. Baby steps, right? It’s always a work in progress. So that’s where it’s sharing these type of stories, I think are exactly what I love to hear. So now I’d love to kind of get to a little bit of your future goals for where you’re hoping to take your business. I know you’ve got some ambitious growth. It sounds like you’re excited for 2026.
00:23:47
What are some of your hopes for the future for both your firm, your potential clients? Yeah, you know, just kind of continue on the trajectory that we’ve started and continue to grow, continue to be a woman owned competitive and successful firm doing good work for our clients, bringing in some of the bigger cases that we can really help people and continue to, if we need to bring on people to continue to do good work, grow that way, grow our financial goals, as well as just the types of cases and bringing in big cases to really help our clients.
00:24:35
And big cases meaning say a wrongful death, anything along those lines where we can really help people get the compensation that they deserve. That’s life changing for those people, depending on. Yeah, and going through such a terrible event, you know, it doesn’t fix that. But, at least there may be some compensation at the end of the day, even though it’s not going to completely fix what happened. No, but it is it’s in some cases, it at least can bring closure to a tough experience, which exactly a lot of times in life we don’t get so.
00:25:15
Well, I think that is a great spot to start to wrap things up. So, Erika, if. Anyone is in need of your services, what is the best way to find either you or your firm? Yeah, you know, just look us up online. She’s optimized her website. You’ll find it. you will be able to find us. And we have our phone number. You can contact us by email. And we’d be happy to help. Well, you heard it here. Thank you so much, Erika, for your time today. And that wraps us up for this episode of The Transfer. Thank you.