Insights and updates
from MinuteBox
Time is money; isn’t that the old saying? The more time spent on menial, often repetitive tasks, the less time you have for big picture solutions that help grow your business. If limited time and legal paperwork are impacting your ability to deliver results, that’s a problem. Thankfully, there are solutions.
In the legal space, time is a valuable luxury that’s often in very short supply. According to a legal billing trends report, the average law clerk spends up to 48 percent of their workdays on administrative tasks. These tasks include things like office administration, generating bills, documenting minutes, licensing and even continuing education. The report also found that 41 percent of legal professionals would dedicate more time to business development if they had it to spare.
Promote a more collaborative work environment
Disorganization is a bane of legal professionals’ existences. A disorganized office space with files spread out across desktops, in Google Drive, and even in physical binders does not promote a productive or collaborative work environment.
But what if you had the option to centralize all of those files in one convenient and easy-to-access location? The benefit of using secure cloud-based software is that it hosts all of your files so you don’t need to pull your hair out searching for them across many different spaces. Plus, your minutes and all relevant documents are searchable, sortable, and shareable with everyone who has access to the platform, which you’re able to limit with user-based permissions.
In the end, this saves you an abundance of time looking for your paperwork. More importantly, you can easily find and send files to fellow clerks, the lawyers leading the file and even the clients themselves to verify the contents of the information. It’s more collaborative and fosters a more productive working day.
Create the ability to streamline completion of daily tasks
Part of the job requirements of a law clerk are to manage the creation, filing, and oversight of legal paperwork. This includes regular tasks such as drafting documents, chasing people down for signatures on those documents or drafting complex paperwork to formalize legal transactions. In some cases, you need to be familiar with digital coding languages like javascript, CSS, Python, C++, or syntax in order to complete these tasks. Add it all up, and it’s no wonder that nearly half of a paralegal’s workday is tied up in administrative tasks. Rather than continue with the old ways of doing things, you could provide your team with a solution-oriented interface that streamlines all of these processes.
You could use platforms with built-in templates that require no coding to generate documents. They also allow you to easily send e-files to recipients for quick signatures. Ultimately, this streamlines nearly half of a law clerk’s daily tasks, allowing an entire legal team to devote more time and resources towards big picture solutions to help grow the business.
Sharing is caring, so why not make it easier?
Sharing files with both internal and external parties is a delicate task, especially if those files are haphazardly thrown around without proper security. Suppose the files contain sensitive information such as a client’s banking details or their social insurance number.
Instead of risking an unsecure file being passed around online, you could use secure easy-share links created within a cloud-based entity management platform. The sender of these files can dictate what information is relevant to the recipient, and what information should remain confidential. This ensures that all files are shared in a secure and efficient manner that guarantees transparency while still promoting a client’s right to privacy.
All of these suggestions are meant to help you see a path towards more viable solutions. If you find you’re losing more of your own time in repetitive tasks that don’t contribute to revenue or growth, you might be thinking that there has to be a better way. Now, there is one.
Interested in getting back more of your own time to focus on the growth of your firm? Join the MinuteBox revolution so that you can create an environment that is guaranteed to deliver more value to your clients.
What is Legal Entity Management?
Legal entity management is the practice of organizing, maintaining, and governing all records, documents, and compliance obligations associated with a corporation’s legal entities. It covers everything from incorporation records and ownership structures to regulatory filings, governance documents, and ongoing compliance requirements.
For law firms, in-house legal teams, and corporate secretaries, entity management is the operational backbone of corporate governance. Every corporation — whether a single entity or a complex group with hundreds of subsidiaries across multiple jurisdictions — must maintain accurate records of its legal standing, directors and officers, shareholders, compliance filings, and corporate decisions.
When done well, entity management reduces legal risk, keeps organizations audit-ready, and ensures that governance obligations are met on time. When done poorly — or managed through disconnected spreadsheets and filing cabinets — it creates liability, delays transactions, and exposes the organization to regulatory penalties.
What Does Entity Management Include?
Entity management encompasses the full lifecycle of a legal entity, from formation through dissolution. Key areas include:
Corporate Formation and Structure
Every legal entity begins with incorporation or registration. Entity management tracks the foundational documents — articles of incorporation, by-laws, and formation filings — and maintains the corporate structure as it evolves through amendments, reorganizations, and jurisdictional registrations.
Directors, Officers, and Key Stakeholders
Corporations must maintain accurate records of who serves in leadership roles and when appointments, resignations, and elections occur. Person management tracks these relationships across all entities in the corporate group.
Ownership and Equity Records
Shareholder registers, cap tables, and ownership charts document who owns what, how equity has changed over time, and the relationships between parent companies and subsidiaries.
Minute Books and Corporate Resolutions
Minute books are the official corporate record — they contain meeting minutes, resolutions, consent actions, and other governance documents that prove corporate decisions were properly authorized.
Regulatory Compliance and Filings
Entities must meet ongoing obligations in every jurisdiction where they operate: annual returns, electronic filings, beneficial ownership disclosures, and industry-specific regulatory requirements. Missing a deadline can result in penalties, loss of good standing, or even involuntary dissolution.
Document Management
Contracts, certificates, government correspondence, tax records, and legal opinions all need to be stored securely, versioned properly, and retrievable on demand — especially during due diligence or audit scenarios.
Why Entity Management Matters
The consequences of poor entity management are tangible and costly:
- Transaction delays — Buyers, lenders, and investors require organized corporate records during due diligence. Gaps in minute books or missing resolutions can stall or kill a deal.
- Regulatory penalties — Missed filings, lapsed registrations, or inaccurate beneficial ownership reports trigger fines and enforcement actions.
- Personal liability — Directors and officers can face personal exposure when governance obligations are not met.
- Operational inefficiency — Legal teams that spend hours searching for records in shared drives and email threads are not spending time on work that drives value.
- Audit risk — Disorganized records make audits slower, more expensive, and more likely to surface problems.
For organizations managing entities across multiple jurisdictions, these risks compound. Each jurisdiction has its own filing deadlines, reporting requirements, and registered agent obligations. Without a systematic approach, things fall through the cracks.
What is Entity Management Software?
Entity management software replaces spreadsheets, shared drives, and paper-based systems with a centralized platform purpose-built for managing legal entities. Rather than scattering corporate records across disconnected tools, everything lives in one secure, searchable system.
Core Capabilities
- Centralized entity dashboard — A single view of all entities, their status, key dates, and compliance health across the entire corporate group.
- Compliance calendars and alerts — Automated reminders for filing deadlines, annual returns, license renewals, and other recurring obligations.
- Ownership and structure charts — Visual representations of corporate hierarchies, beneficial ownership, and inter-entity relationships.
- Document automation — Generate resolutions, certificates, and governance documents from templates, reducing manual drafting and errors.
- Electronic signatures — Execute corporate documents securely without printing, scanning, or mailing.
- Secure data rooms — Share records with auditors, counterparties, or regulators through controlled, permission-based access.
- Electronic filings — Submit government filings directly from the platform.
- Audit trails — Complete history of every change, access, and action for accountability and regulatory defensibility.
Who Uses Entity Management Software?
- Law firms — Corporate law practices that manage minute books, filings, and governance for multiple clients.
- Corporate secretaries — Professionals responsible for board administration, compliance tracking, and governance records.
- In-house legal teams — Legal departments at corporations managing their own entity portfolio.
- Private equity firms — Fund managers tracking compliance and governance across portfolio companies.
- Family offices — Managing complex ownership structures across trusts, holding companies, and operating entities.
How to Choose Entity Management Software
When evaluating platforms, consider:
- Jurisdiction coverage — Does it support the specific filing requirements and compliance rules for every jurisdiction where you operate?
- Scalability — Can it handle your current entity count and grow with you as you add subsidiaries or expand into new markets?
- Data migration — How does the vendor handle migration from your existing systems? Look for guided onboarding and migration support.
- Security and compliance — SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, role-based access controls, and encryption are baseline requirements for platforms handling sensitive corporate data.
- Integrations — Does it connect with your existing tools — DocuSign, Microsoft Office, iManage, and government filing portals?
- User experience — The platform should make entity data accessible to both legal professionals and business stakeholders without extensive training.
Related Resources
You’re in bed in a cold sweat. You’ve been tossing and turning for hours. It’s 4:15am and you reason that if you fall asleep right now, at least you’ll get a few hours of quality shut-eye. But you know it’s in vain. It hasn’t happened for months; why is tonight any different?
It’s not.
You’ve slogged for years with your team, navigating the waters of incorporation, team building, engineering and business development. You’re trying to build a company based-off an idea in the legal space.
You’ve spent years studying in law school and several more learning the profession as a lawyer. You had money in your account and a steady paycheck. You had respect from your peers, your family and other professionals. You had a beautiful office in a gorgeous tower overlooking the city. You had certainty and predictability. You had access to the good life.
You had what so many have sought after and you said “No thank you.”
And now here you are, looking up at the ceiling, questioning your choices, wondering if your decisions were ill-fated because they were based on hubris. Your bank account is near empty, you live on a shoestring budget. You’ve cashed out your savings and every day is one step closer to admitting defeat.
And every now and again you get a friendly “don’t worry” from your colleagues, reminding you that “you can always go back to being a lawyer.”
You are genuinely afraid of failure.
I am often asked what it’s like being an entrepreneur in the legal space. What is it like building a technology service company that offers services to law firms all over the world?
My response is the same. It’s lonely. Or at least it was, for a long time.
A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a panel at the Law Faculty of Queens University, presenting to the students of the Venture Capital and Private Equity law club. Seated next to me were two lawyers both practising in the startup and emerging company departments of their large (and very successful) national firms.
The lawyers eloquently described their roles in the legal side of fundraising, how they were instrumental in providing advice in helping secure VC investment for their startup clients, thereby helping those companies grow.
The role of my lawyer colleagues was instrumental in helping their clients succeed.
I wanted to impart a somewhat different perspective on the students. I wanted them to understand what investment money means to a startup, especially in the legal space. Investment means my team gets to eat, pay their mortgage and pay for their childrens’ dentist appointments. It means Christmas gifts under the tree and a few restaurant dinners a month. It doesn’t just mean business survival, but actual human survival.
Most of the legal tech startup life is unglamorous. You are in a sector that has resisted change for generations. Everything is working against you, from the billable hour model to the partnership structure of law firms to the lack of funding opportunities available to those in your industry.
You are trying to find your professional place in the world and you don’t always know where you fit. It’s daunting. It’s draining. Reaching the legal technology apex often seems insurmountable. The sides of the mountain are just too slippery.
Years later, you’re still in bed, still sweating and wide awake when you should have been long asleep. The sheets, half on, half off provide no comfort, as the birds chirp outside your window welcoming the coming dawn. You start counting on your fingers and toes and quickly realize you’ve spent more time building legal technology than actually practicing law. Even if you wanted to return as a lawyer, would you remember how to practice? Would anybody even want you?
And then, out of nowhere, you crack a wry smile. You look back on everything you have done up to this point. You’ve built amazing technology. You have clients who pay for your service. You have gained experience in tech, business and life. And you even begrudgingly admit to yourself that if someone would have told you that after several years you’d be in such a position, you would have gladly accepted the opportunity with open arms.
Fully awake, looking up at the beige plastered ceiling, you accept that you’re exactly where you belong.
You then get up and start your work day.
What are the key attributes of an innovative law firm and how much do they really matter?
Managing a law firm in this era of rapid change is a massive challenge. It’s hard to know the right thing to do. It feels like the ground is constantly shifting. Your firm’s lawyers are giving conflicting reports on the state of business while your clients keep demanding “more for less.” Many legal tech companies are stepping up to help with these challenges. Yet these companies often meet resistance from the very firms they are trying to help.
I’d like to introduce Sean Bernstein. Sean is a co-founder of MinuteBox, a next generation cloud-based minute book and corporate records solution for law firms, accounting firms and internal legal departments. As an entrepreneur in the legal space, he’s spoken with dozens of law firms, ranging from single lawyer offices to global behemoths. As a result, he has some thoughts on what distinguishes innovative law firms from more traditional firms.
This article presents both the “outside looking in” and “inside looking out” perspectives when it comes to what makes a law firm “innovative”. Following Sean’s remarks, I offer some thoughts on how things look from within a law firm. Overall, we conclude that although certain firm attributes are prevalent in innovative law firms, such attributes are quite limited in predicting a firm’s “innovativeness”. Instead, the proper circumstances appear to be a more reliable indicator of a modern innovative law firm.
Sean’s Observations
From my experiences as a legal entrepreneur I’ve come across commonalities inherent in more innovative firms. In my ideal world, these attributes would permeate across every law firm globally. These attributes include: being proactive about risk, streamlined processes for implementing new technology, dedicated resources for innovation, and strong senior leadership support for innovation.
Being Proactive About Risk
Trying something new requires taking on some risk. But risk is inherently unavoidable. Ironically, given today’s changing legal landscape, not doing anything can be just as risky as trying something new. In some cases, I believe maintaining the status quo can be problematic. Understanding that indecision is still a decision, innovative law firms put themselves in the driver’s seat by proactively choosing which risks to take and which to dismiss.
Closely tied to understanding risk is understanding your firm’s internal pain points. Firms that have identified their pain points and strategic direction in advance (usually through in-depth process mapping) have an easier time deciding what to buy and what solutions fit within their risk tolerance profile. They also avoid being surprised by a problem and making reactionary decisions.
In the context of MinuteBox, our team has mapped out a spectrum of firms ranging from those merely curious about our solution to those who have clearly identified and prioritized improving minute book management. Law firms that have already performed internal strategic analysis will have a simpler (and less costly) buying process; they are empowered to find the products with the best overall fit and more readily adapt it to their workflows.
Streamlined Processes for Implementing New Technology
While each new technology can bring new challenges to an IT team, what’s not new is the fact that such technology is a part of the strategy of law firms. We believe that the firms that can quickly test new technology and make it available to users will have a competitive advantage. The ability to do so lies in having streamlined processes.
Implementing a new tool requires cooperation from the firm’s IT personnel, its Innovation team, and the end users at the firm. The most effective firms have alignment across these different stakeholders. Clear and consistent communication enables each person to handle their part of the job independently. In an ideal world, the appropriate individuals in both the law firm and the vendor would be in constant communication and feedback on everything from a solution’s efficacy, ease-of-use and overall value-add. Conversely, traditional firms may have a less formal technology implementation process, which can lead to bottlenecks or implementation purgatory as other more pressing matters take precedence.
At MinuteBox, our seamless implementation process is as important as our solution and we will do whatever it takes to determine if our solution is the right fit for your firm. But at the end of the day, this process is made infinitely easier if a firm has outlined a process where the steps, roles and duties of all those involved are clearly outlined.
Dedicated Innovation Resources
It’s not uncommon to hear some variant of “this solution looks great, but we just don’t have the budget right now.” NOs are fine. They are part of an entrepreneur’s life. More interesting is the varying definition of “budget”: it can mean everything from an ambiguous term with no set amount, to a defined sum of money set aside specifically to implement new solutions and innovations.
Having a dedicated budget for innovation can send powerful messages. First, when partners see that a portion of the firm’s profits are going toward “innovation,” it signifies that senior leadership believes change can have positive benefits for the firm. Second, setting aside a budget generally correlates to hiring staff dedicated to working on these projects. Smaller firms that do not have the size to hire dedicated people usually designate someone internally to future-proof the firm. Either way, designated roles further signal that a firm not only values innovation in concept, but is actively pushing forward an innovation agenda.
Change (and by extension innovation) is hard. It requires research, internal analysis and the right team to actually implement a solution once decided. But having dedicated and motivated staff, supported with some internal financial backing, is a great indication that a firm is serious about change.
Strong leadership support
Arguably the most important factor is strong leadership. It is difficult for lawyers and staff to feel comfortable about trying something new without senior leadership recognizing the value of their efforts. Effective leaders create a sense of urgency and communicate a clear vision of what change will look like across the entire firm – legal and “non-legal” alike.
Although I rarely have a complete picture of the internal workings of the different law firms I encounter, it is obvious when senior leadership prioritizes innovation. It can be as simple as allowing junior lawyers to sit on innovation committees. Proactively developing leadership skills can improve every aspect of a firm. As Blane Prescott notes, “the single most common success factor for law firms today is great leadership.” Senior leaders that embrace innovation will help foster change throughout the firm.
At the end of the day, I want to work with law firms that want to work with me. I don’t want to be a burden or an imposition within a law firm. Big or small, I want to dig deep into a firm’s problems and try and tackle whatever issues they face together. I want the incorporation of MinuteBox within a law firm’s workflow to be a mutually beneficial experience that creates a strong relationship of trust and understanding.
James’ Observations
Thanks for those great insights, Sean. I think it’s valuable to see what attributes generally correlate with innovative law firms. Still, sometimes firms with the attributes you covered still remain ineffective when it comes to preparing for the future. Why? I think that beyond these attributes one must consider the circumstances within a firm. The proper circumstances allow these attributes to have the desired effect, or not.
For example, consider David Maister’s observation that expertise-based work is on the opposite end of the spectrum from efficiency-based work – and that “every aspect of a practice group’s affairs, from practice development to hiring, from economic structure to governance, will be affected by its relative positioning on this spectrum.” There is unavoidable tension between innovation efforts, which generally aim at efficiency, and law firms taking pride in their specialized expertise. Even if you have the right attributes in place, so many lawyers and others will be operating strictly to optimize expertise.
One type of positioning is not inherently better than the other. But if a firm cannot adapt its business model to help users justify using efficiency-based innovations then it will be nearly impossible for them to do so. While it might appear from your end that certain law firms are effective or ineffective based on certain attributes, my experience working within these firms tells me something deeper is going on within firms, whether they realize it or not. As change management expert John Kotter points out: “we underestimate the subtle and systematic forces that exist in virtually all organizations”.
Being proactive about risk
To your point, risk is always present. But I’m not sure if a firm’s risk tolerance is a reliable indicator for finding correct solutions. As Clayton Christensen points out: “many of the executives who have been unable to create sustained corporate growth have evidenced a strong stomach for risk”. If there’s not much correlation between risk tolerance and sustained growth in business generally, it’s safe to assume the same goes for law firms.
Consider a firm that has decided to proactively manage risk: how does it accurately assess those risks? The problem with large firms seeking growth is that the exciting growth markets of tomorrow are small today. Even if a firm wants to pursue a certain opportunity, its size and business model can still make it impossible to justify doing so.
Even though firms are indeed aware of industry trends and have smart people working on preparing for the future, an organization’s size and business model can skew its perception of risk. So no matter how much a firm might understand it needs to change, it cannot justify doing so given the constraints it has built for itself. As Christensen puts it: “[Disruption] is not a story of incompetence. It is a story of perfectly rational, profit-maximizing decisions.”
Streamlined Processes for Implementing New Technology
As someone who works in innovation, I know that at times it can indeed feel like there aren’t any processes. Some firms are better at this than others, but every law firm already has processes for implementing and managing new technology. Given the amount of technology involved in every law firm (e-billing, document management system, accounting software, laptops and mobile devices, etc.), processes are a must. I’ve come to understand that delays arise not from any attributes of an IT team, but the circumstances under which they’re operating.
The best processes in the world will barely matter if the work you want done is deemed “extra” compared to everything else handled by the IT department. There are a long list of responsibilities for these teams that are more important than implementing new innovation software. Implementation procedures are important, but the resource allocation priorities of IT provide ample justification for postponing innovation efforts.
Further, if an IT team seems genuinely resistant it might be because, though they don’t get any reward for implementing new software, they certainly take on all the risk. It doesn’t matter if something was or wasn’t IT’s idea, any cybersecurity issue is always seen as IT’s fault. As Gary Moore explains, in any industry, “technical function is often last to get on board”. And the way past this is not in processes but in changing incentives. As Moore explains: “IT only get on board after the executive function makes it a priority, which they will only do after a department makes it clear they have a problem.”
Dedicated Innovation Resources
Resources are indeed a crucial piece to any endeavor. But they are quite malleable to their circumstances. Having an innovation fund doesn’t guarantee a firm will invest in the right technology. Similarly, just because a firm has dedicated staff working on innovation doesn’t mean the rest of the firm is receptive to their efforts. Getting a firm to buy new software is one thing, getting a firm to actually use it is often quite another. So just like processes, resources are crucial and yet limited in their effectiveness.
While resources and processes are often enablers of what a firm can do, a firm’s values can represent constraints by outlining what a firm cannot do. A firm with one set of values would be incapable of succeeding in anything other than the work that aligns with those values. The “subtle and systematic forces” of the organization won’t allow it – even with dedicated staff and budget. Christensen’s observation that “organizations cannot disrupt themselves” implies how deeply an organization must change in order to shift its values and corresponding business model in order to adapt. The magnitude of this change is why he suggests an organization build an off-shoot organization with values that lead to better outcomes, or undertake a herculean managerial effort in order to redesign itself.
Strong leadership support
I’ve spoken before about the massive shift in required skills involved in going from lawyer to managing a law firm. And while I still think that argument has some merit, even those who have spent entire careers managing companies struggle with sustaining growth. As Christensen observes:
“about 90% of all publicly traded companies have proved themselves unable to sustain for more than a few years a growth trajectory that creates above-average shareholder returns. Unless we believe that the pool of management talent in established firms is like some perverse Lake Wobegon, where 90% of managers are below average, there has to be a more fundamental explanation for why the vast majority of good managers has not been able to crack the problem of sustaining growth.”
Though all companies struggle with navigating a changing marketplace, one particular obstacle for law firms is embedded in the leadership style that typically works for expertise-based companies. Maister explains that in expertise-based companies (like most big law firms), “the autonomy of the individual partner would be among the most supreme virtues in the firm, with little use made of formal internal structuring.” This setup has had much historical success. But as the legal industry undergoes structural shifts, this hands off approach is now a liability. Christensen explains that: “disruptive innovation is the category of circumstance in which powerful senior managers must personally be involved… A senior-most executive is the only one who can endorse the use of corporate processes when they are appropriate, and break the grip of those processes and decision rules when they are not.” No amount of business acumen will be sufficient in creating change unless senior leadership is willing to be hands-on throughout.
Conclusion
A proactive approach to risk, streamlined processes, designated resources, and management skills are all necessary for a firm to be able to adapt for the future, but they alone are not sufficient. As much as certain people are pushing for change, employees at every level make prioritization decisions. And those decisions are derived from how the firm sets up its values. One set of values is not inherently better than another, and it is possible to navigate the tension between expertise vs efficiency; but the conflict between them will always be present.
Selling products that make an organization more efficient is one thing. Organizations trying to transition from expertise-based values to efficiency-based values will, as Maister puts it, “be transforming the fundamental nature of their firm.” And those asking their lawyers and staff to become more efficient while focusing their incentives and growth strategy on expertise-based work will have a hard time navigating that tension. So legal technology companies must be conscious of the changes their solutions ask of a firm. Similarly, the more conscious law firm leaders are of how much they are asking their lawyers and staff to change, the less frustrated these might be when things don’t go according to plan.
This piece is a list of suggestions and helpful solutions in order to help us, as a legal community, get through the tumultuous times, and ensure we are in the best possible position when this is all over (it will happen… I swear!).
Here we are. The vast majority of lawyers are working from home, trying to find a sense of normalcy in a world that changes by the hour (sometimes less). I always knew the legal industry would undergo a cataclysmic change, but never in my wildest thoughts did I envision a global pandemic would be the catalyst.
Let’s get one thing clear. There is no single-source rule book for how we, as a profession, undertake our role in the current circumstances. These are uncharted waters and we are all navigating them for the first time. Good luck!
But I firmly believe lawyers are smart and resourceful. They will find ways to provide services to clients and ensure the job gets done.
Even at times when we feel helpless as professionals, there are steps lawyers and law firms can take to ensure our industry makes it through this crisis:
Communicate with your clients: Ensure they are well accommodated. A simple phone call goes a long way to build goodwill. In times of uncertainty, “Hi, how are you?” shows concern and empathy. Find out what kind of support they need and offer your services, if you can.
Communicate with other lawyers: One big (normal) fear we may have is that other lawyers are farther along in their management of this crisis than we are. This can lead to uncertainty, anxiety, paranoia and doubt. Rest assured, every lawyer is feeling the stress and everyone is, to at least some degree, underprepared for a situation like this. Speaking with colleagues will not only help settle your thoughts, but may also introduce you to some novel solutions they have uncovered which can help your practice as well.
Explore what doesn’t work: What PAIN POINTS are you specifically feeling now when it comes to your ability to practice? What is not working and what needs fixing. What really grinds your gears when it comes to your practice? These might not be identified immediately, but over the coming weeks, begin to explore which processes are important and which are dead weight.
Take stock of your processes: Do a little process mapping. How were things done before the current health crisis? How are they done now? What can be improved and what was waste? Process mapping for different parts of your practice can help zero-in on areas that can be improved.
Take advantage of government resources: The federal and provincial governments have been providing capital for businesses and individuals. It is important to inform your clients about what’s available, but also determine if you or your firm is eligible. Find out if you are eligible for the Temporary Wage Subsidy (TWS), the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program (CERB).
Don’t be afraid to push the envelope when it comes to novel ways to practice: Remember, above all else your duty is to provide service to your clients (in a safe, ethical and secure manner). Think outside the box and be a trailblazer!
Embrace the quiet: Lawyers are notoriously busy, always working on client deadlines (whether actual or self-imposed). Without a doubt, those times will return, guaranteed! But in the meantime, enjoy working fewer hours. Embrace a 9-5 work routine. Take an extended lunch at the kitchen table. Watch an episode of the Price is Right (it’s good for the soul!).
Take the time to be honest with yourself: Anxiety, nervousness and fear are human emotions. And although we sometimes work superhuman hours, we must find time to cope and express our emotions to ourselves and to others.
As lawyers, we are made to feel we have all the answers all the time. It’s alright to take a little bit of time to find the best approach to provide optimal service to your clients and yourself.
If you remember nothing else, remember Rule # 1: Stay healthy. The rest we can figure out together!
Sometimes it feels that certain sectors of legal innovation grab all of the attention, especially regarding new solutions in corporate law, litigation, tax, and intellectual property. But aside from the big 4 accounting firms incorporating immigration law departments into their service offerings, few solutions move the needle when it comes to innovating immigration.
Located in a beautifully repurposed house on Bloor Street West in Toronto Ontario, the team at Sobirovs Law Firm (https://www.sobirovs.com/) offers an entrepreneurial approach when helping clients abroad bring their businesses to Canada.
The Sobirovs team hails from the four corners of the world, bringing with them a multilingual and multi-jurisdictional experience to the practice of immigration.
The success of the firm is due in large part to the managing partner, Rakhmad Sobirov, who has law degrees from Uzbekistan, Hungary and Canada. Working with a number of leading law firms throughout the world during his career, he has managed to successfully merge his experiences in corporate, international aviation and intellectual property law into a unique offering for immigrants into Canada.
What intrigued me, perhaps more than anything else, was the firm’s personal investment in helping their clients help themselves. Recently, Sobirovs launched ImmigrationShop.ca (https://www.immigrationshop.ca/), a teaching tool designed to help new immigrants manage much of the immigration process themselves. As Sobirov himself explains, “ImmigrationShop is unique in the sense that it allows us, the lawyers, to share our legal knowledge with the general public. Rather than saying “pay me and I will do it for you”, we are saying “come and learn AND do it with us!””
Using videos, consultations and lawyer application reviews, the ImmigrationShop workshops offer a “hand-holding” approach for potential immigrants. While there is a cost associated with watching the videos and taking the online workshops, immigrants undertaking the process themselves can save thousands in potential legal fees.
I had the chance to sit down with Rakhmad Sobirov and probe the ImmigrationShop a little bit deeper. I think his responses reflect a positive trend in lawyers taking initiative to create unique business models and revenue sources, all while increasing client value and satisfaction.
How long have you been practicing law?
I have been a lawyer in Uzbekistan since 2003, but have been practicing law as an Ontario lawyer since 2012. When I immigrated to Canada in 2006, I decided to go back to law school from the beginning and study the common law system in order to become a full-fledged Canadian lawyer.
Given your broad legal experience, when did you realize you wanted to focus exclusively on immigration?
Immigration law is constantly changing, and businesses, domestic and international clients rely on experienced lawyers to help navigate the complex immigration laws and regulations. We effectively facilitate the international relocation of executives, investors, high-skilled workers and their accompanying family members, starting from temporary visas for business visits to Canada to eventually obtain Canadian permanent residency or citizenship.
We realized there is a large market for unique, tailor-made and creative legal solutions for foreign business owners, investors and high-net-worth individuals interested in bringing their businesses and families to Canada.
It’s a win-win strategy for us as Canadian lawyers who ourselves immigrated to Canada. We have a deep understanding of the challenges that are often faced by immigrants or foreign businesses entering new markets. On one hand, we are contributing to the Canadian economy by bringing in capital and expertise from outside of Canada. On the other hand, we are helping established families from outside Canada make a new home and build a better future for themselves and their children.
We understand our clients very well. Our practice is best described as an “immigrant to immigrant approach.”
Have there been any recent innovations, technologies or opportunities in the area of immigration in the last 5-10 years? Any technologies devoted exclusively to this area of legal practice?
Overall the field of immigration law remains pretty conservative with few novel solutions available for law firms or their clients. It is dominated by the “do-it-for-you” model. That is, you hire a lawyer/immigration consultant/Quebec notary and pay him/her, and the service provider does all immigration applications for you.
What we see in immigration law more often is the danger of the unauthorized and unlicensed practice of immigration law by “ghost consultants,” “travel/visa agents” and so-called “helpers.” They would complete all applications as if the applicant were doing it himself/herself. There are plenty of horror stories of such shady practices and we want our clients to trust us and not worry about being swindled. With the launch of ImmigrationShop, we hope to tackle this problem by educating potential visa and immigration applicants.
What inspired the creation of ImmigrationShop? How long has it been in development? What do you hope your clients (and future clients) will get out of it?
First, we have deep knowledge of the common repetitive inquiries that people ask us about immigrating to Canada. We constantly receive queries asking “How to come to Canada as a student/worker/tourist/businessman?” or “How to claim refugee status in Canada?” We identified a certain level of repetitiveness in our practice.
Second, based on these findings, we wanted to consolidate our expertise into useful material in order to reference and share multiple/unlimited times. We realized that our knowledge had scalability and can serve for the benefit of future visa applicants.
Third, we realized that interested potential immigrants living outside of Canada could not always afford the legal fees of Canadian immigration lawyers. That could be one of the reasons why these people go to unlicensed service providers or complete the immigration applications themselves using the information they find online. Obviously, in so doing there is a level of risk involved.
Analyzing all these circumstances, we thought “why don’t we, the licensed and experienced Canadian lawyers, empower the applicants by transferring our knowledge directly to them? We could do it by transferring our expertise, tools and tips, and train those applicants on how to prepare strong visa and immigration applications. In a way, we would share our expertise with them at a fraction of our standard legal fees.”
While many visa applications can be done by the applicant personally without involving any intermediary, the challenge is to have the right information, experience and tools (which most visa applicants lack). We help applicants become better educated, more powerful, and well-equipped to prepare their own applications, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of ghost consultants and scammers.
We then developed detailed training workshops in which we give the candidates the necessary tools to increase their chances of success in their visa or immigration applications. It took us almost 2 years to develop the concept and it takes us 3-4 months to prepare one detailed visa workshop. We are constantly working on creating new workshops.
You are encouraging clients to undertake much of the immigration process themselves, as opposed to seeking out a lawyer at the outset. Why? What effect do you think this will have on your practice?
We are not removing the traditional legal services from the spectrum. For complicated immigration matters, clients are encouraged to hire an immigration lawyer in a traditional way. But for clients with limited means or preferring to complete applications by themselves, we offer workshops which save them money.
After completing the relevant workshop, candidates can complete their immigration applications based on our knowledge and guidelines. Taking the study permit workshop as an example, we offer legal consultation at a discounted rate and can review completed application packages of our students on a limited scope retainer before anything is submitted to the Canadian immigration authorities.
In a traditional “do-it-for-you” model, a client would pay around $2000 for a visitor visa/student visa application done by a Canadian immigration lawyer. This price covers the lawyer’s overhead costs which are built in the lawyer’s legal fees.
We removed the administrative costs and transferred all the savings to the client. We call this the “do-it-with-you” model. It saves candidates money without compromising the application’s quality, thereby maximizing client value at a very affordable rate.
For study permit, our workshop only charges $99. The clients/students can get all the necessary information, step-by-step video instructions, template documents and sample application packages, which enables them to complete everything themselves. If the student has any questions, he/she can get a consultation for just $149, and a professional review of the completed application package for just $249. The total cost of one visa application would be less than $500.
The creation of ImmigrationShop has an implied mission of addressing the access to justice issue within the Canadian immigration system. Indeed, for people with limited financial means, many of them could not afford traditional legal services and may be left without any access to legal help. When it comes to navigating the Canadian immigration process, it is better to have the right knowledge and tools offered by licensed Canadian lawyers than to rely on your own Internet research, friends’ stories or ghost agents’ services.
Are you the first immigration law firm to offer a solution like ImmigrationShop?
To our knowledge YES! What we are trying to do has never been done by any other traditional law firm. We are turning our immigrant candidates into immigration professionals for a very specific period of time and with a very specific purpose.
What other new/unique technologies and solutions are you using at Sobirovs Law? Are there new solutions on the horizon?
While new specific projects remain our secret, I can tell that we are maximizing the utilization of technologies in our daily practice. For example, starting from basic paperless environment in our office and continuing with using automation in client intake and document drafting, we can pass more value to our customers. Tools like Calendly, amoCRM and CosmoLex (to name a few) have certainly helped streamline a lot of the administrative components of running our firm.
We constantly search for new solutions that would allow us to achieve the goals above. That’s why we got interested in MinuteBox, which allows us to maintain client’s minute books electronically. Because we deal with business owners and investors, we also provide basic incorporation and company organization services. We can use MinuteBox to maintain corporate documents easily and that saves us time and client’s money.
