Gregg Garofalo: Building a Tech-Forward, Human-Centered Estate Practice

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, along with my beautiful co-host RB. In 1958, the ABA published an article that sparked the birth of the billable hour, and the legal profession hasn’t looked back since. This show is about what comes next. Each episode, we sit down with attorneys, business leaders, and the people who support them to talk honestly about what it takes to build a law practice that’s not just successful but sustainable. All right, RB, let’s get into it. Let’s talk about our guest, special guest today.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Today’s guest has spent over two decades helping families navigate some of life’s most difficult moments, from settling estates and fighting probate disputes to planning for the future care of loved ones with special needs, a Chicago attorney, managing partner of the Garfallo Law Group, and a recognized leader in the Illinois legal community, he has been named to the Super Lawyers list every single year since 2010. He’s not just practicing law; he’s reimagining how it gets done, building his own case management software from the ground up using Microsoft tools, he’s a guardian ad litem, a civic leader, and proof that lawyers can also be innovators. Welcome to the show, Greg Garfallo.

Ron Bockstahler: Holy cow! What an introduction.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, thank you very much. Can you send me a copy of that, please? I’d like. Yes,

Ron Bockstahler: I can. Greg, welcome to the show. I mean, special guest. We’ve known Greg, been close friends for over 20 years, so it’s great to have you on the show. Really appreciate you stopping by.

Gregg Garofalo: Thanks for having me.

Ron Bockstahler: Let’s kind of jump in. You’ve been practicing on your own for over 20 years. I think we just recently talked about that.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, 2020 2004 is when I went out on my own.

Ron Bockstahler: Long time. That’s uh, what what what are things looking back now that you look back go? I wish I would have known.

Gregg Garofalo: Um, I mean, it’s it’s hard it’s it’s hard to say really like what what I wish I would have known. Um, I wish I would have gotten. I think the one thing is probably getting to more marketing. Really, to be honest with you, I’ve been very, very fortunate with our business and our business model, which is really just referrals for the most part. And we did a little bit more intensive marketing during COVID, like so many other people, because you could have those face to face and those bar meetings and those dinners and which was a lot of the networking that we did. So I wish I would have done a little bit more marketing from the get go.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s never too late. That’s interesting because I think a lot of law firms don’t do a lot of marketing, or they don’t understand how to do marketing, and they definitely don’t know how to track the data that’s coming in, you know where the leads are coming from, so how they can maximize that. So it’s interesting you brought that one topic up. You have to listen to our next few shows. We’re going to have a few guests on talking about the very subject of how small firms can really maximize the marketing efforts. Right, and

Rebecca Bockstahler: I think it’s interesting because it’s a business where everything is generally calculated on a billable hour, and to ask attorneys to then put something non billable in and make sure they’re making setting time for it can come sometimes make attorneys like stop and think well wait I need to bill those hours I can’t be doing business development but like you mentioned you have to have the referrals and keep it coming in consistently

Ron Bockstahler: we got to go back because I happen to know a lot about you and your firm. And let’s talk about at one point you had six, eight attorneys. At one point you bought another law firm. Like, okay, tell it. Let’s. I mean, maybe it’s a sore subject, right? I know I’m opening a wound, but you know, I think young attorneys that are listening to the show want to understand. Like, we all got creative ideas, and we want we want to act on these things. So you had a partner at one point. I remember when Alex kind of joined the firm for a period of time. Kind of take us back to the younger years. What? Tell me what you were thinking about and what you were hoping to accomplish, and how did it work out?

Gregg Garofalo: Well, yeah, I started out on my own, small little office, sat between two, became very good friends, you and your old partner, and you know it’s just grinding away. and And my vision was hopefully to build a practice where I would have a few other attorneys working with me, which did happen over the years. As you said, I grew. I grew to the. To get as many six attorneys at one time, including myself, and part of that was because I bought a practice, and so it’s kind of an open wound because not the practice I bought. It was actually I bought it from a very good friend of mine, and it was a very good practice. It just so happened to be in an industry that was, and I don’t think this is an exaggeration decimated by Uber and Lyft because it related to the taxi cab medallion business. So with the loss of that business, we started to scale back our journeys, our business a little bit. And today, it’s myself and one one colleague attorney Colleen Suniga and then one assistant. It’s it’s much more manageable. I like it much more. It’s also possible because of technology, which is you know as you mentioned before, it’s something that I’ve I’ve really always been interested in and trying to see how I can make the practice a little bit better and easier as far as keeping organized because as an attorney, that’s one of the biggest things. It’s staying organized. It really is.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah. Now you’ve got two areas of two primary areas of practice, correct? It’s a probate and then estate planning,

Gregg Garofalo: right? So I do actually kind of three, but it’s it’s all related to trust and estates. So I do the trust and estates drafting, wills, powers of attorney. I do a lot of special needs stuff because I have a child with special needs. It’s always been an interest of mine, even before having Seraphina working in the probate area, I would work a lot with disabled people. I was appointed by the court as a guardian ad litem, so I got a lot of one-on-one time with people who are less fortunate. So I did the probate administration for guardianship for people who passed away, but then we also do litigation. We also do probate litigation. So it’s which is again could be a trust contest, it could be a will contest, it could be just the challenging of an inheritance. So that’s those are our three areas.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s a unique specialty that I think you maybe want to maximize on, or any attorney. They got something that they can really be passionate about, and you can do that with special needs.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, yeah. Obviously, like you said, it kind of hits hits home a little bit. It’s a very special and tough area because there isn’t a lot of education out there for family members on what their rights are. We don’t do special needs rights and that type of thing, but doing any kind of special needs planning, you you cover and overlap in a lot of that area. So it’s it’s very rewarding personally for my family, but it’s also very rewarding seeing how it benefits some of these families who, like I said, have no idea what they’re going to do or what I see benefits they they possibly have.

Ron Bockstahler: Man, it’s needed out there. I don’t think you. It’s hard to find someone that actually has the experience and can really assist in that area,

Gregg Garofalo: it really is. I know when you know, and by I was by no means an expert in. And once my daughter transitioned into school, how do we work with the schools? What are our rights? What can we do? That’s not my area of expertise. And in trying to find somebody in that area, not even an expert, just to give us a little advice is was very difficult, which you know caused myself and my wife to actually do a lot of research in the game.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, I imagine that it brings people a level of comfort and trust. Honestly, that they’re speaking to someone who is able to empathize with them because firsthand experience in similar situations, but also someone who’s compassionate, and when they’re meeting with you, it’s not, you know, a hard sell. It’s you’re helping them with something because you’ve noticed help that you’ve needed in the past. I think that’s really valuable.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, I think I think the expression often is just commonly thrown around. Hey, I know how you feel, but in situations when I’m sitting down with a family that’s that is is challenged with a special needs family member, I really do know how they feel, and you know, sharing that I think does give them a level level of comfort. Sometimes they feel like they open up a little bit more. It’s it’s a very difficult thing that if you do not have a special needs child, no one really knows how you feel or what your day in day out is. So yeah, I think that gives them a lot of comfort, and it makes and I like hearing you know what’s going on in their lives. So I think that helps. With the communication in the bot as well, too.

Ron Bockstahler: Right. All right. Let’s talk about like where you want to see the practice go. You live in Georgia part time. You’re still up in Chicago. That’s primarily where your practice is at. Where you kind of see and like how your technology is allowing you to do so much. I think you moved what eight years ago.

Gregg Garofalo: No, I moved in 2014 so it’s been 11 years.

Ron Bockstahler: Oh gosh, even longer than I thought. So how has your practice changed? How has the technology? What technology are you deploying that’s allowing you to work, run a practice in Chicago from Georgia?

Gregg Garofalo: So you know, I’ll go back to when we moved down there in Georgia, which we moved down for family. We close to my wife’s family and and raise our family in Georgia. And at the time, I flew to Chicago every single week. I mean, 50 weeks out of the year, I was here for at least three days, so it’s it’s like I wasn’t even living there, as far as work was concerned. And so slowly, we I tried to develop some of the technology so that I could spend more time at home. And it was it was a little bit of a challenge because it wasn’t really the technology might have been out there, but the courts and the other law firms, the other attorneys, really weren’t accepting it or following that practice, you know. And then, bam, COVID hits, and and now everybody’s was running, you know, to to try to figure it out, figure out how they can work remotely and offer that to employees. And by that time, from 2014 to 2020 you know. 2020, we started with our we had a practice management software. It’s which is a little unusual, I would say, for a small firm of our size at the time. You know, I started with practice management software almost immediately, probably two years into practice, and it was hard because there’s so many out there, and most of them are so big, and they were there was so much, and they only did this. Then you had to do this, then you had to get another software, do this. So it was it was a challenge. 2020 really helped that as far as different opportunities for different you know softwares and CRMs. We actually ended up moving to one that I liked, but still it didn’t really suit us specifically. I wanted to customize it more, and at the end of the day, it was very expensive, and you still had to have Microsoft Office, you still had to have Zoom, and you still had to have Teams, and you still had to have DocuSign, you still had to have all these things that didn’t talk to your CRM necessarily, so it was a it was a frustration to try to find what can I find what what there’s got to be something out there, you know. And Microsoft is was our answer. They are they do everything.

Rebecca Bockstahler: So how did you look at all of the apps and everything available in Microsoft, and start piecing together how you could make practice management software that made the most sense to you using those tools.

Gregg Garofalo: So, like I said, in our practice, we I used Microsoft Office from the get go, from the computer version to eventually now, what is that we all use it today as an app rather than a program, and you know, I just started to dig in, and a lot of YouTube, a lot of research is I’m paying all this money for Microsoft, and there’s so much more that you can get with what your subscription is, and most people don’t realize. So you pay that money, and you’re paying for a CRM. Why don’t I just use Microsoft as my CRM? It definitely has the ability to do that through going over some people’s heads, but Power Apps, Power Automate, you know, Dynamics 365 Outlook calendaring there’s it’s endless SharePoint sites One drives it’s a little bit overwhelming to be honest with you initially and it was difficult because what I found it hard what I found hard was nobody was really an expert even though they say they were an expert, and so it’s definitely been a learning curve. We’ve had a lot of bumps in the road, unfortunately.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Have you partnered with developers to help you with this, or is it really Greg in the middle of the night watching YouTube and figuring all of this out.

Gregg Garofalo: So no, I definitely the development part is way over my head. That I can’t. I tried it, and it’s just not worth it. I started. I started out with a developer in the United States. And a whole consulting team, and and actually, out of all the developer consultants I’ve had, they were the most frustrating. They just didn’t get it. I don’t know. They said they worked with lawyers. They said they understood it, but their product wasn’t delivered on time. So I use a service called Upwork, which I know, Ron. I think I turned you on to way back when, and that’s where I found the initial developer. And since then, I’ve had three other consultants as far as helping us develop this. This it’s an app. It’s called Microsoft Dynamics app, which is like a CRM. So you’re

Ron Bockstahler: unique in the law because most attorneys are not tech savvy, you’re extremely tech savvy, so you’re kind of on that on that spectrum. I think of you love, you enjoy that. Many times we talked about: Do you practice law? Do you really want to be a tech guru? So spinning up a practice management software pretty much on your own that you’re hoping to actually take over to to have other attorneys start using it to test it out.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, we’re. I’m still a little bit ways from that, but we’re. It’s probably about 80% now done. And when I say 80% done, we use it. We’ve been using it full time since October of last year. But it’s a constant process of refining it and also trying to streamline it for the employees and for the for the user, especially in today’s with today’s technology and the the current court system. All courts now, thanks to COVID, use Zoom electronic filing. Very rarely do you have to go to court anymore, unless it’s for a litigation case or the judges specifically have certain rules on these kinds of cases coming to court. So, in now that we have all this electronic filing, it’s still a little a little bit more work because you have to make sure orders come in and orders get filed, and we can hire additional people to do that, or we can try to use the software to do that, which is what we’ve done, especially with AI. We we’re able to incorporate and most of the emails and pleadings from courts, once we file it, come in. They automatically get put into court folders. The users get notification that this was received and that it was in there. Some we’re still working on scheduling and making sure that the appointments are are properly done. So AI has been a real big.

Ron Bockstahler: Greg, you have a CRM that’s tied to that,

Gregg Garofalo: or does

Ron Bockstahler: it act as a CRM?

Gregg Garofalo: Does our current software? Yeah. Well, Dynamics really is like the CRM. Is it’s it’s a kind of an over it’s it’s an overlays. It was used and developed first for sales, so it’s got a very big sales backbone. But the nice thing about Dynamics, there’s two different versions. There’s like the out of the box they call it out of the box versions, model driven apps, and then there’s the fully customized version, which is all in. And for the most part, the out of the box is pretty straightforward. That we have our developer, we work in it in Power Apps, and then all the data is collected in Power Apps. And Dynamics is like the I always say it’s like the video. Power Apps is the VHS machine, and Dynamics is the tape that you put in there to to utilize Power Apps and be able to enjoy Power Apps. So that’s all it is. It’s it’s a it’s an overlay for Power Apps. It’s Dynamics.

Ron Bockstahler: You’re able to track new clients coming in, possibly where they came from, and then follow-ups to make sure, even if you didn’t win the business today, that they’re in your your hopper to stay in touch with.

Gregg Garofalo: That’s our next step.

Ron Bockstahler: Okay,

Gregg Garofalo: the first step was really to develop the software just to manage what we had and to make sure that that was integrated all in one, and that was probably the most important thing because the whole reason going to this, we for the most part have subscriptions to Microsoft and DocuSign. We have to use Zoom because of the courts, we don’t have to have a subscription for it. But all of our video conferencing is done on Teams. Our phone services through Teams. Obviously, our emails through Teams. So my our first focus was phase one was incorporate this all into the practice and make sure that the users are comfortable with it. And we’re able to utilize it. Next step is marketing and calling Amata.

Ron Bockstahler: And Amata is going to help you. We’ve got a lot of great plans. I’m really excited. In fact, just talking to you today, and and and I actually knew your specialty, the Earth Gear passion, but I know that you haven’t really optimized that on your marketing side,

Gregg Garofalo: no, not at

Ron Bockstahler: all. So it’s one of the things I think we’re going to hit on. So it’s going to it’s going to be fun working with you on that. What do we got kind of coming up? What do you where do you see the firm going? Where do you like? Where’s law going? Where do you see estate planning happening? What’s changing?

Gregg Garofalo: You know, it’s it’s it’s it’s an unknown, and you you and I were kind of talking about this I think the other day, in that with AI, do I think it’s going to take over our practice? You know, do I think that it’s going to make our practice easier. Absolutely, I think that it’s gonna. The current technology and AI. I think a lot of people are still kind of doing what they used to do. They’ll get on the internet and they’ll do the simple estate plan, or they’ll do a will, or they’ll do whatever, which is fine. Generally, those are not the clients that we would service anyhow, but I often tell people who would try to do their own estate plan, just make sure here’s my card to put in your envelope. So when you pass away, there’s going to be litigation. We’ll be the ones representing you. Well, I think

Rebecca Bockstahler: you’re probably ahead just because you’re willing to embrace AI to some level, as opposed to the attorneys who really would just rather act like it doesn’t exist, and like you said, it’s not going to be the end all be all. There’s always going to be the need for human interaction, human cross checking, but you’re not afraid to use

Gregg Garofalo: it. Yeah, and it’s you know it’s it’s where do I see you know us in the future too? Obviously, I want to continue to practice. I really do because I do enjoy the practice part of it. I do like the technology, and I got into the law because I wanted to help people. And when I say help people, I wanted to work with families, small businesses, and develop that relationship. I didn’t necessarily want to be a personal injury lawyer, which, looking back, I probably would have done better. I have so much respect for them because it’s definitely a great field, but it just wasn’t wasn’t what I had in mind, and so I would like to help small firms, you know, with technology, with learning some of the technology and some of the options they have, but really some of the pitfalls too, and what they have to be careful with with AI. Like I was telling you, Ron, in Georgia, if if you’re a lawyer practicing in Georgia and you use AI for anything on any pleading or any research at all, you have to fully disclose that to the court. What you did, what you used, and I don’t know what the how you used it, and so you got to be really careful. Now that law has not been implemented into or that requirement into the Illinois or the Cook County courts at this point, it may be something that’s coming down the road, you know. So, if that’s the case, all attorneys are going to have to embrace what’s AI. How do I use it? How do how am I careful with it so I don’t violate any professional conduct rules or court rules? And that’s something that we’re trying to stay on top of as well. We use AI in our practice software, but we don’t necessarily use it to generate anything for courts or

Ron Bockstahler: intervention. You don’t do a lot of research, correct?

Gregg Garofalo: I mean, at this point in our career, we just monitor the cases that come in as far as new case law and new statutes, but there’s not a lot. No, in this area of the law, there’s not a lot of research that needs to be done.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, because I refer because I know a model we use LexisNexis AI for case research with litigators, and then of course we use it on the business side, right? Absolutely, not client data or anything of that driven. We’re not, you know, the price of law. So we understand that, but I think there’s a lot of great use case scenarios to use AI to really enhance the practice of law without, you know, even in Georgia, without saying, okay, here’s what I’m using it on a specific case or a matter.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: you don’t want to put client data into AI.

Gregg Garofalo: No, no, and but you don’t want to put anything in there that’s not going to be public knowledge, right? Right. Yeah. So we. So I think back to your question: Do we do research? Yes, when it’s necessary. But for the most part, we don’t need to do it because most of our practice is administration and planning. But we stay on top of of what. Current laws, AI is great though too because you can put a pleading in and say read this pleading and tell me if there’s any new case law out there, and it will come back and and it’s usually pretty accurate, pretty accurate. So that’s great as far as AI goes, and I found just asking AI questions about different areas of the law. It’s coming back if we say find cases, the cases we already have. So I know attorneys are using it for for legal research. I would still, and I still do use when necessary, Lexis.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah. So it’s hard to believe you’ve been practicing over 20 years. Kind of get my mind around the where the years go. We’ve had a lot of a lot of fun in those 20 years together. Yeah, you. It’s a lot more in the next 20 years. We got another 20 years ahead of us. I want you to give a couple words in the last few minutes here to the young, up and coming, starting off attorneys. You know, words of advice. They’re going to go out on their own.

Gregg Garofalo: Well. Well, I think anybody who is going out on their own and envisions of growing their practice-they don’t want to say necessarily a solo practitioner. If this is something they want to grow over time, I think setting up the proper management tools upfront are so important. It’s going to cost a little bit more, but not much these days. It’s going to take a little bit more time, definitely, than just saving stuff on your hard drive or now up in a cloud, which you still have to be very careful about saving stuff up in a cloud. I would say so. My advice to them would be: look at what you’re going to practice and what your goals are, and whatever it is, make sure you manage that and plan it out from the get go because it’s so hard to catch up. It’s so hard to recreate after having Time Matters, which is a big, I think it’s owned by LexisNexis. Time Matters to Practice Panther to Action Step to where we are now, which we’re very happy with. But we’ve tried all these softwares, and the problem is some of our documents and some of the emails on their proprietary system. So to pull all that stuff off and try to get it into our system was difficult because we have cases with guardianship. Like we had one yesterday, and my sister was telling me, “Man, that case was is 12 years old. So you know we keep files for 12 years in many instances, if we would have been had the plan up in Microsoft from the get go and everything else, it would have made managing it much easier and easier to find information for yourself for the future. So that’d be my my advice: is plan out your five year goal, 10 year goal, and then use the technology to complement what you want,

Ron Bockstahler: awesome. We appreciate it, Rebecca. Final words.

Rebecca Bockstahler: I mean, my final words. Everybody knows I am a card-carrying member of the Great Garfallo Fan Club, so I just wish you the most success in whatever you envision that to be. I think this is all fantastic.

Gregg Garofalo: Well, I appreciate that. You know, I and you know how I feel about you too, RP. So it goes without saying we’ve had a lot of great years, professionally and personally. So you know, one other thing, advice I would give young attorneys is Amata. You know, I don’t want to. I know you’re not here for us to plug you, but that really was something that is taken off our plates. You know, I, as you know, and tell the the broadcasting nation, but I started out with Amata for a short time. Then I had my own space, and I came back to Amata, and I’ve been here, you know, for been with Amata almost 20 years. And so up front, people say, “Well, cost more money. Yeah, it costs a little bit more money, but you know what? There’s no headaches. Yesterday, my internet went out, and I didn’t have, and I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. I picked up the phone, and I didn’t have to deal with it. I don’t have to deal with this. I don’t have to deal with that. I don’t have to deal with all these other issues. Which is a solo practitioner or a small firm. It’s so stressful and so important, though, at the same time. So that would probably be the other big advice that I give here to young lawyers. We appreciate Ron and Rebecca, big big fans.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, thank you for the kind words. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the show. And hey, we’re going out to South Carolina or South Dakota pretty soon, so I’m looking forward to that.

Gregg Garofalo: Yep. Listen to little blues. Listen little blues. All right.

Ron Bockstahler: All right. That’s all we got for you today. If today’s conversation got you thinking about your own practice, I hope you take one idea and put it to work this week. And if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with the colleague who. Could use it. I want to leave with this. Greg, Greg specializes in estate planning, probate work, especially with special needs families with special needs children. We’re going to get his information in the show notes, so please reach out to him. He’s definitely a resource. He can help you. He’s been doing it for over 20 years. It’s just so crazy for me to keep saying that, but but definitely reach out to him. We’ll make sure you got his contact information. Greg, thanks for being on the show. Really appreciate it.

Gregg Garofalo: All right, thanks, guys. Have a great day.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Thanks, Greg. Bye.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer. If you like the show, tell a friend, and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to hear more about Ron, Rebecca, or Amata, go to amataoffices.com That’s amataoffices.com All the links are also in the show notes.