Seth & Hamid Kohan: An Overview of Overseas Staffing

On this episode of the SEO Insider, Seth Price interviews Hamid Kohan, Founder, President, and CEO at Legal Soft, a company trusted by over 650 law firms to help firms grow through trained virtual assistants, expert marketing, and full practice set-up. Seth asks Hamid about the process of properly hiring and training overseas staff. He also explains that he aims for overseas staff at BluShark to feel like part of the team, which Hamid agrees should be the goal of hiring such employees.

Hamid details how Legal Soft has developed a framework for hiring where they have a physical presence in eight countries with talent acquisition that fields job applications in those specific countries. After hiring, Hamid says “we have an extensive training curriculum that is designed and created by US based attorneys who practice in that area who helped us create that curriculum. So we train them. And then we put them on our payroll, and we deploy them into a law firm as dedicated, full time virtual staff that are trained to do that specific job.” Tune in to learn more!

Transcript

BluShark Digital  0:00  
Welcome to the SEO Insider with your host, Seth Price, Founder of BluShark, taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.

Seth Price  0:10  
Welcome, everyone. We are so excited to have Hamid here. He's the president, CEO and founder of Legal Soft. Welcome, Hamid

Hamid Kohan  0:17  
Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be here.

Seth Price  0:20  
I got to know you a little bit on the road, seeing you at conferences, read your book, tell us, tell us about Legal Soft because you seem to be doing a lot of different things.

Hamid Kohan  0:30  
Yes, we do. We were trying to simplify managing and scaling a law practice by being a one stop shop, providing all the operational services and outsourcing of the legal staff and reducing the cost of operations. So that's our main goal.

Seth Price  0:48  
Well, look, everybody's trying to figure out I think, how to leverage overseas labour in one way or another. What are some of the things that you think that you've seen sort of law firms do really well, with leveraging and where some of the places you see law firms sort of make missteps when it comes to leveraging of offshore labor.

Hamid Kohan  1:11  
So traditionally, law firms usually went to Upwork, or a bunch of other sites and got their staff not knowing exactly about the credentials of the staff, their interests, their ability to learn, and so forth. And they tried it, and it was a hit and miss, some work, some didn't work, and some people just gave up after trying two or three times. So what we did is a totally different spin on it, is where we have physical presence in eight different countries. And we have talent acquisition folks in these countries, they screen this staff, like we get 1000 resumes a day, they split into like 100 a day, out of that 100 we essentially bring in, like 30 of them, that we qualify, screen and train completely in the legal practice. So we train them as being a PI Case Manager or PI Intaker or Employment Law Paralegal. So we have an extensive training curriculum that is designed and created by US based attorneys who practice in that area who helped us create that curriculum. So we train them. And then we put them on our payroll, and we deploy them into to a law firm as a dedicated, full time virtual staff that are trained to do that specific job. So that's the first part of you know-

Seth Price  2:39  
No, I think it's genius. I looked at this myself, I am fascinated by the space. Because I was not boots on the ground in these countries, I sort of said, You know what, I'm just going to do it for myself. So I have a team for Price Benowitz, team at BluShark. But I think the piece that's most exciting, I would love you to tell a little bit more, because this is, this is the piece that I think is out there, whoever really gets this at massive scale is going to be very, very successful, it sounds like you're well on your way, which is the training component, and how you're going about you're taking, because getting talent is one thing, there a lot of people around the world, they want to work, right, and a lot of good people that you can screen. But most people, most of the organizations that are out there, sort of here's your person, but there's not. So walk me through, you know, both the training and what you've learned while training, because it's very different training somebody with different cultural and educational backgrounds than it is, when you have somebody standing right in front of you.

Hamid Kohan  3:36  
We're doing it very visual. And it's not just instructional, we show him how some of the things are done. And we are structured as if if you're going to be an Intake PI Person, here's a sample intake form that you'll be working on collecting information. And once you do this information, like the intake staff also get trained to send the retainers out and get, help the client sign that retainer and give it back. So you're not passing the lead, or a client or prospect to multiple places. So that's one first of the training. And then we have a year round training for that person to be able to advance them a few different areas. For example, let's say you are using File Wine, or Litify or Cleo or something like that, they have partnership with these companies, which we have certified people on our team who train that individual to also how to work with Cleo.

Seth Price  4:30  
Genius. As I said, I was waiting for somebody to do this. I didn't realise that you, you'd gotten this advanced. How much training does somebody have before they get transferred into a law firm because there's the basic training and then how that law firm uses it. But what you're doing has got to be 80% of the way.

Hamid Kohan  4:47  
Sure, it's about 40 hours of training that is continuous in the structures and it's been examined and so forth. And then we have the continuous training after the staff is deployed into the firm, to do advanced training in other areas. So, for example, if they are an intake person and they need to know about, you know, opening the matter in the, in a case management software, so we teach them how to open the matter, or if it goes into collecting, you know, police reports, insurance policies and so forth. So we train them on that, what are the terminologies are the PDS are like? And then we go into document collections, what is the medical record, how you collect it, where you do with it, where you put it? All of that stuff is a continuous training all the way where we place licenced attorneys in other countries as associates and paralegals in the US. 

Seth Price  5:42  
That's awesome. Which countries are you in? Have you seen certain countries work better than others? Are some that you don't work? What do you love?

Hamid Kohan  5:51  
Sure. So we started from Philippines, like everybody else does is a great country, great talent pool. But they're good on on tracking, organizing, creating tracking sheets, document management, and so forth. Then we go to the intake where it needs a little more of convincing and salesmanship and so far, which is like in the intake area, places like Colombia, Ecuador, they're really good.

Seth Price  6:18  
 I'm glad I'm glad to know we're on the right track. That's, I punted on Philippines and we put our guys in those locations.

Hamid Kohan  6:25  
Yeah. So and then you keep going on and on. And then you go, we even go to Mexico, where there's a lot of US citizens live in Mexico, or they want to work remotely from Mexico, because now they are residents of Mexico. So we even do that, and Dominican Republic, and so forth. So we are sort of like very engaged with those countries. We have offices, we have legal representations. And then even said there is one more element after this. Folks are deployed, we also have to teach the law firm how to work in management.

Seth Price  7:01  
Absolutely. 

Hamid Kohan  7:02  
Because they really don't know. So we have training sessions for the attorneys and the case.

Seth Price  7:09  
Oh, that's awesome. 

Hamid Kohan  7:09  
So first, it says, look, this is how you can track and manage the VA this way. And this is what you can expect to get. And then it just continuously moves on. Now what's the, what's the third biggest challenge once you got one of these working VAs in your firm? Is how to keep them engaged and not having jump ship for 50 cents extra pay. Is give them benefits and secure their future. So with this visa, we deploy their full time dedicated per law firm. We provide them the workstations, high speed internet, communication system, health insurance for themselves and their spouse. We even go as far as giving them continuing education funding, and immigration services and retirement. So they are very engaged by having a future with Legal Soft, working for your law firm.

Seth Price  8:07  
That's awesome. So are you are you acting as a BPO?

Hamid Kohan  8:12  
Yes, we are acting like a BPO. And we, but we, we go a little bit even extended version of that because that only handles payment processing basically. But they don't offer a whole lot of benefits that is tailored to these VAs. Like a lot of them need immigration services. So let's say for example, your law firm, you have five VAs from us, and one of them stands out. And you want to bring this person, we offer you after certain period of time, which we bring your VA to the US for a week and we even pay for everything. So he or she can spend a week with your team locally or attend one of your conferences. I don't know if you know Gary Dordick? Dordick is his law firm?

Seth Price  9:00  
Yeah of course. Dordick Trial.

Hamid Kohan  9:01  
Okay. So he had his Trial University conference that he does every year in Cabo. Correct. And our team when we were a sponsor, we were an exhibitor whatever. And these two ladies come forward at the booth. And my colleague asked him, so who are you? What do you do? So we are attorneys working for Gary Dordick. And we are here helping with the conference. There are two lady attorneys. And they say, Oh, that's great, and so forth. But and they, those two attorneys turned to our folks to say, you know, we work for you. We're part of Legal Soft. 

Seth Price  9:01  
Oh, that's awesome. 

Hamid Kohan  9:17  
You're like, oh, wow, this is crazy. Gary Dordick is very reputable firm, high end litigation, great success and everything. And he had so so much value in this proposition and these attorneys that worked for him that are remote that he brought him to Mexico to do, to help our this conference. That's the proof of concept. 

Seth Price  10:00  
That that's awesome. That's, that's great stuff. When you're when you're doing this, I mean all the stuff you're talking about, fascinating. Does it sort of once every so many years, you bring them to the US? How do you how do you determine when you bring people to the US?

Hamid Kohan  10:15  
After they're with us one full year, they are eligible to bring them to us for a visit. So there's so immigration work, some visa, housing, transportation and stuff that we accommodate. But let me tell you another piece of the element that we solved during this process is safety and security. That is usually a concern. It hasn't been great concern of mine, because if they don't, even the people working in the office could do the same things that somebody does remote anyway. But with the force of work with the legal stuff, we capture their screen every 15 minutes. We record all the calls,

Seth Price  10:53  
Which software are you using for that?

Hamid Kohan  10:56  
 We have, we have our own software that interfaces with a couple of other systems. So we have one portal where you log in and see all of your VAs, all of their timesheets, what they working on, what they haven't worked on all of their calls, you can listen to watch their screens, everything like that. So it's a well managed environment and safe and secure, to make sure that they are working and they're working on the things they are supposed to.

Seth Price  11:22  
Well, let me challenge you on something because we determined that I don't love his VA. To me, I want them to be team members, paralegals attorneys, intake. What Why Why call them VAs

Hamid Kohan  11:34  
Its because of the terminology that started wrongly, because it was, so we just adopted it. But as soon as they become part of the Legal Soft team, we call them a team members. And [inaudable] did law practice, we call them a team member because they're fully integrated into the practice anyway. So it's like your people sitting outside your office don't have that kind of a title. So why should they? I 100%. Agree. And we encouraged the firms to include them into even the holiday parties remotely. All the gatherings they have, celebrations if there is a bonus being handed out, we have a bonus programm for them. So yeah, you're absolutely right. They need to not be categorized as a VA.

Seth Price  12:17  
Absolutely. That's awesome. Tell me the, so I was really inspired. I thought the book was great. Is that something that you have available for people?

Hamid Kohan  12:26  
Absolutely. Anybody contact me there is there's two books now,. One was How to Scale your Stupid Law Firm that I think, I think you're referring to this book. 

Seth Price  12:36  
Yeah, Yeah. 

Hamid Kohan  12:39  
Right. And the second book that just came out, I crossed out the stupid and replaced it with AI. So everything you ever want to know, the impact of AI in the law practice doesn't matter if it's a transactional law or litigation. I explained to the best of my ability, what is going to happen to the practice when the AI is in full blown.

Seth Price  13:02  
Well, let me ask you that, let's sort of conclude with that topic, which is with AI? What, you know, obviously, we can talk globally, but where are some of the places that you see the intersection of law firm VAs or international workers and AI? Where are some of the places that law firms should be leveraging, you know, understanding, it's changing every day, it's getting more advanced. But, you know, there's there's so many different places. I'm curious about, what are you excited about?

Hamid Kohan  13:31  
Sure. The first impact of the AI is on the transactional law. Transactional law to me is immigration, bankruptcy, estate planning, tax, real estate contracts, corporate formation, this is all transactional. And essentially, the AI is going to fulfil about 80% of that, that does not require any litigation. So that's the first impact, the intake, filing the application submitting the application. All the supporting documents needs to be collected and submitted. All of that is going to be a part of an AI application. On the contingency firms like the PI, employment, labor, workers comp, those guys. A part of intake for sure is going to be AI. So how we screen clients, how do we intake how we make them eligible? All of that is going to be part of the AI and then the second part when you're doing the prelim, and you're doing document collection, medical record medical record analysis, how we 30 days we're launching our first complete demand writing services that is 100% AI, supervised and managed by a licenced attorney. But essentially, the entire demand writing is an AI with fraction of the cost that you would have somebody in house do it. And the first version is actually gives you three demands a month for free. So you can essentially have this demand writing machine that you plug it in, it just spits out your demands.

Seth Price  15:10  
Now I look, obviously, you're onto something here and that we're seeing huge valuations for the companies that are focused on that entirely. And so, very, very excited. Well, look, I gotta say, you are definitely an inspiration, really enjoy this, and hope that our audience got some, because to me, it's not just the hiring of international labor, but it's the training, management, and what I loved you talking about was the training of the law firms to leverage the labor effectively, because without that, you're reallymissing a piece. 

Hamid Kohan  15:43  
Right. Absolutely. Agreed.

Seth Price  15:46  
Well, thank you so much for your time. I can't wait to see you at the next exotic destination that we we end up in.

Hamid Kohan  15:53  
Thank you very much. It was nice seeing you again.

Seth Price  15:55  
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Bye bye.

Hamid Kohan  15:57  
Bye Bye. 

BluShark Digital  15:58  
Thank you for tuning in to the SEO Insider with Seth Price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand's online presence. Episodes are available to stream directly on BluShark Digital's website.