The Clearbrief Team interviewed Latrice L. Latin, owner of The Latin Law Group, LLC near Atlanta, Georgia. Her firm focuses on personal injury claims, including injuries resulting from a slip and fall or car accidents. In this interview, we chat about how she got started as a solo practitioner, and her tips for hiring and supervising remote legal staff. As a bonus for all of us driving in harsh weather conditions at the moment, she also shares the best tips if you’re ever involved in an auto accident!
Tell us about your legal career and how you decided to start your own personal injury law practice.
I actually started out as a public defender, and then decided to try bankruptcy litigation. I gained experience in federal court as a litigator, and from there I moved into immigration law. I gained expertise in several practice areas before I realized that I really enjoyed personal injury law. Personal injury law is a great fit for me because the goal is to help people at a very tough time in their lives through a mix of transactional work and litigation.
People call me right after they are involved in a car accident or are injured. They come to me looking for guidance on where to go for medical treatment or how to handle their property damage. I can use all of my different skills to resolve the multi-faceted issues that come up in a personal injury case, and I can focus on the client’s well-being as a whole. Many people want to feel like they felt before the accident, and understanding what that means for each client requires listening. Just the act of listening goes a long way.
I knew this was the right decision to start my firm because I really thrive on the experience of working closely with clients. I built my law practice to be client focused so that I immediately hear client feedback and act on it. I build rapport with my clients, and they in turn refer clients to me. When I receive a referral, the main complaint I hear about client’s experiences with other firms is that nobody ever told them what was happening in their case.
None of my clients can say that: we assure clients that we will respond within 24 hours to any message, email, or phone call. Most of the time we respond within 10 to 15 minutes, and clients know that they can count on hearing from us within a day. But usually clients don’t have to reach out to us because my staff and I provide regular updates.
I do what I love, and I work with people who love what they do, too. I look forward to it everyday.
How did you go about hiring two remote paralegals to help with both pre-litigation and litigation tasks?
As I grew my personal injury practice in Georgia and successfully brought in clients, I found that I had more work to be done than time to do it! It was at that moment that I decided I needed to hire my first litigation paralegal. My biggest tips for other attorneys looking to find help is to stay in touch with former colleagues, and offer them true flexibility in how they get their work done. I made the critical decision to operate a virtual law firm, which has helped me to attract and retain great people who get the work done and with whom I enjoy working. I truly have the best team!
As a single mother myself, I understand that flexibility is an essential part of a work arrangement. It took COVID-19 to bring that reality into focus for more people in the legal field. It’s not about what time of day a demand letter gets written; what is important to me is that the work gets done and done well. Some of my best legal writing gets done at midnight, and sometimes that’s true for my staff as well.
I had stayed in contact with a litigation paralegal from a prior firm who no longer worked there. When I reached out to her, I learned that she was having trouble finding work, in part because she needed more flexibility in her schedule as a single mom and other family circumstances.
Her work product and work ethic had always impressed me, and I knew that I wanted her to work for me. I offered her the flexibility to work from home and crafted her schedule around family responsibilities. She is a rockstar litigation paralegal and always gets the work done.
As the practice picked up, we needed additional help with pre-litigation work (drafting and sending demand letters). My litigation paralegal recommended a friend who was an experienced pre-litigation paralegal. It was a stretch to hire a second paralegal that early in my practice, but I knew that it made business sense long-term to invest in my staff.
Many solo practitioners struggle with hiring and supervising remote legal team members. Do you have advice for building a remote team you can trust?
I had a high level of confidence in them from the beginning given that each paralegal happened to have 20 years of experience. But I also have high expectations. We built trust over time as I gave them assignments and then received them back in a timely manner. I asked a lot of questions and assessed how they approached their answers in the drafts they gave to me. As a lawyer of course I have to review everything that goes out because it’s my name on the court filings.
We have a staff meeting over Zoom every Monday, and I try to set a collaborative tone to the meetings. We function as a fluid team. I try not to rely on a boss / staff dynamic. One staff member asked for a specific job title, and I feel like if that empowers you and helps you to be happy here, that’s fine by me as long as the work gets done.
As for remote work, the process we have is that my team members each send me a list at the end of the day of everything that happened throughout the day. I receive emails and notifications of case notes and documents. They send me work and I approve or send it back with notes so we’re in constant communication throughout the day.
Build relationships based on mutual trust and communication. Even though I am the business owner, I am friends with my staff outside of the office. It’s important to work with people with whom you would want to grab a drink or have a meal. We have a firm foundation in work friendship, not gossip. We check in with one another, ask how they are doing? How are your kids? How are you feeling? Is there anything that you need?
The culture of a firm also comes from explaining expectations up front and making sure that those expectations are matched. You don’t want to get into the situation where my definition of ASAP and your definition of ASAP are two separate definitions.
I know myself, and I know how I work so I try to find people who mirror that style. And finally, I make sure that my staff knows that I am open and don’t react harshly to mistakes. Another sign that you have the right people is how they react when they make a mistake. Mistakes happen: something gets filed in the wrong place or whatever. I expect my team to immediately message me to say what happened, recommend a correction, or ask for help. I never want to create a work culture where someone would feel the need to cover stuff up.
How has building a small team helped you improve your well-being and your business?
They help me tremendously! When I worked as a solo attorney, I organized files in the way that worked for me. When I brought on two experienced paralegals, they made everything work better and they continue to recommend efficiencies, automated legal tools, and workflows. They keep the client at the center of everything and I’ve found that this makes my job a lot easier, too.
During the pandemic, like many of us, I faced some personal challenges and had to step back from the day-to-day of the office. I had to trust my team to move things forward. And while I was gone, everything kept getting done. Clients have since called me and told me, “Your team rocks, they haven’t missed a beat while you were out!” That confirmed for me that I have the right people at the right time.
Also, my team comes to me with suggestions about improved legal workflows and processes. I welcome that and want to make their work lives easier because they keep things moving forward so I have less to worry about. Because of my team and the automation we’ve implemented, I can focus on the next deposition or court appearance or attend to a client that needs legal advice.
What types of documents do you routinely write for your clients, and how do you stay organized when a case involves a large volume of medical records?
As a personal injury lawyer, we have two types of matters: pre-litigation and litigation. Pre-litigation includes the process before a court case is filed, which mainly involves writing demand letters. For cases in litigation, we draft the initial complaint and discovery requests, and then engage in the discovery process.
Right now my practice is about 50/50 litigation and pre-litigation. We frequently write demand letters and discovery complaints. If our demand letter is sufficient, that means that our client gets the amount we want so we don’t have to move on to litigation. That’s a win for everybody.
In terms of staying organized, it’s important to create a medical record timeline – a chronological medical history with dates of treatment – that can serve as a reference point for us throughout the life of a case. We often have hundreds of pages of exhibits including medical records, police reports, and doctors notes. While we have moved to cloud storage, it’s still not easy to find specific information. The paralegal will create a medical record timeline to help organize the information and bring the case into focus, but it is still a struggle to know where to look for specific case facts. We have recently started using Clearbrief’s “Add Fact Cite” button in order to find the right document containing a particular fact when we are writing up a demand letter or other document in Word, which is tremendously helpful.
Can you share a story about one of your most rewarding experiences in practicing personal injury law?
I’m glad you asked that, because there needs to be a change in the perception of a personal injury claim. PI lawyers are seen as accident attorneys -- money hungry -- but the reality is that PI work is people helping people. I try to put myself in each client's shoes and think, “What would I need? What would I want if I was in this situation?” I treat people how I would want to be treated.
For example, I had a client who came to me after her son had passed away. It was a wrongful death case. People in her life told her that there was nothing that she could do about it, that her son was at fault because of this or that. But she stuck by us, and we made sure that her surviving grandson was taken care of for the rest of his life. We ended up getting a seven figure settlement in that case.
It’s not just about money; it's about changing people's futures, about changing the dynamics in their lives. Getting a big check is great, but what about your health and well-being? Money is fine, but being physically and mentally okay after an accident is much more valuable than any amount of money.
As a personal injury attorney, I think we need to focus more on the injury aspect and make sure that we endeavor to make people whole as opposed to just getting a check.
What kind of relief is possible for clients beyond monetary compensation?
Many clients come to me after a traumatic event, so it’s about quality of life. Relief might start with compensation to cover medical care or physical rehabilitation. And many clients need help with pain management or orthopedic care, while others struggle with the aftermath of a concussion and need to see a neurologist for headaches or nerve damage. Each treatment plan is unique.
Still, for other clients the mental and emotional impact of an accident requires care. These types of injuries don’t resolve overnight.
Folks who are in a car accident might experience traumatic anxiety. Many of us drive in a car everyday and so the mental anguish that results from a car accident can be debilitating. A client of mine found that she could no longer drive on the highway. Every time that she got onto the highway, her mind would freeze, she began to shake, and she had to pull over. Every time. We made sure this client was able to go to a neuropsychologist. For her, being made whole after the car accident meant caring for her mind so that she could one day drive a car on the highway.
I also worked with a little boy who was hit by a car while riding his bike. This child now struggles with panic attacks and nightmares. Making this client whole meant caring for his mental health so that it doesn’t follow him into adulthood. Money is fine, but if you don’t help people recover their mental health, the money isn’t worth much.
Personal injury law is also about caring for the mental and physical health of clients, learning about who they were before the accident and getting them the resources they need to get them back to that place.
Do you have tips to share on the steps people should take after they are involved in a car accident?
There are several steps that can easily be overlooked in the chaos of the moment, after checking on the well-being of passengers and getting everyone safely away from traffic.
First, always call the police and make a police report. A lot of times people don’t call the police and think, “Oh, the other person said they would take care of it.” Nope; when you are involved in a car crash, it’s important to always call the police to make a report.
Next, make sure you get the insurance information of the other driver.
Take pictures of your vehicle and the other vehicle. This empowers you with a record of the damage to your vehicle so that the other driver or insurance adjuster cannot minimize the extent of repairs needed.
Take a photo of the license plate of the other vehicle. This is particularly important in the event of a hit and run accident: insurance companies can figure out who the car is registered to should the driver leave without exchanging information. Or if they claim they were not involved in the accident, photo proof of their license plate will help hold them accountable.
Get medical attention at an urgent care or emergency department to document the accident and get checked out. You could have injuries and might not know it yet. The shock of an accident might take two to three days to wear off, and then a person who thought they were fine will suddenly experience back pain or be unable to move. At the very least, go to the ER or urgent care to document that you were in an accident. Save those medical records.
And lastly, call your insurance company to set up a claim. Promptly tell your insurance what happened. Oftentimes you don't want the other person to tell their story first. They may say that the car accident was your fault when you know they were at fault.
I actually wrote down this tip list and I keep it on my phone so that I can text it to people!
