From Billable Hours to Sustainable Income: The Power of Subscription Models + AI

AI is revolutionizing the delivery of legal services. In this course, Mathew Kerbis, The Subscription Attorney, explores how leveraging the subscription model with artificial intelligence can transform your law practice. He offers practical strategies for integrating AI, including prompt engineering techniques, and discusses the potential of AI to democratize legal services. Kerbis posits the current decline of the billable hour, emphasizing the competitive advantage and increased profitability of adopting subscription models alongside AI technologies.

Learning Outcomes:

How to correctly use artificial intelligence for legal services
Legal prompt engineering
The most profitable way to bill clients when using artificial intelligence
A vision of what the future of the practice of law will look like using large language models

Topics covered include:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Law Firm Management Law Practice Legal Industry Trends Legal Tech

Agenda:

Hypothetical and Set Up

Discover how AI has already changed the speed of delivering legal services rendering the billable hour no longer profitable (and likely unethical)

Define and Frame Generative AI

What is Generative AI?
How to frame using Generative AI

Overview of Current AI Solutions

Non-exhaustive list of AI tools and what they do

Prompt Engineering and AI Tips

Prompt framing examples
Guidelines for usage

How to Implement the Subscription Model to Leverage AI in This Paradigm

Benefits of the subscription model
Adapting the subscription model
Pricing subscriptions
Subscription model strategies
Ethics of subscriptions
Technology (other than AI) for subscriptions

Questions & Answers

Duration of this webinar: 60 minutes

Originally broadcast: June 12, 2024 11:00 AM PT

Webinar Highlights

This webinar is divided into section summaries, which you can scan for key points and then dive into the sections that interest you the most.

00:00 Introduction

Mathew Kerbis, the speaker, is introduced as an advocate for subscription-based legal services, aiming to move away from billable hours. Mathew shares his journey of establishing a law firm based on subscription models, emphasizing efficiency through AI. He discusses the evolution of AI, particularly generative AI, and its role in transforming legal practices. Mathew encourages audience interaction through questions, promising a comprehensive discussion on AI and subscription models.

05:01 Generative AI in Legal Practice

Mathew explains the concept of prompt engineering and its importance in using AI tools effectively. He presents a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the impact of generative AI on traditional billing models. The discussion shifts to the potential of subscription models as a more viable alternative to billable hours. Mathew elaborates on the capabilities of generative AI, emphasizing its predictive nature and comprehension skills. He warns against relying on AI as a source of truth, advocating for its use as a tool to enhance legal practice.

16:07 AI Tools and Prompt Engineering

Mathew introduces various AI tools like Perplexity, Paxton, and Lara, highlighting their applications in legal practice. He discusses the benefits of using AI for legal research, document analysis, and client interaction. The concept of building AI-powered legal assistants for client use is explored as a subscriber benefit. Mathew emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering in maximizing the effectiveness of AI tools. He suggests using sequential prompting to refine AI outputs, drawing parallels to traditional legal research methods.

28:51 Subscription Model Benefits

Mathew discusses the advantages of subscription models over traditional billing, focusing on client relationships and revenue predictability. He highlights the changing client expectations for transparency and efficiency in legal services. The subscription model is presented as a solution to the limitations of billable hours, fostering ongoing client engagement. Mathew explains how subscription models can lead to increased client lifetime value and business scalability. He shares insights on how subscription services can cater to both individual and institutional clients, enhancing access to legal services.

42:46 Pricing and Client Engagement

Mathew outlines pricing strategies for subscription models, emphasizing simplicity and transparency. He discusses the importance of defining subscription benefits and unbundling legal services for better client value. The conversation touches on managing client expectations and avoiding time abuse through structured engagement. Mathew shares his approach to subscription pricing, including add-ons and flat fees for specific services. He discusses the importance of adapting pricing and engagement strategies to different markets and practice areas. The potential for subscription models to serve non-English speaking clients is explored.

58:56 Conclusion and Future Considerations

Mathew concludes by discussing the future of subscription-based legal practices and the role of technology. He highlights the importance of efficiency and client engagement in designing a subscription-based law practice. The presentation ends with a call to action for lawyers to consider alternative business models.

Please note this AI-generated summary provides a general overview of the webinar but may not capture all details, nuances, or the exact words of the speaker. For complete accuracy, please refer to the original webinar recording.

Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Credits

*CLE credit is only available to Justia Connect Pros. Not a Pro? Upgrade today>>

California CLE

Status: Approved

Credits: 1.00 General

Earn Credit Until: June 11, 2026

South Carolina CLE

Status: Approved

Credits: 1.00 General

Difficulty: All Levels

Earn Credit Until: December 31, 2025

North Carolina CLE

Status: Approved

Credits: 1.00 General

Earn Credit Until: February 28, 2026

Texas CLE

Status: Approved

Credits: 1.00 General

Earn Credit Until: May 31, 2025

This presentation is approved for one hour of General CLE credit in California, South Carolina (all levels), and North Carolina. This course has been approved for Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit by the State Bar of Texas Committee on MCLE in the amount of 1.00 credit hours.

Justia only reports attendance in jurisdictions in which a particular Justia CLE Webinar is officially accredited. Lawyers may need to self-submit their certificates for CLE credit in jurisdictions not listed above.

Note that CLE credit, including partial credit, cannot be earned outside of the relevant accreditation period. To earn credit for a course, a lawyer must watch the entire course within the relevant accreditation period. Lawyers who have viewed a presentation multiple times may not be able to claim credit in their jurisdiction more than once. Justia reserves the right, at its discretion, to grant an attendee partial or no credit, in accordance with viewing duration and other methods of verifying course completion.

At this time, Justia only offers CLE courses officially accredited in certain states. Lawyers may generate a generic attendance certificate to self-submit credit in their own jurisdiction, but Justia does not guarantee that lawyers will receive their desired CLE credit through the self-submission or reciprocity process.

Looking for CLE credit? Visit CLE Dashboard

Speaker

Mathew Kerbis The Subscription Attorney
Subscription Attorney LLC

Mathew Kerbis is The Subscription Attorney and winner of the James Keane Award recognizing innovative virtual law firms that serve the broad middle class. He’s on a mission to affordably serve clients at scale via the subscription model and inspire attorneys to ditch the billable hour. His firm leverages automations and artificial intelligence to offer accessible and reasonable prices like legal advice starting at $19.99/month and $49.99/page. He interviews lawyers and experts who can help lawyers stop billing time on the Law Subscribed podcast.