Turn Your Operations Into Impact: Insights from Leading Law Firm COOs

In the plaintiff space, legal operations sit at a critical intersection of growth, client experience, and overall outcomes. As law firms scale, managing increased case volume, opening new offices, and integrating technology become massive challenges. The real test isn't just about collecting data, but whether you're actually using everything at your fingertips to be successful and not just driving change for the sake of change.

We sat down with two leading legal COOs to discuss how they turn operational hurdles into real impact:

• Victoria Switzer, Chief Operating Officer of Begum Law Group
• Melissa Graham, Chief Operating Officer of Richard Harris Law Firm

Read on for their insights on sustainable growth, technology adoption, and data-driven leadership.

When firms are growing quickly, there's constant pressure to adopt new tools. How do you decide what actually moves the needle versus what’s just exciting in the moment?

Melissa Graham: You generally have two types of people: your owners are your visionaries, and your COOs are your integrators. It's about trying to temper all the new technology and great ideas they're bringing back with what doesn't make sense. You have to align on the problem you’re trying to solve and figure out how to effect change and continue to grow, but do it in a way that sticks.

Some tough discussions need to happen, and you have to be aligned on what you're trying to get to before moving forward. People think that it's tech-first and that technology is going to solve the problem, but people are going to solve the problem. It's really about putting in structure and procedures first, and then the technology and people come along to support that.

Victoria Switzer: Everything is built on a foundation. You can't just go and put in technology, thinking it's going to have solid ROI, or that you're now going to be able to hire the next best person. You need to build a foundation, and then you can start capturing data and verifying that the changes are actually implemented correctly. When it's implemented, then the ROI follows.

You can't go in and say, "I'm going to start using AI today, and tomorrow, I'm going to see 30% growth, and everybody's going to be happy using it." It just doesn't work that way. You have to be very thoughtful, mindful, and strategic in the way you implement software. You can't look at the shiny object and think it's going to solve everything. Before I picked case management software, I fixed our phone system. Phones were such a critical piece that we didn't realize, but those are the building blocks of change.

When you both chose to move to Litify, what did you do during implementation to ensure a true operational transformation rather than just a basic system rollout?

Victoria Switzer: I came from a law firm that was using Filevine. After we had been on it for a few years, I recognized we had reached the cap of what we could do. We were just waiting for Filevine to roll out the next update. What stood out to me about Litify was that it could grow with us.

Once you go through the hurdle of convincing the partners and the staff, you have to sell them on the why and tell them why we need this technology. I was very blessed that the owner was just as committed and passionate about putting in a new system as I was. We did the training, and then every person had to come in on a Saturday and take a test. You physically couldn't get your login until you passed the test. On Monday, everybody came in ready to go, and we hit the ground running.

You also cannot rebuild your old software into your new one. You have to look at best practices, take each step, and ask, "How are we doing this today, and how should we be doing this?" If you've never had a CRM before, what would that look like? We had Needles for twenty-plus years before, so we had to edit our fields and decide which ones we actually need. It’s about being intentional with what you want the future to look like, not replicating an existing system or process. If you're going to move software, think about why you're doing it. Make sure it's actually enhancing whatever vision or growth pattern you are looking to do. Don't do it just to do it because it's cool.

Melissa Graham: We spent a lot of time involving the team. We focused heavily on how to involve the people who use the platform day in and day out. We set aside dedicated time for internal focus groups to determine what we needed to focus on.

We also took it in chunks rather than trying to make a lot of changes happen at once. Phase one was learning the new platform, phase two was added value, phase three was another added value, and then we just continued to grow on that. Your best ideas come from the people doing the jobs day in and day out. Sometimes leadership or ownership feels they have the best ideas, but, quite honestly, it's the exact opposite.

We also had to recalibrate because we came from Needles. You go from a system where you spent 15 years building the way you think you should run cases, and then you try to put it into Litify. You're driving a plane, but you're not flying yet. That was a big learning curve because we were trying to make Litify like Needles. We had to pull out those pieces that were archaic and didn't work. We've been on the platform for almost two years now, and I think we're on "Litify 10.0" at this point because we’ve continued to change and configure anything we can.

How do you use data to make decisions, especially when your gut instinct is telling you something completely different?

Victoria Switzer: We had an example of that recently when our marketing started to slow down, and the phone wasn't ringing as much. Due to the integrations we have with CallRail and Litify across all our campaigns, we could pinpoint exactly where the slowdown is occurring. The data gives us the ability to pause and run a report before we react. Because of that, we came up with a really great strategic plan, the turnaround happened, and everything was fixed. We identified the issue instead of following that gut reaction, which actually would have been wrong. The data showed us that.

When managing a situation where leadership still prefers a gut reaction over clear data, I see my role as providing clarity. At the end of the day, it's their law firm. I bring the reports to lay out the facts. 

Yes, garbage in, garbage out, especially when dealing with a lot of people who have to put in the data. Because of that, the data I trust is what the system generates for me, rather than manual case management fields that might affect my numbers if they aren't filled in.

Melissa Graham: It's hard because you start with the data, but garbage in, garbage out is real. Your gut generally tells you something is wrong, and the data helps you figure out what is wrong, whether it's data entry or not accurately marking something. Data doesn't replace your judgment — it sharpens it. You start with the objective, then you go to the subjective.

It's the same when managing the visionary's gut reactions. My job as the integrator is ultimately to carry out the vision, but it's also our job as COOs to slow it down and lay it out. Those tough conversations should be open, honest, candid, respectful, and understanding of our respective roles.

However, you also have to be careful not to get caught up in measuring too much. Measure what matters. Look at what you're actually going to use to make decisions. Sometimes we get caught up in a loop of thinking a metric would be a good number to run, and all of a sudden, you have fifty different numbers that you aren't even looking at. If you're going to run numbers, make sure they're the ones you're basing your decisions on.

Even the best solutions fail without your team fully adopting them. How do you approach training and adoption?

Melissa Graham: We all tend to use that common verbiage, "people hate change." People don't necessarily resist change as much as they resist being confused and not understanding the why. For us, it was taking the time to sit down with our current team when a change happens and saying, "This is why it's happening." They may or may not agree, and you want to hear their opinions, but you may not be able to do everything. It requires openness and transparency.

Another huge mistake is getting too protective of the build. For those closely tied to building it, that's your baby, and you don't want to hear negative feedback about it. I was guilty of it. I spent day and night building Litify, and I'd think, "What do you mean you don't get it?" But they weren't spending twenty hours a day on it either. We tend to resist feedback and dialogue, but you have to be open to hearing what the team likes and doesn't. 

You have to treat it like a tool you are giving them to make their lives easier, instead of another piece of homework or a chore. Nobody wants to do chores, but they will embrace things that make them more efficient or allow them to do more with less.

Victoria Switzer: For us, we measured adoption by noticing fewer complaints and fewer people coming into the room saying they don't get it, they don't like it, or that there are too many fields. Over time, people really started to embrace it.

We notice it working directly in the dashboards. We talk about all these fields, but sometimes there are too many fields, so we built our dashboards specifically for the hot-ticket items, the work that must be done. As long as people are green, it means it's working. We just gently nudge them when we see the numbers start turning yellow or red to get them to focus a little more on it, because those items trickle into everything else.

When you throw everything at a person or a new employee all at once, it can be completely overwhelming because of how vast and impressive Litify is. There's just so much you can do, and it can turn into noise. If you focus on the most important pieces, like client communication, and explain the why, the rest of it becomes fairly easy.

There’s so much noise around AI right now. How are you both thinking about AI adoption in your firms?

Victoria Switzer: I will say that there's so much more we can do with the systems we already have. I think we can improve the workflow, make it less clicky, and better align our teams. Then, when we're running efficiently and smoothly, we can start figuring out where AI will help us the most.

Melissa Graham: We love AI in our firm. But you have to look at it and ask, "What is it going to do? How does it utilize and leverage AI so that our team can do more with less?" You have to think outside the box. Sometimes you bring on an AI platform meant to do one thing, but there are different ways to utilize it.

Everybody thinks we're all behind the eight ball. We’ve all figured out that AI is coming and will be a huge disruptor, changing many processes. But instead of racing to keep up with every other law firm you talk to, you need to figure out what it can do to enhance your own firm. What problem is it going to solve? What jobs are you going to be able to use it for as a tool to do more with less? 

Most personal injury firms want the same outcomes — you want to help your clients and make money — but how we get there is different. Whether it's AI, Litify, or another platform or procedure, you have to figure out what problem it will solve for your firm's specific operations.

Actionable takeaways for your firm

• Define the problem first: Never buy technology to solve a vague issue. Map out the process manually before applying a software solution.
• Involve end users early: Build focus groups during software selection and testing. Buy-in happens when people feel part of the build.
• Audit your metrics: Review your current dashboards. Eliminate any metrics that don't directly influence a weekly or quarterly operational decision.

Ready to build a scalable foundation? Discover how Litify's platform of action provides the flexibility, data clarity, and scaling power that leading COOs trust to drive real firm impact.