Laborde Earles: Unlocking a Significant Increase in Average Attorney Fees and Scaling Operations with Litify
Laborde Earles, a prominent personal injury law firm in Louisiana, faced major challenges with their on-prem legacy software as the firm rapidly expanded from 12 employees to over 117 active Litify users across seven office locations. Managing around 1,500 active matters across multiple practice areas—including personal injury and mass torts—the firm struggled with limited reporting, siloed departments, overwhelmed staff, and an outdated IT infrastructure that hindered their ability to deliver a consistent, high-touch client experience.
Their search for a new solution led them to Litify, a cloud-based platform built on Salesforce. Litify enables them to bring all their processes onto one platform and unlocks robust, real-time reports and insights. Since implementing Litify, Laborde Earles transformed its operations, achieved a significant, multi-fold increase in average attorney fees, and built a scalable foundation for future growth.
Operating with fragmented systems and unreliable reporting
Before adopting Litify, Laborde Earles relied on Needles, a server-based system that presented several challenges for the firm. Kelby Rasmussen, Vice President of Legal Operations, explained that one of the most significant pain points was the lack of reporting capabilities:
“Our legacy software didn’t have strong reporting capabilities, so we had to use a third-party reporting platform." Even with this third-party tool, the data wasn’t always reliable. "We couldn't manipulate those reports to see what was getting captured and if it was right," Rasmussen added.
Beyond reporting, their departments were highly fragmented, which impacted everyone from intakes to accounting. "We were so segmented in terms of our reporting, case management, file storage, and intakes," said Rasmussen. This led to visibility issues, especially in the transition from intake to client. "A lot was getting lost in translation. Our handling team didn't have access or visibility into the lead software, and information was getting lost between the two systems as we converted the intake into a case," he added.
“We could rinse and repeat that problem with accounting because they were working in QuickBooks, not knowing how attorneys were gathering expenses and populating them in Needles,” Rasmussen added.
“We had to make a decision on what the future looked like for us and how we were going to get there,” said Rasmussen.
Finding a platform that could unify financials and case data
After looking into a few other solutions, the Laborde Earles team found Litify, and, as Rasmussen recalls, “it solved all of the problems from the accounting standpoint that we were most concerned about.”
“We keep track of all our clients’ expenses in the case file, not in our accounting software. So we needed something that was flexible enough to accommodate this while integrating and syncing with our accounting system,” said Rasmussen. Litify’s ability to manage debits and credits, differentiate between firm-covered and outstanding expenses, and seamlessly integrate with their accounting software was a game-changer.
The ease and configurability of Litify's reporting were also a significant draw. “We're really focused on the numbers coming out of financials. So we wanted to see year-to-date metrics like average settlements, total settlements, and signups. Having all of that in one place allows us to measure everything together for better reporting,” said Rasmussen.
Rasmussen also noted the value of having the support of the Litify team during evaluation, implementation, and post-go-live. LSAP, the Litify Success Acceleration Program, a program where Litify experts further customize and configure the platform for each business's unique needs, has been a key aspect in the long-term success of the Laborde Earles team. “LSAP has been instrumental in helping us, from building out marketing dashboards to showing us how to track attorney calls and paralegal client touchpoints, whether it's a text message, an email, or a phone call. I highly recommend it to anyone,” Rasmussen shared. Today, Laborde Earles meets weekly with LSAP experts as an ongoing strategic advisor to build repeatable operational workflows and scale without adding external software vendors.
Unlocking real-time insight and firm-wide transparency
What has been one of the biggest changes since implementing Litify? Rasmussen put it simply: “Instant reporting and easy access to manipulate the system to capture new data when we need it.”
With Litify, they can quickly filter and control reports, making the data more reliable and tailored to their needs. “Now, everyone's on the same platform — they can jump in and out of financials, intakes, or marketing spend. We've empowered our team with full visibility and transparency across all departments,” said Rasmussen.
Having personalized dashboards has also been impactful for the team. “We never had that before, and now, every day, someone can log in and see real-time metrics that reflect their hard work. It's instant gratification, which we don’t always get in this line of work. We’re all in personal injury because we want to help people, and our clients are going through a rough situation. So, even if we don’t get that gratification from clients, we always get it from our dashboards,” said Rasmussen.
Since going live on Litify, Rasmussen shared that the firm has seen a double-digit increase in average attorney fees. “We've implemented best practices to ensure the attorneys know whenever something needs review by senior leadership, and in turn, that means higher value cases for our clients, happier clients, and more revenue for the firm,” he said.
Maximizing case value with a Settlement Committee app
To formalize those senior leadership reviews and ensure high-value cases are never settled below potential, Laborde Earles partnered with LSAP to build an internal Settlement Committee Application. With a single click inside Litify, attorneys submit matters to weekly roundtable meetings. The system auto-populates critical evaluation variables, such as venue, judge tendencies, defense counsel track records, client candor, and medicals, onto a standardized agenda. This collaborative process sets firm settlement floors and acts as a shared classroom for junior attorneys, driving a substantial increase in both average settlements and overall fees.
Safeguarding inventory with disengagement reviews
To protect substantial marketing investments and ensure no client issue is prematurely abandoned, the firm applied that same review methodology to cases nearing disengagement. Handlers place files into a dedicated review stage, where senior leadership reviews every theory of liability and insurance coverage option before disengaging. This brain-trust review has significantly cut the firm's close-without-fee rate while giving clients complete peace of mind that every avenue was explored.
“We're also really big on feedback from our clients,” said Rasmussen. “Once we went live, we implemented our own NPS survey system. We can track a client's perception of their case and now capture multiple data points on client satisfaction. It gives us the artillery to proactively reach out to unhappy clients or overwhelmed attorneys and course correct before we ever hit rough terrain.”
Driving proactive client journeys
Building on that client feedback, Laborde Earles worked with LSAP to map out the entire client journey and build automated milestone notifications. Functioning like a "pizza tracker," the system triggers plain-language status texts and partner explainer videos at pivotal stages such as treatment, investigation, and settlement. This proactive education demystifies the legal process for clients, noticeably lifting satisfaction scores while sharply cutting repetitive "what's going on with my case?" inbound calls to attorneys and paralegals.
Finally, Laborde Earles has improved efficiency and effectiveness across the firm through powerful automations and integrations. “With the power and flexibility of Salesforce, there is so much automation we can build in, and an endless number of vendors that we can integrate with,” said Rasmussen. “We save so much time on manual tasks, like mailing documents or generating forms. With just the click of a button, it’s auto-generated and printed for attorney review.”
Rasmussen added, “The way that Litify structures matter plans and tasks, once something is updated or completed, the system instantly fires off different triggers for other team members, which has helped us cut back on delays. We relied on communication to bridge those gaps, and now we have automation bridging those gaps.”
Scaling capacity with native task queues
When rapid growth led to a major influx of new matters across their seven offices, the firm worked with LSAP to implement native Salesforce task queues. Routine administrative tasks, such as requesting medical records or collecting accident reports, are pooled into centralized, prioritized queues managed by dedicated global support teams. This task bifurcation prevents single-person bottlenecks, preserves handling attorney bandwidth for high-value legal strategy, and allowed the firm to absorb roughly double its normal matter volume without expanding local headcount.
What’s next?
So what’s next for the Laborde Earles team? AI is top-of-mind for Rasmussen: “I can't wait to see how AI exponentially increases our efficiency with Litify, whether it’s monitoring client sentiments on phone calls or scrubbing our entire data set from Litify to see what cases are worth, or how adjusters and insurance companies evaluate them. I guess the possibilities are unlimited with AI. That's really where we are looking in the future to have growth with Litify.”
Ready to streamline processes and dive into the data so you can deliver a better client experience? Schedule a free demo with our team to see how Litify can help. You can also explore the power of the platform in our guided product tour.
