Case Study

Many law practitioners ask the question when they first learn about www.certificateofservice.com - "Why not just have my paralegal stuff the envelopes like they usually do?"

Quite frankly, stuffing envelopes is not the best use of your employee time. In order to send out a mailing, your staff has to combine all the various aspects of the file, download the matrix, print the matrix to Avery Labels, combine the multiple documents into one file for printing, print the file, collate the documents for stuffing, fold the documents, stuff the envelopes, seal the envelopes, and deliver to the post office. Do 2 or 3 motions a day and you have a staff spending much of their time stuffing envelopes instead of doing items that can generate more business.

Consider this, if you aren't doing work that can generate income (i.e. the billable hour) you aren't doing your work effectively. How many days have you worked from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with only 1 billable hour? The same is true for your staff. When they work, they should be doing work that generates you income, not cost you money.

When your staff is picking up the phone, setting appointments and bringing in clients, they are making you money. When they do work you can bill for, you are making money. Stuffing envelopes is an administrative task no subjtect to a billable hourly rate of $125 for a paralegal or $300 for an attorney. At best you can bill $10.00 an hour for doing secretarial and administrative duties. This is not generating you income.

Enter BK Attorney Services, LLC. In less than 60 seconds you can have a job uploaded to our offices for mailing. Now your staff is on the phone setting appointments, returning phone calls, overseeing petitions, and generating revenue for your office.

This is why www.certificateofservice.com is a absolutely necessary service for every bankruptcy law firm in the nation. We save you time, effort, and allow you to increase your office productivity.

Let us take an average job. You are uploading a Notice, Motion, and Proposed Order to Approve a Chapter 13 plan along with the Chapter 13 plan. On ECF you have to upload a file for the Hearing Notice, a file for the motion, a file for the proposed order, and a file for the Chapter 13 plan. 4 different pdf files are uploaded to ECF. Lets begin the mailing process.

(1) Download the matrix. The matrix comes in a preformatted layout for Avery 5160 labels. The labels are printed for 45 creditors. Time spent - 7 minutes.

(2) Now you need to print the envelopes. Hopefully you have some envelopes with your return address already printed on them. Let's assume you do, that will save some time. Affix the labels to the envelope. Time 6 minutes.

(3) Envelopes laid out, now you need to print the documents to put into the envelopes. Let's assume you're really efficient so you combine all the pdf files into one document and print it 45 times. The notice is one page, the motion is one page, the proposed order is one page. The plan is six pages. Total pages printed - 9 pages.
Your printer? Not that fast - At 15 ppm that is still 27 minutes of time before all the docs are ready. Let's add in another 5 minutes for your file prep for printing. 32 minutes.

(4) Documents printed, envelopes labeled, now comes the fun part. Stuff the envelopes. First fold into thirds and stuff. This is really slow. Personally, I hate this part. It takes the most time. And it's boring! Further, you're trying to talk on the phone while stuffing envelopes and your attention is diverted. Did you stuff two in there? Time spent stuffing - 23 minutes.

(5) Seal the envelopes. Normally, I would have included this in step 4, but it is its own unique and tasty experience. Better get a drink of water - time spent sealing - 2 minutes.

(6) Affix postage - got a meter? Easy, it will take you about a minute. If not, then spend another 4 minutes putting stamps on the envelopes. At least we don't have to lick them anymore. Time spent 5 minutes.

(7) Go to the post office - OK - if you got this done early in the morning, you probably can just put it in your outbox, but if later in the day, then you are making a trip to get it in the mail NOW. 20 minutes time to get to the post office and back.

Total time spent: 95 minutes. Let's say you are really efficient, you can probably get that down to 75 minutes. Is that worth it?

You pay your staff minimum $15.00 per hour. $15.00 x 1.5 = $22.50 Remember you are paying taxes on that payroll amount so it probably costs you around $25.00 for staff time. During that time, they were not answering phones and you weren't able to set any more appointments.

Imagine if they had set 3 appointments during that hour. Or worked on a motion at a billable rate of $125.00 per hour. 1.5 x $125.00 = $187.50 you could have realized in billable hours. Now couple that with the idea that you get to charge your Chapter 13 client for costs and it becomes a no brainer. You should be using COS.com. Make your staff more productive and you have a clear receipt and costs to include in your fee application.