Clio Con Clips 2025 - Alexander Almazan - E15

0:00Welcome to ClioCon Clips 2025, recorded live from Boston and proudly sponsored by Clio, the world's leading legal technology company transforming the legal experience for all. I'm your host, Rob Hanna, and over this special Legally Speaking podcast series, we'll be bringing you exclusive conversations with the brilliant minds behind Clio, the innovators, strategists, visionaries driving one of the most transformative companies in legal tech. Across these interviews, we'll explore how Clio is uniting brilliance across teams, technology, and communities worldwide. From AI and data to leadership, culture, and the future of client experience, you'll hear from people shaping what's next for law and redefining what's possible for legal professionals everywhere.

0:45So whether you're a lawyer, technologist, or leader passionate about innovation, you're in the right place. This ClioCon Clips 2025 is where brilliance meets purpose and the future of law takes shape. Let's get into it.

1:03Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, recording live here from Boston for our ClioCon Clips 2025 series sponsored by Clio. And I'm joined by name, title and organization.

1:14Alexander Almazan:So Alex Almazan, founder and managing partner at Almazan Law based out of Florida. Absolutely. Tell us more about your firm. So thanks for asking, man. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Our firm is a 30-person shop out of Florida that is based out of Miami, Florida, with offices in Tampa and Palm Beach. We are about 60 % of what we do is civil defense, insurance defense work. And the other 40 % is a combination of real estate soup to nuts and commercial litigation. Love it. And look, you're at the best legal tech conference in the world of ClioCom. Why are you here? So this is the fifth year in a row that I come.

1:47Alexander Almazan:And I came the first two years by myself. The next two years, I brought two of our staff. And this year, there's five of us here, plus our law firm consultants. So we're six total. So that's probably a good indication of how I've valued the conference over the last five years. The reality of it is that we are here because to not be in the space that is legal tech and to not be aware of what's coming and to not be 10 steps ahead of it is actually absolutely a waste of career and time. So we're here to learn how we can be better today and then also start preparing by seeing the things that are coming down the pipeline tomorrow and at next year's conference.

2:23Love that. Okay. And what's one thing or a couple of things you've noticed people are not buying into that they should be?

2:29Alexander Almazan:So I think the number one answer, you probably guessed what it would be because you hear it all the time, which is AI, right? It's the hot two letters from everything from stock market, which is probably about to crash with all the investments and that stuff, to the reality of that. So that's the number one answer, I think, for everybody. And those are fear-driven typically. But it's fear-driven like my kids who are now teenagers when they were three were afraid of a monster under their bed that didn't really exist. It's an unfounded fear based on ignorance like my child at three had, right? That they're no longer afraid of the monster under the bed when they go to sleep.

3:01Alexander Almazan:That's how I compare AI. So I think that's the number one issue that people need to be aware of. And I think the next one that people need to absolutely be aware of and continue to evolve in are everything that is a subset of that. So the individual matters that are technologies that you can stack onto your law firm, starting with something small, like an AI timekeeper, for example. Start with something small that people can implement and then look from there. Love it. Okay. And look, there's so many things out there in this world. It's a busy space. But what's been one revolutionary change to your firm that you're so glad you did and you won't look back on?

3:39Alexander Almazan:Yeah, so that's a good one. So I think the one revolutionary change, other than just objectively that we went all in on AI and we went all in on automation, was I would say was the first one. And I just mentioned AI timekeeping. I would say that was a revolutionary change because of two things. One was I wanted to implement a technology early on very quickly for my entire team to see that was A, easy to use, B, had a good user interface, and then three, that I could see an immediate ROI. Yeah. And that was one where we could see an immediate ROI because we are paying for something that is immediately going to extract what I refer to as the coins between the cushions.

4:17Alexander Almazan:It was going to find time that everybody already had that they just weren't capturing. So within the first 30 days of using the product, we had an 11x ROI on our investment. And we've been averaging between 10 to 12 for the last eight months that we've been using it. So that was revolutionary because what it did was ease the transition for my firm to be like, wait, maybe the boss isn't a complete fool. But he just gave us something where I'm making more money because I'm billing more without doing more work. I'm taking less time to bill. And then from there, it just immediately gave them a level of trust that in my vision, I'm going to make mistakes but by hitting the first one as a home run I definitely consider that to be revolutionary because it got them to buy me in buy in yeah and it's a win-win-win all around isn't it for everyone so I love that okay what are you most excited about looking forwards then with your firm for my firm yeah so uh man unquestionably it is the future um I will tell you and it's something that I think anybody that's listening to your podcast needs to understand which is in order for you to do it right you have to be very very very very comfortable with being uncomfortable.

5:16Alexander Almazan:And that takes a lot, but if you own a law firm or if you're managing a law firm, you obviously have an entrepreneurial spirit to you, which means you are comfortable being uncomfortable. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing. And for me, what I see is the next stage is that we've already gone through a lot of the pain points. 45 % of our current staff have been with us less than 14 months. And that isn't because we grew that much. Some of it is for sure, but a lot of it is, is that we had to very purposely and not always amicably split ways with some people that weren't buying in to a future that still had them relying on like manually checking spreadsheets for the next 10 years and we're like that's not going to work so the future of our firm was very much based on purposely making some hard choices now and having to part ways with some folks that were profitable but just simply weren't going to be the right vision moving forward yeah and look if nothing changes nothing changes and sometimes you have to make those decisions for the greater good and it's obviously working out super well for you and if people want to learn more about your firm or indeed yourself where can they go to find out more feel free to shout out your website or LinkedIn oh thanks man I appreciate it so again my name is Alex Almazan so if you follow me on LinkedIn at Almazan Law I'm not saying all of what I tell you will be powerful and will be important content but I definitely speak my mind a lot and I think that's important I think the industry needs to have people and I hope other people that are listening will do the same thing to get out there and talk about the realities of how people are fearful and people are uncomfortable so I think LinkedIn to have people interact on that has been extremely positive.

6:42Alexander Almazan:So I would encourage anyone to follow me there and please feel free to message me and give me advice. Any information about my firm, you can just find us at almazenlaw.com. And I love to share contacts, stories, help other people like yourself and anybody in the industry. So don't hesitate to reach out to me, even if it's something that 100 % you feel only benefits you. Love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me here on the League Speaking Podcast, recording live here in Boston for ClioCon 2025. But for now, over and out. You've been tuning in to our Legally Speaking podcast, ClioCon Clips 2025 miniseries, brought to you by Clio, the world's leading cloud-based legal technology platform.

7:16I'm Rob Hanna, the host of the show, and it's been an incredible experience hearing from Clio's leaders live from Boston as they shared how brilliance, innovation, and purpose come together to transform the legal experience for all. From scaling global teams and pioneering AI to empowering firms to work smarter to serve clients better and build the future of law, these conversations remind us that legal technology isn't just about tools, it's about people, ideas and progress. If you enjoyed this special mini-series, follow the Legally Speaking podcast wherever you get your podcasts and stay connected with us as we continue exploring the people shaping the future of the profession.

7:55Thanks so much for tuning in and as always from all of us here at the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Clio, over and out.