With thousands of details associated with a court case, Legal Concierge, Inc. (LCI) provides logistical planning and support to give the legal team peace of mind and let them focus on the important legal aspects of their case. Growing from a small home office to a workplace that knows no boundaries, Legal Concierge Inc., has grown into a pre-eminent service aimed at keeping a legal team centered on the tasks at hand instead of scrambling to manage non-legal related tasks.
CEO and Founder Lisa Cain entered the legal field as a paralegal, but, ultimately, wound up on a completely different path. “I was a performing arts major in college with an emphasis on directing, I went to paralegal school later in life. “I had been a single mom and the opportunity arose for me to become a paralegal.” Because she graduated at the top of her paralegal class, she was offered a position at Akin Gump, they asked Cain to step in and help with some logistics on a large telecom trial. In that initial job she managed vendors, catering, rental cars and reviewed vendor’s bills. In a continuing position with Akin Gump she worked as a trade show/event coordinator handling logistics in cities across the nation.
Developing & Orchestrating the Show “My burning desire was to figure out a way to continue in that logistics coordinator role, working on behalf of a client, serving them and saving them money,” Cain said, “I saw a lot of duplication in the processes that were in place. There was a lot of redundant billing and too many people trying to do the same job. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a single source that could take care of all of the overall coordination?’” Growing up in Northwest Arkansas, Cain remembers the first Wal-Mart ever built right behind her house. “Savings was engrained in me,” she explained.
The driving force in her decision to go into business for herself was her young son’s struggle with asthma. She knew she needed to be close to home. The final straw was an asthma episode that almost cost her son his life. “I went into my house, knocked out two walls of my coat closet, put up shelves, a computer and a lateral filing cabinet,” she said. “I worked night and day on this business; I worked there every day for eight years.”
While she banged on the doors of law firms, looking for the chance to show them what she could do and the value of her services, she took contract work to supplement her income. “I was unstoppable,” she said.
There’s No Business Like Show Business “The first two years I made no money at all, but I kept working. I knew in my heart that it was a great idea, if I could just get it in front of the right people,” stated Cain. She took a contract with Blockbuster reviewing Roger Staubach’s leases. Shortly after taking the job, she got a call from Blockbuster’s legal counsel in San Antonio regarding a giant lawsuit – Blockbuster v. Viacom – that also involved Universal, Fox, Time Warner, Paramount, MGM, Disney and Sony studios. She headed for San Antonio. It turned out to be the largest case with over 60 working offices and six war rooms.
“We set up 60 working offices on location. We had limos, cars, vans and food catered to three locations, people coming and going and experts coming in. It was a massive production,” explained Cain. “I had wires all over me, pagers, walkie talkies, and headphones on at all times, people kept calling, ‘I need this, I need this, I need that.’ We were jumping and it was the most exciting, incredible case I’ve ever worked on and one of the most exciting groups of people to get to know. I met Sumner Redstone and Dr. Phil amongst others. The multitasking I had gained as a single mother and all the skills I had directing plays were put to work in this business. After that, I pretty much had no fear. I told people who I was and what we could do.”
To Cain, the thrill of catering to every necessity of a legal team is the culmination of all of her training, but it’s a lot of fun, too. “Saving money literally thrills me to death”!
Legal Concierge, Inc. Grows Up “In 2000, I officially started my business. In October 2011, we bought our land and our building,” Cain said. “Since a lot of our clients have us travel with them from trial to trial, we store a lot of their equipment in our warehouse. We truck stuffand we look out our windows and we see horses and cows and occasionally some rare birds.”
The management team consists of Lisa Cain, Todd Spriggs and Brett Lane. Todd Spriggs joined Legal Concierge in 2005, leading efforts in client development and account management as well as contract negotiations, trial budget analysis and development. Brett Lane handles litigation technology support in the areas of graphic design and trial presentation and has assisted with more than 400 trials across the country. The expertise of the Legal Concierge team has been utilized by the widest range of clients throughout the United States and overseas.
“The main focus of our business is trial-site management, IT support and logistics,” explained Spriggs. “From a logistics and IT standpoint, we start our engagement by securing hotel and office space. Once we get an agreement, then we sign the pertinent contracts with respect to the hotel and the lease. We also arrange for the Internet and the IT infrastructure including firewalls, printers, switches and computers. In five days, we can take a 10,000-square-foot office from nothing to a fully-functional, working off-site law firm.”
“We create strategic headquarters away from a law firm’s home office. Our larger clients may be working with several different firms. Those firms come in and work as one unified team on behalf of that client,” Cain explained.
“Naturally, they are still competitors and they want their privacy and security issues maintained. Our goal is to come in on behalf of the client and create this atmosphere that ‘we are a team working one case with one common goal.’” Cain continued, “When a lawyer walks into our space, they are ready to rock, eager to win. They are plugged in, ready to go. Their food is there; their favorite snacks are there; we know if they have an allergy to strawberries; we know if they eat kosher; we know if they go to church and we know where the church is. We know where the amenities and the restaurants are; we understand how to get around in that city and how to get back and forth to the airport. We manage their equipment, the copying, the printing and the technical support.”
If Legal Concierge began as a glimmer of hope in the small home office of Cain, they’ve certainly busted out of that closet now. The team at Legal Concierge continues to grow and apply their focus on the details so legal teams can focus on their cases. “We’re pretty much a one-stop shop. One all-inclusive invoice, and one great, woman-owned, service company,” finished Cain.
