10 Ways to Automate Clio with Zapier to Improve Your Business Operations, Fast

Clio is a tool that can help you manage your law practice and work more efficiently, allowing you to track time, manage clients and cases, and even generate and send invoices, all in one place. This kind of centralized CRM (customer relationship management) platform is changing the way that law firms and lawyers conduct their business and offering a chance to streamline and improve business operations in several different ways. 

Clio will help you keep track of your clients and other contacts, see reports of various activities, including things like billing and case hours worked, and more. You'll spend less time taking care of admin tasks and more time with your clients, helping them get the outcome that they deserve in their legal matters. 

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Clio is impressive on its own, but it’s also able to be integrated with Zapier so that you can automate more and watch your to-do list disappear before your eyes. Zapier works with more than 3,000 apps, and counting, making it easy for any business to optimize, automate, and streamline operations for several different benefits. You’ll save time, money, and a lot of stress when you embrace automation. 

This automation tool is specifically designed to make other apps work smarter, and it’s paving the way for a whole new world of automation for businesses of all kinds, including law firms and solo lawyers alike. Check out all the ways that you can use these two tools together, and then go see what else Zapier can do for your legal practice. 

Before you dive in, though, it helps to know what you’re working with. Let’s talk a little more about what Zapier is and what it can do, and then we’ll look specifically at what it can do to streamline your Clio CRM platform.

What can Zapier automate?

This is, essentially, the million-dollar question—but then, for those who know Zapier, the better question might be, what can’t you automate? In addition to work with thousands of apps and software platforms, Zapier also has thousands of pre-built actions, triggers, and workflows that you just have to set in place, and then sit back while automation does the busywork. 

Zapier can automate all kinds of tasks and operations to help streamline your business. The best thing to do is learn about your options and then come up with an automation strategy that suits your company’s biggest needs. (If those needs include dedicated virtual receptionists to offer 24/7 live chat and phone support, ask how Smith.ai can help.)

When you employ Zapier with Clio and the rest of your legal tech stack, you’ll be able to automate:

• Billing and invoicing
• Contact updates and sharing
• File sharing
• Case management
• Marketing
• Lead generation
• Time and payroll management
• Collaboration and communication
• And so much more!

Think about how much more time you’ll have for your clients when your legal team is spending less time on those tedious administrative duties that don’t need a dedicated human touch. It’s not about whether you should automate, but where, and it’s about time to get started. 

Automation will save you time, effort, and resources. It will improve your team’s morale because people are doing less busywork, and it will give your business the chance to streamline operations in just about any way that you could imagine. Your law practice is never going to run more smoothly than when you take advantage of automation to get rid of all those admin tasks that are eating up valuable hours in your day. 

The good news is that you don’t have to take the automation journey alone. With the assistance of our virtual receptionists at Smith.ai, you can integrate and automate in more ways than you ever imagined and let us pick up the work where a human touch is needed so that you can stay focused on the business at hand. Get more done and do less of the work—it's what the automation game is all about. 

Let’s begin by taking a look at some of the ways that you can automate Clio with Zapier to give you the inspiration to get moving on your own automation strategy. 

1. Create labels in Gmail from Clio matters    

Tracking your cases can save you a lot of stress, and when you automate it, you can save a lot of time. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about organizing things on your own or losing track of communications. With this workflow, you can automate it so that every email related to a specific case or matter in Clio is tagged and filed separately so that you can keep track of every single one. Plus, with the automation in place, you’re not doing the work of tagging each email that comes in manually, which saves time and prevents the risk of errors or oversights. Gmail integrates great with Zapier in so many ways, but automating organization is definitely the focus. 

2. Add your Clio contacts to Mailchimp subscriber lists    

With Mailchimp, email marketing is easier than ever. As it stands, most people have an email signup that connects contacts to their Mailchimp, and that’s it. However, Zapier includes several automations to sync contacts with Mailchimp, including this one for Clio. Simply set up the trigger so that when a contact is created in Clio, they are transferred to the appropriate Mailchimp subscriber list. That way, the marketing journey can continue automatically and you can spend less time updating your lists the old-fashioned way. 

3. Turn Clio contacts into Google Contacts entries    

Contact management is tedious work, but it’s not something that you should be doing all on your own. After all, there are so many different tools available that it’s easy to keep contacts streamlined and updated, no matter which devices you’re using or how many clients you have. With this workflow, you’ll be able to turn any Clio contacts into entries in Google Contacts in just seconds and without doing any of the work. Just set it up so that whenever a specific contact is created or modified, or even identified otherwise in the system, they’re added to Google Contacts, as well. 

4. Turn Google Forms responses into Clio Matters    

Google Forms is an easy way to collect leads and help people get in touch with your firm. The automation available through Zapier can allow your forms to become just about anything, including new responses in your Clio matters directly. Set it up so that submissions are automatically generated in Clio as responses, and then all you have to do is keep an eye on your dashboard and watch for new responses to come in. It’s never been easier to keep track of inquiries, form responses, and other form-fill needs. 

5. Log Toggl time entries in your Clio platform    

You can even use Clio to track time, and when you use Toggl to keep tabs on your billable hours, this automation will make sure that the work is all done for you. Simply put the trigger in place so that when you create time entries in Toggl, they’re sent to Clio. Then, sit back and stop wasting time entering information in multiple screens while the power of automation works for you. Keeping track of your billing and hours in a law firm is crucial to proper payment and case handling and might even come up in audits over time. That's where automation comes in handy, and it’s one of the many reasons you should choose it for integrations like this. 

6. Create Evernote tags from your Clio Matters    

If you’re like a lot of busy professionals, tools like Evernote are just part of your everyday routine. This workflow makes it easy for you to tag every matter in Clio as you choose and then transfer it to Evernote so that everyone can stay informed and so that you have notes on your cases, even when you’re on the go. When you want to take things along but you don’t want to have to worry about security or confidentiality, tags and notes can be a great way to stay focused or remember to-dos without spelling it all out. 

7. Create Clio contacts from Wufoo Forms    

Like the Google Forms integration, this one makes it easy for you to import forms from Wufoo Forms, which is another great tool for getting leads and collecting other client information. The pre-built workflow is simple. Just set it up so that whenever a new form is submitted with contact information, that information is automatically transferred to Clio and added to your contacts list there for centralized management of all of your contacts. You can even modify this workflow to import other form details to various areas of the Clio platform. 

8. Turn Clio Matters into Citrix ShareFile folders    

If you’re savvy in the legal arena, you’re probably also using Citrix to manage other aspects of your practice. When you create a new matter in Clio, it creates tons of other files. By setting up this automation, you can automatically add the right files to ShareFile, making sure that all of your documents and clients are organized accordingly. Then, you also won’t have to transfer the files yourself or pay someone to do the filing for you, which saves a small fortune. 

9. Add new to-dos from Basecamp 2 as Clio tasks    

If your legal team uses Basecamp 2 to stay on track, this integration will be helpful. The Basecamp platform makes it easy to share projects and files, collaborate with your team, and make sure that everyone is on the same page. When you automate the transfer of tasks and to-dos between Basecamp 2 and Clio, you’ll easily keep things streamlined and make sure that your cases all have dedicated to-do lists that are being tended to. You can pick and choose specific to-dos or just transfer them all with this automation, too. 

10. Get SMS notifications for new Clio communications    

With this automation, SMS by Zapier makes sure that the right people are notified whenever new communications are created in your Clio CRM platform. Whether that’s a response from a form submission, a client inquiry, or even a team communication, you can rest assured that you’ll get the message, even if you’re not sitting on the Clio dashboard just waiting for the communication to roll in. The SMS by Zapier feature makes it easy to notify yourself or any member of your team based on whatever parameters you set for the workflow, or you can use it generically to be notified of every communication that comes through. 

Ready, set, grow: embrace all your resources for better law practice operations

At Smith.ai, we love automation. In fact, the only thing we love more is being a part of what makes your business better. Hire our virtual receptionists to act as the face of your brand and we’ll take care of all of your needs, from live website chat and after-hours answering to appointment setting and more. Plus, we’ll even help you create the ideal strategy to field your needs, regardless of what you have in mind. 

Zapier is one of our favorite tools on the market today because it makes it easy for anyone to create smart workflows so that their software can work for them. And thanks to Zapier, Smith.ai is capable of integrating with over 3,000 apps and tools so each call, chat, and text is properly logged in your CRM, marketing automation platform, or anywhere else. 

Check out all the apps we use and the ways we connect to Zapier! You can also explore Smith.ai’s Answering Service app on Zapier and learn about Smith.ai’s Website Chat app on Zapier. 

Get the details by scheduling a consultation to discuss the 24/7 chat and phone answering solutions we provide, including new client intake, after-hours answering, scheduling, and so much more. You can also find us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.