James Pittman: Welcome to immigration uncovered, the docketwise video podcast where we dive deep into the dynamic world of immigration law, shedding light on the latest developments, cutting edge practice management strategies, and the transformative impact of legal technology, empowering immigration practitioners with invaluable insights and exploring the intricate intersection of law and society. Today, a special episode in meet the team. We will be interviewing key team members from our company and allowing you, the viewer, an inside look at how our tech company works. Now I'm going to interview tom kachicki, who's director of marketing at tom. Tom, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, James. It's an honor. Thank you for having me.

James Pittman: Tom, tell us a little bit about your background and your career before docketwise. And why do you love? Yeah, absolutely. To answer the first question, I mean, I kind of got into marketing by accident, to be honest. I studied radio and television arts. So my goal was to work in television. That was the big dream. I was studying that, and I really was looking to either getting into sport broadcasting or directing things like that in television. But what really changed the course of my career was actually the iPhone four. So when I first got that, it just blew my mind. I held this in my hand. I'm like, wow, this is incredible in terms of what you can do on this phone. And I was just already thinking, like, how many industries this is going to disrupt? That was basically my shift right there. And right after that, I was in my fourth year. So I had to get an internship at a company in order to graduate, in order to get accredit and graduate. So my peers were doing internships at all the major television broadcasters here in Toronto. I actually started calling all the tech startups or app producers in Toronto. So I picked up my phone, I was just calling each one, and I got an internship by one of these companies. Worked there for six weeks, and then I was able to get a job there as a digital marketing manager. I didn't even know what digital marketing was, but I was part of that. I ended up being at that company for seven years. We grew the company from three people to 100. I basically hands on, just learned everything from email marketing to content marketing to design to paid ads. Pretty much everything hands on. And then that took me from one company to another to another. And to this day, I'm at docketwise right now. Why do you love working at docketwise? Overall, the company culture is just great. I think marketers, typically, they find themselves confined a little bit in terms of their ability to work. I think the key to being a good marketer is being flexible. And that's something that not only me, but everyone on the team gets, is flexibility. We're able to make decisions on our own and really just push forward instead of having layers of management and multiple decision makers kind of slowing us down or kind of, again, confining us in a box. So that's something I really enjoy at Docuise, and I think that's one of the reasons why we're able to attract amazing talent and also the ability to know, create the best product and best experience for our customers.

James Pittman: So, Tom, marketing plays a vital role in the success of any company, certainly any software company. Can you share something about the key strategies that have been effective in promoting Docketwise and allowing potential subscribers to find us? Yes, absolutely. You're totally right. Marketing does play a pivotal role for software companies, especially for Dockywise. The three pillars I always focused on throughout my career, and not only at Docuwise, is capturing demand, creating demand, and brand. And I think those are the three pillars that really led to our success and crucial to marketing at Docketwise. What are the unique challenges and opportunities in marketing a niche software like Docketwise that's focused on a specific practice area, namely immigration law? I don't know about challenges, but I think the opportunity as a marketer is definitely having the ability to really focus on a core message or a core problem. When you're working with a vertical that has just a very vast audience or general audience, for example, marketing software, right? You're marketing to marketers at different verticals, at different size companies. Each one has a different problem, and it's exciting to some point, but it's also very difficult to work with one tailored message that works with everyone. I think the advantage that we have targeting and speaking to immigration lawyers is that we can really focus on their problems and kind of create that messaging around them. I think that's a very unique opportunity. I don't think a lot of marketers have that opportunity. So I'm really glad that we're able to create so much value just because of the small audience that we're working with.

James Pittman: Well, Tom, do you want to tell us about any of the specific marketing campaigns or initiatives that you've been particularly satisfied with, that you felt were successful and really helped us reach potential? Yes, yes, absolutely. If any of the listeners have noticed. I think the amount of content that we've been pushing out for the last six months definitely is something that I'm proud of, and not only just because I'm proud of it, but the feedback that we're receiving. For example, the newsletter that Docuwise has been doing for a while, but we've kind of revamped, including more engaging content. And we were at the Aila conference this past year, we had attendees come to us and just rave about the newsletter, telling us, I can't wait until Friday to get the new issue right. So feedback like that really gives us that drive and also lets us know that we're on the right path and the content that we're creating actually creates value and people are actually enjoying it. So that's just one of the examples of content that we've been producing. But also just like this podcast we launched and we're also just getting fantastic feedback. Engagement is great. And the best part of this is that we're able to really get amazing guests on this show and provide insights and value that you probably won't hear anywhere. And I think that's incredible that we were able to build this and continue building it as we go. So that's been amazing so far.

James Pittman: So, Tom, how do you ensure that potential customers understand the values and the benefits of Docketwise, especially if it's the first time that they're encountering us or if perhaps they're new to immigration law as a practice area? The website is key. I think for most immigration lawyers, the first kind of exposure to doctor wise is our website, right? So I think just maintaining that website, making sure we have all the right information that's clear and concise about the values of Docuwise and how our software and our solution actually helps them. So we continuously update our website, create new pages, we always look at our messaging to make sure that everything is clear. It's a never ending product, really. We always make updates and we always maintain the website. So I think that's key for any potential customers or any immigration lawyers looking for a solution. I think the website is definitely the key there. And Tom, what role does customer feedback and perhaps market research play in shaping our outreach strategy? It definitely helps us with the product. I think customer feedback is crucial to how we produce the product and actually know what problems we're trying to solve. Sometimes as a software company, you think there's a problem that you're solving, but you actually aren't, and the problems that you should be solving, you don't know about. And I think that's where customer feedback comes in. And the same is for marketing, right, that feedback about what problems they have that also kind of tailors how we communicate our product to immigration lawyers. The value there is instrumental, in my opinion. So that's why any chance we can get feedback from customers or from immigration lawyers at large, that's something that we're always open to. And that's why if you find any of our emails or our blog post or social post, we always open up a dialogue. And I think that's where we're trying to start conversations and really learn more about immigration lawyers and the problems that they're facing. Understood. Well, that's really insightful and I do want to just add that and on the website and you talked a lot about the importance of our website. We do very clearly list the features of Docketwise and make it very easy for potential subscribers to look at our product and compare it to any other product that they might be thinking of.

James Pittman: So Tom, did you want to share anything about your interests outside of work. I'm into photography, so I enjoy taking photos, and I like to take that hobby while I travel. That's another thing that me and my wife really enjoy. We do have a trip coming up to Iceland, so pretty excited about that. Yeah. I'm based in Toronto, so for any people in Toronto, hello. And just to add to that, I think I'm from Toronto. James is in Philadelphia. We have members on our team that are in Columbia across the United States. And I think that diverse group that we have really reflects on what we're trying to do in immigration law and software. So great. Tom, thanks so much for those insights and for your answers about how we manage our outreach and marketing strategy here at Docketwise. We couldn't do it without your expertise and your creativity and your really strong efforts on the marketing front. So from all of us at Docketwise, we want to say thanks. Tom? Thanks, James. Thank you for those kind words, and thank you for letting me kind of share my experience here.

James Pittman: Thanks. Our next guest is going to be Alejandro Escobar, who is our chief software engineer here at Docketwise. Alejo, welcome. Thank you, James. Happy to be here. Well, Alejo, tell us a little bit about your background and your career before Docketwise. And also why do you love working for Docketwise? Sure. So I have a bit of an interesting career switch. I'm actually a business administrator. That's what I studied in college. But towards the last year of college, I started getting into tech startups. Like, I got interested in them. Once I finished college, I did a coding boot camp called make it Real that's based here in Colombia. And I never looked back. I was really absorbed by the programming world. And with a couple of friends, we started a software factory company that we operate for a year and a half. And we did all sort of projects like content managers. We worked with a lot of startups, from payroll to courier services to even housing, stuff like that. We did a lot of projects. It was kind of like a really force that impulsed our programming careers forward, and I never looked back. I never actually worked as a business administrator. Really, coding was my thing. And after that, I met Docketwise through Toptal, which is like a freelancer market, and I worked through Toptal for around a year. And after that, my contract got acquired by Docketwise and started working full time for Docketwise. And, yeah, it's been a great experience since then. That was towards the end of 2018. I've been six years now in Docket. Wise, what do you love about the company? I would say the culture is the big part of it. The people working with everyone I work with, the attitude they take around every problem is great. I love the immigration space. I feel like we're doing something that's valuable, something that's bringing real value, real joy to the world. That is something that really drives me forward. And really, all the problems that come up are really interesting from a technical perspective. So, yeah, I think it's hard to pinpoint one thing. It's just all around. It's something I enjoy a lot.

James Pittman: Well, Alejo, as the chief software engineer at Docketwise, what is your primary role in the development process? Right, so this has been an evolving process. Like I said, I've been six years now with Docketwise. So kind of like my role has been evolving with the company itself, which is kind of like, interesting and something that I enjoy quite a bit. So initially I was very much into the code base, really, like, pushing out new features, maintainability setting up infrastructure, all of that. Now my role has switched a little bit as team grows towards a more managerial aspect. And really where I see my bigger value and my bigger contributions is helping the technical team move forward, perform at their highest level, and just helping them grow personally and professionally. And I still do technical things. I still look at code reviews, I still look at most of the code that gets used in Docket wise, which I think brings a great cognition to our technical system. So that is something I still do well. What are some of the technical innovations or breakthroughs in the development of docket wise that you're particularly proud of? Well, there's one in particular. Back in 2020, we started to build the form factory, which is the technology behind our smart forms. This was really a massive effort. It was months of hard work, but it really materialized the vision and the experience we wanted to provide our users. It was really like, it materialized all the hard work we had done on the previous years and the things we learned while working on the immigration space. And it all yelled up in this product, which is the smartphones experience. It was a technical challenge, a really big technical challenge. We wanted to provide the best experience to our users. And, yeah, I like to think that we were able to do it. And indeed, Dockerwise has been rated as the number one form platform. And a lot of that high esteem does rest on the strength of its form features. And Dockerwise is the only product that approaches populating and preparing immigration forms in the way that we do. Well, Alejo, producing a software platform for forms and case management for lawyers is complex and immigration law is a complex field. But how do you approach the challenge of producing the product, but making it in a user friendly, as user friendly as possible? Yeah, I think this is a team effort. Fortunately, we got some great minds working for us in the immigration space. And speaking specifically about you, James, your input is really valuable for us to really come up with the best experience to our users. And I think in general, the team we try to keep really close gap between engineering and the customer. And all of this is thanks to the easy communication we have with product, with sales, with the customer success teams which gives us a constant glimpse about the needs of our users and that allows us to build the best experience for them. There's a lot to monitor in the field. I mean legal technology is a field that has really been undergoing a revolution and very rapid change. And then also immigration law is a field that changes quickly as well. So what are some of the things that need to be done to keep the platform as up to date as possible? Yeah, I think having the team give us retractive feedback of what the users are looking for is a big part of it. We also try to keep as lean as possible with the team. We're still a small team that moves forward that really push hard to really come up with the best features and try to get them out as quick as possible and really just automating the things we can automate. Like in our development process, we try to make things as simple as possible, try to ease the cognitive load of our code base to our developers. That also helps us move faster. And just a little bit of experimentation as well, like trying new tools, seeing what works. And if it doesn't work, well, we just need to tread a new path. That also is a big part of keeping up with the immigration space and technology in general. And Docketwise is known for its reliability and its security.

James Pittman: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the measures that we take to ensure data security for our users? Yeah, I would say here it's all about automation. Anything that is done via a manual check is a potential place where errors could start creeping up. So we try to automate as much as our development process as possible. So I wanted to share three examples that we do in the engineering side. First, every time new code is pushed or like a new feature or a bug fix or whatever, our automated tests are run and we check that any change in the code base isn't breaking any other changes that we had in the past. So this is kind of like a safeguard and every time we make a change we're sure that it's going to be pushed safely into production. We also use great tooling. There is this tool called Breakman that on every change it tracks security vulnerability. So whenever something changes, we know immediately we're doing something wrong. We actually have a potential threat in the security side and we take care of it, address it immediately. And lastly, there are some tools that helps us keep the Docketwise code base in a cohesive organized matter such as Rubocop. These are all automated processes that we have that helps us simplify the development process, keep the code base very cohesive, very easy to read, and therefore allows it to keep moving forward faster.

James Pittman: Alejo, what are some of the developments in innovation that are going on in legal tech and in the larger tech world that you're most excited about? Right now? The most prominent one, and I think it's like making the rounds in everyone's mind right now is AI. So there is a big opportunity for AI working towards increasing productivity in legal tech. There's a lot of processes that could be facilitating by training a language processing model into legal subject. So that one, I think it's the bigger one. The other one, I would say, is integrations, like facilitating processes and connectivity between multiple platforms. That's something that we're especially thoughtful about in Doctor wise. We have an open API that we give a lot of access to, and we try to integrate into our systems tools that can help our users become more productive on their practice. Well, thanks for that insight.

James Pittman: Alejo, what do you enjoy doing outside of work? I actually have many hobbies. The most prominent ones, I say, is playing tennis. I love playing tennis. I love going to a tennis court and just playing a match or just training. I love it. I love playing guitar. Well, I have my guitar right here. I love learning classical guitar. I like the sense of hard, disciplined work towards a result. And classical guitar is something that gives me that sensation. And the other one, which I think is very important to me in my career, in my life, is video games. I feel video games give my mind and a structure that helps me learn things faster. When I made the switch from business administration to software engineering, I felt that a lot of the mechanics I used to play video game were transferable to the learnings in programming. Well, Alejo, these are amazing insights, and I want to say that really, you deserve an enormous amount of credit for Docketwise becoming as well known as it has and as successful as it has because of your incredible skill, tech skill in engineering and your dedication and just the enormous amount of hard work that you put in. So you deserve a lot of credit, and thanks very much for sharing your insights with us. We really do appreciate you. Thank you so much. James. Yeah, tackywise is the highlight of my professional career. I've been more than six years here in counting, so it already occupies a big space in my heart. So, yeah, I feel like I have big contributions to be made. And yeah. Thank you so much.

James Pittman: Our next guest is Allie Melham. She's the Docket wise Director of customer success. Allie, welcome. Tell us a little bit about your background and your career before Docket Wise and why you love working for Docketwise. All right, before docket wise. I was at IBM for ten years. I sold mobile device management security. I was an account rep there. I started as a BDR and then I moved to sales and then account management. After that, I came to Docketwise, and in Docketwise, I started as a customer success manager and I was the third employee at Docketwise. So, Ali, customer satisfaction is crucial for the success of any software company. How do you and your team ensure that Docketwise users have a smooth and positive experience? To ensure a smooth and positive experience, I think it needs to start off with the transition from the sales team to the customer success team. What we first initially do is have an onboarding call where we'll do a discovery of what your pain points are and how we can address your pain points within Docket wise. Also within that meeting, we'll talk about customization, how we can import not only your matter workflows that you're working with other softwares, but different processes that you utilize. How to utilize that within Docketwise. After we get the customization done, what we like to do is have one overview training call where we'll discuss everything within Docketwise, show all the features and functionalities, and then after that, we'd like to have breakout training sessions. Within those breakout training sessions, we'll only focus on your roles and responsibilities and what you'll need to utilize within Docketwise. Understood.

James Pittman: So Ali, can you share some examples of how you've assisted users in overcoming challenges or making sure that they're getting the most out of Docketwise's features? Yep, of course. So that first call is extremely critical because again, this is where I'm understanding your pain points, and then we're seeing how we can address those pain points within Docketwise. Sometimes it is a different processe of what you're used to, but we kind of take a mixture of the processes that you're using now and then how to implement that within Docketwise. I think addressing the pain points and seeing what functionality is needed or what functionality that Docketwise has that can help you later down the road is really important. So again, addressing the pain points and then understanding the product, we have unlimited training. So not only training in the beginning is extremely important for everybody to be in, but also keep up with those quarterly calls where we can show you the new features that we have implemented and then just brush up on your skills from the time that you were first trained to now. Because there might be some easier ways that we can help you achieve what needs to be achieved.

James Pittman: Wonderful. Well, can you give us an overview and describe the resources available on the Docketwise platform and the other support systems in terms of what your team is doing that you provide to customers on an ongoing basis to help them get the most out of our software? Of course. So within the Docketwise software itself, not only do we have an in house chat, it's not a bot. There's actually another person on the other end able to answer your questions, jump on a call if necessary. We have different help center articles. Within those help center articles, it's actually written directions of how to accomplish a specific act. And then we also have a video showing how to perform that specific activity. As of right now, all of our help center articles are in English, but we're slowly transitioning them from English and Spanish, so both languages will be available. In addition to that, we have support calls and trainings that are available in English and Spanish for anybody that would like it. And then you also have your customer success team. The customer success Team is able to meet with you. If you just reach out to us, we can book a training, we can answer any questions, and we can show you the new features.

James Pittman: Well, Ali, docketwise has received a lot of great feedback from our users. So how does your team collect and act on user feedback to continually improve the platform? Can you describe that process? Sure. Not only can our users provide feedback within docket wise, but when you meet with your success manager on a quarterly basis, or if you just want to shoot us over an email or connect with us within chat once you tell us what you would like updated or a new feature that we might need? Or maybe that you're experiencing something within docketwise that you don't think is right? We are going to meet with our team. Our Customer Support and Success Team meets with the engineering team on a daily basis to not only discuss the new features that were brought to our attention, but to discuss any possible issues so we can get them resolved in a timely manner.

James Pittman: Well, Ali, you've described the importance of the handoff from the account rep to customer Success Team, but are there any other insights or anything else about the onboarding process for new users and how you help them to transition to using Docketwise effectively that you'd like to add? Yeah. So if you are kind of tight on time and you don't have time to meet with us we do once when you first log in, can kind of go through a 25 minutes onboarding process that is automated that we have built in within our app. Some people like to try that out to begin with and then come with us for questions afterwards. So you are able to do that when the customer success Team is talking with you, it's a lot easier to again address your pain points and then show you features that you might not even know about. So I think it's extremely critical to meet with us to get the best and full experience of Docketwise. Well, Ali, you're based in Philadelphia, as am I. Do you want to share anything about your interest outside of docket wise. Sure. I have two small children. I'm really involved and my schedule kind of revolves around them. But Philadelphia has great weather for a majority of the year. We love going outside, going on different hikes. If we do have a chance to go down to the shore, we love going to the beach just to get all the energy out with my two little kids. Other than that, Philadelphia has great BYOB restaurants. If I have time, I like to go grab a good bite to eat downtown. Wonderful, ali, thanks so much for your time. This has been very informative. And now we're talking to Jason Gal, who is the senior director of product at Docketwise.

James Pittman: Jason, welcome to start. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and your career before you came to Docketwise? And then why do you love working for Docketwise? So maybe I'll kind of go in reverse order a little bit. So I grew up a little bit of a nomad, so I'm not really a stranger to immigration. My family moved around quite a bit when I was a kid and I spent probably like two to three years on average in any given country or city. My dad's dream ultimately was to immigrate to the US. And we spent a few years living there. But while we were in the process, actually 911 happened. So I was in grade twelve at the time. And we in parallel also received our permanent residency for Canada around that same time. So then we decided to move to Canada instead of pursuing the US. Immigration. I didn't appreciate it at the time, the journey of an immigrant and the process my parents had to go through. So it's kind of interesting because full circle back, now that I'm at docket wise, I see what the immigration process is like. It's different now, obviously, compared to before, but still the pain that immigration clients have to go through and their legal representatives, it's kind of like appreciating the hardship that was there before. So as much as I think docket wise can make that journey a little bit easier and improve on that experience for the law firms as well as their clients, that's one of the goals that I have for Dockiewise on the career side. So my background, I studied engineering and went into business consulting. So I was with IBM Accenture for about eight years I was doing that and then I started kind of transitioning from business strategy consulting more into technical consulting, technology consulting, and I was always a coder developer as a kid. So I did a lot of side projects, even just building windows programs. And at one point I was learning how to hack systems just for fun. And so I ended up, by coincidence on a big project at the time where I really got exposure to a lot of product work, also a lot of technical work, API designs. Database designs and stuff like that. So that kind of kicked off my transition into product management. So the next part of my career, for about six years I worked at a couple of different startups. I went on to start leading the product and engineering teams at these startups and discovered that a I really love the startup culture and b that it's very difficult to succeed as a startup for many reasons that are well documented. So although Doctorwise is now part of the Affinip family, we still operate and run very much like a startup and I really love that. And at the same time we are growing tremendously. So that's something I never got to see and experience at my previous startup. Wonderful.

James Pittman: Well, can you tell us more about your role as the Senior Director of Product and what it entails? Yeah, sure. So my role tends to vary quite a bit on a day to day basis owing partly to the startup kind of culture and team that we have. And I kind of categorize the work I do in two parts. One is kind of reactive work and the other is proactive work, I call it. So on the reactive side it could be investigating bugs, answering questions from our internal team about existing features, how they work or what's next on a roadmap and sometimes explaining to them why something is not on our roadmap yet. Some days I may spend the majority of my time on these reactive type of work and issues and that's hard to predict. It depends on what comes up. And then on the proactive side I'm typically either drafting user stories myself or reviewing my team's user stories and design drafts for upcoming features or reviewing our customers feedback database, running research projects, user interviews and things like that and analyzing our usage metrics, which I enjoy doing quite a bit. But last, and probably the most important thing that I do is really prioritizing our product roadmap. So this is a continuous and constant cycle. So it's not something that we do once a quarter. It's continuously happening and as much as planning is important, adapting our roadmap constantly is also very critical.

James Pittman: Thanks very much for explaining your role. Docketwise is known for its user friendly interface and it gets high marks from attorneys for being a product that's intuitive. How do you ensure that our user interface remains intuitive for immigration lawyers and their clients? One of the ways I think we do that is we are very diligent about recording and tracking our user feedback and so we have a very sophisticated process that's cross functional across all the teams essentially to record and track this feedback. So we will often hear of issues or examples and some of them are difficulties with navigating certain things. We have a close ear to the ground on what users are asking for. I personally have read through, I think we have actively maybe 1500 of these types of things that are tracked in our database and I've read through all of them. So every time we encounter something that is something that we can fix quickly, we'll prioritize and try to get that done. The other part of it, I guess, is really just our development process. So we conduct user testing interviews to collect feedback from certain clients and users and we reach out to our user group to see if anyone's interested in that as well from time to time. And then we test the new designs on these users and make sure that the user experience we're building is intuitive. And at Docketwise, we're constantly improving and adding new features.

James Pittman: Would you like to highlight some recent enhancements or recently deployed features that you and your team have developed that you believe made a significant impact for our users? I think e filing is one of the key areas that we've been pushing forward on quite a lot these past few months. As you may or may not know, we've announced some of this. We've launched four new forms for e filing recently. One of the users actually summed it up really well in terms of the impact regarding the DS 160 and that was launched a little bit earlier during the year and they said working great, really shaved time off from HQB, busy season. So instead of taking 30 minutes and fighting the Department of State website, it takes a few minutes and it's in the background so I can be doing something else. So that to me really sums up the experience really well for why we're committing to e filing and pursuing e filing, because that's the vision is helping our attorneys save time and eliminate all that extra reentry of data across different systems. That's a big one and we hope to continue making impact on that one as we go. And then billing and payments is also an area that we've done significant improvements on over the past few months. And this is an area where users have been quite critical about. As I mentioned, we track user feedback and I think rightly so. So we've been making improvements to the trust ledger views, for example, and we've been really thinking about how to improve the billing and payments and law pay payments in the future as well. So there's stuff we're working on over there that's not yet out. And then finally it's just we've been systematically also reviewing parts of our application, just making micro enhancements to the user experience. The UI, they're micro, but there's quite a lot of them that we've been doing. So the goal is that the sum of its parts eventually will net out to something much better and easier to use. So yeah, those are some of the things that I think have had some great impacts over the last few months.

James Pittman: Well, Docketwise lies at the intersection of immigration law and technology, and both immigration law is a field where there's continuous change in terms of, for example, form additions in terms of immigration policies and then in the tech world it's continuous innovation. So can you describe how your team stays ahead of the curve in terms of adapting to regulatory changes or policy changes as well as customer needs? And I was thinking, for example, on the tech front, the SMS texting policy changes that have come into play recently. Yeah, that one was quite painful. But yeah, we have multiple ways of doing this. For one, for example, I mentioned earlier, we keep our ears pretty close to the ground with our process of listening to users. We're not 100% always going to be accurate, but our users, if we hear anything from them that needs to be addressed as well, whether it's a form update or change, we immediately respond to those as well. The other part of this is as a group of individuals, I would say in Docuise, as a team, we're all very aware of what's happening in the world, in the government, as different developments kind of occur. That's something that we also proactively discuss internally. Jays, you're there as well. We talk about these things and we theorize on what the potential implications could be for the future of immigration depending on what the topic is. And yes, like the SMS example issue, that was something that is unrelated to immigration, but the telecom carrier is making changes to the way that they filter and allow mass text messaging from companies, not necessarily companies like Docketwise. I think they applied it as a blanket way. We've had to adapt quickly and work ahead and find solutions and options for our clients so that they can maintain their two way text messaging, which we've been able to do. And there's still work going on behind the scenes in the background on our side, to make sure that text messaging stays available for all of our firms. Yeah, and you've mentioned it, but just to underline yeah, that's a very important dynamic where in terms of following what USCIS and other federal government agencies involved in immigration are doing, we closely monitor that. I closely monitor that and then the dynamic is you and I confirm, we discuss what the potential impact is and what adjustments need to be made, if any, to the product in light of those changes. That's one of the amazing things about working at Docketwise.

James Pittman: Well, can you share, Jason, a sneak peek into any developments or any aspects of our product roadmap that you're excited about and that our listeners can look forward to? Yeah, I mentioned earlier that we make plans but we also adapt. So everything I say here can change. But for the most part these are things that are coming in the short term. So one I've kind of mentioned already, we're working on numerous billing and payments improvements and that's going to really help make processing payments but also invoicing a lot easier through Docui, so that's something you guys can look forward to in the future. We're also continuing to add to our library of forms that can be e filed, so that's a continuous stream of work that we're focused on as well. So we do have more forms that will be in the coming months, and we're excited to share more about which forms they are as we get closer to the time when they're ready. Finally, this is one that I've been really excited about for a long time and wanting to do. We've been making improvements to the USCIS receipt tracking capabilities. So one of the things I really wanted to do is be to notify our firms and users proactively about their key status changes. So instead of people having to go to the website or go within Docuwise and click through to the matter level and check did anything change today? Did anything change tomorrow? We are going to make sure that we can proactively just send you a notification in the future so that you don't have to spend that time and waste that time checking, refreshing your browser to see if anything has moved on your cases. So that's something that's coming fairly soon as well that I've been wanting to get out the door for a long time.

James Pittman: Well, Jason, you're based in Toronto, and we are a very geographically diverse and know team. Do you want to share anything about your interests outside of work? I have two young kids, two and five years old, so 90% of my time outside of work is spent with them, which I actually really enjoy. I love being a parent. I just enjoyed the time with them and they grow up quite fast, so that's probably what I do the most. I mean, other than that when they go to sleep, if I'm able to stay know, I'm probably browsing YouTube. I follow a lot of tech and gadget, you know, iPhone releases, the next Samsung phone release, or any other kind of cool gadgets. So I probably spend too much time watching those things. Jason, it's been a know, I really always enjoy our conversations and thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to share those insights with us and with our listeners. And now we're talking to Chris Williams, the product manager at Docketwise.

James Pittman: So Chris, tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to work at Docketwise and why do you love working for the company? Of course. Yeah. So I guess I'll start with after graduating from college. So after I graduated from college, I actually went to Bobotara Columbia through a program there in Colombia. And then I actually ended up teaching English in a military battalion, including classes of wounded and hospitalized soldiers. And so after teaching English in Bogota, I taught English in another city in Colombia called Kali and also worked in the same time as a freelance marketer. And there on Kali, I taught English in a state funded technical school. And then finally, once I was ready to come back to the United States, I started my first job in immigration law as bilingual immigration paralegal for a firm that consisted mostly of removal defense cases. The choice kind of felt like a no brainer for me having prior interest in the immigration area to get started in immigration law. So after some time at that firm, actually I joined another firm that was in South Florida and they had more of a focus on family immigration. So while I was at that know, after I had gained a few years in total of experience as an immigration paralegal, I joined Docketwise. And I wanted to do know I have a positive effect on the space of immigration from a different perspective. And what I love about Docketwise is that I'm able to do that. I'm still able to affect the field of immigration, but kind of from a different angle you could say, well, Chris, as a product manager at Docketwise, your role involves shaping the software's features and capabilities. So how do you go about prioritizing what to develop next? Yeah, prioritizing what to do, what to develop next is a crucial part of this process. And we accomplish this in a number of ways. I would say first and foremost, we prioritize based on our users needs and our users feedback. Our clients and users are always at the heart of our product development decisions and we make sure to have open feedback loops. We actively engage with our clients and users through surveys, through user interviews, through other feedback channels to really understand their pain points and their desires. So this user centric approach ensures that we're addressing their most pressing concerns. And another way that I can't forget to mention, of course, that we can gain or gather customer feedback is through our cross functional collaboration with our other customer facing teams here at Docketwise, such as our support team, customer success team, and sales teams. So the feedback we receive, whether it's from a sales call, a training call, or support ticket, it's always recorded, it's always discussed and tracked and serves as another valuable source of data for us. And in addition to the user feedback, there are other things we need to take into account and questions that we have to ask ourselves, such as how impactful will this feature be for our users? How many people will this impact? How much will it improve their experience? What is the technical feasibility and how much time and what would be required to build it? What are the risks involved in building it, involved in getting everything set up? And what are the risks involved in not developing it? There are also some other factors that we also weigh for prioritizing, which would be market research, market trends, and then also government or regulatory changes and updates which are very important being in the field or space of legal, tech and immigration.

James Pittman: Let's get into a little bit about the process of taking a new feature from its first conception to its final deployment at Docketwise. What is this sort of pipeline like in the stages? Sure. Yeah. So we can start with the Ideation phase. So Ideation starts again with user feedback and identifying the need or pain point that we are solving for and conceptualizing how the new feature or improvement will address that need and add value to the product. So after Ideation, of course, we need to prioritize how that's built. And after that would come the planning phase where we gather and find the product or feature requirements. This usually takes the form of writing out specifications, creating a mockup designs, and including all other necessary documentation. So once that is completed, the engineering team of course will begin development on the feature based on those specifications and requirements, designs, et cetera. And after the code is completed and reviewed for quality, it is then further tested in our testing environment by our QA team. Once the QA team has signed off, it is of course launched and implemented for our users to enjoy. We of course remain attentive to feedback to keep an Iterative approach. Additionally, for some examples, I guess you could take our e filing for recent forms as an example. Sometimes we will release a feature to beta phase before making it generally available. So we have tied together additional feedback. And Chris, Docket wise, of course, its particular niche is immigration law. And immigration law is a field where there are continuous policy changes and procedural changes going on. And as a SaaS company, the tech world is obviously constantly innovating. So how do we go about ensuring that Docketwise stays up to date with both the latest developments in immigration, the latest form additions and changes in the tech? Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. So staying up to date, as you mentioned, with the latest immigration regulations and form updates is critical for Docketwise. And we're able to accomplish this through the help of our in house immigration law experts and by staying tuned to the latest updates coming from these government agencies such as USCIS and Department of State and other agencies as well of you know, if anything needs to be changed, updated or added in order to comply with any new immigration regulations, we make sure that work is prioritized so that we can confidently ensure that our software remains current, accurate and compliant with the latest immigration regulations.

James Pittman: So Chris, can you share some examples of features or updates that were driven by the things that are the two drivers here at Docketwise, which are user needs and regulatory changes? Yeah, of, you know, as you kind of hinted that everything we have in Docketwise is driven either by user needs and or regulatory reasons. So I'll start with an example of updates made due to regulatory changes, which is an easy one, and that's keeping our smart forms and questionnaires up to date. So whenever a new form is released, we need to make sure that the current version is in Docket wise and can be used. This also includes adding new forms such as having to had added the I 945 back when Alec charge was reinstated. So there's the work on updating those forms and adding that form back and things that just needed to be done right away. So we got that prioritized and into Docketwise to make sure that our users were able to access those forms. I would say related to that, I can give an example of a feature driven by user need, and that's our form versioning feature. So previously in Docketwise, when a form version was updated and made available in Docketwise, the previous version of the form could no longer be used. And based off feedback that we had received from users, we saw a definite need to have the previous version still available while it was being accepted by USCIS. So we made that feature available and it's been great for our users having that ability to still access old forms while they're being accepted, let's say by USCIS, if they're still accepting previous version and the newer version at the same time. One other example I can give is the addition of custom reporting, which solves for customer needs, being able to run more customized and advanced reports within Docketwise. And I guess finally, another more recent example would be the trust account ledger that we had launched which was driven by our user needs to have more comprehensive features for trust accounting. Being able to know how much money was in each trust account, having a bird's eye view of this, being able to dig into those details of the trust account transactions. As and once again, that's also been a very big help for our users having that feature in Docketwise as well.

James Pittman: So Chris, what advice would you give to immigration lawyers who want to make the most of Docketwise in their practice? As someone on the inside, I would have two main suggestions or pieces of advice. The first being is to stay informed, and the second is to stay connected. So what I mean by staying informed is making sure you know all of the solutions and features that are included and available within Docketwise. So of course you can get the most out of the platform. I know it can happen, and it has happened, where maybe a user might want a certain feature or a certain solution that actually currently exists within Docketwise. So to help with this, of course, we have a robust help center full of documentation on how pretty much every feature and capability within Docketwise works. And we also communicate new feature launches via email, via email monthly, usually at the least. Maybe if we have a big feature announcement for something big. We might also do a special one for that as well. And then we also have our in depth feature assets so you can stay up to date with new feature launches also through the rocket ship icon you'll see when logged into your docketwise account. And going back to the second one when I said stay connected. What I mean by staying connected is taking advantage of our communication channels here at Docketwise for providing know. As I mentioned before, our clients are the heart of our product development decisions, and we make sure to have open feedback loops on our product and our new features.

James Pittman: And Chris, you're located you're based in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm in Philadelphia. You're in the suburbs thereof, and we are a very geographically diverse team here at docketwise. Do you want to share anything about your interests outside of the company? Yeah, well, outside of work, I'd say I like to always be learning something new, whether it's related to what I'm doing here at docubuz or whether it's a personal interest. And that usually takes the form of maybe an online class or maybe watching YouTube and going down a rabbit hole. All then, you know, I also enjoy the simpler things like spending time outside, hiking or just going outside for a walk. Well, Chris, thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to give our listeners insights into the product development process here at docketwise and how we consider their feedback when we're planning our product roadmap. It's been really informative, and we appreciate it. We appreciate you and your very hard work here at docketwise. And here we are with Dan nebrotsky, director of sales at docketwise.

James Pittman: Dan, welcome. Thanks for taking time out of your very busy day. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your career before you came to docketwise and why you joined the company and why do you love working here? Absolutely, James, and it's a pleasure to see you again. I miss you. What I like to do to talk about who I am. I started off with my own company, and so in university, I was going to be a premed student. I was going to be a doctor just like everyone else wanted to be. Maybe a lawyer as well. But I was in the premed program. I went and did an internship at a hospital and found a need, found a want, and used my programming skills to start a company, which was really cool. Sold that company, and I was in charge of everything customer facing. And as I transitioned out of that, I took some time off and got back into sales management. So I've been doing that ever since with technology companies across the board and helping them grow, and it's been really fun. And the reason why I really love docketwise is that we're really helping people in a tangible way. There's a real good use case for us and what we do. And it's been really easy and really helpful for me to share that message. So I love it.

James Pittman: Well, Dan, as the director of sales at Docketwise, what's your approach to helping potential subscribers understand the value of Docketwise for their immigration law practice? I really believe that seeing is believing for some of this. And when we show them the functionality that's been created with the forms, the matter workflows and how they operate, that's where we live. So the lawyers, they need to make sure that they can see what's going on and how it operates because they're doing that every day. Once they see and understand the flow, I think they understand the value of what we bring. And so my mantra for the whole team is make sure you show what it's like in real life rather than talk about it hypothetically. And Dan, what sets docketwise apart from other solutions which might be in the same market, and how do you communicate these differentiators to our prospective users? The functionality really rides on how we differentiate when we show the product, and we're able to show key features such as like e filing and the recently released e filing of DS 260. As we show how we integrate and how our flows happen, that's when the differentiators come out. So we share that message time again, but we share it by showing and not just to say that we're better, we show that we're better. And so when you jump on and see a little bit more about Dockowise and see how we do our e filing, see how we do our invoicing, our integrations and how they work and automate few of your processes, you really get to understand why docketwise is a leader in the field.

James Pittman: Well, Dan, you've been here for a while now, so can you share some highlights or successes where you've seen that docketwise has made a significant impact on law firms or solo practitioners? Yes, one of the highlights that I think I've been able to enjoy is when a solo practitioner, so someone who's just starting off and is usually doing like asylum cases, maybe a few deportation cases, which are hard to do, they're kind of mentally taxing. Right. So when they're doing those forms and trying to work that through the AHA moment, where they can do it in any language with docket wise, and really be able to process those and make it clean so that they can focus on the client rather than focus on the paperwork. I've seen that change time and time again with a lot of solo practitioners that we've dealt with in California and Texas who've really done really well, adapting to the docky system, adjusting from an Excel spreadsheet type of format, and really moving in and leaning into how we do things. It's made a huge difference for them and they're able to help even more in their community now and volunteer with nonprofits. So it's been a really cool thing. They have their own business, but now, because they have the time, they can volunteer and help more in the cause that they love.

James Pittman: And Dan, how do you tailor your approach when you're approaching a potential subscriber to the unique needs and specific challenges? And we say pain points that immigration lawyers face. Yeah, we always talk about pain points right. And what's missing and what's lacking. The way that we tailor our message is specific again, to the use case. We have a lot of people who come to us, and they're trying to figure out how they can file those forms as well as get those intakes and make sure that's accurate, but also make sure that they have those processes automated, because it's hard to keep track of that when you're doing that with multiple different clients, multiple different nationalities and languages. It can really be taxing on an attorney to kind of keep that all under one hat. So what we try and do is once we figure out what those keypa points are, we put them in that live scenario, show them how that works and that functions, and then they're able to use it. And the benefit of dockerwise and how we've been using our trials is to be able to show and back up what we talk about and do. And once you jump into a trial with dockerwise, you can really see the power and be able to use it for your own specific use case. Our onboarding team, spearheaded by ali, is phenomenal in adjusting to those specific use cases. And we've seen almost everything, I think, James. But being able to adjust that has been a really big key feature and a key win to be able to make sure that we're addressing the specific needs of each individual. Understood.

James Pittman: Well, Dan, what advice do you as an insider have for lawyers or potential subscribers who might be considering adopting docket wise but are sort of on the fence? My message to you guys is to just try it. Just try it and be able to see what it's like. The only thing that can really go wrong by trying out docket wise is maybe figuring out that there's a better way to do things or maybe figuring out that there's a faster way to do things if you're on the fence, know that we have lots of very skilled people on the back end. We work and do a lot of training with them on the off time that we're not talking to you. We're talking with them and making sure that they understand the product, the features, and what's going on. And so know that we care. Know that we're here to help and here to help you grow. And that's what I'd say. Come and try. Come and see. And Dan, you're based in Toronto, and. We are a very geographically diverse team here at docketwise. Do you want to share anything about your interests or life outside of work? Of course, Toronto, we're nestled in between the great lakes here, so I have a couple kayaks, me and my family, we like to go out and kayak on the very many lakes that are up here in Canada. So that's what I like to do in my free time. Excellent. Sounds amazing. Dan, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to give our listeners insights into our messaging here and how we try to communicate the benefits to people who are thinking about using docketwise, our potential users. And the best way for them to get a taste is just reach out. Dan and his team are ready to show you the product. So dan. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, James.

James Pittman: And now, finally, myself, James Pittman, and I'm co founder at you know, I have a unique perspective. I'm a former practicing immigration attorney, and let me just talk for a minute about my experiences in immigration law. So I was, as I said, practicing in the field and had helped a large number of people with their immigration cases, had a very varied practice, family based immigration, some employment based, some humanitarian and removal cases, and did that for a number of years and was very satisfied. I got tremendous gratification from helping people to succeed in their immigration journey. I really enjoyed the clients that I had and getting involved in their lives as their attorney and leading them to success in immigrating to the know. I was approached about joining Docketwise and lending my immigration law expertise to the company. And for me, it was really an amazing way to go from having an impact on individuals and individual cases to having an impact on the field as a whole. So it was a kind of a whole new dimension for using immigration law expertise. And I really jumped at the chance. And docket wise has come a long way since its inception. I mean, early on we faced a number of challenges, both in sort of determining what the core features were that our users were looking for. It was a software niche where there were already some companies in this particular space, and we sort of had to contend with companies that had been around for a lot longer. So there's always that initial struggle to get your first couple of customers. And frankly, our very first customers were colleagues of mine, people that I actually approached and said, hey, we've created a new product for immigration lawyers, and would you try it out, would you give me your feedback, test it out, try doing a case on it? And luckily, I had a core group of colleagues who were willing to do that, and we took their feedback and continued to refine what we were doing. And it's just been a process of continuously improving on that improving on that basis. I mean, in my day to day role, my background in immigration law influences the content and influences the functionality of Docketwise and how we develop our product roadmap. I help to assess customer feedback and customer feature requests, and I work together with the product team to translate those into the features that we're going to help the software engineers to understand what the immigration lawyer customers are. Asking for what the immigration regulations and the rules of practice require of attorneys and how that translates into features that are going to provide the most value for our users. And I also spend a lot of my time producing content such as this podcast and blog articles and other materials for our users to both help them optimize their use of the product and also to add value by adding color to the discussion around the product and the discussion around immigration law, tech and legal tech in general, and developments in immigration law itself. Whether they be policy changes or technological improvements. Docketwise went from being a product where we had sort of a core group of essential forms and we first focused on our forms functionality that was sort of the cornerstone of how we built up the product. And we have, I strongly believe, the very best forms population functionality of any immigration software, bar none. And that's because of the unique way that our smart forms technology is built, where we're able to actually abstract the questions from the form and give our users the flexibility to create any combination of immigration forms and have one seamless web questionnaire to collect all the information needed to populate those forms and then give you multiple channels for collaboration with your clients. And we've gone from that core functionality to adding case management features, to adding our client portal, to adding our e filing, to adding our workflows. And my immigration law expertise has helped us know develop all of those features, whether they be sample workflows or the task lists and other functionality. We just continue our vision for the future of Dacawise is to continue to improve on our core functionality, to perfect it, perfect what we're doing, build and improve our e filing functionality, build and improve some of our other features as well as further our integration with our parent company. I mean, we became part of, let's say, the MyCase family in 2022 and then the MyCase family itself joined with AffiniPay. And we've been working toward more and more integration between Docketwise and the MyCase family. And that's a very important priority for us, is to continue to deepen that integration as well as perfect the immigration specific features that we have.

James Pittman: And it's my pleasure to participate in this incredible undertaking. It's been a privilege. I really enjoy the role that I have here and I really enjoy the platform that I've been given as your humble host of this podcast to bring you insights into Docketwise as a software company. To bring you insights into developments in immigration law to bring you insights into developments in legal tech, in practice management and in marketing techniques for your practice to help you, the immigration attorneys, the listeners, succeed in practicing immigration law and succeed as professionals and succeed in using our product. And that's my greatest joy, and it's nothing but a privilege, and I love getting up every day and doing it for me. I'm based in Philadelphia, and I keep saying we're a very geographically diverse team. We have our team members in various places in Toronto, some in Utah and California and other places, and I very much enjoy interacting with all of them outside of know. I enjoy the usual things fit, spending time outdoors, traveling, living life to the fullest. So thank you for listening and we really appreciate you, our listeners and our docketwise subscribers, and I hope that you have found this episode valuable and enjoyable. Thank you very much.

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