From Two Attorneys to Seven: The Samuels Firm’s Growth Powered by Neos

Founded in 2010 by Bubba Samuels, The Samuels Firm is a fast-growing practice located outside Atlanta, Georgia. The firm started as a two-person team and remained small for over a decade, but recent years has seen rapid expansion. With the addition of their son as an attorney, new practice areas, and four new attorneys joining this year, the firm has grown to include seven lawyers and staff.



As firm manager, Jennifer Samuels oversees everything from billing, accounts receivable, HR, and benefits to property management and office operations. As the firm grew and broadened its practice areas, Jennifer realized their traditional systems of paper files and an internal server could no longer support their needs, especially when it came to billing.



Key Results

• Saved hundreds of hours by automating billing with customizable templates
• Increased invoicing capacity and accuracy across multiple practice areas and client types
• Transformed reporting for large-scale state projects with hundreds of parcels
• Leveraged integrations with Microsoft 365 for streamlined operations



Before Neos

For years, The Samuels Firm managed operations with a mix of paper files and an internal server. While sufficient for one or two attorneys, the system quickly became unsustainable as the team expanded.



“We were managing in-house. We had a combination of paper files and an internal server. It worked for us when we only had one or two attorneys, but that system didn’t really help facilitate any sort of collaborative work, and our calendar system needed to expand to accommodate the additional scheduling coordination needs as we grew. So, really, we needed help connecting with our new folks in a single, usable, and integratable platform.”



Billing was the tipping point. What once worked for one or two attorneys became impossible to scale.



“It was easy when it was just my husband, but then you get another attorney, and another attorney. We got behind so quickly. We were hoping to be able to streamline our invoicing and billing and timekeeping, and that was 100% the huge deal for us.”



After evaluating several platforms, Jennifer found that none offered the flexibility they required for their unique combination of practice areas.



“None of the other programs [we looked at] benefited us and could be changed, and we needed something fully customizable.”



Only Neos offered the flexibility they needed to fully support their firm’s needs.



With Neos

Custom Templates That Power Accurate On-Time Billing

For The Samuels Firm, Neos has transformed invoicing from a bottleneck into an efficient, accurate process.



“We’ve been able to construct templates. Some of our clients require a three- or four-page invoice. With Neos, everything is templated and coded so I can just fill in the blanks, it populates automatically, and I can email it directly from Neos.”



The time savings have been dramatic:



“[We’ve saved] hours and hours and hours. I don’t think it can be calculated. It would have been somebody sitting at a computer for 24 hours a day just trying to get the billing in. So, it saved us enormous amounts of time.”



As the attorneys became accustomed to logging time and value items, billing became even faster.



“We’re just about to the point where everybody now knows what they’re doing, and I have fewer mistakes to correct, so it’ll be even quicker.”



Zero Missed Bills Thanks to Effortless Reporting

One of The Samuels Firm’s largest clients is the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT needed assistance with road expansion projects that can involve hundreds of property parcels, and monthly billing for each parcel used to take days of manual checking. With Neos, Jennifer can run a custom report in seconds to ensure every billed parcel is captured.



“I am able to run a report of every case that had any time added. I know I’m not missing anything for billing. If I didn’t have that report, it would take me three days to check every case. So that’s a big one for me.”



This not only saved time but eliminated missed invoices.



“I went back, and I could see where I hadn’t billed that particular parcel for a couple of months. It has helped me with being able to precisely bill, and not miss a case that slid through my fingers.”



Custom Workflows Built Collaboratively

Beyond billing, the firm has leveraged Neos’ customizable checklists and case types to align workflows across diverse practice areas—including DOT land acquisition, local government counsel, mediation, and indigent criminal defense.



“I think that because we’ve customized so much—just about everything—the development of case tasks, checklists, and value items has allowed us to really concentrate on specifically what our workflow is. Everybody is on the same page, and we all collaboratively built this system.”



This synergistic design fits perfectly with The Samuels Firm’s culture of trust and flexibility.



“We are kind of known as the law firm who doesn’t do things the way other law firms do. Our new staff said that they have ‘hit the unicorn.’ Like, ‘we can’t believe there’s a place we can work that treats us like an adult, doesn’t micromanage us, and we can collaborate’.”



Seamless Integrations Within Neos

Jennifer emphasized how essential integrations have been for streamlining operations.



“Everything from Outlook is getting tagged into Neos, your documents are uploaded, and we can email through Neos, and it is all in one great place. We are also integrating RingCentral and DocuSign so we can handle everything in one system.”



From Summaries to Smarter Case Prep with NeosAI

The firm has begun experimenting with NeosAI to assist attorneys with summaries across practice areas.



“We have played around with [NeosAI].Our attorneys in different pods and practice areas can go on to a case and read the summary and have everything in front of them that they need to understand the case. It saves us time, makes us more efficient, but I'm sure that as we learn it more, we'll be able to implement that a little bit more.”



What We Love About Neos

For Jennifer, Neos’s customization and scalability are what make it indispensable.



“If you run a traditional law firm, you’re going to have everything you need at your fingertips [with Neos]… If you have practice areas that are a little more uncommon, you have the ability to modify it to work for you.”



She also noted the impact on their team culture and growth.



“We were just really happy to find out about Neos, because the customized product we have implemented is 100% making it possible for us to be successful. We feel like we’re legit, man, we’re legit!”



Want to see how Neos can streamline billing, reporting, and workflows for your firm? Talk to our team today!