Unless you’re a lawyer or work extensively with lawyers, you may not know what actually happens when you contact one.

That level of uncertainty may keep you from taking action. We want to make sure you don’t delay on critical legal needs for your business because the way forward seems murky.

And if you have worked with other law firms, you’ll want to know how our nimble, innovative structure differs from the old-school law firms you might be used to.

We’ve documented our processes here so you know exactly what to expect after you click one of the Get Started buttons on our website.

As always, we want our Provider, Digital Health, and Life Sciences clients to be informed, prepared, and confident in their decisions so they can innovate faster and grow their businesses.

Set a Strong Foundation

To help you, we first need to know a little bit about you. When you click the Get Started button, you’ll get a simple form with some questions about your company and your goals. This information helps us decide which attorneys are the best fit for your introductory call so you can get the most out of our meeting.

The first call is 15 minutes for a reason: it gives us both a chance to see if we’re a potential good match without spending too much time. We know you’re busy!

If we decide we’re a good fit to move forward, we’ll share with you the options for working together. You’ll appreciate our convenient Pilot Bundle of 10 hours and our fixed-fee services as affordable ways to evaluate how we use our expertise to further your business goals without a significant investment or long-term commitment.

We’ll email you an engagement letter—with convenient e-signature—right away. (You’ll welcome these time-saving technological touches throughout our time working together!)

Once signed, you’ll get a payment request via e-check (again, easy and efficient). After payment, your attorney will reach out to you with their contact details and a link to schedule your kickoff call using our online calendar app. 

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Whether your team is remote or in the same office, you’ll appreciate our thoughtful approach to technology. You’re already in a highly-regulated industry, so we want to do everything we can to make life easier, starting from the basics of working together.

You’ll schedule meetings via our calendar integration app, which lets you pick a time that works for you and your team without any back and forth or waiting. You have more important things to do, and so do we.

Documents are all signed electronically, which is easy, fast and secure. No more waiting for overnight mailers or coordinating multiple people for signing at once.

Sharing documents, even those with personal health information (PHI), are done via our secure, cloud-based systems. You don’t have to worry that your critical documents are in some overstuffed filing cabinet guarded by a flimsy lock. 

We work on a prepaid fee basis, which means you don’t have to worry about missed payments, and we don’t have to increase fees to make up for time spent chasing A/R. This also means you’ll always know what you’re paying up front—no more shock and awe at surprise legal bills you haven’t planned for. (More on our innovative fee arrangement in another post!) You’ll be able to make all payments via our secure payment portal using eChecks.

Collaborate with your NGL Team

Your attorney will guide you through every step of the process to resolve your legal matter. Generally we work via email and video calls (like Zoom or Google Meet), but phone calls and texts are used, too. We strive to communicate in a way that best fits your needs.

Even if we can’t respond to your email or text right away (if a subject needs research, for example), you’ll always get a confirmation your message was received and when to expect a reply so you don’t have to wonder what’s going on and when you’ll hear back.

One thing you’ll especially like is your attorney’s access to diverse experts within our Firm—at no additional charge to you. This efficient, “whole firm” expertise gives you the advantages of multiple expert perspectives for a single expert price.

For instance, you may hire Nixon Gwilt Law for a Virtual Care Compliance Assessment to attract venture capital investment, and within that project your attorney may reach out to her colleague who is an FDA expert to consult on any device or SaaS compliance issues. All of this happens seamlessly for you, both in terms of timeline and budget. 

Implement the Solution

Clients routinely remark on the helpful explanatory documents we provide about their legal matters so they can share them internally with colleagues and keep everyone on the same page. These topics are complex, and a partner who can break them down into plain language can help you promote consistency and clarity in your business. Also, contrary to what prior experience may tell you, it is not, in fact, impossible to write a contract a layman can understand!

We even get raves about contracts from people who never thought they’d ever say something like that. (It’s hard not to get excited when you realize a well-drafted pilot agreement could knock six months off the back-and-forth negotiation of a long-term customer agreement down the road. Time is money.)

When it comes to finalizing your legal matter, handover may include email documents, a virtual  meeting or negotiation, or a detailed outline of next steps or helpful information for your team. Either way, you’ll know what to expect, how you’ll get it, and what to do with it once you have it.

As your business grows and your legal services needs increase, you may consider an “Dedicated Counsel” arrangement with our Firm that is customized to meet your needs. For some clients, this may mean serving as Outside General Counsel, where your attorney becomes a true member of your team, integrating legal and compliance considerations with overall business strategy. For others, it may mean a more dedicated resource to facilitate quick turnarounds that shorten the sales cycle.

And we will always let you know about fixed-fee offers that could benefit your business.

Stay in Touch

Once your legal matter is in hand, you’ll still get regular emails from your attorney as new opportunities and risks are identified for your business or market, or to check in and see how things are going with you. We do this client review internally every quarter, but our attorneys are proactive and will likely email you as soon as an opportunity or risk is noticed.

For instance, a client recently posted what they thought was a helpful item on their website. Our attorney recognized it was a regulatory risk during her regular client monitoring. She was able to send a quick email outlining the risk so they could take it down before it caused them any problems.

You’ll also get reminders when certain documents need a review or update(e.g., Privacy Policies) or when you may want to revisit regulations that may have changed as a result of new legislation. When possible, we’ll offer a fixed-fee service to quickly and easily help your business stay in compliance.

If you’re on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Clubhouse, then you’ll enjoy following our attorneys in those places as they share important news and insights for your business and market.

Every month you’ll get our Innovation Insights newsletter with links to our comprehensive blog posts, timely webinars, and discussion of important news and trends for healthcare businesses.

Take the Next Step

Now you know what happens when you click the Get Started button on our website. From your first interaction, you’ll see how much we’ve tailored our processes to work with innovative leaders like you.

While we are here to protect you in terms of compliance and regulations, we are also here to help you invite capital investment, accelerate customer acquisition, and increase revenue opportunities.

We may be lawyers, but we’re also investors, innovators, and people who want to change the world. 

If that sounds like the kind of people you want to help you grow your healthcare business, then click here to get started. You already know what happens next.