Wolfe Law Group, LLC 
New Orleans, Louisiana
Wolfe Law Group is a construction law firm with its principle office in New Orleans, LA, but providing services in multiple states including California, Washington and Oregon. While very familiar with the mechanics lien process, Wolfe Law Group still utilizes Zlien to help its clients manage its preliminary notice and mechanics lien compliance. Further, the firm uses Zlien for document assembly of mechanics lien and bond claim documents.
How Do You Use Zlien?
We use Zlien in two ways. First, whenever a client needs a mechanics lien, notice document or bond claim, we use Zlien’s document assembly technology to assemble the forms for us, preparing them for filing. Second, we provide our construction clients with access to Zlien so they can manage their preliminary notice and mechanics lien compliance without having to pay us high hourly fees to do that managerial work.
What Is Your Favorite Thing About Zlien’s Services?
How fast and easy the service really is. Filing a mechanics lien can be a very tedious process. After opening a client file, our staff previously looked through our form to see what information was required, requested that information from the client, filled in the form by hand, called the county or parish for filing fees, fixed the page margins for recording, arranged for a legal courier to file, and then arranged for service of the owner. These purely administrative tasks really added up, and since it distracted us from what we really do — practice law — it forced us to charge high fees for a single lien filing.
Now, however, we can file a mechanics lien for our client for a much more reasonable fee. The client makes the request to us, we fill out the Zlien form, and that’s it. The generated document appears in our inbox, we sign it and Zlien takes care of all the headaches.
What Is The Most Painful Thing About Mechanic Liens and Notice Management That Zlien Has Helped Solve?
The most painful thing about mechanic liens and notice management we’ve encountered in our law practice is when clients come to us after they are owed money on a project looking to collect, and to enforce lien rights. The problem is always that they did not follow the preliminary notice requirements at the start of construction, and thus waived all rights. But how could they know? They couldn’t possibly hire our law firm to advise them and send notices on every single project. It just doesn’t make sense.
Zlien’s LienPilot system fixes this issue. Our clients get access to the LienPilot, they put their project information, and the preliminary notice and mechanics lien requirements are displayed to them for each project.
How Has Zlien Improved Your Accounts Receivables Management?
Zlien has improved our clients’ accounts receivable management very significantly. We see a tremendous decrease in the amount of new collection claims received from clients who use Zlien, versus those who don’t. The clients who use Zlien simply don’t have the same volume of collections problems. In fact, they have very few – if any – collection problems.
Any Other Comments?
Our final comments are that: (1) Zlien’s most terrific feature is the “Send to Legal” button it adds to our client’s LienPilot login. Our clients can manage their projects within the LienPilot system, but if they are ever stuck with an account they can’t collect, they just press the “Send To Legal” button and hire our firm to collect on the lien or account. Perfect, and easy; and (2) The Zlien staff is great to work with.
