CUSTOMER STORY

Shane Barnard Law

How this “boots-on-the-ground” estate planning attorney doubled her revenue year over year.

The business

Shane Bernard has always known what kind of lawyer she wanted to be. Licensed since 2005, she began her career representing children and families in San Francisco County’s foster care system, a role defined by connection, compassion, and listening rather than courtroom proceedings, which never really left her.

Today, Shane runs Shane Bernard Law, an estate planning practice based in Emeryville and Oakland, California. As a solopreneur with two part-time employees, she serves clients across the Bay Area and beyond, often travelling to where her clients are: homes, long-term care facilities, even hospital emergency rooms, ensuring that estate planning is accessible to everyone. She’s built her practice on the values of warmth, flexibility, and a genuine commitment to the families she serves.

Employees

?

Location

California – USA

Industry

Legal

Solution

Scheduling and payments

The Problem

As Shane’s practice grew, so did the complexity of running it solo. She was using an “inefficient sprinkler system” of tools to try and manage everything. Client communications lived in Gmail, making tracking tasks and follow ups a mess. Documents were scattered across her personal Dropbox leaving her office assistant unable to stay up to date. Scheduling required manual back-and-forth, with Shane personally suggesting time slots, which would fill up while she was waiting for responses, causing the process to start all over.

Every task was handled in a different tool, and the mental load of stitching them together was quietly eating into the time she wanted to spend with clients. Her real pain was the inefficiency of the whole system. Shane was doing excellent legal work, but the back-office overhead was keeping her from doing more of it.

Managing a balanced schedule that allows for quality time with her two rescue pups, Meatball and Gizmo, was incredibly important to her, and with the way things were, it proved to be getting more difficult. She knew she needed a smarter solution that brought everything together to streamline her business.

The Solution

Shane started looking for a solution that offered seamless calendar management, a single place for client communications, and airtight security and HIPAA compliance, given the sensitive nature of estate planning. She was recommended vcita by a trusted colleague, and after a quick look at the platform, she saw she had everything she needed, and then some, at the right price:

Online scheduling & reminders:

Instead of the manual phone tag, clients now book consultations directly from Shane’s website. New leads go from discovery to booked appointment without any manual intervention, and land straight in Shane’s calendar, making it easy for her and her team to track, confirm, and follow up on appointments. For someone who’s often on the road traveling to clients, having the calendar managed and accessible from vcita’s mobile app has been a game-changer.

Document management & collaboration:

Hunting through Dropbox folders and downloading files to a desktop before every client interaction was draining time Shane didn’t have to spare. With vcita, her key documents such as fee schedules, client intake forms, and estate plan overviews are stored on the platform and ready to attach with a single click. Clients can securely receive, review, sign, and approve documents through the portal, keeping sensitive materials off personal email and in one traceable place. Because both Shane and her team have full visibility, collaboration is seamless: no briefings needed, no version confusion, just a shared view of every client’s status.

The Client Portal:

Estate planning involves some of the most sensitive conversations a family will ever have, and the documents are no less sensitive. Shane needed a secure, HIPAA-compliant space where clients could communicate, receive information, and manage their interactions with her practice, and vcita’s client portal delivered. Clients appreciate the ability to book appointments, ask questions, and stay connected with Shane and the team, all within a single secure hub. The portal also means Shane isn’t the only point of contact: when she’s with a client or traveling, her office assistant can pick up the conversation without missing a beat.

Billing & invoicing:

Invoicing used to mean building each bill from scratch. Now, Shane’s most common services (hourly consultations, individual estate plans, married couple estate plans) are saved as packages that auto-populate the invoice in seconds. For anything outside the standard menu, a custom line item is just as quick to add. The real-time billing dashboard gives the business an at-a-glance view of who’s paid and what’s outstanding, so nothing slips through the cracks. Shane, a self-described visual learner, calls it an obsession in the best possible way.

The Results

Since using vcita Shane Barnard Law has doubled its revenue consistently, year over year. With vcita handling scheduling, communications, and billing, Shane was able to bring on a supportive team and expand the practice in a way that simply wasn’t possible before, which was equal parts exhilarating and motivating for this self-described Luddite.

She now has a sound system in place that generates happier clients that give warm referrals, a growing capacity to take on new work, and a back office that no longer holds her business back.

“It is a no-brainer — an accessible and intuitive system that was not hard to learn, even for me. The back office stuff is not my strong suit, so vcita does the heavy lifting and I couldn’t have done this without having a tighter, more efficient back office system.”

— Shane Bernard, founder, Shane Bernard Law