Clio Spotlights Seven Law Firms for Outstanding Achievements in Legal Innovation and Community Impact at the Annual Reisman Awards

The annual awards program honors Clio’s remarkable customers who are positively impacting the lives of their clients, employees, and communities

Clio, the world’s leading provider of cloud-based legal technology, today announced the winners of the seventh annual Reisman Awards. Named for Clio’s first customer, Catherine Reisman, an entrepreneurial attorney whose feedback helped shape the software, the Reisman Awards celebrate the legal industry’s game changers, groundbreakers, and pioneers.

“Each year we take immense pride in celebrating the remarkable Clio customers who wholeheartedly embrace legal innovation and transform the lives of their clients, having a profound impact in their communities,” said Jack Newton, CEO and Founder of Clio. “From firms leveraging technology to reach underserved populations to those actively striving for a more inclusive legal landscape, this year’s honorees exemplify a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable in advancing access to justice and delivering the advocacy their clients deserve.”

 The 2023 Reisman Award recipients are: 

• Legal Innovation: Rasa Legal – Legal Innovation honors a practice that has successfully challenged industry norms, either through technology, delivery of legal services, or meeting the needs of a non-traditional market. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Rasa Legal is dedicated to making the process of clearing a Utah criminal record simple and affordable for everyone. Having a criminal record has a massive impact on a person’s economic mobility and perpetuates poverty across generations. Rasa Legal is using software to empower and build a different future for Americans with a criminal record. Their tool, which can be accessed online from anywhere and costs only $15, enables formerly incarcerated people to save hours of time and check their eligibility in under 3 minutes. 
• Best New Law Firm: The Dross Law Firm, PLLC – Best New Law Firm honors a newcomer who has weathered the trials of entrepreneurship and come out on top. Before 21 years old, Arique Dross III spent most of his life moving from home to home in foster care and eventually became entangled with the wrong side of the law. Fast-forward to today and Arique is using these raw experiences to help clients through tough times with insightful representation and solutions. Since establishing The Dross Law Firm, PLLC in January 2022, the firm has spent nearly 3,500 hours in and out of the courtroom helping approximately 150 clients. 
• Community Champion: Amara Legal Center – Community Champion honors firms that prioritize giving back to their communities, whether it be through pro bono work, donations, volunteering, mentorship, or another altruistic activity. The Amara Legal Center, a nonprofit legal service organization, focuses solely on increasing access to justice for sex trafficking survivors and sex workers through free, trauma-informed legal services. Amara’s staff attorneys provide specialized, client-centered representation to each survivor while working to raise awareness in the DC-metropolitan area of the indicators of sex trafficking and the resources available for survivors. 
• Excellence in Client Service: Tenet Law – Excellence in Client Service honors a practice that has successfully implemented a client-centered approach to running their firm that is better for their clients and their business. Tenet Law, a firm specializing in fraud and financial crime advice, is challenging traditional legal services – proving smaller firms can make a big impact across the legal market. Since 2016, Tenet’s team has worked remotely without financial or billable hours targets, allowing their team more time to focus on finding better, cost-effective solutions for clients. The firm’s low-overhead model and deep expertise gives Tenet the ability to offer services at an accessible cost, without compromising on quality.

• Diversity and Inclusion: The Childress Firm PLLC – Diversity and Inclusion recognizes firms driving diversity, inclusion, and the representation of marginalized communities in the legal profession. In 2016, Jessica Childress launched the Childress Firm PLLC with a mission to provide high-quality, affordable legal representation to communities of color that may not otherwise have access to these services, especially small, black-owned businesses and individuals. The firm also provides education regarding how to create a more respectful, inclusive, and legally-compliant workplace through its proprietary DEI tool, Intro[re]spection, which enables companies to assess how employees receive and experience respect at work.

• Best Growth Story: King Law Offices – Best Growth Story honors a practice that has seen success with Clio. Founded in 2002 by Brian King, King Law Offices started in a two-room office above a bar with a vision to create a firm that was built around business principles and taking care of clients. The firm has since become one of the largest and fastest-growing firms in the Carolinas. Over the last five years since partnering with Clio, King Law Offices has more than doubled its annual revenue and gone from 16 attorneys to over 50 by the end of 2023. 

• Legal Impact Award: PATH Legal – Hand-picked by Reisman’s panel of judges, this award celebrates law firms who embody Clio’s mission of transforming the practice of law, for good. PATH Legal is a novel non-profit law firm that provides prison law assistance to clients in Nova Scotia. Many individuals in Nova Scotia who have been incarcerated face a myriad of barriers to accessing the justice and advocacy that they require and deserve, including financial cost, case complexity, time, lack of information, and availability of services. Established in November 2022, PATH Legal works to mitigate this injustice experienced by so many in Nova Scotia, supporting people who are currently incarcerated and people who have suffered from miscarriage of justice at no cost. 

To learn more about the Reisman Awards or to nominate your firm for the 2024 awards, visit clio.com/the-reismans/.