LVN Spotlight: Julie Vaccaro
Brí McCrory speaks with Julie Vaccaro, Director of Client Success and Delivery at AAC Consulting, about the opportunities and challenges shaping law firm pricing and operations. Julie shares how AI is helping firms work more efficiently, why data and collaboration are critical to better pricing decisions, and what increasing specialization could mean for the industry. She also reflects on the relationships she has built through LVN and the value of having a community where people can share what is actually happening inside their firms.
Brí McCrory: Hello and welcome to the LVN Member Spotlight. I am Brí, Chief Marketing & Revenue Officer at BigHand, but also editor of the LVN newsletter. And today I’m joined by Julie.
Julie, thank you for joining us. We’ll jump straight in. So, for those who don’t know you, do you want to tell us a little about yourself, your role, and the challenges you’re facing right now?
Julie Vaccaro: Well, thanks so much for having me. I’ve been in legal almost 20 years now, which is kind of shocking, and it hasn’t really been a straight line.
I started as a paralegal. I went to law school, I litigated for a number of years, and then I went into firm administration. I was most recently a Chief Revenue Officer at a $100 million Midwest regional firm, where I ran rates, pricing, intake, billing, collections, LPM, profitability — the whole gamut.
But now, today, I am the Director of Client Success and Delivery at AAC Consulting. It’s really similar, but for 20 years I really owned one firm’s numbers and data and everything. Now I get to see all of that play out at dozens, if not hundreds, of firms across the US, the UK, and Canada. So it’s been a lot of fun from this perspective, and certainly a lot of learning.
Brí McCrory: And you get to put all your years in practice into way more firms now across the globe.
And I guess with that, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing legal value and pricing professionals today?
Julie Vaccaro: I think it’s the same thing everybody’s thinking of every single day, and I think it’s AI, right?
There’s that pressure question of: if your attorneys can do things more efficiently, why am I being charged the same? Why aren’t those cost savings being passed along to the client?
And then, on the other side, you have all of the software vendors, right? That’s real capital. That’s real cost out of the partners’ pocketbooks. So your partners are asking the same questions too: what is my return on investment in this software?
But I think, at the same time, I came to legal and graduated from law school in the middle of a recession. So I have built a career on always being asked how to do more with less.
And I feel like this is one of the first times where I’m actually being asked to do more with more, because we’re getting these AI tools and we get to play with them and find those efficiencies. The busy work is being automated, and I get to spend my time on the fun stuff.
Brí McCrory: And how do you think you’re seeing law firms respond to that in terms of the efficiencies? Are clients demanding those efficiencies? How are you seeing law firms respond?
Julie Vaccaro: For sure, it’s always that we are not outsourcing the judgment, right?
AI can help us research faster, understand case law faster, and even from an administrative point of view, I can research outcomes and trends across dozens, if not hundreds, of cases that my firm has handled without having to scroll through time entries. I’ve done that. I’ve coded through it.
So, if anything, it’s taken away a little bit of that mystery, but it doesn’t take away the judgment. It takes away some of the busy work. But we still have to check it, right? It still makes stuff up.
It just helps us spend 80% of our time on the thinking and the outcomes that are going to provide more value, and only 20% on the busy work that gets us there.
Brí McCrory: And ultimately, the value of the service you’re buying is still the same. You’re still getting the same—
Julie Vaccaro: But a better one, I think.
Brí McCrory: What’s one trend in the legal industry that you think people should be paying more attention to?
Julie Vaccaro: I was so excited to see this question because I’ve had a kind of personal side interest in following what has happened to physician practices in the United States. And it’s coming for legal.
I’ve really been following MSOs — management services organizations — very closely. Everything that’s happening in Arizona, but it’s outside of Arizona now, right?
So we have these companies coming over and taking over the back-of-house operations. For everybody in LVN, where we tend to sit in the back of the house, what does that mean for us two, three, four years from now? How are our partners going to view what we’re doing?
I think it’s all really fascinating.
Brí McCrory: Yeah. I’m based out of London, and it’s been on this side of the pond for quite a long time, but it’s definitely making its way across and will make for very interesting times.
Julie Vaccaro: It will. And for all of us who maybe struggle a little bit with the inefficiencies of law firms and just the basics of, “Why can’t we get a bill out on time and accurately?” sometimes I think, “Oh, if only we had some private equity efficiencies here.”
But that’s a whole can of worms that’s going to be hard to pack back in. So it’ll be interesting.
Brí McCrory: It’s the business of law side, right?
Julie Vaccaro: Absolutely.
Brí McCrory: What’s one common misconception about legal pricing or legal value that you’d love to challenge?
Julie Vaccaro: I love to challenge the idea that every attorney knows their own market’s pricing best.
First of all, I never won an argument by contradicting anybody, right? I could have all of the data in the world. I could have every marketing report. I could pull public data showing them that the pricing is not what they think it is, but you’re just not going to win with attorneys by trying to prove them wrong.
So what I love to do is spin it and say, “Okay, help me be your best advocate. Who is our competition? What have we charged in the past? How are you going to staff it? Let’s look at the margin and the cost structure.”
Because I’ve sat in those executive committee meetings where a random new client will pop up, or a new practice line will pop up, and they’ll say, “Hey, Julie, what do you think about that?”
And it could go two ways. If you’ve spent some time with me and we’ve dug into it, maybe I don’t buy it completely, but I understand your perspective. That’s a really different conversation versus, “Hey, they’re saying X. I don’t see where that data is coming from.”
That can go in a different direction. So it’s definitely interesting when you get the buy-in versus someone who is just, “This is how it goes.”
Brí McCrory: It’s the way we’ve always done it, right?
Julie Vaccaro: I know.
Brí McCrory: But it’s interesting. I was looking at new data that we were working on, and it says that 28% of lawyers price a matter based on the last similar matter they priced, but they’re not looking at the profit margins. They’re not looking at the time that comes down the line.
And that’s where those conversations become really valuable.
Julie Vaccaro: Absolutely. And just the basic question of, “Well, how might this engagement be even just a little bit different from the last one?”
Because a favorite argument is that everything is unique. Nothing is the same. Okay, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how that might alter the pricing here.
And then they’re like, “Oh, you got me.”
Brí McCrory: But the communication of it all.
Looking back in your career, what’s one lesson or experience that most shaped how you approach your work?
Julie Vaccaro: I always think of this example. I’m from the Midwest, and I once made a $92,000 error at a law firm.
At some firms, that’s less than a rounding error. For me, that’s an immense amount of money.
I was helping a partner in a bankruptcy practice file a proof of claim. It’s always hectic. It’s always last minute. Everything’s coming in from everywhere. We’ve got spreadsheets, filing deadlines — the perfect storm.
I was throwing everything together and missed the disbursements. The costs were $92,000, and I found it the next day.
You have that panic of: I could say nothing, right? And this will come up three months from now, and I can be like, “I don’t know what happened.”
I went through every different scenario, but at the end of the day, I took a deep breath. Then I walked into the partner’s office, because we were all there, and I explained to her what happened.
She took a deep breath, and in her kindness she said, “It’s okay. We’re going to file a motion with the court.”
We called it a scrivener’s error. I loved that one. And the court was fine with it. We added it to our proof of claim three months later, and it was fine.
Then we took the opportunity to ask, “How could this not be a hot mess every single month?” So it gave us a little bit more motivation to be proactive.
But not only how I handled it — how she handled it was just so wonderful. And that’s been such a guiding light: own it. Own it early, and tell the person who needs to know so that they’re not surprised by it either.
And that’s how I work with my employees as well.
Brí McCrory: It’s a good story, but also a great lesson. And the biggest part is that then you learn from it, right? Because we only learn from the mistakes.
Julie Vaccaro: Absolutely.
Brí McCrory: How has being part of the LVN community influenced your thinking or your career?
Julie Vaccaro: LVN has been huge. LVN has shaped my career really more than any job.
And, of course, for so many of us, these connections pre-date LVN. I was thinking about this Umbria user group back in 2016 where I met Andy George and Rodney Miller and Rayner Fredrick. Everybody was there, and it became P3, now LVN.
It’s fascinating how so many people I met back then are still the same people I reach out to for advice and guidance today.
But I would say the other part about LVN is, you scroll through LinkedIn and you feel like everybody else has it figured out, right? And from a firm perspective too, someone’s posting about this software, this process, and you’re just like, “Everybody has it figured out but me.”
And then you get to LVN and everybody’s talking about the same things: the challenge of partner buy-in, how hard it is to get IT’s attention, that extra FTE that wasn’t in the budget.
So, if anything, it’s just been this camaraderie too, where LinkedIn shows you that highlight reel, but LVN is where you get the working file and what’s actually really happening. It gives you that breath to then go back and fight another day.
Brí McCrory: Fast forward five years. What excites you most about the future of legal value and the role that LVN can play in it?
Julie Vaccaro: I just had to check my calendar because I was like, “What is five years from now?” So that’s 2031. Sometimes I think it’s ’25, other times I think it’s 2027.
I have just been fascinated by how everything is branching out and getting so specialized. We have people in their second decade of being really specialized in either pricing or mass tort legal project management.
And I feel like the larger our firms grow, the more we can invest, and the more people get into these spaces, the more specialized we’re getting.
I think it’s a blessing and a curse, because with specialization come people who can be so much more effective, really deeply ingrained in those practice areas. But then we can also get really siloed, right?
You’ve got this really myopic view and you forget that maybe there are outside counsel guidelines that affect your world. You forget that these attorneys are working on different clients. Their whole world isn’t your whole world.
So I love that LVN kind of sits right in the middle of it to keep people from either getting too deep or too broad, and that you’re constantly talking to people and exposing yourself to others to keep it all connected, if that makes sense.
Brí McCrory: And with your consultancy hat on and your experience, what advice would you give to those who are in very specialist roles to keep that communication line open and work with others?
Julie Vaccaro: I think it was just what you said: it’s seeking out those opportunities.
You have to be proactive to connect with other people. And it’s hard, right? I try to set up virtual coffees or connects, and something always comes up. There’s always the day’s fire drill.
But it’s something I keep on my priority list. I have to do one a week, and if it’s on my checklist, I’ve got to do it.
Because almost every conversation or interaction fills my cup from a human standpoint. I learn something new.
So I think it’s just encouraging people to keep that priority, because 10, 15, 20 years after I met people, I can still pick up the phone and ask for advice. Sometimes, if you don’t make that investment, you’ll miss out in the future.
Brí McCrory: And in a world where AI is taking over, the human element is more important than ever.
Julie Vaccaro: Absolutely.
Brí McCrory: And we’re asking each guest: what question would you like us to ask the next guest?
Julie Vaccaro: I think, for me, for the next guest it is: “If you could wake up tomorrow and AI has solved your most irritating problem, what problem did it solve?”
Brí McCrory: What a great question.
And the question for you from the previous guest is—
Julie Vaccaro: Oh no.
Brí McCrory: So I’m going to try and flip it. How are you seeing pricing teams interact with other teams like technology and innovation, and how is it impacting pricing?
Julie Vaccaro: Absolutely. I think how the interaction is coming together is from a core data set.
It’s garbage in, garbage out, right? So it’s getting all of that data, whether it’s in a data lakehouse, it’s hooked up to Harvey, something like that, and then the teams can come together. They’re using the same data set.
Maybe they’ve set up a combined project in whatever AI tool they’re using. They’re using group chats. These things aren’t happening in a vacuum.
We’re even seeing people building skills with repeatable, consistent outputs so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time.
Those practice innovation groups can get together with pricing and, of course, use the historical data: this is what we’re seeing, this is what’s going on.
But the innovation group brings the “Here’s how things are different. Here’s how this client is different. Here’s how the attorneys are different,” things like that. And then, of course, the pricing people are going to bring the numbers.
I think layering all of that on top of the efficiencies that we’re gaining from AI, you get better output, usually quicker, probably a bit more creative. And it’s just been really fascinating to watch.
Brí McCrory: Good answer. Thank you.
We’re going to jump into some quick-fire questions. The first one is: describe the legal market in three words.
Julie Vaccaro: Always changing constantly.
Brí McCrory: Who’s someone in the legal industry that you admire and why?
Julie Vaccaro: For this one, I admire Beth O’Connor deeply and greatly.
She’s the founder of AAC Consulting. She was literally in the room when these law firm financial databases were written, and she’s worked with hundreds of firms since then.
Just the amount of institutional knowledge she has about law firm operations and how they keep their books — it’s almost never-ending, the stories and the war stories she has to tell.
She’s a large part of why I hold the role I do today, and a big champion, a friend, and a mentor.
Brí McCrory: She sounds great.
Julie Vaccaro: She’s amazing.
Brí McCrory: What’s one thing law firms should start doing in 2026/27?
Julie Vaccaro: Magic wand: law firms should start doing daily contemporaneous time entry and releasing it into the system.
That would just be magical.
Brí McCrory: And what’s one topic you’d love to see debated at an LVNx conference that might not be top of the list right now?
Julie Vaccaro: I was almost thinking old school versus new school, right? All of the AI evangelists kind of square up against someone who may be a little bit more old school—
Brí McCrory: The Excel spreadsheet lovers.
Julie Vaccaro: Those of us who don’t want to get rid of our pivot tables.
Because there is so much of the learning process in the doing, right? When I put together that data set, I may see it, versus if Claude is doing it for me, I may not be following every step that he’s taking.
So there definitely is a benefit and a loss, for sure.
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