The celebrations and awards kept rolling in all throughout the 2024 Game Changers Summit — and the firm owners weren’t the only ones receiving big honors.

In addition to the four Firm of the Year Awards (CrispX, SELECT, PREMIER, and ELITE) and the four Excellence Crisp Game Changer Awards (Excellence in Visionary Leadership, Excellence in Client Experience, Excellence in Community Impact, and Excellence in Firm Culture), four law firm team members also received accolades live onstage:

The 2024 Crisp Experience MVPs.

About the Crisp Experience Program

Crisp Experience is designed to develop your A-players, and it’s exclusively available to Crisp Coach member law firms.

This is a powerful tailored training solution for your team — and your one-way ticket to accelerated growth. With Crisp Experience, hundreds of law firms are empowering their A-players to specialize in their unique abilities and maximize effectiveness in their roles.

Members join one of four key Crisp Experience Pathways, unlocking in-person workshops, ongoing training opportunities, and a vast library of tools and resources to support their unique roles:

• Client-Facing Excellence: This Pathway is for intake and client support team members looking to master client engagement, client experience, intake best practices, conversion tools, and more.
• Leadership Development: This application-only Pathway elevates leaders who have completed significant success in another Crisp Experience Pathway and have grown to lead teams within their law firms. These A-players receive tailored training on organizational alignment, communication strategy, results-driven culture tactics, leading teams, and more.
• Legal Marketing Mastery: This Pathway equips marketers with industry-leading training on branding, marketing strategy, social media, content creation, and other key skills to attract ideal clients to their law firms.
• Operational Expertise: Law firm team members who work in people development or talent acquisition join this Pathway to learn about effective hiring & training, company culture, team alignment & engagement, office management, and more.

Member law firms reap the rewards of investing in their A-players with Crisp Experience — but we also prioritize rewarding those team members too for their commitment to growth and their progress in the Crisp Experience program.

About the Crisp Experience MVP Challenge

For the past year, hundreds of Crisp Experience members competed in challenges that pushed them to grow, step out of their comfort zone, and document their progress throughout 2024.

Each of these game changers demonstrated their commitment to their role, success in key program elements, and transformation personally & professionally. Their challenges and program engagement were carefully evaluated to determine who would be crowned MVP in each Pathway.

Congratulations to the 2024 Crisp Experience MVPs:

• Taylor Heinz of Sutton Law Firm for the Client-Facing Excellence Pathway
• Eric Hillyard-Poling of Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law for the Leadership Development Pathway
• Kristalee Rodriguez of Viles & Beckman for the Legal Marketing Mastery Pathway
• Melissa Barfield of Kaufman Injury Law for the Operational Expertise Pathway

Meet the 2024 Crisp Experience MVPs

Client-Facing Excellence MVP: Taylor Heinz of Sutton Law Firm

As Client Liaison at Sutton Law Firm, Taylor Heinz works closely with the people relying on the Florida-based law firm for compassionate, individualized, and highly skilled legal support in appellate, family law, and business-related cases.

She has applied numerous lessons learned through her Crisp Experience membership to elevate the experience she provides each Sutton client, citing the actionable tools and replicable strategies taught in the Client-Facing Excellence Pathway with much of her success.

“We’ve done a lot of work on making sure that the client experience is better for the client each and every day,” Taylor explains. “We’re getting referrals. Clients are leaving great reviews. We’re bringing in more revenue. Crisp has been nothing but a big help to the firm and me as an individual personally.”

Additionally, Taylor’s experience has pushed her to take ownership over more accountabilities in the firm. Today, she confidently and thoughtfully pushes numerous client experience initiatives forward independently, positively impacting her firm in many ways.

“Since I’ve been with Crisp, I’ve had more of a drive to actually help make the changes that need to be made,” she shares. “I know that most everyone who works at law firms wears multiple hats, and they are usually things the firm owner gives to you. A lot of the hats that I wear now are because of the ideas that I have, so I’ve taken on a lot of extra work without the firm owner having to ask.”

Leadership Development MVP: Eric Hillyard-Poling of Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law

Eric Hillyard-Poling started his career with West Virginia social security disability law firm Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law in 2011 as a Social Security Case Manager. From there, he went from Staff Accountant to Accounting & HR Manager to Accounting, IT, and Project Manager and now Chief Information Officer.

In his current role, Eric oversees the firm’s IT department, Salesforce team, accounting department, marketing department, personal injury team, and all firm-wide projects. Working closely with both administrative and line-of-business specific department leads and team members has made investing in his leadership development through the Crisp Experience program crucial for the firm’s success.

“I have grown professionally in a million different ways,” says Eric of his membership. “One of the ways that I am better because of Crisp Experience and particularly the Leadership Development Pathway is it has offered the opportunity to bounce ideas off others. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. That lets you execute quicker and promotes growth. As a result, my leadership growth has been accelerated.”

Always the data-driven leader, Eric proactively tracks several measurable results that demonstrate the firm has implemented more innovative projects and achieved more as a team that contributes to the success of Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law in big ways.

Plus, he and the organization he supports are just getting started.

“Getting better every day is something Crisp stands for — and it’s what Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law is all about,” he says.

Legal Marketing Mastery MVP: Kristalee Rodriguez of Viles & Beckman

With 6 years of experience with Southwest Florida personal injury firm Viles & Beckman, Kristalee understands the inner workings of the firm and wears many hats.

As Brand Experience Assistant, her main responsibility is building her firm’s reputation as “The 5-Star Law Firm.” From marketing strategy to hands-on design work, Kristalee has experience strategizing compelling content, designing attention-grabbing materials, and leveraging her creativity to represent Viles & Beckman in the best possible light.

“One of my favorite things within my role is when clients go through their case with us and they get to the endpoint, they leave a Google Review in which they’re mimicking the same language that we’re using in our marketing,” she shares. “It just makes it so exciting.”

When her firm owner proposed the idea of investing in her development through the Crisp Experience program, Kristalee had her reservations. Sharing that she has always been afraid of flying, being around large groups of people, and getting out of her comfort zone, she acknowledges, “I was essentially agreeing to all of the things that I hate to embark on this journey with Crisp Experience — but I’m grateful that I did.”

“There have been so many little things that add up to big things,” she continues. “We’re not the same law firm that we were when we started the program, and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Operational Expertise MVP: Melissa Barfield of Kaufman Injury Law

Melissa Barfield serves as the Firm Operations Manager for Georgia-based Kaufman Injury Law, where she runs day-to-day operations for a growing team of committed attorneys, paralegals, and support staff.

As she quickly learned, owning operations involves much more than spreadsheets and filing systems. A significant aspect of Melissa’s role involves supporting the firm’s culture initiatives and resolving personnel challenges.

“One of the biggest things I’ve learned from Crisp concerning our culture is the importance of the core values,” she reflects. “For years we have struggled with a very dismal culture. People would come in and do the bare minimum — sometimes less than the bare minimum.”

Thanks to strategies learned in the Operational Expertise Pathway, Melissa has played a pivotal role in developing and rolling out her law firm’s new core values, which every team member is expected to abide by.

Kaufman Injury Law’s involvement with Crisp has generated significant rewards, both for Melissa personally and for the firm as a whole.

“I’ve been able to grow my skills in all different areas,” she says. “When I first took over what I’m doing right now in firm ops, we were $1.6 million in debt two years ago. Now we are completely debt-free.”

On the personal side, the transformation is tangibly felt as well.

“I started managing my time better. I’m getting better sleep. I’m getting more time with my family,” Melissa shares. “I have so many dreams and goals that I didn’t have before, and we are pushing hard to hit those goals and exceed them.”

Final Thoughts

Congratulations again to Taylor Heinz, Eric Hillyard-Poling, Kristalee Rodriguez, and Melissa Barfield for their inspiring accomplishments.

We can’t wait to see how each of these MVPs contribute to their firms in the future!