The Challenge

For solo SSD attorney William Viner, client service is personal. At Viner Disability Law, every client hears from him directly. Every call is intentional and every case is treated like it matters because it does.

This high-touch model has served the firm well for nearly a decade, growing to 400–500 active clients and more than 15,000 lifetime cases. But with only three staff members and no automation in place, the very commitment that defined his success became the source of growing operational pain.

“We're intentionally a smaller volume firm. We want to know every client by name. That’s how we’ve operated from day one.”

Viner found himself trapped in a cycle of constant vigilance. He manually downloaded the ERE status sheet up to 20 times per day, hoping to catch critical updates on hearings or decisions.

Despite the rigor, important developments often slipped through the cracks, especially during the early stages of a case. Critical updates like consultative examinations or function report requests would arrive by USPS, or worse, through the client themselves.

“We would receive calls from our clients telling us they’d been approved or denied. That doesn’t look very good professionally.”

The problem wasn’t just inefficiency, it was the inability to confidently serve clients in their most critical moments. Staff had no centralized workflow beyond physical mail, which required manual sorting and scanning. Every response to a new development felt reactive.

“We had one single pipeline coming in of actionable data, and that was the mail... Then someone had to scan it, task it out.”

The mounting stress and the fear of missing something important were ever-present.

The Tipping Point

This wasn’t a story with a dramatic breakdown moment; no single case went off the rails. Instead, the pressure built over time. What finally broke Viner’s tolerance wasn’t a missed deadline, but the realization that his systems had no way to prevent one.

After nearly a decade of running a practice on pure vigilance, Viner recognized he needed a system that worked with him and not one that relied entirely on his capacity to over-function.

Why Chronicle: From Pain to Progress

Viner didn’t find Chronicle through a sales call. He found it where tech-savvy attorneys gather: Reddit.

“It wasn’t an ad. Someone just posted: 'Hey, have you heard of this software?'”

What initially drew him in was the promise of automation: alerts about case movement, consultative exams, function reports, approvals. What sealed the deal was how precisely Chronicle solved the real issues he faced.

“You fundamentally understand what we need and when we need it to reduce daily work.”

Chronicle didn’t overpromise with buzzwords. It delivered practical value, quickly. Notifications arrived in real time. New cases were automatically detected. Status changes triggered workflows. Viner could act before his clients even picked up the phone.

“Chronicle lets me preemptively notify clients, reduce their anxiety, and reduce the volume of calls. That’s huge when you’re running a generally larger volume firm.”

More than efficiency, Chronicle gave him peace of mind. 

For the first time, he could track SSA case associations and spot missing files immediately.

Transformation & Results

Operationally, implementing Chronicle didn’t just relieve pressure; it rewrote the firm's workflow.

Viner no longer types in data manually. Chronicle's alerts became the trigger for automations he built in Zapier, integrating directly with Clio.

“Every time I get an email from a CE, I use Zapier to search for the client in Clio, draft the email, send it, and log the note.”

Even more satisfying: he now contacts clients before SSA notices reach them. The mail system no longer sets the pace of communication.

“Now I get the emails out to the client before they get it in the mail—like weeks before.”

As these operational improvements took hold, Viner began to experience strategic lift.

His Chronicle notifications folder became a daily command center. By scanning updates each morning, he maintained a high-level view across all firm activities.

“Every morning, I open my Chronicle email folder in Gmail and just rip through 20 or 30 emails.”

One case in particular validated the entire switch: a critical needs file for a homeless client vanished from SSA systems. Thanks to Chronicle’s logs, Viner identified exactly when the case dropped and was able to take action to get back into the case file.

Chronicle didn’t just give back time. It gave back capacity. Viner estimates the platform is equivalent to hiring half a paralegal.

It also provided something more elusive: emotional relief.

“I'm willing to spend money for something that just gives me a peace of mind or that helps reduce my stress. I'm always stressed that we're gonna miss a deadline. I'm always stressed that Social Security is gonna blow something and not get associated with a case file. So if there's a software that can help me assail my anxieties, assail my stress related to making a major misstep, that's huge for me.”

The Takeaway

Chronicle didn’t just fix a workflow. It re-centered a solo attorney's practice around what matters most: serving clients proactively and confidently.

Viner began his Chronicle journey to save time. What he found was the freedom to focus on his clients without drowning in manual work.