From 4 to 60: How a Migration Law Firm Scaled Without the Chaos
Most law firms that grow fast don’t survive the growing pains. Spreadsheets stop working. Case tracking, billing, and client communications turn into a scramble. Administrative overhead balloons faster than revenue.
In 2021, Maison Chen Law Group opened its doors with just four lawyers and a clear conviction: that technology should be the driving infrastructure of their business, not an afterthought. They now have a team of more than 60 staff members. Yet, the chaos that typically comes with that kind of growth never showed up. In this law firm spotlight, we break down how Maison Chen scaled their law firm and cut admin time per matter by two-thirds. We also show how they turned a 40-minute booking process into seconds, without compromising client experience or compliance.
A firm built with scale in mind
Founded in 2021 by managing partner Traci Chen, Maison Chen Law Group helps clients navigate Australia’s complex immigration system across a full range of visa services. This includes skilled and employer-sponsored visas as well as partner, family, and corporate immigration programs. Their mission is simple: “changing lives, one visa at a time.” From the beginning, the firm made a deliberate choice to treat technology as a keystone of their operations.
When post-COVID demand surged across Australia’s migration law sector, many firms buckled under the weight of manual processes and disconnected tools. Maison Chen had already started laying a different kind of foundation with Actionstep. This was a decision that paid off immediately.
“We knew early on that relying on spreadsheets or manual tracking wouldn’t work as we grew,” says Dilshan Amarasinghe, the firm’s Project Lead. “Case tracking, billing, and client communication would have quickly become messy.”
Why they chose Actionstep
Rather than stitching together separate tools, Maison Chen wanted a single, interconnected platform that could power the entire firm from one view. After evaluating several options, they landed on Actionstep for its configurable workflows, integrated billing, cloud-first architecture, and open application programming interface (API) capabilities.
“Actionstep gave us the freedom to configure the platform to fit our needs. Other systems we evaluated felt rigid or lacked key functionality.”
Maison Chen Law Group
Implementation made easy
To get the implementation right, the firm worked with NewLaw, an Actionstep Certified Partner. NewLaw recognised that Maison Chen wasn’t going to be a standard implementation. This is because Traci had built a significant social media following on both TikTok and Instagram. Importantly, Traci created a genuine, high-volume intake channel that most practice management platforms aren’t built to handle. Rather than retrofitting the firm with an off-the-shelf solution, NewLaw used Actionstep’s configurable architecture to build a workflow around Maison Chen’s unique business model. It’s the kind of bespoke implementation that Actionstep’s flexibility makes possible. Rigid out-of-the-box systems simply can’t replicate it.
“At NewLaw, we designed an end-to-end process that enabled managing partner Traci Chen’s powerful social media presence into a streamlined delivery of legal services,” says David Lisitsa, NewLaw’s Director. “By leveraging Actionstep’s webforms, workflows, and precedent automation, we helped the firm convert high-volume engagement into a consistent, efficient, and scalable operating model.”
Automation in practice
Traci measured Actionstep’s impact in two ways: how quickly new clients could book a consultation, and how much administrative time each matter required. Both improved.
Before Actionstep, booking a consultation at Maison Chen meant back-and-forth emails, a separate payment transaction, and staff members manually creating the matter and uploading client documents. The whole process could take up to 40 minutes before a lawyer ever got involved. Today, clients book and pay through an online form. Actionstep creates the matter, sends confirmation emails, and produces compliance documents on the spot. As a result, what once took 40 minutes now happens in seconds.
Administrative time per matter dropped from 2.5 hours to 0.8 hours, and audit preparation that once took five days now takes one. These efficiency gains kept Maison Chen’s administrative overhead from growing at the same rate as their headcount. This made every new hire a direct driver of business growth rather than more overhead to manage.
The role every midsize law firm needs to have
One of the most distinctive parts of Maison Chen’s setup is a title you’d expect to find at a software company, but not at a law firm: Continuous Improvement Officer.
Jerico David holds that role, and his mandate is exactly what it sounds like. His job is to make sure every process across the firm is continually assessed, refined, and optimised.
“My role is to constantly assess, streamline, and enhance the way we operate,” David explains. “That includes building automations, strengthening compliance checks, and introducing new integrations that reduce manual work.”
Drawing from industries like manufacturing and SaaS, Maison Chen applies data-driven evaluation to every process change and tracks the return on each improvement. Actionstep functions as the system of record throughout. This approach surfaces inefficiencies, tracks performance, and gives leadership the visibility they need to make decisions in real time.
“Collaboration is smoother because everything is working from one source of truth.”
The result is a firm culture that has shifted from reactive task management to proactive, strategic leadership.
Scaling a law firm with Actionstep
Maison Chen Law Group proves that growth and quality don’t have to come at each other’s expense. Law firm growth can be effective and sustainable as long as the right systems are in place. Actionstep is built for firms that want to grow deliberately, operate efficiently, and stay ahead of compliance at every stage. Download the full case study to get the complete picture, or book a demo to see Actionstep in action.
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