Ryan Hecht founded Hecht Law Firm PLLC in Austin, Texas with a clear mission: provide exceptional personal injury representation to clients. A University of Texas at Austin graduate who earned his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center, Hecht started his career with plaintiff-side work in California before returning to Austin to join a civil defense firm.
There, he gained invaluable courtroom experience through depositions, hearings, and trials - giving him an edge that would later help him stand out in the competitive personal injury market.
When he finally launched his own practice, Hecht faced the realities of entrepreneurship that law school never prepared him for.
"When I launched Hecht Law Firm, I quickly realized no one tells you how to start a business. You don't learn how to get a tax ID in law school. And you definitely don't learn how to manage cash flow when your cases won't settle for 6 to 24 months," Hecht explains.
Despite his litigation experience, Hecht discovered a gap in his expertise: the pre-litigation process. At previous firms, he always had infrastructure – paralegals, case managers, admin staff, even nurse paralegals who created medical chronologies.
As his solo practice grew, Hecht found himself juggling everything: networking to bring in cases, conducting intakes, signing clients, coordinating medical treatment, collecting records, sending representation letters, investigating insurance coverage, and drafting settlement demands. All while still handling litigation for existing cases.
"My practice was growing so fast that I hit a crossroads," Hecht explains. "I couldn't take on more cases without getting help with the administrative work."
The breaking point came when his first attempt at hiring help backfired. After a lengthy interview process, the paralegal he hired turned out to have misrepresented her experience, leaving Hecht in an even worse position.
"This isn't just a solo firm problem," Hecht notes. "Even now that I've scaled, I've learned great staff is hard to find. Every firm — big or small — struggles with the pre-lit bottleneck."
After trying various options – outsourcing, contractors, and technology platforms that promised automation but fell short – Hecht discovered Finch.
"I tried everything until I met Ben and Viraj and saw what Finch was building," says Hecht.
Finch's team took over his pre-litigation workload, handling everything from intake to demand drafting. Their elite paralegals, supported by AI tools, tackled all the administrative tasks that had been consuming his time.
"Pre-litigation was eating up a significant amount of my time," says Hecht. "Client intake calls at all hours, chasing down medical records, dealing with insurance adjusters – it was necessary work, but it was keeping me from what I do best: advocating for my clients in the courtroom."
With Finch managing the pre-litigation process, everything changed. Hecht could finally focus on the aspects of law where he excelled.
"We're seeing about 40% growth month-to-month since bringing Finch on board," Hecht shares. "I can finally say yes to more cases without worrying about drowning in paperwork."
The extra time and mental bandwidth have directly translated to better outcomes for Hecht's clients. He recently secured an $800,000 settlement for a dog bite case – the kind of result that transforms a client's life.
"This was an instance with gross negligence on behalf of the dog owner," explains Hecht. "I had to put in weeks of investigation to find records and witness testimonies from others in the neighborhood to prove this wasn't an isolated incident. Without Finch handling my pre-litigation work on other cases, I simply wouldn't have had the bandwidth to dig this deep."
"What impresses me most about Ryan is his commitment to getting the best possible outcome for every client," says Viraj Bindra, Finch co-founder. "He's exactly the kind of attorney we built Finch for – someone with the talent and drive to build something exceptional when given the right support system."
For Hecht Law Firm, the benefits of partnering with Finch extended beyond time savings. With Finch managing intake and case preparation, Hecht has been able to expand his operations geographically.
The firm has increased its presence in California while maintaining its strong Texas base – a multi-state strategy that would typically require significant additional staffing.
"The scalable support model has been a game-changer," Hecht notes. "I can serve clients in multiple states without the overhead of physical offices or local admin staff. And we're just getting started – we're looking at expanding into more states by the end of the year."
What makes Hecht's experience so remarkable is how it flips the traditional growth model for personal injury firms on its head.
"We're now in an era where tech allows me, a solo attorney with one paralegal, to handle the same amount of cases as a firm not using services like Finch, with more attorneys and staff than me," Hecht explains.
Instead of focusing on hiring more paralegals and support staff – especially challenging when tens of thousands of paralegals are set to retire soon – Hecht has created a more capital-efficient growth strategy.
"We're running an elite pre-litigation operation end to end at a fraction of what full-time help would cost, let alone hiring and training," says Hecht.
By leveraging Finch's combination of elite US-based paralegals and AI agents to handle client intake, insurance claims, police reports, medical records, and demand preparation, Hecht Law Firm has built a foundation for sustainable growth.
"Finch is a tool — built by people who understand lawyers, and built for lawyers who want to build their business, focus on litigation, and do less administrative work," says Hecht. "I'm not just talking about the future of law. I'm using it. And it's giving me my time back — to focus on the cases where I can have the most impact, and grow the business I set out to build."
For personal injury attorneys looking to follow in Hecht's footsteps, the message is clear: with the right support system, you can focus on what you do best while still scaling your practice.
To learn more about how Finch can help your personal injury firm achieve similar results, visit https://www.finchlegal.com/pre-litigation or contact us to schedule a consultation.
