Keeping Things Fail-Safe With Tickler Cards

We are continuing to talk about “fail-safe” administrative systems to be implemented in your law office that enable you to do the administrative things that you need to do in the right way at the right time.

If you don't have the proper administrative systems in place, the various clients and client matters will soon become very disorganized and difficult to deal with.

This week's “fail-safe” system is tickler cards or “blue cards”. I previously did an article on tickler cards. In our office we use the Safeguard one right system which provides 3x5 pieces of paper that are outlined in blue that you can write up to as many as six carbons of by simply writing on the top card. These pieces of paper come on pads that are self-carbons and you can make up multiple cards at one time, and thus the “one right” denomination for this system. Because of the blue outline, we call these “blue cards.”

We previously talked about the piece of paper that we use to open up each and every matter for each and every client in our office called New Matter Reports. These New Matter Reports are also supplied by Safeguard Business Systems and they are also self-carbons. The top sheet is a white sheet and the second sheet is a yellow sheet. The white sheet goes on the Notes, Facts, and Memorandums backboard when the file is opened, and the yellow sheet goes into a master three-ring binder to be able to look up information manually on a client when the file is not readily available.

This system also lends itself to doing the same data input electronically. The “fail-safe” nature of the New Matter Reports is no client matter can be opened in our office, no billing number can be assigned, without a New Matter Report being done. And no New Matter Report can be done until blue cards, “tickler cards” are prepared for the New Matter report.

In the lower right hand corner of the New Matter Report is an area for statute of limitations. The system we have developed makes it mandatory that the appropriate statute of limitations or other deadline be put in this box before the matter can be opened in our office. We put down the applicable state with regard to what law it is that we will be looking to for the deadline, and the applicable time frame.

An example of this would be an automobile accident, Kansas, two years, date of accident. If the date of the accident is October 23, 2003, you know that you have until then to bring the action in the state of Kansas. It is necessary that two people in the office sign off in this box with their initials indicating they have reviewed it and they have approved and agreed to the proper dates for statutes of limitations. Here is where the blue cards come into effect. The signature in this box also indicates that the blue cards have been prepared and approved. The blue cardshave both a reminder date and a due date as well as a place for where the cards should be directed.

Traditionally, in our office the cards would be directed to a lawyer who is the responsible party for bringing the piece of legal business into the office, as well as to an assigned lawyer who is handling the piece of legal business on a day-to-day basis.

Until the tickler cards are prepared and attached to the New Matter Report, no one can sign off on the New Matter Report as approving the statute of limitations or other due date. Additionally, until the blue cards are prepared, no physical file can actually be opened. No client billing number can be assigned to the file. In our office, until these blue cards are prepared and approved, it is very difficult to handle a client's piece of legal business.

As you can see, by setting up a system where various thresholds need to be met by various people in your office before a matter can actually go forward, you have created a set of rules that make sure that things get done in the proper way at the proper time.

It always amazes me that everyone in the office immediately accepts these concepts and will constantly be driving the legal matter forward to get each of these things accomplished.

Thank goodness that these “fail-safe” systems work so well. When your staff is telling you that you need to do something for one of the “fail-safe” systems in order to move the legal matter forward, you are starting to approach “law firm nirvana.”

I think that you can see that each of these “fail-safe” tips becomes a matter of routine after a period of time. Once people are trained in the system, it becomes matter of fact that each of these things need to be accomplished before the matter can be moved forward.

These “fail-safe” systems are much easier to implement than you think. Simply utilize any one of these articles as a memo to be circulated in your office and simply tell everybody this is what we are going to do from this day forward. Combine the previous article about the system itself along with the “fail-safe” nature of the system, and the two articles become a memo that literally can be instituted overnight.

Next week we are going to talk about the “fail-safe” nature of “out of sight, out of mind” cards. I think you will find the way these cards are utilized to be very helpful as yet another “fail-safe tip” on how you can stay on top of multiple pieces of legal business on a monthly basis.

Talk to you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.