Tips for Having Outgoing Correspondence in Reading Files

Okay, everybody hang in there, there are only three more topics to talk about in the area of "fail-safe" systems that make up the administrative part of your law practice. Bear with me while I finish up this "fail-safe" concept and we will be able to get back to the various other systems that make up the administrative "tips" for marketing, management and economics regarding your law firm.

Remember, the first part of your practice that is important is to have "clients." After you have clients, you need an efficient "administration" to deal with client matters. These two parts are the first of the five areas that make up every business in the world. The other three parts are "getting the work done," "billing," and "collecting your bill."

We have been have discussing all of the "fail-safe" administrative systems we have in our office. We have eightee systems. The reason we set up these systems was to make sure no task can go forward until each of these administrative "fail-safe" tasks have been completed. It's kind of like you can't start the table saw until you put the yellow safety button in the red stop switch.

Each of these items has something that has to be done related to a "safety" concept before you can go on to the next task. Obviously, some of these administrative "fail-safe" tasks have more of a "safety" task connected to them, but each and every one of these things are an important part of your overall law office marketing, management and economic plan.

This week we're going to talk about point number fourteen on our list. I accidentally skipped over fourteen as we were going through all of these "fail-safe tips. "

Last week we spoke about tickler cards and due date systems so we have already discussed number fifteen, but we do need to go back and pick up number fourteen.

This week's "fail-safe tip" is to have copies of every outgoing piece of correspondence in an individual lawyer's "reading file."

This administrative concept of having a "reading file" for all correspondence and document of any kind that are prepared and go out of a lawyer's office is really quite simple. Simply stated, literally a copy of every thing that is prepared and that goes out of the office should go on a backboard in chronological order as prepared and goes out of the office so that there is a permanent record of everything that is done by a lawyer or a staff member in the office by way of correspondence or documents that go out of the office. You might be saying to yourself, well you already have a copy of everything in the client's file, why would you want to have anything in addition to that?

Files get lost, clients take their files out of the office, files get stored and cannot be found to be retrieved, etc., etc. It is a very simple task to make a copy of everything and put it in chronological order on a "reading file" backboard. All of these documents can be destroyed after the applicable period of statute of limitations with regard to professional malpractice runs.

In the state of Missouri the statute of limitations of legal malpractice is five years, in the state of Kansas the statute of limitations of legal malpractice is two years. We have had a practice of not destroying these reading file backboards until after ten years has passed. This allows for a matter to be completed, and for a full five year statute time period to run after its potential completion to be sure that we will never need the copies of outgoing correspondence that we have put in the reading file.

I can't even begin to tell you how many different times I've actually needed this reading file to try and get information for a client. Luckily, I've never needed one yet for a professional negligence claim against me. Often times clients can be very demanding with regard to needing information about their file, now! The reading file allows you to get this information for the client if for some reason the client's file is not immediately available.

I have tried to set up the system in my office for the "ordinary" not the "extraordinary." What this means is that I try to set up all the administrative system for the day-to-day kinds of things that typically happen as opposed to things that hardly ever happen. There is nothing worse than having an administrative system that is simply busy work. If the system is never used, or if the system doesn't serve any real purpose, scrap the administrative system! I have on a number of occasions tried to find a better administrative system for "reading files," but I've never found anything quite as simple as just simply allowing everything to be placed on a backboard that goes out of the office from each individual lawyer and staff member. If you have an electronic system of storage of client files, and if this system has proved to be reliable and you have easy input and output with regard to copies of correspondence and documents in a particular clients file, then obviously this electronic filing system would be much more preferable.

My experience with electronic filing, is it is anything but fool-proof.

I used to share office space with a person who preferred electronic files. His staff members were constantly complaining about the fact they could never find anything where it was supposed to be in the electronic system. It appeared as though our physical filing system was much better and more reliable than the electronic system that they had adopted. Someday, electronic systems will be perfected to the point where any kind of a physical filing system will probably be totally obsolete other than for original documents. That day has not yet arrived.

I think you can see why setting up easy and convenient administrative systems allows the daily office tasks to happen in a sequential order are very easy and set up.

Next week we are going to talk about "closure letters to clients at the conclusion of a matters and thank you letters to referring parties at the conclusion of each clients matter." We have already discussed this generally, but I want to again emphasize the "fail-safe" nature of this administrative tip. I think that you will find the information about how this is done and why this is done as very enlightening as part of the overall system of marketing, management and economics is you law firm operation.

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.