More Rules to Smooth the Work Flow Process

We are still talking about the various rules that we have in our office to help us "get the work done." As you know, there are five areas that make up every part of every business in the world; the third area is "getting the work done."

We have previously discussed "clients or customers," and "administration," and we are now talking about "getting the work done." After talking about the third part, we will be talking about the fourth part "billing," and then the fifth part "getting paid."

The rules we are discussing are very important in helping us "get the work done." These rules make for a very smooth work flow process, and become part of the culture of your law firm with regard to everyone understanding how important it is to efficiently and timely "get the work done."

There are three rules we are going to talk bout this week, they are as follows:
1. "5 p.m. mail rule";
2. "Overnight mail rule"; and
3. "When in doubt, document it in writing rule."

Let's talk about each of the above rules one at a time. First, let's talk about the "5 p.m. mail rule." This rule is very simple and it states that any mail that possibly can go out on a given day must be ready to go out by 5 p.m. or it must wait until the next day. This rule creates two helpful philosophies. The first philosophy is get it done early so that it is ready to go out by 5p.m. The second philosophy is that if it is not finished by 5 p.m., don't make everyone run around like "chickens with their heads cut off," in order to try to run it down to the main post office.

We talked about the fact that I utilize three colored folders for alerting me to the priority of the matter. If something is given to me in a red folder, it means that it is ready to be finished. If something is given to me in a yellow folder, it means that it can wait until I get around to it. If something is given to me in a green folder, it means it is completed and all I need to do is sign it and it will go out. One of the nice things about the utilization of these three colored folders is that when it starts to get close to 5 p.m., I can simply pull all of the green folders out of the stack and know that all I have to do is sign each one of them and they will go out in the mail by that day's 5 p.m. deadline.

It is amazing to me how my office has begun to function around this 5 p.m. deadline for mail to go out and everyone seems to be in tune with why it is important that mail go out on a timely basis.

It seems strange that something as simple as a 5 p.m. mail rule would become a dominating factor with regard to people moving more quickly to get a particular job done knowing that they have a deadline to meet.

Conversely, it is also amazing how laid back everyone can be after 5 p.m. knowing that if they have not gotten the item mailed already, that it probably needs to wait until the next day. The law business is a stressful business to begin with, you do not need anymore artificial stressors to make it even worse than it already is. Trying to get people to get things done after 5 p.m. and make it to the main post office is not usually very much fun. Obviously, there are times when you cannot avoid this, but where it can be avoided, it should be avoided!

The next rule is the "overnight mail rule." I often think that "snail mail" is totally a thing of the past. Our whole world seems to have speeded up, certainly faxes and now emails have made instantaneous communication an absolute reality. Where it is necessary to get a signature on a particular document or a check, I have resorted to the use of overnight mail and have included in the overnight mail to whoever needs to put their signature on something an overnight mail package to return the signed document or check to me. I have found all too often, the mail system is quite frankly not totally reliable. It still amazes me it takes multiple days at times for something to simply move across town. If something is really important, we simply hand deliver it on purpose. If it is impossible to hand deliver it we send it by overnight mail. The long and the short of it is that if you actually want to get something done for sure, you cannot just simply rely upon the normal mail system.

I am reminded of a concept I have talked to you about earlier concerning Murphy's Law. Remember Murphy's Law is "anything that can go wrong will." O'Connor's comment is "usually at the worst possible time," and O'Toole's observation is "both Murphy and O'Connor are optimists."

You need to get your office staff sensitive to how important a particular correspondence, pleading, document, or check really is.

Recently someone in my office had a client call and say that if they could get a corrected bill they would immediately put a check in the mail. You guessed it, they mailed it. Remember, "positive cash flow is happiness." Why didn't the staff member fax the bill or overnight the bill, instead of sending it by regular mail? The answer is, they didn't think! If you have a rule in your office that says communicate with the client as quickly as you can, you set up a law firm culture that has people understand the utilization of communication is in a descending order in terms of promptness as follows:
1. Hand Delivery;
2. Email;
3. Fax;
4. Overnight Mail; and
5. Regular Mail.

Why would you want to send something by the slowest method possible if it was to yours or your client's advantage to send it by the quickest method possible?

The last rule to talk about is "when in doubt, document it in writing." I asked one of my staff members the other day to give me an answer to a question that I asked them. The question was "if there is a contest between two people as to whether or not something was communicated, and on one hand the person who is saying that it was not communicated has no education other than a GED and the other person has a high school diploma, a college degree and a law degree, who is going to be believed." Without thinking, the staff member answered, "the better educated person!" I stated, "I don't think so. The person who is not going to be believed is the person with the more education, because they should have known better!" The point that needs to be made here is if it were important enough to be stated, it is important enough to be documented.

At a minimum, writing up a time ticket will at least give you some written verification of what was said on a certain date and the fact that the client was billed for it. Better still, would be a memo to your file, even better would be a letter of confirmation to the person who has stated something to you. Thus, the rule "when in doubt, document it in writing." Often times I will make notes on the back of telephone messages simply to use them as a handy way of keeping notes about what I said to someone when I returned the phone call. But, "when in doubt, document it in writing." The writing preferably should be a communication to the person who you have told something orally. I am reminded of a phrase that I heard many years ago that applies in these set of circumstances, and that is "saying its say does not make it so!" The interrelation of each of these rules is to tie the concept of timely communication with the concept of documenting things in writing. Again, if you can set up a culture in your law firm where people understand necessity of timely communication, it is a very short step to the concept of "when in doubt, document it in writing."

I hope you see how each of these rules we have in our office helps us "get the work done." Next week we are going to talk about the "blue card rule," which you know as "tickler cards." We have already talked about blue cards, but I want everyone to understand that there are rules with regard to blue cards that need to be followed in great detail. We have a rule about when blue cards are made up, how blue cards are filed, how blue cards are posted, how blue cards are returned to the responsible attorneys and the assigned attorneys, and the timing of each and every one of the concepts regarding blue cards. Again, I think you will find all of these rules quite interesting with regard to their interrelation with each other and with the overall concept of trying to "get the work done" in a timely and efficient manner.

Talk with you next week.

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