There is no Substitute for Getting the Work Done, Tips to Help

This week we continue to talk about "tips" on "getting the work done." You may be highly successful in getting clients, you may be very well-organized with your administration, but if you don't get the work done, the word will get out and pretty soon you'll be out of business.

One might argue that "getting the work done" is the most important part of the five parts that make up every business in the world. If you're not very good at getting "clients or customers" or once you get them you don't really have a great "administration" in dealing with those "clients or customers," but, nonetheless, you do a fabulous job at "getting the work done," the word will get out and your will get more clients and customers and eventually if for no other reason than to avoid the chaos, you will have some type of an administrative system for handling those clients and customers. I think it would even be possible to do nothing with regard to getting "clients or customers" and to do very little with regard to "administration," but to do a fabulous job with "getting the work done" and still probably be able to survive in the practice of law. Remember, "even a blind squirrel can find an acorn."

The point is, why should you operate "blindly"?

Since there is absolutely no substitute for "getting the work done," let's launch right into this week's "tip.”

If you are a solo practitioner with no support staff whatsoever, you can ignore this article. On the other hand, you may want to read the article anyway, because it will tell you that you probably need to get some support staff eventually. If you have anybody that works with you, you need to have some kind of system of getting the legal work to these other people to help you "get the work done." I have utilized a very simple "work assignment form" over the years to achieve this goal. With the advent of e-mails you can very easily make these work assignments by e-mail, and at the same time keep a permanent record so that you will be able to review what it is that you have assigned someone to do.

The bottom line here is that you need to be able to communicate with other people within your firm what they can do to help you "get the work done," and at the same time be able to remember what it was that you asked them to help you do. Here is the information that is contained on the two part carbonized form that I use:

Today's Date; Date to be Completed; To; From; Client/Case; File No.; Subject; Draft/Research/Other; File Attached/Memo Attached/Review and See Me/Return File to My Desk/Prepare: Preliminary Memo/In-Depth Memo; Estimate of Time Required; Copies To; Instructions.

These forms are very inexpensive and they come in two parts. The first part can be ripped off and sent to the person you have assigned the work to. The second part is a yellow piece of paper that is self carbonized and therefore, you only need to write the assignment one time. You keep the yellow piece of paper for your periodic review. If you have multiple copies of this, you can simply alphabetize them by case and matter or by date so you can stay on top of what you have assigned people to help you do and what progress they are making in getting the work done.

I believe everything that is contained on this form is self-explanatory so I am not going to go into any great detail about how the form should be filled out. Similar kinds of information can be utilized in a written memo to a staff person or as I previously said, through an email. The secret is to have a system that enables you to assign work to other people to help you "get the work done."

I must admit that I do not generally try to overly utilize this "tip." In fact, I sometimes cringe at the necessity of having to use this more formalized method of work assignments. I feel very strongly that when you are the person generating the legal business, the person responsible for being sure that the legal business is properly administered, and the person responsible for getting the work done, that having to keep tabs on the people you have assigned the work to is frustrating. It reminds me of a concept that I believe that was strongly reinforced when I read the book, "The One Minute Manager." His concept was that when you assign a work assignment to another person, you are acting as a manager. One of the worst things that a manager can do is to put the "monkey on somebody else's back," and when the assignment does not get done properly or timely, to "grab the monkey and put it back on the manager's own back."

Let me explain the above concept in a law office setting.

It has been said that law firms are made up of "finders, minders and grinders." "Finders" are the business getters, the "rainmakers." "Minders" are the people who are in charge of the administrative area of the law firm and being sure that things get done when they are supposed to get done and in the way they are supposed to be done. "Grinders" are the ones that are primarily responsible for being sure that the legal work gets completed. Obviously, in a solo and small law firm, one individual is usually the finder, the minder and the grinder. As a law firm grows from a solo law firm to a small firm, other people take on additional tasks with regard to both finding, minding and grinding.

One of the most important aspects for those that are not "finders" to understand is that the finder in essence is another "client" in addition to the actual client. Quite simply put, if the "finder" stops assigning work to the minders and the grinders, the minders and the grinders are out of a job. In a very real sense, the person who can continue to find legal business for their law firm to perform, is every much the same as the actual client. All of the concepts of taking care of the "client" apply to this person in the office as well as to the actual client.

Can you imagine a set of circumstances where an actual client had to chase the lawyer to remind them to get the job done or to get the job done in a timely manner? If this happens very often, the client will go elsewhere.

If those people who are operating as minders and grinders in a law firm realize how important it is that the finder be treated like a client, it will amaze everybody involved in the process as to how smoothly things can actually go. I find myself being dissatisfied with those people who are minders and grinders in my law firm when they are not treating me as a client and make me chase them to find out where they stand on work that they have been assigned. I try to give work assignments orally, and trust that the person who is assigned to do the work will make me explain it in a fashion that they understand it and know exactly what they are supposed to do, how much time they should allot to it, and what the deadline is. It is incredibly important for those people who you assign work to that are minders and grinders to keep you informed with the progress of the work they have been assigned, get the job done, do it in the amount of time that has been allotted to complete it, and accomplish it by the deadline that has been decided upon. If those people do not consistently "get the work done," they are not helping you make your personal life better and your financial well-being improve.

Remember some weeks ago, I gave you a graph with regard to the four quadrants where people fit into with regard to whether or not they were highly trained and educated and experienced as compared to their attitude and their work ethic. Look for people that are always in the fourth quadrant or who you can educate and train to rise to the fourth quadrant.

I believe that there is probably an exception to my oral work assignment format and that would be if the task you are assigning is so complicated or detailed that you really need to lay out all of the tasks in some greater detail. If this were the case, you can certainly utilize the above form and simply attach it to a more detailed memorandum or email.

The key to "getting the work done," is establishing organizational processes that allow for an easy and efficient "work flow process." Where possible, standardize the way that things are done, utilize some of the tips that I have in the "administration," articles. Use trial outlines, use chronologies, use alpha files, use chronological files; the more you can standardize what it is that you do with regard to "getting the work done," the more efficient your office will be. Try not to "cut out a whole cloth" with everything you do. Making everything "tailor-made" takes more time, costs more, and creates more chaos. Set up systems so that when you tell someone to do a particular task on a particular file, they have had some previous experience doing it on other matters, or they can talk with other people in your office who have done similar tasks on similar matters.

Well, there you have it, my thoughts and feelings on how work can be assigned to others that you work with so that everything gets done properly, efficiently and timely.

Next week we are going to talk about how we utilize case lists in our office to keep track of who has been assigned what and what is supposed to be accomplished by a certain date. We extensively utilize these case lists and they really work effectively with regard to letting the people in the office know what clients and what matters for what clients they are working on so that you can keep the entire office organized and moving forward to try to get the client's legal work done properly, efficiently and timely. 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.