Tips for Setting Up an Automatic Time Keeping System

Over the last couple of months we have been talking about “fail-safe tips” dealing with the administration of a law firm that allows your office to operate very efficiently and consistently if these “fail-safe” systems are put in place. Now that we have talked about a sufficient number of these “fail-safe” systems for administration, I believe you can see how these systems are the core of the administration in your office

Truthfully, you probably already have “fail-safe” systems set up in your law firm. You may not realize that you have such “fail-safe” systems, nor identify them as such by name. You need to write down the “fail-safe” systems you have and be sure that they are all working the way that you envisioned they would. Make a list of your “fail-safe” systems. Be sure everyone understands how critical these “fail-safe” systems are to the proper administration of your office.

When you have any type of a system in your office that is supposed to operate on a “fail-safe” basis, it becomes very obvious when the system is not followed or when the system breaks down. If you do not like the “fail-safe” systems that I have discussed here, make up your own or compile a list of your own. When making the list, be sure you have supplied sufficient information about how the system is supposed to work so that anybody can quickly and easily learn how the system works and how the system fits into the administrative process in your law firm.

As you know from reading these articles, “administration” is one of the five parts that make up every business in the world. “Administration” is the second part that makes up every business. “Clients” or “customers” are number one. You have to have “clients” before you have anything to administer. After you have “clients” you have to have “administration” if you hope to handle that client’s work effectively, efficiently and competently.

We have already discussed twelve areas involving “fail-safe tips.”

In our office we have eighteen “fail-safe” administrative systems that make up the core of the administration that we do on every matter for every client. Each of these core administrative systems are critical to being sure that everything is being handled the way it is supposed to be handled.

The next “fail-safe tip” is to set up an automatic time keeping system for everything that comes in and goes out of your office on every matter for every client.

In our office we enter into engagement letters with all of our clients that permit us to bill in quarter- hour task oriented increments. We will be discussing more about this when we talk about the fourth part of every business in the world - “billing.”

The idea behind this “fail-safe tip” regarding automatic timekeeping for ingoing and outgoing mail is quite simple. Someone in your office will open your mail. It should not be the lawyer. The lawyer’s time is simply too valuable and with all of the time pressures on the lawyer, many of the tasks related to incoming mail will simply not be done. One lawyer I worked with in the past insisted on opening his own mail. The staff members that worked with him were constantly complaining about the fact they could never get the mail out of his hands after it was opened, and therefore, all the administrative tasks that they were supposed to perform with the mail, never happened.

Additionally, the staff sometimes never knew whether or not a particular item had been received in the office. They were utterly helpless to try to take care of the clients when they called and inquired about various matters. Everything funneled through the lawyer and everything funneled out from the lawyer. In this lawyer’s case, he was a “bottleneck” and even an obstruction to the work-flow process in the office. He wasn’t happy, his staff wasn’t happy, and more importantly, his clients weren’t happy. This is an ugly and dangerous situation to be in if you are a practicing attorney!

You are probably saying “under no circumstances would I ever let someone else open my mail.” “That’s illegal.” It is not illegal if you give someone authority to open your mail. If something is addressed to you “Personal and Confidential,” tell the person whom you have delegated the task of opening the mail to deliver it to the person it is addressed to unopened. It is perfectly permissible to give authorization to someone to open and process all the mail that comes into your firm.

If you are a solo practitioner with literally nobody else to help you, you still need to process the incoming mail and be sure that you write up time for everything that is incoming and everything that goes out. The secret to become an efficient and profitable lawyer is to get non-lawyers to do administrative tasks that lawyers uniquely do not need to do pursuant to the code of ethics.

The faster you can get some administrative help the happier and more profitable you will be.

If this lawyer had simply done what he had been trained to do in our office his life, the life of his staff, and again, more importantly, the lives of his clients would all have been better.

What we train our staff to do is to keep at a minimum the number of administrative tasks that an attorney needs to do. Attorneys don’t like to do and are often not trained to do administrative tasks. Attorneys always feel they have more important things to do. Assuming it is true that attorneys have more important things to do, why in “God’s green acre” would you ever give an attorney an administrative task to do on a day to day and routine basis?

Some of the tasks that I have previously discussed in other articles are administrative tasks that only lawyers can uniquely do such as statute of limitations date, approval of intake of business, setting of fees, etc. These tasks must be done by attorneys, but you can set up systems that make those tasks very easy to accomplish and not very time consuming.

Often times, staff member will facilitate those types of administrative procedures by simply providing the information to the attorney and having the attorney sign off on the same. Initialing a box on an intake form does not take very long. Opening the mail and seeing that it is properly processed is not a quick and easy task.

In our office we have one individual who opens the mail on a day to day basis. The original of everything that comes into our office is routed to a file so that it can be properly filed in the proper place in each client’s file that we have for each client’s matter. The originals always go in the client’s file.

Often times, we only copy the first page and not all the enclosures. If the party receiving the copy of the incoming mail wants the enclosures, they can either ask for copies of them or get the originals out of the client’s file.

Next to the initial of the responsible lawyer who is the lawyer primarily responsible for the individual client’s individual matter, place a check mark with a line drawn through it indicating that a “time” copy of the incoming mail has been made, and will be processed. This “time” copy is routed to the person responsible for inputting the time for the lawyer who is primarily responsible for the client’s individual matter.

You might be wondering how this could be assumed and how time can be written up for something that arguably has not yet happened. The answer is very simple: can you imagine a set of circumstances where a competent lawyer would not review their mail almost immediately upon receipt or as soon as the lawyer is available to review it? A lawyer reviewing mail that comes into the office needs to be as automatic as all of the “fail-safe tips” combined.

Making the input of time saves the attorney a tremendous amount of time. The attorney can use the copy of the incoming mail that the lawyer receives as a speed memo to other people in the office to give them assignments to do with regard to the incoming mail or to just simply make other communication that is important for the ongoing handling of the client’s matter.

This system also works very well with regard to outgoing mail. A time copy of every piece of outgoing mail is made so that a time entry may be made automatically for reviewing and finalizing every piece of outgoing mail. Remember, that again, copies of all the outgoing mail are routed to everybody that needs to know that such mail went out of the office.

Saving the lawyer valuable time from inputting time entries is a very important concept.

You need to set up automatic time keeping systems in your office to alleviate the stress of the lawyer always feeling that the lawyer must account for every minute of every day with regard to billing.

If the proper notations are not in place, the lawyer needs to stop and inquire why this particular piece of paper is not having time input for the review by the lawyer. You really need to set up this system in particular in your office! This system works great!

This automatic time keeping system saves you a tremendous amount of time and anxiety and allows you to not have to spend an inordinate amount of your time inputting time entries for review of matters that come in your office and for review and approval of matters that go out of your office! We have five more “fail-safe” administrative systems to talk about.

We will be talking next week about the “fail-safe tip” regarding copies of outgoing correspondence that need to be put in individual lawyer’s reading files. Believe me, this is a simple task that can be handled by your staff and it always provides a ready resource for being able to find a particular piece of correspondence when for some reason you cannot find that “mysterious file that has disappeared.”

Also, these reading files provide a record of exactly what you did and when you did it with regard to potential disciplinary or malpractice claims. More of this next week!

I think you will find the philosophy behind this “fail-safe tip” to be very enlightening with regard to how your “administrative” systems are interrelated to your disciplinary claim and malpractice prevention system. Now there’s a topic to get everybody’s attention!

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.