Continuing The Use Of "Fail-Safe" Methods

This week we will continue to talk about “tips” that create “fail-safe” methods that ensure all of the important day-to-day work in your law firm is done. Setting up “fail-safe” systems ensures that the things that keep your law firm running smoothly are done automatically, and that if these “fail-safe” steps are not done, you will be able to pinpoint the problem. As you know from your review of these ongoing articles, “administration” is the second part that makes up every business in the world. The first is “clients,” or “customers.” This week’s “fail-safe tip” is the use of Prospective New Matter Reports for every matter that comes into the office. Remember that the Prospective New Matter Report that we talked about some weeks ago is the standardized form where all the pertinent information is written down regarding a “possible” client. This potential client has not officially become a client of the firm, but there exists a possibility that this potential client may become a client of the firm.

Why is it important that a standardized form be used for possible client information? The answer to that question is actually quite simple; having all the relevant information with regard to a possible new client on one easy to use form allows you to get back in touch with them to see whether or not they actually want to bring their legal matter to your firm. It allows you to thank the person who has referred that piece of business to you. It tells you who in your firm is responsible for bringing that piece of business to your firm, and who the matter will be assigned to and handled by. On the back of the form there is a place to write in the time that you are expending on behalf of the client in order to bring the matter into your office. This time may or may not be billable, but keeping track of it allows you to recapture it if the time is in fact billable.
Having these forms allow you to keep all the information in one place as opposed to scattered in many different locations. I keep the current PNM’s on my desk as a reminder to myself to call these potential clients back. My secretary keeps PNM’s that are thirty days old at her desk, and at the end of the thirty day period will write non-engagement letters to the people. Often times a client who receives a non-engagement letter is reminded that they are supposed to hire the lawyer, and instead of not getting the piece of business based upon the non-engagement letter, the non-engagement letter results in the lawyer actually receiving the business. We will talk next week in some detail about non-engagement letters.

Remember that I keep Prospective New Matter Reports for five years. The obvious reason for keeping the Prospective New Matter Reports for five years is in case someone should ever accuse you of malpractice, you have documentation of exactly what you told the person, when you told it to them, and a non-engagement letter which was sent to them indicating that you are not representing them.

Remember that I told a story about the lawyer in Minnesota who did not send his client that he turned down a non-engagement letter and ended up with over a $250,000 judgment against him for failing to tell the client about an applicable statute of limitations case on her medical malpractice claim. It is biting irony when a medical malpractice case becomes a legal malpractice case against you for failing to tell someone about a statute of limitations.

The “fail-safe” nature of utilizing Prospective New Matter Reports is, I hope, becoming increasingly clear. As you can see, we have tried to tie in the marketing aspects of Prospective New Matter Reports with the administrative aspect of Prospective New Matter Reports. Not only do we send thank you letters to the people who have referred us the business, but we also communicate in writing with prospective new clients about whether or not we have taken on their cases. They have our letterhead, our address, our phone number, and we have, even in telling them that we are not going to be taking on their business, projected effort to them. If we do not want the business, we suggest that they contact the lawyer referral service, if we do want the business, we ask them if they have a need to contact us immediately. Can you imagine the surprise that most prospective clients must have when they get a nice letter from the lawyer they have talked to on the telephone or in person, indicating that the lawyer is still interested in talking to them or is referring them on to another source where they might be able to take care of their legal matter. Clients like a projection of effort!

The further “fail-safe” nature of the Prospective New Matter Report involves being sure that any matter you are looking at does not inadvertently run up against a deadline that would create a problem for the client, and subsequently for you because you have not responded to the client about representing them in a timely manner. The tickler card system that we will talk about in a couple of weeks can also be utilized with regard to Prospective New Matter Reports. Having a system where you review the Prospective New Matter Reports on your desk on a weekly basis and the older reports that your secretary has reviewed on a monthly basis, is very helpful, if not imperative.

Remember, one of the other reasons for the use of Prospective New Matter Reports is that when a potential client does call you back at a later time and says, “you probably don’t remember me, but...” you can whip out the Prospective New Matter Report from your desk, from your secretary’s thirty day stack, or from your closed PNM filing system, and say to them “sure I remember you, you called on...!” Can you imagine the surprise of the prospective client that you had that information either in your memory or at your fingertips?

Having an organized system for keeping track of matters that are potentially coming into your office is a very, very, very (that’s three very’s) good way of getting off on the right foot with regard to organizing your practice, setting up systems that happen automatically, and training yourself and your staff to try to standardize things from an administrative point of view in order to allow your practice to run smoothly.

We will continue each week for a while to talk about all of these “fail-safe tips” to try to fully explain how to make each and every one of these suggestions automatic in your office. Even though we have discussed some of these matters in terms of how the system operates mechanically, I want to emphasize the “fail-safe” nature of each of these suggestions so that you can fully understand why it is that each and every one of these types of systems will greatly improve the administration of the legal work you are handling in your office. When the administration improves, efficiency improves. When efficiency improves, you can handle more work. When you can handle more work, you make more money. When you make more money, you are a lot happier! When you are a lot happier, without having to work harder, you are a LOT happier!

An added bonus to these systems is that when you implement them, you get “piece of mind” that all of the details that you need to cover are done! Remember the phrase “the devil was in the details?” The reason that the quote is so true is because the quote is so accurate. If you take care of the details, most of the larger questions seem to take care of themselves fairly well, or at least become a lot easier to deal with.

Next week we are going to continue to talk about more “fail-safe tips.” We will revisit non-engagement letters and why they are an important part of any “fail-safe” system. I think you will find these ongoing comments with regard to each of these “fail-safe” systems interesting and useful.

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.