Rules to Help You Get the Work Done
Last week I told you I would begin to talk about various rules we have in our firm with regard to helping "get the work done."
As you know, "getting the work done" is one of the five areas that make up part of every business in the world. The other four areas are "clients or customers," "administration," "billing," and "getting paid."
When you start talking about "getting the work done" you obviously are talking about systems, but you also need to talk about rules. In our firm we have some very interesting rules that help us handle the client's business in a very timely manner and to not try to "kill each other" while we are getting it done. I have quite a few examples of these rules, but I am only going to try to hit the highlights on some of them to give you an example of what we are talking about. Some of these rules we have previously discussed, so over the next couple of weeks we will try to elaborate on some of those rules. I think you will begin to see once we address some of these rules how helpful they may be in your own office.
The first rule I want to talk about is the "pre 4:44 pm/rule." This rule is very simple. It states that if you do not get something done before 4:44 in the afternoon on a given day, then you simply must wait until the next day to "get it done."
You might ask what is the magic about 4:44 pm. The answer, of course, is that the mail needs to be processed and taken to the postal station in our building by a certain time if it is going to get in today's mail. These times have ranged anywhere between 5:00 pm to 5:30 pm. If you do not have the letter dictated and in process by 4:44, it is simply not going to make that day's mail without everybody being in a terrible tizzy.
Lawyers are the world's worst procrastinators. No, I don't think we do this on purpose, but the "nature of the beast" in the practice of law is there is usually way more that needs to be done than there is time to accomplish it.
Recently, I had a meeting with my staff where I said to them that our office is "chronically and perpetually understaffed on purpose." What did I mean by that provocative comment? It has always occurred to me that every office I have ever been in, whether I was the senior named partner or not, that there always seemed to be way more work that needed to be done than there were people available to do it. Lawyers do not like people sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Lawyers do not like staff sitting around reading novels at their desk. Lawyers are conservative. Lawyers are sometimes even stingy.
I commented in a previous article that often times lawyers' offices seem to be at least a couple of decades behind what is going on in the medical profession. Doctors are quick to turn to medical technicians and thereafter to nurse practitioners and nurses who served as administrative aids. Lawyers did not begin to get on that bandwagon for the first time until the mid 1970's, and truthfully, though progress has been made, it still amazes me how many lawyers do not seem to understand how to fully use paralegals. Similarly, it does not appear that lawyers really know how to use legal secretaries very well. One of the real secrets to being able to practice law successfully is to become a successful delegator.
Let's examine the daily phenomena of most attorneys. Between answering phone calls, returning phone messages, meeting with clients and working with other staff in their office, lawyers' days can be very hectic even if you do not throw into the mix deposition, court dates, trials, closings, mediations, arbitrations and on and on and on! Are the lawyers really sitting around in their offices doing something other than being productive or are they really so busy that often times they do not get around to that important task until 4:44 pm? I submit that most lawyers who are even marginally successful, are so busy that they do not procrastinate on purpose, it just happens because of the press of trying to be so many things to so many people all of the time.
What I have found is that by setting up rules that allow the staff to gently remind the lawyers about things such as the 4:44 pm rule, it seems to help everybody work with each other and to gently remind each other about some of the ground rules that are established on a day-to-day basis for "getting the work done."
Think about how staff people are more comfortable being able to remind someone about a rule that has been established rather than trying to say that someone really needs to "get on the stick," because the end of the day is quickly approaching. Making up these types of rules seem to make the whole work flow process work much better.
Nobody likes to be constantly pushed outside their comfort zone, nobody likes to be constantly under undue pressure and nobody likes people who "make their failure to plan ahead someone else's emergency."
Looking at what you try to get done on a daily business to handle your client's legal business, and then establishing some "rules" or "guidelines" for accomplishing the same in a sane manner could help you tremendously in trying to keep your team together and working together as a happy family.
I have previously discussed the twenty-four hour telephone call return rule, but I would like to visit a couple of more thoughts about that next week. For the next several weeks we are going to talk about some more of these rules, and how they can help you "get the work done." I want to remind you about non-verbal communication, I want to remind you about communication with your clients, I want to remind you about internal communication in your law firm, I want to remind you about many other areas that you can set up as simple rules that very much helps in facilitating the "work getting done" on a day-to-day basis in your law firm. Be sure to look at these next group of articles and I think you will see that lots of these rules make your life a lot better.
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.