Managing a law firm can be a challenging process, especially when you’re dealing with a large workload of clients and cases. As any experienced attorney will tell you, the legal profession comes with plenty of deadlines and responsibilities, and for the sake of maximizing profits and productivity, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed with an excessive amount of work. In this common scenario, highly accurate time management is the only answer to keep all of your associates on the same page and operating at peak proficiency. With that said, here are 3 tips you can use to make sure all of your cases are receiving plenty of dedicated attention without unnecessary haste:
1. Allocate Management Tasks to Experienced Attorneys
Some newer law firms make the mistake of only searching within their own immediate network of associates during the managerial hiring process. If you really want a high level of accountability and organization to shape the proceedings of your law firm, you might need to consider the advantages of bringing in a more experienced attorney, preferably one who has experience playing a management role for a busy law firm. For example, Twin Cities-based M. Sue Wilson has been practicing law for 40 years, so that’s the kind of track record you want to look for when assigning essential time management duties.
2. Create Comprehensive Shift Schedules
Many law firms take a very relaxed approach to staying on top of each associate’s case load, but this probably isn’t the best approach if optimal time management is your goal. Promoting a culture of punctuality at your firm and showing that you’re involved and aware of each attorney’s obligations and schedules will keep some of your associates from slacking and abusing their positions to make their jobs much easier and less demanding. Time management and productivity are direct intertwined, so you simply can’t have lazy, entitled, or neglectful lawyers working at your firm.
3. Introduce Responsibility Check Lists
Introducing set checklists of responsibilities for each employee and checking them weekly to make sure they’re keeping up is a great way to present your expectations in a simplified format. This will help each attorney manage their own schedules in a manner that facilitates the completion and fulfillment of each task or item on their checklist. Eventually, they won’t even have to look at their checklist to know what they’re expected to achieve and maintain on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You can even use a checklist template in Excel to make the process of drawing one up easier.
Time Management Can Help in Any Business Endeavor
Lawyers and law firm managers make decent salaries, so it is common for these professionals to invest in their own business endeavors on the side. Of course, why wouldn’t you want to increase your income by building additional revenue streams? As such, it’s worth noting that the unavoidable desire to make more money will inevitably create the need to utilize the aforementioned time management principles in other areas of career and educational advancement.