All Our Tips
Can I Get a Little Help Here?
Poor delegations skills are a real time-waster, and poor delegation is usually brought on by the attitude “If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.” This is an attitude that lawyers seem to have in over-abundance.
As the author and psychology professor Dr. Amiram Elwork explains in Stress Management for Lawyers, poor delegation skills can really hinder a lawyer’s career advancement and create great stress, too. If you cannot effectively delegate work, you will never be able to maximize your achievement through the efforts of other people., limiting your ability to leverage your own talents. For that reason, any task in your office that can be done by someone else, should be. But how to you become more effective, and comfortable, in delegating work in your office?
First, spend the time to select good employees. Second, invest more time in training them on the “hows” and “whys” of doing each job right. Then, create a structure for effective delegation. Make sure that all delegated duties have a due date, and that you have a system in place for checking up on tasks when they are due. This will both make sure that things don’t fall through the cracks and will also reinforce to your employees that you are serious about due dates. And remember that we all learn best through trial and error. Expect some mistakes and turn them into warm, supportive teaching opportunities that will encourage your employees to try even harder the next time.
This investment of time and effort in your delegation process will pay dividends in terms of your own productivity and your ability to be responsive to your clients over the long run.
Take Responsibility for Missing Data
Have you ever noticed something missing when you are searching in a service. Ever said to yourself, I have this document somewhere, why don’t they? Ever noticed a spelling error or a missing connection in a noteup record? If you were a Wikipedia editor, you would correct misinformation, right?
Today’s Tip: Be a Wikipedian, take responsibility for missing data.
By example, I sent this email to [email protected] – the “contact us” email for the Privy Council Office.
Subject: Gap in the Orders in Council Database
Hello, when reviewing recent orders in council this morning, I noticed a significant gap in data in the orders in council database located at http://pco-bcp.gc.ca/oic-ddc.asp?lang=eng&page=secretariats.
The gap is between:
________________________________________
2012-0211 2012-03-01 CIC
Act Citizenship Act
Subject CITIZENSHIP (3)
Precis Citizenship
Attachments 1-OIC / DDC________________________________________
2012-0092 2012-02-27 PMO
Act Public Service Employment Act
Precis Appointment of BILL JONES of Ottawa, Ontario, to be Deputy Commissioner of Revenue, to hold office during pleasure for a term of five years.
Attachments 1-OIC / DDCPlease alert me when the missing orders in council are included in the database.
Kind regards,
Shaunna Mireau
All of the Canadian legal publishers I have dealt with over the years have been happy to get feedback about database corrections. If you see an error, send a friendly email to have it corrected. It will help everyone.
Keyboard Shortcuts for Easily Changing Line Spacing in MS Word
You can change line spacing in Word by clicking on Format, selecting Paragraph, clicking on the Indents and spacing tab, and adjusting the spacing settings. Whew! That’s a lot of work. There is a better way.
Changing the line spacing in a Word document is very easy if you remember a few keyboard shortcuts:
- Pressing Ctrl+5 changes to 1.5 line spacing
- Pressing Ctrl+2 changes to double line spacing
- Pressing Ctrl+1 will give you single line spacing
If you are using Word for Mac, substitute the Command key for the Ctrl key.
Remember these keyboard shortcuts next time you need to change the line spacing in a Word document you are typing.
But for Those Darn Clients
If you spend any time at all with practicing lawyers, you will invariably hear one or more complain that the practice of law would be wonderful “… if it were not for having to deal with those darn clients.”
Many lawyers view their clients as an obstacle standing between them and getting the “real work” of practicing law done. The day is busy enough without all those clients calling, coming by the office without an appointment and needing to have their hands held.
While being available to your clients when they need, or think they need, you will, of necessity, limit the time you have left over for other things, you should, nevertheless, embrace the opportunity to spend time with your clients whenever possible. The trend toward ever-increasing billable hours tends to isolate lawyers in the office, working, and the lawyers who have the most client contact tend to report being the happiest in their practices. Besides, were it not for these “needy” people with their “never-ending” problems, your educations and skills would not be needed.
Your firm may not support you in your effort to take the time needed to build a strong relationship of trust with each and every client. You must always be thinking about hitting that billable-hour goal that’s hanging over your head. It doesn’t matter. This is an individual responsibility to your clients and your career. And your overall career satisfaction will be directly proportionate to the amount of time and effort you invest in client relationship building.
Researching Meeting Availability
I invite myself to meetings all the time, practice group meetings in particular. In our law firm we use Outlook scheduling, at least we try, to reduce the number of “is everyone free for a meeting at X time” emails and phone calls.
When you are meeting with folks outside your organization, you may want to try Doodle for the same effect. Doodle will let you propose meeting times, capture the preferred availability of people you would like to attend, and then assist with scheduling.
Check it out at http://www.doodle.com/.
Hat Tip to Annette Demers who writes for Slaw along with many other tasks and talents. Doodle was also mentioned in a Slaw post by Omar as an option for motion scheduling.
Are you using Doodle?
Use F2 and Tab to Quickly Rename Lots of Files in Windows Explorer
Renaming a file in Windows Explorer is very easy: Just select the file with a single click and press F2. This allows you to edit the file name. When you are done, click Enter to finish.
But what happens if you want to rename multiple files? Yes you can press F2 multiple times, but there is a better way!
When you need to rename multiple files, press F2 and edit the name of the first file as you normally would. But, don’t press Enter when you are done. Instead, press Tab. This will jump you to the next file in the list and it will select the entire filename so you can edit it. Just repeat the process for all the files you want to rename.
Willing to bet most of you didn’t know this one. 😉
Good Communications = Satisfied Clients
As Richard Ferguson, a lawyer friend of ours says on his email message:
“People may forget what you said….
People may forget what you did….
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Despite the fact that we lawyers make our living communicating, many of us don’t take steps to optimize client communications. This is a shame, because highly effective client communications leads to both great case outcomes that satisfy the client’s legal goals and a great lawyer-client relationship that can result in higher work satisfaction and repeat business and referrals. Accordingly, here are our suggested steps to improve client communications:
Find out the client’s preferred means of communication, and use it whenever possible. If you have teenaged kids, you’ve probably learned by now that a short text message will elicit a response much more quickly than an attempt to call or leave a voicemail message. Clients also have preferred means of communication and when you take the time to determine that method and then make it as easy as possible for the client to initiate communication or respond to your request for information, you make your client happy and make it easier to do your job.
Give your clients a structure within which to communicate. Everyone likes to know what to expect, and your clients are no different when it comes to communicating with you. While it’s great to use the client’s preferred means of communicating, you can’t always respond as quickly as the client would like. Prepare a written communications plan that lets your clients know how soon to expect to receive a response from various types of communications and who to contact if you are unable to respond within the stated time due to a trial or other cause.
Have someone in your office return all calls the day they were received. Study after study has shown that not returning phone calls promptly is a major factor in client dissatisfaction. Accordingly, make it a policy in your office that someone will return all calls they day they were received – even if it is to say that you are in court and won’t be able to get back to them that day. This demonstrates concern for the client – they understand that you are busy – we all are!! – but the act of simply acknowledging their call is an important one. Make your clients feel good about having selected you as their lawyer.
Current Awareness
There are two possible approaches to personal current awareness:
- Develop excellent searching skills so that you can find what you need when you need it
- Pick a fairly narrow specialty and read everything new about that that you can find
I often recommend the first approach to students or junior lawyers who haven’t decided their particular area of legal interest. Most lawyers I know make a best attempt at the second approach once they find their practice niche, but then most lawyers I know work at mid-size or larger firms where they refer things outside their niche area to colleagues, usually within their organization.
For all the generalists, who like to see a little taste of every area, and who subscribe to Westlaw Canada’s LawSource, there is the Canadian Abridgment eDigests. This weekly email list offers new digests added to the Canadian Abridgment by area of law and is shareable within the scope of the license agreement.
Here is an example of the Aboriginal Law eDigest archive and the Frequently Asked Questions about the product.
What is your favourite general current awareness tool?
Top 10 Financial Errors: #10 Rely on the Lottery for Your Partnership Retirement Plan
“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating” was said once by Oscar Wilde.
The final tip in this series is the capstone issue in our Top 10 Financial Mistakes posts – and one that we feel is facing most firms today.
This capstone issue is how to deal with the introduction of new partners while funding the buyout of existing but aging partners. Without a succession plan that compensates aging partners over time by establishing a retirement fund, the firm might be unable to attract new partners. The reason is that prospective partners who are on the upswing may very likely be unwilling to contribute their billings to fund the exit of a diminishing partner.
The whole issue of succession planning is a sensitive one. The founding partners of the firm would desire a certain degree of recognition for the risks and hard work and time that they put into building up the good will of the firm. The new entrants, however, are much more focused on the future of the firm and ensuring that capital is invested in the firm to ensure its competitiveness and ability to generate income moving forward.
Accordingly, this dialogue must be handled carefully. In many cases, an independent consultant may assist in keeping all parties involved in the dialogue and in crafting of the succession plan, since an independent party is not seen as having any stake in the discussions other than ensuring that all parties stay on track.
Otherwise, if you don’t deal with the issue of partnership retirement and succession, you are left to rely on the ‘lottery retirement plan’ – which basically means hoping to win the lottery in order to retire.
We close these financial mistakes posts by urging lawyers to make planning – particularly succession planning – part of your partnership agreement at the outset to ensure the future of your firm down the road.
Deciphering Acroynyms
I wrote about the trouble I have with Acronyms yesterday at Slaw. Today’s Tip: Use an Acronym Dictionary!
I have a nice little book on my reference shelves called Acrobuster. It is a dictionary of Canadian English acronyms, initialisms and abbreviations. It is available in these libraries. There are other print sources, but I like this one because it is Canadian.
There are also online Abbreviation or Acronym Dictionaries:
Abbreviations.com
Internet Slang Dictionary & Translator
Acronyms and Abbreviations from Businessballs.com
Acronyms search tab at The Free Dictionary
Do you have any favourite sources?
