All Our Tips
Watch for Trends
Today’s Tip is about looking outside your borders for trends. You decide where your borders are – your department, your organization, your city, perhaps your country.
A tweet by Darin Thompson inspired this post:
@darin_thompson: It’s on! #ODR to become a part of the legal landscape in the European Union
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-192_en.htm?locale=en
I believe that Online Dispute Resolution and Alternative Dispute Resolution are trends to watch. What trends are you watching?
Don’t Embarrass Yourself: Read Before Retweeting
You can retweet something in an instant with just a few taps or clicks. Tap, tap and zoom – the RT goes to all your followers. You get a good feeling when you retweet something that your followers will enjoy or find really helpful.
But, what if the link in the retweet doesn’t exactly say what the tweet suggests it does? Or, what if the contents of the link make statements that you just don’t agree with? Or, what if the tweet suggests the link contains something really good, but it really is a few hollow statements making a weak sales pitch? Or, what if the link takes you to some NSFW (not-suitable-for work) content?
Oops! In each of these four scenarios you will have unhappy followers,
Remember that friends and strangers alike will judge by your words and retweeted links. The lesson is simple: always read the links in any tweet you intend to retweet.
And a bonus tip (addressing one of my biggest pet peaves): if you are going to tweet or retweet something that requires a registration or login, please explicitly state this is the case.
Tweet with care and caution!
Collaboration Law Firm Style Part Three
Moving beyond Cooperation
Collaboration has many benefits. There are a few pitfalls and difficulties to avoid. But with solid leadership, a law firm can overcome the potential difficulties and achieve real results by adopting a collaborative model.
According to Morten T. Hansen, author of “Collaboration – How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity and Reap Big Results“, the goal of collaboration is not collaboration but greater results. Greater results is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you are able to successfully adapt your firm to the new model.
(GJW: With better results as the ultimate goal, it makes sense to get practical about identifying where we would like to see those better outcomes.
How do we do that? Here is what I suggest.
Schedule a meeting for your practice group. Identify a recurring task or set of related tasks that might be handled more efficiently and effectively. Discuss how these targeted tasks can be shared, divided and optimized. Consider what processes can be developed to handle these tasks better as a group. Focus on maximizing each individual’s acknowledged strengths while contributing at an appropriate service-level, junior, senior or otherwise. Build a standardized new routine for all, using the best input received from your group. Try it, hone it, review it, and keep improving it as a group.)
Now lawyers are not, by training or by practice, big collaborators. Rather, law school and legal practice have taught us to be skilled adversaries. We have a bigger hurdle than most to overcome to turn ourselves into collaborators.
I have often heard that lawyers are more skilled at tearing apart an idea – finding its weaknesses – than they are at creating synergies and looking for ways to make things work. While finding the weaknesses in proposals is useful, such an approach works strongly against anyone proposing any new ideas on how to bring about change. And that is not healthy in terms of having a law firm grow and change to meet new challenges.
(GJW: It’s not healthy, that is, unless we begin to use those well-honed critical skills to break down, analyze and seriously evaluate which of our firms’ processes have become outdated and then, begin a collective discovery of our groups’ low-hanging, untapped opportunities for improvement.)
There is no doubt that the world is changing to more of a collaborative model. We are facing the fact that we have to change or the world will change without us.
John Chambers Cisco CEO and Chairman, perhaps said it best:
I believe that companies and leaders who do not change will be left behind. And so I had to move from being a command and control leader. You have to learn that you make better decisions through collaboration.
Command and control is not unknown in law firms. But we need to move past that into true collaboration. Problem is, this is hard.
In an article in Forbes Magazine entitled “Why Teams Don’t Collaborate”, Ron Ashkenas said that it is often easier to ‘say you are doing collaboration’ – than actually getting up and doing it. He continues:
True collaboration is difficult and time-consuming. It requires subordinating individual goals to collective achievement; it means engaging in tough, emotional give-and-take discussions with colleagues about strategies and ideas; and it often leads to working in new ways that may not be comfortable or easy. So given these difficulties, most teams find it easier to talk about collaboration rather than do it.
We want law firms to move beyond just talking about collaboration and actually integrate it into their business practices.
So how can we do this? According to Ashkenas, teams start first with compliance. Everyone on the team complies with the need to do something, but there is very little discussion or coordination between the team members.
Next is cooperation. Now everyone is still drawing their own plans, but at least now they are sharing what they are doing with the group. But the overall characterization is still on individual action.
Lastly is true collaboration. Here all the team members not only share their plans but they brainstorm together on generating new ideas of how to achieve the joint goals that transcend individual action. And by working together, they can achieve outstanding results.
(GJW: By centering our collaborative discussions around specific, individual tasks and focusing on how the processes utilized to perform them can be streamlined, regularized and optimized, we can avoid many of the pitfalls David discusses. And remember, a true law firm collaboration won’t just involve J.D.’s and LL.B’s – don’t underestimate how much value and insight our assistants, law clerks, paralegals, articling students and other collaborators will add in these discussions.)
We need to move law firms into the final stage – true collaboration – but to do so we have to find a way to move beyond our inherent training and find ways to not just comply, not just cooperate, but seek out ways to move the adversarial boundary to outside the law firm. We can compete with other firms – and near-legal competitors who are eating our lunch – better by collaborating within the firm and finding new ways to bring about synergy and creativity, by exercising leadership and vision to achieve true collaboration.
We are stronger together.
Use the Telephone
I have mentioned in the past that calling a friend can be a fast path to a research answer. It can also be a quick path to resolution of a technical problem. With email and web forms being the new normal for business communication, it may simply be that a phone call or well thought out voicemail message is different enough to be ‘noticed’.
As an example, we have been having technical problems with a website database recently. The form to report technical difficulty used several times garnered zero response. A voice mail message to the organization did set a resolution in motion. For a variety of reasons I am not willing to share the site, but the telephone was the path to a solution.
Have you noticed a particular communication method getting a better or faster result?
Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts for Navigating MS Outlook
Keeping your hands on the keyboard is always faster than reaching to the mouse for a few clicks. Here are some handy keyboard shortcuts for basic navigation in Microsoft Outlook:
- Switch to Mail: CTRL+1
- Switch to Calendar: CTRL+2
- Switch to Contacts: CTRL+3
- Switch to Tasks: CTRL+4
- Switch to Notes: CTRL+5
- Switch to Folder List in Navigation Pane: CTRL+6
- Switch to Shortcuts: CTRL+7
- Next item (with item open): CTRL+COMMA
- Previous item (with item open): CTRL+PERIOD
- Switch between the Folder List and the main Outlook window: F6 or CTRL+SHIFT+TAB
- Move among the Outlook window, the Navigation Pane, and the Reading Pane: TAB
- Move around within the Navigation Pane: Arrow keys
- Go to a different folder: CTRL+Y
- Expand/collapse a group (with a group selected) in the Navigation Pane: PLUS or MINUS SIGN on the numeric keypad
- Collapse/expand a group in the e-mail message list: Left and right arrow keys
Learn these shortcuts to quickly navigate around Outlook.
Collaboration Law Firm Style, Part Two.
Collaboration: Breaking Each Task Down into its Many Parts
Picking up on last week’s post, let us start with a basic assumption – there’s nothing ad hoc about how successful law practice groups collaborate.
It takes real planning and repetition to create an optimal, collaborative work-flow routine.
Now, by practice group, we don’t necessarily mean anything highfaluting.
In a solo practice, it may simply be a lawyer and a single assistant. Or a single lawyer and outsourced collaborators. A larger group model, operating as a stand-alone boutique or as one corner within a larger firm structure, might involve a senior lawyer, a junior lawyer, a law clerk and a student-at-law working together.
There are infinite variations on this theme, but irrespective of the size of your group, the questions for planners and team-players remain the same: Who can handle each small step involved in completing a single, broader task most competently? Most efficiently? Most cost-effectively? How can seamless handoffs be achieved? What structures can be developed to enable each contributor to maximize his or her value added?
By breaking major tasks down into smaller component parts, rational systems can be developed that allow tasks to be optimally shared among your practice group.
Consider what’s involved in drafting a pleading or other important litigation document, and think about these questions:
1. Who should be the group’s time/task keeper – the person who identifies what task is next required, notes when it must be completed and manages the group’s tickler and bring-forward systems?
2. How does the first working draft of a document get generated? Is it possible to standardize part of it? Can a law clerk or assistant – or software – produce a preliminary working version (or at least get it started) by setting up a template and filling in many of the necessary blanks like dates, times, names, and key information fields? What efficiencies and cost-savings to clients can be achieved at this stage?
3. Is background work, like research or document-vetting necessary to the task? How can this work be completed most time and cost effectively?
4. Who is best suited to take on the major step of working with this preliminary version, customizing it and completing a comprehensive first draft for senior counsel’s review. Who is best suited to adding strategic content and reference relevant documents? Can a law clerk or junior associate handle the heavy lifting here?
5. When is the document ready for senior counsel to add his or her contributions to get to a final draft? Is a preliminary review phase appropriate, for suggested top-line revisions and comments from the senior, before the document is returned to the associate for completion and final review? Should the senior simply run with the ball at this stage to completion? What will work best? Where can time and costs be saved and efficiencies maximized?
5. Compilation and delivery: Once a draft is complete, whose job is it to assemble the final document and ensure it gets where it needs to get when it is supposed to get there? What client approvals or attendances must be facilitated? Who needs to be copied? Who ensures that all team members see the final product?
With many eyes and many hands on an important task, mutual accountability is assured. And to the extent that two heads are often better than one, better work product will typically emerge from the group that collaborates effectively within a well- defined system.
If it seems complicated, it really isn’t.
However, you have to be prepared for the fact that lawyers are not, by nature and by training, collaborators. In fact one definition of collaboration is “Something that isn’t taught in law school but is taught in business school.” Why? Businesses have woken up to the fact that well-functioning collaborative teams produce a better product that individuals working alone. So business schools force people to work in highly effective teams to prepare them for their work experience. As lawyers, we are late to this game and have to play a bit of catch-up. S’ok …we are quick studies!
So to move ahead, the most important step is to resolve to change how you do things and put yourself and your teams on a good collaborative footing.
Take a moment and analyze your needs and think about how to build systems that will bring out the best in your group. In fact, get your practice group members involved in the building!
In other words, collaborate.
Dead Space
We all have them – those days where it feels like your imagination shrugs its metaphorical shoulders, gives you an apologetic half-grin, and heads to Fiji. You’re stuck – you can’t engage with your work, or generate new ideas. Douglas Adams described it best: The Long, Dark Tea-time of the Soul. Here are a few tips to help you endure.
- Set the bar low – this isn’t going to last forever, so don’t be your worst enemy. Populate your to-do list with tasks that don’t require a lot of creativity, but still make you feel like you’ve accomplished something. You have them – clearing your inbox, weeding files, shelf reading. Basic housekeeping tasks that on your best days are not worthy of you are perfect for now.
- Work your network – your imagination may be on hiatus, but you know lots of lively, interesting people. Go talk to them. Book a coffee with your mentor or protégé. Have lunch with a favourite client or colleague. DO NOT whine about your problems – instead, ask them about what they’re working on. Absorb their energy. Ask questions. Be inspired.
- Read – now’s the time to wade through the stack of professional publications and the backlog of blogs that has been accumulating. Personally, I avoid overly academic journals – I want something more sprightly and energizing. The Harvard Business Review blogs, TechCrunch, Bored Panda – all of these can be sources of inspiration. Don’t spend the whole day with text, but an hour or so may present you with some ideas worth exploring when your own creative juices are flowing again.
- Move – go to the gym, get outside, do something physical. Perhaps the blood which should be circulating through your brain has pooled lower down. Get your heart pumping.
Editors note: This research tip was shared by Wendy Reynolds. I love Wendy’s suggestion to use dead space to read – keep up with that pile of current awareness material. Thanks for sharing this Wendy.
For a Quick Exit Remember to Use the Escape Key
In the top left corner of most PC and Mac keyboards is the humble and underused Escape key. It is labelled Esc on PC keyboards and esc on Mac keyboards.
On both PCs and Macs, pressing the Escape key usually cancels or aborts the current operation. To put it another way, the Escape key is the “get me outta here” option for many things. These include closing an open dialog box, getting rid of a button-less splash screen and closing a menu that you clicked on.
In most browsers, hitting the Escape key will stop a page from downloading. This is handy when a page has locked up or when it is downloading very slowly and you decide to go elsewhere.
Remember the Escape key next time you want to jump back a step.
Collaboration, Law Firm Style, Part One.
Collaboration: An introduction.
It’s a pleasure to commence my SlawTips collaboration with David Bilinsky by focussing on…
What else?
Collaboration: Law firm, style.
And by that I simply mean assessing how your practice group works together, and seeing whether adding some planning, systems and efficiencies might increase the sum of your group’s parts.
We’ll be looking at this in a bit of depth over the next few weeks. For now, an introduction.
Allow me to pose some serious questions at the outset.
How does your law firm optimize its intra-firm collaborations? Does your practice group really work together? Do you give much thought to ensuring individual contributors play to their strengths? Do you have seniors doing junior work and juniors doing senior work? Does your team perform as well as it could?
And who’s steering the ship, anyways?
Now David and I may indeed come at this question of collaboration from different perspectives in the legal universe. However, one thing my BC colleague has in common with this Toronto lad is local experience with the Brian Burke school of general management and team-building. (I agree Gary – that collaboration is all about bringing out the best in all team members in order that the group is much stronger than the sum of the individuals. And that Brian could do that in spades).
I’d suggest the approach required to build and maintain a winning team on the ice has much in common with the development and management of a successful law practice group.
Sports analogies are nearly irresistible, of course, in this sort of discussion, but who could resist the ideal of a well-oiled professional team, benefitting from carefully-recruited and talented contributors, well-defined roles and a coherent system, precisely and enthusiastically executed? (And Dave here..using the right technology to facilitate the collaborative process!!)
How might this kind of planning be translated from the coach’s corner to the corner office of your professional practice?
Let’s talk about it…
Never Start From Scratch
The fastest path is one that you have already traveled. The sign posts are familiar and likely the vehicle as well. You will know how to get where you are going and likely how long your trip will be. This is as true for legal research as it is for your daily commute.
Look to your prior work product. While each client has a unique situation, there are enough similarities in the issues that they bring you that you will be able to use your experience for the best research outcomes.
Keep and search your work product (research memos, opinion letters, advice you give in an email, notices, briefs, pleadings, factums, etc.) so that you don’t have to start each research problem from scratch.
An inspiration Hat Tip to the new APLEN Training Centre, a resource launched yesterday for libraries to share their training materials and learn from the collective experience of library staff. The Training Centre developed by the Alberta Public Library Electronic Network is available to the public as well as to libraries.
