You’ve heard other lawyers say this phrase often: “I don’t have enough time in the day.” There’s a reason for this—you don’t value your time. That’s right, you are doing tasks that you should never do and as a result, you don’t have enough time in the workday and you are continually stressed out (I’m guilty too sometimes).
Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, coined the phrase, “Unique Ability”. Your “Unique Ability” are those activities that you love doing and you do them better than anyone else. Most lawyers spend 10-15% of their workday in their Unique Ability. Why? You allow yourself to do tasks that others can do. You should strive to spend 85% of your workday in your “Unique Ability”—that’s where the magic happens.
When you live and work in your Unique Ability, you love going to work. You can’t wait to do the things you love to do and every day is new and exciting. Seem crazy? This is the future that you must envision. And if you don’t value your time, no one else will.
5 Tasks that You Hate Doing
You begin by writing down the 5 tasks that you hate doing. This is not hard—you are likely already doing these tasks right now.
- Administrative tasks of running the law firm.
- Drafting discovery responses and demands and motions.
- Intervening in the inter-office squabbles among team members.
- Speaking with clients about the status of their cases.
- Intake phone calls with prospective clients.
5 Tasks That You Love Doing
Next, begin a list of the 5 tasks that you love and do better than anyone.
- Strategic planning for the future of the law firm.
- Creating marketing plans for the law firm.
- Engaging with existing and new referral partners.
- Analyzing potential cases with experts.
- Creating new policies and systems for law firms.
Delegate to Elevate
Next, take the 5 tasks that you hate doing and begin delegating them to others in your firm or virtual assistants. Where do you begin? You should not manage your calendar and appointments. Delegate this task to a team member or part-time virtual assistant.
You should not be involved in intake calls unless the lead is pre-qualified for merit and you want to take the call. Spend your resources on building a kick-ass intake team who expresses compassion and caring with every call.
You should not accept unscheduled phone calls. Someone in your firm should manage your calendar and whenever possible, answer your clients’ questions. If your team member can’t answer the question, they must schedule an appointment with your client at a designated block of time, e.g., 4 to 5 p.m.
Take an Inventory of Your Time
Take an inventory of what you do every day. Hire a high school student to spend a couple of days with you and have them track exactly how you spend your time in 15-minute increments. Next, have the student create a list of the tasks that you’ve done and the cases that you’ve worked on.
Are you spending time on your “A” cases (e.g., a case with a settlement value of at least $1 million) that will make the most money for your firm? Ideally, you should not spend a single minute on the “C” and “D” cases that have somehow found a way into your firm.
If you’re doing administrative work that can be done by a secretary (e.g., administrative tasks or taking intake calls), you value your time at $25/hour. If you’re engaged in paralegal work (e.g., drafting discovery demands and responses), then you value your time at $100/per hour. If you’re doing depositions and trials, you value your time at $500/hour. If you are the CEO, you value your time at $5,000/hour.
Upgrade Your Law Firm with “A” Players
Are there tasks that team members hate and you’re not getting the results your clients deserve? Find “A” players outside of your law firm and outsource these tasks. Others can do the tasks better than you and this will save time and money for your law firm.
Lien Resolution: At the beginning of every lawsuit, we contact Precision Resolution (www.PrecisionResolution.com) in Buffalo, N.Y. Paul K. Isaac, Esq. and his team of attorneys and case managers at Precision Resolution are masters at lien resolution and Medicare Set Aside Trusts. There’s no one better in the business of lien resolution.
We have seen first-hand amazing results from the work of Precision Resolution. Massive six-figure Medicare and Medicaid liens have been eliminated or reduced close to zero, and you will look like a hero for your clients. Outsourcing lien resolution has been a no-brainer for our law firm—our clients win with fantastic results and the expense is reimbursable at the end of the case.
Ask for Paul R. Loudenslager, Esq. if you want to give Precision Resolution a trial run. You won’t regret it.
Probate/Surrogate’s Court: In wrongful death and infant compromise cases, we outsource the work to an expert in probate and Surrogate’s Court. The expert has 11 years of experience as a Surrogate’s Court Justice and he is a master in probate and Surrogate’s Court law and procedure. At the end of the probate court, our expert receives his legal fee from the distribution of the client’s settlement funds. We pay nothing upfront and our client receives stellar representation.
This is a win for our clients. Our clients have an expert working for them and our team does not have to spend time drafting the probate documents for approval in a wrongful death case.
Medical Records Retrieval: Why spend time tracking down medical records when someone else can do this work? This is not the highest and best use of your time (or anyone else’s, for that matter).
ChartSquad, a medical records retrieval company in Utah, is a strong advocate for injury victims and they will only accept medical records in digital format in a patient portal. Across this industry, there are many companies vying for your work, but make sure they share your values and will only accept medical records in digital format. We would not work with a medical records retrieval company that works, even a little, for the insurance industry. We do not want to help support the insurance industry.
Automation and E-Commerce: Automate everything you can, including follow-up with clients, sales of books, and mastermind fees. Brett Farr, and his team at Blick Digital (www.BlickDigital.com), are responsive and experts at automation. Just tell the team at Blick Digital what you want them to do, and you can let them do the rest.
With your intake management software, you can collect emails from prospective clients and automatically send a series of video emails explaining your firm’s processes for reviewing a new case. By the time the new client speaks with a lawyer, they will know exactly what to expect from your firm. This is the power of automation.
Content for Your Website: You should not write the content for your website, as this is not the best use of your time. Go to the law review of your local law school and hire a couple of their best writers for $15/hour.
Tell the law students that you need at least 1 new article for your website every day. The blog posts can be short, e.g., 200 to 400 words, but they must be relevant to your practice area and relate to newsworthy events in your region.
Demand Excellence from Your Vendors
If a vendor is not getting the work done as they should, be brutally honest with them. Recently, I complained to our firm’s Chief Operating Officer that the probate work was not getting done as quickly as I wanted. Our COO responded, “Then, you have to be brutally honest with him.” (brutal honesty is one of our firm’s core values). I called our probate lawyer, shared my concerns and a couple of days later, the work got done.
The Power of a Chief Operating Officer
You have so many things to do and so little time. Write down a list of the top 10 things you’d like to get done for your law firm.
- Launch a digital marketing campaign for construction injuries.
- Change the name of the law firm to a trade name.
- Send a brochure to all plaintiff’s lawyers in New York State about referral relationships with your firm.
- Get CPR and AED training for team members with the American Heart Association.
Next, hire a Chief Operating Officer to get the work done over the next 90 days. Set specific “rocks” over a 90-day period and meet weekly with your COO to discuss the progress on their rocks. Authorize your COO to delegate tasks and make purchasing decisions without your approval. Let your COO know that you trust them and you are not afraid of making mistakes. This is where the magic happens.
Other lawyers in your community might tell you that you don’t need a COO or that your firm is too small for a COO. Don’t listen to the naysayers. You won’t have a world-class law firm without a leadership team and a COO to get things done. You can’t do this alone.
How to be More Productive Than You’ve Ever Been
When you really need to get work done, tell your team that you need 2-3 hours or an entire day as a “Focus Day” (another phrase coined by Dan Sullivan). A focus day means that no one can distract you, even for a second, and they must be mindful and protective of your time. You will be amazed at how much you can get done during a focus day.
And when a team member complains that they are overwhelmed and don’t have enough time to do the work, give them permission to have a “focus day”. No interruptions or distractions, just work focused on a single task/project. Let’s say that need to file a lawsuit, but your paralegal is overwhelmed by other work. Give them a focus day to get the work done. If someone tries to interrupt them, remind them that it is a focus day and that cannot be even a single distraction. Your team members will appreciate that you value and respect their time.
