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Why Every Member of Your Law Firm Should have a Scorecard

Every member of your law firm should have a number that measures their productivity. Why? If the team members don’t have a number to measure their productivity, they won’t know if their doing well. And that’s not good for you or them.

“Our Paralegals’ Scorecard” is our policy for measuring the productivity of our paralegals.


Our Paralegals’ Scorecard

What This Is:

“Our Paralegals’ Scorecard” is how we measure the productivity of our paralegals.

Why We Do It This Way:

The key to moving our cases through litigation is dependent on the timeliness of serving discovery responses. If we do not timely serve discovery responses upon defendants’ attorneys, our cases will languish and our clients will not get the results that they deserve.  

How We Do This:

Every paralegal on our team should keep track of their ROCKS. A ROCK is the number that measures your success at work.  Serving discovery responses is the top priority for our paralegals.

ROCKS are a tool to improve accountability. The most important ROCK for the accountability of our paralegals is the number of discovery responses served upon defendants’ attorneys.

To receive credit for ROCKS, the discovery responses and demands must be signed by the attorney and mailed to defendants’ attorneys. Our paralegals will not receive credit for creating a discovery response unless it has been served upon the defendants’ attorneys.

The team member should report their ROCKS TOTAL by the end of work on Friday of every week.  The GOAL for each team member: At least 20 ROCKS/Week.

If you need more time to meet your goals for the week, ask for a FOCUS DAY. During a FOCUS DAY, you will have no interruptions and can focus on the work that you need to get done.

BONUS ROCKS: When discovery responses and demands are served within 30 days of our receipt of the defendants’ discovery demands, you will receive DOUBLE ROCKS for each discovery response/demand/bill of particulars.

Pursuant to CPLR section 3120, our discovery responses and bills of particulars must be served upon defendants’ attorneys within 30 days our receipt of the defendants’ discovery demands.  The timely service of discovery responses and demands shows that our law firm takes deadlines seriously and we are focused on moving our cases aggressively through discovery.

How to Earn ROCKS

Bill of Particulars: 10 ROCKS for every Bill of Particulars (i.e., if you serve 4 bills of particulars in the same lawsuit (when there are multiple defendants in a lawsuit, each of them will serve their own Demand for a Bill of Particulars), you receive 40 ROCKS).

Discovery Demand: 1 ROCK

Discovery Response: 1 ROCK

Release Authorizations:  1 ROCK for every 5 release authorizations served, e.g., serving 20 release authorizations earns 4 ROCKS.

Notice of Commencement of Medical Malpractice: 2 ROCKS

Notice of Deposition: 1 ROCK

Subpoena and Notice of Deposition: 2 ROCKS

Confirmed Deposition of a Plaintiff or Defendant: 5 ROCKS

Confirmed Deposition of a Non-Party Witness: 3 ROCKS

Letter Objecting to Defendants’ Discovery Demands:  2 ROCKS

Objecting to Defendants’ Discovery Demands:  We have a standard form letter objecting to the defendants’ discovery demands. Pursuant to CPLR section 3122(a), we must serve the objection letter upon defendants’ attorneys within 30 days of our receipt of the defendants’ discovery demands. 

In the absence of a timely objection to the defendants’ discovery demands, we waive our objection to any improper discovery demands, e.g., a discovery demand for our client’s income tax returns is almost always objectionable.

SCORECARD REVIEW: At the end of the work week (Friday at 5 p.m.), you should report your ROCKS that you accomplished for that week.  For every ROCK, you should report that they were either “Done” or “Not Done”. There is no such thing as 95% completed.

We will review your Scorecard at our Daily Huddle on the following Monday.


Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay 

Leave a comment below telling me what surprised, inspired or taught you the most (I personally respond to every comment). And if you disagree with my take on running a personal injury law firm, or have a specific, actionable tip, I’d love to hear from you.
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