Law office management programs
stall at North Carolina, Nevada bars
By Faye A. Silas
Law office management programs at the North Carolina State Bar and the State Bar of Nevada have ended after their directors resigned and the bars reviewed the bottom line.
In North Carolina, the bar officially says its pioneering Lawyers Management Assistance Program (LMAP) has been dropped since its director, Nancy Byerly Jones, resigned last summer. No effort is being made to resurrect it since the program's cost exceeded the number of lawyers seeking assistance.
In Nevada, the Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP) ended with the resignation of its director, Jan Lewellyn-Davidson, in January. Since then, the board has offered outsourced services upon request. Also, the diversion program, that was originally a part of LOMAP, is now under the discipline department and the general counsel.
While programs have stalled in these two bars, 10 other state bars offer law office management programs with a full-time director, according to Charlotte Stretch of Chicago, special counsel in the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility. Law office management programs are designed to help lawyers learn about office management skills, such as client communication, calendar upkeep, trust account rules, docket control, among other nuts and bolts operations. of an office.
In 1991, the ABA Commission on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement produced the far-reaching McKay Report (unofficially named after its chair, Robert McKay, of New York), which recommended that law office management programs be mandated by the courts.
"These should not necessarily be money-making programs. The report recommended that they be mandated by the courts and operated or assisted by the state bars," says T. Richard Kennedy of New York, chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Discipline and Joint Committee on Lawyer Regulation.
The committee is supportive of law office management programs that provide direct assistance to lawyers who commit minor infractions such as missing deadlines, neglect or lack of diligence in a case.
While Nevada's program was designed with a diversion component, others, such as North Carolina's, are unrelated to the disciplinary system.
LMAP began at the unified North Carolina bar in 1993. Among the first of its kind, the program included about 90 to 110 annual on-site assessments, telephone assistance, and tailored material to help guide lawyers in private practice. The program also accepted disciplinary referrals from the Grievance Committee, which averaged about 10 percent of the caseload, or about 12 referred clients per year.
Jones, a lawyer, was hired to create and design LMAP services based on her experience working for a malpractice insurance carrier. However, as the program progressed, she was overwhelmed with work and felt clients deserved more time. She ultimately resigned in August 1997.
"We developed an 18-month backlog since we were only able to give (clients) just one day a year," says Jones.
When a lawyer called for an on-site visit, Jones could only promise a date 12 to 18 months in the future, although earlier appointments could be made when other firms cancelled or changed their scheduled dates. About 25 to 75 different firms could be waiting at any one time for either their first visit or a revisit, and an average of two new requests per week contributed to the backlog. About 98 percent of the participants requested additional on-site visits or other services, while telephone calls continued to come into the office daily, she adds.
Since her resignation, Jones formed Nancy Byerly Jones and Associates in Chapel Hill, N.C., to provide management consulting, employee training and mediation, temporary legal administrator services, and retreat facilitation.
Jones believes that state bars, law schools and others in the legal system should work together to help lawyers improve their law office management skills to avoid problems that may hurt consumers and, ultimately, the profession. "No one entity can do it all. Every entity should do its part," she says.
The North Carolina bar has since abandoned the program ,although a formal vote to end it was never taken by the bar's board, says Thomas Lunsford of Raleigh, executive director of the North Carolina State Bar. The LMAP budget in mid-1993 was $125,000, compared to about $210,000 in 1997. Charges for the services were on a sliding scale based on how many lawyers were in the firm. Full-day fees ranged from $400 plus expenses for a one- to two-lawyer firm to $1,100 plus expenses for a firm of 15 or more lawyers.
"We've come to the conclusion that although the program was a success because it helped a number of people who received quality service and aided them in law office management, it did not warrant the magnitude of the investment," he says. Because the program relied heavily upon on-site assessments, it could not reach more of the bar's 17,000 members, adds Lunsford. Demand for the program had grown, but the bar could just satisfy a fraction of members at a time.
On April 17, the bar's board decided to use that budget money to expand the impaired lawyers assistance program for substance abuse to include emotional and mental impairments.
In the meantime, law firms are not without law office management assistance. "A valuable service can be made available through the private sector, and Jones is living proof of that," Lunsford says, adding that she did an excellent job and has a good reputation in this area.
The State Bar of Nevada's LOMAP started in 1996 when the Nevada bar hired Lewellyn-Davidson, who had more than 25 years of experience as a court administrator, legal assistant and lobbyist. She provided on-site law office assessments, general office management consultation, among other services. In 1997, the LOMAP added referrals from the disciplinary board in order to help enhance lawyer skills about trust accounts, communications and other areas. With about 5,000 lawyers in Nevada, a broad range of questions came in to the program, including those dealing with technology, accounting, communications and discipline.
"Once we announced the program and marketed it, the phone was ringing off the hook," Lewellyn-Davidson says.
However, problems arose from the very beginning. First, the program was connected to the discipline arm, which often created issues about confidentiality. Next, on-site visits to remote areas of the state often took several days, thereby reducing the actual number of on-site visits each year.
"Sometimes it would take about three days of staff time for travel, even before they could do the report. So another question arose. Do we then charge more for the service because of the office location" says Wayne Blevins of Las Vegas, the bar's executive director.
Two fee structures--one for non-referrals and the other for the discipline referrals--were divided into tiers. For example, non-referrals would pay $30 per hour for telephone or in-office consultations. On-site evaluations ranged from $35 to $85 per hour, depending on the size of the firm. On the other hand, discipline referrals paid a $50 processing fee, a $300 flat fee for an initial review with up to four hours of on-site consultation and written analysis, plus $100 for each hour after the first four hours. A $150 fee was charged for furnishing monthly monitoring reports to the state bar counsel, discipline panel or state Supreme Court (whatever was applicable).
"Looking back, we should have been more definitive in our expectations and goals. But it was so new to us and everyone else," Blevins says. Creating both the LOMAP and the diversion programs together under one department was an incredible amount of work and responsibility for the director and the bar, he explains.
"It was too much to be taken on at one time. We should have taken incremental steps. And then there wasn't a real groundswell of support for it," he adds about the membership.
While the program was well budgeted, Blevins says it was not a money maker. In 1997, the budget was $107,200 with anticipated revenues of about $30,700. Actual revenue was about $13,000. The projected program budget for 1998 was $131,502. However, Lewellyn-Davidson then resigned to start her own consulting firm. "Going into this, the bars and their leadership weren't aware that the program was not going to be a revenue-raising effort," she says. Bar leaders must decide if LOMAP is a member service or a financially self-supporting entity. During her tenure, Lewellyn-Davidson says she provided 200 firms with telephone and in-office advice and service, performed about a half-dozen on-site office assessments annually, and worked closely with discipline referrals. She also helped maintain a law office resource library and negotiated for special pricing of computer hardware and software for members.
"We also made it possible for lawyers in rural Nevada to establish accounts with urban supply houses to purchase supplies and have them delivered at rates which were unavailable in their locales," she recalls.
In January, Lewellyn-Davidson resigned effective Feb. 28. "While I understand the budgetary constraints of running the bar office, I find that I can no longer carry out all of the clerical and secretarial functions of LOMAP while still delivering statewide services in a professional and competent fashion. I care too deeply about the welfare of our members to sacrifice the latter in any way," she explains in her resignation letter.
In March, she started her own firm called Jan Lewellyn-Davidson Consulting Services, in Las Vegas, which provides law office management, malpractice liability exposure and risk management consultations, as well as seminar and retreat facilitation.
Since Lewellyn-Davidson left, the bar may provide a list of consultants and firms that will offer discounted services to lawyers seeking assistance in such areas as technology and accounting, explains Blevins.
However, Lewellyn-Davidson believes that LOMAP is a member benefit. "Perhaps LOMAP-type services don't belong in the bar. It depends on each bar. It costs money, and perhaps it's a financial drain on bar funds. But LOMAP is definitely a member benefit," she says.
