Law Practice Today

When you hire or receive your first legal assistant, you may not know how to manage your legal assistant -- let alone yourself. This article is designed to give you some helpful hints for working with your first legal assistant.

The first time that you have someone working for you, it can be quite scary. Especially if he or she is older or more experienced than you, it may be very intimidating. Managing an employee can be especially challenging if the legal assistant has a difficult or dominating personality. He or she may be quite comfortable running the office and you.

After I had been practicing on my own for two years, I made the mistake of hiring a legal assistant who was extremely controlling and significantly older than I. I would give her instructions on how I wanted a letter to the client to look and she would ignore me and write the letter how she thought it should be written. It was very difficult to remember that I was the boss and she needed to follow my instructions on how things needed to be done in my office. I had to keep reminding myself that this was my office – that I had worked so hard to get – and I needed to make sure that the letters going out the door represented the standard of what I wanted. If she had not made the mistake of looking for a new job on my time and on my computer and gotten fired, we would have continued to have power struggles over who was in charge of the office and how things should be done.

My first legal assistant was much easier to deal with. She was more experienced than I was about the law and how things in a law office actually work. I was so grateful that she knew how to issue a subpoena (do not forget to invite the court reporter) and what the standard was for obtaining a restraining order. Unfortunately, whether it is easy or hard, you are the hierarchical leader and the one who is responsible for the legal assistant’s professional conduct. See ABA Model Rule 5.3 Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistants.

Not only does law school not prepare you for how to practice law, law school does not teach you how to manage, encourage and supervise your legal assistant.

 

Managing Projects With Your Legal Assistant

Remember that you need balance in how you manage projects that you delegate to your legal assistant. You do not want to be hovering over your legal assistant’s shoulder asking when a project will be completed and you do not want an important project to be set aside or forgotten. Tell your legal assistant how to and how frequently you want him or her to communicate with you during the day about tasks in progress. Do you want your legal assistant to write you a note, send you an email, send an instant message or drop into your office? In our office, we use Windows Messenger to send each other instant messages about questions or comments that we have about client matters. We also use our case management program (Time Matters) to record to-do items and when they are completed.

Remember that asking your legal assistant to report back after every task will likely interrupt the flow of work and make your legal assistant feel like you are treating them like a kindergartener. Try to reserve the request for immediate information after a task is completed for very important urgent tasks. For example, do not hesitate to ask your legal assistant immediately what the Court said, what happened with continuing the hearing, or is the client coming in today to sign documents.

When you first begin working with your legal assistant, going over the expectations will take extra time. Hopefully, your legal assistant will learn your style, and what you expect. The goal is to get to a place where you are confident that your legal assistant did the work correctly and on time.

 

Encourage Your Legal Assistant

You will have to learn how to go over completed tasks and give information about things that can be improved. It can be difficult to learn how to give feedback that is helpful and complete. Try to tell your legal assistant what he or she is doing correctly and what areas need improvement. For example, “thank you for taking the initiative to find out the answer to the question that the client had and call them back….and you need to be more careful about checking your spelling.” Sometimes managers make the mistake of only giving negative criticism because they want to be seen as strong. Do not forget that positive constructive criticism can be a good motivator. Make sure that you compliment your assistant on a job well done. If you do not say anything, your legal assistant may believe that you disapprove and your silence can be very discouraging.

You also want to think about what rewards might be appropriate for your legal assistant. Each person is different and you need to understand what motivates that person. Not everyone is motivated by the money. Your legal assistant may prefer flexible hours or different benefits.

Depending on your firm situation, you may not be able to have much influence of what types of benefits or rewards are offered to staff. If you do not have much control of your legal assistant’s work hours or benefits, think of creative ways to show your appreciation – take him or her to lunch, give a gift certificate, or a thank you card. If you are in a smaller firm or solo, you may have a great deal of latitude about giving your legal assistant things that matter more to them. My legal assistant prefers to have work hours that start a bit later and end later in the evening. Your legal assistant may want permission to take a hour and half lunch break.

 

Communication With Your Legal Assistant

You may want to take time each day to review what needs to be done today, this week, this month, with your legal assistant. You might ask him or her what is on your agenda, check it against your list and add a few things to it if he or she missed something. You could also follow up with an email. You could also ask him or her to email you a summary so that you’ll have it handy. This allows you to privately check the summary, and you both have a record of it.

You will also need to make sure that you are communicating what you want clearly to your legal assistant. Make sure that your legal assistant understands what you mean when you tell him or her to “Call Client X and see when he or she is available for the deposition.” Do you mean call the client and give you a list of dates when they are available and you will pick the date? Or do you mean, arrange a date for the deposition with the client, put it on my calendar, schedule the Court Reporter, and send out a confirming letter to the client?

You need to make sure that you provide an environment where your legal assistant can learn from his or her mistakes, develop new skills and take on new responsibilities.

 

Helpful Hints.

Delegate for results. Let your legal assistant know what you need done, and let her or him figure out how to do it.

Help your legal assistant prioritize the work that you give him or her.

Think of you and your legal assistant as a team -- and act accordingly.

Let your legal assistant be a manager. Give this person the authority and responsibility needed to fulfill a management role -- and confirm this responsibility in the job description.

Show your legal assistant your appreciation for a job well done.

Say please and thank you.

Offer and encourage training.

Listen. Your legal assistant may know more about certain things than you.

Do not lie to your legal assistant, and do not ask your legal assistant to lie on your behalf.

Tell your legal assistant when you leave the office, when you will return, how to reach you, and whether anything urgent or important is expected while you are out. For your legal assistant, nothing is worse than not understanding what the client or the Court is asking about.

Introduce your legal assistant to your clients, Court staff, and other professionals.

Keep your personal problems to yourself and do not burden your legal assistant with issues that are better discussed with a friend.

Do not blame your legal assistant for mistakes or screw-ups. You are ultimately responsible for his or her work product to the client.

Make a regular schedule of sitting down with your legal assistant and listening to his or her concerns and questions.

Do not wait until your legal assistant is receiving his or her annual review to let him or her know what the goals should have been. Make sure that there is a clear job description that you and the legal assistant understand.

P.S. If my first legal assistant is reading this article, she is laughing hysterically. Many thanks to Candace Mason, my first legal assistant, who was very kind when I was a new lawyer and she knew how to do my job better than I did.