January 2004

1. We can’t manage time, but we can manage our priorities ... which will directly affect what we accomplish with the time allotted to us! If you’d like to learn more about managing your priorities and improving your skills of delegation (which will increase your accomplishments), enroll in our Coaching Program. With a very simple system, we have increased the tasks accomplished and the free/spare time available to our clients! Call us ... we’ll tell you more.
2. The first part of a strategic plan is the creation of one’s (firm’s) goals. What goals have you set for yourself? This is NOT to be confused with New Year’s Resolutions. Create a set of goals for yourself for the next 6 months. Use the SMART formula. Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Reasonable; Time sensitive.
3. Bill for your services and the services of your legal assistants/paralegals. The requirement is that your billing procedures be set forth in your engagement agreement which is signed by your client.
4. Keep track of your time as you work. Surveys have shown that lawyers who fail to record their time as they work, and do so only at intervals, forget record a rather high percentage of their work. You do the arithmetic! Failing to record an hour a day at $100 per hour will result in more than $20,000 in lost revenue!!!! (This is before we even discuss collecting all that you bill.)
5. If you want to pay your employees/legal assistants a bonus, check with your State rules of professional conduct. Bonuses are o.k. But, in Georgia, for example, it is ethically improper to pay legal assistants a monthly bonus based on the gross revenue of the firm or of the office. In other States, this could be acceptable. How about pegging the bonus to the net revenue of the firm (before compensation and attorneys distributions)? For each bonus system, there are benefits and challenges. Review both sides before you run off to create a bonus system you may regret.
6. Look at www.coachtolawyersblog.com for additional tips and observations

In Illinois, in an action involving Ford Motor Co., the appellate court affirmed that a lawyer NOT registered to practice in the State cannot recover attorney fees awarded in trial.

In California, the State Supreme Court heard argument this week on whether a referral fee could be collected where the client did not know or agree to the fee split. In this case, counsel for the plaintiff-attorney (seeking enforcement of an oral agreement for referral fee) argued that quantum meruit should be the minimum award even if the referral fee could not be enforced under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Otherwise, the reneging defendant-attorney is unjustly enriched. The California Supreme Court seems poised to accept this argument.

In Michigan, an inactive attorney cannot enforce a referral agreement relating to a personal injury contingent fee matter.

Moral: Be crystal clear on what you're doing with colleagues. Lawyers are no better than others -- when there's money involved, even lawyers can have selective memories!