time management for lawyers Archives

13 12, 2011

To Do or Not To Do

2019-06-25T16:27:18+00:00By Cathy L Ribble ACP|Comments Off on To Do or Not To Do

The season is upon us! You know — the season of fa-la-la-la-la, holiday decorations, greeting cards, family parties, gift buying, travel plans, winter snow storms, and year-end business. The list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on….too much to do and not enough time. If you make it to January 1, then your knee deep in a different set of tasks headed into tax season.

So what is a smart attorney or paralegal to do? Organization is key, but who has time – or money — right now to implement complicated practice management software?

SOLUTION: Pick one of these quick, easy and inexpensive online task management solutions. Register for a free user name and pick a password. Then start listing everything congesting your over-crowded mind. Start with just the basics by listing the task and assigning a deadline. That’s it!! You can expand your vision and develop a more-rounded solution when the time crunch has eased.

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29 11, 2011

Introducing Guest Blogger Cathy Ribble – “Virtual Paralegal Partnerships: What Solo Attorneys Need to Know”

2019-04-01T21:26:16+00:00By Cathy L Ribble ACP|Comments Off on Introducing Guest Blogger Cathy Ribble – “Virtual Paralegal Partnerships: What Solo Attorneys Need to Know”

Cathy L. Ribble is a senior level litigation paralegal who decided in 2009 to offer virtual services to U.S.-licensed attorneys when she founded Digital Paralegal Services. She is certified by the National Association of Legal Assistants as an Advanced Certified Paralegal in the area of Trial Practice. She matches attorneys looking for virtual paralegal support with NALA-certified paralegals by practice area and geographic location.

Cathy contributed to NALA’s 2010 Career Chronicle with her article Could You Be One? Virtual Paralegals. She has been featured in Texas Far Journal’s Testing the Waters: Is It Time to Try a Virtual Legal Assistant? Paralegal Today’s Freelance Freedom, Carolina Paralegal News Virtual Paralegals Becoming More Common as Profession Grows, Practical Paralegalism’s Top 50 Twitter Feeds for Paralegals, ParalegalGateway’s Toolbar for Paralegals under Paralegal Tweeps and Paralegal Blogs, and The Paralegal Mentor’s Virtual Paralegal Interview Series.

Solo attorneys throughout the United States are hearing the terms virtual paralegal and virtual legal assistant for the first time. Today’s economy and the desire to keep a home-office practice are leading many solo attorneys to seek more information about virtual support. […]

3 06, 2011

Leveraging Dictation Technology to Save Time and Overhead

2019-03-21T19:30:36+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|2 Comments

Lawyers used to dictate drafts of correspondence and documents for their assistant to transcribe, in order to improve their efficiency over handwritten drafting. As word processing software became more user-friendly, however, lawyers began doing more and more of their own typing. Most found it easier to draft when they could immediately see and edit their work product. Today both solos and big firms save on overhead by using fewer, and sometimes less skilled, administrative assistants, which increases the need for lawyers to type more.

Some of those cost savings may be illusory, however. […]

15 03, 2011

Should A Solo Buy Law Practice Management Software?

2019-03-21T20:06:29+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|3 Comments

When a client calls unexpectedly about his matter, do you fumble to find the information you need, while the client wonders why you can’t answer the question? Do you have trouble sorting through all the appointments and deadlines on your calendar to identify the ones that relate to a particular case? Do you rely on your increasingly overloaded memory bank for conflict checks? Do you waste time locating old emails or pink message slips? Do you lose money because you can’t remember how much time you spent on a dozen different phone calls during the day? Do you ever wish you had access to something on your desk while out of the office? Have you lost hope of ever getting organized? […]

6 07, 2010

Making Your Criminal Practice More Rewarding

2010-07-06T14:11:09+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Making Your Criminal Practice More Rewarding

“The variety in a criminal law practice keeps it enjoyable. Familiarity at the courthouse makes it fun,” says Austin solo Erik Goodman, who has been board certified in criminal law since 1985. Houston criminal attorney John Parras agrees. “People charged with crimes are wealthy, poor, smart, dumb, funny, eccentric, boring, interesting and mundane. The scenarios that bring them to court are sad, funny, interesting, complicated, simple, stupid, and entertaining,” according to Parras, who has been designated as a Super Lawyer – Rising Star and began his legal career as a law clerk to Michael Tigar and Ron Woods in the Oklahoma City Bombing trial.

Yet many criminal attorneys suffer from stress and burnout. Others struggle to make ends meet. How can you keep your practice manageable, enjoyable and financially successful, too? […]

1 07, 2005

Get More Done by Doing Less

2005-07-01T11:00:22+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Get More Done by Doing Less

“For fast-acting relief – slow down.” ~ Lily Tomlin

Life is full of paradox. If you feel harried and stressed at work every day, if you are always putting out fires, stop everything else you are doing and read this article. Three steps will revolutionize your practice.

I know you are in a hurry, so here they are:

Create blocks of quiet time.
Prioritize your work each morning.
Stop multi-tasking.

Some of you are rolling your eyes and muttering disgustedly, “Get real!” or ” Give me something I can use.” You may be the ones who will have the most difficulty implementing this advice. You will also be the ones who will benefit most from it.

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2 02, 2005

10 Tips for Surviving the Email Avalanche

2005-02-02T17:59:17+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on 10 Tips for Surviving the Email Avalanche

Are you buried under an avalanche of email? Do you lose important information hiding among the emails clogging your inbox? Here are 10 tips for digging out of the email avalanche. These tips reference features available in Outlook, but most email programs have similar features.

1. Use automated features to sort your emails into folders as they arrive. The Outlook Rules Wizard (under Tools) will let you create rules for automated sorting of incoming emails by sender, subject, text and other filters. Incoming messages are routed to the designated folders, which change to bold print to indicate an unread message. Set up folders (select File, New, Folder) for your clients so that you can see at a glance that you have email from them, and keep all your correspondence together. Replies to an email in that folder automatically will be stored in that folder as well. You can also route newsletters, listservs and other high volume, low priority emails to special folders to keep them from clogging your inbox until you have time to read them.
2. Drag and drop emails to your task icon if they have “to-do” items associated with them. The task will be included in the task list, and a copy of the email will be visible in the details window for the task. You can set a due date and reminder for the task. Delete the email or move it to a storage folder. You will get a pop-up reminder at the designated reminder time, even if you have deleted the original email. If the task is not marked as complete by the due date, it will turn red in the task list as a further reminder.
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1 12, 2004

Delegation: A Powerful Time Management Tool

2004-12-01T11:12:52+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|1 Comment

This post has been updated on 8/16/10.

“I’ve tried delegating more. It doesn’t work.” That’s a common lament I hear when I work with overwhelmed lawyers. Yet, the quickest way to reduce your workload is to pass some of it off to someone else. It’s true that ineffective delegation doesn’t work. So how can you delegate more effectively?

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