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Pretending that Working from Home Is Good

Chris Hargreaves
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Pretending that Working from Home Is Good

Huzzah! The masses have spoken, and working from home is “the new normal” don’t ya know?

At least, it is for now, until the new normal gets replaced with an even newer normal, orange becomes the new black and pants with flares return to fashion.

But in the desperate mission to avoid any physical human contact over the last couple of years, I can’t help but wonder whether we collectively turned a blind eye to some realities of working from home.

These are realities that need to be brought into sharp focus now that more than a few people are wondering why they can’t work from home all the time.

And perhaps we need to also accept that some people, irrespective of their ability to use MS Teams, shouldn’t be working from home at all.

So let’s talk about that.

You’ve Got a Computer – Good Start

For many firms, the solitary pre-requisite for working from home seems to be the existence of a computer inside that home that you know how to use.

This is hardly a high bar by modern standards.

But as I watch fun stories about kids walking naked into shot, parents hustling toddlers out of the room and roomies setting up their new laptops in the kitchen while they cook pancakes – a thought occurs to me…

Those Pesky Ethical Duties

Don’t we have a duty of confidentiality? What happened to that?

Whether your entire family can hear just one side of the conversation or both, surely an essential part of your ability to work from home includes the need to be able to meet your basic ethical standards?

And while I accept that there are some general unspoken understandings about spouses and confidentiality (to a degree, at least) at no point can “the new normal” mean “it’s fine for your 9 year old to be talking about your clients at (virtual) school”.

Some people are privileged to have a home office (with a door even!) that they can quarantine themselves while on calls or when needing to work on confidential material.

Others don’t.

So while the 10 year solicitor might own a home with a closed office space, the 2nd year law student who’s renting with 7 other people possibly doesn’t.

But have you told your employer that you don’t have a confidential space to work in? Have they asked? Judging by the sheer amount of pride and humour I see about this kind of stuff, I’m guessing the answer for most people is… “nope”.

Learning Fluid Focus (Task Shifting)

This one deserves an article all by itself, so I’ll just touch on it here.

When I started working from home in 2016 (yep – I’m a pioneer), learning to increase the efficiency of my task switching was one of my first ports of call. After all, jumping from home renovations into a discussion about contract interpretation can be a bit jarring.

The privilege of working in a place where you can follow one course until success (FOCUS) means you have learned to work relatively uninterrupted.

By and large most research in this space suggests that focused work without interruption is far superior (in terms of depth, correctness, and overall efficiency) than the kind of work produced by those who flit from one thing to another. I’m sure you can all read books by Cal Newport yourself if you need a refresher on that topic.

Working from home, for many, is being thrown into an environment that you have absolutely no experience working in. Children asking questions (mine write me detailed notes while I’m on the phone, thinking that I can read and have a phone call at the same time), phones ringing that you need to attend to, background construction noise and Aus Post’s refusal to leave things on the front patio without a signature all collude to interrupt you at every available opportunity.

And you’ve not been trained to work that way. Now it’s true that many of us get interrupted quite a bit at the office too, but much of that is avoidable if needed.

If you do have those interruptions, the result is that you’re almost certainly not working as efficiently as you would if you were at the office. You might or might not even notice this – but it’s happening.

So here’s my question: who’s paying for that inefficiency?

Sure, the fact that you can attend to your children’s needs or assist with tasks as they come up is, in many ways, a benefit of working from home. But it’s probably also costing someone money. So while it’s a benefit for you – is it really a benefit for your employer or your client? If you’re time billing (shock, horror!) and every interruption costs you 15 minutes of catch up time when you’re in the middle of drafting a pleading, can you responsibly charge your client for that?

This one’s a complex topic, but not one that we should just move past without consideration, especially if you’re the person wanting to work from home. Take active steps to learn the skills required, or consider just going into the office.

Some People Need Direct Supervision

OK it’s tough love time: some people shouldn’t be left to self-manage their work.

Why? Because they are bad at it. They simply need more regular opportunities for supervision, input and direction than others in order to get work done well.

And even with phones and constant Zoom invitations it’s just not enough for some staff to be working to their full potential.

Now before the objections begin, I’m not talking about pathological micro-management here.

I’m talking about the fact that some people, if left largely to their own devices, will flounder and become either inefficient in their work output, or potentially just produce bad work that requires extensive rectification.

And sure – you can make calls, arrange zoom meetings or send emails all you like, but those things pale in comparison to the ability to just have a regular brief conversation, clarification or direction from someone else in the office. A few seconds of interaction can save significant amounts of time and steer people away from making costly mistakes.

Notice it’s not necessarily only junior staff I’m talking about here – more collaborative practitioners at all levels tend to do much better in an environment where they can bounce ideas off others. That’s particularly true in complex areas (as opposed to more process driven areas).

Hopefully those with a degree of self-awareness would recognise whether they fall into this category, and take steps accordingly.

Slow Surroundings

There is a certain amount of energy to be had just be being in an environment surrounded by people who are performing at a high level. This is particularly true if you happen to be an extrovert.

Done right, the positive result is more people performing at higher levels. (Done wrong, the negative result is burnout and medical conditions.)

The fact is when you’re working from home it’s pretty easy to… plod. After all, will anyone really notice if drafting that letter took 1.5 hours instead of 1.2? Will you even notice if you’re slowing down?

This is true even if you’re generally fairly self-motivating.

It’s a lot like going for a run – your pace on race day is almost always going to exceed your pace on a solo training run (elite athletes aside). And until you got into the race, there’s a chance you didn’t even think you could reach a particular goal – until you did.

The buzz of an office with people working together in a friendly, positive environment is a tremendous source of potential energy for many lawyers that we can’t just casually toss to one side.

And All the Rest

Everything I’ve mentioned here is a known factor. Nothing here is a big secret or a particularly startling piece of news (except possibly the flared jeans).

What’s interesting though is that most firms don’t seem to have taken any steps to address any of these issues.

Training in task switching? Nope.

Discussing how to set up a confidential workspace and expectations in that regard? Nope.

Realistic discussions with staff who don’t thrive working from home? LOL (law firms being pretty notorious for not wanting to have an honest discussion with under-performing staff, so this is hardly news).

The fact is that liking working from home is not the only relevant factor. Sure it offers many benefits, and potentially many positive outcomes for families and staff alike.

But it’s not a one-way street. The fact that you get some benefits working from home needs to balance with your obligations to your clients and your employer.

And if everyone simply ignores those things without taking practical steps to address them, firms will eventually notice that overall productivity has dropped significantly. The new normal will then become the old normal before you know it.

 

 

 

People are Equal. Opinions Are Not.

Chris Hargreaves
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People are Equal. Opinions Are Not.

We live in a world of loud opinions right at the moment (yep – says the bloke who runs a blog). But not all opinions are created equal. Some, in truth, can be completely ignored in the right situation.

So how do we tell which is which?

Advice from Counsel

Let’s say you’re a solicitor looking for advice from counsel. An opinion (as it turns out) about the prospects of success on your client’s application for review against a decision of the Commissioner of Taxation.

Because you’re a prudent (or paranoid) kind of lawyer, you decide you are going to get three opinions. One from Larry, one from Curly, and one from Moe.

Larry has been called to the bar for 10 minutes and has practised exclusively in personal injuries law until that point, and gives you an opinion that your client has no prospects of success.

Curly has been a barrister for 10 years, practices in a general commercial practice (including tax) and tells you that your client has a 50/50 prospect.

Moe QC, a barrister of 25 years standing, has focused on tax law for the last 15 years and tells your client they are likely to succeed.

Who will you go with?

And Yet…

Despite the fact that Moe is so obviously the candidate you’re going to pick, in our careers we’re regularly choosing to take opinions and advice from Larry and Curly.

Now it’s true – Larry might be all you can afford or all you have access to, but we need to be alive to the fact that the advice isn’t great. We need to heap a plentiful dose of salt on it before embracing it wholeheartedly and running with it.

Does it mean that those with less experience or expertise are necessarily wrong? No.

Does it mean that those with more experience or expertise are necessarily right? No.

What it means is that before deciding the career advice of someone who does not have a successful career is the best, you should probably pause to reflect on whether you have a sound basis for that decision.

Lots of people are being led down the garden path right now. So be careful.

Let’s Apply

Everyone is giving you advice.

Financial.

Career.

Wellness.

Personal.

So how are you weighing up this advice, these opinions, and determining how much weight you should place upon them?

Awards, popularity, accolades – these are irrelevant.

The only question is this: does the person giving you an opinion have a demonstrated path of success in the field they are talking about, or do they not?

If not – be wary.

If so – still be wary.

Of course you can’t always get a full personal history of everyone you speak with or read from. So sometimes we just need to make the best judgment call we can about how much weight to give an opinion – however that judgment call should be based on relevant factors and not our own visceral response to the content.

You’ve got Plenty of Career Decisions Ahead

I’m not saying you need to shut down every conversation with “you don’t know what you’re talking about”.

I’m saying that taking wealth creation advice from someone who has just declared bankruptcy isn’t smart.

I’m saying that taking weight loss advice from someone who is morbidly obese isn’t smart.

I’m saying that taking advice about your legal career from someone who hates their own or left the profession entirely isn’t smart.

And I’m saying that when we all have our own opinions about subjects (we’re lawyers, after all), we need to be careful not to automatically give our own views additional weight without a good justification to do so.

This way we can develop a path where we are learning from, listening to, and humbly reflecting on statements and advice from people who have experienced success in a given area (note to self – define success at some point), rather than just living in our own little bubble with a “you do you” mantra (bad) or taking every piece of advice to heart (worse).

10% Pay Rise for All? Goodbye motivation!

Chris Hargreaves
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10% Pay Rise for All? Goodbye motivation!

Law firm Gilbert + Tobin (just an aside – can we take a moment to appreciate how irritating it is to have to type a plus symbol when attempting to write articles?) recently announced it would be giving its lawyers all a 10% pay rise, and its support staff all a 3% pay rise.

So is this a stroke of amazing generosity, or a weird blend of a successful capitalist enterprise making profoundly socialist decisions?

First thing we should do is probably gloss over what the decision says about how the firm values its support staff. Then we can move right on into the fairly odd concept that all of G+T’s lawyers have somehow managed to earn precisely the same pay rise. Yep – even the ones who barely rummaged up the strength to care over the last 12 months.

Now don’t get me wrong – nobody is likely going to complain about a 10% pay rise, since that’s a fairly nice number.

But let’s pick a word straight out of G+T’s “flexcareers” page: meritocracy.

Gilbert + Tobin is an egalitarian, open-minded meritocracy committed to the growth and development of our people.

Meritocracy is a word that sprung up more in the couple of decades or so and is now basically a given when it comes to career advancement within a law firm.

Strictly it probably relates more to career advancement (promotion) than it does to pay rises. But in general the idea is that if you deserve some form of reward (promotion, money, partnership) based on your merit then you’ll get it irrespective of other qualities (nepotism, status, gender etc).

So here’s my question: how can we reconcile the concept of meritocracy to a flat 10% pay rise across the board? I’m not sure I can.

Irrespective of how high-performing a firm is, there are always some people who excel in their legal careers more than others.

And for them, surely at this point the question they are asking is: why bother?

Of course most lawyers don’t work just for the money (although some do), but the money your firm pays you is the major and most measurable way of determining whether your efforts are being valued.

So on the one hand we have Susan, who has constantly exceeded expectations in terms of productivity, billing, firm culture, marketing contribution and is generally awesome at everything.

On the other hand we have Beth, who generally manages to mostly meet expectations.

Both, apparently, are deserving here of precisely the same pay rise.

Irrespective of their merit.

You see, Susan isn’t an idiot – she’s well aware of the fact that she contributes way more to the firm then Beth. And she’s also well aware that despite the fact she went above and beyond over the last 12 months, Beth will be getting the same (percentage, at least) reward.

So if that’s the messaging, why wouldn’t Susan just start performing the same as Beth?

Is there not a risk that high performers will feel undervalued, and mediocre performers will feel no incentive to aspire to more success in their careers?

Of course G+T might have a plan to solve that later on with bonus considerations at the end of the financial year, or other methods that they think will reward their higher performing staff.

And perhaps, unlike most other firms, all of their lawyers are similar in terms of performance metrics.

But from the wide angle lens through which I’m looking, I can’t help but wonder whether some lawyers in the firm might be feeling a bit undervalued right about now.

Showing Appropriate Initiative

Chris Hargreaves
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Showing Appropriate Initiative

Is it OK to fix a typo that you weren’t ask to fix? What about change a paragraph? What about research something you weren’t ask to? What about calling a client? Just when does “showing good initiative” turn into “you did WHAT?!?”.

The problem is that it’s a bit of an impossible question to answer because of the many variables that impact on it, like:

  • how senior/junior you are;
  • the preferences of your supervising lawyer;
  • what kind of area you work in;
  • the “thing” in question.

So while I’ll set out a few guidelines below, let’s all just use our brains.

You see, showing good initiative is a great way to demonstrate that you actually care about what you do. But crossing the line is a great way to demonstrate that you have poor decision making skills.

No pressure.

If in Doubt – Ask

Just communicating better (not necessarily more – better) will solve 99% of issues that arise. This goes for both the senior and the junior lawyers.

Senior lawyers, if you’re rubbish at delegating then things going wrong is pretty much your fault. You can’t complain that someone didn’t draft the letter you were expecting if you didn’t actually tell them to draft a letter but just assumed they’d “get it”. Similarly you can’t complain they didn’t check the Mercantile Act 1867 for its statutory right of subrogation because nobody knows that exists unless you tell them (fact check me on that – I dare you).

Junior lawyers, if you are going to go off script and you’re not pretty confident that it’s a good idea, then just ask.

“Hey Chris – in a lot of these cases I’m reading about X – would you like me to check into that more?”

“Hey Chris – clearly nobody taught you how to use apostrophes properly, do you mind if I fix that up for you?”

You get the idea.

Don’t pester – but ask.

Before asking though, bear in mind that not every idea you have is necessarily a good one. So apply a bit of filtering beforehand, or at least do it in the least disruptive way you can (tip – popping in to “ask a quick question” 47 times in a day for one research task isn’t the least disruptive way to do it).

Small Errors

You’ll be as shocked as I was to learn that lawyers aren’t perfect. In fact, sometimes they just stuff things up.

So if you’re reading something like a submission, a pleading, or a draft letter for a senior lawyer and spot an obvious error – fix it.

You can always track it so they can see what you did, in case you’re just wrong. But honestly, could you justify yourself if it later became known that you saw an error and allowed it to slip through the cracks and be sent to the Court because you hadn’t been asked specifically to check for that kind of error?

Now bear in mind that fixing obvious small errors is not the same as rephrasing an entire section because you think it sounded funny.

Secondary Research

When doing “I have no idea what we’re looking for” research into a topic, it’s fairly common for the question you were asked initially to be a little vague. The senior lawyer might not be completely sure what they’re looking for, and so they might ask you to look at X, Y and Z to get things started.

While you’ll looking at X, Y and Z you could easily find that A, B, C was more likely to have the gold.

This is one where I think you should ask.

Lawyer might have already looked into A, B and C. You diverting might not be in the budget. And you might just be wrong.

So before you go off and spend hours doing something you weren’t asked to do, it’s best to ask.

Finishing Tasks After Hours

OK I know this one is a bit of a sensitive topic.

But if you are 95% completed on a task you were asked to finish on Monday, and it hits 5:00 Monday afternoon and you dash off out the door to catch the express bus home so you can binge watch re-runs of Seinfeld, then that’s unimpressive.

Finish the work.

This is different from staying back a further 9 hours after work to finish a task in the wee hours of the morning so you can flex about your ability to drink coffee – that’s usually not needed and is uncool for a bunch of reasons.

Again just communicate here. Tell your manager it’s taking longer than expected, see if the next day would be OK. But don’t do it while in motion past their doorway at 4:59pm with your bag slung over your shoulder – that’s a jerk move.

If this is happening habitually though, then either you need to look at your time management, or the person delegating to you needs to get better at it. That’s a topic for another day.

Show Interest

Depending on your area, as a very junior legal practitioner you often won’t have the “day to day” conduct of a file. You’ll probably get discrete tasks at various times with gaps in between.

But that doesn’t mean you have to avoid any form of ownership completely.

Show some interest. Find out what happened, check in to see if anything else is needed, put diary entries in your own calendar for key dates. This in itself is a form of initiative.

I’m not saying you should bug the people running the file 5 times a day for updates. I am saying that it’s good to invest a little emotional labour in the process.

Trust me – we notice who does this and who doesn’t.

Danger Areas

OK so we’ve hit the “hmmm probably wouldn’t do this” part.

Here are some areas to stay away from without very clear permission.

  1. Client contact – don’t unless it’s clear that you can.
  2. Sending things out to other parties/court/externals – see (1).
  3. Removing from or adding to a letter/pleading/submission anything other than minor corrections without telling someone that you’ve done it.
  4. Making marketing calls – while I encourage junior lawyers to engage in marketing activities, unless it’s part of your firm’s mandate for your position I’d be careful about doing this on work time unless everyone knows that’s what you’re doing.

There are probably others but these are the main ones.

Don’t be Anxious

It’s not as hard or complicated as all this makes it sound.

So here’s the short version:

Care about your job, your colleagues and your clients. Do so in a way that doesn’t expose you or your firm to significant risk. Communicate well.

Happy Lawyering!

What Senior Lawyers Expect from Clerks and Grads

Chris Hargreaves
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What Senior Lawyers Expect from Clerks and Grads

Articles of clerkship in Australia are long dead. They have been replaced with a sub-standard form of yet more tertiary education. And while PLT makes an attempt to be practical, the sad truth is that you can become an admitted lawyer now with literally no idea how to practice law.

And so, while in theory articles of clerkship have been abolished, most law firms actually have to teach all of their new staff how to be lawyers anyway.

Which is a lot like what articles of clerkship was for… go figure.

So I thought it might be helpful to actually let you know what people are expecting when you turn up at the office.

Let’s roll.

Notepad and Pen

If you leave your desk to speak with anyone about anything – take a notepad and pen.

Or whatever fancy electronic device takes your fancy and complies with your firm’s requirements.

But if I ask you to come to me for a task and you don’t have a notepad and pen to take notes, then you’re going to just be wasting steps when I send you back to get them.

Listen

Nothing is more irritating to busy people than having to repeat things they have already said because you weren’t paying attention.

So pay attention.

This means you have to adapt to something that university hasn’t taught you – the ability to listen and take notes simultaneously. This is a hard skill.

Because if you try and write down everything (see previous step) that I tell you, you’re not actually listening – your ears are connected to your hand, not your brain.

So you need to train yourself to write down what’s necessary, while still listening to what I’m telling you.

Questions

I realise that it’s a bit intimidating to have someone talking quickly at you about things you barely understand and then to walk out and execute a task.

Generally, therefore, you need to be prepared to ask questions. Some senior lawyers will be more amenable to this than others.

There are two types of good questions:

  1. Process questions – how long should I spend on this, when do you need this, what form do you need the task done in?
  2. Understanding questions – I’m sorry I’ve never heard of X before – would you prefer me to look it up or do you mind just explaning that briefly to me?

There are also dangerous time-wasting questions:

  1. Why would our client do that instead of this?
  2. Why haven’t we investigated X?
  3. Shouldn’t we be doing X instead of Y?

On rare occasions these questions might be useful.

But unless you’ve earned the right to ask them – probably shouldn’t.

Appropriate Initiative

Showing initiative is good, as a general rule.

So, if you’re researching something you’ve been asked to research, and you know that the lawyer wasn’t confident about the space, then checking in with them to discuss your findings and suggest that the research be diverted to X rather than Y (and explaining why) might be a completely appropriate use of time.

On the other hand, deciding that you should spend 10 hours researching a sideline topic because you thought it sounded relevant while your supervising lawyer is waiting for your task to be completed is probably not. After all – how do you know that they haven’t already done that previously?

Appropriate initiative is hard – I probably need to do a separate article on it to be honest.

Be Interested!

You know what’s annoying? Someone who does only what is asked, exactly and precisely, and then couldn’t give a stuff what happens after that.

This is similar to showing iniative, but it’s more of a mental position – do you actually care about this or not?

Because if one thing is going to affect both how YOU feel about your legal career, and how it goes in the long run – it’s actually giving a stuff.

What does this look like? It looks like:

  1. Pointing out areas in your research/task that might be worth further investigation;
  2. Following up after the task to see how things turned out;
  3. Asking if there is anything further you can do to assist;
  4. Delivering something useful that does what you were asked; and
  5. If necessary, perhaps giving up a few minutes of your lunch/end of day/morning to actually finish the task in a timely fashion.

I recognise this last one is uncool these days, since we’re all told that working is bad for our mental health.

That’s rubbish.

Care about what you do – that’s good for your mental health.

So In Short

Just care about what you do.

The others follow from that.

How Much Should Lawyers Try To Influence Their Clients?

Chris Hargreaves
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How Much Should Lawyers Try To Influence Their Clients?

I’m reading a lot recently about how the role of a lawyer has gone beyond legal services and moved into the realm of “how you should run your business and your life”.

Principally this comes up in relation to disputes, where lawyers are more and more encouraged (if not forced) to tell their clients to avoid court at all costs, and settle their matters.

As someone who has worked in litigation for more than 20 years now, I’m usually the last one to encourage anybody to throw a pack of money at a protracted Court dispute.

But the more I see people telling me that I should be “making” my clients settle matters, conduct themselves in particular ways, and generally change their entire perspective on everything I am forced to ask these two questions:

  1. How much influence do I actually have over my clients in those things; and
  2. How much influence should I exert over my clients in those things.

Here’s the deal, everyone: we’re not life coaches, we’re not business advisors, we’re not ethics tutors, and we’re not hired philosophers.

We’re lawyers. We do law. We’re “law-takin'” folk.

And while we might have very high opinions of ourselves, most of our clients have not come to us for much more than legal advice. They want to understand the system, they want to understand their prospects and options, and they want to have an idea of what’s going on.

Now it’s true, of course, that we can reasonably explain to clients about:

  • the costs and risks of litigation;
  • the benefits and likelihood of settling at mediation (or other alternative dispute resolution procedures);
  • the emotional/business/opportunity cost of litigation, based on our experience.

But we need to tread cautiously about how far we take this for a number of reasons.

We’re Not Experts in Other Stuff

See above. We’re lawyers.

We usually have no expertise in counselling, emotional toll, despression, financial advice or the many other areas that lawyers are being encouraged to weigh into.

We Can Exert Unreasonable Influence

For some types of clients who put a lot of trust in their lawyer, there is every chance that you can convince your client to do something they shouldn’t using clever words and persuasive language.

But should you?

What of the potential that leaning too hard on your client actually puts you in a position where you are not just persuading, but manipulating? What if your cajoling and convincing of a vulnerable person to take a bad deal ends up unspooling later?

We need to ensure that our clients are making free and informed decisions – otherwise they might as well not be there, and frankly we might as well not be their lawyers.

It’s Disrespectful and Annoying

Let’s say you have diligently set out the pros and cons, risks and benefits of various paths and your client is adamant that they wish to litigate “to the end”.

If you spend the next 40 weeks daily telling your client that they made a bad decision then how do you think that’s going to go?

Not only will it be quite annoying for your client, frankly it’s also rude. You’ve informed them properly and let them make a decision in their own best interests… and now you’re telling them over and over that you think they’re stupid. You might not use those words, but that’s what you’re saying.

How would you like it if your house building told you over and over that your chosen colour scheme sucked?

We Don’t Have the Full Context

In the vast majority of cases we have no clue about 90% of what’s going on in our client’s lives or businesses.

Which means, we have a very limited perspective on what is actually right or wrong for them, unless they choose to tell us all the gory details (which most don’t).

That, in turn, means that what we think is a great idea or sound advice is only one part of a much larger puzzle that our clients are trying to figure out. As a result we shouldn’t over-emphasise the relative weight of our recommendations over all the other factors in play.

Advise, Don’t Influence

Our job is to give our clients advice.

That advice should be useful, helpful, expertly given and ultimately a guide to making good decisions.

It is not, however, our job to make our clients’ decisions for them, or constantly tell our clients to do something they have already decided not to do.

We might raise options again for them from time to time about different directions, but absent their instructions being unethical or unlawful our job is to put those instructions into action.

Enough with the Definitions Already

Chris Hargreaves
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Enough with the Definitions Already

Ok lawyers, listen up: I know you love defining things, but it’s all getting out of hand.

Somewhere in our quest for clarity, a few screws have come loose in the system and we’ve decided that for a letter to sound “lawyery” it needs to contain at least 786 definitions in each paragraph.

And it’s making me sad.

So, to combat the growing levels of insanity I thought I’d offer up a few things that there is absolutely no reason to define in correspondence.

These are pretty much all variations on a theme. That theme is: stating the bleeding obvious.

Clients

Unless each lawyer has multiple clients AND there is a chance that they might be confused between each other, you don’t need to define “our client” or “your client”.

I mean, surely it’s obvious that if I refer to “your client” I probably mean… your client.

Right?

Letters

So let’s say I’m replying to a single letter that you sent me. As is the custom of the day, I commence my letter with “We refer to your letter dated [date]”.

Guess what – by doing this, I don’t actually need to define “your letter”, for the astonishing reason that I’ve already told you what letter I’m talking about.

Unless you wrote my lots of letters and I’m replying to all of them, or there is any chance that my saying “your letter” later on might mean something else, we don’t need to waste time and energy creating a defined term here, surely?

Party Names

So we’re exchanging some chat about some large companies, like Moca-Mola Amital Limited, and Schmortescue Minerals Limited. The habit of the day is to ensure that we introduce these as (Moca-Mola) and (Schmortescue) the first time we mention them.

But why?

Will anyone actually be confused if I then just say “Moca-Mola” or “Schmortescue” later? Do you think I’m suddenly talking about completely different companies with the same lead names?

Answer: probably not. Because most people we’re writing to aren’t dumb.

Words You Never Use Again

You know what’s both fun and distressing at the same time? Playing a game in long letters to find all the defined terms that never actually get used.

Here’s what happens. Zealous lawyers and their keen eye for potential definitions start drafting a document, and along the way define literally everything they can think of that even sounds vaguely important.

And nobody goes back to check whether those vaguely important things every got spoken of every again.

Thus our little game is born. Try it.

I dare you.

Basically… Stop Auto-Pilot Definitions

Bearing in mind that I’m talking mostly about correspondence here, how about some simple rules before we liberally define every second word:

  1. If the word has only one possible interpretation, then don’t define it;
  2. If there is no potential for confusion at all, then don’t define it;
  3. Don’t treat your recipient like an idiot.

Over to you.

The Glory of the Acknowledgment Email

Chris Hargreaves
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The Glory of the Acknowledgment Email

Today I’m going to teach you one of the most important and un-taught skills of a lawyer who actually cares about their clients: the acknolwedgment email.

One of the biggest complaints clients have about their lawyers is a lack of good communication. If you think about it, this is fairly ironic given we consider ourselves to be the world’s greatest communicators.

But the complaint doesn’t rest upon unnecessary compound sentences. Nor does it find its genesis in our irrational use of the word “hereto”. Instead it comes from a far more basic place: just wanting to know what the heck is actually going on.

So as a firm, and as a lawyer, one of the greatest implements to use is the wonderful, but humble, acknolwedgment email.

Here’s how it goes: your client sends you some instructions. You send an acknolwedgment in reply.

See how easy that is?

So if it’s so easy, why do so few lawyers actually embrace the idea? After all, if you contact a service provider, wouldn’t you find it a far better service if you had a short response, confirming they had received your communication and letting you know when to expect something more? Wouldn’t that be great!

The acknowledgment doesn’t need to be complicated. It simply needs to say something like this:

Hi Jo, thanks for your email. We’ll take a look at this as soon as we can. At this stage we hope to get back to you by [date].

Now Jo knows you’ve received their communication, when they can expect a reply, and they’re not sitting around in limbo wondering what’s happening.

Simple. Easy. Good client service.

Bonus Points

If you’re a junior lawyer or a clerk in a law firm, then you’re not necessarily going to be the one sending emails like this out to clients.

But you know who you CAN send it to? People inside your firm who ask you to do something.

After all, those people are basically your clients – they ask you to do things, and you do them. They want to know what’s going on too, because they need to know what you’re up to to manage their own clients and workflow.

So if you get an email from a senior lawyer in your team asking for your help on something – send them an acknowledgment email! Running late, change to the plan, got delayed? Update them!

Happy Lawyering!

Instead of Career Goals…

Chris Hargreaves
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Instead of Career Goals…

Here we are again – the start of a new year.

More likely than not, a bunch of people are about to set a bunch of goals. Many of those same people are probably not going to review last year’s goals…

There will be meetings, ponderings, musings, discussions, considerations, deliberations and much more.

Some goals will be the result of diagrams, trust exercises and mentoring meetings, and others will just be jotted down on a post-it with whatever you had handy because you were watching a YouTube video about how you MUST write your goals down.

And with all that, there’s a good chance that 99% of goals will be utter garbage.

By this I mean that the goals will:

  • be something other people have decided for you;
  • not be that important to you; or
  • all be things you want to DO or ACHIEVE.

This article is about the last point.

I’m a project kind of guy, so I get the idea of wanting to accomplish stuff.

But accomplishing stuff and ticking off project boxes is only part of the puzzle. The (arguably more important) part of the goal-setting process is this: what kind of person will you become by achieving those things?

You see, young lawyers in particular experience a lot of cognitive dissonance. Much of that comes from the problem that your career path (even now) is relatively laid out for you.

  1. Graduate.
  2. Get job.
  3. Become lawyer.
  4. Get promoted.
  5. Make partner.

And so the obvious goal-setting program generally involves just listing out the things required to take you from one step to the next.

But what if that’s a really dumb idea and you shouldn’t be doing it at all?

What if, by working the way or the hours or in the area required to, say, make partner in your firm, you’re actually going to embrace the dark side of the force and become a person that you don’t really want to be?

Many people speculate why lawyers go a bit off the rails sometimes – this kind of thing is why. We set our goals based entirely on achievement without any real regard to the underlying impact that achieving those goals (if you do) is going to have on our character.

Setting good goals is far more nuanced and complicated than simply ticking off the next pre-determined series of steps in your firm’s promotion program.

And while I’m not going to go all Tony Robbins on you here, at the very least I can say this: don’t just set your goals, try and also understand what achieving them is going to do to you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and relationally – it’ll help you make better decisions along the way.

 

 

 

Should you Just Phone Your Opponent?

Chris Hargreaves
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Should you Just Phone Your Opponent?

Ah yes, the great joy of the litigator: writing unbelievably long-winded letters back and forth for months to set out why your client is right and their client is dumb.

It makes us feel good about ourselves, allows for a certain amount of chest-beating and fist pumping in the office as we click “send” on another series of threats to do things and claim costs for them. And let’s not mention how much time we can bill for it…

But what if a phone call just be a better option?

The Benefits of a Phone Call

Here’s the deal: 2 sensible, trusted advisors for their clients can achieve more in a 5 minute phone call than the 1.5 hours it takes to write letters, format them, get instructions, confirm things, review stuff, settle it and send it.

Why?

Because well-informed lawyers, not given to flights of fancy, can communicate well and frankly with each other. They know their clients and they know what they should or should not say. They can cut through the nonsense and deal with each other as human beings, rather than recipients of correspondence.

That is, after all, our job.

Unfortunately it can go very wrong.

Too Junior?

As you’d expect, very junior lawyers can be nervous about making phone calls to the lawyers on the other side.

It’s easy to get “verballed” or say something foolish. Of course if you’re too concerned about that happening then you might sound aloof and standoffish, or perhaps give the impression to the opposing lawyer that you don’t know what you’re doing.

Of course sometimes the opposite can occur – in an effort to show how great you are, bravado gets the best of you and you alienate any potential for future conversation with your counterpart. In my life I believe I’ve only hung up on another lawyer once – they fell into this category.

None of these things will be good – for you or for them.

The Dark Side of the Law

I hate to admit it, but some lawyers approach the practice of law differently from me (shocking, really).

These are the kinds of lawyers where something like this happens:

  • you have a conversation on the phone – it seems fine and dandy;
  • later you get an email “confirming” your conversation, in which they don’t accurately state what happened in your discussion;
  • perhaps they then swear to the conversation in affidavit, forcing you to check your notes (which hopefully exist) and swear your own affidavit in response;
  • distracting nonsense ensues.

Unfortunately, some lawyers are on the “do not call” list when it comes to litigation. The potential for things to get stupid are just too high, and you’re better of remaining in correspondence only.

That also applies to conversations outside Court, which many might think of as mere “banter”, but those of us who have been burned before know might end up in an affidavit later. Don’t risk it. Don’t make the call.

Of course, sometimes these people call you instead. You’ve got a few options here:

  • take the call, keep meticulous notes of the discussion;
  • don’t take the call – pretend it didn’t happen (not recommended btw);
  • don’t take the call, request all communications in writing.

This last sounds pretty grim I know, but sometimes unfortunately it’s needed.

But Otherwise…

Most lawyers are fairly normal people, wanting to do their best for their client.

A meaningful conversation has the potential propel your client’s dispute far more sensibly forward than constantly writing letters back and forth.

And while I know that our comfort zones are in writing and emails and non-direct communications, that doesn’t mean they’re always the right way to go.

So before you write your next instalment of Homer’s Odyssey consider this: just pick up the phone.

Or… We Could Just Fire You Instead

Chris Hargreaves
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Or… We Could Just Fire You Instead

Recently I took a bit of a shot at law firms trying to pretend that their COVID-related pay cuts came with associated reduced working hours.

I’m all for the realities of business and I understand the need to deliver a message in a palatable way (I’m in marketing if you recall). But I’m also for calling a spade a spade.

That said, I think the natural follow-up to the previous article is to look at it from the business perspective: if I was running a law firm (which, thankfully, I’m not) at the beginning of an anticipated economic downturn, then what’s going through my mind and how would I deal with it?

But First, A Quick Reality Check for Young Lawyers

Most young lawyers I’ve had the pleasure of working with have been fairly grounded, hard-working individuals with an appropriate balance of humility and chutzpah.

That said, from time to time someone comes along who seems to think that the world owes them something, or that their natural brilliance (in their own eyes) should propel them immediately into high salaries and complex client meetings with important people.

So, just in case we’re not quite on the same page, here are a few tiny economic pointers that many young lawyers might do well to remember:

  1. If you don’t own the firm, then you don’t get to profit from it. You get a salary, and that’s it.
  2. If you don’t own the firm, then aside from getting fired your risks are fairly low. You don’t pay the bills, you don’t monitor the finances, and you don’t have to sell your family home in the event that things crash and burn.
  3. If you’re so amazing, then go and open your own firm if you think you can do it better.
  4. Largely as a consequence of (1) – (3), I have absolutely no obligation to put my hand in my pocket if things go south financially. If I choose to keep the money I’ve made in prior years and just fire everybody right now, then that’s 100% something I can do without feeling particularly guilty about it. If I choose to do anything else, then that’s at my complete discretion and will involve weighing up a tonne of factors you don’t even know exist.

With that done, let’s move on. What kinds of things would be going through the mind of a law firm owner looking down the barrel of a year of reducing income?

How Real is the Risk?

The problem with recent events is, in part, that everyone went insane.

As a result, there was no good way to gauge exactly how bad things were going to get, and even now we don’t really know the answer to that question.

But the first thing I’m going to do is try to assess how real the risk of a downturn actually is. Where will it hit and how hard will it do so? Who are my clients and are they going to be impacted? Will it affect current work or work in the pipeline?

While there’s a little bit of crystal ball gazing here, and novel events make it a bit harder, it’s an important step in the process.

How Big are the Potential Losses?

After looking at the nature of the risk we need to look at the size of it.

If the worst projections come true, how bad would that be for my business?

And, of course, if the most optimistic projections come true, what’s the other side of the spectrum look like?

What are My Reserves?

It’s not normally the nature of firms to carry large amounts of cash unless it’s for specific circumstances. Usually, the partners have drawn on the available profits, although of course different firms have different models here.

So this question is two-fold:

  1. What are the firm’s reserves;
  2. What are my reserves (or, more specifically, what would I be prepared to do financially for the firm if needed)?

Naturally, the length of time our reserves will last is going to depend on what action (if any) I take.

How Conservative Am I?

Much like any financial advisor will tell you, humans in business have different tolerance for risk.

Some might through caution to the wind, consciously taking no steps to address any potential concerns about the future.

Others will reflexively want to contract, immediately reducing their long term financial commitments at the sign of any trouble on the horizon.

Now if I’ve started a law firm, the chances are I have some tolerance for risk at least. But how far that tolerance extends is going to impact on what decisions I make next.

Do I have Dead Weight Staff?

Law firms are notoriously bad at dealing with HR issues.

As a result, the chances are that I have some staff who, in truth, shouldn’t still be working for me. Probably I was hoping they would just quit if I buried my head in the sand for long enough. They might be underperforming, bad for the team, or just generally a pain in the neck.

On the less savage side of things, there might be some staff who, for no fault of their own, are not yet significant financial contributors to the firm (which doesn’t just mean billing, if you’re wondering) and therefore represent more of an immediate cost than a potential source of driving revenue.

So (and I’m a little sorry to say it) but I’m going to be considering whether this is a prime opportunity to tighten up the team a bit.

And, of course, I’m also going to be wondering if I’ll get sued for doing it.

And Now… I Try to Make a Decision

There are lots of variables in play.

What will happen, and how long will it happen for?

What can the firm weather in terms of revenue drop, for how long?

Are my predictions realistic, optimistic or pessimistic? Is my appetite for risk aligned with which of those I’m going to pick as “most likely”?

What happens if I’m wrong in one way or another? Do I have a backup plan of any kind, and do I need one?

Can I take proactive steps now to mitigate the risks? Can I market better, expand my practice areas, explore new opportunities for growth? Will reducing expenses make any real difference? Do I cut staff, or hours, or wages, or all of them?

There’s a lot going on inside my head – and I’m doing the best to deal with it.

If I’m just one partner among many, then we’re all then trying to talk about it and figure out what the heck is going on as a group. And, as you know, lawyers struggle to agree about stuff sometimes…

Still Sad about your Firm’s COVID Response?

While an employed solicitor is, to some degree, beholden to the decisions of their employer, it’s also a fairly limited set of anxieties to plague you.

And while I know that many lawyers have been battered and bruised throughout all of this recent debacle, largely from decisions by their employers, it’s important to consider this question: what would you have done, and why?

Because when you’re faced with a situation that has no perfect solutions, you just need to pick one and then hope it pans out OK – and expect that some people won’t like it.

 

40% Pay Cut, 140% Full Time Load

Chris Hargreaves
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40% Pay Cut, 140% Full Time Load

It’s been fascinating watching law firms react (in advance) to what they believed was going to be the horror story of COVID-19.

I get that these kinds of business decisions aren’t easy, and they remain one of the many reasons that pursuing law firm partnership fell off my to-do list a while back.

Faced with the impending doom of a significant downturn of legal demand, law firms responded in a variety of ways:

  • do nothing much
  • fire people
  • “offer” staff a 20-40% pay cut on the basis of a 20-40% reduction in associated hours.

Many of these decisions were made not on the basis of an ACTUAL downturn of work, of course, but the prediction of such a downturn.

Whether or not those predictions were true remains to be seen. Given that most firms don’t actually publish their gross revenue and net profit per partner, it seems unlikely we’ll be finding out precisely how things went any time soon.

It’s been a lean year.

But the real question is: how on earth are lawyers supposed to respond to this literal pay cut when it’s accompanied by a fictitious reduction in work hours?

The Pay Cut is Simple Maths

If you’re earning $100,000 a year and you get a 20% pay cut then you’re now earning $80,000 a year.

Simple, right? You actually receive less actual money in your pocket each payroll.

The Hours Cut is More Like Philosophy

The legal profession has long been an industry where its participants don’t pay close attention to the hours that they work.

This is because, of course, lawyers are:

  • there to do a particular job
  • not paid by the hour (normally)
  • not governed by normal awards which regulate what “full time” hours they should be working
  • generally very dedicated and hard-working individuals
  • sensible enough not to try and keep track of demoralising numbers.

So, in one week a full time lawyer might work 40 hours, only to work 64 the next.

It’s highly variable and nebulous.

So how on Earth is any sensible person going to actually measure the means by which a lawyer should be working 20% less in exchange for their 20% pay cut?

They can’t.

And no lawyer with professional pride (who values their job) is going to turn the tap off once they hit 32 hours a week. Just imagine it:

  • Supervising partner calls: “Hi Joe, do you have a minute?”
  • Lawyer: “Sure do Paul, unfortunately I’ve maxed out my 80% contribution for this week. Can it wait until Monday?”

Never. Going. To. Happen.

Call it What it Is – A Pay Cut

Now it’s true, law firms might have less work on at the moment, and their lawyers might have less work to do.

But if, during these measures, the work amps up (say a large job comes in) are these lawyers going to get put back on their full rates? Are they going to be comfortable clocking off once they hit 80% normal workload (whatever that means)? Probably not.

So in the interests of fairness and good will to all lawyers, why don’t we just call these measures what they are: a pay cut.

Pay cuts are serious business, but life is real and stuff like this happens.

But let’s at least call it what it is, and not dress it up like a pig in a petticoat.

How to Make the Most of Your CLE

Chris Hargreaves
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How to Make the Most of Your CLE

Attending any kind of continuing legal education can feel like it was largely a waste of time – even if it came with a free lunch (code for: you didn’t get a lunch break).

While that’s sometimes a problem with the presenter (ergh – I’ve both been the attendee and the presenter at a bad presentation – so I have sympathy for both sides!), the subject matter or the forum, it’s also sometimes a problem with you and how you go about getting the most of the lesson.

So let’s take a look at how you, the attendee, can actually make the most out of your CLE experience.

Attitude

Before going to any CLE presentation, you need the right attitude.

That means: be prepared to learn.

Be prepared to listen.

Acknowledge that you don’t know everything.

And change the mindset that CLE is a necessary evil that is being inflicted upon you by some sort of malevolent overlord who seeks your demise.

It’s an opportunity – grab it!

Go Prepared

Yes I know – you’re busy. Me too!

But in the world of CLE you need to have a vague clue what you’re about to hear, to ensure that you’re going to get the most out of it.

Do a few minutes preparation.

Find out:

  • who’s speaking
  • what their expertise it
  • what their topic is

And beyond that, consider what you already think, know and practise in relation to that particular topic.

What are your skills in the area? What are your gaps? What can you learn? And what will be useful to you?

Go in with expectations – they might not be met, but at least you’ve got them.

Listen

Don’t check your messages during a CLE. For starters it’s insanely rude, but beyond that it’s also going to distract you from learning that one thing – that nugget, that’s going to make your practice all the more successful and excellent.

Pay attention to what the person is saying. Listen to their words, and hear what they’re getting at. You might be tempted to pick holes – good! That means you’re listening.

But as well, you need to be listening for the gold inside the presentation. Because it’s often there, but regularly goes un-noticed by those indifferent participants who have no interest in expanding their legal skills.

Then – Participate

I know for a fact that while most lawyers have questions during CLE presentations, they don’t bother asking them.

Why?

Because they’re keen to:

  • leave
  • text
  • yawn
  • eat
  • work

Basically, they don’t want to be there.

However, there you are (like it or not) and you might as well make the most of the situation.

So ask questions, raise your hand, participate in the process. I realise you don’t want to be the annoying person that holds up everyone from getting back to their lives, but somewhere between silence and aggravating lies an appropriate amount of participation – I suggest you find it.

Finally – Assimilate

There’s always something – something! inside a CLE presentation that’s going to be useful for you.

Don’t ignore it. Don’t put it on the “to do” list or the back-burner, because we all know full well that no change will ever happen from things put in those places.

Change doesn’t happen from consumption alone (although you might get intellectually fat) – change happens when you choose to implement something into your legal practice.

No matter how small it might seem – use the CLE situation to your advantage. Learn. Adapt. Implement. Participate. Assimilate.

Then you’ll be getting the most out of it – plus the free lunch.

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