How employed lawyers can get productive when they don't have enough work to achieve goals...

The last issue....“Productivity” in the legal profession...what the heck is it anyway?” (link below) elicited some excellent feedback, including this among a number of very thoughtful inputs from #AshleyKelso, founder of “Hivelight”.

“Productivity is a measure of how quickly you are closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Can't be productive, and can't measure productivity, without having and communicating clear goals for yourself and your team, and the deliverables required of everyone to get there”.?

Ashley also commented that, “... there is a real misconception that productive output per unit of time spent at the desk is consistent. It's not”.

I agree with that observation wholeheartedly. Reviewing performance of many lawyers every month I’m very aware of the vastly varying quality of both inputs and outputs per unit of time spent on the firm’s business, at the desk, or anywhere else lawyers need to be on the frontlines working for the firm.?

One issue I have to deal with pretty much every month is lawyers who clearly had too little to do to achieve the goals that had been clearly communicated to them, but were at a loss on what the deliverables were to ensure they started addressing the issue, both personally and collaboratively.

In their position I’d be recognising that the situation isn’t in the firm’s best interests or mine, and asking myself...What can I do? What can other team members do to assist me? What can the firm do?

Here are a few quick suggestions...

·???????Be always sufficiently heads-up to see the problem coming a good way ahead, to allow decent time to start taking actions to prevent irreparable waste. You’ve got enough to do today, but what does tomorrow look like, next week?

·???????Discuss the impending problem early with the right people who can assist you to do something effective about it. If they don’t know your situation they won’t have prepared themselves to be able to quickly give you plenty more to do. They may of course be on important deadlines themselves, and unable to help you right away even if they wanted to.

·???????Review yet again that you are very much on the front foot on all the legal work you do have. People will not readily delegate files or aspects of their files to team members who don’t consistently deliver them good work on time, particularly if they claim to have time on their hands!?

·???????Do the same for your FirmTime? responsibilities. Have you done everything you have been asked to do, or said you would do?

·???????If your normal WorkPlan? requires you to spend an average of 30 minutes a day for example on business development deliverables, can you ramp it up to 60 or 90 minutes a day while waiting for more client file work?

I openly admit that my awareness of how unskilled many lawyers are in business development colours my focus, but here goes with a couple of specific ideas anyway!

Obviously, if you have other skills that equally as well suit the business plan of your team or firm throw yourself into it.

However, there’s a never-ending need in the community for relevant, helpful, clear information, and there will be areas in which you can provide it, via articles, website posts, LinkedIn and other socials, webinars, or addressing suitable groups.

While by no means everyone is aware of all that they really need to know, a good starting place for supplying information is to meet a known area of need.

Work with a relevant person in the firm or an adviser to the firm to identify what search terms are trending on Google, and what content already exists, yours and competitors.

Identify information gaps you can meet. Ensure you’re familiar with the firm’s guidelines for content, and get some drafts prepared and submitted to the right people who can get them approved and published with the right search engine optimisation.

Investigate what businesses and organisations currently benefit from content prepared by the firm, and identify where you see gaps you can offer to fill, or identify additional potential beneficiaries of content, and offer your free time to contact the relevant people to get a dialogue started.

In my experience there are plenty of organisations that would welcome free content for their members’ newsletter or website, or be open to a webinar on a topic of significant relevance to their members.

In Australia each State has its own registry of Associations for example, with many tens of??thousands listed. New Zealand has over 24,000.

Key Robservation...being unable to be fully productive due to a lack of appropriate work is a problem for both the team member and the firm, with the ramifications for both escalating as time passes without effective responses.?

Obviously, a well-organised firm will have a good system in place to address all aspects of work allocation (including managing excessive workloads) but systems aren’t always infallible.

Where the systems aren’t working, the affected team members are likely to be the first to know, and the solutions require individuals to be aware and to respond, working both independently as appropriate and also closely with relevant other team members.

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