1. Pay Attention To The Need For Time Management. A critical skill in managing your law practice is not just time management, but a planning process that results in effective case management while also allowing time for yourself, your family and simply refreshing yourself so that you are more effective and not overly stressed because you are tired or mentally exhausted from continual effort. You owe it to your clients to be at your mental best when representing them or attending to their matters. You cannot listen well when tired. You cannot make sound professional decisions when tired. You cannot handle court matters effectively when tired. So, the answer is: proper rest— so that you are not‘ tired’ when attending to client matters. As‘ they’ say:“ Easier said than done.”
2. Set Work Times For Yourself. Establish a schedule that works for you and your clients and stay with it. That is, it is important to be available when you say you will but also to stay with your schedule so you can use your time away in a manner that allows you to take care of your personal life and maintain your physical health. Set the times to be there and times to be away. This is an important‘ start’ to maintaining the balance of work and other aspects of life that you want, should and need to pursue.
3. Let Clients Know Your Availability. Once the times you are available are set, inform your clients and those who seek your help. Obviously these need to be times that are‘ business appropriate’ by acknowledging normal business operating hours( e. g. 9 – 5 but can be an earlier start or later end). Publish these times for contacting you so that they are readily available to your clients and professional contacts. I recommend showing available times so that it is clear the times when you are‘ on the clock’ and available for work. Including these times in your engagement letter is a good idea as well as your website or places where you provide information for public access. Make this a‘ positive’ so professionally you let others know when and how you can be reached during these times. Communicating when you are there for contact shows you are‘ ready for business’ and available to communicate.
4. Have‘ Emergency’ Options. You will also need to advise those with whom you are working or who might contact you of how to reach you in a‘ true’ emergency. Of course, what is a‘ true’ emergency is in the mind of the one seeking to contact you. It may not be a real emergency but just anxiety over a situation that leads your contact to believe that connecting with you is very time sensitive. What I recommend here is that you provide a means for the contact to text or leave a message so that you can determine how necessary it is to interrupt your non-work time with a reply. This means that you need to get a timely notice of these messages or at least check them regularly( which can disrupt your‘ off hours’ time). A text contact may be the best, although text messages generally are very brief and may not provide the information you need to assess if the matter is urgent. And long voicemail messages are seldom helpful particularly if the person calling is anxious about the matter and the information communicated lacks critical information about the issue. But it is what it is, and you will need to assess when and how to respond.
The Trial Lawyer 23