Many lawyers deal daily with a subtle form of procrastination – working on “busywork” to avoid the important but intimidating jobs that they should be working on. This behavior creates a vicious cycle that causes stress which, often, leads to additional procrastination which, in turn, leads to more stress and, you guessed it, more procrastination.

“Life is a series of interruptions interrupted by interruptions” is a quote that we had always attributed to John Lennon, but that may be apocryphal.

Anyone who has ever worked in a law office knows that interruptions are the bane of a lawyer’s existence. We can’t tell you how to get rid of them, but we can offer some suggestions to help you control them and reduce their impact on your work.

To control interruptions, make sure that you and your secretary both take your previously scheduled work sessions as seriously as you would a client interview. If …

In what condition are your accounts receivable?

While your total accounts receivable number from your accounting system tells you the total amount of money owed by your firm’s clients, your accounts receivable report should be aged 30, 60 and 90+ days to give you greater information of the state of your receivables.

The 2008 Juris Law Firm Economic Survey from LexisNexis (the last date for which we have such a survey – they are no longer being published – a great loss as these surveys were very detailed and informative) shows that ‘days fees outstanding’ for accounts receivable in 2008 …

Decide to block out your time and put aside one block of time to accomplish important but not urgent tasks to avoid them never bubbling up on your To Do list - and actually get them done.

Here’s another tip from the Taste of  ABA TECHSHOW 2011 dinner that Dave and I hosted earlier this year.  This tip comes from Allen Howell, Director of Career Services at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law of Faulkner University.

Allen’s tip is to make maximum use of your local law school’s interns.  He states that they can help with legal work and provide welcome insight into what is new, not to mention that you’ll be helping to mentor a potential new lawyer.  Sort of seeing the world through new eyes….…

Being more thoughtful, courteous and deliberative when you leave a voice mail message, particularly one for a client, can do wonders to make that client believe he or she has chosen the right attorney – and to recommend you to others.

Google is one of the run-away success stories of the Internet. They rethought the business model for search, they drove all sorts of innovations and they have changed the way that all of us think about information.

Because they know that they can’t stay on top of the search heap without the best people and practices, they recently decided to use their data gathering and analysis capabilities to determine what makes a good boss. Now, using the information they came up with, they’ve rethought the rule book for managing people and teams. It’s no surprise that their ideas on management …