Cliff Tuttle is a Pittsburgh sole-practitioner and the author of a general legal blog with a focus on Western Pennsylvania called Pittsburgh Legal Back-talk. He has recently authored an AVVO Legal Guide on mortgage foreclosures. As you can tell from the photo on his blog and on his Avvo profile, Cliff has a robust sense of humor. Cliff believes in the importance of dedicating a part of his day to nonbillable tasks and he sent along this article on the topic.
Busy lawyers must do more than serve clients. They must manage the firm, develop future business and maintain professional competence. Most of us keep detailed time sheets for client work. But after working a full day and billing only a few hours, we often wonder what we did all day.
Keeping time for billing purposes is hard enough. So why use more of it to keep records of tasks for which you can never charge a dime? Short answer: Productivity and achieving goals.
Keeping written records has been universally demonstrated to increase productivity and facilitate the achievement of goals. If you want to improve your sales, keep a sales diary. If you are trying to lose weight, keep a food diary. Athletes keep score even while training. The act of writing down goals and recording achievements has been demonstrated to increase performance in every kind of human activity. Indisputably, it works.
As a sole practitioner, I write down daily goals and keep time in four broad non-billing areas:
FINANCE
ADMINISTRATION
MARKETING
EDUCATION
My goal is to achieve some modicum of progress - even if it is only token - in all four categories every day. Finance, among other things, includes billing and client time keeping. Administration includes all non-financial aspects of running a law office. Marketing includes relations with existing clients, plus developing new prospects. Education includes increasing a lawyer’s legal knowledge and competency, improving the value of what we have to sell.
To some extent, these activities are self-driving. When planning a day, Finance and Administration tasks may come to mind automatically. But this is far less likely for the categories of Marketing and Education. These require more proactive planning. Without some kind of a plan, Marketing and Education efforts are likely to be sporadic and haphazard. Busy weeks and months go by without addressing these vital areas of practice at all. That’s where FAME comes in.
This approach requires a written daily plan, compiled before the day’s most demanding activities take over. I insert a blank sheet of paper into each day’s section of my Day Timer. I divide it into four sections, marked F, A, M and E. At the beginning of the day, I write at least one task I plan to do that day in each category. As the day progresses, I may add more.
When I first began this routine, it seemed almost impossible to think of daily entries for the Marketing and Education categories. But with practice, ideas and then a plan began to emerge. In Marketing, I began calling clients with whom I had little or no recent contact. With a little thought, I could usually find a reason for the call that was more than a mere pretext. At the least, such calls put me back inside the client’s sphere of influence. At best, they resulted in one or more immediate assignments. Similar marketing activities could involve joining groups, giving speeches or keeping up contact with colleagues and classmates. The key is to keep doing it and to do it naturally. Check off every accomplishment and write down the time required to complete the task.
In addition, whenever you receive one of those famous ten-minute calls, the kind you can’t bill, charge the time to Marketing. Then plan a follow up with the caller a week or two later. Don’t ignore the potential for referrals. Everyone you meet or talk to on the phone has the ability to refer a friend. A referral carries the implied endorsement of the referring party, which is worth a great deal. Some people have a talent for referrals and keeping in touch with them is like owning a gold mine.
Education should consist of more than attending mandatory continuing legal education seminars. Find a blog, listserve or website dealing with a topic of value in your practice and plan to read it every day. Note the time devoted to this task under E. Sometimes I email articles or blog posts to clients or other people I think might be interested. This combines the Marketing and Education functions.
I try to review the prior week every Saturday morning and to begin to plan for the next week. It is not unusual to find four hours of FAME recorded in a given day. I try to determine whether the activities noted in my log were worth the time spent and whether some should be increased, decreased or altered. If an activity is not meeting my goals, I want to consider replacing it with one that does.
My daily focus on Marketing and Education have ultimately lead to the launch of my new blog, Pittsburgh Legal Back-talk. This demanding endeavor requires me to greatly expand the time and energy devoted to both M & E. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that it will prove to be worthwhile, personally and professionally. If you would like to see (and possibly bookmark for future reference) Pittsburgh Legal Back-talk, click here.
