Legal Commentary

Do Lawyers Systemically Fail To Get Things Done On Time?

By Patrick J. Lamb

I was intrigued by a a post penned by my friend, Dan Hull, on What About Clients?.  In We, The Undisciplined, The Miserable, Dan raises this issue: "Do we lawyers know how to get things done, done right and done on time? Do we even value that? I wonder."  Dan then compares the results obtained in business schools and in big company training programs with the results achieved through training at law firms.  Dan ends his sobering post with this observation:

For a long time I've thought that American business schools and the training programs of global and often publicly-traded companies do a much, much better job than do law firms of training recruits to value and adhere to the structure of a plan on an item for action. It's almost as if law school and firms deem us all such "professionals" and "artists" that we are beyond learning skills of project planning and execution. What a crock. Not learning the value of pushing non-urgent but important things along at a steady pace has cost us dearly. As motivated as lawyers often are, our discipline for sticking to anything and seeing it through is often poor; again, unless it's urgent, we just don't see its value. Do our best clients run their businesses that way?

This attitude is the norm, and we lawyers--who rarely innovate or take a leadership position on anything in commerce--are just fine, thank you, with it. After all, "all the other law firms" are mediocre on the discipline of getting things done, and have "crisis-only" mentalities--why shouldn't we be that way? So we waste time blowing off important but longer term projects. Worst of all, we send to others in our firms, and especially to younger lawyers, the message: "No worries--just work on a barely adequate level; don't do things until you have to; and if it's not urgent, let it slide." As with client care and service, our standard is not only embarrassingly low, we are exporting that low standard internally whenever and wherever we can.

Great point.  Great post.

PS:  Of all the blogs I read, WAC? is a favorite.  Always well-written, sure to make the synapses of my brain fire, and dedicated to providing the best service to clients.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on April 22, 2009 (boomark / email).