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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. I’m the host of the Classroom to Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. And today, we’re going to talk about protecting your most valuable workspace.
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[00:01:13] Scott Benton: But what exactly is your most valuable workspace? I know you’re asking yourself that. That wasn’t my voice, that was yours. Is the most valuable workspace the nook in your law library that you used to visit to read without interruption? Is it the nearby corporate coffee shop that you’ve personally been keeping in business for many years as you’ve spent hours studying at one of their tables?
[00:01:39] Scott Benton: Or could it be the desk in the extra room in your home that you like to retreat to because it’s the only place that you don’t get distracted? It turns out that all of those are incredibly valuable workspaces that they’ve allowed you to study and absorb hundreds of hours of complex information, but they are not your most valuable workspace.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Scott Benton: In fact, your most valuable workspace is the gray area between your two ears. And it’s so important and so valuable. That you want to do everything possible to protect it from overloading from storing a massive amount of information that you’ve got to access whatever you need to connect ideas and like a computer running 10 or 20 programs all at one time, you don’t want your mind to get bogged down or gummed up with cluttered data.
[00:02:27] Scott Benton: Or convoluted facts. You want your brain available and unburdened for the most important tasks that you’re working on at any one given point in time. You must be able to think clearly without interference. The ability for you to think clearly is what will make you the best possible attorney and allow you to advance in your career.
[00:02:48] Scott Benton: What you absolutely don’t want is to leave that gray matter between your ears vulnerable for any kind of intrusion or any unnecessary processes or for taxing activities that take up [00:03:00] unnecessary bandwidth so you have less processing power available to think clearly about the case that you’re working on.
[00:03:07] Scott Benton: Except for that more immediate case, ideally all other information should be nowhere near that valuable gray matter, and it should not muck up your ability to think clearly or find creative, nimble, and even spontaneous solutions to the more difficult problems. And to decide on appropriate case strategies, which is very important, you need to be able to do that on the fly as new information comes in.
[00:03:35] Scott Benton: So you want to stay nimble. If you happen to be in a trial or in a hearing, the last thing you want is to be in any way distracted by a million other case facts for all of your other cases because you chose to keep them there when it wasn’t necessary in that gray matter.
[00:03:52] Scott Benton: Now you’re overwhelmed. But if you don’t keep all of those hundreds and hundreds of case facts in your [00:04:00] head for all of your cases, then where do they go?
[00:04:03] Scott Benton: You can’t exactly forget about your cases and all of their details. There are important events and deadlines and new developments that come along every single day that you’ve got to keep track of. And not to mention, this is where you get all of the tasks that you’ve got to complete that populate your to do list.
[00:04:21] Scott Benton: Without access to all of these ideas from your attorney notes, how are you going to do your job as an attorney? And how are you going to function as an excellent advisor to your clients and help them win their cases? The answer is that you’re going to completely clear your mind and you’re going to stop placing the burden of keeping that entire mass of information about your cases in your head. As if your mind is some kind of computer hard drive that stores all of your documents.
[00:04:53] Scott Benton: Instead, for each case that you have and for each new case that you get, you’re going to sit down and you’re going to [00:05:00] start a new document called Attorney Notes. And you’re going to write everything down in this document called Attorney Notes that you’re going to date and time stamp. So that by the end of the case, all of the events that took place, all of the events that happened are going to appear in order in your attorney notes.
[00:05:17] Scott Benton: So when something new comes along, you’re going to open up your attorney notes for that case. You’re going to date and time stamp the new entry and you’re going to summarize what happened. If you send out a communication to your client or to an opposing attorney, then that gets put into the attorney notes for that case. And you never attempt to store that information in your mind or memorize anything or clutter up your brain.
[00:05:41] Scott Benton: Except for the case that you are currently working on. You want to be 100 percent focused on that case. When you begin to work on a case, you work from the attorney notes. Your entire to do list is filled up with tasks that come from your attorney notes. And as those [00:06:00] tasks become the legal services that you perform, and then the completion of those tasks becomes the time that you bill for, and that you get paid for. And that’s the nature of the success cycle. That’s what we talk about here on this podcast. That’s the tool that you’re going to use to become a successful attorney when you start to practice law. The success cycle is the piece that they don’t teach you in law school.
[00:06:24] Scott Benton: That’s the part that you’re listening to this podcast for and that you’re trying to absorb. You want to have your to do list, you want to perform your legal services, and you want to bill for those legal services and get paid, and then you want to start all over again, go back to the to do list. Clearing your mind with the use of attorney notes, it’s going to be the key towards protecting your most valuable workspace.
[00:06:44] Scott Benton: And you’re going to have so many benefits that you’re not going to be able to imagine how you ever function without attorney notes. And since attorney notes are never given to the client, you’re free to write anything you want in them.
[00:06:55] Scott Benton: Technically, you don’t even need to use proper spelling or punctuation. You probably [00:07:00] should if someone else reads your attorney notes. You want them to understand your attorney notes like a paralegal that you want. to become current on this particular case. You might want to spell your words correctly, but you really don’t have to because these never go to your client.
[00:07:15] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s been helpful. My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Now if this podcast is material that you like and you want to get notified whenever we post a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom2courtroom.
[00:07:30] Scott Benton: com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com. You can leave us your contact information. We’ll send you an email anytime we post a new episode. You can also stay on top of all of our new episodes by sharing, liking, and subscribing wherever you find this podcast. And until the next episode, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time
[00:07:51] Scott Benton: thank you so much.
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