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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, it’s Scott Benton. I’m your host on the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcasts. How are you? This is a podcast dedicated mostly to law students and people who are just beginning their careers in the legal field maybe, you’re studying for the bar, just past the bar. And we’re going to show you that the practice of law is not only fun, but it’s easy. And we’re going to give you the tools to make your practice as you transition from a law student into a practicing attorney, a legal professional. You’re going to have everything you need in order to go into a new job and practice law as an attorney. Something that we have discussed is not taught in law school and it is not taught in the bar prep courses.
Of course, no one is actually teaching you this. Sometimes, you’re told that the law firms that you will go to work for will teach you how to practice as an attorney. But when [00:01:00] you show up at your first job as an attorney, you quickly learned that they don’t want to spend time teaching you anything about practicing law. That’s really kind of up to you. And that’s what this podcast is all about.
We’re going to bridge that gap, so that when you go into your interviews and you go to your first job as an attorney or your first job, sometimes you move around a little bit in the first few years, that you already know what is expected of you.
And we’ve broken that down into an easy device. Easy to use called, the success cycle. You want to make your to-do-list, you want to perform your tasks on that to-do-list, then you want to bill for your time. But another important question that often comes up and what this podcast episode is going to address is, asking what will slow you down the most?
What’s going to slow you down the most, as an attorney?
Scott Benton: And the reason that’s important is because as a legal professional, you are selling your time. You’re selling your legal expertise. And [00:02:00] because you are selling time, it means that your time is extremely valuable. In most cases, you are the revenue generator of that company or one of them, a company that has 10 or 20 or 30 attorneys.
Those are the attorneys that are generating the revenue that will help the company, the firm that you’re working for thrive. It will get everybody paid and it will provide nice lunches, if you are doing well. But there are things that will slow you down, and you really just need to develop a consciousness about that.
You need to be aware that there are interferences that are going to come along, and those interferences are going to slow you down. And if you let those interferences, the unnecessary interferences, we’ll get into that in a second turn there are necessary interferences, and there are unnecessary interferences.
And if you let the unnecessary interferences slow you down, then you are actually going to affect your bottom line. That’s the amount of money that you’re bringing in for the firm. You’re going to affect [00:03:00] your own paycheck. You’re going to affect the amount of money that the law firm is generating. And you simply are not going to look very good. And this podcast is going to make sure that you look very good those jobs that you take as an attorney.
First of all, we want to look at interruptions, obstacles. We want to look at interferences that are going to pull you away from doing your billable legal work that you’re completing off your to-do-lists.
Yeah, you’re going to be completing your task. You’re going to be billing for your time. And we want to make sure to mitigate, to lessen, as many of those unnecessary interferences and those obstacles and those things that come along, as possible.
What do I mean by that? Well, Here’s a good example of an unnecessary interference. An unnecessary interference is something like, it could be as simple as the temperature is too hot or the temperature is too cold, and that’s going to affect your ability to work. Now, sometimes you can just [00:04:00] put on your jacket and warm up and you can get on with your work, but other times that’s just going to become an unnecessary distraction.
A cold temperature or too hot, or something that is just going to interfere with your work, you want to eliminate that as soon as possible. Make sure it’s taken care of. Sometimes, people have computer problems. Of course, we’ll slow you down. Or maybe you have internet problems. Maybe the internet goes out.
So, you got to figure out a way to get around your internet signal. If for some reason, there’s an outage in your area and you can’t get out onto the internet, that will need to be solved. Sometimes, the internet’s just running too slow. Sometimes, your computer is too slow. So, you’re going to need to request a new computer or figure out a way to speed up your ability to get your work done.
Because the slower you’re going, the more it’s costing you. Trust me, that’s coming out of your pocket, your own pocket. And that’s the last thing you need to do. You need to speed up your work efficiency. The more you speed up your work efficiency, the more money is going to end up in your pocket. The more money the firm makes, the more money [00:05:00] you end up with. That’s just the way it works.
So, any of the unnecessary interferences, any of those obstacles that you can eliminate, you need to be able to focus on those and see them for what they are. Now, there are also necessary interruptions or necessary barriers that you’re just going to have to deal with and you’re going to have to get through. And just understand that those are going to slow you down because you have to do them, and it just can’t be helped.
So, as an example, you might need to access a file on a drive, for instance, that’s just going to take time. You got to go and find a lot of times documents that are very similar to the document that you’re trying to produce. And sometimes, that can take a while. Sometimes, if you’re using like Westlaw or Judicata and you need to look up some law or some piece of information, that’s just going to take time, but that’s necessary.
That’s necessary time. You have to look up [00:06:00] that information. There’s no way around it. Meetings are going to come along. But are meetings necessary or unnecessary? Are they interruptions? Well, Of course, they’re interruptions. But they’re necessary interruptions for the most part. Sometimes, you don’t have to attend meetings. Sometimes, they don’t pertain to you. Sometimes, you’re doing something that’s a little bit more important than the meeting, it’s just urgent and must get done. But for the most part, and for the sake of this podcast and this conversation, let’s just assume that meetings are necessary interruptions or necessary barriers, you’re just going to have to do them and understand that your work is going to be interrupted.
But when it comes to those areas that you can control the unnecessary interruptions, the unnecessary barriers, you need to do everything you can to curb those, and to eliminate them, or mitigate them, or lessen them. Things like water cooler chatting, where you’re just standing around and talking to people. Now, that’s a fine line, because at the same time that you’re trying to get your work done as an [00:07:00] attorney, as a legal professional, the firm that you’re working in, there’s also something where you want to build relationships with everybody in that firm.
And you want to build relationships, frankly because it’s the human thing to do. You want to make sure that you’re brightening up spaces wherever you go. And you do that by getting to know people. But you also do that, because the people that work in the law firm are your resources. Now as a legal professional, you need to make sure that you’re using all of your resources, as efficiently as possible. And a lot of the people working in the law firm, whether it’s the receptionist or it’s the attorney It’s the law clerks, or it’s the paralegals or anybody else that’s going to help you, you want to make sure that you form good, strong, bonded relationships with them, because they are going to help you get through your legal tasks. Those items that are on your to-do-list that you are now performing and billing for, they are going to help you. And a lot of times, your legal staff is going to be the backbone of the work that you do.
But, [00:08:00] you want to be careful here, because any kind of water cooler talk or unnecessary interruptions or people coming by and asking you questions that are unrelated to your cases, unrelated to the law, that can really start to take a toll. I mean, Over even just a day, if people are showing up 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times, just to kind of ask you unrelated questions, or maybe you both watch the same television show, or reality show, or whatever, those types of things, they do start to add up and you just want to be very conscious of those and eliminate them where you can.
One of the best things that you can do in the middle of those conversations, when you’ve realized you’re being pulled away from your work is you simply say, back to work.
Back to work. And you just say that all the time and you do exactly just that, you get back to work. And it interrupts that sort of unproductive, those unnecessary interruptions, and it allows you to return your focus, back onto the work where it belongs.
At that, [00:09:00] you’ll be getting through your to-do-list much quicker, that way you’ll be able to bill your clients for the legal work that you’ve delivered to them, the high quality legal work. And you’ll be able to not only meet your minimum billable requirements. Remember, you have a goal every day. You have minimum hours that you’re trying to fulfill, that you’re trying to bill for. And these unnecessary interruptions are sort of pulling you away from that.
But also keep in mind that, while you’re trying to reach your minimum billable hours, that’s not really your goal. Your goal is to exceed your minimum billable hours, not just reach them. You want to exceed them, and hopefully, far exceed them.
Now, one thing you can do, when you start to study time management, which you should do, there are lots of books out there, lots of programs, whether it’s audio books, or online programs, or YouTube videos, or whatever it is, when you start to study time efficiency, you’re going to learn that 1 hour of uninterrupted time is the equivalent of 3 [00:10:00] hours of interrupted time.
So, let me repeat that. 1 hour of uninterrupted time is worth 3 hours of regular work time. So, that’s a very,
very valuable concept to sort of understand. And this is why people oftentimes, will come into the office an hour early, and they’ll stay an hour late because it’s such valuable time. Because it is uninterrupted, typically. So, just by coming in an hour early and staying an hour late, you’re getting the equivalent of 6 hours of regular work time done, which is very valuable.
It’s the reason why some people get so far ahead in their careers, and others that don’t. There are people that do work those extra hours and people that are just working their regular work hours.
And another thing too, something that you might want to keep in mind, if you don’t already know this, whenever you start a new job, no matter how much experience you have or how many jobs you’ve done that are [00:11:00] similar to it, if you’re in a new company or a lot of times just even in a new position, it’s going to take you a minimum of 6 months to get up to speed, to learn all of the systems in that company, and to learn all of the nuances and how all the business is done, and to really get good at your job, you’re going to be really focused for 6 months of time, at least.
Sometimes that’s a year, sometimes longer, depending on the complexity of the job. But for the most part, the ballpark is about 6 months. It’s going to take you to really sort of get efficient and up to speed.
And, for attorneys, by the way, learning the field of law, like the field of law of the law firm I work at, which is probate, it can take years.
It can take years. There’s so many different nuances and case types and things that will happen that it really can take about 5 years for attorneys to really get good at in the probate field, to really understand the entire [00:12:00] scope of the work that they do. But for the most part, in a new job, you’re going to be spending about 6 months just really focused on learning that job and why you’re gonna want to put in extra time, and why you’re gonna want to focus in on finding uninterrupted time because of how valuable it is. It just allows you to get up to speed, as quickly as possible, and become the best possible attorney you can. So, that’s something to consider, as well.
Anyway, I hope that’s been helpful. This is the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. I am your host, Scott Benton. And today, we are talking about the things that will slow you down the most when you’re practicing law. So, you want to get very familiar with the differences between necessary interruptions and unnecessary interruptions, and you want to eliminate the unnecessary interruptions, as much as you possibly can.
So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast episode. If you’d like to be alerted every time we put out a new podcast episode, you can go over to our website. Our website is [00:13:00] Classroom2Courtroom.com. That’s classroom, the number 2, courtroom.com. You can put in your name and your email address, and we’ll send you an alert every time we put out a new episode of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. We hope these are helpful for you. Please share, like, and subscribe. And until next time, we’ll see you on our upcoming show. And until then, we hope that you will join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
Thank you so much. Take care now.
