Healthy Lawyer
Don't wait for pressure to build
Read how your Wisconsin colleagues tackle their least favorite
tasks.
By Karen Bankston
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with
yesterday.
- Don Marquis (1927)
|
The yen to procrastinate is an instinctive human response to tasks we
find difficult, unpleasant, or unsatisfying. The brief due Friday? You
don't have time for that today. That unfulfilled request for records? It
feels like a waste of time to retrace your steps. A phone message from
your No. 1 most difficult client? Leave it for tomorrow.
As any busy lawyer can testify, what you couldn't face today will
likely seem even more daunting tomorrow. We asked several Wisconsin
attorneys - selected for their affiliation with the Wisconsin Lawyers
Assistance Program (WisLAP), not for any predilection to
procrastinate - how they overcome the urge to put off the least favorite
tasks of their work.
Their suggestions are as varied as their law practices, but a common
theme is that making a habit of putting things off can build into a
dangerous spiral where procrastination begets stress and stress begets
an even stronger inclination to avoid tasks destined to become crises.
Procrastination can quickly become intertwined with stress overload,
substance abuse problems, depression, and perfectionism - the inability
to tackle a case you don't think you can handle flawlessly.
In short, putting things off is just bad business. Of 1,479
grievances filed with the Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility
(BAPR) in the year ending June 30, 1997, the most common complaint was
lack of diligence, accounting for 314 complaints, more than 21 percent
of the total. Another 11 percent, or 163 grievances, concerned lack of
communication.
Of course, notes BAPR administrator Gerald Sternberg, one missed
deadline or "lost" phone message doesn't constitute misconduct - unless
the problem is exacerbated by continued neglect. "Making a mistake is a
human condition," Sternberg says. "Does a single human error constitute
misconduct? Most of the time, no." Of the 28 BAPR cases that resulted in
public discipline in 1996-97, 9 percent involved neglect and 12 percent
a failure to communicate.
In a May workshop for small firm practitioners, Sternberg suggested
that avoiding procrastination is good ethics, and good ethics is sound
business. He suggests simple, efficient habits, such as setting aside
two half-hour periods each day to return client phone calls and
initiating a dual tickler system for recording filing deadlines and
other important dates.
James Collis, Milwaukee attorney and WisLAP cochair, agrees that
dealing up-front with potential problems and working as efficiently as
possible are two ways to avoid procrastination. "As a single
practitioner, I've got to keep myself motivated and always on the move,"
he notes.
Not returning phone calls promptly is a prime example of the
procrastinating snowball effect. Clients often are emotionally vested in
legal matters, and when their attorney doesn't return their calls
promptly, they tend to become even more nervous. They require
information and reassurance, "hand-holding needs" that are crucial to a
comfortable lawyer/client relationship, Collis suggests.
When he returns client calls, especially if he's not sure why they
phoned, Collis makes sure the client's file is open in front of him.
That way, he doesn't have to take the extra time to dig for information
and track down clients later.
Tom Casper, assistant city attorney in Beloit, cites a familiar
example. When you get back from lunch, you find messages from "a friend
suggesting a golf date, an attorney who's always been a pleasure to deal
with, a pro bono client from hell, and the IRS." Who do you call
first?
If you leave the latter two until tomorrow, you may be sentencing
yourself to a sleepless, nerve-racked night, Casper notes. Communicating
promptly with clients can save both of you headaches. "You could be
doing a great job for your client, but if you don't keep in touch, you
could still find yourself facing a grievance," he warns.
Another common source of procrastination results from taking a case
you don't have the expertise to handle, suggests C. Michael Hausman,
with Slattery & Hausman, Waukesha.
Small practitioners who don't have the skills to handle a specialized
case end up "letting valuable time lapse, failing to communicate with
clients, and using circular language instead of giving real answers when
they do talk to them," says Hausman, who cochairs the WisLAP committee
with Collis.
"Lawyers share a type of illness that may be unique to our
profession: We always feel we can fix it," he adds. "You've got to
realize you can't solve every problem out there and need to find someone
who can help you."
Staying motivated helps head off procrastination, and lawyers
discover their own personal motivation in different ways. It might be
finding the right balance of work to keep you busy without becoming
overwhelmed, dealing with cases you truly enjoy and do well, or dividing
the workload so that paralegals and associates take on tasks you find
hard to complete. Or it might be the ultimate satisfaction of closing a
file and sending out the bill. For some lawyers, getting paid is a prime
motivator to process cases promptly, Collis notes - although although
the financial rewards of some practices, such as those focusing on
personal injury, are less immediate.
Winifred Nathan's secret is "sticking to what you like to do." Taking
cases you enjoy makes even routine tasks easier to handle, says the
partner with the Nathan Law Office, Racine.
In terms of day-to-day tasks, following up on record requests tends
to be low on Nathan's list of favorite things to do. "When you take on a
task and complete it, you consider it done," she says. "But sometimes
you have to keep after other people, and that gets tiring."
Tackle the toughest items on your to-do list when you feel most
productive, Nathan recommends. For some people that may be late
afternoon, or even after hours when the phones stop ringing, but Nathan
is a morning person so she's at her desk early.
Technology also can help make routine tasks easier. For instance,
Nathan had a hard time establishing a routine to bill her public
defender work until she put the system on QuickenTM. She also has common
form letters formatted in her word processor so she can zip them off
quickly.
Mary Alice Coan, a corporate attorney with American Family Insurance,
is a big list-maker, combining mundane and high-level tasks by priority
on a daily basis. Coan suggests that lawyers are better at avoiding
procrastination than other professionals because of deadlines imposed by
the legal system.
"It's a lot easier to procrastinate when there's no deadline," she
says.
Sometimes when she's working on a big case, Coan finds it easier to
avoid getting sidetracked by clearing her desk of smaller, niggling
tasks first. "If I've got seven or eight smaller tasks that will
probably take 15 or 20 minutes each to handle, it helps a great deal to
get them off my desk."
Most lawyers who call the WisLAP and State Bar-sponsored Stress
Helpline don't mention procrastination as their foremost problem, notes
Lea Landmann, WisLAP's chemical dependency program administrator, but it
is certainly tied to job tension, emotional distress, and a tendency
toward perfectionism.
Procrastination takes different forms for different attorneys. For
instance, some people can't tackle a job unless the deadline is looming,
while "some people get a great deal of satisfaction in doing work well
in advance of those deadlines," Landmann says.
And procrastination certainly is not antithetical to productivity.
You can be extremely productive on every task but the one you're
avoiding.
"I've talked to lawyers who say, 'If there's just one more thing, I
don't think I could deal with it,'" she notes.
Landmann's own motto to head off procrastination is: "Do the worst
first." Or at least make some progress on those tasks you're most likely
to avoid.
Karen Bankston, a freelance
writer/editor based in Stoughton, is glad she finally got around to
writing this article.
Wisconsin Lawyer