Vol. 70, No. 3, March
1997
Risk Management
Fail-safe time-control system
can reduce malpractice risk
New edition of "A Guide to Wisconsin Statutes of Limitations
and Other Time Limits" can help reduce lawyers' number one slipup.
By Ann Massie Nelson
Missed deadlines generate more malpractice claims against lawyers than
any other single error, according to statistics compiled by the American
Bar Association and Wisconsin Lawyers Mutual Insurance Co. (WILMIC).
|
Ann Massie Nelson is director of communcaitons at Wisconsin
Lawyers Mutual Insurance Co. Please e-mail
your comments or call (800) 373-3839. |
About 20 percent of legal malpractice claims result from failure to calendar
properly, often when the lawyer fails to act before a statute of limitations
expires. Take for example the law firms that have learned (the hard way)
that six months does not equal 180 days to the Internal Revenue Service,
or the many lawyers who have been burned by Illinois' shorter (two-year)
statute of limitation on personal injury claims.
New guide can help
Deadlines imposed by statute, administrative rules and local courts are
multiplying, creating an even greater need for law firms to develop fail-safe
time-control systems. To assist lawyers in this effort, the State Bar of
Wisconsin, with support from WILMIC, recently published the 1997 edition
of A Guide to Wisconsin Statutes of Limitations and Other Time Limits, an
easy-to-use desk reference with more than 400 pages of statutory and administrative
time limits.
In addition to the time limits guide, a number of software programs or
"personal information managers" are available, some of which are
written specifically for law practices. The time-control software you choose
will depend upon the size and nature of your practice. Typically, these
programs enable you to schedule court appearances, client appointments and
meetings; set reminders; prioritize tasks on to-do lists; cross-check dates;
and integrate your calendar with other programs.
The most current software running on the most powerful hardware cannot
make up for the fallibility of the "warmware," the lawyers and
staff members who use the system.
"Everybody's got a system, but the human element is still the weakest
component," says Sally E. Anderson, claims counsel at WILMIC.
Training is vital
Educating staff members and lawyers to use it is the key to making any
time-control system - manual or electronic - work. The Kohn Law Firm, a
Milwaukee commercial and retail debt collection firm, handles a high volume
of time-sensitive work. Training for the firm's 25 staff members occurs
weekly, with regular review of the firm's time-control software, a program
written specifically for firms engaged in debt collection.
"Our program is very easy to use," says Brenda Majewski, the
firm's administrator. "We can have an employee with some basic computer
experience functioning on our system within three to four hours."
Majewski's advice for law firms looking for a new time-control system?
"See it in action. Visit another law firm that's using the system.
Then talk with a technical person, not just the sales person."
Features to consider
The ideal time-control system needs to be:
- Easy to learn and use, for beginning and advanced users.
- Flexible enough to accommodate different work styles and areas of practice
yet simultaneously uniform so that someone else could easily identify your
commitments.
- Redundant. Keep paper calendars and back up your electronic time control
system on disk or tape daily. Store back-up calendars and disks off site.
- Coordinated among all members of the firm. A common docket not only
helps your staff plan work flow, it sometimes uncovers potential conflicts
of interest.
- Habitual. Checking your time control system needs to be an integral
part of your daily routine. Your system should provide a reminder to review
all open files on a routine basis, even when no action is anticipated.
- Leakproof. Develop a procedure to make sure the necessary work is completed
before an entry is removed from the system.
When all else fails, you can use the system one Eau Claire lawyer claims
to have perfected. "We have a yellow Labrador that's trained to point
at any file that's ripe," Charles Jordan, Jordan & Wachs, says.
"Seriously, active files should be either marked and filed in your
system or open on your desk. Any file that sits on your credenza for more
than two days is either a client problem or malpractice waiting to happen."
A Guide to Wisconsin Statutes of Limitations and Other Time Limits is
available from the State Bar of Wisconsin for $35, plus $4 shipping, plus
state and county sales tax. Each WILMIC-insured firm received one free copy.
Additional copies may be purchased from the State Bar by calling (800) 362-8096
or (608) 257-3838. |