By Penn Dodson, Esq.
Evaluating & Outsourcing Firm Operations
Free your mind
www.ParalegalToday.com Q4 - 2017 25
Let’s face it — there are some
parts of your job as paralegal that
highlight your strengths, education,
best personality traits, and value in the
law firm environment. However, there
are other tasks that just plain need to
get done, although not necessarily by
you. For both lawyer and paralegal, the
overall goal of outsourcing (and other
technological efficiencies and process
management refinements) should be
to allow you to spend more of your day
doing the things that are of the highest
and best use of your time and less time
doing things that are the drudgery,
that you’re not particularly good at,
or that are downright unnecessary for
accomplishing the clients’ goals.
For example, say your attorney is
well-versed and experienced in the
relevant area of the law, but is not
adept at interpersonal communication.
Meanwhile, your strengths lie in positive
interpersonal communications, so your
demeanor is likely valuable to getting
information from clients, keeping them
happy, and making them feel welcome
back at the firm for their next legal
matter. If you have to spend all your
time behind a computer screen entering
data, you’re probably not super excited
about the work you’re doing and might
not even be very good at it, which in
turn produces less value to the client
(and firm).
Or, perhaps your lawyer is a
creative genius but, let’s be honest, is
organizationally challenged. Meanwhile,
you are organized, detail-oriented,
and meticulous. The combination of
your strengths should yield amazing
results for the clients and the firm.
However, if you’re stuck on the phone
all day and never get time to bring order
to the attorney-created chaos, your
contribution is greatly minimized.
In “The Matrix,” Morpheus tells Neo,
“free your mind” when trying to teach
him to jump from the top of one building
to another — in essence, forgetting
the rules Neo thinks he knows. As a
paralegal, the highest and best use of
your time is not to schedule meetings
or type documents – but to provide
another skill set complementary to your
attorney’s that improves results for the
firm’s clients. Towards that end, begin by
identifying two to five key traits that you
consider to be your strengths and which
you know add value to the firm and the
results it achieves for its clients. Tasks
that don’t mesh with those strengths are
your prime candidates for outsourcing.
Does Outsourcing Mean Less Job
Security for Me?
If the only skill you have as a paralegal is
an ability to type 70+ WPM to transcribe
letters your attorney dictates into a tape
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