Happy Lawyer, Happy Admin
Why a Happy Lawyer = A Happy Admin
The job description of any legal support staff varies from firm to firm and can include all manner of tasks, from preparing Court documents to liaising with clients and even attending to personal errands. The common thread between all of the tasks that we may be required to undertake is that our primary job is to make our supervising Solicitor’s working life easier which, in turn, makes them happy and strengthens your working relationship.
Having a positive relationship with your supervising Solicitor/s and feeling like you are making a difference in your role can make your day to day life so much more enjoyable. A lot of different qualities and skills can come into play when trying to make, and keep, your Solicitor/s happy and each Solicitor places a different value on each skill. I have outlined a number of these skills below and outlined a few good practices, processes and tips that may assist in developing these skills.
Accountability
One of the things that truly set a good employee from an excellent employee is the ability to be personally accountable for their work and their actions within the workplace. Accountability is the ability for an employee to truly take pride and responsibility for their work and their work ethic. Accountability is the main foundation for a strong work ethic. It can take many forms, but typically includes:
Being Reliable
It is important to always be on time to work and not take advantage of excessive and unnecessary sick days. If you are constantly late or not at work, your Solicitor will be unable to rely upon you, which can cause frustration.
Ensuring all tasks undertaken are performed to the standard expected of them
All work should be undertaken to the standard expected of you. This almost always includes completing work with efficiency and accuracy. You should ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes over and over again and if there is anything you are unsure of or struggling with, you should seek help from colleagues or seek out further training.
Taking responsibility for your actions
When mistakes are made, you should take responsibility for them and assist in workshopping a solution to rectify the issue or minimise the damage. You should avoid making excuses and placing blame – no-one likes someone that has an “it’s not my fault” mentality.
Being personally accountable in your own role allows your supervising Solicitor to rely upon you consistently and (hopefully) spend less time managing you and your workload, which significantly improves the Solicitor/support relationship.
Attitude
Maintaining a positive attitude in the workplace will make all the difference in your day to day work life. A negative attitude affects personal morale and productivity, and can affect not only yourself but also those around you and the Solicitor that you work with. It is important to stay positive, be proactive and willing to learn, and be willing to go above and beyond.
Staying Positive
It is sometimes difficult, in our high stress roles, to always stay positive.
Some things that you can do that may assist in staying positive in the workplace include:
Accepting new challenges and getting started on new projects.
Setting goals for yourself and rewarding yourself when you meet them.
Getting to know and make friends with your co-workers.
Refreshing your work space with some spring cleaning and decorations.
Avoiding gossip and complaining yourself, as well as avoiding entering into conversations with others doing the same.
Remembering that everyone makes mistakes. You’re human – don’t beat yourself up when things go wrong.
Being Proactive
Solicitor’s really appreciate someone who has the ability to have initiative and take action without being asked to do something. This skill will come to you the more you become familiar with your Solicitor and firm’s practices and the way that they work.
You should also endeavour to always continue learning and growing within the your role. There are many valuable resources of information you can utilise within a workplace, including your fellow colleagues, research engines and document management systems. When you aren’t sure of how to do something, make sure to ask, although remember that your Solicitor’s time is valuable and it may sometimes be more beneficial to ask other support staff within your team.
Willingness to go Above and Beyond
Displaying a willingness to go above and beyond doesn’t always have to mean sucking up to the boss. You should show your worth by letting your work and your commitment to your role show for itself. There are countless ways you can show your willingness to go above and beyond, but they can include:
Striving to always continue improving – constantly asking for and listening to feedback, and continuing to learn new things.
Avoiding the words “that’s not my job / doesn’t fit into my job description” – you are there to make your Solicitor’s life easier and assist them in their role, whatever form that may take.
Showing commitment by staying back or getting in early to ensure deadlines are met (within reason).
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” -Winston Churchill
Communication
Communication is one of the most important qualities that forms your Solicitor/PA relationship and there are a few things that you should keep in mind when communicating with your Solicitor.
Communication Styles
Find our what your Solicitor’s communication style is, and adapt to what they prefer. All different Solicitors have different communication styles - some may prefer email, dictating instructions or sitting down with you to chat about what needs to be done. It may be the case that your Solicitor receives countless emails within a day, in which case it may be necessary for you to bring urgent matters to their attention face to face. It may also be beneficial for you to sit with your Solicitor for five minutes in the morning to discuss what their goals are for the day and what they need from you. Find out what works for them.
Avoiding Email in Certain Situations
You should always avoid using email to have important conversations, such as when you are asking for something, bringing up an issue or apologising for a mistake. If you feel that it is necessary to have one of those handy “butt covering” emails, feel free to send an email to your Solicitor after your chat confirming the contents of your discussion and any next steps that either you or your Solicitor have agreed upon.
Speak Up!
Sometimes it is easy to be intimidated by someone who is your superior and you may avoid approaching them in certain situations. You will not be able to have a close working relationship with your boss if you can’t communicate with them. There are a number of situations where you should absolutely speak up and ensure that you communicate properly with your Solicitor, including:
Clarifying instructions that aren’t clear.
Asking for feedback about your work.
Checking in with your boss. Ask them if they need anything instead of sitting around waiting for instructions.
Keeping your boss informed about important developments and giving them updates on tasks that they have assigned to you.
Speaking about any issues you are having. If there is something you aren’t happy with at work, nothing will change unless you speak up about it!
Get to Know your Solicitor on a Personal Level
Whilst it is not absolutely necessary to develop a personal relationship with your boss, it certainly makes your day to day work life much more enjoyable if you get along with your boss on a personal level, and makes communicating with them generally a lot easier.
Efficiency & Time Management
In our roles, we are bombarded with very heavy workloads and often have to manage a number of competing priorities. It becomes necessary to develop time management skills and the ability to appropriately prioritise tasks. There are a number of different ways that we can do this in our roles as support staff.
Correct Prioritisation of Tasks – The Eisenhower Principle
The Eisenhower principle involves the breakdown of tasks into categories: the urgent, and the important. To distinguish between important activities and urgent activities, urgent activities are those that demand your immediate attention, whereas important activities are those that lead to you achieving our professional and personal goals. In our context, it can also include the goals of our supervising Solicitor or the firm in which we work.
Essentially, all tasks can be broken down into four categories:
Important and urgent.
Important but not urgent.
Not important but urgent.
Not important and not urgent.
The principle suggests that effective managers should prioritise tasks that are both urgent and important, then tasks that are both important but not urgent. The principle suggests that tasks that are urgent but not important should be delegated and tasks that are neither urgent nor important should be discarded completely.
Whilst as support staff we may not always have the ability to delegate or discard tasks that have been allocated to us (unless you want some really annoyed Solicitors on your hands), this scale can certainly assist in how you prioritise the work that has been allocated to you.
Avoiding Procrastination – The 5 Minute Rule
Procrastination can be one of the biggest time wasters in the workplaces, and it can crop up even when we don’t realise it. How many times within a day do you review your emails or task lists, and then decide to come back to a task later? You then come back to it later, re-read the email and may even then decide again that the task can wait until later. By the time that you end up getting to a quick small task, you may have read the email and not actioned it three or four times. This common occurrence of multi-handling emails wastes so much time! In his book Work Smarter: Live Better, Cyril Peupion suggests that checking your emails less frequently and focussing on the tasks that you already have in front of you can assist. Another tip he suggests which has drastically improved my own time management is to attend to tasks that takes 5 minutes or less straight away and schedule time in your calendar for tasks that take a more significant chunk of time (i.e. 30 minutes of longer).
If you can do something under 5 minutes, do it now.
Loyalty and Respect
You cannot have a meaningful working relationship with your boss without loyalty and respect - and that works both ways! There are many ways you can demonstrate loyalty towards your Solicitor, and it isn’t just about how much time you have on the board working for them.
You should never make your boss look bad in front of others. You should cover for them with clients when necessary, and defend them if others are criticising them. You should never gossip about them or speak badly about them. If you are having issues with your boss, you should speak to them privately, rather than venting to others or arguing with them in front of other co-workers.
Remember that your boss is human. They, like you, are under a number of different pressures in the workplace and, whilst not ideal, sometimes this means that you may bear the brunt of their frustrations.
Find out what your bosses professional goals are and help them work towards them. Similarly, find out what tasks and aspects of your role they value the most and ensure that they are the things that you prioritise. For example, if your Solicitor prefers to work off of paper files rather than electronically, then you will have to prioritise your filing above other tasks.
Ultimately, your working relationship with your Solicitor can make or break the day to day happiness that you find within your role.
You working relationship, like any relationship, is a work in progress. It isn’t always going to be perfect. I have outlined in this paper some skills that may assist in developing a positive relationship with your boss and making them happy, because at the end of the day, a happy lawyer = a happy admin.
