April 13, 2007
I just flew back to Atlanta from Orlando this morning and as soon as I talk with one client, I’ll be heading out to drive to Gatlinburg for a dear friend’s wedding. So, today’s post will be very brief.
I ran across a fabulous post on the PT-LawMom blog recently: The Curmudgeonly Legal Secretary. LawMom is a full-time legal secretary who will soon be attending law school at night, and she’s got must-read tips for working with a secretary. A few examples:
* Do let your secretary know where you are.
* Don’t forget to acknowledge your secretary’s birthday and appropriate holidays.
* Do remember that your secretary has access to your email (if you’ve granted access).
* Do give clear instructions, respond respectfully to questions or errors, and say please.
* Don’t do strange formatting in a document and expect your secretary to fix it. Learn the basics of Word.
Attorney/staff interaction has always been a hot button for me, because although lawyers can survive without a secretary or paralegal, it makes the job much more difficult to do so. And the benefits of working with support staff aren’t limited to delegating the routine tasks that pull us away from practicing law. Most legal secretaries know a great deal more about the practice of law than green associates, and there’s no better way to learn about the work preferences of another lawyer than to check with her secretary. A good secretary can run interference in a variety of ways and can talk his way into access to information that would take ordinary mortals a long time to find. And when you work well with a secretary, your productivity will skyrocket.
LawMom offers a lot of good “do and don’t” points, tailored especially to new associates (and summer associates, too). There’s one point she glossed over that I want to emphasize: say thank you. A lot. And mean it. Perhaps you, dear reader, are a model of kindness and gentility no matter the stress that lands on your plate. Most of us ordinary humans are not easy to work with at least sometimes. The least — the very least — we can do is to say thank you to the people who put up with us and help us get our work done.
(Don’t forget, Administrative Professionals day is April 25. This is your early warning. Don’t forget it!)
Have a good weekend!
Julie Fleming Brown coaches attorneys on professional development, career management, and client development issues. Please visit www.LifeAtTheBar.com for more information, or contact Julie at 800.758.6214.
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