WSJ Says Lawyers Spend Too Much Time on “Paperwork” (Nonbillable Hours)

Here’s the WSJ story (which may be behind a paywall; if so, I apologize).

Legal Project Management is not a cure-all for these issues. For example, the WSJ mentions the need for secretarial personnel in small offices; LPM isn’t going to eliminate that kind of paperwork, though it will reduce it somewhat.

But look at the other issues the article points out:

• Delegation skills
• Improving billing
• Distractions
• Better accounting for time/not losing billable minutes
• Minimizing waste

That sounds like the syllabus for about half of one of my Legal Project Management classes.

Sometimes people want to overcomplicate project management. There are certainly some very complex aspects of high-end project management. However, 90% of it is straightforward and easily learned — and most of that other 10% will never apply to legal work and wouldn’t pay off if you spent months trying to master it.

Summer’s almost gone, as the Doors said. With fall upon us (or spring Down Under) and most everyone back from vacations, it’s time to organize classes to bring measurable improvements to the practice or department bottom line, for firms small or large. Legal Project Management classes can drive significant improvement, with surprisingly low resistance levels once attorneys and legal teams have had a chance to participate and gain a deeper understanding of what it is (and why it’s supportive rather than threatening).