Excerpted from
How to Start & Build a Law Practice, Fifth Edition
By Jay G Foonberg

Timely Delivery of Work

I am including this chapter on timely delivery of work because it is a major factor in the creation of client satisfaction.

When you tell a client how long it will take for you to accomplish a matter, you are creating an expectation in that client. When you don't fulfill that expectation, you will then have an angry or unhappy client.

Procrastination and failure to deliver work in a timely fashion is a strong negative among clients. If you have a reputation for being consistently late in delivering work, clients will not use you again and they will not recommend you to others. Late delivery and last-minute delivery creates quality-control problems and the embarrassment of cleaning up mistakes, as well as uneconomical utilization of staff.

Procrastination generally is a time management problem curable by using a to-do list. Only on a few rare occasions is late delivery of work due to unforeseen intervening emergencies. In many cases procrastination is caused when you don't know how to do the job and avoid it by ignoring it. If this is the case, get help from another lawyer on an informal basis.

A good tickler system with at least five advance reminders is the best way to get a job done in a timely way. I am continually amazed by the large number of lawyers who do a reasonably good job of calendaring and having a tickler system for litigation, but do nothing about nonlitigation matters.

Your tickler system should come up five times, both on your calendar and on the calendar of your secretary or assistant or any other person who can nag you about your undone work.

If a job is tough to do, carve out an appointment with yourself of an hour or an hour and a half where you take no phone calls and talk to no one. If necessary, stay home and do the work at home or go to a law library with a laptop, or lock yourself in an empty office in your office.

If absolutely necessary, refer the matter and the client to another lawyer. If the work is not being done because it is beyond your ability, tell the client and help the client find another lawyer to do the work.

In most cases you can prevent late delivery and procrastination by using a good tickler system. When you call a client and tell the client you were able to finish his or her work a bit early, the client will love you.

If for no other reason, you should want to finish the job so you can get paid for the work.

Timely delivery of work is important, because the client may think you are delaying the matter in order to run up the bill.

An American Bar Association study showed that timely delivery of work was present in 83 percent of satisfied clients and that failure to timely do the work was a factor in 59 percent of dissatisfied clients.