Contact

Phone: 916.446.6846
Email: ikarp@productivetime.com

Law Firm Programs

Productive Time offers three types of services aimed at helping busy lawyers and law firms get organized and get things done:

Program Descriptions

Get Organized and Get Things Done - Practical Time Management for Lawyers

This fast-paced and entertaining seminar provides practical techniques for managing time, paper, information, projects and yourself. Enhance your organizational and time management skills to become more productive, achieve your priorities and make more time for yourself.

Program highlights include practical techniques to:

This program on Practical Time Management for Lawyers is Productive Time’s signature program.  It has been presented as in-house half-day training programs to partners, practice groups, associates and paralegals.  Sometimes a law firm decides to focus the training on a particular group, such as senior associates, practice group leaders or brand new associates.  On other occasions, such as at an off-site firm retreat, all lawyers in the firm or a practice group will participate.  The program is customized for each firm through meetings with firm management, questionnaires to all participants and telephone interviews with selected lawyers and staff in order to get a cross-section of concerns to focus the training on the most important issues.

View a detailed outline of this program

Overcoming E-Mail Overload

Overwhelmed with the volume of e-mail you receive daily?  E-mail has become the primary method of external communication between lawyer and client as well as internal communications within the law firm.  It can be a valuable tool or a productivity-sapping burden, depending on how well it is managed.  This program helps you cope with the deluge of e-mail and develop systems for managing your in-box, storing e-mails effectively for future retrieval and coordinating time-sensitive e-mails with your calendar. This timely program includes practical techniques to:

The Art of Effective Delegation

Effective delegation lies somewhere between the extremes of micro-management and laissez-faire.  The art of delegation requires, among other things clear communications, understanding of the assignment and time frame, a climate for questioning & mentoring, periodic follow-up, feedback and evaluation.  This workshop reviews practical programs and techniques for leveraging your time and mentoring associates by effective delegation. Agenda topics include:

Project Management & Teamwork for Attorneys

Attorneys are notorious for completing work at the last minute.  A crisis management mode can be the result of busy schedules, heavy workload, competing priorities or poor planning. Learn to apply project management techniques to legal work, juggle multiple priorities and use all of your available staff resources effectively.  The agenda covers the following topics:

Make Time Work for You - How to Manage Time Wasters at the Law Office

Once an attorney has planned all of the work that needs to be done, how do you get it done on schedule and keep time wasters and interruptions at the office from derailing your priorities?  This workshop presents practical strategies for handling:

Overcoming Clutter - How to Manage & Retrieve Paper

The paperless office remains a dream.  If you are overwhelmed by the volume of paper entering your office, it’s time to conquer the clutter and handle your overflowing in-box by establishing a system for paper management.  We will learn how to process the incoming paper for easy retrieval by set-up and maintenance of case, project, action, reference and reading files.  Learn how to supervise support staff, maintain your system and develop an index to all your files.  The program covers the following areas:

How to Run Effective &  Productive Meetings

Attorneys spend a lot of time in meetings.  Yet complaints about unclear purposes and wasted time are common.  This workshop focuses on the elements of a productive meeting: purpose, preparation of an agenda, timing & pacing, staying on point, open discussion, and recording and follow-up on decisions.  The agenda includes:

Overcoming Information Overload and Managing Communications

We are all overloaded with information these days. No sooner do we empty the In-box on our desk or our e-mail (if we, in fact, ever achieve such a state), and then it is full again. With so much information and so many ways to send and receive it, we need systems to communicate effectively and to manage the overload.  This program combines the paper clutter and e-mail programs into a two-hour presentation. Attendees will learn how to:

Effective Communications with Associates & Staff

In a profession that requires effective communication in litigation, deal-making and advice to clients, lawyers often don’t communicate very well with each other and with staff.  Cryptic notes, assignments without context, unclear instructions, failure to plan time to complete tasks, and hoarding tasks until the last minute cause wasted time, rush jobs, stress and frustration. Items on the agenda include:

Coping with Substance Abuse in the Legal Profession:

(This is a required MCLE hour in California).

Topics include a discussion of:

Managing Multiple Bosses - For Legal Secretaries & Assistants

The only thing more stressful to a legal secretary or assistant than a demanding boss is several demanding bosses. These days, many legal secretaries and assistants perform work for two or more attorneys. The program covers the following topics: