How to work when you can’t be at work Solutions to Problem #6 By: Erin Okuno Julia Richmond Jeff Harvey Kelly Cook

Problem #6 One highly skilled legal assistant left the firm about 6 months after you started. Her husband took a new job two counties away and the family had to move closer to his new employment, leaving the legal assistant with a 90-minute commute each way. She tried to make it work, but with kids in middle school who needed her to drive them to after-school activities, she found the distance to be too great. Now the legal assistant you share with one of the partners is facing the need to move a similar distance to care for an ailing parent. You suspect that both legal assistants would stay if they could work a flextime schedule that also let them work from home part or all of the time.

What solutions do you propose? Flexible scheduling and allow people to work from home – FaceTime OR a similar video conferencing product – Outsourcing administrative tasks – Practice Management Software – Remote access to shared files – Using “tasks” instead of the hours

How would you prioritize what needs to be done to solve the selected problem(s)? Meet with Assistants to see exactly what they require – Then decide what strategy would work best for each assistant because their particular issues might call for something different Make sure everyone has necessary technology and software Ensure that schedules are clear on meetings and deadlines

How would you persuade the other lawyers to consider your plan? Talk about the negative implications if you lose the two assistants – Train new people, lag time, have to pay two people to train – Decreased business and revenue due to an increase in law management tasks Potentially gives the assistant the opportunity to make more money and could be more efficient by saving time driving when they could be working – Higher morale, could save the firm more money

FaceTime HI, JEFF!