By Joseph Scott
Missing a court deadline is bad enough — but lying to the client about it can only make a very bad situation even worse. For one Massachusetts attorney, that lesson cost a $35,000 malpractice judgment and a year's suspension from the bar.
Of course, this lawyer's conduct was extreme — and not the only time he had gotten in trouble for his methods of representing, or failing to represent, his clients, according to the Supreme Judicial Court ruling.
But even lawyers with the highest professional standards and the very best of intentions struggle to stay on top of court documents and rules. It's a particular challenge for attorneys with solo practices or those at small law firms, where there is no army of paralegals, assistants and IT staff to help ward off missed deadlines or changing court rules.
According to the American Bar Association, missing court dates are a leading cause of malpractice claims against lawyers, and lawyers at law firms with five or fewer attorneys are more likely to get sued for malpractice than those at larger firms.
So, what can small-firm attorneys do to avoid missing court deadlines, damaging their clients' cases (sometimes irrevocably) and keeping themselves from getting hit with malpractice lawsuits? First, they need to ask themselves five crucial questions.
1. Is my current calendaring system adequate?
Court calendaring systems run the gamut, from paper versions to expensive, highly sophisticated, legal-specific software programs.
Paper calendars are inarguably cheap, but you also get what you pay for. They quickly become outdated; there is no way to share them easily among lawyers and support staff; and they are highly prone to human error.
On the other side of the spectrum lie comprehensive, high-tech calendars designed specifically for lawyers. Such programs do offer many advantages — some include such features as automatic tracking of court dates and statutes of limitations.
Sophisticated programs utilize rules-based calendaring from jurisdictions around the country, which can save a great deal of time and effort otherwise spent researching that information.
Some even automatically recognize conflicts of interest with new clients. However, such programs can also require a big investment of money and training, which often puts them out of the realm of small firms.
For many solos and small-firm practitioners, the answer to calendaring probably lies somewhere in the middle.
2. What options exist for small firms and solos?
Fortunately, there are now relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use options available. Among those are standard, non-legal-specific software calendaring programs, such as Microsoft Outlook.
The advantages to those programs include their relative affordability, the fact that most reasonably tech-savvy legal professionals can master them with little difficulty, and they can be easily shared among everyone at the firm.
And for those who don't want to invest in a new software program, Internet-based deadline calculation services are also available. These websites offer automated rules-based calendaring, but on a limited or pay-per-use basis. You get only the dates you need and can print them out or integrate them into another calendar system, such as Microsoft Outlook.
This can significantly cut down on costs, since law firms need only pay for the services they use and they don't need to purchase new software.
3. What features should I look for in a court calendaring system?
No matter what system you decide to use, there are several key features that should be built into any system, whether those safeguards come with the program or you create them yourself.
Any good court calendaring system must include redundancies to guard against human and computer error. Even fully automated programs should be checked periodically to ensure there have been no computer glitches.
Programs that require a paralegal or administrative assistant to manually enter the data should be checked and checked again — and then checked once more. It is far too easy for someone to get distracted by a phone call when entering court dates or to transpose two numbers.
And at firms with more than one attorney, a calendar system should also be able to be viewed in multiple formats — in other words, every lawyer should be able to view not just their own calendar, but the calendars of every other attorney at the firm.
Another factor of concern when generating deadlines is that changes to court dates often occur after attorneys have conducted their initial research. Courts may issue changes in calendaring rules at any time.
However, if the attorney is using the most sophisticated online deadline calculations service, accurate court rules updates are performed regularly, and the lawyer will be notified by e-mail that there has been a rule change in a jurisdiction that has been searched. The attorney can then simply re-check the dates to see if any adjustments should be made to the individual attorney calendars.
Lawyers who travel frequently or who often work from home should strongly consider a system that can be accessed remotely, or one that can be synced to a PDA.
4. Is my back-up plan adequate?
In case of the unthinkable, you need a backup plan. What if a fire destroys your office building or a flood makes your calendar inaccessible? For small firms, the answer may be as simple as having everyone in the office take turns bringing a back-up copy of the files home after work.
And solos in particular need to consider what would happen if something happens to you. Do you have an attorney who can fill in and take care of your clients if you suddenly become incapacitated? Does that person know where your court calendar is?
5. Is everyone at my firm using the calendar?
A calendar that no one uses is worse than useless.
Each professional at your firm who is involved even peripherally with calendaring must be on board and committed to using the calendar system, in whatever form you choose.
A calendaring system must also have accountability built into it. Of course, attorneys have primary responsibility for their own calendars, but everyone involved must own up to their job in keeping the calendar current and accurate.
A quality automated calendaring system offers significant safeguards from errors. In fact, many insurance companies offer discounts on malpractice insurance for law firms that employ one; and some have even refused to insure firms that do not have such a system in place.
So, if professional pride and dedication to your clients isn't enough to invest the time and resources in a good calendaring system, there is always the bottom line to serve as motivation.
Joseph Scott is an attorney and vice president of sales and marketing at Deadlines On Demand, an online legal date calculation service, located at www.deadlines.com. He can be reached at jscott@deadlines.com.
August 15, 2005
