In almost all professions, time is of the essence, but when you work as an attorney, it’s especially true. From the variety of meetings with clients to meetings with other attorneys and court staff to the actual court appearances themselves, you must have a rigidly organized schedule in order to succeed in the legal world. This can grow daunting, even exhausting, and that’s why it’s wonderful to have an administrative team backing you up. While timing is important in your schedule, it’s also incredibly important for acquiring new clients; you need to find them at the right time, but the “right time” for your clients is often one of great confusion and distress. Balancing your own schedule with the needs of your clients can be exceptionally difficult at times, so it’s important to have systems in place to help find clients who are in need and represent them as quickly as possible.

In order to improve your intake process, be sure to have all of your potential clients in a spreadsheet or other client management software. Have categories for these clients ranging from “Not Yet Contacted” to “Awaiting Payment”, and timestamps indicating when each step was taken. You can then sort your clients by category in order to get a clearer picture of where they are in the intake process, as well as to nip any problems in the bud before they occur.

Traditionally, law firms have simply called clients when they need to be updated on new details that have emerged in their case, but with modern technology this no longer needs to be the case. Clients can’t always answer their phones, but they will always be able to see a text or email. For less sensitive updates, sending texts and emails is usually the best bet; you can also use reminder services to send automated texts to clients to remind them when they have an appointment the next day. Some of these softwares will even track when clients have been reminded of and missed appointments, so you can be more aware of clients who have a tendency to miss appointments. For important and sensitive matters, phone calls and in-person consultation remain a mainstay; clients respond well to more emotional, personal touches.

Automation is definitely key to timing, because it frees you up to do more important work. You should have standardized forms for intake; there is automation software that allows you to change areas of the template depending on context, but because they’re automated, you won’t have to worry about writing up a whole new document every time. There’s a plethora of other ways that you can automate to help with timing; you should take the time to look at them and see how they can help your firm.

There might be occasions where the timing doesn’t pan out for you, and that’s okay. There are court appearance professionals who can take your place for an appearance that you can’t make; they’ll take the time to make your clients comfortable with their expertise, so you can accomplish what needs to be done.