Successful Paralegals

KEYWORDD 1st in real keyword title here

Other Office Information

Successful Paralegals in this office understand the following:

Our 3 critical numbers are highly visible on the Modelaw dashboard.

% Icon Conversions is the most important one.
How can you help the office and your lawyer have a better group conversion rate?

Net Questing – telling people about the office, about your lawyer which helps get more client applicants and therefore better client applicants.

Encourage your team members, especially your lawyer.

Talk about it to coworkers or related subjects – help keep ideas fresh in everyone’s mind.

Monthly: praise your lawyer when she gets a monthly award for having % conversion > 50%. Encourage her if she is below 50%.

Brainstorm with coworkers how we can get more client applicants, screen better or improve icon conversion.

Ask your lawyer if you can sit in on a couple of Ions and then brainstorm with her how the session could be improved.
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% Collections “is listed as” the 2nd most important one.
How can you help the office and your lawyer have a better group % collections?

Make and log Collection Attempts.

Explain to Business Staff what you know that they may not that would improve % collections such as when to get out of a case, when to collect for a newly scheduled hearing.

Encourage your lawyer to be tougher, smarter, more proactive on collections by making specific observations and comments about specific clients.

Monthly: praise your lawyer when she gets a monthly award for having % collections > 95%. Encourage her if she is below 95%.

Praise your lawyer when she has little victories with collections.
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Billed Hours “is listed as” the 3rd most important one.
How can you insure your own billed hours are consistently > 100 per month?
Please each client. Please your lawyer. Build trust from them.

How can you help your lawyer be able to bill her hours at consistently > 100 per month?
Encourage her. Keep the monkeys off her back. Don’t waste her time cleaning up your mistakes or doing your job for you.

How can you help your other legal staffers be able to bill their hours at consistently > 100 per month?
Encourage them. Be a team player. Help keep morale high.

Intangible (loose definition for our purposes):
immaterial but important things not directly perceivable or measurable but having value in connection with something else. Examples: work ethics, team spirit, responsibleness ]]]

Critical numbers are based on Tangibles. Yet these Tangibles depend upon Intangibles. For example, in order for a Paralegal to consistently bill more than 100 hours per month (a Tangible quantity), she must have earned and keep earning the confidence (Intangible feelings) from her lawyer so the lawyer will continue to delegate sufficient quantities of work to the Paralegal.

Therefore: Performance pay for Paralegals is directly based on Tangibles and indirectly based on Intangible Qualities and Intangible Performances.
Intangibles differentiate people from machines and
people from animals and
people from other people.
What makes employees great are intangible qualities and intangible performances. Intangibles are difficult factors to evaluate because they are personal, subjective and they are opinions. However, they are important to maintaining effective working relationships and getting the job done well. Intangibles can make your personal stock values go up.

Body Language is a great example of an intangible. Contrast our good looking smiling friendly receptionist with good posture and warm greetings for our clients and other visitors with that of a competing office that has a frumpy grouchy curt cold receptionist. It’s easy to see the difference but hard to measure and hard to measure the results.

Consistent Paralegal Intangible Performances (verbs) in the order of importance that Ray thinks lawyers should rank them:
recognizing and acting on the most important priorities (consistently being proactive)
achieving or exceeding expected results in expected time
paying attention to detail
learning from experience
performing well in the absence of supervision
seeing relationships between facts and then drawing appropriate conclusions quickly
dealing smoothly with unexpected developments
being motherly (going well beyond baby sitting)
going the extra mile
taking the high road

Consistent Paralegal Intangible Qualities (adjectives or nouns) in the order of importance that Ray thinks lawyers should rank them:
hard working (positive work ethics)
knowing when and when not to ask for help
team player
intelligent
personality
commitment
dedication
resourcefulness
confidence
positive attitude
behavior

More Intangible Qualities – in no particular order –
character
effort
firm pride
friendly, outgoing
moral
morale
motivated
Initiative
judgment
cooperativeness
dependability
empathy
desire to please others
loyalty and dedication to the company
energy level
people skills
determination