7 Easy Ways to Reduce Interruptions & Increase Productivity
Stop Wasting Time and Money
For any law firm, maximizing productivity is essential to managing caseloads effectively. You need to make the most of the available resources to get the best outcomes without incurring crippling overheads.
Yet both attorneys and legal support staff experience frequent interruptions throughout the working day. And the truth is, these increase costs and diminish productivity much more than you might expect.
Research shows that after a single interruption, it takes 23 minutes to get back on task. That translates into a massive 40% productivity loss that impacts efficiency and profitability.
“We’ve found that legal teams often get bogged down in basic admin work,” says Dr. Survam Patel, Managing Partner at Compliant Clients. “Often, this is non-legal work that could be more efficiently outsourced to a professional partner.”
The issue is particularly pronounced at personal injury law firms, where managing client care plans can be an administrative headache. The burden of scheduling rides and organizing medications just adds to the seemingly non-stop series of interruptions.
Fortunately, there are ways to fight back. Here are seven simple strategies any personal injury law firm can deploy to win back productive hours every day:
Transfer text messages
Texts and instant messages are a major source of interruptions for both attorneys and legal assistants. When notifications arrive, it’s hard for staff to ignore them. The result is that people often get distracted from critical tasks to deal with the mundane. Left unchecked, this problem can seriously erode efficiency. A simple solution is to transfer all such messages to your case management system. They can then be logged and tagged to be dealt with at an appropriate time.
Snooze emails
Attorneys receive many emails throughout the day. And as people check their inbox up to 20 times daily, that can be a significant cause of disruption. Dealing with emails as they arrive eats up valuable time scheduled for other matters. The good news is that there’s an easy fix. Many email services allow users to snooze emails, so they return to the inbox later. In just a few seconds, attorneys can postpone non-urgent messages. This means they can stay focused on more urgent matters while ensuring that emails are not forgotten.
Forward phone calls
Unexpected phone calls are a distraction and often occur at inconvenient times. A ringing phone is hard to ignore, and even responding to say, “I’ll call you back,” is a significant interruption. Worse still, a phone that rings during a meeting is, at best, embarrassing. At worst, it may be considered downright rude. Manage this problem by giving clients an alternative phone number. Calls to this number can be answered by a team member who performs triage and routes calls accordingly. This way, callers get an immediate response and even better service. Meanwhile, attorneys can continue working without interruption.
Reduce drop-in meetings
Unscheduled meetings have a habit of eating up big chunks of the working day. A request for “five minutes of your time” may easily spiral into an unwanted one-hour delay. Junior staff, in particular, may find it hard to resist interruptions from more senior colleagues. As a result, they may end up overwhelmed and unable to get things done effectively. To fix this problem, insist that all non-urgent meetings are scheduled appropriately. Encourage people to book a time rather than expecting immediate assistance.
Manage staff-to-staff communication
Preventing team members from interrupting each other may be harder than reducing external distractions. When a colleague is just a few feet away, it’s too easy to demand an immediate response. Teamwork is important, of course. But the way people work together needs to be managed well. Every team member needs time to concentrate and power through the critical tasks of the day. The answer is to train everyone on the team to respect each other’s schedule. This means sending messages and documents in a way that doesn’t interrupt more important work.
Outsource client transportation
For personal injury law firms, keeping clients compliant with their care plans is an important priority. But scheduling rides and getting people to medical appointments can be an administrative nightmare—and the source of frequent interruptions. In reality, attorneys and their legal assistants should be focused on improving client outcomes, not booking Uber rides. It makes more sense to let specialists deal with non-legal administration. That’s why more and more law firms are turning to Compliant Clients for help. Using our client transportation on lien service, you can trust us to schedule rides while you work on winning cases.
Improve Pharmacy Management
Clients often need medications to adhere to their care plans but may struggle with filling prescriptions and covering costs. The result is that legal teams waste time managing pharmacy matters. Legal assistants are busy people. They don’t have time to worry about where clients can get their medications, or how they will pay for them. Pharmacy on lien provides a simple solution. When you work with Compliant Clients, we’ll ensure clients get the medication they need without spending a cent. We’ll even give them a pharmacy card, so they can fill their prescriptions at almost any pharmacy.
Get More Done
By implementing these seven simple tips, you can abolish needless interruptions and win back time to get things done. That means better outcomes for clients and a happy, productive legal team.
If you need a reliable partner to take client transportation and pharmacy off your hands, Compliant Clients is here to help. “We keep clients compliant with their care plans,” says Dr. Patel.
“That means no more missed appointments and less admin work. Most importantly, it frees attorneys to spend more time getting fair settlements for their clients.”
More and more law firms are discovering that partnering with Compliant Clients saves them time and money. And getting started is simple. Just enroll a client in the easy-to-use portal and let us take the strain.
We’ll schedule rides, follow up as necessary, and keep people on track with their care plans. We can also help with pharmacy, making it easy for clients to get the medications they need.
Because we offer both transportation and pharmacy services on lien, neither you nor the client pays a cent out of pocket. It’s a no-brainer solution to the headache of care plan management.
If your legal teams are being interrupted by care plan matters, it’s time to act. Get in touch today to find out how we can save you time, money, and frustration.
