The Importance of Management in the Law Office

by Dwight D. McCarty, Emmetsburg, Iowa

A lawyer today cannot sit in his office reading dusty volumes in a search for legal precedents and plod along in the same old procedure that was founded on some ancient conception ... from our grandfather's time and expect to survive.

The practice of law is changing. The lawyer of today occupies a different position from that of his predecessors ... . He is functioning in an entirely new way and in an entirely different environment. Litigation is decreasing and new activities must be found to take its place. The glamour of the courtroom and the romance of advocacy still cast their spell over the profession of the law in a few exploited cases. But the bulk of the lawyer's work is now done in his office. There is no blare of trumpets nor widespread publicity as he sits at his desk, but for every day he is in court, he spends many days in his office. His office practice thus takes on added importance. The general practitioner has become more of a counselor than an advocate. But that very fact entails added responsibilities and a broader knowledge of the business world.

Government bureaus and tribunals are increasing at an alarming rate. The ever-changing income tax laws have brought new problems and a new type of business. ... Government controls and regulations are a continual headache, which neither clients nor lawyers can afford to ignore. Even the states are seeking new sources of revenue by imposing income taxes, sales taxes, franchise taxes, and use taxes. By levying these taxes against concerns doing business within the state, they are endangering the markets of outside concerns and thereby weakening and threatening to destroy the time-honored distinction between interstate commerce and intrastate business. The manufacturer, the wholesaler, and even the retail merchant is rushing to the lawyer to find out what he can do, or cannot do, in this tangled web of business law. ... Even international events now leave their impress upon business and personal transactions in our everyday life.

We all recognize how the entire economic status as well as the social structure has undergone radical changes. We are indeed living in a fast-moving atomic age, and from recent developments, perhaps in a hydrogen age.

Is the Lawyer Keeping Up?

Is the law profession measuring up to these changing modern developments? Is it meeting this present-day challenge? I believe it is, at least from the standpoint of ability and integrity. ... It is the glory of our legal system that our law is constantly changing to meet the changing conditions of life. At the same time, it is obvious that the lawyer must also advance to keep up this march of progress.

But is the lawyer's modus operandi, his technique, his office procedure keeping pace with this changing world? The farmer has discarded horses for the tractor and combine. The dairyman has kicked out the old three-legged stool and tin bucket and installed electric ... milking machines. The doctor has an office full of contrivances and gadgets ... . Even the smallest bank disdains the old bookkeeping methods and uses electric bookkeeping machines. And so it goes. Is the lawyer backward? Is he keeping up with the procession in this respect? He has good law books, the principal tool of the profession. But outside of some files, a typewriter and a pencil and notebook for the stenographer, what has he?

This is a business world, and the lawyer must be a businessman to keep up with the fast tempo of the time. He must be efficient and have an up-to-date office organization to meet the problems and the competition of today. Shrewd businessmen are choosing up-to-date attorneys who understand business conditions and who can give them the expert advice they seek.

The real problem that faces us now is how we can modernize our office procedure so as to relieve the pressure on the lawyer and yet give more efficient service to clients.

Modernizing the Law Office

The first impression of the office is often a potent influence in forming a client's opinion of the firm. All callers should be courteously received and their business given prompt attention. Clients should not be kept waiting any longer than absolutely necessary, and their stay should be made as pleasant as possible, consistent with the efficient transaction of business. The receiving clerk or stenographer should be a dispenser of good will. But much depends upon her manner and method. It is hard to believe, but there are still gum-chewing flippant girls in charge of the reception room. It might be worth your while to check up and find out what is going on in the outer office.

When I first started to practice law, one of the older lawyers in our town always kept a big earthen crock a few feet away from his desk, and his clients would watch with fascination the unerring accuracy with which he would spit tobacco juice into that receptacle. Not long ago I ran across an old inventory of our office furniture of about thirty years ago which included "six large brass cuspidors." It kept a janitor busy polishing them and keeping them sanitary. These finally dwindled down to one which we kept for a while to accommodate one vigorous client who knew where we kept it hidden and always dragged it out for his own convenience. But even that finally went into the discard. Many other customs of the law office have gone the way of the cuspidors and the dusty old pigeonholes that were the mainstay of the old-style practitioner. Now we have bright glass or chromium ash trays and smoking stands for the convenience of our clients ..., and instead of the lollipops which we used to keep in stock to entertain the children who accompanied their parents, we now provide comic books on the table in the reception room. But these are mere surface changes. The real changes lie deep in the social and industrial life of our nation.

The phenomenal ability of industry to produce was brought into the limelight under war conditions. ... The heart of the production line is standardization. ...This lesson from industry can be adapted to the law office. Standardized operations are just as practical in the law office as in the factory.

[Note: McCarty's address continues in December.]