How to get paid: Submissions

The How to Get Paid series provides barristers with simple estimating tools to help them for accurately estimate and bill for work they do on client matters.

Routine tasks

In my experience, lawyers are not overly keen on the concept of process.  Certainly, law firms tend not to devote attention to documenting processes that could make their firms run like clockwork.  Possibly the reason is that this is time that’s not billable to the client. 

Barristers practices are mini-law firms.  This is a help and a hindrance when it comes to process.

It’s a help because it means you are in control of your own processes. A hindrance, because it means you need to create them yourself.

How process saves you time

My first job out of university was with Accenture.  A rather odd career choice for a graduate of Russian language and Soviet Politics but it was 1994 and they had a brand new office in Moscow.

I learnt many useful things at Accenture, including how to re-use whatever you used on one client engagement to the next and subsequent engagements. In an environment where everyone was working crazy hours, it simply wasn’t an option to start every time from scratch with every consulting task.

This is how a business, and your practice, grows.  Create simple, repeatable and scalable processes, and apply them every time you perform a routine task. Never start anything from scratch, unless it really is something you’ve never done before.

The main task, plus everything else

Barristers have a set of routine tasks which they perform over and over again.  Writing opinions. Drafting skeletons. Filing submissions.

Each time you do one of these tasks you will follow, more or less, the same process. In addition to the outcome of the task (the opinion, skeleton or submission) there are a number of accompanying tasks, which you can estimate with a large degree of accuracy.

These are the tasks you can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and bill your client accordingly.

Submissions Planning Tool

I’ve created a planning tool you can use to estimate how long it’s going to take to file your next set of submissions.

Download the tool then click the Instructions Tab inside the planner to get started.

If you have any questions, get in touch via the Book a Call button at Jurilogical.com and I’ll talk you through it.

Submissions Planning Tool

By Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com

Heidi Smith writes about change and technology in the legal sector.  She is the creator of Jurilogical.com, an online resource hub that helps barristers raise their profile, connect with clients and grow their practice.

Related posts

How to get paid: Opinions

Ever wondered what these yellow buttons do?  Click one to find out.