For 2008, I Hereby Resolve …
By Jim Calloway, Director, OBA Management Assistance Program

New Year’s resolutions have become quite a part of our culture.

But they seem to be honored more in the breach than in the accomplishment. Some of them are followed for a week. Some may last for a month. A very few last for a year or a lifetime. In fact, the cynic in me wants to guess that most New Year’s resolutions will be broken by the time you read this month’s column.

If the title of this article made you believe that I was going to tell you my personal New Year’s resolutions, please accept my apologies.

Instead I would like to spend a few minutes discussing with you some possible New Year’s resolutions for your law practice. The first of the year is a good time to take stock of the previous year and set goals for the future year. Rather than discussing diet, exercise or smoking, let us instead discuss what might be done to improve your law practice.

Looking back over the previous year will probably reveal some things that you did well and some things that you wish you’d done differently. So instead of calling them resolutions, let us talk about the next year’s goals for your law firm.

These certainly can include personal individual professional goals. Some of you may have the goal of working more hours in the future, while others of you have the goal of working fewer hours next year. It all depends on your personal situation.

Setting goals is something that everyone feels like they know how to do. But, as evidenced by the number of broken New Year’s resolutions, it is easy to set resolutions or goals. Realizing those goals presents a challenge for at least some of us.

As a lawyer you typically have many, many tasks to accomplish on any given day. Getting a complex legal brief filed on time or getting a lengthy and detailed contract negotiated, finalized and signed may give you a great sense of accomplishment, but these are tasks and if you aren’t careful you may miss out on your long-term goals as you accomplish task after task each day.

Lawyers tend to be very busy individuals. Many of us, me included, tend to take on too many assignments and say “yes” to additional projects when we should practice saying “no.” We will talk about how to set goals. While I believe that this advice is generally aimed at lawyers, most of it is probably true for many people as we tend to live in a frantically busy society.

TAKE SOME TIME

If you want to set goals for the future, it is important to have information at hand and time to focus on it. For most of us this means either doing it outside of normal office hours or scheduling a 90-minute to two-hour block of time where you are not to be disturbed except in the direst of emergencies. You probably want to turn off your e-mail so you won’t be tempted to look at it.

PLAN IN ADVANCE

One of the best ways to derail a planning session is to interrupt your thoughts several times to go locate some bit of information or ask the assistant to bring you something. Your loyal assistant may not be able to keep from saying “Mr. X has called twice and sounds angry.” There goes the focus on the planning session!

If you’re thinking about goals for your law firm, you probably want to make arrangements to have some basic information handy in advance. This will include your calendar from the previous year, your financials for that time period, including a profit and loss, your favorite non-alcoholic drink and whatever other data you wish to consider.

PUT YOUR GOALS IN WRITING

If you do not put goals in writing, they are just dreams or aspirations.

You have to put goals in writing to make certain that they are clear and to help prioritize the most important or urgent goals.

BE REALISTIC

Don’t aim for the moon. It is far better to succeed with a modest set of goals than to miss out on overly ambitious ones. (Note that this applies to your first goal-setting exercise or your first one in a long time. Once you get your feet on the ground, you should be more ambitious.)

GIVE YOURSELF A REVIEW DATE

If you don’t put a concrete date on your calendar to review your progress on your goals, you may not think of them again until this time next year. Make an appointment with yourself to see how you are progressing on your goals.

BREAK GOALS DOWN INTO ACTION STEPS

Sometimes our goals may be so ambitious that it is hard to know where to start. Think of several things that you can do to move you closer to your goals and calendar a date by which you intend to accomplish those specific steps.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

CONCLUSION

We all are very busy. But, by setting a few goals and reviewing your progress on them, you can make certain that you are taking care of your own needs as well as your clients.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal January 12, 2008 - Vol. 79; No.1.