By Julie Bays

Every law office has procedures. The question is whether they are written down or stored inside the heads of the lawyer and a few long-time staff members. Ask a newer employee how to open a matter, process an advance-fee payment, run a conflict check or close a file, and the answer is often, “Let me ask Susan.” Experienced staff members are invaluable, but a well-run office should not depend entirely on anyone’s memory.

Simple checklists and written procedures help ensure that routine tasks are performed consistently. They can reduce errors, make training and delegation easier, and help the practice operate more smoothly as it grows and changes.

In The Checklist Manifesto, surgeon and author Atul Gawande describes how professionals in complex, high-risk fields use simple checklists to reduce mistakes and improve outcomes. Whether someone is flying an airplane, constructing a skyscraper or performing surgery, the challenge is often not a lack of knowledge. It is performing the right steps consistently every time. Even capable, experienced people can miss an important step when work becomes busy, complicated or routine. A short, well-designed checklist can provide a reminder of what must happen before the task is complete.

Start With the Work You Already Do

Creating an office “Policies and Procedures” manual can sound like a project that requires a committee, consultant and a very large three-ring binder. That image causes many lawyers to postpone the project indefinitely. A better approach is to begin with one recurring task and document it as a checklist.

Choose a process that happens often, involves more than one person or creates significant risk if a step is missed. New client intake is an obvious place to begin. Other good candidates include opening a new matter, calendaring deadlines, receiving client funds, preparing monthly bills, closing a file, onboarding a new employee and responding to a cybersecurity incident.

The first version does not need to be perfect. Write down the steps in the order they are actually performed. Ask the person who regularly handles the task to review the list. Then use the checklist during real work. The missing steps and unnecessary details will become apparent quickly. A checklist should be short enough to use, specific enough to be helpful and flexible enough to revise when the office changes.

Five Useful Checklists for a Law Office

New-client intake

Confirm that the conflict check is complete, the engagement decision has been made, the fee agreement has been signed, required funds have been received and the matter has been opened in the firm’s systems.

Calendaring and deadlines

Identify the deadline, record the source, calculate related dates, assign responsibility and confirm that appropriate reminders are in place. A second-person review may be appropriate for critical dates.

Client communication

Document who will respond, what information is needed, when the client should expect an update and where the communication will be saved. A checklist can also prompt the office to record promises made during a call.

File closing

Send the final communication and bill, account for client property and funds, return original documents, confirm the retention period and record the destruction or review date.

Trust Accounting and Monthly Financial Review

A monthly checklist can confirm completion and lawyer review of the three-way trust account reconciliation, identify outstanding checks or unexplained balances, and document any corrective action. The same monthly review might include the operating account, aged receivables, unbilled time and upcoming expenses.

A Checklist Is Not Yet a Procedure

Once a checklist is working, turn it into a written procedure by adding the information someone would need to complete the task without relying on oral instructions. A useful procedure generally answers several practical questions: What is the purpose of the process? Who is responsible? When does it begin? What systems, forms or templates are used? What are the steps? Who reviews the work? What proof shows that the task is complete? What should happen when the usual process does not fit the situation?

Policies, procedures and checklists perform different jobs:

• A policy states the firm’s rule or expectation. For example, the firm will complete a conflict check before accepting a new matter.
• A procedure explains how the work is performed. It might identify which database must be searched, what names must be included and who reviews a possible conflict.
• A checklist identifies the steps that must be completed in a particular matter and provides a record that they were completed.

Together, they create the firm’s playbook. The policy establishes the expectation, the procedure explains the process, and the checklist helps the person doing the work remember and document each required step.

Fortunately, lawyers do not have to invent this concept from scratch. Marcia Watson Wasserman and Cynthia Thomas’s Law Office Policies, Procedures, and Operations Manual is a useful resource for firms that want to build or improve their internal systems. [i] Frank Ramos Jr.’s The Practice and Process of Law: Checklists for Every Occasion takes the checklist idea directly into legal work. [ii] Both books are good reminders that writing down the way work should be done is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is part of building a more reliable law office.

Build the Manual as a Living Resource

A beautifully written manual has little value if no one can locate it. Store the firm’s policies, procedures and checklists in a central, searchable location. Depending on the firm, that might be a shared document library, an intranet, the practice management system or another secure platform that employees already use.

Each procedure should identify its owner and the date it was last reviewed. The office should also make clear which version controls. If the firm keeps a printed binder, the electronic version should generally be treated as the current version so outdated pages do not continue circulating.

Protect the manual appropriately. Employees need access to the instructions required for their jobs, but the manual should not become a convenient list of passwords, security answers or other credentials. Access should be limited when a procedure contains confidential business, personnel or client information.

A procedure should be revisited when the firm changes software, a rule or court process changes, an employee identifies a missing step, or an error or near miss reveals a weakness. Even without a triggering event, the firm should review important procedures on a regular schedule.

Keep It Practical

The best checklist is not necessarily the longest one. A list that attempts to capture every possible circumstance may become so cumbersome that no one uses it. Focus on the steps that are essential, frequently missed or difficult to recover from later. Use plain language. Put the items in a logical order. Make it clear who is responsible for completing and reviewing the checklist.

The same principle applies to procedures. Write for the person who will use them, not for a hypothetical auditor. Screenshots, links, sample language and short explanations may be more useful than pages of formal prose. Test the procedure by asking someone who does not normally perform the task to follow it. Their questions will show you where the instructions rely on knowledge that was never written down.

Finally, remember that checklists and procedures support supervision, but they do not eliminate it. Lawyers remain responsible for setting expectations, training staff, reviewing work and making professional decisions. A manual is a management tool, not a substitute for management.

One Checklist at a Time

A complete office procedures manual is not written in a day, and waiting until there is time to write the entire manual usually means it will never be started. Pick one recurring process this month. Write the checklist, test it and revise it. Then add enough detail to turn it into a procedure. Repeat the process with another task next month.

By this time next year, the firm could have a practical collection of checklists and procedures covering its most important work. More importantly, the office will be less dependent on memory, more consistent in its service and better prepared to train, delegate and adapt.

Ms. Bays is the OBA Management Assistance Program director. Need a quick answer to a tech problem or help solving a management dilemma? Contact her at 405-416-7031, 800-522-8060 or julieb@okbar.org. It’s a free member benefit. 

[i] Marcia Watson Wasserman & Cynthia Thomas, Law Office Policies, Procedures, and Operations Manual (7th ed., American Bar Association 2022).

[ii] Frank Ramos Jr., The Practice and Process of Law: Checklists for Every Occasion (American Bar Association 2019).

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal — September, 2026 — Vol. 97, No. 7