Back in the olden days (or so I’m told) lawyers did a lot of their work by talking into tape recorders. They were assisted by secretaries, who spent a lot of their time turning these recordings into briefs, letters and memos. Like professional athletes, secretaries had stats, WPM, which told you how fast they did this all important job. Like professional athletes, this stat played a major role in their salary, team, batting order and trading status.
Now, lawyers have assistants and the difference is more than just semantic. More and more lawyers came of age using word processors. I couldn’t dictate a brief if I tried. I need to sit down, write, edit, write some more, edit. You get the picture. My support staff needs a completely different set of skills. I need help maintaining the files, sending letters I write, assembling briefs, filing and serving things like pleadings and discovery.
Not only do my assistants need different skills, I make different demands on their time than lawyers of a different era. I don’t need a steady stream of help. My need comes in fits and starts. I also do a lot of things myself that other attorneys relegate to support staff. The biggest one is probably time entry. I enter my time directly into our billing system and have from the moment they first gave me access.
People like me are forcing changes. Lawyers are becoming more self-sufficient and changing the ratios. The days of one secretary to one lawyer are long gone. I share with three others and we rarely bump into one another. Some have suggested this changing demographic has already led to reductions in legal staff. To thrive and survive, staff will have to get versatile, get technological and get out of their comfort zones.
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