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CHAPTER 2
LEGAL ADMINISTRATION AND TECHNOLOGY
OVERVIEW
Chapter 2 covers the full spectrum of law office management topics. The chapter breaks law office
management down into 11 parts. Some of the topics, such as financial management and marketing,
have full chapters devoted to them later in the text, so these topics are just introduced in this
chapter. Other topics, such as human resources, planning, and technology, among others, are only
covered in this chapter, so these are explained in more detail. This is an important chapter in
that it introduces the complexity of law office management and its many facets to the student.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, the student should be able to:
◼ Distinguish between office administration and practice management.
◼ Identify the functions of legal administration.
◼ Define total quality management.
◼ List and explain major federal employment laws.
◼ Discuss what a staff manual is and why it is important.
◼ Explain the purpose of strategic planning.
◼ Describe what disaster planning is.
◼ Discuss major technology issues in law offices.
OUTLINE
I. Legal Administration Principles
A. Dispelling a Myth—Many people assume that attorneys automatically make good
managers. In truth, this is not necessarily so. Although lawyers have gone to school
to learn about practicing law, many have no training or experience in management. One
adage is “the best system for law office management is the system that involves the
lawyers the least.”
15
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
16 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
18 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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b. Quality service involves every person in the firm, and everyone must be
involved and committed.
c. Quality service is based not on management’s or our own perception of
quality, but on the perceptions of the client.
d. Quality service depends on the individual’s, the team’s, and ultimately the
organization’s performance.
e. Improve systems constantly.
IV. Leadership
Leadership is the act of motivating or causing others to perform and achieve objectives.
Effective leaders inspire others; set a clear mission, vision, and goals for an organization;
and give it direction and guidance. See Exhibit 2-6.
V. Controlling
Controlling is the process of determining whether the law practice is achieving its
objectives, holding stakeholders accountable for their goals, and making strategy
adjustments as necessary so the firm achieves its objectives.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
19 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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VIII. Planning
A. Planning is the process of setting objectives, assessing the future, and developing
courses of action to achieve these objectives.
B. A mission statement is a general, enduring statement of the purpose or intent of the
law practice.
C. Strategic planning includes determining the major goals of a firm and then adopting
the courses of action necessary to achieve those goals. See Exhibit 2-15 and Exhibit
2-16 in the text.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
20 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
21 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
22 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
23 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
24 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
25 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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3. Intranet
4. Extranet
5. Legal weblogs
TEACHING SUGGESTIONS
1. Exhibit 2-2, the Functions of Legal Administration, is a good place for students to get an
overview of law office management. An outside speaker, such as a legal administrator or office
manager, can assist in bringing to life the diagram and can talk about how all of the functions
take place in a real law office setting.
2. Practice management is a topic that is sometimes left out of discussions with paralegals
because they are typically not involved in the decisions. Nonetheless, practice management
and the strategy of attracting and retaining clients is critical to the success of any law firm.
Consider having a partner in a law firm come in and talk about what types of clients the firm
provides services for; how the firm distinguishes its services from those of other firms; how
the firm selects which cases and clients to work with; how important quality is; and what
resources in terms of staff, marketing, and technology the firm uses to provide services.
3. Some good articles on practice management can be found on the American Bar Association
website under the Law Practice Division (http://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_practice
.html). Law Practice Today is a monthly digital publication and maintains a large selection of
archived articles. Law Practice Magazine is a bi-monthly publication that covers practice area
topics. The May/June, 2015 issue focuses on management, with “Five Steps to Building the
Practice You Really Want,” by Janice P. Brown. The September/October issue focuses on
leadership, with “Four Necessary Leadership Skills,” by Mark Beese.
4. Regarding leadership, there is an interesting article written in 2000 by Thomas M. George, Ph.D.
called “Leadership Report Card—How Would Your Employees Rate You?” It includes a self-
administered test regarding leadership skills (http://tgeorges.home.comcast.net/~tgeorges/leaders
.pdf). Forbes.com also has a self-administered test entitled “Think You’re A Leader? Take the
Test and Find Out,” by Mike Myatt. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/05/22/think-
youre-a-leader-take-the-test-and-find-out/). The reader rates him- or herself on a grading scale,
from A to F, on 10 aspects of leadership. I highly recommend it because it allows the students to
see what an “A” leader is as opposed to an “F” leader. The grading scale (A to F) ties in closely
with their academic pursuits, and it is quite interesting. If the hyperlinks provided are no longer
valid, try locating the articles by their titles or on their respective Web sites.
5. Some instructors believe human resources is important in this course and others do not,
because paralegals typically do not play a large role in this area of most law offices. Even if
this is true, the section has value in that it can prepare the student for the workplace, so he or
she understands what the hiring and evaluation process is and how it works. One idea is for
students to conduct mock interviews with one another. Some students should pose as the
interview team and other students should act as job candidates for a paralegal position. The
interview team should make a list of questions to ask each candidate using the suggestions in
the text. The interviews can be videotaped so the students can see how they did. The rest of
the class should evaluate both the applicants and the interview team(s) and make suggestions
on how they can improve their performance.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
26 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
27 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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6. A great resource for all law office management topics, but particularly human resources, is
The Essential Formbook—Comprehensive Management Tools for Lawyers, Volumes I–IV
by Gary A. Munneke and Anthony Davis (American Bar Association, 2003, 2007, 2010). It
has a number of alternative law office forms for performance evaluations, reference checks,
job descriptions, and so forth. If you want to demonstrate different human resource systems
in law offices, this would be a good place to start.
7. Compensation and benefits for paralegals were covered in Chapter 1, so that topic is not
duplicated here. Good resources for this topic include the following: http://www.salary
.com; NALA Paralegal Utilization of Compensation Survey (http://www.nala.org/Upload
/file/PDF-Files/News-Articles/15SEC4.pdf); Paralegal Today’s Annual Salary Survey,
published in the Q1 2015 issue of Paralegal Today; and Altman Weil (http://www.altman
weil.com). Altman Weil charges for its salary report on paralegal compensation, but it typically
issues a free press release regarding the national average and whether the amount rose or fell
over the previous year. Of all of the survey data, the Altman Weil report is probably one of
the most authoritative and has the most credibility with employers.
8. Training and Development—following is a sample orientation program checklist for new
paralegals.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
28 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
29 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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9. Sexual Harassment—The Little v. Allstate Insurance Co. case at the end of the chapter is a
good example regarding sexual harassment. Exhibit 2-13 shows an excellent antiharassment
policy for a law office. The following link to the EEOC includes excellent statistics and
other information regarding sexual harassment: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual
_harassment.cfm.
10. Office Relations/Lavely v. Heafner—In researching the text, I found an interesting and
unique case. You might use this case to illustrate how important good decisions are
regarding where you decide to work, office relationships, and how things can go astray.
Although these issues are relevant in any size of law office, these issues can really be important
in very small firms. Whether or not you decide to use the case is up to you, but I can nearly
guarantee you have not seen anything quite like it before.
11. Strategic Planning—Although most paralegals are affected by strategic plans, they may or
may not be included in these types of meetings, so there is not a lot of information included
on this topic. Excellent articles can be found in Law Practice published by the American Bar
Association, such as “A Fresh Look At Strategy” in the September/October issue. Some older,
but still useful articles include “Getting to the Future First—How to Analyze External Trends
of Strategic Decision Making” in the May/June 2004 issue of Law Practice.
12. Stress the importance of staff manuals and how they can set forth important policies and
procedures for controlling the firm and controlling the quality of the legal work going out of
the firm. If possible, bring in staff manuals from law offices in your area as examples. If you
cannot do that, you may be able to find a law library with the 2008 Law Office Policy and
Procedures Manual, 6th edition, by Robert Wert and Howard Hatoff (American Bar
Association). It is a great resource, and the whole book also comes on CD-ROM and is
completely customizable.
13. Facilities Management—Most paralegals are not directly involved in facilities issues, so this
topic is only covered briefly. Paralegals are sometimes consulted in small law offices when
it comes to office design. If this interests you, two good resources for designing a law office
are “Small Spaces: A Planning Primer for Solo and Small Firm Office Design” by Suzette S.
Schultz and Jon S. Schultz, in the April/May 2005 issue of Law Practice (American Bar
Association, p. 46) and “Designing the Smart Office—Where Form Meets Function” in the
same issue (American Bar Association, p. 38).
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
30 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
31 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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14. Considerations When Setting Up a Paralegal’s office—See the accompanying table for a
summary of this topic.
Replace handset of phone with Paralegals can spend many hours on the
earpiece/microphone phone. Most telephone handsets can be
replaced with an earpiece/microphone unit
that allows the user to talk on the phone hands-
free. If you have a choice, consider a headset.
They are usually more comfortable to use.
If you have a choice, try to have a guest
Put client chairs next to the desk, not chair placed so that you do not have to talk
across from the desk across the desk to the client. This helps
prevent you from being in a superior
position to the client and creates a more
amicable setting for the client.
Keep reference books next to you Keep reference materials close by, so you do
not have to get out of your chair to get them.
Computer/monitor placement Try not to put your computer on the desk
unless there is no alternative, because it will
typically take up desk space. Place the
computer on the floor, if possible, and keep
only the monitor on the desk. As you sit up
straight at your desk, the monitor should be
at eye level. The keyboard and mouse should
be located next to each other.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®.
15. Security/Workplace Violence—This is obviously an important concern for any business, and
it is particularly difficult for law offices because most firms deal with the general public— and
you just never know who you will get walking through your door.
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32 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
33 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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16. Disaster Recovery Plans—There is a tremendous amount of data on the Internet and
otherwise regarding disaster plans. This is a good research or project for students. The
ethical dilemmas for a law office if a total disaster occurs are immense. There is also a
serious question of whether any firm can truly recover if a total disaster occurs. Another
good project would be to ask students to write a paper regarding the ethical problems a total
disaster would create for a law office. There are resources in the “Web Links” section of the
chapter regarding this subject.
17. Technology—Consider bringing in a practicing paralegal, law office computer specialist, or
legal administrator to discuss this topic. Another great source of data is the May/June issue
of Paralegal Today, which usually features its technology survey. The problem with
teaching law office technology and computers is that the subject is so vast; it is truly its own
whole course. There are also thousands of articles on law office technology, so paring the
subject down is difficult. One idea is to cover the high points and then ask the students to do
a project regarding the top five trends in law office technology, such as mobile computing,
computers in the courtroom, e-discovery, and so forth.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
34 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
35 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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ANSWERS TO PROJECTS
1. Disaster recovery plans will usually contain some or all of the following:
• Who is in charge of overseeing implementation of the disaster recovery operation?
• What key individuals make up the disaster recovery team, and what are their functions
and responsibilities?
• Who will be contacted, and how?
• Where is the designated meeting place (and an alternative) if the whole facility is
unavailable?
• What services/areas/departments have been determined as vital to the recovery
operation?
• What are the steps, components, and alternative strategies for making each
area/department operational?
• What will each department require in terms of resources (computers, minimal office
space, desk, chairs, information, etc.) to be operational? All of this must be reduced to
writing, and a copy should be maintained off-site.
• How do firm personnel obtain information and instructions on what to do when a
disaster happens?
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
36 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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• Where are important papers and computer backup data located? Important documents
such as copies of leases; names, addresses, and phone numbers of all staff; bank account
information; copies of insurance policies; a listing of all clients, including contact
information for the clients and opposing counsel in cases; complete firm-wide inventory
list (computers, furniture, art, library books, fixtures, etc.); disaster recovery plans for each
department; and computer backup tapes should always be maintained off-site in the case
of a disaster.
• In the case of a disaster, what vendors and companies have been identified in advance
than can help to assist with restoration, and who are the contact people for each?
2. The list of computer equipment will include some or all of the items listed in Exhibit 2-20.
By the time the list is complete, the students could easily have in excess of $10,000 to
$20,000 in equipment and software, depending on the system and capability they decide
upon.
3. W. Edwards Deming developed the theories behind TQM for major Japanese manufacturers
in the 1950s. The following Web site contains a good summary of Deming and his TQM:
http://www.12manage.com/methods_deming_14_points_management.html
4. Federal Employment Laws
a. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
• Applies to employers with 50 or more employees.
• Applies to employees with at least one year of service and 1250 hours in the last
year.
• Employee is entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a 12-month period for:
1. The birth or adoption of a child
2. Care of a child, spouse, or parent with a serious health condition
3. Employee’s own health condition
• Employee is entitled to return to his or her same position or one that is equivalent.
b. Civil Rights Act of 1964—Title VII prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis
of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In certain instances, differential treatment
is allowed for religion, sex, or national origin if it is a bona fide occupational qualification.
Sexual harassment is also prohibited under this law, as are all forms of harassment based
on membership in a protected class. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) was established to enforce this law.
c. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990—Under the equal employment provisions of
the ADA (Title I), it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a qualified
individual with a disability. The prohibition applies to conduct involving applicants and
employees in the terms, privileges, and conditions of employment. It is also unlawful to
discriminate against a nondisabled individual because of that person’s association with a
disabled individual. A qualified individual with a disability is an individual with a
disability who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential
functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.
An individual is disabled under the ADA if he or she:
• has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life
activity (e.g., breathing, seeing, hearing, caring for self, walking);
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
37 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
38 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
40 Chapter 2: Legal Administration and Chapter
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2. Apparently, the company discovered that it had misclassified these employees and most
likely attempted to quietly correct it. When the company moved them from exempt to
nonexempt, one of the employees may have gotten suspicious and talked to an attorney. It
is fair. The company broke the law, and the employees deserve the overtime pay under
the law. The law has been on the books since 1938.
3. FLSA issues like this can quickly go from a single individual to a large group when an
attorney discovers that there is a class of people the employer has wronged. Class actions
obviously represent the potential for more money/recovery for the attorneys. It was most
likely litigated quickly because the company had, for the most part, admitted to liability by
changing the classification. So, there was not much to litigation except for damages.
Littell v. Allstate Insurance Co., 177 P.3d 1080 ((N.M. Ct. App. 2007)
class.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
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