Unlike most of what we deal with in The ALPS Risk Management Report, this article is intended for office staff. After you have finished with this edition, please pass it on to your office staff and, as always, I encourage anyone who has comments or thoughts to e-mall or write to me.

While it is the lawyers in firms who are sued for professional liability claims and must answer for all that goes on in a firm and all that it produces, the support staff plays a vital role in doing the work that prevents conditions from arising, that may lead to claims. In a smoothly run firm. there is risk management work for everyone to do. When the lawyers research, strategize and advise competently, they serve clients' needs and avoid the few mistakes that individually cost the largest amount of money: those involving failures to know and apply the law. The staff on the other hand is our secret weapon to avoid the most claims - those that good office procedures help avoid. There are a number of these. I want to deal here with just two: meeting, deadlines and ensuring, confidentiality of client material and information.

Meeting, deadlines seems simple compared to all the other important tasks a law office accomplishes regularly. Yet every year 20 to 30 percent of all claims arise because of a missed deadline. A minority of those result from failure to know the deadline or failure to recognize that a specific shorter deadline applies in a certain case because of the parties or type of claim being, made. The vast majority occurs because of the failure to use and maintain a good calendaring system.

Keeping, a calendar is usually the staff s job. A proven workable procedure starts with the handling of the mail. Staff should do this - not attorneys. Staff can worry about timeliness and ensure that every crucial deadline and deadline reminders are placed on the calendar. Our visit history proves that often when attorneys see the

the mail first. they naturally become involved in the substantial work that the mail prompts and think secondarily about the need to meet any deadline that may arise. Having staff review the mail, date stamp it, and make the necessary calendar entries with notations as to dates calendared, ensures that dates and reminders will be placed on the calendar at the first opportunity and that the mail will not be bogged down on an attorney's desk. It also provides for a second check of the process by allowing the attorney to see the notations as to which dates have been calendared. In six years and over 700 office visits we have yet to see any appreciable delay in getting, mail to attorneys or checks to the accounting department when the staff handles the mail first.

Calendars should always be duplicated. Attorneys' pocket calendars should be compared and synchronized with the office calendar regularly. The more items calendared the shorter the updating, interval should be. For coverage assurance should an attorney be out and for ease of supervision of younger attorneys, there should be one master calendar in every office with the understanding that all deadlines should be accessed regularly. Carefully plan and decide who has access to which calendars and what rights all should have. While not all in the office need access to all attorneys' calendars, restricting this access to one or two can bog the entire system to the point where attorneys and staff find easier work alternatives, quickly defeating the central calendar's purpose.

Lastly and most importantly, it is not easy to remind the boss about deadlines especially when there are many arising, in a short period. A great system does no good if deadlines are noted but not met. Bite the bullet and err on the side of caution. Nag if you have to. Being, uncomfortable in a brief encounter is far superior to the discomfort all will have if an important deadline is missed and a case is lost as a result.

There are some very simple steps staff can take that go a long way in ensuring confidentiality. First consider the reception area and other areas in the firm that clients and other visitors see regularly. Can computer screens be read by anyone who passes? If so, chance the seating, and direction or purchase screen directional blockers that will only allow someone sitting directly in front of the monitor to see it. Clean up any file material in these areas. If attorneys have busy practices and offices that attest to many cases they are handling, meet clients in clutter-free conference rooms. Make sure these meetings are scheduled and have a staff person assigned to police the area before every meeting to gather up and return to the library or an office any sensitive material that was left.

Most importantly understand that everything that is said in a law firm or which deals in any way with the firm or its clients is confidential unless the attorneys state otherwise. Even then it is up to them to talk about the matter. All requests for information from other than recognized clients with whom you have dealt seeking, obviously appropriate information should be referred to the attorney without any other comment. As voice inflections, other comments and body language can be misinterpreted, be as neutral and brief as possible.

Maintaining confidentiality is toughest after long hard days. Our spouses, families and friends seek to be supportive and want to know about problems. The time to think about and plan a response is when a law office first hires an employee. If everyone understands the need for confidentiality, it may be possible to simply avoid the conversation altogether. In those circumstances when more is needed, find ways to speak in generic terms that do not refer to the exact problem and do not include mention of any individuals. This allows you to release some frustration and allows those near you to feel their active listening efforts are worthwhile.

At ALPS we appreciate the efforts of all law office support staffs who do these things and many more. In large measure it is your efforts that help us maintain a comparatively low claims frequency (on average, only four percent of ALPS insured attorneys have claims presented against them annually) and stable premiums.

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