Law-Related Services in Office

In any office providing law-related services, the intern's first challenge is mastering the procedures used for handling paperwork, preserving clients' files, and tracking deadlines. In a private law firm, interns may also have to keep time records and understand the office's client-billing system. All offices do not use identical systems for these procedures, but all systems do have certain things in common. What follows is an introduction to the principles involved in each of these systems, explaining the whys as well as the hows.

No matter what kind of office you work in, it will have a filing system. To work effectively, interns must know how to navigate that system. This article explains how most filing systems work. In any office providing law-related services, interns must also be aware of the confidentiality issues surrounding client files. Those issues are also explained in this article.


How Filing Systems Work

Lawyers sometimes joke about how their salaries could be calculated by the number of documents they create. Indeed, legal services produce prodigious amounts of paper. Every document provides a record of something that could assume great importance at any time, not only to a client but also to the office itself in the event of malpractice claims, financial audits, or future litigation. Virtually everything must be kept for anywhere from three to seven years, sometimes indefinitely. Simply retaining them is not enough. Documents must also be organized for easy identification and retrieval. It takes a fairly elaborate setup to accomplish that-hence, the filing system.

A textbook overview of office systems will make your office's systems easier to understand and will help you adapt to different employment settings in the future. Nevertheless, every intern needs on-site instruction on the particular systems he or she will use during the internship.

The files that interns work with most often are client files, containing all the documents and notes prepared for a client's court case, transaction, or business operations. (Other office files might include employees' personnel files, vendor files and office purchases, financial records such as payroll and billing, forms files, and timekeeping records for attorneys and paralegals.)

Marked tabs on the end of the folder identify each subfile. Alternatively, subfiles may be color-coded for easy identification. For instance, pleadings may always be in a green folder and correspondence always in a yellow one. Sometimes documents are copied onto colored paper, instead, for the same purpose.

Many offices accompany the client information form with a tickler list: a checklist of upcoming deadlines to ensure timely progress on the client's case, business, or transaction. The tickler list in the client's file will 1 e coordinated with the office's general tickler system.

Each client file is also marked with a file number to identify its place: in the filing system. To avoid disclosing a client's identity to outsiders, most offices do not mark file folders with clients' names. Instead, the office may use a number, a series of letters, or a combination of the two.

Offices also maintain a master list showing the file number of each client and the name of the attorney to whom the client's matter has been assigned. To find out a certain client's file number, an intern can check the master list or ask the file manager to check it.

When expanded to show the names of opposing parties and related data, the master list allows each new client matter to be compared with cases that the office's lawyers and paralegals have handled in the past (even in previous employment settings), so that potential conflicts of interest can be spotted.

If the master list shows that a new client may be suing the former client of any attorney in the office, then the case may have to be referred elsewhere. In many offices, these comparisons are now being done by computer with software designed specifically for checking conflicts of interest.

Files that are currently being used by lawyers or others in the office often have to be located quickly. To ensure that a needed file can be easily found, large offices may have attorneys and staff sign an out card for each file they have in their possession and an in card each time a file is returned to the files.

A misplaced file or a file left open to the view of outsiders easily leads to a breach of client confidentiality. When working with a client's file, interns should be conscious of where the file is at all times. They should also be thinking about who may get a glimpse of what it contains. To protect clients' privacy and to ensure the integrity of the records you are using, you should develop the following good habits:

• When working outside of the law office (at the courthouse or registry of deeds, for example), do not leave a client's file unattended. Protect client confidentiality and safekeeping of the file by taking it with you on lunch breaks and the like.
  
  
• Avoid leaving unattended files in your car. If your car is struck, towed away, or broken into, much needed files may suddenly be inaccessible.
  
  
• When finished working at an outside location, check carefully before leaving to be sure you have all client files, documents, and notes with you.
  
  
• Never take client files home unless you have the express permission of your supervising attorney.
  
  
• Close the file folder, turn client documents over to their blank side, or cover them with a legal pad when talking to anyone from outside the office-even another client.
  
  
• Do not remove documents from a folder unless doing so is necessary to your work.
  
  
• When removing a document from a thick folder, tab the document's original position with a self-stick note for easy replacement in the correct sequence.
  
  
• Avoid removing documents from more than one folder at a time; this helps prevent accidental misfiling when you are finished with them.
  
  
• Never place loose papers on top of an opened file folder; the papers may be lost forever when the folder is closed!