And while some cases almost handle themselves because they are relatively straightforward, others require a tremendous effort on the part of everyone in your firm to complete. Some cases flow along at a fast clip, with meetings, conferences, settlement discussions, and court appearances coming and going on the office calendar as if attached to the Jetstream. In these fortunate matters, the clients, defendants, attorneys, associated legal professionals, outside agencies, and the justice system all stay out of each other's way and get the case finished in a satisfactory amount of time for all concerned.
But other cases seem more like "tar babies," sticking to you and the other attorneys involved and refusing to let go. Countless hours of work and effort move them along to resolution by only a few fractions of an inch, while the size of the file itself grows by feet and yards. But just as the attorneys earn their fees on these "groaners," so do you earn your salary.
Difficult, time-consuming, or highly emotional cases are the exception rather than the rule in most law firms. However, their mere presence can cause unproductive and unhealthy shifts in the workload distribution, time management policies, and energy levels in the entire firm. Facing large, hard cases can be daunting, especially if you feel uncertain about the elements involved.
So what's the solution? Throw in the towel? Pass the tough cases off to other paralegals, other attorneys, or even other law firms? Not if you want to survive and thrive as a paralegal professional. The secret to handling potentially challenging cases is to follow the Boy Scouts' motto: Be Prepared!
The more work you can do in advance-at the beginning of the case, and as it progresses-the better off you'll be come "crunch time." While this sounds easy to say and hard to do, keep in mind that time is usually on your side at the start of the case. The more information you can gather, the more steps you can check off, the more physical "book and leg" work you can do at the start, the smoother the case will go, especially when deadlines, pressures, and other indicators of stress loom down the road.
Paralegal Success Traits
Since most of your value as a paralegal professional stems from your case-handling, case-management abilities, you should already know that to get anywhere with even the most routine cases you must be able to dig, and dig, and dig some more for information. Go past the routine movements and push on; look for more information you can discover, verify, and add to the file.
To become a case cracker, the sort of paralegal professional who tackles extraordinary cases with relish, you may need to make some visible changes in your work habits and even alter some of your personality traits. Here are some of the more important characteristics of case crackers:
- Aggressiveness-They have a "never quit" attitude and an unwillingness to give up on a lead, avenue of information, or problem until they have exhausted every effort. This is coupled with a desire to come to the office each day with specific goals in mind and ideas about ways to achieve those goals in a timely manner. Their phone skills are fully developed in such a way as to get the most information in the shortest amount of time. They stay focused on their tasks and don't get sidetracked by other distractions or discouraged by any obstacles that get in their way.
- Ingenuity-They have the ability to look for the seemingly "wild" solution or some unique alternative that gets the job done for them in a way most people thought wasn't possible. They aren't afraid to be inventive, slightly illogical, or even a shade outrageous to solve a complex problem with a completely new approach.
- Creativity-They tend to be highly innovative thinkers, able to see in more than one direction. Given a blank sheet of paper and a problem, they can come up with a large number of highly probable and effective solutions. They see things more in terms of many different channels rather than black-and-white, right- or-wrong approaches.
- Big-picture thinking-They have a marked ability to take the "helicopter view" of any problem. By seeing the forest AND the trees, they don't get caught up in any one part of the problem to the exclusion of all others. They can see the entire problem and propose worthwhile multipurpose solutions accordingly.
- Tolerance for ambiguity-In a world filled with people who want the right answer, and yesterday at that, they can wait patiently for information that fills in the entire picture. They can deal comfortably with unresolved, uncertain, or unfamiliar situations. These flexible people afford themselves an opportunity to delay their actions until they've studied the problem; they aren't committed to one solution at the expense of all others.
Your role, as a paralegal professional, is to make your attorney's job easier. And since his or her job is to handle and settle cases and legal matters for clients, your "aide-de-camp" duties should entail most of the pick-and-shovel work for the case-preparing memos, calendaring dates, writing reminder notes, briefs, and client correspondence, etc.-without being asked, reminded, or cajoled by anyone else. The more you do for yourself early in the case, and the more you do for the attorney, the easier the case will become.
