A common misconception about legal problems is that they start with a lawsuit, but that’s not true.
Most of them don’t. Legal issues start way before it comes to a lawsuit. And these ‘legal issues’ are usually in the form of administrative work and routine decision-making.
What typically happens is that a rogue document gets missed/misplaced, or a log request gets forgotten, but you don’t think much of it at that time because they’re thought of as ‘minor oversights’.
And while that might be true, what actually happens is that they start adding, thereby creating exposure.
Poor legal request management doesn’t usually manifest in the form of one single failure, but rather a cumulation of failures. These types of inefficiencies can be very expensive for law firms. And they’re still considered a semi-failure even if the ultimate outcome is somewhat acceptable.
| Legal professionals spend a substantial amount of time on low-value admin tasks because of inefficient processes. – Lexology |
Question is – is there anything that can be done to improve legal request management?
Table of Contents
Where/How Problems Start LONG Before Courtrooms
Legal issues start as soon as the incident in question happens. This is where the early record and follow-up decisions are made.
And these early choices are the ones that usually set the direction. Everything that comes after that will likely be defined by any mishaps that have occurred at this stage, simply because these small matters didn’t feel urgent/priority at that time.
If details are even written down, it’s done so loosely, and evidence that should be collected right away gets delayed or forgotten. Information ends up scattered across all the inboxes and separate systems that you might be using. So when another incident happens later on, there’s no easy way to see whether you’ve dealt with a similar issue before.
And if this pattern keeps on repeating, your law firm will always fall more and more behind without an effective solution to deal with the issue. And then what happens is that each case is treated as a unique one-off (even though it has multiple points that are the same as multiple cases you’ve done before).
If you knew this, you’d already know what to do, what works, and what doesn’t, so your strategy could be more easily (even automatically) developed, and you wouldn’t lose time doing redundant repeatable work.
So all you’re left with is the ability to react to the case that’s in front of you, instead of relying on previous extremely useful data that could help you make precise decisions.
How a Specific City Layout Can Change ‘Risk’
A city’s layout directly affects where incidents happen, why, and how. This, of course, affects how much legal pressure there is on local law firms.
In some cities, problems tend to pile up in the same few places. In others, they spread out. That difference has an impact on how much work legal teams have and how complicated that work becomes.
Let’s use Chicago and New York City as quick examples:
Chicago
Chicago has wide streets, fast/heavy traffic, and there are plenty of tricky turns accompanied by complex signals/signs. And alongside all the cars/trucks, there are lots of cyclists.
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So if you imagine yourself as a cyclist in this chaotic environment, it’s not hard to realize that when someone talks about things like Chicago’s most dangerous intersections for cyclists, they’re actually talking about these repeat hotspots, not one-off accidents. Seeing the same places again and again is a sign of ongoing risk, not bad luck. And something ought to be done about it.
New York
That situation looks different in New York.
Crashes happen more often in general, sure, but traffic usually moves more slowly, and safety measures are more common. So instead of only a few particular locations being the main culprits/breeding grounds for incidents (like in Chicago), in NYC, the incidents are more spread out.
A lawyer in Chicago will already know how to deal with a specific accident (e.g., cyclists) because they already have data from previous similar cases, and they know what works and what doesn’t – helping formulate an effective strategy.
The same goes for a lawyer in NYC who’ll know how these types of accidents are best handled in their city.
Turns Risk Into Ongoing Cost
Risk always has the possibility of being expensive. But when you have the same issues resurfacing constantly, then you get to see the bigger picture.
At first, it might seem that each case is manageable on its own, but over time, those individual cases stack up, and that’s where that hidden cost is no longer hidden.
When Past Cases Don’t Talk to Each Other
When you have past cases all scattered across different files and systems, it’s hard to check for patterns. There could be lots of ‘dots to be connected,’ but it’s hard to see them because of all the various/scattered data points (e.g., location, dates, injuries, results, courts, judges, jury data, settled or not, etc., etc.).
What you get as a result is mixed messages and inconsistencies, which hurt your case by making later decisions harder to defend.
When Evidence Loses Value (Over Time)
All the major evidence in a case is the evidence that gets collected in the early stages. This means that if you collect that evidence late, its initial value has already dropped. Video footage disappears, and people’s memories can fail them.
When that happens, your case loses strength, and you have less room to push back because there’s less evidence. It’s much more likely that you’ll need to settle in this situation, and that settlement will be way more costly than it would have been otherwise.
When Teams Work in Silos
Teams have to share information and, when they don’t, you get only problems. If each group has only one part of the picture, none of them can do their jobs well. They’ll miss important details and overlook defenses.
Basically, poor communication increases both the cost and the risk.
Conclusion
People (and law firms) often think of poor legal management costing only money. But while that IS true on paper, it’s really not that simple.
You also lose time (which equals money, sure), but you also lose momentum.
This means that whole legal teams are basically forced to slow down, to retract, lose time, efficiency, and momentum. This makes a case take much more time and other resources than it could’ve.
And the irony in all of this is that it doesn’t take something dramatic to fix all of this.
