Generally speaking, most lawyers are not good managers, but there is an antidote for that deficiency, says Lawrence H. Freiman. It's called the administrative or legal assistant.

Freiman, founding partner of MendenFreiman, an Atlanta business and estate planning law firm, calls his executive legal assistant, Johnnie L. Hooper, “one of those rare finds that comes to you once in a career.” Hooper takes on varied responsibilities at the firm, and Freiman sums up her role this way: “She frees me up to do the things that have a higher value for my time.”

Behind every good lawyer and rainmaker is a great organizer–and it's probably an administrative or legal assistant.

April 25 is Administrative Professionals' Day, and it comes at a time when law firms continue to look for economies in nonbillable support staffing. Many younger attorneys and even partners share legal assistants at ever-higher attorney-to-assistant ratios as firms look for savings that can go straight to the bottom line. But every six minutes that lawyers invest in nonbillable chores is time lost to making their practice profitable. Freiman wonders why other attorneys and professionals don't move some of the big rocks that slow down their day and get in the way of business development or billable time to an administrative assistant.

Don't Manage Your Own Calendar

The biggest rock that Hooper picks up for Freiman is his calendar. “It baffles me that many lawyers hold on to their calendar when they a have a resource to handle this very time-consuming chore,” he says. Hooper is “100 percent in control” of his calendar, he says, and he empowers her to make decisions on blocking his time. Sometimes that means directing a call to another attorney, or she may find a 10-minute carve-out in his schedule where he can answer a question quickly for a client.

Closely related to calendar management is email, another area where attorneys may be tempted to be too hands-on. Freiman receives an avalanche of email each day, and just as Hooper screens calls, she brings emails to his attention that need immediate attention. One powerful Outlook tool for attorneys, he says, is the “sent on behalf” option, which allows an attorney to delegate joint access to email to an assistant.

“She is the proverbial gatekeeper,” he says. “She knows when I need to be alerted to something right away, and she knows when it can wait or be handled by someone else,” always in such a way that the caller feels like they were treated with respect and weren't brushed off. This judgment, he adds, is partly the product of her own intelligence and resourcefulness, but he also goes out of his way to explain his priorities to her.

“Johnnie has good instincts, but I don't depend on that alone,” says Freiman. “She's an important person on my team and I make a point to tell her what I'm working on so that she can help me prioritize my time.”

Don't Hire a “Yes” Person

When lawyers hire legal assistants, Freiman says they should respect the position, as well as the person. That means hiring someone they feel confident in empowering to make decisions but who also understands the primary job is to make the boss' day run smoothly. As the first person who clients and other lawyers meet at the office and who screens calls, the legal assistant has to be someone who presents well, is tactful and has an intuitive understanding of the right thing to do in every situation.

Freiman also likes Hooper because she's not a “yes” person who is afraid to speak up. “She'll push back occasionally, always in an appropriate way, and I value that. I may or may not change my mind, but it makes me a more thoughtful manager.”

The essential value proposition of a legal assistant is time management, Freiman says. Lawyers who pride themselves on doing everything themselves do themselves a disservice. “I tell young lawyers that one of the biggest mistakes I see attorneys make is underutilization of their assistants. So many lawyers spend time on tasks such as calendaring that they don't do very well. Hand off what you can to a competent assistant, and you'll be a better lawyer and have more time for business development.”

Robin Hensley's column is based on her work as president of Raising the Bar and coaching lawyers in business development for more than 25 years. She is the author of “Raising the Bar: Legendary Rainmakers Share Their Business Development Secrets.”