Law Department Management Blog
Everything influences a law department’s workload, from clients to cases, from resources to roles, structure to software, time tracking to training (See my post of May 19, 2009: descriptive metrics for legal department workloads; and May 26, 2007: productivity metrics increase in the face of workload.). Too many things influence workload in a law department for this single post to cover that long waterfront. Indeed, you could fairly say that this blog as a whole tries to tackle law department workload.
Even so, among the 6,276 posts on this blog I found and organized here more than a score that make a substantive point about workload. For instance, several spoke to indicators of workload by practice area (See my post of Dec. 22, 2005: international M&A – rules of thumb on costs and staffing; Jan. 6, 2006: some practice area metrics for workload; May 5, 2006: contract-related activities; Aug. 22, 2006: lawsuits pending may be poor indicator of volume of work; Nov. 6, 2006: litigator workloads at AXA; and Dec. 10, 2009: patent licensing pushes activity.).
Drivers of individual and departmental workload appear in posts (See my post of Oct. 30, 2005: administrative time squeezing out substantive lawyering time; June 28, 2006: client training effects workload; Oct. 12, 2006: new roads, filled; new lawyers, filled to capacity; Nov. 24, 2007: complexity, volume and velocity all determine workload; April 9, 2008: quasi-legal tasks add work; June 15, 2008: Supreme Court decisions can significantly affect law department workload; Jan. 12, 2009: a person’s supervisor strongly influences workload; March 12, 2009: to bring work in doesn’t necessarily mean to add workload; and July 7, 2010: make policies easily available online to reduce constant questions.).
Consequences and perceptions of workload appear in various posts (See my post of May 21, 2007: interesting legal work and perceptions of workload; May 21, 2008: twin bogies of workload and time pressure; March 11, 2010: smaller law departments perceived under water more; May 6, 2010: hours worked suggest lower satisfaction with workload than is reported; May 6, 2010: survey data on workload; July 30, 2010: more control over your workload lessens stress; and Sept. 27, 2010: does overwhelming workload create an ethical issue for a general counsel.).