How good are you at doing the washing up?

In the last few months I have seen an increase in the number of firms that are not very good at tidying up after completing a case. This means that when I ask to look at the list of live client matters by fee earner, I am presented with a list which can be hundreds of matters long. When I then ask how many live matters the fee earner really has, I am told that this is often 30 to 50.

So why is there such a disparity between these two numbers? If you look at the long list, you will find numerous matters that we all know have been 'closed', but which are still on the system. Why? They may have a small unrecovered disbursement, some work in progress (WIP), a residual debtor balance, or even a small sum left in the client account.

Languishing files

I have seen firms with hundreds of old client account balances, from 1p to tens of thousands of pounds, where they have not distributed the money. Many think that the small balances do not merit the time to resolve (although that is not an answer the Solicitors Regulation Authority would appreciate or accept) and larger balances take time to resolve, which no one is paying for.

Therefore, the balances languish, and then the fee earner is busy, or leaves and passes on the matter to a colleague, who again does not have the time to resolve old cases where there is no value, and so the list grows and grows.

Similarly, the small balances on WIP, debtors, and unrecovered disbursements all add up, and suddenly the fee earner's list is hundreds of matters long. Then, if you ask them to tidy it up, they complain that they do not have the time as they have to do their job, record the time, bill the clients, and collect the cash - when do
they get around to tidying up
old files?

Even if you do carry out a purge, then the accounts team will suddenly be overwhelmed with requests to close matters and may struggle to cope with the volume of cases.

The other common area where firms do not tidy up revolves around old client files. These
are sometimes sent to storage, not cleansed of client papers
and sometimes without a destruction date. A firm opening 50 new matters a week (around 2,500 a year) will, over six years, accumulate more than 15,000 files. They may cost a modest amount a month to store but it will cost a great deal more to have them confidentially destroyed, so firms do not destroy old files and the numbers swell year on year. When was the last time you reviewed the files you have
in storage?

Lessons learned

As a result, when I visit firms
the first thing I ask for is a list of matters per fee earner, the list of client account balances, and the number of client files the firm holds in storage. The answers are illuminating. I find departments that are lax in their processes are often poor in other areas. It also shows which departments
and fee earners are being overwhelmed with work, and that is another worry in itself.

Conversely, well-run teams with tidy ledgers are more inclined to be efficient in time-recording, billing, and collecting. They can see how
they are doing at a glance, not through a smog of paper.

So what can you do to improve? First, think about what you could improve personally and see if you can address
this across the firm. Some organisations give an amnesty on poor behaviours with a 'bring out your dead matters' policy. This says staff will not be criticised for disclosing old matters, but will be encouraged to fix issues with the relevant compliance person.

In addition, you may need to help the accounts team to handle the volume of cases that will need to be processed. If they get overloaded and do not process the information, this will discourage fee earners from reviewing cases. If it is done on a firm-wide basis you will soon see the number of old matters shrink. For practical reasons, in larger firms you may need to do this team by team, on a rolling basis

Just like doing the washing up, as hard as it is to start, once you see the benefit you feel fantastic. Then the trick is to keep on tidying up as you go along so that those dishes do not pile up again. SJ

Steve Billot is strategic consultant at Symphony Legal