Virginia Lawyers Weekly

“Summertime and the living is easy,” says the Gershwin song.

For busy small firm and solo lawyers, however, taking time off for easy living is not always so easy. There are crowded court schedules, needy clients, and the worry about the work that will pile up in your absence.

Despite all the reasons you can list to skip that week away from the office, those in the know say you need to do find a way to take a vacation anyway.

“You’ve got to plan to do it, schedule to do it, and then do it,” said Richmond small firm lawyer Irving M. Blank. “You can’t not do it.”

The vacation planning should start far in advance, according to Nancy Byerly Jones, a North Carolina law-firm consultant. “That’s the biggest key,” she said.

Advance planning is needed to prepare for contingencies that will arise while you’re away. Jones suggests that lawyers consider having a back-up attorney at the ready, in case real legal work needs to be handled in a hurry. If your practice covers more than one legal area, such as criminal and domestic, you may want to consider separate back-up lawyers for each practice area.
Experts remind lawyers to schedule “quiet days” before and after vacation time to get caught up.

Notifying clients early and often about the lawyer’s vacation plan is another recommendation from Jones. “I believe in telling the clients at least a month in advance, and then send a reminder at about the 10-day mark,” she said.

Of course, those “needy” clients will call anyway. Jones also suggests a special voice mail message to greet callers while you’re out of town. The message should tell clients that you are out of the office. More importantly, Jones said, the message should tell clients that – if they must leave an emergency message – they need to leave plenty of detail.

As lawyers well know, what the client thinks is an emergency may not qualify as such to the lawyer. Jones urges using a voice mail message that puts the burden on the client to explain exactly why you should take time away from your holiday to deal with the client’s problem. “Put the ball in their court,” Jones said.

Staying connected?

A major decision facing the vacationing lawyer is what electronics to bring and how to use them. Some advisors recommend bringing the full gamut of mobile phones and laptops, checking in advance on Internet access. Others recommend leaving it all behind. “We really need to plan on a vacation from most of our tech toys,” said Jones.

Jones recommends checking in with the staff two to three times a week at a certain time.

“Try to avoid calling every day, because then you’ve still got that leash collar on.” She urges lawyers to train the staff ahead of time how to give good summaries about developments at the office and how to maintain operations without daily contact from the lawyer. It’s also a good idea to have the staff “triage” the mail, so the attorney can find the important correspondence right away when back at the office.

Lawyers take different approaches to choosing a vacation destination. Blank, for instance, often combines his family getaways with bar activities. He’s a regular at the Virginia State Bar Annual Meeting in Virginia Beach, for instance.

Roanoke’s Matt Broughton, however, found he needs to get far away to truly escape the demands of the office. “My family, for the last six years, they’ve demanded that we leave the country,” he said.

“If I’m in the country and I’m too close, it’s too hard to tell the client I can’t help them,” Broughton said.

Shadow time

Some vacation planning tips can help your practice all year round. The tanned and rested lawyer returning to the office often finds a daunting stack of papers, piles of message slips and ringing phones. One way to deal with the backup is what some call “shadow time” – time when you’re in the office, but unavailable to the world at large.

For these work sessions, Jones suggests telling your staff you are not to be interrupted, short of an urgent call from a judge. Clients should be told you are away from the office or simply not available.

Many lawyers use such uninterrupted time periods on a regular basis, not just to recover from a vacation. “I’ve never known a firm to give it up after starting,” Jones said. “They say it’s one of the best things they’ve done.”

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