Delegation in a Law Firm: Which Work Goes to Whom?

Gökçen Beyazoğlu LL.B.

Chief Product Officer · Attornaid

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What blocks delegation in a law firm is not a lack of trust but a lack of description: a task can only be delegated if its output can be described. Two properties of the task, not the seniority of the person, decide who receives it: how expensive an error would be and whether the work calls for legal judgment. Hand it over with a five-sentence written brief that fixes the output, the limits, a source, the deadline and an interim checkpoint. When the same task comes round for the third time, turn the brief into a checklist, so that the work belongs to the firm rather than to a person.

The sentence heard most often in a growing law firm is that work cannot be delegated. It is usually blamed on the team. Yet the same team will, more often than not, deliver a clearly described task without trouble. The problem is not capacity; it is that the task was never made delegable. What follows is a test for whether a task is ready to hand over, a matrix for deciding who should receive it, a format for the handover itself and a way of making recurring work stop needing a brief at all.

The delegability test

Before delegating any task, answer three questions. If you cannot answer all three, the task is not yet delegable; it has to be described first.

Practical tip: The fastest way to describe an output is an example. Showing a good piece of earlier work takes less time than a long explanation and is misunderstood less often.

None of the three questions is about the person. A trainee's inexperience or an assistant's workload affects how long the task will take; neither decides whether it can be handed over. The description decides that.

Which work goes to whom

The delegation decision is made by looking not at the seniority of the person but at two properties of the task: how expensive an error would be, and whether the work calls for legal judgment. Together they give four groups, and each group has a natural owner.

The bottom-right box stays with the responsible lawyer. The other three can be delegated with the appropriate level of control, and keeping those three boxes with the lawyer is the real obstacle to growth: it is where the hours go that never reach a client or a new matter.

The role names are a guide, not a rule. A paralegal in one firm does what a junior lawyer does in another, and what a trainee may sign, file or appear for is set by local bar and professional rules. The matrix decides what you hand over and how much control sits around it; the rules of your jurisdiction decide what the person is permitted to do with it. Where the two differ, the rules win.

The handover: the five-sentence brief

Long briefs are not written, and when they are written they are not read. Five sentences are enough, and they should be in writing; a spoken brief is remembered differently by the second day, on both sides.

• What I want: a one-sentence description of the output.
• Why: where the task sits in the matter; a person who knows the context makes better decisions.
• Limits: which decisions are not yours to take.
• Source: a similar example, or where to look.
• When: the deadline and an interim checkpoint.

Why the interim checkpoint is not optional: A deadline on its own is not enough. Work heading in the wrong direction can only be corrected cheaply at an interim checkpoint; seen at delivery, it is done again from scratch.

A brief in this form fits in a task note inside the matter file, where the next person to pick the task up can find it. That is also where the record of what was delegated, to whom and by when belongs, so that nobody has to answer from memory who was handling what.

Feedback without taking the work back

When a delegated task comes back incomplete, the fastest fix is to finish it yourself. That saves time this week and makes delegation impossible in the long run, because the person never learns what was missing.

• Describe the gap; do not make the correction yourself.
• Direct the feedback at the work, not at the person.
• If the same gap appears twice, the problem is in the description, not the person; revise the brief.
• Say so when the work is good; where only mistakes are discussed, initiative falls away.

Scale: delegate recurring work to a document, not a person

If the same task is being delegated for the third time, the brief should not be written again; it should be turned into a checklist. The work is then delegated to the firm rather than to a person: whoever picks it up next starts from the same list, and the lawyer no longer has to remember what to say.

A good checklist is written by the person who does the work, not by the person who delegates it, and it is corrected the first time it fails. Opening a new matter, assembling a filing bundle, closing a file and preparing the monthly invoice are the usual candidates: each has a fixed sequence, a known set of things that go wrong and a clear owner among the paralegals and legal assistants. Once the list exists, the lawyer's part shrinks to the review step the matrix already requires.

Checklist

• Write down the output, the reserved decisions and the checkpoint before handing anything over.
• Place each task in the error-cost and judgment matrix before choosing who receives it.
• Keep strategy, client opinions, settlement decisions and signatures with the responsible lawyer.
• Put every brief in writing, in five sentences, where the matter file keeps it.
• Set an interim checkpoint for every task that takes longer than a day.
• Describe gaps instead of fixing them; revise the brief when the same gap appears twice.
• Convert any task delegated for the third time into a checklist owned by the person who does it.
• Review the checklists once a quarter with the people who use them.

Frequently asked questions

What is the real obstacle to delegation in a law firm?

Not a lack of trust but a lack of description. A task can only be delegated if its output can be described. Without a description the work misses the expectation, comes back, and the lawyer concludes that it is faster to do it alone; that conclusion is a failure of the description, not of delegation.

Which work should not be delegated?

Work that both requires legal judgment and carries an expensive error: strategy decisions, the legal opinion given to the client, the decision to settle and the signature. The other three groups in the matrix can be delegated with the right level of control. Keeping those groups with the lawyer is the real obstacle to the firm's growth.

What should be said when handing over a task?

Five sentences are enough, and they should be in writing: a one-sentence description of the output, where the task sits in the matter, which decisions are not delegated, an example or source to look at, and the deadline with an interim checkpoint. A spoken brief is remembered differently by the second day.

Why is an interim checkpoint necessary?

A deadline on its own is not enough. Work that is heading in the wrong direction can only be corrected cheaply at an interim checkpoint; if it is first seen at delivery, it has to be done again. The interim checkpoint is the single element that lowers the cost of delegation.

What should happen when delegated work comes back incomplete?

Describe the gap; do not make the correction yourself. Finishing the work saves time in the short term but makes delegation impossible in the long term, because the person never learns what was missing. If the same gap appears twice, the problem is in the description rather than the person, and the brief should be revised.

How should recurring work be managed?

If the same task is being delegated for the third time, the brief should not be written again; it should be turned into a checklist. The work is then delegated to the firm rather than to a person, and a paralegal or legal assistant can own it. Work that recurs constantly should be tied to a template and, where possible, automated.