Monday

The Value of Professional Assistant Week


In the legal profession, attorneys run into roadblocks constantly and to deal with them you have to have two things: a sense of humor and a great assistant. You can get by with just a sense of humor by itself but you'll go nuts in the process. You have to have the right legal assistant. Period.

For one week out of the year (perhaps thanks to Hallmark?) we get to express our appreciation to those who help us get through every day, and Lord knows they deserve more credit than they ever get. Their contentment and happiness is crucial to your success as an attorney.

Your assistant is the interface between your clients and yourself. Clients will not feel appreciated and pleased if your assistant just doesn't "click" right with them in every call, every interaction. It may be hard for many attorneys to realize how critically important it is to have a great assistant, but it's a fact of business.

Think about the last time you went to a restaurant and how the whole experience was affected by the interaction of each person along the way --- and you never even met the chef or the owner! It's a fact. If the waitress/waiter is not attentive and helpful, friendly and cheerful, it will affect the whole experience and your opinion of the restaurant itself will suffer. It's the same thing with your assistant.

Find the right assistant and everything works great. Get the wrong person for the job, and you professional life will be terrible.

So, the moral is make sure you get the right person in the right job, especially your legal assistant. And then pay them good. And then take every opportunity to make sure them realize that you realize just how important they are to you. Start by telling them when the opportunity arises. And then show it when you can. A good assistant doesn't expect to be treated as though they can walk on water, but they do expect to be treated with respect, courtesy, and appreciation.

But that calls for a whole other discussion...so let's talk about Professional Assistant Week. It's time to make sure your assistant knows how appreciated they are.

One of the best ways to make sure your assistant, and every female support staff member, is happy is flowers. While a male assistant might not be appreciative, there is something about flowers that say "thanks" with sincerity to women. For a male assistant, you'll have to come up with something far more specialized to the person.

For our firm, we try to share humor whenever we can, wherever we find it. Sometimes we even get to cause a smile to brighten up someone's day. When you can, that's a great professional assistant gift.

For us, the Burdge Law Team is more than just lawyers. Each of our attorneys has an assistant, and an entire staff, of dedicated professionals who tirelessly work to squash every lemon and make every manufacturer pay for it.

For them, this week is dedicated. Today they each received a beautiful (and humorous) lemon flower arrangement like the one pictured above with the heartfelt thanks of our attorneys and our clients. Our professional assistants work hard every day to help our clients get rid of their lemon car or lemon truck or lemon rv or lemon boat, or deal with another Consumer Law issue. Because of that, a lemon flower arrangement just seemed right. For your law practice, try to find something that works with your "firm theme".

And say "thanks" too. Flowers are nice, but a personal statement of appreciation is worth so very much more to your assistant. They know that you are a very busy professional, so the fact that you took a minute to express your thanks will say more than the words will ever accomplish.

Try it. No, we should have said try it right now.