February 1, 2007  

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ALA Currents is a free newsletter about management trends and innovations provided exclusively upon request to members of the Association of Legal Administrators.

News & Views

CENSORING THE CELL
By Cal LeMon

RINGGGG … RINGGGG … RINGGGG …

The meeting had been plodding on for about 35 minutes, and a collaborative decision was about to be made, when the grating sound of a cell phone punched the air with its teeth-grinding interruption.

Whether it is a Treo 700, a Blackberry, a Samsung, or a Nokia, these slivers of silicone are invading our workplaces with renditions of the William Tell Overture, Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs,” or U2’s latest tune. When are we going to rein in this incessant ringing?

Our workplaces have to “censor the cell,” as these carriers of convenience are also polluting our professionalism. Thus, a new protocol is recommended for the use of cell phones at work:

First, all cell phones, pagers, and Internet access devices should be turned off during all meetings.
Research suggests that meetings represent the worst waste of time in any workplace. They normally are poorly structured and ineptly conducted, and they do not add to the bottom line. Then stir into this inefficient stew an open-season on electronic devices that will guarantee the people who do not want to be there will stay awake by whispering into a miniscule microphone or rotating a wheel through their latest e-mails. Let everyone know the time in the meeting is sacred and any electronic interruption will not be tolerated.

Second, all electronic manacles must be turned off during a presentation.
The ringing of a phone is like a bar crowd who breaks into a Sunday morning sanctuary.

Third, when engaged in a professional conversation at work, a cell phone should not be answered.
If the cell phone user is expecting an urgent or emergency call, he or she should say before the conversation begins, “I am expecting a call that I will have to answer. If that is not acceptable to you, please let me know.”

Fourth, if a call comes in during an informal conversation with a group of co-workers, excuse yourself and leave the room before answering.
If you have ever been in a closed environment when the “cell yell” cranks up, you know the irritation with someone who chose to be insensitive.

Finally, if voicemail is being checked, always have a pen with you before pressing the magic buttons.
Have you been near someone when he/she starts snapping fingers and pointing at the pen in your hand? Why would we listen to our messages if we are not prepared to write down a message or return phone number?

Now, check your phone. Is the ringer on? Do the people around you really want to hear “I Just Called to Say I Love You” right now?

Cal LeMon is a frequent ALA speaker and President of Executive Enrichment, a corporate training and consulting firm. Visit his Web site.

THE COST OF USING “INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS”
By Jack A. Jeffries
jjeffries@lordbissell.com

Many law firms hire people who call themselves “independent contractors” when these people are actually considered employees. The result is major costs to the employer.

If the “independent contractor” is an employee of a U.S.-based organization, the employer typically will have breached the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), and the income tax withholding provisions of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Code. An employer may also have violated state unemployment compensation and worker’s compensation laws. Further, the employer would almost certainly have violated all of the recordkeeping requirements of FLSA. The criminal penalties for these violations are substantial and include imprisonment.

The IRS in its Publication 15-A (published in January 2007) provides direction on differentiating an employee from an independent contractor. It states that the determination has to be made on the basis of “the degree of control and the degree of independence” of the person who is hired. “Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories: behavior control, financial control, and the type of relationship of the parties.”

Behavior Control
Facts that show whether the business has a right to direct and control how the worker does the task for which the worker is hired include the type and degree of:

1. Training that the business gives to the worker; and
2. Instructions that the business gives to the worker, including:
   • when and where to do the work;
   • what tools or equipment to use;
   • what workers to hire or to assist with the work;
   • where to purchase supplies and services;
   • what work must be performed by a specified individual; and
   • what order or sequence to follow.

Financial Control
Facts that show whether the business has a right to control the business aspects of the worker’s job include:

1. the extent to which the worker has unreimbursed business expenses;
2. the extent of the worker’s investment;
3. the extent to which the worker makes his or her services available to the relevant market;
4. how the business pays the worker; and
5. the extent to which the worker can realize a profit or loss.

Type of Relationship
Facts that show the parties’ type of relationship include:

• written contracts describing the relationship the parties intend to create;
• whether or not the business provides the worker with employee-type benefits, such as insurance, a pension plan, vacation pay, or sick pay;
• the permanency of the relationship; and
• the extent to which services performed by the worker are a key aspect of the regular business of the company.

The following is an example of an independent contractor, provided by the IRS:

Donna Yuma is a sole practitioner who rents office space and pays for the following items: telephone, computer, online legal research linkup, fax machine, and photocopier. Donna buys office supplies and pays bar dues and membership dues for three other professional organizations. Donna has a part-time receptionist who also does the bookkeeping. She pays the receptionist, withholds and pays federal and state employment taxes, and files a Form W-2 each year. For the past two years, Donna has had only three clients, corporations with which there have been long-standing relationships. Donna charges the corporations an hourly rate for her services, sending monthly bills detailing the work performed during the prior month. The bills include charges for long-distance calls, online research time, fax charges, photocopies, postage, and travel costs for which the corporations have agreed to reimburse her. Donna is an independent contractor.

Hiring people who are really employees and treating them as independent contractors can result in serious and substantial damages and penalties. If in doubt, utilize the services of an experienced labor lawyer to help you make your decisions.

Click here to read Publication 15-A, which also contains more examples of employee and independent contractor scenarios.

Management Innovations

TOP TECH TRENDS OF 2007

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is one of several promising technologies expected to make a splash in the technology mainstream in 2007. As more vendors join Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense in using RFID to track everything from pill bottles to palettes to people, enterprises are developing back-end, supply-chain, and inventory systems that can deliver significant productivity benefits. Other rising stars: Web applications, which continue to change the way enterprise software is deployed. The Web services movement – including Software-as-a-service (SaaS), mashups, RSS feeds, Wikis, blogs, social networking sites, and group chat rooms – is producing more robust enterprise-class applications, which can be deployed in a fraction of the time that more traditional apps demanded. One typical application: Overlay the location of your current sales leads on Google Maps for a visual depiction of where to deploy your sales force. Finally, expect a rise in “virtual servers.” The concept is simple: take a single server and divvy it up into separate “virtual” machines, each with its own memory, virtual hardware, drive images, and other resources. It’s not new: IBM has been doing this on mainframes for 30 years, and blade servers have been around for five years. What is new is that the power of a virtual machine (VM) can now be delivered to the PC platform. And that trend is accelerating, now that Microsoft is literally giving away its VM server software and pre-configured VMs, making setup even easier.

Information Week, January 1, 2007

MENTORING MILLENNIALS

Barbara Kunkel, Chief Information Officer of law firm Nixon Peabody, says she’s learned a lot about mentoring “next-gen” workers through her experience with summer interns. First of all, to connect with and nurture these independent-minded types, it’s important to provide a structured work environment that clearly links the interns’ assignments to the overall objectives of the organization and reinforces the idea that work matters. If possible, encourage teamwork rather than independent labor. And requiring younger workers to think creatively makes the work much more personally rewarding. By all means provide feedback – millennials thirst for personal interactions and a social environment that fulfills their need for a continuous, open dialogue. Kunkel sums it up this way: “Relationship building is everything.”

CIO, January 3, 2007

Building Buy-In

Written by firm consultant and training expert Paul Trout, “Building Buy-In” is a new column in ALA Currents. It will help law firm administrators learn how to effectively build buy-in from thought to action with the entire firm.

WE ARE ALL IN SALES
By Paul Trout

“I am so mad at myself!”

Have you ever thought that or said it aloud? Me too, and I’m frustrated at how often I hear my colleagues, friends, and family members say it. The last time I said that wasn’t too long ago.

In February of 2006, my father passed away in Southern California, where I grew up. My family still lives there, and I look forward to visiting every two to three months.

After my dad’s funeral, I had an idea to find new clients closer to my childhood home so that I could spend more time with my family. As a sales, marketing, and leadership consultant who is fortunate to be able to pursue business anywhere in the country, I felt could make it happen, but it would require a great deal of energy from me and from my company.

Upon my return home to Chicago, I wrote on my dry-erase board with a red marker the words “SoCal Strategy,” my “Southern California Strategy.” Six months later, I looked up at the whiteboard. The crimson letters of Urgency Past glared down at me. I had failed to do anything because I had gotten caught up in everyday life.

Even though I’ve been fortunate to have current clients frequently send me out to Southern California on business this year, I’m still mad at myself. The statement, “I am so mad at myself,” sounds like there are two people living inside me: “I” and “myself.” I have a theory that there are two people living inside of me … and inside each of you. And they each have names: the Inner Seller and the Inner Buyer.

The Inner Seller is the person who comes up with all sorts of good – perhaps great – ideas. The Inner Seller is hopeful, optimistic, and maybe a dreamer:

• “This new product idea I have is great!”
• “I want to improve the level of customer service; it would help us a lot.”
• “I know we eliminated those positions in the past, but we really need them now.”

The Inner Buyer is the person who regulates the Inner Seller, most often saying “no” to the Inner Seller’s wild ideas:

• “You don’t want to risk rejection on the new product idea, do you?”
• “I’ve got other priorities even though this would make a big difference.”
• “We’re getting by – our company will just have to work harder.”

Every now and then, though, the Inner Buyer “buys” an idea the Inner Seller has, and the idea comes to life, and you do something. It’s the alignment between the two that initially moves us humans into action.

I know you are legal professionals and not salespeople, and you don’t want to be. But I’m here to tell you that you – and everyone you know – are in sales, whether you know it (or like it) or not. We all sell ideas to ourselves on what to act on and what to avoid. When we buy our own ideas, we make things happen. We then try to persuade others in our organizations to see our viewpoints so that they will make things happen, too. The whole process is something I call “Building Buy-In.”

Building Buy-In is about Persuasion, Influence, Politics, and Power. It is a talent most would like to improve, but few understand how to build its skills. Building Buy-In can take many shapes and forms, such as selling to your:

• managing partners or other firm leaders why your team needs training – now;
• fellow managers on why you need more budget than they this year;
• team why they need to alter the process they’ve known for years; and
• entire organization why the firm needs to change because the market has.

My aim in this column is to help non-salespeople sharpen their skills to influence others by using best practices and tools from the sales world.

The difference between those who are successful and productive within organizations and those who are average is their ability to persuade and influence others. Power follows. A large part of the success of your career depends on how good of an internal salesperson you are.

So how good at Building Buy-In are you today? Scoring yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your ability to:

• Loudly hear your Inner Seller and Inner Buyer?
• Clearly determine what is important to you and what isn’t?
• Follow through on things that are important and let go of things that aren’t?
• Persuade others in your organization, whether up, across or down?
• Truly live up to your potential?

Any score 49 and below means there’s room for improvement. But regardless of your score, know that there is hope, improvement, opportunity, and success in your future. The first step is your Inner Buyer and Inner Seller agreeing to read and apply future columns in ALA Currents to your own situation. Do we have a deal?

Paul Trout is a Partner with Akina – a firm that helps clients improve their sales, marketing, and leadership effectiveness. This column is an excerpt from a book he is writing on Building Buy-In. He encourages readers to submit case studies, learnings, or questions about Building Buy-In, which may become part of the book and appear in a future column. Contact him via e-mail or by phone at (312) 224-8028.

Peer Points

ALA Management Solutions^SM is a free service provided as an ALA membership benefit. The professionals who staff this help desk explore resources and share information about hot law-office management topics like the one addressed here. If you have a question, call ALA Management Solutions^SM at (847) 267-1252 or e-mail infocentral@alanet.org.

RESOURCES TO UNDERSTAND STRESS, IMPROVE LAW OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY

What resources can help me manage stress in the office?

Stress is common in law firms and corporations. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health – the federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related illness, such as job stress – defines stress as “the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker.” This study introduces resources for understanding stress and differentiating various forms and situations of stress.

Legal research center Hieros Gamos offers links to stress management techniques and resources. Click here to see its page on stress and the practice of law.

The New York State Bar Association Special Committee on Balanced Lives in the Law posts a bibliography of books and articles on factors adversely affecting lawyers’ satisfaction with their careers, including several books and articles on managing stress here.

LawCare offers several pieces, such as suggestions for coping, and more here.

The Mayo Clinic offers articles on stress, its causes, and how to manage stress in the workplace and at home.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ page “A Healthy Me” offers these articles: “Heart Disease: Lower Your Stress” and “Stress Reduction.”

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) published these articles (members-only access): “When Stress Won’t Go Away” and “Managing Employees’ Mental Health.”

Special Note: ALA members have free access to the ALA Reference Desk. Send any question on legal management issues to infocentral@alanet.org. Staff will conduct personal research on each question.

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