Control your workweek.

It used to seem as though I spent my entire day reviewing e-mail messages, returning calls, preparing for hearings, and consulting with new clients.

To take more control over my calendar, I made some substantial changes in the way I manage my time in my family law practice. When I control my workweek, I control my stress level. Consider these strategies for your office.

Conduct new consultations on Mondays. I begin each week with as little stress and anxiety as possible. I reserve Mondays for new client consultations and conferences with current clients. This allows me a stress-free weekend because I do not spend it preparing fist a Monday hearing. Sometimes I need to get a client into court on a Monday, but I do so rarely.

Do paperwork on Fridays. I use Fridays to draft all my paperwork from the week and prepare for the coming week. I'll agree to an occasional Friday hearing if my calendar is full during the week, but my general rule is to have a quiet day to do paperwork and ease into the weekend.

Return telephone calls at the end of the day. How many times have you been engrossed in preparing pleadings, discovery, a brief, or a memorandum only to be interrupted by a call from a client who is wondering about the status of his or her case?

If I am working on a client's file, I need to focus OIL it completely. Unless the matter is an emergency, most calls can wait until the end of the day, when I can give the caller my full attention.

Do your own scheduling. I schedule my own hearings and client conferences. Regardless of how conscientious and experienced my assistant is, she does not know the intimate details or the complexity of a particular case, the judge's expectations regarding preparation, or the character of the opposing counsel. If my assistant were to schedule a hearing, she would do so based on the most rudimentary information: the type of hearing and the distance I would need to travel. She would not know how much time I would need for the hearing.

When scheduling a hearing myself, I take into account all of these factors, as well as travel time. An added benefit is that I become acquainted with the judge's staff, which pays big dividends when I need to schedule priority and emergency hearings.

The same rule applies for new client consultations. I personally take telephone calls from new clients and ask them about their cases so I can get a good idea of how much time we will need tot the initial consultation--the most important meeting between attorney and client.

Charles R. Webb

Charleston, West Virginia