Starting a law firm means working efficiently with your time. After all, most practicing attorneys bill-by-the-hour and, at a certain point, using your time in most efficient fashion means earning more money.
To that end, most law firms have developed a system of using prepared forms. The form file is a place where hard copies (or, as is more likely in this day in age, digital copies) are commonly stored. Often, the the staff – paralegal, admin, and other support – will be responsible for the maintenance and storage of the forms file.
Examples of documents that would be in a form file in a family law practice are a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, Summons, Certificate of Service, Petition for Provisional Orders, Petitions for Restraining Order or Domestic Relations Order. All of these are documents that are used often in a family law practice.
Once the attorney has drafted these documents to his or her liking and in compliance with the law, the forms can be saved and stored for future use. The forms will have the basic legal information that must be in every document. For example, a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage will contain things like a caption, the cause number, jurisdictional requirements, a general statement for reason for divorce (“irretrievable breakdown”) and other pertinent legal information. As an aside, if you are not sure what is required in a specific form, your local law library is sure to have many such forms in horn books or pre-prepared for the general public. The forms will not contain basic client information like names, addresses, age, date of birth, social security numbers, etc. That information can be plugged into the form by staff after the initial client interview.
I often conduct the initial client interviews when the client first comes in. Assuming the client is going to hire me and pay me a retainer, I either take down their information myself or have someone on the staff do it. I also have pre-made intake forms that ask basic client questions like name, address, etc. Once I have conducted the interview, I will then ask the staff member to make a basic divorce form packet for me so that I can review it and then file it with the court.
Using the form file in this way saves a great deal of time and is very efficient. The client is also happy because his legal documents get prepared quickly and he can sign the documents quickly. Using a forms file also means that you prepare documents more quickly and may be able to meet a quickly approaching court deadline – like a statute of limitations. Attorneys certainly do not want to be working from scratch when they are under a tight deadline.
Knowing how to work quickly and efficiently is the name of the game. Knowing how to start a law firm and what it takes is an essential part of running a thriving law practice. Over time, efficiency becomes more and more important as your schedule gets busier and busier. Being very busy is a blessing and curse. However, having a forms file will always be a good thing.