Self-Assessment Program Aims to Enhance Lawyer Competency and Client Satisfaction, 1017 COBJ, Vol. 46, No. 9 Pg. 10
| Author | JONATHAN P. WHITE, J. |
LAW PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
JONATHAN P. WHITE, J.
Proactive prevention of practice problems: this is the easy-to-embrace idea behind a new lawyer self-assessment program developed by a subcommittee of the Colorado Supreme Court Advisory Committee. As this article goes to press, this subcommittee is putting the final touches on an innovative online self-assessment survey that covers a variety of professional responsibility issues. A print version of the survey is already available for use through the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel's website.1 Some of the issues featured in these self-assessments arise directly from requirements in the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct. Others embody practices that promote compliance with the Rules and enhance client service.
This new self-assessment program offers lawyers a chance to review what is working well and what could be improved in their practice. It incorporates 10 core practice principles:
1.developing competent practices;
2. communicating in an effective, timely, professional manner, and maintaining professional relations;
3. ensuring confidentiality;
4. avoiding conflicts of interest;
5. maintaining appropriate file and records management systems;
6. managing the legal entity and staff effectively;
7. charging appropriate fees and making appropriate disbursements;
8. having appropriate systems in place to safeguard client trust money and property;
9. working to improve the administration of justice and access to legal services; and
10. creating a culture of wellness and in-clusivity.
In both the online and print surveys, these 10 practice principles correspond to 10 subject-specific self-assessments.
Giving lawyers the ability to self-evaluate their practice in these 10 core areas furthers the subcommittee's goal of helping lawyers increase client satisfaction. Time spent reviewing the issues raised during the self-assessment process should pay dividends for attorneys, resulting in happier clients, less time lost to management problems, and more time to focus on cases. Proactive self-assessment should also reduce the potential for malpractice claims and grievances. An ounce of prevention should prove to be worth a pound of cure.2
Origin of the Self-Assessment Concept for Lawyers
This simple idea—getting lawyers to self-assess— emerged more than 25 years ago with a Cornell Law Review article by Professor Ted Schneyer of the University of Arizona lames E. Rogers College of Law. Professor Schneyer wrote about an "ethical infrastructure" in the law firm practice setting that consists of a firm's "organization, policies, and operating procedures."3 Professor Schneyer suggested that a firm's efforts to bolster its ethical infrastructure could have a salutary effect on disciplinary claims against individual lawyers, creating less disruption and harm to the firm's operation.4
More recently, a 2008 study analyzed law firms in New South Wales, Australia, that had undergone self-assessment to ensure compliance with ethical standards.5 The results strongly supported Professor Schneyer's thinking regarding the benefits of an ethical infrastructure. According to the data, firms that underwent self-assessment experienced a two-thirds drop in the number of complaints after the self-assessment,6 and they had one-third the number of complaints compared to firms that did not undertake self-assessment.7 The New South Wales data arose in the context of that particular jurisdiction permitting non-lawyer ownership of law firms and the corresponding creation of a mandatory risk evaluation process for such practices.8
The statistics from New South Wales did not go unnoticed. In recent years, a number of Canadian provinces have considered implementing proactive risk-assessment programs.9 Nova Scotia, through the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society, as well as the Canadian Bar Association, have both drafted self-assessment tools for lawyers to use.10 In the United States, Colorado is one of two states actively developing such a program. Illinois is the other state.11
Colorado's development of a proactive assessment program began with Denver hosting the first international Regulators' Workshop on Proactive, Risk-Based Regulation in May 2015 as part of the American Bar Association (ABA) Conference on Professional Responsibility. The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel hosted and co-sponsored this workshop under the leadership of Attorney Regulation Counsel lames C. Coyle. Coyle has had a longstanding interest in establishing a proactive risk-assessment program to help lawyers, and through the...
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