Kansas Attorneys – Proper Supervision of Legal Staff Members

As a Kansas attorney, you are held responsible for the acts of your support staff members, such as paralegals, legal assistants, legal secretaries, and project assistants, among others. In order to run a functioning office, it is essential to have enough legal staff members to keep the system going, and to provide clients with any requested information.  However, along with having legal staff members work for you comes the obligation to oversee each staff member’s conduct.  It is nearly impossible to watch every person’s every move, so there are steps you can take to ensure your legal staff members have an understanding of what their roles are, and how their conduct is ultimately subject to the professional rules of conduct for attorneys.

Do What You Can to Protect Your Kansas Law License

It isn’t always possible to avoid every imaginable mistake, whether it is a calendaring error, or failure to submit the proper paperwork for an individual case.  However, if you have a system in place to regulate each staff member’s conduct, this will help to ensure you have placed checks on what your legal staff members can and cannot do.  The supervision process takes the active involvement of both attorneys and legal staff members.  If the staff members are aware of just how crucial their role is, and that certain things can put a supervising attorney’s Kansas law license at risk, then they are more likely to follow the rules and take their own additional steps to ensure they do not make those small, yet costly mistakes.

In order to increase the chances that your legal staff members will avoid conduct that could cost you your law license, it is first important to make sure that all legal staff members know what their roles are, and know the limits of their power.  Such information may be communicated by office memorandums, emails, and team meetings.  For example, a supervising attorney may suggest that all legal staff members come up with a calendaring system that will maintain key dates and provide reminders for when those dates come close to being due.  Calendaring is one of the biggest issues law firms have, and if you can rely on legal staff members to have a smooth calendaring system, you are reducing the risk that you will be exposed to liability for missing a very important deadline.

Further, repeating key information should never be frowned upon because we could all use a refresher course from time to time when it comes to the rules of professional conduct that govern Kansas attorneys.  Many people are of the mind that if they have learned something once, then they will never have go back and relearn that “something” again.  While completely relearning an entire concept may not be necessary, reminders about what the rules are and how violating the rules can harm your career do nothing but help you avoid those unnecessary small mistakes that have cost many Kansas attorneys their law licenses.

Contact Danielle Sanger of the Sanger Law Office Today to Schedule Your Free Consultation

While legal staff members play an integral role in the success of a law firm, they must be monitored closely to ensure their conduct in no way puts your Kansas law license at risk.  Even a small mistake could result in the potential loss or suspension of your law license.  If your Kansas law license is at risk, you should consider speaking with a seasoned Kansas Professional Licensing Defense Attorney as soon as possible.  Danielle Sanger of the Sanger Law Office is an experienced and dedicated Kansas Professional License Defense Attorney who has helped numerous fellow Kansas Attorneys face the potential loss of their law licenses.  As a former Assistant Attorney General of Kansas, Danielle Sanger has a unique perspective not shared by many other professional license defense attorneys.  If you would like to schedule a free consultation with Danielle Sanger to discuss your situation, contact the Sanger Law Office today by calling (785) 979-4353.

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