Firms track deadlines in calendars, case management systems, spreadsheets and people's memory. Each works until one entry is wrong or missing.
This article describes what a deadline system must do and where it tends to fail. It does not replace the rules that apply to your matters, which your attorneys know.
The problem
A deadline lives in several places at once: the notice, the calendar and the matter record. When one changes and the others do not, someone works from a wrong date.
Reminders add a second risk. A reminder that nobody owns, or that reaches a person who is away, is no reminder at all.
What is known
We cite no figure on missed deadlines, because we have not verified one from a primary source.
What is certain is the structure of the problem. A deadline has a source, a rule that gives the date, an owner and a reminder. A failure in any of the four can cause a miss.
What to do
- Record each deadline once, in one place, with the source document and the rule used to calculate it
- Have a second person confirm any date that was calculated rather than read from a notice
- Give each deadline an owner and a backup, and show both next to the date
- Set reminders at several distances before the date, and send them to the owner and the backup
- Mark a deadline as done only when the work is filed or delivered, not when the draft is ready
- Review the upcoming deadlines of the whole firm once a week
- Keep a written procedure for what happens when a person leaves or is away
Where systems fail
- A date is typed by hand with a mistake and nobody checks it
- Calculation rules, such as holidays or service methods, are not kept up to date
- Reminders go to a shared inbox that nobody reads
- A calendar is connected to the matter record in both directions, and an edit on one side overwrites the other
- Time zones or recurring entries are set wrongly
- A deadline calculator is used without an attorney confirming its results
What to look for when you implement it
- Test the system with a sample matter and sample dates, and check every reminder
- Check who receives reminders when the owner is away
- Ask how changes to a date are recorded and who can make them
- Confirm that the calendar can be exported and does not depend on one person's account
- Have your attorneys, not the software vendor, decide how deadlines are calculated
- Keep an independent backup of the calendar and test that it can be restored