I was on a client group call the other day, and I asked everyone casually, “What’s the number one task as a law firm owner that takes up most of your time and makes you feel like you're stuck wearing the $20-an-hour hat?” I’m talking about the never-ending tasks that you wish someone else could handle. The answer was almost unanimous: email management.
Now, I admit I’ve struggled with this myself because I don’t understand why lawyers at the ownership level are still managing their inbox. I get it now, though. It’s often because they never built a system for it in the first place. Many lawyers start small, doing everything themselves… handling clients, giving out their personal email, and sometimes even their cell phone number. As a result, they get overwhelmed with constant messages from clients, past clients, and third parties involved in cases.
On top of that, around 80% of the questions you receive are variations of the same 20%, so it’s easy to get frustrated. If you’re smart, you’ve probably built some templates and are copy-pasting responses, but it’s still time-consuming.
As your law firm grows and you build a team, you end up becoming the “traffic cop,” directing emails to the right person. You feel responsible for answering questions because you’re likely giving legal advice. And if you’re billing hourly, you’re thinking, “I should be getting paid for this time.”
But here’s the good news: if you're an hourly billing attorney, this can be solved. If you work with flat fees or contingency billing, this job needs to be off your plate ASAP. Whether you’re running a small firm or scaling it to the 850K to 1.2M level, you need to protect your capacity. You can’t afford to get bogged down by tasks others can handle. Email management is one of those tasks.
If you’re at the other end of the spectrum as a CEO, you definitely shouldn’t be handling emails.
And if you’re stuck in what we call “law firm hell”, your life likely feels chaotic because you’re still managing emails.
So, let’s talk about a system we created to fix this:
Step 1: Create a Separate Email
This is where many lawyers go wrong. Before you can have someone or something manage your email, you need to get rid of all your personal stuff. This includes everything from emails about your golf trips, memes from friends, financial information from your broker, medical records, and personal communication with your spouse or others.
You need to create a new email specifically for business communications, keeping your personal and professional emails separate. I know it’s tempting to just keep everything in one inbox, but that’s going to cause problems.
A quick warning: no matter how diligent you are, your new business email will eventually get spam. I used to obsess over having a clean inbox, but after working with my therapist, I’ve accepted that it’s okay if my personal email is a “hot mess” with thousands of unread messages. As long as you don’t let client communications slip into your personal email, you’ll be fine. I recommend periodically checking your personal email to catch anything important and setting an autoresponder letting them know your business email address. This will train clients not to use your personal inbox.
Step 2: Hire or Appoint Someone
Now, you need someone to manage your email. They should be proficient in Google Suite, Microsoft products, CRMs, and basic AI tools. This doesn’t need to be someone super tech-savvy, but they should be fast and have good organizational skills. If you hire someone older, they may struggle with the technology, so it’s often better to hire someone younger who’s more comfortable with modern tools.
We’ve found that many of our team members come from Mexico, and we’re very happy with the quality of work. But you don’t have to hire locally. You can hire a remote personal assistant from anywhere, even outside the country, as long as they can work in your time zone.
If you appoint someone from within your firm, make sure they can fully dedicate themselves to this role. It’s going to be a full-time job initially, just learning how to manage emails. Don’t try to have them do this part-time or multitask while they learn, it won’t work. If you’re a small firm, this may mean you need to take on some extra duties while they get up to speed.
Step 3: Leverage AI Tools
AI should be part of your system. Use AI to help with scheduling and filtering client emails. You can create custom GPTs for your specific needs, and we go over how to do this in the playbook. You’ll also want to integrate AI apps for things like scheduling appointments and handling certain inquiries automatically. AI won’t replace humans, but it can make the process faster and more efficient.
Step 4: Demonstrate, Do, and Review
Once you’ve hired or appointed someone, and you’ve separated your personal email, it’s time to demonstrate how to manage emails. I recommend screen-sharing as you go through your inbox and show them how you handle things. Then have them try it while you watch. Afterward, provide feedback on what they did well, what they need to improve, and what to avoid.
This process (demonstrate, do, and review) should happen repeatedly until you feel confident that they can manage the inbox without much oversight. Eventually, they’ll get so good at it that they’ll likely outperform you.
Step 5: Manage Daily and Weekly
You’ll want to stay involved in the process through daily and weekly reviews. I use a system called FLOW that was created by Partners Club member Bert Diener, a law firm owner who scaled his practice from a couple million dollars to tens of millions in revenue. This system includes daily stand-up meetings, weekly retrospective meetings, and weekly planning sessions to ensure everything’s running smoothly. The goal is to identify obstacles and find ways to improve the system continually.
If you're in Partners Club, be sure to attend the FLOW Coaching. If you're not in Partners Club and you'd like to learn more about how you can get involved with FLOW, follow this QR code
Next Steps
This process takes around four to eight weeks to fully implement. The first couple of weeks will require more of your time than you’re spending now, but by week four, you’ll start seeing a reduction in your email management duties. By the end of the fifth week, you’ll only be managing the last 10% of emails, typically the more complex or outlier issues.
While things may slip through the cracks at first, they won’t be major issues. Mistakes will happen, but you’ll be able to correct them quickly. Eventually, you’ll be free from the constant stress of email management.
If you want more details on how to set up this system, grab a copy of our playbook, which you can find linked below.
