Approximately twenty-five percent of legal malpractice claims result from calendaring issues. The claims can range from failure to know a deadline, failure to timely file, failure to record in a calendar or failure to respond to a calendar reminder. Law firms should use calendaring for all projects, events and deadlines. To prevent delays and missed deadlines, supervisory attorneys should perform a workload analysis of subordinate attorneys on a frequent basis.
Many Attorney Malpractice Insurers require at a minimum a Dual Docket process where 2 different calendaring systems are maintained by 2 different people. At a minimum at least one of the calendaring systems needs to be computerized.
The use of a central department to monitor individual case deadlines will assist in the monitoring of important dates.