I love the Olympics. I went to the Olympics in London in 2012 and was fortunate enough to be in the stadium when Mo Farah won his second gold medal and the Jamaican relay team broke the world record in the four by one hundred metre relay – that meant that I was lucky enough to see the great Usain Bolt in action.
I always get disappointed if the Games are in a country with a time difference which means that events are on throughout the night, so it has been lovely to be able to watch events in the evening and then the catch up of the day’s events. And what a treat we have had – with Becky Adlington and Mark Foster commentating on the swimming , and Jess Ennis and Denise Lewis discussing the athletics.
And how invested we all get in sports that a week ago we knew nothing about. I loved the BMX racing , the dressage, and a load of other sports …
But shall I tell you what I have not loved? The fact that I watch the Olympics and feel guilty. The fact that in the morning, I log on and have far more emails than I want, made me realise that by working in the evenings, I have been handling emails as they come in and not leaving them until the morning.
By not working in the evenings , I have over a hundred emails waiting for me in the morning.
Is this how those of you who log off at five o’clock (if you are lucky enough to do so!) feel in the morning to see the barrage of emails waiting for you , knowing that the client is then going to call you to ask you why you have not dealt with their particular email?
I have always worked in the evenings – it is the best time to get contract reports done, and catch up on emails .It means that in the mornings, it is far more relaxed but when I see how it must be for others, I am shocked .
When does anyone get to do the work? we are fighting emails and phone calls all day? When do you do your title reports? When do you answer enquiries?
When do you submit your Land Registry applications? But we should not be working evenings – and it is no surprise that there is such a high level of burn out among conveyancers.
It is relentless …. It never ends ….
6 responses
Undoubtedly the pressure on conveyancers is getting greater by the day (and has been for a while), but even during my conveyancing career I used to work early mornings, evenings, and weekends to make sure I was as up to date as possible, and to keep my clients and work referrers happy. The simple fact is the more interruptions a conveyancer gets during the day, the less time they have to carry out the actual legal work. They say getting old isn’t for the faint hearted, neither is conveyancing!
Without knowing anything about you or your firm it’s hard to say for sure but I would say your case load is too high or you need to work more efficiently or perhaps both.
You shouldn’t need to work every evening and weekend and you shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying your downtime, doing whatever makes you happy.
I was the managing partner of a medium sized law firm that did a lot of conveyancing. Having to work long hours just to cope was the norm before I became managing partner (non fee-earning although I would step in to assist if needed).
We actively managed and reduced workloads, gave great customer service and didn’t expect staff to stay late (not after 6pm) or work at weekends.
All conveyancers were qualified and had a dedicated experienced assistant.
We were using case management and the Internet more than 20 years ago and were profitable. It can be done.
I accept it is probably harder for individuals now, but good firm management can make it work.
And yet we have some consultants who never seem to be available and are painful to deal with as a result. I have dealt with a few recently.
Conveyancing really is a many tiered system at the moment, yet another issue somebody somewhere needs to come to grips with.
The problem with emails is that by replying to them immediately, you let the recipient has unrealistic expectations i.e. if they email you they expect a reply straight away. Next if you email the recipient out of hours, they expect you to be available to them at that time and they will no doubt email you back again. Personally, I do not see the issue in dealing with work out of hours if that is what people choose to do. But do a reply to the email and set it so that is goes out at a time the next working day in the working hours. The fact that you are having to do this constantly out of hours and you are getting so many emails, leads me to think that your manager or supervising partner is not managing your work load correctly and that should be brought up with HR.
If you give people and inch, people will take a mile and you will end up in a loop.
I tend to deal with the correspondence work i.e. reporting on mortgage offers, searches, titles etc. in the morning and deal with communication in the afternoon. I’ve done it that way so long, clients, agents etc. are kind of trained into that way of working and expectations are managed accordingly.
@David Weeks don’t get me started on consultants at the moment. Some of the service being provided is abysmal. Some are doing what they want, when they want and to heck with the rest of the chain.
This is just a failure to set clear boundaries.
If you work nine to five then tell your clients those are your office hours and don’t respond outside of those periods. There is nothing stopping you drafting outside of those hours if you so wish.
If you work alternate hours then again make sure your clients know when you are available. You are your own worst enemy if you respond outside of those set hours then wonder why clients are frustrated when you do not respond the next time in those same hours.