General Knowledge

Practice Fundamentals: File Management Safe and Effective File Management In your practice, you refer to your client files every day. However, you may notice that you’re spending too much time looking for documents, wondering about deadlines, and trying to remember when you last spoke to your client. As a lawyer, you want to spend your time productively, working on your files, expanding your knowledge, and building your practice. You don’t want to waste time trying to figure out where you put something. You also want to avoid the stress of wondering whether you’ve missed an important deadline or forgotten to update your client. In order to manage your files, you will need to develop procedures from the first time a potential client contacts your office until you dispose of your file. Effective file management will allow you to organize your files in a way that is easy to understand and use by you and those you work with. It will also help you ensure you meet your professional obligations to avoid conflicts of interest and protect your clients’ confidential information. This course will help you learn the basics of file management, but it does not cover everything in detail. If you work at a firm, you should talk to your colleagues about the way they manage files. Your firm may have established procedures that are tailored to your work environment and that you are expected to follow. If that’s the case, consider comparing the things you’ve learned in this course with your office’s file management system. If you are working on your own, or if you feel like you need more support, you can contact the Law Society’s Practice Management Department to schedule a consultation. You should also consider purchasing LESA’s practice manuals for area(s) of law that you work in. These comprehensive manuals contain in-depth information as well as numerous common templates that you can use in your practice. You can also access certain LESA materials, as well as other useful resources, from the Alberta Law Libraries. This course will take approximately two hours to complete. This course relates to practice management, which is one of the domains in the Law Society of Alberta’s Professional Development Profile for Alberta Lawyers. Objective One: Learn how to develop file opening systems to ensure applicable limitation dates deadlines are not missed, and that regulatory requirements are met Objective Two: Know how to thoroughly and clearly document matters Objective Three: Learn how to develop file management systems for file tracking, retrieval, retention, and destruction Objective Four: Understand how to secure files to prevent unauthorized access Objective Five: Know your requirements for privacy and confidentiality