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PracticeCraft
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Program 01

Now in development

Working With Your Legal Team

How lawyers work effectively with assistants, clerks and the people around them.

Associates are expected to work with assistants, law clerks, students and shared resources long before anyone explains how. This program teaches where work belongs, how to transfer it properly, and how to supervise it without taking it back.

Written for

  • Articling students
  • Associates in their first years of practice
  • Anyone newly responsible for other people’s work

Ten modules

From individual contributor to team operator.

    01You’re Already Managing a TeamWhy lawyer attention is scarce, how delegation debt develops, and why “it’s faster if I do it myself” stops being true.
    02Know Your TeamWhat assistants, clerks, students and junior lawyers can actually do — judged on authority, competence, capacity and context rather than job title.
    03What Should I Delegate?Deciding where work belongs, and identifying repeatable work that should no longer depend entirely on the lawyer.
    04The Perfect HandoffGiving another person enough context, authority, timing and quality expectations to succeed without constant follow-up questions.
    05Stop Treating Your Assistant Like a Task InboxMoving from one-off assignments to recurring workflows with clear triggers, ownership, decision points and escalation rules.
    06Working With Law ClerksUsing process expertise properly across drafting, due diligence, filings, productions, closings and chronologies.
    07Managing Priorities When Everyone Is BusyCommunicating genuine urgency, separating external deadlines from internal preferences, and negotiating competing workloads.
    08Review, Feedback & TrustReviewing proportionately, separating errors from preferences, and increasing autonomy as capability is demonstrated.
    09Ethics, Supervision & the Lawyer’s ResponsibilityUsing leverage without abdicating professional responsibility: supervision, confidentiality and the boundaries of delegated work.
    10Build Your Personal Practice Operating SystemTurning the program into behavioural change with a team map, workflows, communication rules and a 30-day plan.

How it is taught

Four models small enough to remember and specific enough to use.

The Leverage Ladder

Five levels, from performing work yourself to owning and improving a process.

DDCA

Do, Delegate, Collaborate, Automate — a first pass on any piece of work that arrives.

HANDOFF

Seven things a person needs in order to succeed without a second conversation.

The Trust Ladder

How autonomy should expand through demonstrated competence rather than hope.

From the program

  • Working With Your Legal Team

    “It’s faster if I do it myself.”

    • Do it myself
    • Teach + delegate

    The right question is not “Would delegation save time today?”

    It is “Will this happen again?”

    Break-even pointNumber of repetitionsTotal time invested
    PRACTICECRAFT01

    “It’s faster if I do it myself.”

  • Framework

    The Perfect Handoff

    H

    A

    N

    D

    O

    F

    F

    Headline outcome

    Audience & purpose

    Needed inputs

    Deadline & priority

    Ownership & authority

    Format & quality

    Follow-up

    Seven things a person needs in order to succeed without a second conversation.

    PRACTICECRAFT02

    The Perfect Handoff

  • Managing priorities

    ASAP is not a deadline

    CategoryHow immovable

    1. External / Immovable

      Court. Closing. Regulatory.

    2. Client Commitment

      A promised date.

    3. Internal Buffer

      Time intentionally reserved for review.

    4. Preference

      “I would like this today.”

    These should not be communicated as if they are equivalent.

    PRACTICECRAFT03

    ASAP is not a deadline

Working With Your Legal Team is in development now.

It is the first of the PracticeCraft programs. Early access opens to learners first; firms can talk to us about a pilot or a design partnership.

Get Early AccessFor law firms