Ron & Rebecca: From Overwhelm To Leverage – Building A Strategic Executive Assistant Partnership

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca. All

Ron Bockstahler: right, welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about business law. I’m your co-host Ron Bockstahler, along with my co-host Rebecca Bockstahler. In 1958, the ABA published an article that sparked the birth of a billable hour, and the legal profession hasn’t looked back since. This show is about what comes next. Each episode, we sit down with attorneys, business leaders, and the people who support them to talk honestly about what it takes to build a law practice that isn’t just successful but sustainable. All right, let’s get into it. Today, we’re going to be talking about using an executive assistant. Rebecca, what can you tell you? Tell us about this.

Rebecca Bockstahler: I can tell you that it is going to be an informative discussion about something that people need to consider and really ask themselves how they can use it to enhance their business.

Ron Bockstahler: So, in all my years, I’ve had a lot of I’ve had several assistants, and I’ve seen several attorneys basically fail at using an assistant. So, I think we could break this down to the three common areas that why they fail. One is underutilization, no context for transferred information, and no roadmap. They’re not planning out how to use someone,

Rebecca Bockstahler: right? This needs to be treated as bringing on a regular full-time employee, in that you need to consider your onboarding. You need to consider the preparation that needs to be done beforehand, and that way you’re setting it up to be a successful endeavor, as opposed to treating it as something that doesn’t need your time because in your mind it’s just a fractional relationship.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, I think most attorneys they probably use their executive assistant about 20% of what’s actual possible, and I can speak to this from a lot of experience. Um, you know, calendaring, scheduling, scheduling is pretty easy. You can, you know, hey, make set these appointments, look at my calendar. That’s good calendar management’s in place. Email is a little bit tougher when you start doing communication. Like, what’s important for me to talk to? Who do I not need to talk to? So that takes a little bit of time. I think you know. I know when we set attorneys up with an executive assistant, we really want to talk to them about planning in advance. So before the EA starts with them, maybe a month before they start laying out what what’s your expectations. What will they be doing, right? So and then once they start, it’s not like here just dump everything because you’re gonna have to train them. I know when I started with mine, I had a three day training program. It was all laid out, and a lot of the as we’re spinning up attorneys using some of the Amata EAs, we’re doing the same thing. We’re laying out a plant training program that the attorney has responsibilities to help get them ready for success.

Rebecca Bockstahler: I think that it’s something that, when somebody looks at using an EA, number one, they might just think it’s going to be a very simple process and not put time into planning, or conversely, they think that it’s going to be too much work, and so they don’t want to put the time into planning. But what you find is that pre-planning period is essential because it really gives you a chance to sit back. You being the person who’s going to be using the EA, it gives them a chance to sit back and analyze their business and their needs, and figure out a systematic way to help hand off work, and putting time into those thoughts beforehand makes the onset of the relationship with their EA so much more beneficial to themselves and to their business.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, absolutely. It’s it’s really key to understand what they can do. They’re going to help you with your billing. Are they going to be doing invoicing? Are they helping with your travel, event planning? Are they working with your your spouse? Special projects. I mean, I know Camilla has been you know for me has been doing a ton of special projects. She has certain skills that I either don’t have or just don’t want to do research. Kind of a big one is doing some research, client coordination. So, kind of moving in there. I think when they’re talking to bringing in, when you’re thinking about how you’re going to utilize that executive assistant, you know, what would I delegate if I knew it would be done well? Like, if they’re going to do it just like I would do, what would I be willing to delegate? Let’s start with that. Let’s just lay out a list of what’s it can what what are those things that I can I don’t need a law degree to do. That’s like the first good place to start.

Rebecca Bockstahler: That is a good place to start, and and it’s thinking deeply about those things because, as you’ve mentioned a few times, inbox or email management, I think people think of as a very easy go to, but then you have to think deeply about it. How are you going to manage or request that your emails be handled? Like you mentioned, some are essential for you to end up responding to. Some you don’t ever need to see, and those standards or boundaries need to be set up beforehand on your own, so that when you’re training someone, there’s a system in place for how they can make those decisions and how things will be flagged, so that you’re both clearly understanding after emails have been gone through what responsibility is still going to be yours and what’s not. When you go and you look at it, the last thing you need to be doing is spending all of your time reviewing what has already been viewed. So there needs to be a very clear way of how things will be flagged and handled, and a clear path for the EA to understand what you consider to be flagged for you to view personally and what you don’t need to see.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, so so many of us go back to our old habits, right? We want to like, and I’m going to go review what they just did. Well, that’s kind of a waste of my time. There’s other things I can be out there picking up new business or actually doing the work that I already brought in. Let’s talk a little bit about the playbook. You know, Amata’s rolled out a playbook, so here’s here’s the structure, which is kind of the I guess what’s made it successful as we put together a structure of how you’re going to use your EA. You know, prep before day one, audit tasks, set up access, write your delegation list. Be prepared before they even start. Run a real intake session, 60 to 90 minutes. You’re going to have to dedicate to going through things with your EA, record it if at all possible. You know, do a loom recording, a Zoom recording, so that they have that later on. They can refer back to it, and they’re not going to call you and ask those questions. Set authority boundaries. What’s a you know the flag system? What’s a red flag? What’s a yellow flag? What’s a green flag? What can I go ahead and move forward with? What are things that I definitely need to run by, you know, the AEA needs to run by the attorney. You know, there’s, I mean, and and with with REA, I know it’s it’s pretty much if it’s contract, it comes to me. If it’s a legal matter, and if it’s any clients, I definitely want to be talking to them. I

Rebecca Bockstahler: think,

Ron Bockstahler: yeah,

Rebecca Bockstahler: yeah, I think as as somebody is going through this process, it’s important to think of this person as a strategic support partner. It’s not someone that you’re just assigning one-off tasks to. We’re going to assume that someone has been hired who is high level, somebody who wants responsibility, someone who is capable of doing everything that you’re going to ask, so it’s not use this person to send a e an email when I ask them, and this is what they should say. It’s allowing someone the freedom to respond to things and to handle processes and procedures in the way that you’ve laid out, and to give them free reign enough so that not every decision they need to make ends up being a phone call or an email to you to check it. I think of traveling. If you’re going to ask them to book a trip, either give them the budget overall, let them know what airlines you prefer, and then as long as they stay within that budget for the airline for the hotel, then they are free to make the booking. It shouldn’t be a situation where they research the flights, then they call you and tell you what the cost options are, then they go back and they look, and then they find that that flight is booked, and then they have to ask you another time. You need to tell them these are the times I will fly. This is how much I’m going to spend, and then allow them to book it. So you’re not just delegating simple one-off tasks, you’re delegating a whole system to them, and you need to allow them to be responsible for it.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely, and then I think you want to go back to that. You get they’re on board for 30 days and sit down and review. Like, here’s what was good. Here’s things we need to work on. Let’s get make sure there’s no friction. Let’s not waste the next six months. Right, diagnose everything right there and have a really sit down review. It’s not bad. It’s just let’s talk. Maybe the and the EA needs to be able to talk too. Here’s things I didn’t understand or wasn’t communicated clearly. Let’s make sure we get those off the table so it’s going to be a successful relationship as we move forward.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right, but even before you do that 30 day touch base, part of your communication strategy is going to be having a weekly touch base. Every Friday afternoon, you summarize the week and you get ready for the next week or whatever date you choose, which gives you an opportunity also then to say these are the things that maybe could have gone a little bit differently during the week, and so let’s incorporate a difference. Process into that before we head into the next week. You don’t want to carry those things, like you said, too long, especially when they’re probably easy fixes.

Ron Bockstahler: When you’re sitting with your EA and you got your intake session, and it’s you know that 16 to 90 minutes, very very important. Go over your five to 10 top clients by name, so they know who that is. How you want communication. What’s your preferences to communicate? You know, some people want to see an email. Some people pick up the phone and call me. Some people we use Teams internally. Some people might use text. So understand what that’s going to be. Scheduling non-negotiables. What what things that these don’t move right? I have certain things like if I’m don’t move my six a.m. Tuesday Thursday bike rides, not negotiable. Of course, I don’t have too many people calling me and asking for a meeting at that time anyway, so it works out really well.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right.

Ron Bockstahler: Inbox triage rules. This is an interesting one. I didn’t think about this when my executive assistant started working with me, but we had just moved over to a different spam email system, so certain you know majority of all emails left. They’ve always been unless they’ve already been accepted, going right into junk. Now I had been cleaning this out on my own. You know, I take a Saturday and just sit there and listen music and clean out you know 500 emails, but I had not told my executive assistant about this, so that she was just ignoring that junk email folder to a a very very very big number, and then turns out you know some legitimate emails are in there because they hadn’t all been accepted at this point. So that was like a hiccup that you know my fault. I hadn’t told her and explained it to her what it was, but once we did, we were able to triage it and get it cleaned up, and now it won’t be an issue going forward.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right,

Ron Bockstahler: no landmine sensitivities. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Rebecca Bockstahler: As you’re coming up with your list, as you’re doing your pre work, then it’s important to you know maybe keep an open notebook or however you’re going to keep notes. And as you’re going through your emails yourself, jotting down what you do, because of course, it’s not front of mind that you always knew to check your junk mail, and most people don’t, right? Until we switched to this email, I never looked at my junk mail. So you have to be mindful of what you’re doing and take a minute to think from an operational standpoint as you’re going through the processes yourself that you plan to hand off. What are your steps in doing that, and then corporate incorporate that into your onboarding?

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, excellent. Kind of the last couple things that you want to address: escalation thresholds. How? Who do they go up to if something comes up? We got a high high level client calling. You want do they call you directly? They call on your cell phone. Understand what those rules are going to be, so that they are make sure they’re doing it the right way, and you’re not, you know, having an irate client because they couldn’t get through to you. I know that Camilla answers my phones, and the receptionist takes the call and then sends it to Camilla. If there’s something that you know they need right away, she’s calling me. So make sure you understand what that’s going to be. What tools and access overview? If you’re setting up in Office 365, you’re using Google, whatever platform you use, and make sure those rules are in place so that your EA has access to those before they start, or right as soon as they start.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Absolutely, the onboarding is probably even more so important than somebody who’s sitting in the office with you. If somebody’s in the office with you and you don’t have all of their technology set up in advance, or there’s a piece missing from the onboarding. You can actually have them participate in it, but when somebody is sitting remotely and they don’t have the access to move forward with anything until their technology is working, it’s essential that you have all that figured out beforehand. And also, just for the person using the EA to feel like this is going to be a good relationship, you don’t want to be reactive to everything that comes up in that first three days or week, where it seems that every interaction with your EA is really just adding to your to-do list. But when that’s happening, it’s generally because the initial onboarding wasn’t as clear as it could have been.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely, it makes me laugh at some of the attorneys I’ve worked with in the past, and they have they sign up for an AEA, and then the EA say, “I’m not getting any work, and I talk to the attorney, and they say, “I’m too busy. Right? Yeah, this is exactly you got to actually set aside time and start unloading some of that work because most of the work they’re doing is not things they need to have a law degree to do.

Rebecca Bockstahler: And you have to think as you decide what you’re going to offload. It’s really just the ability for an attorney to do the work that only he or she can do is what the attorney needs to hold on to, and if it’s work that somebody else can do, then that’s what you need to give away. And a real payoff in that is that once the EA is up and running, you know that mental clarity that comes from not having to check those things, having decision fatigue because you’re dealing with small decisions all day long, allows you to focus on the larger decisions. And somebody else can handle those smaller ones for you.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely. Let’s jump into my biggest, my favorite topic. It’s going to be delegate. Don’t just assign. And this is something that a lot of people have to learn to do. Hard for me to get my mind around because I’m a great delegator. I think a lot of us are at home, but delegation is huge. You don’t have to do everything. You just got to have people you can trust and you count on, you believe in, and delegate for them to do it. Now, you know, send this email is not a good way to communicate. You know, here’s what the client needs to feel is a better way to communicate. You know, transferring why you want them to do it and what you’re trying to get out of it, and not just telling them what to do. If you have no context, you got no reasoning. It leads to a one-time execution, and they’re not learning how they’re going to do it the next time. And then you’re going to be involved the next time when you don’t want to be. You want to be involved that very first time, right? Build independent judgment. It leads to autonomous actions.

Rebecca Bockstahler: You need to spend time teaching your EA about your culture and who you are as a firm. What is your company about? That helps them then understand how to move forward with their communication and the voice or the sound that they need to have in their communications. If they know that the focus is very client centric, then they’re going to act in that way. But they’re not going to understand that walking in the door. They need to spend some time learning about the history of your firm and learning about where you want the firm to go and what the sense of your firm needs to be. What’s what’s the most important thing that you want people to walk away thinking or feeling when they’ve had interactions with people that represent you?

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely, and yeah, that’s and that’s a great point. If you’re they’re representing you, you want to make sure they understand how you’re thinking, how you want things handled, and and they should they’ll start doing it, and you know, get past that first 3060, days. They’re going to start in a real good rhythm of representing you, and that’s what you want to see happen. And that’s the benefits, and that’s why you want to use an EA, right? And

Rebecca Bockstahler: speaking to that a little bit is also that that does take a little time. That’s not going to happen on day three, and so when you begin using an EA, you need to understand that there’s going to be that time frame where they really start internalizing who you are and the job you expect, so that they can do more and more of that on their own. And so you need to just sit through it during that time that you’re teaching them to get to the real rewards on the other side. And I’m not talking a year down the road. I’m talking a month down the road.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, a good EA definitely will get their good hang of things within a month. Absolutely. Defining authority boundaries. Kind of mentioned this earlier in the show. Act, flag, hold. What can they decide independently? What needs a quick check-in first? Maybe it’s a quick email text. You want to just double check on this, and then what requires your direct involvement, and there are certain things that we absolutely do got to be involved in. But define those as it is, and maybe you’re gonna maybe don’t know because you’re not thinking through it when they first start. But over those the first 30 days, let’s think through that as as things are happening. Take notes so you’re ready on that 30 day review. Those are things you want to be talking about,

Rebecca Bockstahler: right? And I will say you even need to think about how you’re going to set up your own technology in this position because if your flag quick check-in is that they need to send you an email rather than a Teams or a text or a message over your phone system, then that’s just looping you back into your email. You’re checking your email again to see if they sent anything, so at the very least in that place, you would want to set up an email rule where their emails are going to their own folder, and you have the discipline to only check that folder if something has come in from them. I would say it’s probably better to maybe use Teams or something because, as it can be, once you’re in email, it’s really hard not to click and look. So, you know, obviously that’s a personal preference, but you do need to think about the way they’re going to communicate with you, not looping you back into what you’re trying to stay away from.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, absolutely. The 30-day review: 30 minutes at day 30 prevents six months of drift. Don’t take the time review with them what’s good, what’s not so good, what is your EA handled well, expand there. What’s missed? What is a what is it? Was it a skill, a context, or a clarity gap? What’s ready to go to scope in month two, or what’s ready to add to scope? So maybe didn’t start them with everything you wanted to do that first month, but okay, they got through those things, and now I got five more things that I’m going to put on your plate. Now remember, most of us are using our EAs for about 20% of what they’re capable of doing, and good portion is why we do fractional executive assistance because most people actually use about 30 hours a month. So if you. If you’re using a fraction, when you got 30 hours a month, you know what you’re going to get out, and you’re going to get your money’s worth. If you’re paying, you’re bringing on someone full time, you need 173 hours of work every every month, and it’s you know not many of us have that kind of work to offload to an EA. And how is the communication rhythm working? You know how’s how’s that going? You’re not taught, you know. I’ve talked to attorneys like, man, I’m not talking to my EA all the time. Well, you shouldn’t be. They’re doing their work, and you’re doing your work. It doesn’t mean you’re talking every day, even. But you know, there might be some kind of communication going on. And I think

Rebecca Bockstahler: it’s important on this review to remember that no good communication is one-sided. So this isn’t necessarily a time for someone to give a litany of their review of things and then think the conversation is over. This is give and take between the EA and the attorney. Oftentimes, the EA might be able to recommend what the things that can add to scope are. They’ve seen you work for 30 days. They understand where some of your blockades may be, and so there’s real value to allowing them to also give you their 30 day feedback.

Ron Bockstahler: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. The long game. Let’s kind of jump into what the long game looks like. Week one calibration and context. Let’s figure those things out. Month one, core tasks owning. What do I got? This is my core things I’m doing. Are we going to start adding things there the next month? Two, three. Month three, they should have independent judgment. They should be able to be running on their own, doing a lot of those things that you know that maybe they didn’t start up, but they get month three. They got a pretty good rhythm going on, and then by month six, their operators are proxy. So,

Rebecca Bockstahler: right. I think this is really where the mental clarity from not having to have decision fatigue. You see the value of that, and the time where you are really doing the tasks that only you can do.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, absolutely. The relationship compounds over time, right? So you got to invest in it to what you want to get out of it. Very important to know we have leads competitions quite often. Is fractional does not mean disposable. Protect and invest your relationship. This is an important person within your your work environment, your life to make you more successful and have a balanced life. So you put the investment in up front. It’s going to pay dividends for you,

Rebecca Bockstahler: right? And I will even say that as you definitely do want to protect an investor relationship, but as we know, sometimes business relationships change. So as you’re working in those first months with your EA, as they’re taking over tasks, you also want them to be writing an SOP of what they’re doing, so that if you do end up having to make a change, you’re not necessarily starting again from a fresh spot. You can use their knowledge and what they’ve put together to transfer to a new EA if needed.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely, that’s that’s a great point. All right, well, let’s kind of talk about like what’s your first steps. You’re listening to the show. You’re like, I’m ready to get an EA. I think this is the good step for me. A fractional EA will work really, really good. I’m going to sign in for $30.30 hours a month. The first thing you need to do is write down your top 10 tasks to delegate with specifics, not categories. Be very specific of what you want to have that EA do. So when they do start, you’re ready, and and you know now I’d even tell you that because if I’m bringing you on board, I’m going to ask you to provide those things to me so we can put that into a training program and have really specific what we’re going to be getting done and when it’s going to get done, so that it’s going to be a successful relationship going forward, that list. Go ahead.

Rebecca Bockstahler: You have to remember that while this person may have years of EA experience, they are new to you and they’re new to your firm, and they don’t, they can’t read your mind, and so their knowledge is only going to be as deep as if you’re only giving them a broad overview. That’s what the more specific you can be, the better it’s going. This isn’t, you know, we’re focusing just on how it’s going to be really helpful to the person using the EA. But if we’re speaking to protecting the relationship, we also have to know that we want them to have positive onboarding experience. We want them to feel like they’re being set up for success, not in an unorganized position that they don’t know day to day what they’re supposed to be doing or how it feeds the organization. So those specifics help with both of those things.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely. Yeah, if you can’t articulate what to hand off, no E is going to help you. So just keep that in mind. If you can’t figure out what you can hand off and then put it in writing, you’re going to struggle, and maybe you just don’t need an EA. All right, start with the list, and everything else follows.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Right.

Ron Bockstahler: All right, that’s kind of kind of rolls into what we believe. You know, onboarding an EA questions or answers, please reach out to us after the show. We’ll put we have a slideshow. We’ll put that in. The slide notes. I think we’ll try to anyway, and we’ll go from there. RB, anything you want to end with?

Rebecca Bockstahler: No, I think that I would just encourage people to look into the podcast notes and check out the slides and the presentation.

Ron Bockstahler: Awesome. All right, folks, that’s it for today. Today’s conversation got you thinking about your own practice, I hope you’ll take one idea and put it to work this week. We hope you’ll actually start using the EA because it’s very effective, helps people be more successful and live a balanced life. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with the colleague who could use it. The 1958 lawyer is brought to you by Amata. For more than 30 years, Amata has helped law firms of all sizes do more with less. Build on our four pillars: fractional support staff, virtual office options, office space, and legal community. So, until next time, keep building your law firm.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer. If you like the show, tell a friend, and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to hear more about Ron, Rebecca, or Amata, go to AmataOffices.com. That’s amataoffices.com. All the links are also in the show notes.