How to organise and document your workflow as a lawyer

Lawyers know the value of a good to-do list. Every meeting, email, conversation or stray thought can be a task for a different client with a different due date, so you need a system to record and work through them all rather than holding everything in your head. For years I just dot-pointed everything into a notebook and carried tasks over each day. Over time I wanted a system that visually manages my workflow, is digital and flexible, and — most importantly — doubles as a record of my responsibilities and achievements for performance and promotion conversations.

Overview of the two systems

Two systems, built in Microsoft Teams / Planner (Notion, Trello, Monday etc. work too):

1. General — for tracking day-to-day work and keeping a record of your achievements, in a form that's easy to translate into performance reviews and promotion applications.

2. Matter-specific — for tracking tasks, timeframes and review / approval processes on larger or longer-term matters.

1. General task manager

The first four columns ('buckets') are for day-to-day work, Kanban style:

• To Do — tasks not yet started. I try to keep this to ~10 cards; more than that, and it's worth asking whether you can really take on new work.

• Doing — tasks you've started that you can complete without outside help. Try to keep fewer than 3 at any time.

• Under Review / Waiting — tasks that have gone as far as you can take them (e.g. a draft awaiting your manager's review). This keeps your blockers and follow-ups visible.

• Done — completed tasks. They can move back if new comments or instructions come in.

How I use the cards:

• New cards — a card per one-off task, or a card per matter with a checklist inside for its various tasks.

• Moving cards — click and drag to the appropriate column.

• Populating cards — a description with background, a completion date, and comments that track progress (e.g. "Draft v3 doc no. 123456 issued to [partner] at [time]").

To expand this into a record of achievements and responsibilities:

• Identify a few areas you'll focus on at your next review (from a policy, or agreed with your manager).
• Add columns on the right for those areas — a "Key Matters" column is handy.
• Drag cards across, or create new cards summarising each achievement as you finish relevant tasks.

It's worth spending some time filling the Done and Key Matters columns with work you've already completed, so you don't forget about it.

2. Project-specific task manager

This example is for a PPP-project workflow, where many contracts move back and forth between parties as drafting and negotiations progress — but you can build a version for large-scale litigation, regulatory processes or in-house projects. As with the general manager, deliverables and tasks live in cards that move through review stages and document what's happening:

Setup is the same as the general manager. If you're running both, create a new channel for the specific matter rather than another tab in the same channel.

Working with others

Depending on how familiar your team is with Kanban systems, you might start just for your own use — then introduce it. You can send weekly progress updates:

You can also assign team members to tasks and run progress meetings off the board (what's to be done, the blockers, and what help is needed), show juniors how their work fits the bigger picture, and use it to explain timeframes or billing to clients.

Final thoughts

This is a system I've tweaked for my own work as a transactional lawyer. Your workflows will differ, but hopefully it's a solid skeleton to build from. I've kept it deliberately simple — Teams, Planner and other platforms offer plenty more features to build on.