This Is Why I’m Single: You Should Only Have One Calendar for Your Law Firm

June 6, 2023 - Law Practice Management

Every year, when you apply for or renew your malpractice insurance, your provider asks whether you have a ‘dual calendar’ system — like that’s good practice for running a law firm. Only it’s not.

The best practice of a ‘dual calendar’ system is a vestige from times past, when lawyers used paper calendars. That second calendar was a hedge against missing a deadline, because the idea was that, if that item did not appear on one calendar, it would appear on the other. Of course, managing two calendars, one as a ‘backup’ of sorts, could also lead to errors, if not diligently managed. For example, if the time is recorded incorrectly on one calendar, which one is right? It’s hard to know. And, that potential for human error increases in a world where reliance on paper calendars is almost non-existent. Trying to run a paper calendar in an electronic world does not make sense, even as a backup protocol.

And, there is really no need to have a different ‘backup calendar/second calendar’ for software. With most law firms shifting to cloud-based tools, you can effectively integrate multiple calendars — even linking your personal and professional calendars, if you’d like, including with appropriate color coding for different events. Best of all, bidirectional data syncing means that you can create one calendar item, and add it to as many other calendars as you’d like, with the exact same information — which entirely eliminates the manual errors that plague multiple submissions to multiple calendars.

If you want to ‘backup’ your calendar now, you’re likely talking about backing up calendar data, just like you would with your client files and related information.

Leverage the best current technology and understand that you can run 1 or 100 calendars with the same information and tickler setup, if you utilize online options.

Now, that’s appointment viewing.

. . .

If you need help organizing your practice around a modern technology program, we can help.

The Wyoming State Bar offers free law practice management consulting services through Red Cave Law Firm Consulting.

To request a consult, visit the Wyoming State Bar’s law practice management page, and start running your law firm like a business.