Whenever your supervisor starts talking to you about work, immediately grab a notepad and a pen and start taking notes. You never know quite how detailed/substantive the instructions will be until you have finished receiving them. As soon as you have finished receiving the instructions, another task may come up and by the time that is complete, you may have forgotten important details from the original instructions. In fact, always bring a pad and pen along when you meet people, just in case they happen to give you instructions, advice, or insights about the firm.

Clarifying instructions

If the instructions you are receiving do not cover some of the below elements, consider whether further clarification is required from your supervisor at the time you are receiving those instructions.

Deadline/time frame

Firstly, don’t forget to confirm the deadline. Without a deadline, it will be difficult for you to prioritise tasks effectively if you have more than one task on the go (which will likely often be the case). You will also not know whether you have capacity to take on further tasks. I have been given tasks with 30 minute deadlines and others with a deadline of 7-10 days, so it’s always best to ask and clarify.

If you know immediately upon receiving instructions that you might struggle to meet a particular deadline, then be up front about this and check whether there is any flexibility. If there isn’t, then perhaps offer to speak to the other lawyers who have delegated you work to check whether there is any flexibility their end. You could also ask your supervisor whether they think you have capacity to take on a particular task that you’ve been asked about (and if they say “no”, you can relay this to the other delegator when explaining that you are unable to help). Either way, communication is key. It’s better to ask about flexibility than to simply miss a deadline (and of course, offer to work late or over the weekend if this is the only way you’ll be able to get everything completed on time).

An estimate of how long the task should take

Will a short email suffice, or is a more detailed report required? Does your supervisor want an indication of the sources you used? Should you attach supporting documents to an email or print a corresponding hardcopy bundle? You should not spend 10 hours making something perfect if what your supervisor envisages is a 30 minute research task likely to result in a simple yes/no answer. Remember, clients will likely have been given a cost estimate and your supervisor may be responsible for making sure this estimate is not grossly exceeded. Taking a few hours longer than expected to complete a piece of work can really add up over time, especially if a large team is involved.

Priority

If the task involves a number of sub-tasks, ask if there is a particular aspect of the task that they want you to prioritise, or a point at which they want you to start. This may be obvious to them, as they have a fuller understanding of the bigger picture, but less obvious to you.

Audience

Who is the work for? Your supervisor? A partner internally? A third party adviser instructed by the firm? A client? This might determine how the work should be presented, structured and worded, and the level of detail required.

• Work intended for a client should be free of legal jargon (including Latin!) and detailed case/statutory references. You may also have to present it using a house style template with the firm logo/contact details on the top.
• Work intended for a third party advisor may similarly need to conform to house style, although legal references may be ok if that third party is, for instance, a lawyer.
• Work for your supervisor may be more informal (depending on their preference/the particular piece of work). For instance, an email summary may suffice to summarise a particular issue.

The client

It sounds simple, but if the work is for a client, make sure you’re certain which client it is. Sometimes there might be multiple businesses working together towards the same objective (e.g. multiple lenders collectively providing a loan, or a consortium of investors making an investment), so this might not be abundantly clear. I once marked up a contract from the wrong party’s perspective (making it less advantageous to our client), as I hadn’t taken a second to confirm who our client was and ended up making the wrong assumption. Luckily I realised this before circulating the first draft to the client! I also once included the wrong business name in a contract, as the client was trading under a brand name that differed from its legal company name.

Presentation

Check how you should present your work. For instance:

• Should you deliver hard copy documents? If so, double/single-sided printing, stapled, hole-punched and filed?
• Do you need to provide soft copy documents? If so, should they be saved on the firm’s central workspace or emailed as a zipped attachment? Is a brief summary in an email enough?
• Alternatively, should you be delivering a PowerPoint presentation or a document based on a “house style” template?
• If you are comparing/proofreading documents, is a hand mark-up ok, or should you work on a soft-copy document using track-changes?

Guidance

Your supervisor may be able to point you in the right direction when starting your work. If you are being asked to draft something, find out whether there is a precedent bank. If you are asked to carry out legal research, ask if your supervisor knows of any cases/sources/resources off the top of his/her head that may provide a good starting point.

How this will tie into your next task

Sometimes supervisors are busy and do not think ahead to your next task when giving you instructions. Try to pre-empt follow-on tasks from the outset and check whether your supervisor wants you to take these on as well. For instance, you may be asked to check financial figures are accurate throughout a witness statement, then subsequently be asked to check whether quotes are accurate. It would probably be quicker to have done both tasks simultaneously. Trying to pre-empt what might be needed at the outset could save you time and increase the team’s overall efficiency. This can also be important for keeping costs down (especially if the client has been given a fee estimate that is at risk of being exceeded).

Delegation

If the task seems particularly long, or the deadline given seems tight, there is no harm in asking whether you can enlist the help of a paralegal or another trainee. Only do this if you might genuinely lack the capacity/time to complete the task by the deadline and to the required standard however.

Billing code

There may be multiple billing codes assigned to a particular client (e.g. if the firm is working on multiple distinct workstreams for that client), so ask for the specific billing code for the project in respect of which you are receiving instructions.

Summary

Consider summarising the instructions back to your supervisor once you have received them, just to be sure (and to let them know) that you fully understand them. This will also give your supervisor the chance to assess whether they have in fact given you instructions that are clear, accurate and complete.