A Simple Hand-Off Habit That Saves Attorney Hours
In busy litigation teams, time is always tight. Everyone’s juggling deadlines, drafting, digging into discovery, and developing strategies. Often all at once. So, when a task gets passed from one person to another, it needs to land cleanly.
But too often, that hand-off is where the slowdown begins.
The assignment shows up in your inbox, but key details are missing. You spend 20 minutes figuring out what’s already been done, or worse, you start from scratch only to find out later someone else already covered part of it. Multiply that across every hand-off, and suddenly your day is gone.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve seen one simple habit change everything.
Why Most Hand-Offs Fall Apart
Everyone’s working hard to move things forward. But when expectations aren’t clear, even the best efforts lose traction.
Here’s what usually goes wrong: The scope of the task isn’t defined. The status of the work is unclear. Supporting documents aren’t attached or organized. There’s no timeline or deadline specified.
These breakdowns aren’t intentional. They’re just the result of heads buried in work and moving fast without a consistent structure.
The One Habit That Changes Everything
Before handing off a task, take 60 seconds to frame the work with these 3 quick thoughts:
What’s done
What needs to be done next
When is it needed
That’s it. Just that.
When a task arrives with context, clarity, and a timeframe, the person picking it up doesn’t have to guess. They can dive in and get it done. And you don’t have to circle back with five follow-up emails.
What It Looks Like in Practice
Here’s a real-world example.
Instead of sending: “Can you draft responses to this discovery?”
Try this: “We’ve received Plaintiff’s first set of interrogatories and RFPs. I’ve flagged the key issues in the notes. Can you draft our answers to #1–10 and RFP #1–5? I’ll review Thursday afternoon, so please send a first pass by end of day on Wednesday.”
Same task. Different outcome. Clear hand-offs mean fewer delays, less backtracking, and smoother collaboration all around.
When the Habit Becomes a System
When this kind of communication becomes part of your team’s workflow, everything runs faster and with far less friction.
Paralegals are often the ones catching these gaps in real time, asking the questions, and closing loops before things go sideways. This is not micromanaging. This is protecting your time by making hand-offs smoother.
I shared more about the importance of aligned communication in an earlier post (The One Key Concept Some Teams Miss in Legal Communication), if you want to see how this habit fits into the bigger picture.
Simple, Repeatable, Powerful
This one habit, framing the task with a few key details, keeps the hand-off from becoming a headache. It saves everyone time, reduces confusion, and creates a workflow that actually works.
It’s a small shift. But it makes a big difference.