What should be in a law office procedures manual?

One procedure for each task that would go wrong if the usual person were out: opening a matter, running conflicts, calendaring, closing a file, handling a client's money. Each needs numbered steps, an owner for each step, a version and a short changelog.

Who should write law firm SOPs?

The person who does the work should explain it, and someone else should write it down. In a small firm the managing partner usually owns the manual; as the firm grows, a firm administrator or office manager takes it over, and later HR. The responsible attorney approves anything that touches an ethics obligation, such as conflicts or client funds.

Should a small firm write down its conflict check procedure?

Yes. Conflicts are an ethics obligation, so the check should never depend on one person remembering how the partner likes it done. Write who runs it, what gets searched, who reviews a possible hit, and what happens before anyone gives the prospect advice.

How often should law firm procedures be reviewed?

Whenever the process changes, the same week it changes, and at least once a year otherwise. Also review a procedure after any mistake it should have prevented. A procedure with a named owner and a last-reviewed date gets reviewed. One without either doesn't.

What is the difference between a law firm policy and a procedure?

A policy says what the firm does and why, such as running a conflict check before any substantive conversation with a prospect. A procedure says how: the steps, in order, and who does each one.

How do I train a new paralegal without just shadowing?

Give them the written procedures for their first week before day one, then a 90-day plan with milestones they can pass, such as opening five matters with no corrections. Shadowing still helps, but as practice against the written version, not as the only source.

What do I do when the one person who knows is out?

This week, before it happens again, record them explaining the procedure that would hurt most without them. Then turn that recording into a written procedure anyone at the firm can follow.

How to write a law office procedures manual your staff will actually use

In a small firm, the procedures manual is usually a person. I worked with a firm whose owner lost a senior paralegal to a competitor after fifteen years. The owner had trusted her completely and never kept track of how the work got done, because she always knew. When she left, all of that knowledge left with her. On the case management side, it was like starting the business over.

Nothing about that is unusual. It's what happens when the manual is a person. The cost lands on the attorneys. On r/LawFirm, the owner of a two-attorney probate and personal injury firm described spending "about 80% of my day doing paralegal or legal assistant tasks", because nothing was written down well enough to hand off (r/LawFirm). That is one forum post, not a survey. Nobody we could find publishes a credible turnover rate for US paralegals or legal staff. But if you run a small firm, you probably don't need a statistic to recognize it.

Why law firm SOPs go stale

The guides that rank for this topic, mostly from practice-management vendors, say the right things: list each process, name an owner, write it as if someone else will do it. Where firms actually get stuck is earlier and later than that. Earlier, because the person who knows the procedure has no time to write it. Later, because the document is written once and the work changes around it.

Who owns the procedures manual

It depends on the size of the firm. In a small firm, the managing partner owns it, whether or not anyone has said so. As the firm grows, that work moves to an operator: a firm administrator or an office manager who runs the business side. Later still, HR gets involved in writing and maintaining processes, especially the ones that touch hiring and onboarding.

The trap is the stage in between, when the managing partner is too busy to own it and nobody else has been asked to. That's when procedures live only in the senior paralegal's head. Name the owner out loud, even if it's you, and give them the time to do it.

Capture it from the person, not the template

Much of a law firm's procedure isn't clicks on a screen. It's how the partner wants conflicts run, what to say when a prospect calls about a matter you don't handle, which judge wants courtesy copies. Screen-recording tools don't capture that. A conversation does.

So ask the person who does the work to explain it out loud, ideally while they do it, and record it. Then turn the recording into numbered steps, with an owner for each step. Have the person who explained it read the draft, and have the responsible attorney approve any step that touches an ethics obligation.

A law firm SOP template: opening a new matter

Here is what one finished procedure looks like. Copy the shape, not the content: your systems, timings and owners will differ, and your own rules of professional conduct govern the conflict steps.

Open a new matter, including the conflict check Owner: managing attorney. Version 4. Last reviewed August 2026.

Before any substantive conversation (intake). Take the prospect's name, every other party's name, and any related companies or family members. Tell the prospect the firm will confirm it can help before discussing details.
Same day (paralegal). Search every name in the practice-management system, past and current matters, including former names and spellings. Save the search results to the prospect record.
If anything comes back (responsible attorney). Review the possible conflict before anyone at the firm calls the prospect back. Record the decision and the reason.
Once cleared (responsible attorney). Approve the engagement letter and fee terms. Nothing is calendared until the letter is signed.
After the signed letter arrives (paralegal). Open the matter, create the file structure, and add the key dates the responsible attorney has set. A second person checks every calendared date.

Changelog. Version 4 (August 2026): added related companies and family members to step 1, after a conflict surfaced at step 3 that a fuller name list would have caught at intake. Approved by the managing attorney.

The changelog is the part most firm manuals skip. It's also what lets a new paralegal trust that step 1 is there for a reason.

Version it, and change it on purpose

Give every procedure a version, a last-reviewed date and a short changelog. When the process changes, change the document the same week, and say why. Review the rest at least once a year, and after any mistake a procedure should have prevented.

That turns the manual from a binder into a record of how the firm decided to work, which is also what you'd want to show if anyone ever asked how the firm runs conflicts.

A 90-day plan for a new paralegal

Firm onboarding checklists tend to stop at logins, policies and the confidentiality agreement. A plan for a new paralegal's first ninety days does more: it tells them what to learn in what order, and it tells you at day 30 whether it's working. Give each stage a milestone they can actually pass.

Before day one

Logins ready, and the written procedures they'll use in their first week.
One named person to ask, who isn't the attorney with the trial next week.

Days 1 to 30

Opens new matters from the written procedure, with a second check.
Runs conflict searches and saves the results.
Milestone: five matters opened with no corrections.

Days 31 to 60

Manages the calendar for one attorney, with a weekly review.
Drafts routine correspondence and records requests.
Milestone: a month of calendared dates with no misses on the second check.

Days 61 to 90

Owns one procedure end to end.
Suggests one change to it, with the reason.
Milestone: their change goes into the manual as a new version.

Where Ted's name comes from

Years ago I was part of scaling Flux7, a fast-growing tech services startup that doubled in size between 2017 and 2019 before NTT Data acquired it. One of the most useful things we ever did there came from a colleague named Ted. Every week, the people who ran projects, sales and product sat down for a resource-allocation session: who had bandwidth, who had which expertise, who could lead the next client implementation, who was ready for a stretch. Over time those conversations became a living map of what the company actually knew and who knew it. Projects were staffed faster and teams stayed balanced. That clarity became a competitive advantage.

TalentOS's operations worker is named for that work. The idea is the same: get what the firm knows out of people's heads and into something everyone can see and trust, and keep it current as the work changes.

How we handle it

AI works best with a human in the loop, and procedures are a good example of why. Ted can turn an hour of recorded explanation into clean, numbered steps in minutes. Only the person who does the work can tell you whether step three is really how it's done, and only the responsible attorney should approve a step that touches an ethics obligation.

This is the job Ted does in TalentOS. He records a walkthrough meeting in Chrome or Edge, or works from a transcript, notes or an old document, and turns it into a step-by-step procedure. When the process changes, you tell him what changed: he drafts the update with a changelog, and you approve it as a new version.

He writes onboarding plans for new hires, from before day one through the first 90 days, and turns a plan or a procedure into a checklist board your team works through and ticks off. He sends the finished document to Notion, Google Drive, Slack or email when you want it there. Nothing is published without your review, and he doesn't run conflict checks himself: he writes down how your firm runs them. Ted is one worker at $500 a month.

If you're hiring the paralegal this plan is for, the paralegal rubric covers the search.

Where to start

Pick the one procedure that would hurt most if the person who knows it left tomorrow. For most firms it's opening a new matter. Record them explaining it this week.

See how Ted fits a law firm, what each worker does, and what it costs.