Larry:
Your assessment, I believe, is correct. There are many varying factors within firms, and in larger firms with multi-offices, even differences between offices depending upon local management, culture, practice group needs, etc. I definitely think that there should be documentation on the skill set and desired/required competencies for Legal RIM staff. Law firms really do have specific needs and concerns that are not universal to all industries. That being said, I think all law firms face similar challenges, and while not any one solution serves all, there are basic guidelines that would provide flexibility to "make the pieces fit" regardless of what size or structure of firm you may be in. What do you suggest as the first step in collecting this documentation for the competencies project?
Leigh Isaacs | Firmwide Records Manager | HellerEhrmanLLP | 1717 Rhode Island Avenue, NW | Washington, DC 20036
tel: +1.202.912.2131 | fax: +1.202.912.2020 | email: [log in to unmask] | web: www.hellerehrman.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Larry Medina
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 2:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Responsibilities of File Clerks
On 9/25/06, Steve Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I started off as a file clerk in a law firm in Seattle. It was a
> branch office of a Portland, OR based firm.
>
> My responsibilities were:
>
> There was a line in the job description that said "other duties as
> assigned".
I was a bit surprised by this question initially, seeing as with most "classic" file clerk positions, the primary duties are:
- Ability to lift 35 pounds repetitively
- Ability to work under direction
- Other duties, as assigned
... and PLEASE understand, I don't mean this in a derogatory manner in any way.
I understand in Law Firms, this tends to be a bit different, but the extensive lists provided by the initial poster (Irene) and the respondent
(Steve) indicate that these specific duties seem to be vastly different from firm to firm, based in part on:
- size of staff
- division of effort
- centralized versus decentralized filing systems
- level of skill and experience
- use of in-house versus vended services
- span of management control
...and any number of other factors far to wide to categorize into a simple "pick list" of duties to position levels and ratios of staff to professionals in a firm.
Am I correct in understanding this is peculiar to Law Firms and the Legal environment? And I'm asking this for a very specific reason... much of the work we did on the first two phases of the ARMA RIM Competencies Project (which is still a work in progress) did not go into this level of detail when it came to the types of work being performed by entry level practitioners, nor did it detail out the aspects of work called out here in this form/format.
And if this is what is being looked for at this, and higher levels, of RIM staff in a Legal Environment, has ANYONE ever considered putting together the skill set and desired/required competencies for Legal RIM staff?
Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972
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