How can lawyers get the most out of each day, so they can hit their targets and still have time for a healthy home life? A selection of successful lawyers share their top productivity tips with The Brief.

It’s the circle every lawyer has to square. You want the financial rewards that come with being a successful lawyer but you also want time for a decent home and social life.

It’s also a commercial problem for legal businesses. The continuing focus on wellbeing makes it harder for firms to get away with squeezing the billable hours out of their fee earners until the pips squeak in the way they might have a decade or more ago.

What’s more, with the market moving increasingly toward fixed fees, wringing every billable hour you can out of a matter is increasingly becoming irrelevant.

The solution to all these issues is to improve productivity. We spoke to a selection of senior lawyers to find out their tips for getting the most out of every day.

Communications, expectations and time management

James Howell, managing director of Rubric Law, says, “As a corporate lawyer and business owner, productivity rests on structure, discipline and reducing avoidable friction.

“One of the most effective steps I’ve taken is establishing clear communication channels and cadence with clients and colleagues. Setting expectations around when updates are provided/required (and sticking to them) helps eliminate late-night messages and uncertainty that can derail focused work or compromise down time.

“We also have a team that is encouraged to learn from each other and use precedents and accumulated experience.

“At Rubric Law we continually refine our templates and internal know-how so that drafting is never a ‘blank page’ exercise. This dramatically reduces time spent on routine documents and frees up capacity for higher-value thinking.

We continually refine our templates and internal know-how so that drafting is never a ‘blank page’ exercise.

“Finally, I have to be strict with time-management discipline. I always try to segment my day into drafting blocks, client communication windows and internal calls, and I protect those blocks as far as possible.

“Sticking to a planned structure not only improves output, it also creates the headspace needed for a sustainable career. That way, I get to enjoy the down time with my family, because everything is about balance.

“These aren’t always achievable, especially as a business owner, but if you start with good intentions, then that sets the precedent for your habits and routine.”

Plan and prioritise

Yomi Oni-Williams is founder and principal solicitor at the family, private client and immigration practice Owens Solicitors. She tells The Brief, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.

“I use the TickTick App, which helps me to plan both work and personal life. It enables me to focus on important and urgent tasks by categorising them in order of significance and outcome.”

I use the TickTick App, which helps me to plan both work and personal life.

She has the following productivity tips for her fellow legal professionals:

1. Be intentional and plan ahead of your day. Planning improves focus; it ensures that the best part of your time is spent on what is important. It helps carve out time for work, family, social and self-care.

2. The seriousness of the consequences of not completing your daily tasks should dictate their priority order. This method boosts productivity and effectiveness. By the end of each day, you would have dealt with tasks that truly affect outcomes

3. Delegate. However, delegation will only boost productivity if it is well planned. A clear plan for delegation should include deadlines, expectations, and assigning tasks to the appropriate people with the right skills.

Trust and delegate

Laura Pyatt, commercial property partner at Beswicks Legal, agree that delegation is vital (at least for those who are in a position to do so). She says, “For me, the biggest productivity lesson has been learning to trust the people around me.

“Delegation only really works when you’ve built relationships with your team strong enough that you don’t feel the need to hover or keep checking in. Once you get that right, it frees up an enormous amount of headspace.

Being honest about what genuinely needs doing now makes a huge difference.

“I’m also quite strict about prioritising work by deadline. Not all tasks are equal, so you need to calibrate what really requires your input.

“It sounds simple, but being honest about what genuinely needs doing now makes a huge difference.

“As a parent of young children, my time outside work is incredibly precious, so I’m very conscious of protecting my evenings and weekends. We’re very supportive as a team; when someone’s away, others step in, and we make sure whoever is on leave can properly switch off.

“It’s easier to relax knowing your colleagues are covering you, and it works because we all do it for each other. I think that mutual support makes us more effective lawyers and people.”

Act decisively

According to Louise Murphy, partner and head of social housing and regeneration at MSB Solicitors, staying productive in a demanding legal environment, whilst balancing home life, requires discipline and smart habits. She has shared the following five strategies with The Brief:

Apply the Two-Touch Rule. Handle emails and tasks only twice: once to review, once to act. Avoid endless revisits that drain time.
Eat the Frog. Tackle your hardest, most important task first thing in the morning. It sets the tone for a productive day.
Make a decision. Avoid paralysis by analysis. Indecision stalls progress – make the decision, learn, and move forward.
Use your Calendar. Block out time for complex work, or to simply catch up. Then stick to it!
Delegate effectively. Clearly communicate delegated tasks to support staff setting out what you expect and when by.

Focus on outcomes

Donna McGrath, founder of the In-House Lawyers’ Coach, says, “If you want to be more productive, stop organising your day around tasks and start organising it around outcomes.”

Stop organising your day around tasks and start organising it around outcomes.

In practical terms, she recommends the following:

1. Sit down and write out your top 5 outcomes for the next 30 days. Not tasks – outcomes.

Examples:

· Deepen relationship with a key client to hit target fees.

· De-risk the procurement process.

· Improve contract turnaround time by 20%.

· Progress X matter to sign-off.

2. For each outcome, list the ONE activity this week that will move it forward. Just one. Clarity beats volume.

3. Protect one hour a day to work on those activities. Block it like a client meeting. Non-negotiable. This shift reconnects you to purpose, cuts reactivity, and instantly boosts strategic output – the difference between being busy and driving value.

Raising the Bar

Iain Wightwick is a barrister, specialising in property matters, who practices out of Unity Street Chambers. He offers the following insight into his working practices:

1. I have set my personal email account to update only once an hour during work hours, which means I rarely look at it unless I need to send something. Avoiding looking at my personal email during work hours prevents me from being drawn down a rabbit hole, and means I can really focus.

2. I have a maximum working day of eight hours at my desk in normal circumstances, not starting before 9.00am and not finishing after 7:30pm. I also avoid weekend work unless essential, as clear boundaries make me far more productive during the hours I am working.

3. When I'm really busy, I go analogue and write a paper to-do list with five columns: (1) number, (2) claim title, (3) work description, (4) due date, and (5) priority. This is really simple but really helps organise my thoughts and it is very satisfying drawing a line through each completed task.

4. AI is useful only in very limited ways, such as preparing chronologies or rephrasing paragraphs of skeleton arguments that I have written myself. This saves time, but I do not trust it to write material from scratch or provide legal authorities. When I first tried using it, it got the law wrong in subtle ways and created phantom authorities, including citing real cases but being wholly wrong about what they said.

5. For background learning, I listen to the podcast Serious Trouble, which gives a genuinely educational view of developments in the American legal system, often with lessons that feel relevant to the UK. It's an efficient and entertaining way to stay informed and broaden my perspective.

Stillness and clarity

To-do lists and delegation are vital productivity tools but employing them effectively requires a clear, focused mind. Phillip Bolton, partner and head of private wealth at Goughs Solicitors, says, “Meditation is an essential tenet of my daily life, and one that I believe plays a powerful role in my productivity and long-term professional resilience.

I think workplaces should consider meditation not as a ‘wellness perk’ but as a strategic investment in performance and resilience.

“I practise Transcendental Meditation (TM), a method developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and more recently championed by film director David Lynch.

“Each day, I rise at 5.00am and begin with Wim Hof breathing exercises, followed by 20 minutes of TM. I repeat the practice again in the evening, creating two points of stillness and clarity within otherwise busy days.

“In TM, a mantra is used to maintain focus and presence during meditation. This practice fills me with calmness, confidence, and self-assurance: qualities that are vital in legal work, especially when navigating emotionally charged or high-value matters.

“I was introduced to TM by my father-in-law, a very senior business leader who attributes much of his success to the discipline and clarity meditation brought him. It's a practice that I believe has immense potential within the legal and professional world.

“TM trainers offer corporate programmes, and I think workplaces should consider meditation not as a ‘wellness perk’ but as a strategic investment in performance and resilience.”

* Image generated using AI