When someone on your team drops the ball or a client misses a deadline, it's tempting to write them off as disorganized or unmotivated. This snap judgment feels natural - after all, if they cared enough, they'd follow through, right? 

In today's episode, I'm unpacking the fundamental attribution error - a cognitive bias that makes us blame people's character instead of examining the broken systems they're working within. I'll show you how well-designed workflows can transform your team's performance and why investing in better systems beats endless hiring cycles every time.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: agileattorney.com/91

Take your law practice from overwhelmed to optimized with Greenline Legal

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Most organizations default to command-and-control when creating policies - one person decides what needs to happen, writes it down, and expects everyone else to follow along. The problem is that this approach creates policies that exist on paper but fail in practice, because the people doing the actual work never bought into them in the first place.

In today’s episode, I'm joined by Agile Educator and Organizational Coach Tim Lennon to discuss why the traditional approach to making policies explicit often backfires, especially in American workplaces. Through Tim's evolution from teaching the Kanban method to developing what he calls "Adaptive Kanban," we uncover why negotiating working agreements with your team creates far better results than top-down mandates.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: agileattorney.com/90

Take your law practice from overwhelmed to optimized with Greenline Legal

Follow along on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnegrant

The Four Ds of productivity (do it, delegate it, defer it, or drop it) show up everywhere in productivity advice. Yet most of us default to the same two options over and over, creating bottlenecks and stress rather than solving our capacity problems. 

In this episode, I break down why only two of the Four Ds are reliably good options for managing your law practice workload. I explain the hidden pitfalls of delegation, including why delegated work often creates more quality assurance headaches than it solves, and why deferring work is really just delegating to an unreliable resource called "future you." 

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: agileattorney.com/89

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Managing a law firm’s workflow can be tricky, especially when you’re juggling a long list of active matters and chasing unresponsive clients. In this episode, I’ll share how one firm, after years of using Kanban, finally broke through the delivery bottleneck with a simple but powerful shift in their approach.

You'll hear the key changes they made that allowed them to close 40 matters in one month, even in what’s usually their slowest season. Tune in to discover how simplifying your systems, setting clear client expectations, and focusing on the work that matters most can unlock new levels of productivity and capacity for your practice.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: agileattorney.com/88

Get the 5-day Agile Attorney Boot Camp here: agileattorney.com/resources

Join me on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/agileattorney.com

Follow me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnegrant/

When you introduce new processes in your law firm, you're asking your team to rethink how they get things done, and that’s a bigger challenge than most realize. In this episode, I explore why the usual approach to change management often misses the mark in law firms. I also discuss why involving your team from the start is critical to getting real buy-in.

This approach might take a little longer upfront, but it pays off when it comes to actually implementing the changes you need.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/87

When Jeff De Francisco noticed his less tech-savvy colleagues billing more hours for the same estate planning work, he uncovered an injustice that would reshape his entire practice. The disparity wasn't about knowledge or skill. It was about efficiency, and the billable hour was punishing him for being good at his job.

In this episode, I sit down with Jeff, a long-time client and now business partner, to explore his decade-long journey with Agile practices. You’ll also hear lessons from Jeff’s journey that you can apply to your own law practice - and get a peek at how tools like Greenline Legal can support your systems along the way.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/86

Knowledge work hides in ways that physical work never could. That invisibility creates a dangerous pattern: you say yes to one more matter and before you know it, your entire team operates beyond capacity. 

In this episode, I use real examples from law firms using Kanban boards to demonstrate how making your work visible can fundamentally change how your team coordinates, communicates, and makes decisions about your capacity.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/85

In this episode, I’m diving into a concept that may be quietly hindering your practice: technical debt. In short, technical debt occurs when you take shortcuts to save time, but they end up costing you more in the long run.

I’ll walk you through how technical debt shows up in your firm and why tackling this issue head-on is crucial to prevent burnout and boost your firm’s overall productivity. I’ll also share practical steps you can take to begin addressing your firm’s technical debt.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/84

In this episode, I’m revisiting the concept of delivery debt: the promises you’ve made that remain unfulfilled. Just like financial debt, taking on too much delivery debt can snowball and overwhelm your firm. And it’s not just about the practical cost; it’s also psychological. The mental load of these unfinished commitments affects your focus, your decision-making, and ultimately, your practice’s efficiency.

I’ll share practical steps to help you clear delivery debt by addressing unfulfilled commitments that are draining your capacity. You’ll also learn how to prioritize your existing work and make intentional decisions about what to let go of to protect your firm’s ability to take on the right cases. This approach will give you the tools to balance your commitments with your firm’s capacity, allowing you to avoid overwhelm and be more proactive as you head into the busy fall season.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/83

In law firms, a lot of time is wasted when work gets passed back and forth because the deliverables aren’t meeting the expected quality standards. This happens when tasks are considered “done,” but the results don’t meet the actual requirements or the unspoken expectations, causing frustration and delays. These unnecessary back-and-forths can grind your entire practice to a halt and create more stress than necessary.

In this episode, I share a simple but powerful shift in how you write your policies and procedures that can dramatically improve the quality of work flowing through your firm. Instead of creating traditional to-do lists or recipe-style instructions, writing your checklists as "done lists" using past tense phrasing creates clarity and accountability. This approach transforms ambiguous task completion into definitive quality standards that everyone can understand and follow.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://www.agileattorney.com/82