Effective employee oversight — from hiring and beyond

While every attorney and every title agency owner has faith that the people they hire are trustworthy and able to do the task before them, it is critical to maintain a level of awareness of the employees in your office and the business they are conducting. During the Attorneys' Title Fund Services LLC Annual Assembly, Margaret Williams, Fund risk manager, provided tips for how to provide that level of awareness, from pre-hire throughout the staff member’s employment.

“As attorneys, it is our responsibility to safeguard our clients’ information and property and look out for their best interest,” Williams said. “As we take on this responsibility, it is often necessary to appoint others to assist us with the tasks involved. While we may delegate some tasks to non-attorney staff members or other attorneys, it continues to be our ethical duty to make sure our clients’ interests, their information and their property are safe. It is the attorney’s duty to choose their staff members carefully, to make sure their staff members have sufficient knowledge to do their job properly, to make sure [the attorney] has sufficient knowledge to know if [the employees] are doing their job properly or not, and to supervise their work consistently and carefully.”