For many in-house legal teams, long hours, full inboxes and back-to-back meetings are seen as the measure of productivity. Yet this cycle often leaves lawyers drained, with little time for meaningful or strategic work.
In our recent In-House Matters by Lawcadia webinar, Lawcadia co-founder Sacha Kirk spoke with Caterina Cavallaro, Associate General Counsel at VGW and author of Positively Legal, about the concept of “slow productivity” and how it can transform the way legal teams operate.
Redefining Productivity
As Caterina explained, many lawyers equate value with visible busyness.
“We always consider productivity as always doing something — always being busy, having continuous work.”
Yet this focus on activity rather than outcomes can quickly lead to burnout.
Drawing on the work of Cal Newport, she introduced the idea of “pseudo productivity” — looking busy without necessarily producing high-quality results. “You can look busy without actually achieving a lot and being productive. It ends up being a lot of low-value tasks that take up effort but don’t deliver meaningful outcomes.”
Breaking Free from Busyness
Signs of this pseudo productivity are easy to spot: constant messaging, interruptions, and meetings that leave little room for focused work.
“So many of the tools we have now are meant to help us,” Caterina noted, “but what I find they’ve done for lawyers is we’ve ended up with more administrative work than we ever have.”
The result? Lawyers spend their days reacting — responding to pings, sitting in meetings, clearing emails — while struggling to carve out time for strategic, value-adding work.
The Slow Productivity Revolution
So how do in-house lawyers break the cycle? For Caterina, the answer lies in consciously slowing down:
- Do fewer things, better: “Look at your work and think, what are the few things that really need to be done? Limit your goals for the day so you can actually feel you’ve achieved them.”
- Structure your time: Identify when you work best, block out periods for focus, and schedule meetings or “autopilot tasks” when your energy is lower.
- Value quality over speed: “Slower, better quality work actually in the long run probably saves people time.”
Intake as a Game-Changer
One of the most practical tools for slowing down lies in how legal teams manage intake. Without structure, requests come from all directions — emails, calls, corridor conversations — creating noise and disruption.
Caterina described the transformative benefit of using structured legal intake:
“We’ve set up where we have, Lawcadia, as our matter management system and I think it makes a really big difference. It streamlines [intake] so that everyone in the business knows where to come. It takes the noise out because it doesn’t disturb the lawyers trying to do their work. It’s all funnelled properly.”
Beyond funnelling requests, the system requires business users to provide essential information upfront:
“We make people do quite a bit — we want documents, we want a good description. It really decreases that back and forth… and often people actually realise they don’t need legal assistance, that it’s just a business question they can handle themselves.”
The result is more time for lawyers to focus on complex, strategic work while empowering the business to self-serve when appropriate.
Building Deep Work into Legal Teams
Caterina also emphasised the importance of carving out space for deep, focused work. Borrowing again from Newport’s framework, she described deep work as the ability to switch off distractions and concentrate fully on a task that requires strategic or creative thinking.
“It’s not possible to multitask effectively,” she said. “The more we juggle, the less space we have mentally for real problem-solving. Even an hour or two of deep work a week can make a huge difference.”
Leading by Example
Of course, for slow productivity to take hold, leaders must model the behaviours they want to see in their teams. That includes setting realistic expectations, valuing quality, and encouraging breaks and balance.
“I’m constantly at my team to make sure they’ve taken a break,” Caterina explained. “You do a much better job with focus work if you’ve gone for a walk, had some exercise, or simply stepped away.”
She also highlighted the importance of rituals that mark the end of the working day or week — whether it’s a walk, yoga, or simply writing down your to-do list. “Having a strict shutdown helps you recharge. We’re not machines, and we can’t keep working with an empty cup.”
Why Slow Productivity Matters
At its core, slow productivity is about sustainability, creativity, and impact. As Caterina summed up:
“When we’re tired, we can’t be creative, we can’t solve problems. Recognising when we’re at our best, slowing down, and focusing on quality actually makes us far more useful for the really important tasks.”
By rethinking what productivity means and focusing on quality, balance and depth, legal teams can shift away from reactive busyness. Slow productivity helps create the conditions for meaningful contribution, strategic thinking and long-term impact.
View the full webinar here.