Is working with a virtual legal assistant even required?
You might have not worked with any legal assistant till now, but if you are thinking of boosting your law firm productivity without much effort, then yes, hiring a virtual legal assistant is the solution to maintain a good virtual law firm environment.
You can easily delegate your routine tasks to your legal assistant and you can painlessly focus more on what’s on your schedule list. The legal assistant will help in creating a safer and more flexible space for clients and will help in managing all small administrative work.
Instead of hiring a lawyer, it seems more suitable to go with a cost-effective approach by hiring a contract-based virtual legal assistant for your law firm.
Who Is a Virtual Legal Assistant?
A virtual legal assistant is a person who is hired to take responsibility for repetitive administrative work which is quite important in a law firm.
These assistants may or may not belong to the legal background but they surely do have legal knowledge in order to continue as legal assistants.
They are not permanent employees of a law firm as they are hired on a contract basis and are paid for hourly work performed by them.
These virtual legal assistants don’t require offices or different legal tools, as they work remotely and maintain a virtual law firm environment.
What Tasks Does a Virtual Legal Assistant Perform?
A virtual legal assistant is very beneficial for a law firm to easily manage repetitive and small administrative tasks hassle-free.
- Calendar Management
As a lawyer are you able to manage your schedule and meetings with your ongoing cases simultaneously?
Isn’t it simple to delegate tasks that need extra attention like calendaring to some legal experts? Virtual legal assistants have expertise in maintaining day-to-day events and schedules so that as a lawyer nothing gets slipped out of your hands.
- Resolving Inquiries
As a virtual assistant, you are liable to look around at different queries customers are having and step into the process of resolving them as quickly as possible.
You might have watched or talked with assistants when you ought to figure out something that you might be purchasing or something you are looking forward to. Isn’t the advice and help that makes your work easier and clears your doubts hassle-free.
In a law firm, too many new customers and clients have queries and doubts to be resolved, so now the legal assistants take their place.
- Managing Emails
As a lawyer, just look at the emails that have been unread, there might be many of that sort. But in order to have smooth functioning of work, communication, and information from all sources should be read and understood.
Let the virtual assistant look at what emails are coming and let them manage all for you with proper accuracy.
- Conducting Legal Research
The investigation is a vital part of the legal sector. Without proper research, no cause can be solved hassle-free.
But conducting searches takes a lot of time which a lawyer can’t take. So a virtual legal assistant provides all types of search reports and helps you easily focus more on core work.
- Drafting Contracts
A contract is an agreement made that includes all the legal binding that parties will be together with some set of promises.
Drafting these documents and setting all procedures in place is the task performed by the virtual legal assistant.
The assistant ensures that everything included in the contract is easily understandable to both parties so that they can easily sign the contract hassle-free.
Proper document management becomes easy when it comes to a virtual legal assistant managing it.
- Managing Accounting
Accounting isn’t easy to manage, a single mistake can lead to an incorrect accounting report which drastically leads to wrong decisions in the law firm.
A virtual assistant assists you in maintaining all your financial reports by taking into consideration all the transactions and preparing an errorless report at the end.
- Social Media Management
The legal world needs marketing in order to make its awareness in a larger space. Digital marketing seems really common these days, where everything is searched online, the need to make a strong marketing base is vital for law firms to survive. Getting a legal assistant will solve your day-to-day problems of managing small work.
Tips To Work With Virtual Legal Assistants Hassle-Free
- Timely Communication
If information is not passed on, the person who needs to perform a certain task will either make errors or will try to get out of it.
If you have hired a virtual assistant to operate in a virtual law firm environment then it’s your duty to maintain proper communication with them. Telling them what to perform and resolving their queries will enable a smooth workflow.
- Define Target
When you go to a tailor’s shop to stitch your clothes, you define a time till when you need them back. What if you omit to mention the deadline?
Precisely you won’t get your clothes on time, and you might end up having a dispute or a fight.
It’s important for you to make targets, and to make the virtual assistant able to relate and work according to the set target.
- Be Clear While Giving Information
The way you present your information defines the whole profit. Uneven or unclear information can lead to work stress, and duplication of work many times. Resources get exploited and wasted.
From the start make things clear and deliver exact and accurate information to the assistant and let the assistant perform the things for you painlessly.
- Follow Consistency
Whether it be information, target, work check, efficiency check, meetings, communication, etc, it all should be performed systematically and consistently.
No employee gets boosted with work when he/she is not provided with proper and regular information.
Whether it be billing, accounting, sending emails, etc, everything should be managed properly without delay.
Virtual assistant roles need proper guidelines and checks in order to maintain a proper flow of work in the law firm.
- Know About Your Virtual Assistant
Take out some time to have some conversation with your virtual legal assistant. A rough understanding of who actually works for you is really important. The ability to communicate and understand the personality of your employees makes you a true professional.
Go ahead with some fun activities or games that can make your team feel connected and happy. Grab this opportunity to know your team.
How To Choose The Best Virtual Legal Staff For Your Law Firm?
- Communicative
Operating virtually requires a grip on communication skills. Information mostly is shared verbally or non-verbally, but if you lack in making good communication, then you might fail to get what your clients want and end up having a negative work result.
- Time Management
Managing time isn’t hassle-free if not managed regularly. As a virtual assistant, you should have the ability to track time manage tasks with time, and set proper deadlines to complete what’s pending on your list.
- Legal Skills
I cannot be a lawyer if I don’t know about legal laws and guidelines.
It’s important to know about the field in which you are willing to work. As a virtual legal assistant, you must have certain knowledge about your law firm and about the legal terminologies.
- Technology Knowledge
Virtual work requires a good grip on the use of various technological tools. As virtual legal assistance, you need to operate and access things virtually without any physical paperwork.
So proper knowledge is highly needed to be apt for the position of a virtual legal assistant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Who is a virtual legal assistant?
A virtual legal assistant is a person who manages all your administrative work like scheduling events, answering customers’ doubts, communicating with clients through emails and calls, drafting contracts, document management, managing accounting, and many more.
It makes the work of a lawyer an easier process. It helps lawyers in focusing more on what’s important for their case.
Q2. How is virtual legal assistance beneficial for my law firm?
If you have a big law firm, then hiring a virtual legal assistant is the real need to boost your law firm’s productivity and efficiency.
From performing everything remotely without any additional investment needed, the work of legal professionals becomes much easier.
Q3. How to keep myself updated regarding all the work that is being performed by the virtual legal assistant?
Communication is the key to maintaining a systematic flow of information in the whole organization. Communicating tasks to virtual legal assistants through mail, text, or call should be consistent to keep yourself and your virtual legal assistant updated.
Conclusion
Running a law firm isn’t the ultimate goal towards achieving efficiency. Look at the time taken to complete a particular task and then note down how many tasks were left unopened. After the analysis, it’s true that you will be able to get the idea of decreasing efficiency and profit in your law firm. Delegating certain tasks to different experts can lower your work stress and accelerate the workflow in your law firm. A virtual legal assistant is needed to control and operate tasks that are important and repetitive in nature.