The use of virtual assistants has expanded since the early days of outsourcing only IT. As virtual assistants are becoming more normalized, they are being snapped up by once-traditional professionals, knowing that they need to innovate to remain competitive. Law firms are one of these professional bodies. Law firms have seen the value of hiring legal virtual assistants to augment their staff and to enhance their business dealings.
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Increasing productivity with the right tool – a legal virtual assistant
The internet and globalization have changed the way in which businesses hire talented people, removing certain strictures. Companies today, including law businesses, have begun to tap into the new virtual legal assistant industry. These legal virtual assistants have a good legal education and training, therefore, they are able to offer legal support to a law firm, regardless of location. The virtual assistant can work remotely to their own and the hiring firm’s advantage.
The business support services offered by a virtual assistant
The core tasks a legal virtual assistant can engage with are general correspondence, memos, dictation, transcription, filing documents and notices, and assisting with litigation and legal coverage. Additionally, these remote professional legal assistants can attend to legal research, database management, billing, and calendar management. Such assistants are willing to offer their business support services to both large and small businesses.
Hiring a virtual assistant to assist in a legal firm
When hiring a virtual assistant for your legal firm, make a comprehensive list of skills and qualities you require of such a person. This will also help you to communicate clearly your expectations of your virtual assistant. You should ideally hire someone who is an expert at something you are not. For instance, if you are not highly skilled at managing your firm’s social media accounts, simply outsource this task. In addition, if accounting is not something you enjoy, and you would rather focus on your legal cases, you have the option of outsourcing your accounting.
Where a VA can benefit your firm
While you are compiling the list of expectations you might have of your virtual legal assistant, there are some benefits you would be prudent to consider. Firstly, a virtual assistant can assist with customer support. This means anything from answering emails to taking calls, or sending out newsletters, just to begin with. More so, the lawyers can focus on their core work and not have to manage social media channels or answer calls. This can help to boost productivity.
Adding precautions
One proviso when considering precautions is to have monitoring mechanisms in place. Your company can add monitoring tools to record and check the quality of the work your virtual assistant provides. If there are any missteps, such can be corrected, and additional training can be provided.
The bottom line
As virtual legal assistants are remote workers, there are many business cost savings. In addition, having the assistance of a remote worker means that all work will be done. This will create a harmonious system. At the same time you can scale your legal firm without having to be burdened with low-level tasks that would not add value should you have to deal with them.