I Need Some Help! Virtual Assistance for Law Firms
Feeling a little overwhelmed? Do you need some help but not ready to hire full time or part time in your firm? Whether it is getting bills out, reviewing documents, getting the phones answered, or responding to clients there are many services for law firms that can help! Choose from contract attorneys, virtual assistants and paralegals, virtual receptionists, marketing, and accounting services to help lighten the load. Services can be temporary, contract based, subscription based or one-off task support. What are your options?
When considering outsourcing work to non-employees you can first divide the duties into two parts – billable work and non-billable work. Outsourcing billable work requires considerations regarding licensing and credentials, how the time will be billed and conflicts of interest checks. Outsourcing non-billable work requires understanding the scope of work, how the services charges and what options you have, and maintaining confidentiality. Whether you are outsourcing billable or non-billable work it is essential that you appropriately supervise the work and stress the confidentiality of the information the person is exposed to. You must be organized enough to provide clear instruction and feedback for the work you want done. Just because it is not a firm employee does not mean that your managerial duties can be abandoned.
Ethics to Consider
Broadly, NC Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1 (Competence), 1.6 (Confidentiality), 5.3 (Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistants) and 5.5 (UPL) should be reviewed and considered in light of outsourcing either billable or non-billable work. For outsourced billable work read NC RPC 1.5 on Fees and ABA Formal Ethics Opinion 00-420. North Carolina has a number of ethics opinions regarding outsourcing, under the indexed categories “non-lawyers” and “temporary lawyers”.
In addition to these Rules and opinions you will need to consider the work being done by the outsourcing service. For instance, if you are outsourcing social media updates and blog posts the rules and opinions regarding marketing, advertising and solicitation apply. You will need to review the work done. This is your responsibility, not that of the outsourced service. Similarly, if you outsource legal work to a virtual paralegal or a freelance attorney you will need to supervise her work and review it. If you are outsourcing billing and bookkeeping you will need to have checks and balances in place to be aware of theft or fraud, and that the trust account is being effectively managed. Of course, these duties and responsibilities are like those you have with your internal team.
Management Skills
The relationship between you and outsourced services requires effective task management. Due to the pandemic, many firms that adopted WFH (work from home) have gained solid experience with supervising a remote team. Whether you use an electronic calendar, practice management applications, or a project management product, there are many ways to help ensure that projects, tasks, and deadlines are tracked and measured. Without creating systems to help manage the work you may find that you are not satisfied with virtual assistance.
Many lawyers have a tough time with delegation. However, maintaining an attitude of “I can do it better myself” or “it is too hard to show someone how to do it right” can take a toll on your mental and physical health. You simply cannot and should not attempt to do everything. Take advantage of the plethora of services available to lighten your load so you can focus on legal work and not administrative work.
Preparing to Outsource
To effectively leverage outsourcing services, you will need to determine what type of help you seek. If you are feeling overwhelmed and behind, then sit down and review what tasks are taking up your time. Your staff’s time? Can these tasks be done remotely? Some of these tasks, like answering the phones and scheduling appointments, are easy decisions. But what about getting dictation transcribed? Document review for discovery? Running and checking properly applied redaction for efiling? Batch renaming files? There are many jobs that require some expertise and time that can be outsourced to professionals who may be better suited to the task than you or your team. However, you will need to do the initial work to assess what those tasks are and identify who is best suited to do them.
Options for Legal Outsourced Work
There are many companies and services with a focus on the legal market, and a knowledge and experience of the needs of a law firm.
- Virtual Receptionists – Services like Smith.ai, Ruby Receptionists, and LexReception focus on helping law firms. They can answer phones, take messages, schedule appointments, forward calls, and even help with client intake. They may charge per call or per minute. Review the services offered, pricing and packages to determine which service works best for your firm.
- Virtual Paralegals/Assistants – Do you need a certified paralegal or someone who has experience with assisting law firms? There are many services that can help. Resources like the Association of Virtual Assistants can help you identify and “shop” for candidates. Services like OT Paralegal Services offer paralegals with experience in litigation.
- Marketing – There are many marketing services focused on law firm marketing. It is not a requirement that a marketing service be legal specific, but if you are looking for help with content marketing those will be better suited for your needs. Consider if you need a website built and maintained, content marketing, SEO, graphic design, newsletters, and other marketing tools and interview several firms. Understand who owns your content and design, make sure that you have access and passwords to the CMS and domain name registrar and if there is a long-term commitment.
- Task-based Assistance – you may find that a virtual assistant meets all your needs. However, if you have work that is more appropriate as a project, there are many options. Services like Upwork, fiverr, or HireMyMom offer a marketplace for project-based help.
- Billing/Accounting – whether you are looking for help with billing, end of month/year taxes, trust account reconciliation or bookkeeping functions there are many services that support law firms. From national companies like RayNa Corp, Bench and Kahuna Accounting to local CPAs, law firms have a lot of options for help.
- Freelance Attorneys – looking for help with legal research, drafting a motion, crafting an estate plan or reviewing a contract? You can hire an attorney for a one-off job through services like LAWCLERK, LawyerExchange, or Hire An Esquire. If you need a temp to hire position, legal staffing agencies like Robert Half Legal are a place to start.
- Litigation Support/Discovery – There are many places to get help with document review, file conversion, ediscovery and other help with cases that have become bigger than you anticipated. Consilio, Integreon, and QuisLex are a few of the many independent legal process outsourcing and e-discovery companies available to assist you. Many of the ediscovery platforms also provide consulting and services.
- Information Technology – most firms are already familiar with outsourcing IT. If you have internal IT staff but need help with security audits, migrating systems, or other more specific needs beyond the skills of general systems support and maintenance there are plenty of options in the managed IT space.
Do Not Forget Automation
In some cases, you may not need a human being to accomplish repetitive tasks. Automation tools through practice management applications, connectors like Zapier and Microsoft Power Automate, workflow tools like Community.lawyer, and chatbots can reduce rekeying information and transferring data.
Conclusion
Outsourcing tasks in a busy practice can help you get more done with less. It can save you time and be a cost-effective way to add staff, especially if your practice has ebbs and flows. If you keep ethical responsibilities in mind and delegate effectively, you can effectively leverage the vast resources of virtual help in your practice.