Your Virtual Legal Assistant

My last post I touched on leveraging.  The Virtual Lawyer, Roger Glovsky posted a blog about how to do just that, including leveraging your time with the use of a virtual assistant: 

Leveraging people is what big law firms do best. Partners hire associates and paralegals and then bill out their time to clients at 2-3 times the amount of their costs. Leveraging people is an option open to every lawyer. Even a solo practitioner can do it. For example, Grant Griffiths mentioned that he uses a virtual assistant to help his home-based law practice. The virtual assistant can increase his staff and productivity without hiring a full-time person, without having to rent office space (or expand his home), and without having to educate and train that person. And with advent of the Internet and new technology, it is easier for lawyers to hire virtual assistants than ever before. In my practice as a corporate lawyer, I have used outsourced assistants from the Virtual Paralegal Services. Founded by Denise Annunciata, VPS has a team of experienced paralegal with a variety of different practice skills who are available on short notice.

The Virtual Lawyer talks about many different forms of leverage and it’s probably a good read for today’s lawyers.  

“[I]f the legal profession goes into a recession and competition drives prices down, then lawyers may not be able to afford not to invest in KM [Knowledge Management]. Cutting costs, improving product quality, and increasing efficiency will likely be the key to a successful law practice over the long term.”

On Leveraging Packaged Services, The Virtual Lawyer writes:

After you define a narrow field in which to practice, packaged services requires a dedication to the simple mantra “documentation, standardization, and automation.” Start with documentation of procedures (ideally, as you do them the first time), create standardized forms and templates that you can reuse, and then and continually improve those tools over time with the goal of automating the process.

Expand Your Practice. Save Your Sanity.  

If you are a small or solo law firm looking to expand your client base chances are you’ve read the books on marketing, how to get clients NOW, how to make it rain or some guerrilla tactics.  You’ve probably read some great advice too; HOWEVER, you’ve not been able to put that advice into action for yourself, either because there’s just too much information too synthesize, or because you don’t have the time to stick to a FORMULA.  It takes time to write articles, blog entries, e-books, and free reports.  Sure, it does take time to do those things but no one says it necessary has to be your time (we’re talking leverage here).

Then what happens when people start responding to your articles, requesting your free reports, calling and emailing.  There’s no way you can possibly give the potential new clients time AND manage your current workload.  Sure, there are auto responders, and voice mail; however, you invested in getting these people to respond to you, now you need to deliver great service and when it comes to many legal matters, potential clients are going to want to interact with a real person (for the record, Your Virtual Legal Assistant is a real person).

And lastly, you may find yourself in the position of having more cases than you can currently handle or, taking on a large case that you max out your current resources.  

So what do Your Virtual Legal Assistant and chemistry have in common?  Your Virtual Legal Assistant will help you stick to your marketing formula, and will help you build relationships with your clients.  Following Newton’s First Law, an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.  Your Virtual Legal Assistant will help keep you in motion (or draft a motion) and keep unbalanced forces at bay.  

Expand Your Practice.  Save Your Sanity.