I found this article recently on the CBA website – A to Z: 26 Trends for the Legal Profession.  It’s a fascinating read and it posed the question – which trends matter the most to you? If you give it a read I’d love to hear your opinion!

For me, a few of the mentioned trends really stood out as areas in which the contracting of a virtual legal assistant could help legal practitioners manage and grow their business.

B is for BLOGS

You need to write your own posts of course, but you can get a virtual assistant to help you with research, coming up with some topic ideas, proofreading, managing comments and spam and monitoring google alerts for mentions of your company and blog.

H is for HOME

Do you work from home or a small office? If you do, maybe you’ve realized you don’t have much room for office/support staff.  A virtual assistant gives you a lot of flexibility to get help when you need it, without worry about them invading your physical space.

O is for Outsourcing

Outsourcing your administrative and paralegal work to a virtual legal assistant is a tool I really think lawyers should start opening up to.  Save some money, some on carbon emissions by eliminating commutes, save your time since your VA is going to be ready to hit the ground running and get the work done!

Interestingly, the article I mentioned is not that recent, but most of the items are still applicable and often have not been embraced by lawyers.  There are opportunities for those who have vision – reach out and grab them!

Blogging is an increasingly powerful business tool, but many business owners just don’t see how they can fit in time for blogging.  It’s so essential to keep in touch with your clients though, and blogging provides a pretty inexpensive way to do that.  I definitely recommend that you find a way to incorporate blogging into your business if at all possible.

For example, one thing you could do is incorporate your staff into helping with your blogging.  If you don’t have staff, or they are already overworked, you might want to look into getting some virtual assistance!  Many VA’s are bloggers themselves and well-suited to helping out in this regard.

I read this post of Darren Rowse’s (Problogger) from earlier this year about using a virtual assistant to help you blog. It’s clear from Darren’s post, and certainly it seems essential to me, that no one should write your actual content for you.  The content needs your voice to really appeal to your audience. A virtual assistant will be valuable in your blogging efforts though.  A VA can do all of the following tasks that will reduce the amount of time you need to spend to present a professional, well-maintained blog to your audience:

• Proofread your posts to polish them
• Moderate your comments and delete spam
• Monitor your statistics
• Monitor google alerts for your blog/blog topics
• Research blog topics
• Periodically review links on your blogroll to insure they haven’t gone “dead”

I recommend if you do choose to hire a Virtual Assistant to delegate some of your blogging tasks to, you select a VA who blogs him/herself, whose blog or website appears to be current and well maintained itself, and who responds to your inquiries in a professional manner.

I mean political payoff in a positive way of course!  It’s election time soon (yes, here in Canada too!) and while I always follow some of the issues and make a point of voting, I never have given much thought to volunteering in any way.  Then I read this great post over at Counsel to Counsel and realized there could be so many benefits to getting involved in politics.

For one, I can show my kids how important it is to take action. I want them to know there is no change unless we all work toward it together.

For another, it will be a great opportunity to network with others in my community.  I might make a friend or a business contact, and that would be great!

My political candidate usually does quite well where I live, but victory is never certain and we all need to contribute when we can.  Have you thought about getting involved with politics this fall?

I’ve touched on this before, but it continues to be a major source of concern in emails and comments, so I thought I’d do a short post specifically addressing the hourly rate charged by a virtual assistant  (VA) or a virtual legal assistant (VLA).

I generally charge in the $30 an hour range for my virtual services.  I know some people think this sounds high for “secretarial” work.  Maybe you could hire someone local and inexperienced for $10-15 per hour. And certainly there are VA’s who charge significantly more than I do, usually because they offer special expertise or have services that are in great demand.

I made approximately $23 per hour as a legal assistant prior to starting my VA business, BUT it is important to note that on top of my hourly wage my company paid for benefits, paid for 3 weeks holidays per year, paid for statutory holidays and contributed significantly to a pension plan on my behalf.  They also provided me with a computer, a desk, a direct telephone line and access to significant office supplies.  Clearly the cost to my company was significantly higher than $23 per hour.

It is important also to note that I was often paid for time when I was not doing “real” work – I was paid to take coffee breaks, paid to attend meetings on a regular basis, paid to assist in planning company functions like the summer picnic and paid to be a “body”, someone who was there, but not necessarily always given enough work to fill my day.

You will pay your VA an hourly wage from $20-$100 per hour, depending on their expertise and your needs.  But you will only pay your VA for the hours actually worked on your tasks.  I bill in 6 minute increments, with a two hour minimum.  I can do a lot for your business in a couple of dedicated hours per day.  And when I go get a coffee, it’s on my dime, not yours!

Does the wage still sound unfair to you?  I’d love to hear from you what you think is a reasonable wage to pay an experienced and dedicated assistant!!

I knew as soon as I started planning to open up my virtual assistant practice that I would also have a blog integrated into my website.  I knew it would give me a way to interact with other VAs, lawyers, bloggers and it would help potential clients see what I could do for them.

A lot of well-established businesses and law practices don’t blog yet, some don’t even have websites (or have really out-of-date ones).  I know that time is one of the reasons some business owners hesitate to get started blogging.  Especially since one of the golden rules of blogging is to post often.

Blogging certainly is a time commitment.  In my opinion, you need to post one or more times a week to be truly effective and be up to date.  You need to be able to respond regularly to comments and emails that result from your blog postings.  And you need to occasionally find the time to make sure your site is on target and up to date.  Oh and you need time to surf other blogs!

Now you really are worried about finding the time to blog, aren’t you?  There are easy solutions though.  You can have a blogging partner or team in place, instead of trying to do everything yourself.  Maybe the support staff at your office would like to get involved.  Maybe your spouse or older children have an interest in both your business and blogging.  Or maybe you need to contract some dedicated help to assist you.  There are ghostwriters available for hire or you could hire a virtual assistant who is an experienced blogger to do some of the legwork such as polishing posts, researching ideas, or monitoring comments.

Give some serious thought to getting started with a blog though, or to improving your current one – it is a wonderful vehicle for showcasing both your business and your industry.

Hat tip to Ed Poll, whose article Blogging Policies and Best Practices for Lawyers and Law Firms inspired me to write this post!

Have I mentioned lately that I love Twitter?!! I sometimes have trouble keeping up with all the tweets, but every day I find a few interesting links to check out, or a wonderful new blog.  Today, thanks to Kevin from Real Lawyers Have Blogs (LexBlog), I found this wonderful blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah.  His post on How to Get Noticed has some great pointers for those of us working to build our brands and establish ourselves in our blogging niches.

Jeremiah had 7 basic tips that one can implement to improve a blogger’s branding strategy.  I definitely need to add some of them, like attending some in-person networking events and eventually leading in them.  Too bad it’s a bit late for me to attend BlogWorld in Vegas but I’m really hoping to go to the BlogHer conference next summer, I know it will be a valuable networking and learning experience!

In the meantime, I am going to join my local Chamber of Commerce this fall and do some local networking.  Also, as per another couple of suggestion of Jeremiah’s, I’m going to get my photo added to my blog asap and make an accomplishments page!  I already can add something about the Connecticut Law Tribune article on the page.

Do you need to work on your branding strategy, for your blog, your business, your law practice?  Check out Jeremiah’s post for inspiration and remember that if your main problem is finding time to implement the strategies, you can always find yourself a good VA to help out!