Virtual Legal Assistant Ethics

I have always had an ethics section on my virtual assistant site, because I realize how important it is to act in a professional and ethical manner. Working as a paralegal for many years gave me a very strong awareness of issues like confidentiality, conflict of interest and duty of care. I believe that all virtual assistants, whether they work in the legal field or not, should follow a high standard of ethics. But until recently I hadn’t given a lot of thought to actually proving to my clients that I could put my money where my mouth was, so to speak.

Last week though I was lucky enough to spend some time chatting with Andrea Cannavina of Legal Typist. Andrea has a very successful virtual assistant business which also primarily targets the legal industry. Andrea was kind enough to give a semi-newbie to the virtual world a little advice and I was more than glad to quickly take action on her suggestion to get a proper EthicsCheck certification from the International Virtual Assistants Association.

So this week I paid my fee and took the ethics check exam. It is a fairly lengthy and in-depth examination, and that was a good thing in my opinion. A designation is worthless if you don’t have to have in-depth knowledge to obtain it. Today, I received my confirmation that I passed the exam!

Here is the seal I am now able to display on my site!

Laurie Mapp, Verification Number 09-02-20113

I’m proud to now be able to offer this assurance to my clients and hope that other virtual assistants who want to be taken seriously recognize the value of such a certification and pursue it themselves.

And now, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m going to go have a little fun! Have a great weekend!