Virtual Legal Assistance and Efficiency

This morning I was involved in a wonderful webinar all about finding and working with a virtual legal assistant. Larry of Rocket Matter included some poll questions, including one about support staff to lawyer ratios. This is an interesting topic to me, as I’ve actually got a really wide range of experience with respect to staffing ratios. My very first legal assistant position was one where there were three assistants and one lawyer. Then I worked in a firm where the ratio was generally two lawyers and one legal assistant and finally I worked somewhere where the official ratio was three staff to one lawyer, but due to general shortages, vacations and set-up there frequently was only one staff to every four lawyers or so.

Now, obviously I’m only talking about my experience but I can say that I think the first two firms were far better run than the last. In the first the lawyer kept very busy with clients. His staff could do everything else. In the second, a ratio of two to one actually kept the assistants both busy and happy, as they had more variety in their daily work routine. But when there are three or four lawyers to one support person? Things get missed, balls get dropped, lawyers do a lot of their own admin work. It was inefficient and created some serious morale issues for staff and lawyers alike.

Consider this when wondering whether a virtual legal assistant is right for your practice. If you get extra help will it make you more efficient? If you already have staff, could providing supplementary assistance make them more efficient? Correspondingly though, if you already have good processes in place and excellent administrative staff, don’t consider switching to a VLA to reduce costs. Depending on the size and style of your practice a virtual assistant may in fact not be necessary, or only needed on an occasional basis.

I read a post with some good points and law practices and efficiency over at The Virtual Lawyer.  Roger notes that to truly be efficient lawyers must leverage their time appropriately, whether by utilizing other people’s time, using appropriate technology or finding ways to package your services. Kathleen Brady shares some great suggestions about improving the productivity/efficiency of your law practice in her Law Practice Today article called Achieving Life/Work Balance Through Effective Time Management and in her post Read These 10 Secrets To (Fill in the Blank) Susan Cartier Liebel points out that good processes and choices will lead to a productive law practice, but also notes one of the most important points when it comes to growing your business: It Takes Time.

So if you want to improve the efficiency of how your practice is running, look at what you have in place, evaluate what tasks and work you need help with and then see if a virtual legal assistant might just be the perfect solution!