Posts made in August, 2009
Some Friday Fun
Working from home as a virtual legal assistant is not all work – no play! In fact, one of the best things about working for myself from home is the ability to have flexibility in my day. Today I have had quite a varied day already and it’s not even 2pm yet! I’ve done some client work, reviewed next week’s schedule on my calendar, bought buspasses for my kindergarten/grade two kiddos and had the pleasure of a phone conversation with Vicki Voisin of The Paralegal Mentor.
Next up in my day is a very rare evening out with my best friend and then a weekend of about half work and half fun.
If you want a little bit of relaxation this Friday afternoon, here are a couple of fun links for you:
Want to see a fun little graph of how the Internet sees You? Try this link (my graph is below, and semi-accurate, lol)
Some truly hilarious quotes over at The “Blog” of Unnecessary Quotes (hat tip to @RandallMoeller)
And a couple of my favorite little jokes from a recent forwarded email. I never even READ forwarded joke emails normally, but this had me laughing hysterically (ok some of the funnier ones turn out not to be blog post appropriate, sorry, but still these are good!):
Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you
may know” feature on facebook people that I do know, but i deliberately
choose not to be friends with?I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on
shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my itunes.It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on
CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
Have a great weekend!!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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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!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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Help Me Pick!
I was reading over at The Lawyerist this morning about the Ten Great Rules of Client Service, which reminded me that I want to order something to maybe give as a client gift and to use for promotional purposes in general. I’m planning on ordering some travel mugs with my logo on them, but I can’t decide! I’m probably ordering from this website, they are a Canadian site (easier for delivery to me) and have decent prices.
So far these are my top two choices, I’d love some input on your fave!
I like something with color, rather than a plain silver mug, as I think it may be slightly more attention grabbing!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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Learn About Working With a Virtual Legal Assistant
Thanks to Rocket Matter, I’m participating in a webinar with Andrea Cannavina where you can learn all about choosing and working with a virtual legal assistant.
The webinar will be this Thursday at noon (EDT), which is 10 am if you are on mountain time like me!! It’s a free webinar, so if you have the time you should definitely join us. And if you don’t have the time but want to know more about partnering with a VLA, feel free to check out my series all about choosing and working with a virtual legal assistant, I have lots of great tips for you!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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Paralegal Career for You?
This weekend I was asked to do a job profile for a friend who is thinking about a career as a paralegal. Although my answers are somewhat atypical, being a self-employed legal assistant/paralegal, it was still an interesting experience to really take a few minutes to do a broad overview of what I’m doing, what I’ve done throughout my career and if I would do it again if my choices were different today.
I should have pointed the friend to a great blog that often profiles paralegals as a resource for learning more about her potential career path. Lynne DeVenny offers tons of helpful information and news items relating to the paralegal world, but my favorite posts on her blog are the paralegal profiles. It’s a great way to show the various choices within the profession that are available to someone who thinks that this is the career for them! Hmmm, think I better go shoot off a follow up email!!
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
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