Poor communication

Poor communication is definitely one of the biggest stumbling blocks in virtual working relationships. Email and phone calls can be great ways to communicate, but I have seen many emails that are sent lacking critical information, or phone calls that are not followed up by written instructions confirming the content of the call and the expectations for the project undertaken. I have had lawyers send urgent emails asking about my services with no clear listing of what they need and why. It’s hard to provide a proper response right away (avoiding delays created by multiple email exchanges) if I don’t even know exactly what someone’s needs are and their timeline! Communication about work projects and assignments given by a lawyer to a virtual legal assistant should clearly set out what is needed, what the timeline is and any quirks of the assignment.

Not Providing Feedback

In an in-office situation, a lawyer will (hopefully!) tell his or her assistant if they did a good job. They may make corrections to their work themselves, but still let their assistant know how to improve for the next time. Virtually this seems to happen less and yet it is an important part of building a good relationship. Don’t feel like you are being nitpicky or difficult – you must provide feedback, both positive and negative, on a regular basis so your virtual assistant stays in the loop.  It can be as simple as preferring different font points on different documents or as big as deadline issues over time of day and time zones (ie. due on Wednesday could mean Wednesday at 8am PST or Wednesday by midnight). We don’t often see the absolute final product on assignments as documents are printed out on site and so we don’t get that feedback unless effort is made to make sure it is given. I know I, and most other VLA’s, want to do our absolute best and anything you say about our work is going to help in that respect.

Calendar Conflicts

This relates to communication really (most staff issues do!) but do make sure your virtual staff either have access to your calendar or get regular updates as to your schedule. A virtual legal assistant may not need to know when you run out for lunch or to get a coffee, but they do need to know on a general level what times of day are best to reach you, when to schedule meetings with you via phone/skype and when you are going to be away for vacation or other absences. This helps the VLA stay on top of her tasks and she may even help you by knowing your plans, as you may set deadlines with conflicts.

Overall, virtual relationships are not that different that in-person relationships. Regular and clear communication enhances the relationship and respect and consideration provide a solid foundation.

In my very last law office, I noticed a trend toward lawyers who didn’t know how to use dictation machines or who didn’t feel they provided much value. These lawyers often simply sent instructions by email or typed up the body of work they needed done and had their assistant simply format it properly. It was a very busy office and I think the lawyers felt more comfortable as the emails were easy to identify and re-send if their assistant was unavailable and another assistant had to take over the task. Pretty common sadly in a place where there were usually 3 or 4 lawyers to each assistant.

Recently though, I’ve discovered the wonderful combined benefits for digital transcription. I had never worked in an office that used anything other than old-fashioned micro-cassettes for dictation. And up until now, the majority of my clients have communicated with me via email and my online work space, always with written instructions, rather than oral. Digital dictation is an incredible improvement over cassettes! I should have known, since Andrea Cannavina of LegalTypist uses it almost exclusively in her virtual legal assistant business and she knows what she’s talking about!

Thanks to a new client though, I’ve recently begun to work with the digital transcription software from Express Scribe and it is so easy to use! My client just provides me the dictation (via email or upload to my secure workspace) and I’m ready to go. Each email is clearly labeled with pertinent info and it’s very quick for the lawyer – for example, I did an Affidavit for a client yesterday. It took him just over 3 minutes to dictate everything he needed to.  Then I transcribed the body of the document and properly set it up according to required format. The lawyer can say “put a backer on that” and it takes a few seconds, but it would take much longer for him to set up said backer himself, much easier to have me do that and free up his time for more directly client-related responsibilities.

Why is it faster to dictate than to type? Well, for starters the average “speaking” words per minute rate is 120-150 words per minute. For most people, that means they speak much faster than they could type. And of course as I mentioned earlier, you may be able to speak an instruction, but the work involved in performing the task can take much longer. If you dictate “please proofread entire document – all 70 pages” that won’t take long, but actually proofreading may take a fair bit of time. It’s probably a good idea to truly evaluate your typing speed, versus the speed an assistant may have, to determine who should be typing up your documents and correspondence.

An additional benefit of dictating, is that a lawyer can dictate from anywhere, regardless of if they have access to their computer or the internet. You can dictate while commuting to work, from your home office or from your vacation if needed (not recommended though!)

Need more info? Check out this post at The Greatest American Lawyer for a breakdown of some of the benefits of digital dictation for lawyers or The Advantages of Digital Dictation from Law Practice Today. And if you want digital dictation software check out Express Dictate.

I’ve heard of some pretty wonderful sounding law offices ever since I started my virtual legal assistant business and had my eyes opened to alternative ways of doing things within the legal profession, but I think this is definitely near the top of the list in my opinion. It’s a small change, and yet it is HUGE for people who want that elusive “all” that we hope is out there somewhere. I think I especially liked that the initiative applies to lawyers and staff, as long as they don’t abuse the process!

I would have been shocked had any of the traditional firms I worked in ever offered a person to bring in their infant on a regular basis. Admittedly, since I’m from Canada many people were able to take a fair bit of time off after having a child without losing their job. Still, I actually think some people would have happily returned to work more quickly given the option to bring baby along. Our maternity is usually only partially paid and some people would love to keep a full paycheque without having to put a young child into full-time childcare. Actually, most of my places of employment frowned strongly on bringing children almost anytime, despite official initiatives like “bring your child to work day” or the like.

Fortunately for me, being self-employed allows me that elusive “all” that I had hoped for once I had my children. I can get my boys off the bus and then get right back to business while they enjoy an afterschool snack. I can fit document drafting around naptimes and usually still have time for a quick park break in the late afternoons. The occasional (okay, more than occasional!) late nights are well worth feeling like I usually have time for my clients and my children.

I am pointing the review out on my blog, though I have no obligation to do so, because I truly believe Chrometa is a tool that can help lawyers and virtual legal assistants who charge clients on an hourly basis. It’s a handy addition to my arsenal and I think you would find it to be the same!

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!

Some great examples:

• Bookkeeping/billing
• Web site design
• Client intake
• Document drafting
• PR
• Call answering
• Court filings

I already do outsource some of my web design needs; I had neither the ability nor the desire to spend hours and hours trying to design a pretty logo for example! I also use an accountant to help me with my taxes and am working on training someone to assist me with transcription eventually. What tasks are you outsourcing and which ones do you think you *should* be outsourcing, but currently you are muddling along with?

Another point of the discussion on outsourcing addressed where to find good people to outsource to. You don’t want to waste time on in effective outsourcing after all! I realized I had never really considered it but even some tools are a way of outsourcing, like using Ruby Receptionist for call answering. And the best way to find help is of course to go to your network and ask for reliable references! Just yesterday I went to my Twitter peeps and asked for suggestions for one of my client’s needs and quickly hooked her up.

Speaking of Twitter, I have noticed in checking out my Blawger Survivor companions and many of them have Twitter feeds in their sidebars – love it! Check the feeds out at  Two Lawyers in a Pod[Cast], The Connecticut Employment Law Blog,  Leadership, Women, Lawyers, No Reins Girl.   Twitter is my biggest online network and I love how involved so many lawyers seem to be getting in it. Okay, and I love that clients have found me on Twitter too!!

A VLA’s tasks could include preparing a rough draft of affidavits or agreements, proofreading and formatting documents, conducting and summarizing legal research, liaising with clients, and transcribing audio and digital files. And the advantages of lawyers hiring VLAs are proving tangible.

For one thing, there are none of the overhead costs associated with having a staff person on hand. Kerans’ hourly rate may be higher than a regular legal assistant’s, but it doesn’t include paying for office equipment, benefits, sick days, vacation days, bonuses, and so on. Plus, she bills for only the time she works. “I find my clients are usually quite surprised by how much I do in an hour,” she says.

The writer of the article, Alison Arnot, definitely seems to have “gotten” what a virtual legal assistant can provide in the way of value. So nice to see!

Only one little comment about what she took from interviewing me:

Mapp’s clients, however, are not in Edmonton, where she lives, or even in Alberta, but in the United States.

Most of my current clients are in the United States, but I am of course totally open to working with Albertan or Canadian lawyers! In fact I would love local clients (have had a couple for general admin, but not legal yet!) it’s just an opportunity that hasn’t come up quite yet. Maybe soon?!

There were several fascinating articles in the issue actually. Innovation is an interesting topic in law, as so often innovation simply means catching up to the mainstream! I highly recommend you check out some of the articles, you can see the index here to see what topics were covered.

I love the law – the general concepts, the idea of helping people understand their legal issues and finding resolutions to conflicts. I wanted to be a lawyer from junior high school on. Then I grew up and realized that while I would love to be a lawyer, I couldn’t really imagine racking up the insane amount of debt it would take me to get through law school. And that was back when I was single and childless, much less considering how I could not put my family through the expense and hardship of me attending law school now – my estimate is over $35,000 just for tuition and books for the 3 year LLB program at U of A (my local university). I’d personally also need to spend at least 2 years doing some undergrad work, for another $12,000 plus in books and tuition. On top of books and tuition we’d have to pay some childcare expenses, a transit pass or fuel for my car, etc. And where I live apparently a legal education is inexpensive compared to many American law schools. It’s not surprising to know that so many law school graduates have mountains of debt when they are done school.

I believe that legal services should be affordable though – and by affordable I mean that things like divorces should not cost so much that people stay legally married for years after separating because they cannot afford a good divorce lawyer, or worse they divorce but don’t achieve fair distributions because only one party has access to appropriate funds. I think everyone needs a will and should be able to consult a lawyer before buying a house or when there is an employment related concern. Small business should have a lawyer help them draft agreements and documents right away – yet many people skip essential steps like this because the costs of working with a lawyer are so significant. Lawyers though want (and may truly need) pretty high salaries to help compensate for the enormous cost of simply becoming a lawyer. Those two needs are very much at odds with one another.

For what my opinion is worth I’d say that some changes to consider are:

1. 2-3 year Apprenticeship or work experience programs that incorporate both schooling and on the job training (almost like trade schools for electricians/plumbers etc) rather than 3 years of law school, for a greatly reduced tuition fee of course;
2. Here in Canada we already have an articling year, but it seems as if this is not the case in the US. An articling year would be a start for sure.
3. Fewer law schools. Seems obvious to me that if the need for 1st years (or lawyers in general) is reduced then fewer law schools are needed.
4. Shorter time needed to attend law school (only 2 years)
5. Supplementing shorter law school programs with better ongoing education – for example like the awesome (and affordable) Solo Practice University

Any other suggestions or thoughts on this topic? You know how much I love to hear from my readers!!!

Ok this is it – hopefully your relationship with your new virtual legal assistant is working out wonderfully! But sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe you’ve had someone misrepresent themselves, maybe the VLA has had an unexpected major life change and cannot continue the relationship, maybe you just don’t like them.

The best part of working with a virtual contractor rather than an employee is that you don’t have to continue the relationship if it isn’t working. Look at your contract to confirm, but you can probably simply stop working with them at any time. You’ll need to pay your last invoice and then you can re-start the process of finding the right virtual legal assistant for your practice, probably with a better idea of what you want and need.

This seems like a good time to address a couple of miscellaneous ideas that occurred to me as my series progressed:

• Sometimes a virtual legal assistant is NOT your best choice. If you need someone full-time, if you prefer someone available at your beck and call or you really want someone in your office to answer the phone and greet clients – you probably should hire an in-house legal assistant rather than a virtual one.
• I’ve addressed the use of a virtual legal assistant in a rather broad manner. Realize that not all individuals who call themselves “virtual legal assistants” are capable of the same things. Some people have more experience or more ability than others.
• The world of work is constantly evolving. I hope that some of my thoughts on partnering with a virtual legal assistant may be applicable to telecommuting assistants or paralegals (ones who are “employees” rather than business owners) although in my experience few such arrangements are truly available to support staff at law firms or government agencies.
• I cannot stress the importance of good communication in a virtual relationship enough – check, re-check, clarify and clarify again as needed. Better safe than sorry!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my series on partnering with a virtual legal assistant – please feel free to email me or comment if you have any questions (or if you want to discussing partnering with Halo Secretarial as your VLA!!)