I’ve read some really fascinating posts about the legal system, the changes needed (see the comments at this ABA post for example), the cost of law school, tuition, salaries for new lawyers and so much more. As a virtual paralegal I read these posts partly to stay on top of changing values within the system I am a part of. I also read them with the pure fascination of one who truly wants to see some innovation take place within the system. I was especially inspired by this post by Ronald Fox from his Lawyer Satisfaction Blog

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!!!

This is part four of my series on partnering with a virtual legal assistant. Check out parts 1 (where to find), 2 (the interview process) and 3 (getting started) if you haven’t already!

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!!)

Yay! You’ve selected the perfect Virtual Legal Assistant for you. She knows her stuff and you are more than ready to hand over some of the work. But how, exactly, do you get started? I can tell you from experience that for some of my clients this has been the hardest part!!

Well the first thing to do is to get a contract signed. Personally, I offer a standard Contract for Services to my clients, which sets out my fee for services, the types of services I’ll be performing, clauses about confidentiality, etc. Personally I’m open to signing a client provided contract if they prefer, or making some changes to my contract as needed. I would not work with a virtual legal assistant without a contract, especially as pertains to confidentiality agreement clauses.

After you’ve signed the contract you’ll want to give your VLA her first project or two. I recommend you start slow. Give one or two very simple projects. Ask for a weekly time report or a per project time report, to make sure the time spent matches your expectations.

Have a weekly telephone call or email check-in to discuss what is coming up in the next week so you can both be on the same page. Share your calendar or details of upcoming travel, conferences etc. Ask questions to clarify as carefully as possible. Be prepared to promptly answer questions so that your virtual legal assistant isn’t left hanging while a deadline looms.

Probably the most important thing to realize is that the relationship is likely to evolve and grow as you work together over time. Trust takes time to build. You may find you planned to have your new virtual legal assistant perform just a few hours of assistance per month and as time passes you realize how much of a benefit it is and start to use significantly more time.  This is a great time to check and see if she offers a discount for retainer clients or for clients who use a minimum number of hours within a month.

Do you need a reminder of what types of work your virtual legal assistant can do for you? I’ve written on the topic before, and really your VLA can probably do anything you would have an in-house assistant do, but here’s a quick reference list for you:

• Research (case law, marketing research or even interesting links for use on your blog!)
• First drafts of legal documents - everything from court pleadings to wills
• Correspondence
• Document review
• Project management
• Scheduling of appointments
• Email monitoring
• Updating your calendar
• Reviewing and organizing trial materials

And don’t forget to consider how you are sharing information with your virtual legal assistant. Send her things by courier, fax or secure workspace - don’t send confidential information simply via email! I love my project management application for this - I now exclusively use TeamWork PM for my clients and it’s fabulous for sharing documents, sending messages and managing deadlines!

Next week will be the last installment in my series on partnering with a virtual legal assistant. I’ll be addressing some miscellaneous concerns and answering any questions that have come up - please let me know if there is anything specific you want to see!

I love reading articles like this one from Law.Com’s Legal Technology section (hat tip to @nikiblack for pointing it out!) It reminds us all, lawyers and businesses like mine that serve lawyers, to look at how we are storing our files and protecting them.

What kind of security do you have in place on your computer? What kind of backup do you use?

Personally I have a couple of systems in place. I do password protect my computer files. I don’t send confidential data via email and I have a couple of backup methods in place. I use both an external hard drive and SugarSync, a platform that allows me access to my documents across all of my computers and acts as a continuous backup on those computers. I can also access my documents from any computer or even my mobile phone with my username and password. I also always use strong passwords (ie - not my name, my kids names etc!) that contain letters, numbers and characters. Better safe than sorry!

I know there are a lot of lawyers out there who are, understandably, concerned about cloud applications and storage methods. I think with the right research though you can find the right service providers and detailed information to help you see the many benefits of utilizing some cloud apps in your law practice. I know they are key to helping me easily run my virtual legal assistant practice!

Now that you’ve read Part 1 of Partnering With a Virtual Legal Assistant, I bet you’ve made a short list of virtual legal assistants to contact but you aren’t exactly sure how to proceed next. How do you decide who is the best choice for you? Do you interview them? Do you telephone, email, instant message? Do you just jump and hope it works out? What questions should you ask?

First, I’d recommend you carefully review the potential virtual legal assistant’s web site and/or blog. A lot is revealed about someone in their website and if they have a blog it will likely be a fabulous source of information on their practices and opinions. For example, one of my clients had questions about how information would be protected, but before she asked me she read my blog post about using a project management system with SSL security and realized I had it fully under control!

I also definitely recommend going through some sort of interview process or discussion to see if the virtual legal assistant is a good match for you. Here are some questions you may want to address:

How much experience does the VLA have (in legal in general and as a virtual legal assistant specifically)?

Does the VLA have any certifications - paralegal diploma, virtual assistant certifications, ethics check?

What kind of hardware/software set-up does the VLA use? Does she use a PC or a Mac?

How does she charge fees - hourly, by the project, retainer? Is there a monthly minimum? Does she like to be paid by paypal or other?

How do you get instructions and documents to the VLA?

Does she truly understand about confidentiality and protecting both your and your clients’ information?

The answers to these questions will definitely help you determine if the particular virtual legal assistant has the capability to meet your needs. There is more to the decision though. At least in my opinion, one part of equation is going to be chemistry. That’s why an initial phone call may be helpful to see if you think your personal style will mesh will with the assistant’s. Our gut instincts are often very accurate in helping us decide if a relationship, business or otherwise, is going to be successful.

Another, possibly controversial, step you may want to take is doing a quick google search of the prospective virtual legal assistant.  Now, a virtual assistant is a contractor, not an employee, but still you may want to read Donna Seale’s series about using social networking sites as part of the hiring process while you’re at it.

Any other questions about the actual choosing of a virtual legal assistant? I’d love to answer them! And stay tuned, next week’s installment of this series will address contracting the VLA and establishing a good working relationship!

As usual I was spending a little time after dinner tonight catching up on some Twitter. I read this tweet from @SamGlover which sent me on over to the recently re-launched Lawyerist. There are tons of interesting posts to read there, but the one that really caught my eye tonight was one that talked about what applications, software etc Sam uses to run his law practice.

I not only enjoyed reading what Sam uses for his legal practice, but also the different choices made by the commentors. So I decided to put together a quick post outlining the various applications/software I use to run my virtual legal assistant practice.

• Calendar: Google calendar/wall calendar combo
• Tasks/to-dos: Teamwork PM
• Contacts: Gmail
• Email: Gmail/mobile Gmail from smartphone while on the go
• Word processing/documents: Word 2007, Open Office, PaperPort
• PDF Creation: Adobe/CutePDF
• Timekeeping/billing: Quickbooks
• Bookkeeping/accounting: Quickbooks/accountant
• Backup: External hardrive and SugarSync (love how SugarSync securely lets me access all from laptop/desktop/mobile phone)
• Client/Project Management: TeamWork PM (256 bit SSL)
• Blogging/Website: Wordpress self-hosted

Like Sam and several of his commentors I’m a big fan of cloud computing. I like to be able to access my work from anywhere - my main computer is a laptop for that very reason! And while I know not everyone trusts “the cloud”, I research applications quite carefully before choosing them and feel pretty confident that I’ve made choices that will protect my clients information and my own.

So how does your office run? Does your work live in the cloud at all?!

Welcome to my series on partnering with a virtual legal assistant! If you are a solo lawyer, or part of a smallish law practice, and you know you need some administrative help, this is a great place to start.

A virtual legal assistant (aka virtual paralegal or virtual assistant specializing in legal assistance) can provide a truly wonderful solution to a lawyer’s needs. A virtual legal assistant is an independent business owner who will provide basically any services an in-house legal assistant or paralegal would provide, but the services will be provided on a contract basis. You may hire the VLA to work on an hourly basis, a per project basis or some other arrangement that is mutually agreeable.  If you need some information about what services a virtual legal assistant can perform take a look at this list.

Part 1 of my Partnering with a virtual legal assistant series addresses a simple, yet clearly critical, question. Where do you find a fabulous virtual legal assistant (aka VLA)? Well, if you’re here anyway, obviously you could just check out my services! But really, you probably want to look at several options so I’m going to suggest some general resources and some individual virtual legal assistants you may want to consider:

Previously I’ve suggested that Twitter is one great way to look for a virtual assistant, and that still applies to looking for a virtual legal assistant. Virtual paralegals are not quite as large of a subgroup on Twitter as general VAs, but there are some great ones who love to Tweet. I suggest using a site like Twellow to find a Twittering VLA.

Another option for finding a great virtual legal assistant is to utilize a virtual assistant directory/forum. Most offer a listing of their members and may note any specialties the VA may focus on, allowing you to weed out any without a legal background. A few of the leading virtual assistant directories are:

Virtual Assistant Forums (by specialty)
VAnetworking Directory (by location, but not specialty)
IVAA’s Member Directory (by specialty)

Similarly, if you want to work with a virtual assistant who belongs to one of the above types of virtual assistant organizations, you can look submit a Request for Proposals (RFP) on their sites, but be prepared for a lot of responses, of which several may be people who want to do legal work, but won’t necessarily have a legal background.

You definitely should consider checking out a few of the following virtual assistants who I happen to know specialize in legal/paralegal services:

Tina Hilton of Clerical Advantage

Dawn Draper of The Virtual Paralegal

Andrea Cannavina of Legal Typist

Kate of Kerans Virtual Assistance

Aretha Gaskin The Virtual Legal Assistant

Marion of The Satellite Secretary

And of course, as with almost any service provider, a good place to “look” for them is to ask your own inner circle. Do any of your colleagues recommend a particular virtual legal assistant? Does your favorite legal blog author recommend his/her virtual paralegal to others? You’d be surprised at the number of people who are familiar in your regular (aka offline!) life who are familiar with the concept and might even know someone who provides such services. Just the other day I was at my local credit union and I was so impressed to learn my banker is familiar with virtual assistance!!

If you have any suggestions to share or questions you’d like addressed in this series in the future, please leave a comment or email me at laurie@halosecretarial.com!

I’m preparing to write a post series on how to find and start working with a virtual legal assistant. My general plan for the series is to address:

• Where to look for a virtual legal assistant
• How to interview and choose the right virtual legal assistant for your practice
• How to actually start working with the virtual legal assistant you have chosen
• What to do if your chosen virtual legal assistant is not working out

I’m open to any suggestions or questions you may have on the topic of working with a virtual assistant though - so please feel free to comment or drop me an email (laurie@halosecretarial.com) if you have anything you’d particularly like to see addressed.

Also, if you are looking to work with a general virtual assistant, don’t worry! Most of the tips will be applicable whether your are a lawyer, an entrepreneur or a freelancer!

One part of the series will run each week on Tuesdays, so please check back regularly.

Yesterday I was able to help a great friend out. I don’t often have the opportunity to do that for this friend, she’s very independent and has things under control. But yesterday she couldn’t afford to miss any meetings at work and she needed someone to sit at her house and wait for a repair person.

Since my laptop is my office I simply took it over there with me and happily worked away. She has a secure internet connection and I had the passcode, so I was all set.

It was a nice change of scenery for me too - which was great!  Just another awesome benefit of having my own (very portable!)virtual legal assistant business.

I know this topic has been done to death - what should we call ourselves, is a virtual assistant a good name etc. I’ve addressed it before myself and  I’ve never really been able to come to a satisfactory conclusion although obviously I did choose my business name as Halo Secretarial Services not Halo Virtual (although I do own domain names for both, lol!) I even had a great suggestion not long ago to call myself a practice project manager after I wrote this post on project management for lawyers (hat tip to @matthomann for that suggestion - still thinking about it!)

I had someone find, and hire, me today though by doing a local search for “Spruce Grove Secretarial Services”. Awesome!! I rank #1 on Google for that (not exactly shocking - it’s a small city), but I realize I don’t rank so highly for Spruce Grove Virtual Assistant, let alone just “virtual assistant”. Partially just because I’ve mostly marketed online, not in my own town. I did send out post cards to lawyers in Edmonton and elsewhere in Alberta to let them know that a local virtual legal assistant was available, haven’t had any response from that yet. I also think though that despite the fact that many who do admin work don’t like to be called a secretary, it is still a very well known and widely used title. And ultimately, as long as my clients understand what I can do for them and happily pay a fair rate for the work I do, that’s enough for me. A title is just a word and words can be so limiting. So call me a legal assistant, a secretary, a practice manager, etc. etc. - it’s all good!

Anyway - just wanted to share my excitement about the search results and the new client. I’ve had a great couple of weeks for new clients and I’m so thrilled my practice is growing.