I’ve officially been a virtual legal assistant (or virtual paralegal if you prefer that term!) for 9 months now! I can’t believe how quickly my first year in business is going, and I’m more sure than ever that this was the best career movie I could have made! I love the work my clients have me do and I love being my own boss.

I’ll be doing an official mid-year (calendar year, not business year) review soon on my blog, but just needed to put a quick post in here about how happy I am and how much I love what I do! And if you are a lawyer who found this post via a search or something – I’d love for you to check out my services page! If you think I’m happy being a virtual legal assistant, think how happy you could be if you had less work to do because you found someone like me to partner with and allow you to be even more successful in your law practice!

I received my confirmation today that I passed my IVAA EthicsCheck exam! I was pretty sure I had passed it, but it feels great to be sure! It is really a great way to reassure my clients that I am well capable of following ethical standards.

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

Laurie Mapp, Verification Number 09-02-20113

The most current blog posts for Halo Secretarial can be found on our blog’s main page – please check it out and remember, feedback is very much appreciated!!

I’m sure many of these skills – collaboration skills, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, project management, technological affinity and time management – aren’t required courses in typical law school curriculum, but I totally agree with Jordan Furlong’s post on Law 21 detailing the 6 skills lawyers should have today.

I personally think the most interesting skill noted is the need for emotional intelligence. Winning clients in the modern time is DEFINITELY going to require an ability to truly empathize with and respect clients’ positions. As a businesswoman I always prefer my service providers to understand where I’m coming from.

As for time management I’ll just repeat my favorite advice to delegate, delegate, delegate!!! (Hint, hint – consider a virtual legal assistant – we love to help!!!)

I was surfing LinkedIn this morning, as I’d like to start making better use of its networking possibilities. I was searching Canadian members of the Legal Blogging group and found the blog of Donna Seale, a lawyer who niches in the human righs area. Donna shared this fascinating article from Susan Goldberg for National Magazine, an article which Donna was interviewed for. I love how the article addresses the benefits of blogging as a marketing tool for solo law practices.

The article, which is about the changing face of solo law practices in Canada, also features some wonderful comments from Susan Cartier Liebel of Build a Solo Practice, LLC fame about how niche marketing could be the savior of solo law practices.

I highly recommend checking out this article, and the blogs of Donna and Susan!

This is an older article I came across recently, but stress, not surprisingly, continues to plague lawyers and business people alike.

Work and life balance is a common topic in the work world, certainly with many people I know anyway. I know it’s on my mind. I love working – I love the challenge of difficult assignments, I love helping clients, I love the planning process! But without balance between my work life and my personal life I feel VERY stressed. I love my kids and husband and I need time to enjoy being with them. Don’t most of us need time away from work? Maybe we want to go to our kids’ soccer games or go for a long walk after dinner, or maybe we just want to sleep in on the weekends!

So how do we make it all work? For me the answer is starting my own virtual assistant business, but there are many other options!! Part-time work and flexible work arrangements are another great solution. Delegation is key for small business owners. Don’t get bogged down thinking you need to do it all or be everything for your company, balance can be achieved!!

Yesterday I read this article by Melanie Jester from Oklahoma Bar Journal Articles. It discusses work-life balance for lawyers. And then later yesterday I took my boys to the park and ran into a very nice lady, who it turns out is a lawyer on maternity leave and we discussed the topic of lawfirms and trying to have a career and a family.

I think balance is an elusive but achievable goal – it just takes having an open mind to doing things a different way. This is the part lawfirms struggle with I think – there is often a tendency to do things as they have always been done, since it has worked for so long. But there is a long list of ways to give your employees some flexibility while still achieving the firm’s goals and providing results for the client:

1. Telecommuting -easily a top choice for workers – it allows work from home or really anywhere. For example a parent home with a sick child can try and get some work done if allowed the opportunity to access work files from home.
2. Part-time work – another great option for some people. Some staff want more time for hobbies, travel, family etc., but they don’t want to give up their career either. I think that as the population ages we’ll really see a demand for this, as people who’ve worked so hard on their careers are ready to loosen up a bit without letting go altogether.
3. Alternative hours – people have different “peak” hours in the day. My husband is a total morning person, I am best midday and I have a friend who works best late at night. If we all work 9-5 the reality is that we won’t all be performing optimally. Workers who can adjust their hours even somewhat to work around their natural inclinations will work harder and will appreciate the trust placed in them to show up and do the job regardless of if the boss is in and working the same exact hours.
4. Flex time – put in extra hours and get time off later, it’s a simple and easy solution and I’m surprised more lawfirms haven’t taken advantage of it. It saves money on overtime costs and allows staff an occasional extra day or even half-day off.

I think the most important thing to note about all the above options is not only that they will be a wonderful benefit to workers but that they all offer rewards for the employer. Win-win in my books!

I recently read this wonderful article from Canadian Lawyer magazine about women in the law. The article featured roundtable discussion from several prominent women lawyers.

It’s interesting to me to note that the concerns facing women lawyers are indeed the concerns facing many women in business. We all have to find ways to advance our careers, we all need to find ways to maintain balance and a personal life and we all have to overcome some obstacles along the way.

I think it was particularly interesting to me as just yesterday I was really thinking about what it means, even in this wonderful modern age, to have children and a career. My husband is a wonderful man who does A LOT around the house and with our kids. Still many things have always fallen to me as the mom – making the childcare decisions and the medical appointments, attending school functions (he comes when he can get away from work, but that is not always), etc. When both parents have careers it gets so hard to juggle all the things that need to be taken care of. And like the women lawyers in the article, you realize some things are going to have to give. Usually it’s your personal time – the time you might have spent with friends or on hobbies.

I don’t know if seeing the problems can help change them – but it is a start isn’t it?

I just have to share this post about lawyers and blogging from Real Lawyers Have Blogs. I loved this post because it really addresses the heart of why I personally like to blog and why I LOVE to read blogs (especially law blogs (blawgs!)

I love how real blogging is – that it puts you right in touch with the writer in a format that often allows for discussion and expansion of the original topic. I love that many blawgs give lawyers a chance to demystify what they do and therefore make a case for how useful and beneficial their work can be. Lawyers often have a bad rap in society, but in my experiences working with lawyers I have seen that they care about their clients and they want to help them. They spent years in school and then usually many more years acquiring the experience to handle the cases and work the courtroom and they generally charge a rate that is in accordance with those years of experience and skill. Yet the average person thinks that they overcharge or underperform and why? Because the communication isn’t real when they face off lawyer vs client in a stuffy boardroom in a downtown office. Blawgging lets clients see the person in the law office – the one who works hard and worries about the outcome and who has a responsibility to the client, their staff and themselves to do the job right, even at a higher financial cost.

So keep the blawgging going – it is a wonderful tool and experience for us all.

Check out this week’s blog carnival hosted by VagabondetteVA – my post on lawyers and technological change is one of the posts featured!

There are several other great posts featured this week – my top two are:

1. Time Thieves from Physician Entrepreneur
2. Webmaster-1’s post titled 5 Reasons Why Blogging is Beneficial

Enjoy!