How can Virtual Assistants Support and Add Value to Law Firms

Steve: Okay, so let’s talk apart. Let’s take apart the term virtual assistant. Because when I hear that, I hear different things. So, for you, it’s really paralegal, legal assistant. Do they help with scheduling? What do they do? What tasks do they do for you guys?

Matthew: So, they can do anything and everything. And so, you know, I’ll… Talk a little bit about how I use VAs in my practice. And then Ed can talk about how he uses VAs, which is a little bit different. So, I have drafting paralegals based in the Philippines, and they draft estate plans for me.

After I meet with a client and we design their plan, I send them the design sheet, and they have access to my drafting platform. They draft the documents, and then they notify me that the drafts are completed, and then they schedule a time on my calendar to review them. I also have two VAs in the forward-facing intake department.

And so, if you call my office today, my intake department is staffed by virtual assistants in the Philippines. They do the initial intake with prospective clients, gather the information, they enter it into our CRM, they schedule the initial meeting.

So, they are fully integrated in our firm, just like any other employee. Our team has eight people on it, four are based in the Philippines, four are based in the United States.

We also have our marketing person, and he’s in the Philippines. He does 100% of our digital marketing for us.

Steve: That’s fantastic. So, we have four U.S. people, four people in the Philippines, a full-time marketing director in the Philippines.

Matthew: Correct.

Steve: Perfect. Ed, how about you?

Ed: I was really infatuated with this 24-7 law firm, right? And so, I have four virtual assistants, and they support for paralegal, legal assistance, in California and so the way I originally developed it was when it was three o’clock California pacific time right, and my local California team was unable to finish a matter or a deadline for example that was due the next day at three o’clock that would be sort of the time where they would delegate to their corresponding virtual assistant in the Philippines, right? And so, this idea that there should never be anything late so long as there’s proper training, right? And so, we have them do anything from drafting to scheduling, anything where my local team has trained them appropriately so that we have this concept of a 24-7, right? 

So, they leave at 5, and when they get to their desk at 9 to 10 the next day, everything should be done. And that’s worked out quite well for my practice. I’ve been able to scale, work on several projects for example, where we are seeing a lot of cases come through the door in a very short period of time.