There’s a common thread among business owners I meet and work with: they feel they must handle everything themselves. An important capacity-building step is to learn how to delegate tasks. And my friend Lisa Licursi of Elite Virtual Assistants has some important guidance on this step for lawyers!

Laura understands that small or solo practices want to keep as much of their money as possible and don’t see the need to pay for someone to help them, but it may be time to stop multitasking and start delegating, so you can create more billable hours and onboard more clients. As she says, “Multitasking doesn’t mean you’re superhuman…we all do it. What it does mean is that you’re doing 10 things at the same time…and probably not doing a great job on any of them, they’re just ‘getting done.’ Many people don’t understand exactly what a virtual assistant is. VA’s are a popular solution due to the change in today’s workforce and can do anything in your office that doesn’t require a law degree.”

Hiring a VA is an affordable way to hire an experienced assistant without having the expense of an employee.

The benefits of a virtual assistant to consider are:

  •  No paid vacations.
  •  No benefits.
  •  No retirement.
  •  No office equipment or supplies.
  •  You’re only paying for the time they work.

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What Tasks Can A Virtual Assistant Do?

EMAIL & CALENDAR MANAGEMENT

  1. Sort through emails/mark what’s important/sort through spam.
  2. Reply to client inquiries.
  3. Calendar management/appointment reminders.
  4. Schedule & confirm appointments…Do you drive a lot between meetings? Make sure you’re using the most of that time and schedule some calls on the road.

GENERAL ADMIN TASKS

  1. Travel planning.
  2. Internet Research.
  3. Client gifts/Client welcome (purchasing/sending).
  4. Lead generation.
  5. Event planning.
  6. Organize meetings.
  7. Bookkeeping.

DIGITAL MARKETING

  1. Create & schedule email campaigns.
  2. Create & send newsletters.
  3. Social media management.
  4. Moderate & reply to comments if necessary.
  5. Help with blog posts.
  6. General website management (basic coding/manage subscribers, etc.).

What Tasks Can A Virtual Assistant Do For Your Law Practice?

All the tasks listed above are general areas that any small business owner can benefit in delegating. Some areas that solo or start-up law firms can delegate are:

  1. Onboard clients.
  2. Schedule client callbacks & appointments.
  3. Client intakes.
  4. Request 911 calls when needed.
  5. Interview potential witnesses.
  6. Request and follow up on medical records.
  7. Collect information from clients and witnesses.
  8. Pull inspection reports.
  9. Schedule depositions.
  10. Send gifts, letters, and notes to clients or other lawyers.
  11. Organize events and seminars.

Laura asks her clients to consider what their time is worth – take a look at these figures!

  1. If you have a billable rate of $200/hr, and you’re spending 5 hours a week doing low-value, repetitive work…that’s $1000 week you could theoretically be losing.
  2. If you hire a virtual assistant for $28/hr to do those tasks for you, you’re spending $140 week. (A regular employee could be upwards of $40-50 an hour when you include benefits, vacation time, etc.)
  3. Freeing that time up for yourself, you just made an extra $860/week or $3440 a month.
  4. Looking at that annually, you would spend $7280 a year on a VA vs. $52,000.00 on yourself.
  5. That’s potentially an extra $44,720.00 you can earn annually.
  6. If your goal is to have more family or free time…is that worth $140/week?

When virtual assistants use a time tracking software, you’re able to track hours for each case and bill those hours accordingly for reimbursement.

Sending a big shout-out to Laura Licursi for her guidance and advice for busy law offices! When you’re ready to hire that special VA, reach out to Elite Virtual Assistants for help!