Law Firms: you need a Virtual Assistant!

Here's why I think law firms need to outsource to a Legal Virtual Assistant

 

After reading this please sit back and watch my fun presentation (it only takes a minute, literally!).

I used to be an office-based legal PA for 16 years, specialising in civil litigation such as personal injury, medical negligence, family and child law and, as such, I know exactly how much work there is to plough through every day.  It's never-ending, or so it seems.  I think I can count on one hand how many days in all of those 16 years I could safely say I had cleared my Inbox and had ticked everything off my To Do list.  I used to prioritise my work into three categories; "Extremely Urgent", "Urgent" and "Not-quite-so Urgent", leaving the other work to pile up as I simply didn't have time to deal with it. 

My experience led me to set up "Legal Virtuoso"; a specialised legal virtual assistant service which is aimed at barristers, solicitors and legal executives so that they can outsource standard document and correspondence production to us on an ad hoc basis in order to manage workloads.  It's so simple; set up a secure and confidential shared DropBox folder and share any documents and audio files you wish us to use.  Being experienced in civil litigation, we also understand the need for a quick turnaround of documents; we're happy to work outside core office hours in order to enable our clients to stick to strict  Court timetables.

So have a look at my presentation and then get in touch!

Goodbye Powerpoint: Hello Bunkr

Here's some good news for Virtual Assistants & Personal Assistants!

I've never had a problem using PowerPoint; essentially it got the job done and there were no real alternatives after all.  Well I'm happy to say all that has changed!

I'm currently trialling a new cloud-based app called "Bunkr".  It's the brainchild of two Frenchmen, Edouard Petit and Alexis Jamet, and has had a meteoric rise since it's conception in 2012. 

Edouard & Jamet both had jobs with advertising agencies prior to launching their product and were always having to make presentations.  From their point of view they felt the process could be streamlined and made a lot simpler. 

Having tested Bunkr on about 300 companies in 2012, initial feedback was so encouraging that they left their jobs and worked full-time on their product.  By September of last year they'd already attracted 200 paid subscribers, mostly from France, the UK and the US. 

Bunkr has the benefit of being simpler to use than Powerpoint.  It's also possible to collect content whilst browsing the Internet and add it to a database using a Bookmarklet.  When you come to build your next presentation all you need do is draw on the content you've already saved and drag it into your slides.  Bunkr have kept the Powerpoint slide format: it worked and people were familiar with it.  

A Bunkr presentation is also incredibly easy to share and send via email, for example, which is great for us virtual assistants if, for example, your client is on the way to a meeting and needs some last-minute updates and amendments sending through.   

Here's a little presentation for you from Edouard.

"Introducing the New Bunkr"

Outsourcing Legal PA Work

Virtual Assistants aren't a new concept and have taken the US and Austalia by storm over the past 5 - 10 years.  So why haven't UK firms recognised the benefits of outsourcing administrative work?

Firstly, outsourcing to Virtual Assistants is highly cost-effective; you pay for the work that we do, usually on an hourly basis, so no paid lunch breaks, sickness and holiday cover, no equipment to provide and no binding employee contracts.

Secondly, confidentiality is no longer an issue as, over the past few years, there has been an explosion of software and apps which allow files and documents to be transferred securely from one person to another.  Here at Virtuoso Assistant we use DropBox or Hightail (formerly You Send It).  A folder will simply be shared and documents/audio files can be uploaded and accessed in seconds. It's that simple. 

Outsourcing to Law Firms

I have worked as a legal PA for 16 years for firms in Bristol and Reading and I know firms outsource to companies in India, for example. They're lovely people and are very hard-working; however, I've had to check files that have been returned with large gaps where the typist simply hasn't understood legal terminology.  Frankly, by the time I've gone through the document and amended it, I might as well have done it myself.  Result?  One frustrated PA.

We understand the Court process, the timetables and the need to prioritise certain documents and correspondence. We therefore work outside core office hours so your PA doesn't have to; she needs a break!

So, why not outsource those long legal attendance notes and statements to us?  We promise to return them quickly and without errors. Please take a look at "Legal Virtuoso" for further details of how we can help you and your PA reduce that typing backlog.