Happy Virtual Anniversary

Today is my anniversary. The second anniversary of being a Virtual Assistant, officially, as I incorporated on February 17, 2008.

I’ve worked with some great attorneys, as well as some wonderful clients, and have learned a lot about the virtual paralegal world. To my advantage, the economy continued to worsen and I’ve seen a growing trend in attorneys that work from home, or work from a small office but can’t afford the overhead of having a full-time legal secretary or paralegal on their payroll.

I recently joined a discussion How to Work with a VIRTUAL Paralegal through LinkedIn, started by Seth Rowland, Esquire, on The Virtual Lawyer group. His questions:

What I am interested in finding out is what is the best method and technology for (1) assigning work, (2) tracking and billing time for services, (3) communicating during the term of the project, and (4) making actual delivery. I am interested in both the "how", and the "what", as well as views on how successful these methods are for collaboration.

My answers:

I have found that virtual workspace is a great way to share documents, allowing both the attorney and the virtual legal assistant (VLA) to view and edit documents, without constant emailing back and forth. Something as simple as Google applications allow a VLA to keep track of an attorney's calendar, tickle dates, contacts, etc., while being able to either draft documents directly in the Google app, or to produce a document in Word and then drop the document in Google and share.

Personally, I use QuickBooks Pro, which has a handy time tracker device and then my time is integrated into a monthly or per project invoice. Invoices to attorneys can be a lump sum or broken down by client project.

I have a couple of clients that utilize a virtual call center so that if I need to make a call on behalf of the attorney, I can ring into the call center and then make the call and it will look like I'm calling directly from the attorney's office.

I would be interested in getting feedback from attorneys that have worked virtually, or are interested in doing so. Please email me at mgr@i-administrative.com.