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It’s easy for routine, non-billable tasks to fill your to-do list. As a busy lawyer, it’s more profitable to focus on your clients and more strategic activities rather than administrative and routine tasks. Unfortunately, these tasks still need to get completed, so you have a few options when it comes to checking them off your list. You can extend each workday to make time for these tasks, or you could lean on a few outside resources to help manage them.
Although many lawyers strive to do everything on their own, the reality for many law firms is that in order to reach operational efficiency, they need a helping hand. Automating routine tasks is a simple and effective way to check off those mounting to-do’s and with the combined power of PracticePanther and Virtual Legal Pros, it’s never been easier to accomplish!
In this live stream recording, “Save Time & Focus on your Law Practice,” PracticePanther Senior Account Manager, Matt Orlinsky is joined by Virtual Paralegal Pros CEO, Bob Howard, and VP of Client Services, Yvonne Vesser, to discuss strategies and tactics towards cleaning up your administrative tasks.
The current state of staffing and operations in law (5:00)
Attorneys are very good at practicing law but only a certain percentage have very efficient operations, the good news is it’s not too hard to increase that efficiency. Virtual Paralegal Pros have been helping law firms to increase their operational efficiency since 1996, and over that time they’ve picked up on a few patterns. Virtual Paralegal Pros posits that only 10% of law firms are high performing — the one common thread through these high performing firms is that they heavily rely on technology in order to meet their goals.
The million dollar question for law firms (8:00)
What does operational efficiency look like? Some simple math can paint the picture. Industry experts say that the average attorney works 60 hours a week. Breaking this down further, Virtual Paralegal Pros has seen that more than 20 hours a week is spent on the following activities rather than billable work:
· Performing client intake
· Onboarding new clients
· Scheduling client appointments and call backs
· Requesting and following up on filing and records
· Collecting information and documents from clients
· Sending contracts, letters, emails and following up with or other attorneys
· Billing and collections, just to name a few
For example, let’s say you have a billable rate of $200/hour. If you are spending only 10 hours on this routine work, that equates to $2000 a week you theoretically could be losing or $104,000.00 a year in billable hours. Operational efficiency means claiming this time back.
What a virtual assistant can do for you (13:00)
Virtual assistants open up many doors for you and your team. With Virtual Paralegal Pros you will be assigned a dedicated assistant who is given special training unique to your firm and practice area. These virtual assistants quickly become an extension of you and your team, allowing you to focus on your practice and billable work while they streamline and handle the rest.
Each virtual assistant is provided with training, continuous coaching and mentoring, and is carefully managed and tracked to achieve your key objectives. Virtual Paralegal Pros also understands the sensitive nature of the work a lawyer does and ensures the highest level of security and confidentiality.
Set tasks on autopilot (16:30)
Another strategy towards maintaining operational efficiency is to set routine tasks on autopilot. Imagine you get 20 cases a month that have the same introductory steps going into them. Rather than recreating the wheel with each case you handle, you could instead preset exactly what needs to be done, and even by who. Setting up your virtual assistant with a PracticePanther account is simple, and you won’t have to worry about holding their hand throughout a series of tasks since you’ve already automated their workflow for them.
Stay on track with automated tasks (19:00)
One of our most commonly used features in PracticePanther is the ability to set reminders for yourself, other users and even your clients. You can set this up to send yourself a text message, email or even a pop-up in the program. If you are an extremely busy attorney, paralegal or office admin, you can send yourself a pop-up in the program 2 hours before the deadline, an email an hour before and then a text message 20 minutes before anything is due. Staying on track has never been easier with the help of PracticePanther’s automation tools.
Watch the full recording to learn more
These points have just glossed the surface of the benefits that your law firm could receive by combining automation tools from PracticePanther with a savvy virtual assistant from Virtual Paralegal Pros. View the full recording today to learn more!
