Efficiency is an essential part of legal practice. With so much going on in and out of courts, law practitioners need to efficiently utilize their time to give their clients the best service.
This can be a big challenge, considering they do have tons of work to do. A law firm can be a beehive of activities, what with files flying around as on-site clerks punch fast on keyboards to beat tight deadlines. The result can be sheer confusion and chaos.
It's not unusual to find a lawyer
doing double bookings, mixing up hearing dates of different cases or heading to
a hearing with the wrong file.
A lawyer can hire a virtual
assistant to help handle some of the legal work and free up time for the
on-site staff to focus on more pressing or urgent matters. Law firms that
delegate some tasks to virtual assistants have long learned just how helpful this
strategy is when it comes to cutting operational costs and ensuring no upcoming appeal record is created in time.
A lawyer who outsources work to a
virtual legal assistant has simply saved himself from burning out and losing
direction.
Who is a virtual legal assistant?
A legal virtual assistant is an off-site
or remote worker who provides support such as administrative and personal
assistance services to law firms or individual lawyers. The virtual legal
assistants, also called remote law clerk or virtual legal secretary, helps
reduce caseloads which in turn frees up time for lawyers to concentrate on their business
success.
A legal background may not be considered in the hiring of virtual legal assistants, but it increases one's chances of getting hired.
Duties of a Legal Virtual Assistant:
- Prepare and edit briefs, appeal records, presentations, contracts, and pleadings.
- Transcription of court proceeding audio or video files.
- Research relevant case law, statutes, and regulations.
- Call and email handling
- Calendar and Email Management.
- Break down legal jargon for clients.
- Organize and maintain a digital database of case files, client files, contracts, etc.
What Lawyers Look For in a Virtual Law Clerk
1. Organizational Skills
No lawyer will tolerate a disorganized virtual legal assistant. Lawyers deal with tons of files. A remote legal clerk must be organized so that no critical case detail is misplaced or lost. Legal documents will have to be kept in order. The virtual assistant also ensures the lawyer is on schedule with every case.
3. Research Skills
A virtual legal assistant can be
tasked to deeply research oast cases to help the lawyer build an ongoing
litigation. The virtual assistant should be skilled in combing through legal
databases, analyzing past or current cases, and drafting a summary to guide
the attorney in a particular case.
This doesn't mean a virtual legal
assistant has to have studied law. The emphasis is on research skills. I have
no legal background by the way, but I have efficiently worked for a lawyer as a remote
clerk.
As I pointed out somewhere up here, legal background does help
when it comes to quickly understanding legal jargon or procedures. However, compelling research skills will compensate for the lack of
legal background. At least that's what has worked in my case.
3. Tech-savvy
Lawyers use various software to
accomplish their legal work. Digitalization has changed how legal practice is
done. Needless to say, a virtual legal assistant has to be proficient in the
software or tools the lawyers themselves use to maintain legal cases, clients, and invoices
in a database.
These tools make it easy for the
lawyer to also work with a client or virtual assistant across the ocean.
Indeed, without such tools, lawyers will have no means of hiring virtual law
assistants. There has to be online platforms such as Google docs, Google
spreadsheets, Google Drive, or Gmail where they collaborate. No lawyer would
want to hire a virtual assistant who is not conversant with essential online tools
such as Google Drive or Microsoft's Outlook.
4. Analytically Thinking
A virtual legal assistant should do more than just type or proofread court cases. It's wrong to do these tasks without ever trying to think through
them. The lawyer who has hired you might suddenly ask, "What do you think about
this case; do we stand a chance?"
No lawyer wants a thoroughly dumb person as
an office clerk, let alone a virtual assistant.
I think this applies to all areas of virtual assistance, not just when it comes to working for lawyers.
5. Highest Standard of Confidentiality
Highly confidential legal documents
or audio files will come your way. You should maintain a high level of ethical
conduct. Sensitive information must be safeguarded. No lawyer will want to work
with you as a virtual legal assistant if you suffer from leaking mouth syndrome.
Secrets must remain secrets.
Parting Shot
As you can see, you don't need to have been to law school to be a lawyer's clerk, but that in itself doesn't mean anyone qualifies for that position. Boy, you gotta be organized and more.
I have worked as a remote secretary or virtual
legal assistant for a lawyer. I learned so much along the way. I am now good at creating record appeals. I am now a skilled record on appeal
designator. I understand the process of creating record appeals, writing the statements
(pursuant to CPLR rule 5531, for instance), merging the PDF files, pagination,
labeling the files, hyperlinking the PDF table of contents using Adobe Acrobat,
etc.
I have written motions of appeal, replies, briefs, and
transcribed court audio files. I also sort legal files on Drive folders
for easy access when needed.