Unlocking the Potential of Virtual Assistants for Law Firms

Eric Lee Usher is an entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist - who has a knack for improving how things are done in various industries.

Eric is the mastermind behind Legal AVA, a company providing highly trained advanced virtual assistants (AVAs). These AVAs help law firms enhance efficiency by handling back-office tasks, admin work, and client intake, among other essential activities.

In this episode, Eric delves deep into how to get the most from virtual assistants in law firms.

Watch the full episode here:

Here are are a few of my key takeaways from the conversation:

When to hire a virtual assistant

Although firms can benefit from an advanced virtual assistant at almost any stage, there are two common trigger points when firms benefit a lot from hiring an VA.

1. Overwhelmed with Cases: If your firm is swamped with cases, leading to client complaints and subpar reviews, it’s a clear sign you need help. Hiring a VA to manage case basics like client communication can significantly improve client satisfaction, resulting in better reviews and more referrals.

2. Start-Up Phase: For lawyers just starting out, instead of hiring unqualified family members or friends out of a need for trust, a VA can deliver the dual benefits of professional competency and systematization.

The scope of VA responsibilities

It’s common to think that virtual assistants can only do low level work and maybe you don’t want to give them too much responsibility. However as Eric says "anything that can be done on a computer can be outsourced to a VA"

Some of the most common streams where VAs excel are:

• Client intake

• Customer follow-up

• Communication with medical providers and billing departments

• Task management and staff coordination

• Continuously updating practice management software

Use advanced virtual assistants to build your SOPs

People often wait too long to hire virtual assistants because they don’t have enough of their processes documented for someone else to follow.

Eric has a way better approach to this. His advanced virtual assistants will have you share recordings of you doing the workflow, then they document the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for you. This way they understand the process well, they adhere to the SOP, and they’ve build the foundation for others to come in and execute using the new documentation.

Managing virtual assistants effectively

It’s common for people to be uncertain about how to manage VAs, especially across different time zones. Eric says the key is integration and communication.

Once onboarded, VAs should be working on your firm’s time zone and operate under a highly structured communication regime—morning briefs and end-of-day reports—ensuring constant alignment.

Treat them just like any other member of the team.

Quick and big wins when hiring an virtual assistant

One of the easiest areas a virtual assistant can have an impact immediate is on client communication. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the case work and forget or delay your client communications. Eric stresses that even minimal communication from a VA to keep clients abreast of what’s going on with their case can drastically boost client satisfaction, leading to better reviews and more referrals.

For anyone wanting to hire and train your own virtual assistants, Eric provides a step by step guide through his free e-book. Simply DM him “AVA” through his instagram profile here, and he’ll share his e-book.

For a turn key solution - which I highly recommend - go to Legal AVA and contact Eric directly to help optimize your law firm operations.

Want to trade notes on ideas, strategies, and tactics for growth, book a call with me 👉🏼 here.