What Is a Legal Virtual Assistant?

A Legal Virtual Assistant is an independent contractor who provides administrative, technical, and other types of assistance to legal professionals, which gives experts such as lawyers and solicitors room to focus on more crucial aspects of their job.

While their tasks may vary from company to company, these experts typically handle office tasks, such as checking emails, responding to inquiries, managing your work calendar, and performing in-depth research to find answers to specific legal questions.

Having a Legal Virtual Assistant handle all the tedious office work leaves you with more time to meticulously carry out other vital duties, such as reading witness statements, collating evidence, attending proceedings, providing legal guidance to clients, and representing them in court. 

There are many benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant—for example, you can:

• Tap into an international talent pool to hire a proficient Legal VA at any price point
• Hire them for a specified amount of time, or for a specific project, and pay them only for the tasks they had completed
• Save money on additional workspace and office equipment since these professionals  provide their services remotely

What Does a Legal Virtual Assistant Do?

The exact nature and number of tasks a Legal Virtual Assistant performs usually depends on the business they work for and the type of arrangement they have with the employer. 

That said, the most common responsibilities of this role include:

• Managing your calendar—A Legal VA is responsible for managing timetables, setting appointments, notifying you of upcoming court proceedings, and keeping track of scheduled meetings with your clients
• Organizing documents—Another responsibility a Legal VA may have is to carefully organize all your legal files, court documents, and relevant records, making them easy to find and reference at any time
• Conducting legal research—A VA in this position can also be tasked with researching particular legal topics and finding answers to furtive legal questions pertinent to the cases you are currently working on
• Transcribing recordings—Memorizing the content of all the proceedings and court hearings word-by-word is almost impossible. Having a VA can come in handy in such cases, as they can transcribe recordings of these events, saving you precious time on an otherwise lengthy task

How Much Does It Cost To Hire a Legal Virtual Assistant?

Virtual Assistants set their own rates, which may range from $10 for simple menial tasks to over $100+ for specialized tasks. 

A Virtual Assistant’s salary depends on a variety of factors, such as their education, work experience, qualifications, geographical location, market rate, and their general knowledge of the legal profession. 

The average annual salary for a Legal Virtual Assistant in the U.S. is $46,672, as reported by ZipRecruiter.

The main benefit to hiring a Legal Virtual Assistant over a full-time employee is the comparatively low cost. VAs don’t receive a regular monthly salary—you pay them either by the hour or per completed project. 

This makes them ideal for performing tasks that don’t necessitate a full 8-hour work day, potentially saving you loads of money in the process. Also, you don’t need to provide them with any benefits that your in-house employees are entitled to, including PTO days, sick leave, vacations, and similar perks.

Expert Tips on Hiring a Legal Virtual Assistant

While hiring a Legal Virtual Assistant is quite cost-efficient, you should be aware that the road to getting a top-performing professional can be a bit rockier. They have to be skilled enough to perform tasks efficiently and with minimum supervision. You also need someone whom you can entrust with sensitive information regarding your company’s internal processes.

Below are some tips for hiring a qualified Legal Virtual Assistant:

1. Create a super-specific job ad—To get the type of legal professional you need for your business, you need to create an in-depth job description that contains precise information regarding the responsibilities and requirements of the role. This means you should state the preferred education degree, the necessary experience, technical skills, and any legal credentials you deem essential for successful performance
2. Test and evaluate a significant number of candidates—To increase your odds of landing the best possible candidate, you shouldn’t hire the first applicant with a decent resume. It is necessary to explore farther afield and test and assess numerous candidates before making your final decision on who to hire
3. Don’t let low pay rates be the deciding factor—How much a VA costs should never be your top priority. It doesn’t mean you’ll get high returns on your investment just because a VA is offering their services at more-than-affordable rates. The candidate could also lack the vital skills or knowledge to contribute to your company. For this reason, you should strive to hire the most competent and qualified Legal VA on the market, even if they come at a significantly higher cost

Finding a top-tier Virtual Assistant can be a nightmare if you choose to do everything manually—it will empty your pockets and slow down your business. The solution to this issue is Workello—a fully automated applicant tracking system created to make the hiring process simpler by filtering out unsuitable candidates and helping you find the ideal match for your business!

Hire a Reliable Legal Virtual Assistant Faster

You can think of Workello as the perfect virtual hiring assistant. Our fully automated hiring funnel is the product of countless hours, over $100,000, and dozens of iterations. With Workello, you can automate testing, scheduling, and email correspondence with candidates so you can focus on scaling your business and maximizing revenue.

Here’s how Workello makes hiring Legal Virtual Assistants a breeze:

1. Sign up for a free Workello account and launch your automated, pre-configured hiring funnel in less than 3 minutes
2. Post your job ads across LinkedIn, Monster, Facebook, Indeed, and all your other hiring channels and link to your Workello job ad
3. See all your candidates in a single, unified Workello dashboard, regardless of which hiring channel they applied from
4. Reject, test, interview, and send offers to [keyword] Virtual Assistants with a single click
5. Filter out unqualified candidates with Workello’s built-in testing feature
6. Trigger automated emails and move candidates through your hiring funnel simply by changing their status from a drop-down menu
7. Minimize transactional questions by enabling candidates to see a live status page that tells them exactly which stage of your hiring funnel they are in

Don’t waste hundreds of hours looking for a perfect Legal VA that’s supposed to save you valuable time. Set up a fully automated hiring funnel with Workello, cut your hiring costs by 50%, and start accepting ideal candidates today!

Sign up now and review 5 Legal VA tests for free.