Outsource Paralegal Services
An effective method to improve your Law firm
Law firm owners are constantly being forced to search for ways to increase business efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance client service. All this while staying up-to-date with trends and marketing, planning, and practicing law on top, so they can stand out among competitors. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, which is a red flag for any worker, especially if this is an ongoing feeling. That is why legal assistants, who help lawyers perform their duties, are becoming more and more prized in the legal market. In this case, we are talking about Paralegals.
Paralegals can be very valuable assets to any legal working team, as they engage in a number of necessary activities that benefit both clients and law firms.
However, given the chance that you are a small law firm or a solo practitioner, hiring paralegal services can be out of your league. In this article, we aim to provide you with an interesting solution if this is your case.
But first things first, let’s go into the basic concepts related to this subject.
What are Paralegal Services? Why are they necessary for your law firm?
A paralegal is a non-lawyer worker who provides legal services. They are qualified to perform substantive legal work through a combination of education, training, or work experience.
They assist lawyers or law firms with their clients’ cases, performing a variety of tasks to support them. In case this brief description comes across as not too much work, here is a summary of the many duties they have, as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics states:
- Investigate and gather the facts of a case.
- Conduct research on relevant laws, regulations, and legal articles.
- Organize and maintain documents for lawyer review and case preparation.
- Write or summarize reports to help lawyers prepare for trials.Write or summarize reports to help lawyers prepare for trials.
- Draft correspondence and legal documents, such as contracts and mortgages.
- Get affidavits and other formal statements that may be used as evidence in court.
- Help lawyers during trials by handling exhibits, taking notes, or reviewing trial transcripts.
- File exhibits, briefs, appeals, and other legal documents with the court or opposing counsel.
- Call clients, witnesses, lawyers, and outside vendors to schedule interviews, meetings, and depositions.
As you can see, their work is very useful for lawyers to manage their cases and keep track of legal documentation. In short, they often make the work of lawyers easier.
According to Amatacorp, the use of paralegal services has increased in recent years inside the legal industry, as the latter has also become dramatically more competitive.
As such, the need for this kind of qualified support staff has never been greater.
What Statistics Say
Statista shows that just in 2022, there were approximately 345,000 paralegals and legal assistants working in the United States. In the same year, employees in that occupation earned a mean annual wage of almost 63,000 U.S. dollars.
This means that the demand for paralegal services will only increase over time. In addition, their job allows for a very efficient way to get the assistance that you need without the overhead and expense of a full-time employee.
This can become crucial for small law firms or solo practitioners, who usually do not have the budget necessary to hire an entire team of full-time members.
Law firm owners are constantly being forced to search for ways to increase business efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance client service. All this while staying up-to-date with trends and marketing, so they can stand out among competitors. It is easy to feel a bit overwhelmed and as if you are drowning with no chance to breathe.
Outsourcing services
As stated above, the legal industry is highly competitive and fast-paced, and you need to seek ways to improve your legal services on a day-to-day basis.
Additionally, the demands of modern legal departments tend to fluctuate based on any number of factors in play at any given moment. This results in the need for certain flexibility when making staffing choices.
Among lawyers, one possible solution is the outsourcing of paralegal services. This method has been gaining popularity, too.
Basically, outsourcing allows firms to tap into the expertise of skilled professionals while minimizing overhead expenses.
By partnering with third-party paralegal service providers, law firms can streamline their operations and devote more time to core legal activities.
Why Outsource Paralegal Services?
According to Raad Ahmed in an article for Forbes, when law firms and businesses are considering their paralegal needs, a host of factors must be weighed.
Every law firm has different legal needs at different times, which is why determining how many paralegals to have on your staff becomes a difficult task.
Also, if paralegals take temporary leaves, it is incredibly hard to find a temporary replacement to fill the staffing gap. This gets solved through outsourcing, as you will not have to worry about meeting staffing needs in a way that makes sense for each unique law firm.
Ahmed states that some companies have found that outsourcing all of their paralegal needs works better for their staffing needs and bottom line. Especially for small law firms, as it may not make sense to keep even a single paralegal on staff full time.
Other Benefits of Outsourcing Paralegal Services
- 💰Cost Savings: As I previously mentioned, the need for outsourcing has its roots in seeking ways to improve business efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance client service. Well, the first check goes with cost savings.
Hiring in-house paralegals comes with significant overhead costs, including salaries, benefits, office space, and equipment expenses. By outsourcing these services, you will eliminate these expenses, allowing law firms to redirect resources and save their budget for other crucial areas such as client acquisition, case preparation, and litigation.
2. 📊📈Access to expertise: Outsourced paralegal services often offer access to experienced professionals who possess expert knowledge in a number of legal areas. These providers often have a dedicated team of paralegals proficient in, for example, legal research, legal document preparation, court pleading drafting, or assisting with case management.
By outsourcing these services, you also outsource these tasks to specialists, and you can benefit from the insights and skills of experts without needing continuous training and development.
3. 📅 Flexibility: As law firms experience fluctuations and their paralegal needs may change according to legal needs at different times, having a flexible workforce becomes very significant.
Outsourcing paralegal services provides the scalability required to meet the ever-changing demands of casework. These service providers often allow for increasing or decreasing the number of paralegals involved in a particular project. This will ensure that law firms can fulfill clients requirements efficiently.
4. 📈Efficiency: Outsourced paralegals are often equipped with the latest legal research tools and technologies; this also checks out another of the demands you were seeking in the first place: staying up-to-date on a daily basis. This enables them to work more efficiently and deliver quicker results.
By handling repetitive, monotonous, and time-consuming tasks such as document review or legal research, paralegal services free up lawyers’ time, allowing them to focus on more critical, strategic activities for the benefit of their law firms.
Introducing Legal27: A Receptionist Team
While outsourcing paralegal services can significantly improve a law firm’s operations, integrating an AI-driven receptionist team can further enhance your efficiency and productivity.
Legal27, an intelligent virtual receptionist team specifically tailored for lawyers, is designed to assist law firms with their daily administrative tasks, freeing up your time to focus on more essential legal core duties.
Some of the services that Legal27 provides are:
✅ Appointment scheduling: The receptionist team can efficiently manage your firm’s appointments, ensuring scheduling that syncs directly with your working calendar. Thus, you can save valuable time and avoid scheduling conflicts.
✅Call Management: Legal27 can handle incoming calls, identifying their purpose, addressing the need for information, and providing it based on the client’s inquiries.
✅Client Intake: The team can collect and organize client information, reducing administrative burdens for you and your associates and ensuring the accuracy of data collection.
✅24/7 availability: Legal27 provides a highly proficient service of understanding, handling, and managing your client’s queries 24 hours a day. It will also never call in sick, making sure you never, ever miss a call from anywhere. The AI-driven receptionist is available round-the-clock!
Contact us today to learn more about our AI-based receptionist services and how we can help your law firm operate more efficiently.
