No longer will you waste time formatting a document or making simple additions and changes. The Virtual Assistant can fix your documents and email them back right away – saving you time and frustration.

It was closing day: there were last minute changes to the Asset Purchase Agreement before meeting with the vendor's team. My secretary was sick. What I thought were simple additions and changes to the Agreement were not so. The text jumped around inexplicably with every revision, and in my frantic attempts to justify the text the fonts switched repeatedly, the numbering changed its sequencing and the alignment shifted back - all seemingly with a mind of its own. I was desperate.

So began my relationship with my VA (Virtual Assistant): a card in my Roladex that I was sure I'd never need. She gave me an instant solution. I noted the changes on the agreement, faxed them, and emailed the troublesome text. As instantaneously as if my secretary had been there, the amended agreement was sitting in my Inbox ready to print in quadruplicate. It was that easy.

That was just a start – it opened up a new world. "How about the unreached overflow, the delayed reporting letter, the post-closing undertakings to track, the wills, the reports, and the agreements?" At that moment our lives had turned around and we had back-up.

The VA can be a life-saver, and can relieve the stress of ballooning workflow. An established VA relationship will ensure more consistent full-time, part-time, temporary or supplementary help, and will reduce the high cost of hiring and instructing short-term and temporary staffing solutions. You will be working in the crisis with someone who has an existing working relationship with you. Appropriately assigned work sent to a VA can help both you, and any in-office legal assistant, to handle successfully the work load variables with ultimate flexibility. You have spontaneous additional help without the overhead costs, and without the hassle of orientation of temps.

As with all prospective employees, VA's come with various expertise and professional experience. This article provides some guidance on how to find one, how to select one, how to work with one, and what a VA can do for you together with some collective experience from professionals who provide VA services, and the clients - lawyers who rely on them.

How do I find VA services?

As with employees, word of mouth and recommendation is the best referral. In the absence of a personal referral, The Canadian Virtual Assistant network hasa directory members with contact information description of available services offered. If you would rather have a VA contact you, there is a Request For Proposal (RFP) form where you can outline the services you are looking for and your request will be distributed to all member VA's. Those who provide that service and are available will contact you. A Google search of "Virtual Assistant" will turn up similar organizations.

How do I choose the right VA for me?

This process is no different from hiring in-house staff, except you will likely not meet in person. If you've sent out an RFP, only qualified applicants should respond. The interview process is generally conducted by phone, although Skype and a videocam will allow you to meet, and work, face to face using the computer. The VA need not be in the same city. You would ask similar questions as for any potential staffing interview, ask for sample work, ask for references, and likely give a test of ability. You should visit the VA's website to see what services are offered. This will be a working relationship, so you should look for someone with a compatible style to your own, and your goal is to establish a sound working partnership wherein your VA can actually anticipate your needs just like your in-house secretary.

What technology do I need to work with a VA?

This is as personal as working with your secretary or a temp, except that in most cases the physical files need never leave your office. Information can be sent to your VA by courier, email or fax. This works well for much of the routine work such as agreements and wills. You can burn a CD with your models, and provide this to your VA as a reference source. You can work in certain areas of practice, such as corporate, litigation and real estate, through web-based programs, such as LawyerDoneDeal, in which your VA does the work on the web site, and you pick it up and print it directly off the provider's site.

If your VA is your primary assistant (or is your secretary who would like to work from home sometimes) you can consider setting up direct access to the secretarial computer, or to selected files, using encrypted remote access tools such as PCAnywhere, RemotePC, GoToMyPC or WebEx. Dictation on audio files can be on tape, on CD, or emailed in a .wav or MP3 format. Web-based programs such as the LawyerDoneDeal and the electronic Teranet registry system can be set up to permit work done off-site that you can then access from your office to complete the closing. Software, such as The Conveyancer, can be purchased for your VA's computer. Turn around time can be as quick as if done on site. You can utilize Skype to videoconference with your VA from anywhere, for free – a system that allows you to indicate your availability, or to "virtually" close your office door by providing the indication that you are not available for Skype.

How do I explain the task to my VA?

Clear communications are essential for your assistants who are off-site. Follow up verbal instructions with an email to ensure that you are on the same wavelength. Never assume that your VA "understands" what you want. Having a new VA is no different from starting with a new staff member in the office. In addition, as the file is probably in your office, and the precedents and models are also in your office, the VA has no resources to refer to. Provide resources and models wherever possible. Breaking down the task into distinct stages that must be checked before proceeding to the next, especially early in your relationship, allows you to be sure that there are no misunderstandings before the work and time committed has progressed too far off track. Misunderstandings, when working at a distance, happen more easily. When on-site, new staff has access to you and other staff to ask questions. A VA needs equivalent access to you, or to a knowledgeable person in your office. As with all staff, the more you work together, the less likely misunderstandings are to happen, but there will be an initial learning curve.

What can the VA do for me?

Depending on the VA you hire and his or her experience, a VA can do for you just about everything someone in-house can do...although hot coffee to your desk is a challenge! - So are photocopying tasks required to be performed in-house? Even with full time in-house assistant, there will be times when the work load is just too great to be done in a timely manner. In that case, you could have your assistant off-load work to a VA, thereby keeping the more time-sensitive issues in house while the less time-sensitive matters outsourced. It's also an idea if you are extremely busy to have 2 or 3 VA's on hand in case your primary VA isn't available at any given time. Also, since different people come with different skill sets, you may need to look to more than one VA satisfy varied requirements.

What tasks can I assign to my VA?

To answer this we thought it would be interesting to canvass some VAs and the lawyers that they assist, to see how they made the process work. Here are some tasks in the responses we received as from VAs:

• Prepare wills, powers of attorney, corporate documents, agreements, legal forms, and court forms from precedents, digital dictation sent by .wav files, emails and fax;
• Attend at the court office to file documents;
• Attend at adjournments and to set trial dates;
• Liaise with Legal Aid and the Crown's office;
• Work on backlog in document production;
• Prepare accounts;
• Assemble the information (such as photos and documents) for evidence books;
• Complete reporting letters and post closing follow-ups using merge letters and a summary;
• Highlight the duplicate asset purchase books and discoveries;
• Transcribe the recording of meetings;
• Attend at discoveries to take notes and to transcribe;
• Answer forwarded phones, arrange for courier pickups and deliveries, make travel arrangements, and order supplies.

What do the lawyers say about using VA services?

Lawyers told us that a good VA saves time and money, and can be a tremendous asset. For the larger firms, VA's can provide additional support at peak times without need to pay for temp services, and can avoid the time and cost to orient personnel to the firm layout, equipment, systems and procedures. The overhead cost of a VA is based on use, and that means overhead then more closely follows the billable work product. An ideal VA can include former and retired staff who already "know the ropes" at the firm, and are prepared to work at home.

So are you ready to hire a VA?

Websites for more information about the technology referred to in this article:

Skype
www.skype.com

PCAnywhere
www.symantec.com/pcanywhere/Consumer/

RemotePC
www.remotepc.com

GoToMyPC
www.gotomypc.com

WebEx. 
www.webex.com/

.wav and MP3 formats include:
Monkey's Audio, TTA, WavPack, FLAC, Shorten, Apple Lossless and WMA Lossless.