Virtual Assistants for Legal Research: Your Ultimate Guide

The legal field is both complex and rewarding, but it’s also incredibly competitive. With highly attractive year-on-year growth expected for the industry, competition is only going to get fiercer. This is why you need to start thinking differently to keep ahead of your competitors. Small gains can make a big difference, so you need to know how to achieve this. And one of the simplest ways to do this is by employing virtual assistants for legal research.

Transforming Business Practices with Virtual Assistants

Yes, that’s right, you can bring in virtual assistants for legal research and race in front of your competition. But let’s just back up a bit first. After all, not many business owners have even heard of virtual assistants. Therefore, we need to explain exactly what a virtual assistant is.

We all know the typical makeup of a law firm, it’s a business populated with legal professionals and legal assistants. Coming together, each day, in the same building, they can liaise together and make coffee for each other. It’s been this way for many, many decades, and it clearly works. But surely it can be done differently. After all this time, with all these advances in technology, there must have been some progress.

As with many aspects of the modern world, the internet has provided that progress. With the numerous advantages made in internet technology over the last 20 years, even an average-speed internet connection should allow you to work from home in 2024. In fact, remote working has been a viable prospect for the last 15 years, with a significant upturn in popularity around five years ago. However, remote working and virtual assistants truly started hitting the headlines during the pandemic, when their very definition made them perfect for the restrictions in place.

So, a virtual assistant can work for your legal firm remotely. As long as they have an internet connection, a PC, and a set of login credentials, they can seamlessly connect with your IT infrastructure. This means they can access your email inboxes, databases, telephone systems, and anything else your in-house staff can do. And it can all be done from anywhere in the world. No longer do you have to rely on a limited number of staff in your local area, you now have a global choice.

What Can Virtual Legal Assistants Do for Your Business?

Before you approach a VA agency to bring in virtual assistants for legal research, you need to understand what these assistants can do for you on a daily basis. This is key for executing a successful business decision, so let’s look at the tasks they can tackle:

Conducting Case Law Searches: Researching case law can be complex and very time-consuming, and legal professionals simply don’t have the time and resources to allocate to it. But if you bring in virtual assistants for legal research, you can delegate this duty to them. They can dedicate their time to searching legal databases for the relevant case laws, create a summary of the key points, and deliver this to their legal professionals.

Performing Regulatory Research:

Unless you want to face hefty penalties, compliance is crucial within the legal industry. Keeping up to date, however, with all the relevant statutes and regulations is a tall order. Luckily, a virtual assistant can be drafted into your legal firm to research and detail all the applicable statutes and regulations for your cases.

Summarizing Legal Precedents for Cases:

A virtual assistant has the time and skills to review past judicial decisions that are relevant to the specific cases your legal team has taken on. As well as researching these legal precedents, they can summarize the key points and ensure your legal professionals receive a comprehensive report. This helps your team understand how similar cases were tackled and develop effective strategies for success.

Helping with Due Diligence Reports:

With virtual assistants for legal research on your team, you can ensure due diligence processes are successfully handled. Virtual assistants can gather and analyze critical information during due diligence investigations e.g. assessing liabilities and reviewing contracts. This research allows you to compile a comprehensive understanding of potential issues before making decisions.

Gathering Legal Literature:

Burnout is a major problem for legal professionals, and it’s not helped by the sheer demands of researching case information through legal articles and publications. Luckily, virtual assistants can be drafted in to take this off their hands. They can quickly gather the relevant legal literature together. This saves your professionals significant time and provides them the information they need to support their cases.

Managing Legal Citations and References:

Virtual assistants can research and produce an organized database of legal citations and references, ensuring accuracy and accessibility. Thanks to their attention to detail, virtual assistants can meticulously index these materials, allowing quick retrieval for legal professionals. This service supports the overall efficiency and effectiveness of legal documentation and case preparation by your firm.

Tracking Case Progress:

You can rely on virtual assistants to monitor the status of ongoing cases, keeping detailed records of all developments. This allows them to keep your team updated on critical deadlines for filings, motions, and that court appearances are met, providing reminders and updates to legal teams. This helps prevent missed deadlines and maintains efficient case management.

The Benefits of Virtual Assistants for Legal Research

Hiring a virtual assistant from a VA agency can clearly do a lot for your daily operations, but what are the overall benefits they can bring your business? Thankfully, Pineapple is a VA agency with the answers, so here they are:

Cost Savings:

Virtual assistants offer significant financial savings as they are employed on short-term contracts through a VA agency. There's no need for sickness pay, vacation pay, or pension contributions. And with wages around $8 per hour, they can save businesses up to $11,000 per year compared to an in-house assistant.

24/7 Coverage:

The legal industry never sleeps, but it’s important that your team does. The long hours of the legal world, however, make this difficult. Luckily, the global positioning of virtual assistants means they’re often located in different time-zones. This means they can cover shifts which, for your local staff, are anti-social and classed as out of hours. This allows your firm to be responsive at all times and enhance client satisfaction.

Maximize Productivity:

Virtual assistants can take over routine tasks such as schedule management, research tasks and emails, streamlining your workflow. This allows your in-house team to focus on core responsibilities like customer interactions and team management, ensuring your business can efficiently meet demand.

Scalability:

Depending on your business activity, you may need to bring in additional help at times. And this is the very definition of what virtual assistants for legal research can offer. If, for example, you have a large number of cases on your hand, you’re going to need additional help for research. Virtual assistants are available at short notice and don’t come with lengthy notice periods attached.

It’s Time for a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants open a whole new world of productivity and benefits for legal firms. All you need to do is find the right VA agency. And you already have: Pineapple.

With a rich experience in the virtual assistant industry, we can connect you with the perfect virtual assistants for legal research for just $8 per hour. Regardless of the type of legal virtual assistant you need, we guarantee that we will find one who can seamlessly fit within your business. To find out more, just click here and start chatting to us.