Virtual Back Office: Supporting the Specific Needs of the Legal Profession
The concept of a virtual back office has been around for years. And with the latest global events, it has become more common for organizations to work remotely – including industries and organizations that may have been resistant to this structure in the past. Law firms, corporate legal departments, and other highly-regulated industries have particular needs for privacy and confidentiality that have traditionally hampered their move to virtual support. And further, they have specific back office support requirements that demand legal expertise, as well as general business support, in order to run effectively.
The back office is critical to streamlining necessary business activities and keeping day-to-day operations moving forward. So it is imperative to have efficient processes in place when working virtually. This includes communications, workflows, people management, status reports, and any other tools/functions that would be used in an office setting and must be securely accessed in the cloud or a shared environment for the virtual back office to operate effectively.
Having those functions in place and easily accessible allows the team to work on the usual daily tasks seamlessly. The legal back office is then able to:
- Manage calendar events, schedule, track, and re-schedule as needed
- Prepare case related correspondence and docase/practice management support, including transcription and deposition summaries
- Prepare standard documents using an example document or case guidelines
- Manage the law library and execute searches within databases to gather and report information
- Analyze case documents, capture key information, and format documents for expedited analysis
- Maintain legal billing processes, QA timesheets and invoices, markup invoices, and ensure compliance with outside counsel guidelines
- Organize client workflow and input new client information (for law firms, service organizations)
- Prepare daily, weekly, or monthly reports detailing billable hours (for law firms, service organizations)
Utilizing virtual back office and paralegal support will help maintain day-to-day business functions and can reduce the cost of these important support activities. If your organization is in need of outside and efficient support for your team to continue it’s productivity, contact Baer Reed’s legal back office support team today.
- On May 22, 2020
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