Just because you are a solo lawyer doesn’t mean that you’re on your own. Outsourcing certain tasks can be huge for your practice!
It doesn’t matter if you’re running a solo law firm or a partner at a large practice, owning and controlling a law firm is time-consuming work. Many lawyers struggle because while they know how to provide great service to their clients, they don’t have a strong handle on other essential business tasks. Most law schools don’t teach those skills!
But that’s okay, you don’t need to an expert in everything. Your time is your most precious commodity and you don’t need to be spending every waking moment trying to master every single skill needed to run a practice. It is better spent on what you do best, practicing law!
Outsourcing the following tasks is going to be in your best interest and it won’t cost an arm and a leg. Follow this article to learn more about how outsourcing those time-consuming yet essential tasks are in your firm’s best interest.
Bookkeeping
Accounting, bookkeeping, and taxes are the foundation of every single business out there, including yours. Even though they have little to do with your actual growth, ignoring them is not an option. Just ask anyone who messed up when balancing the books or forgot to send their taxes in on time!
Accounting and bookkeeping aren’t easy, especially for those of us that aren’t mathematically gifted. Don’t run the risk of botching your numbers and getting into serious financial trouble. Let an expert keep track of your finances so you can focus on providing exceptional service to your law firm’s clients.
Creating Content
Content creation is an essential part of getting new clients and growing your firm’s brand. It’s why people write blog content, start podcasts, and video series. This content feeds the marketing machine, helps you to rank higher in search results, and shows that you know what you’re talking about. Without these forms of content, it can be hard to get qualified leads.
But creating content is not just as simple as writing some words on a doc and posting it online. You need to understand how to optimize content for SEO, create feature images, design and add CTA’s, hyperlink text and so much more. Learning how to do all of these things will take tons of time.
By outsourcing content creation for things like blogs, infographics, videos, you can have confidence that your content will attract new clients without costing you a lifetime deciphering that marketing puzzle.
IT
Everyone needs IT support, not just big companies that have tons of data to protect. Most much of today’s work and sensitive data takes place online, and with the level of privacy required for lawyers, it’s essential for practically every firm.
Email, site server protection, safe document sharing measures, and payment protections are essential items that will probably require some level of IT support. Sadly, cybercriminals know that lawyers hold a lot of valuable and private data, so they are often targets for hackers. You need strong digital protection and be ahead of network maintenance issues so you don’t find yourself dealing with a cyberattack clean up later.
Social Media
If you hope to get clients from social media and grow your brand online, you have to constantly post reliable content and be active in conversations. You need to respond to messages and comments from your followers and friends. Otherwise, people will think you’re a robot, and guess what, people want to work with other people, not robots!
The more social media profiles you use for your practice, the more time-consuming it becomes. Just think about how easy it is to get distracted on Facebook or Twitter, now imagine managing five or six different channels. Next thing you know you will have spent all afternoon just posting or responding to comments and nothing else!
Instead, outsource to a marketer who understands your brand and knows how to best speak on behalf of your practice. Save yourself the time and sanity, your practice and productivity will thank you for it
Time Management
Remember nothing is more important than your time, no matter if you bill at $100/hour or $1000/hour. One task that can take up hours upon hours of your time is communicating with leads and scheduling meetings, consultations, calls, etc.
One way to get around this is to hire a virtual assistant or paralegal to do this for you. Pairing them with a calendar management tool will make it easy for them to schedule these events for you, helping you stay organized and focused on the most important things.
Scheduling meetings are not the only things a virtual assistant can help with. They can write emails on your behalf, answer phones, organize your contact lists and leads, write and send handwritten letters, and much much more. A good virtual assistant or paralegal will keep you on task, free up a ton of your time and help boost your firm’s bottom line.
