A Legal VA is a specialized Virtual Assistant (“VA”) that works primarily in a virtual capacity (or freelance) for attorneys. A Legal VA can provide services as diverse as phone answering services to legal research and writing, and just about everything in between.
Legal VAs are a smaller niche market, but are beginning to find their “voice”. More and more attorneys are learning that hiring a Legal VA can be a great asset, whether they need to have full support, or just supplement their staff.
Dana Fortier, Owner and Founder of Fortier Business Solutions, began her professional career at the age of 16 working in a boutique law firm in Oklahoma City, OK. There, she fell in love with the law and its “order”.
After working in that law firm through high school and into college, she attained her Organizational Management degree and continued her career as a legal assistant and finally as a litigation department supervisor after moving to Michigan in 1995.
In her tenure as the litigation department supervisor for a large, national law firm that specialized in debtor-creditor law, she implemented practices, policies and procedures that streamlined efficiency in the department, provided structure for the staff and attorneys, and also cut costs in several ways. First, the staff was entirely cross-trained so that if there was an absence for one day up to several weeks, the staff was able to pull together and complete the assignments needed without having to bring on temporary office staff. Second, she developed a procedure for systemizing court filings, reducing the late fees historically associated with this particular filing, and creating a 40% reduction in these late fees. This resulted in mid-year bonuses for the staff, which was unheard of in the history of the firm.
Taking these abilities into the virtual world has been the next organic step in Dana’s career. In her Legal VA service, Dana works closely with her clients to organize their projects, ensure rapid and successful completion of all project components and close monitoring and supervision – always keeping an eye on confidentiality and the bottom-line.
In September 2008, Dana created The Academy for Legal Virtual Assistance, which is a web-based training program designed to train virtual assistants to work virtually with attorneys, and to also train legal assistants who desire to work virtually with attorneys.
