Downsizing

I have downsized.

Oh, I don’t mean my paycheck, although for the time being while I’m getting my business going, that’s true too. (Just you wait . . . I’ll be back making the medium bucks again any time now!)

No, I mean I’ve downsized in terms of the size of the offices I work with, and the size of the cases I work on. It’s still a novelty!

In BigLaw in recent years, I tended to work on mega-cases. There were armies of attorneys to respond to, scads of money at stake, and boatloads of documents to manage, and filings and deadlines to track. There were always ten plates spinning at once.

Which isn’t to say I don’t have ten plates spinning at once now – often I do. But they’re my plates, not the plates spun off by the decisions of others, which I must nonetheless keep in the air somehow.

No, the offices I work with now as a virtual paralegal tend to be small. I work with solo practitioners, for the most part. They may or may not have on-site staff, and they may or may not have permanent office space.

Because my clients have smaller offices themselves, they tend to handle matters that are somewhat less document intensive than those I've handled in the past. They tend to use different technology than that which I had become accustomed to in recent years. I work more with PDF document compilations, and less with Concordance databases, for example. I prepare document productions in the hundreds (or maybe low thousands) of pages, rather than in the tens of thousands.

But these are minor differences - differences of detail rather than substance.

In fact, now more than ever I am often called upon to figure out the most efficient way to accomplish a project with available resources and my own two hands and the small-office technology at my disposal, with no Litigation Support personnel to fall back on for getting a project done. This satisfies my practical nature.

Case size and technology may have downsized, but professionalism certainly has not. With my attorney clients, the quality of the work is just as painstaking, and the expectations of excellence are just as high as they were when I worked at larger firms. This satisfies my perfectionist nature.

There is a different “office” dynamic as well. (Yes, in an odd way my attorney clients and I do make up an "office.") There are fewer layers of approval to work one’s way through than in large offices. I find that communication is more direct, and the sense of partnership I feel with my clients is more pronounced. This satisfies my collaborative nature.

So you see, in my world, downsizing has been a very good thing!

Vacation Season's Here At Last!

Oh wait . . are you kidding?!? Not for me! I’m teaching all summer long – our program doesn’t take a summer break! So me, I’ll likely be plugging along at my own office desk through the variably hot, mild or overcast summer weather of beautiful Sonoma County where I live.

Vacation Snorkeling!

But for much of the working western world, it’s that time when employees begin pondering escape from the proverbial rat race for their much anticipated vacations.

Although I’ve always been more of a spring/fall traveler, myself.

An interesting article got tweeted recently which stimulated this train of thought: Should you contact that vacationing employee? The article gives what seems to me to be quite prudent advice to an employer about how to decide when it’s appropriate to interrupt an employee on vacation.

During my many years of law firm employment, I’ve run the gamut on this one. I have indeed been phoned while on vacation. I’ve been phoned at 10 pm. I’ve been called into the office on a Saturday afternoon to fix something that went awry. I didn’t really begrudge these interruptions to my non-work life – in most cases, they were legitimate emergencies.

That said, I have a confession to make. Historically, I have been a bit rebellious on this topic!

Don’t get me wrong. I do not endorse rebellion in law firms. It is generally a poor strategy for maintaining gainful employment. But truth be told, I have not always been docile and compliant when it came to making myself available during non-work hours, including but not limited to vacations.

There was a particular small law firm in my past, with a particular beloved attorney (No, really! I was fond of her! Honest!) who was notorious for . . . how shall we put this . . . neglecting certain boundaries. For example, she was prone to sitting at her desk and hollering my name when she needed something, causing me to stop what I was doing, get up from my desk, and walk into her office to say, “What?” Rather like my mother used to do, and evoking a startlingly similar emotional response.

Now granted, she probably thought it was silly to pick up the phone and call me when I was right next door. And maybe that’s true. I dunno . . you pick your poison.

She was also prone to phoning me (if I wasn't within hollering distance, that is) in “dire emergencies.” Such as not being able to find a piece of paper she suddenly needed.

Which was on her desk.

Which she was standing next to.

Knowing this, I once intentionally failed to leave my contact information when I went on a week-long vacation. (Note: This was before everyone and her brother had a cell phone.) I knew that while she may have had difficulty finding a document on her desk, she would have had no difficulty tracking down my phone number while I was travelling, if it was anywhere in the office. And I knew she would call me when she couldn’t find that piece of paper. Which was on her desk. Which she was standing next to.

And in fact, I learned upon my return that she had indeed asked others in the office for my contact number on that vacation when she couldn’t find something. But they didn’t have my contact information either. Woops! (It was a nice vacation :)

There was another law firm (this time in BigLaw) where, at a certain point due to a massive case I was managing, I was offered a firm Crackberry Blackberry.

And I refused. (GASP!) 

Because I knew what would happen. I knew that notwithstanding all assurances that I truly wouldn’t be expected to be on call 24/7, in reality I would receive countless evening/middle of the night emails, to which I would be expected to reply. Those same attorneys who refrained from phoning me at 10 pm (thanks for that, guys!) would still have emailed me at all hours of the night, and would have stared hopefully, expectantly, at their own Crackberrys, anticipating my inevitable response.

And if I failed to respond, you can bet I would have heard about it.

So I politely declined, and they didn't force me to carry one. (Thanks for that too, guys!) And lo and behold, the world kept turning, and the case was (ultimately) successful anyway.

It may seem by this that I’m advocating a refusal on the part of staff to make themselves available to their attorneys in off-hours times of need, and I’m really not. There are times when things go wrong after hours, or even, heaven forefend, in the middle of a vacation, and the team player is willing to help out.

No, I’m simply advocating establishing some reasonable boundaries to our personal lives, and assisting our bosses in respecting them.

After all, we all need a little vacation now and then!

Of Matriculation and Minefields

Well, there was a little flap in the legal twitterverse and blogosphere last week with what was widely perceived to be a quite ill-informed attack on paralegals over at ATL. A number of my colleagues have responded to this admirably in their own blogs here, here and here, as well as in a large number of comments to the post, and I don’t want to rehash what’s already been very well said.

In fact, I hesitated to weigh in at all, as the post has probably already gotten more traffic than it deserves, except now that I'm teaching in one of the very degree programs the post is ridiculing, I guess I took the whole thing a little personally.

So . . . . I want to comment on two aspects of “paralegaldom”: education and appreciation.

The slender excuse for the slam on paralegals was an alleged question to ATL about the utility of an A.A. degree in Paralegal Studies. (I say alleged because who really seeks career advice from the notoriously snarky ATL? I've always assumed these “Pls hndle Thx” queries were made up – which if true, actually makes the meanness toward paralegals that much more gratuitous.)

So how about it? Exactly what kind of education does one need to be a good paralegal? All sorts of education plus a healthy dose of life experience might fit the bill, in my view.

Granted, there are some law firms and corporate legal departments that would not consider hiring a paralegal candidate who lacked a 4 year college degree.

However, that hiring stringency is by no means universal. There are lots of law firms out there who care more about law firm experience than educational credentials, and are hiring (when they hire, anyway . . . whole 'nother issue, that) candidates with Associate of Arts (i.e., A.A.) degrees, or even no post high school degrees at all.

In fact, I even see the occasional paralegal job posting insisting on a paralegal certificate (i.e., that same maligned A.A. degree) which suggests that my B.A. plus over 20 years' paralegal experience wouldn't be enough for them.

Which is just weird.

The point is, law firms evaluate their staffing needs, their clients and their firm culture, and make decisions about what sort of training they're looking for in their paralegal candidates.

In fact, in my state of California, the only state so far to legislate mandatory educational standards for paralegal*, an A.A. degree in an accredited paralegal program satisfies the statute’s requirements. As an instructor in an A.A. paralegal program, I can attest that when my students graduate, they will certainly know more about the legal system and the job skills needed by paralegals than I did when I entered the field and started my on-the-job training.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a BA myself (plus a few years of grad school to boot – I just couldn’t let go of being a student for a while.) I loved my field of study, and I believe my college education taught me how to research, how to write, and how to think critically – all necessary skills for a good litigation paralegal. But does anybody really think that my philosophy and literature courses actually directly prepared me for work as a paralegal?

I'm also in huge favor of paralegals gaining all the training and continuing legal education they can pack in, and taking advantage of the superb professional development and certification resources available to them.

That said, it seems there is this elitist view that a Bachelor’s Degree is inherently superior to any type of vocational training, and my question is, superior for what? This ridiculing of paralegal degree students - exactly as if a person actually desiring to pursue a course of study that would prepare her to . . . wait for it . . . be a paralegal is a thing worthy of scorn - makes me tired!

Can we all get along?

And finally, because I did say I would also comment on appreciation, I’d like to add that there are a lot of lawyers and law firms out there who appreciate paralegals and the value we bring to their practices and their clients. People who don’t view us as being at the low end of the law firm pecking order. People who appreciate the fact that we know Minesweeper is just about the lamest game on the planet.

(Oh wait . . . sorry to all you Minesweeper fans out there . . .)

So hats off to the lawyers who appreciate us, and let’s quit giving time, attention and precious RSS feed real estate to those who don’t!

* See Business & Professions Code §6450(c). In addition, the New Mexico Supreme Court, in its Rules Governing Paralegal Services, sets mandatory educational standards for paralegals. (Rule 20-115 NMRA.)

Terror and Exhilaration!

No folks, it’s not a roller coaster ride.

Did you know (well, how could you know?) that I used to beg my father to take me on roller coasters when I was very young? I loved 'em; I couldn't get enough of those nail-biting, scream-enducing amusement park rides!  But I digress.

No, the terror doesn't come from the standing up in front of a class of 12 and talking about Discovery. Perhaps that would frighten some, but for me that’s a piece of cake. In fact, it’s really fun. In fact, it’s the exhilarating part! It’s a huge rush, talking through my lesson, seeing comprehension on faces (or occasionally lack thereof), eliciting discussion, telling stories from my paralegal career and hearing the occasional chuckle.

The terror comes from my perfectionist nature. What if some student doesn’t do well? What if they appear to be tracking in class, but when it’s time to grade the assignments, it turns out they really aren't? What if they don’t like me? What if I’m not doing it right?

You know. Normal neurosis.

So I proceed through my week like this. I panic about how I’m going to fill up two hours in the next class. I go through the course curriculum and decide what material it makes sense to cover. I review the next class homework assignment to determine what I need to teach in order to prepare my students to succeed on it. And these decisions make me feel a bit better.

And then I talk through my lesson plan a time or two so I can create some memory of it. And then I feel a bit better still.

And then I show up in class, and work through my lesson, and answer questions, and ask questions, and finish the two hours. And it seems like it went well, and I feel great! On top of the world!

And then I start to worry about how they’ll do on the assignment, and about what I should have covered more thoroughly, and about how I’m going to pace out the rest of the sessions in the course, and about how the students will do on the final (you see, I do a lot of worrying about my students).

Until I’m panicked again.

So come to think of it, I guess it’s a bit like a roller coaster after all!

P.S. What in the world am I talking about, you ask? I’m teaching an evening Discovery course in the Paralegal Degree program at Empire College. About which I'm incredibly pleased, excited and proud! Albeit a bit terrified . . .

What's the Best Learning Environment for a Paralegal?

Question: What’s the best learning work environment for a litigation paralegal?

Answer: Any work environment can be an excellent learning experience – a paralegal just might learn different things in different settings.

Tiny firm. In my experience, this is the place that affords a paralegal the chance to perform the most substantive tasks. This happens because there are fewer hands to do the work, but that rarely translates into less work to do. So a paralegal might get a lot of experience drafting all manner of documents, interacting  with clients, and becoming a veritable jack-of-all-trades.

I cut my teeth in a pretty small law firm with 4 attorneys and about 8 staff. I drafted and answered discovery. I collected and reviewed documents. I created a calendaring system. I helped prepare for trial. Heck, I even assembled my own office furniture! It was a great opportunity to gain experience in every aspect of litigation.

Even the furniture assembly experience was not wasted!

Medium Firm. In medium firm settings, there may be fewer document drafting or client hand-holding opportunities, but there are greater resources and there are more hands to help.

I spent some years in a mid-sized firm of (if memory serves) about 65 lawyers in 3 offices. It was small enough to know everyone and to have a lot of firm-wide parties, but large enough to have more resources, such as an excellent library and librarian, daily court messenger runs, and training classes. I did a bit less document drafting and had a bit less contact with clients, and there was no furniture assembly. But I still did a lot of factual investigation, and document collection and review. And of course, lots of trial prep.

BigLaw. Then came my 10 years in BigLaw. In my experience, large law firms utilize paralegals differently than small firms do. They have armies of associates, which can mean that paralegals’ tasks are less substantive. I rarely drafted discovery responses for example, and had even less contact with clients.  With a couple of notable exceptions, I did less factual investigation too.

Oh, and no furniture assembly.

On the other hand, the cases were larger, there were many more documents involved (we’re talking millions of documents in some cases), and bigger attorney and paralegal teams. This required much greater management skills. As lead paralegal on my cases, I had to be the liaison between the attorneys and staff, to assign staff projects, and to supervise maintenance of a huge file and copious amounts of evidence. And there was still a great deal of trial prep.

Trial prep seems to be a given regardless of firm size.

Freelancing. Of course, now that I’m the self-employed owner of my own Virtual/Contract Paralegal biz, my duties have changed yet again. My litigation related tasks are extremely varied – from administrative duties such as invoicing, to hands-on tasks such as trips to the law and public libraries, to legal research, to drafting research memos, motions, declarations, etc., to discovery tasks such as document productions.

I find that I have a bit less in-depth knowledge of my clients’ cases, because I’m more likely to work on isolated projects than to run cases from start to finish. I have little or no direct contact with my clients’ clients.
And then there are all the other tasks related to running my biz, such as accounting, purchasing, IT, and marketing, marketing and more marketing. Even at my smallest law office, I wasn’t doing much of those tasks.

Oh, and I’m back to assembling my own office furniture. So it seems I have come full circle at last!

Guest Post: 6 Ways Reading Paralegal Blogs Can Make You a Better Paralegal

Paralegals work in an environment that is constantly changing and knowledge about technology innovations, new areas of opportunity, recent cases, and paralegal industry news can help paralegals stay ahead. Blogs written by experienced paralegals can be an excellent source of useful information that can help you be more effective at your job. Here are a few reasons why reading paralegal blogs can improve your paralegal career.

Learn what is going on inside other law firms

Whether you’re looking for your first gig, a new opportunity, or career development, reading a variety of paralegal blogs can give you an inside scoop on what is going on at law firms. You can learn what skills are in high demand at law firms or what trends are changing the environment or the role of paralegals.

Stay informed with changes in the industry

The latest cases, innovative ways to use technology, or industry news are often covered by the top paralegal blogs.

Learn career enhancing tips

Paralegal blogs can share useful tips on how to become more effective and more productive. For example Practical Paralegalism has the Top 10 Tips for Brand New Paralegals.

Learn from the experiences of other paralegals

Nobody can know the ins and outs of every situation, so what could be better than to become familiar with the many experiences of many different legal professionals? Some paralegal blogs also feature interviews of experienced and successful paralegals. You can find some great paralegal interviews at The Paralegal Mentor.

Get the insights you need to move up the ladder

The ability to show deep knowledge about the inner workings of the industry will put you  ahead of others when it comes time for a promotion or a move to a bigger and better law firm.

Expand your professional network

Paralegal blogs will expand your network of professionals who you can turn to for free consultation and career advice. You can often connect with paralegal bloggers on Twitter or LinkedIn.

This article is a guest post by Charles Sipe from Criminal Justice Degree Schools, a site providing information on paralegal degrees and schools. 

Charles offers some great reasons to read paralegal blogs! I was also interested to learn that Charles lives in Seattle, where I spent ten happy years, and I've enjoyed "chatting" with him via email as we prepared this guest post!

Stuff I Miss About BigLaw . . . and Stuff I Don't! (Plus, a Bonus)

No really! Quit laughing! There are things I miss about my life in BigLaw! Such as:

1.  I miss having all my MCLEs and training programs paid for by someone else.
2.  I miss having a team of staff to manage.
3.  I miss the opportunities to teach training programs.
4.  I miss the afternoon latte breaks. Note: there is no Peet's Coffee in walking distance of my home office :(
5.  I miss specific people. Attorneys I liked working with. Fellow staffers who were helpful, knowledgeable and a kick in the ass.
6.  I miss the Word Processing Department! (But now I’m oh-so-skilled at formatting those documents myself!)

Stuff I'm not missing even a little about my former life in BigLaw:

1.  I don't miss getting yelled at by attorneys. (Not that that ever happened . . . )

2.  I don’t miss the all-nighters. Thank god my current boss doesn't allow those. :P
3.  I don’t miss the commute. Not. One. Bit.
4.  I don’t miss the billable hour minimum.
5.  I don’t miss the terrible vending machine food in the lunch room.
6.  I don’t miss being stuck with the terrible vending machine food when I’m too busy to find something better to eat.

And as an added bonus, things I love about being a virtual paralegal:

1.  I love the variety of projects I work on – an even greater variety of work than I experienced in any one law firm.
2.  I love learning about the varied cases of my clients in different practice areas.
3.  I love not commuting! (See #3 above.)
4.  I love the flexibility to exercise and run errands in the middle of the day if I want to.
5.  I love the tremendous sense of ownership I have over every aspect of my work, now that I’m a business owner.
6.  I love the technology I utilize to work remotely.
7.  I love the ability to say NO, when no is the best thing for me or for my business.

8.  I love some of the things marketing a business compels me to do. Such as professional networking events, writing my newsletter, Twitter and blog reading as industry research.
9.  See how long this list is?

Things I love not so much about being a virtual paralegal:

1.  I don’t love the inconsistent cash flow.
2.  I don’t love all the annoying administrative details - business taxes, licenses, accounting.
3.  I don’t love some of the things marketing a business compels me to do. Such as cold – or even warm – calling, marketing ROI analysis, tooting my own horn.
4.  See how short this list is?

What do you love/love not so much about your work?

Method to My Madness: Getting More Done

Running my own business requires a different mindset about time management than that which served me as a law firm employee. I have many more tasks requiring my attention, and a different set of priorities. This has necessitated a "re-think" about the organization of my time.

As a paralegal in a law firm, my to-do list flowed from my case deadlines, and assignments from attorneys. After all, most case deadlines are pretty non-negotiable! That motion must get filed by this time on this date, and I must move heaven and earth to make that happen. And when a partner calls wanting something done, the only appropriate response is, “On it!”

Now as a virtual and freelance paralegal, I still have deadlines for case work assigned by my attorney clients. But on top of that, I also have a host of business related tasks I must perform. No matter how much client work I have in the pipeline (and I want to have a lot!), I ignore these other tasks at my peril, because my flow of future client work depends on them.

When I first started this business, I naturally used my old method of a long, daily list of to-dos, largely driven by external deadlines. But when I began adding those business and marketing related projects into this list, two things happened.

First, the list got overwhelmingly long!

But second and perhaps more problematic, because the business related tasks didn’t usually have the hard deadlines that the client projects did, they got shoved to the side. Or they led to a lot of disorganized and confusing “project jumping.” My sense of the priority of these business tasks was so subjective and fear driven, that I found myself switching from one thing to another to the point that little got done.

I needed a better way.

I've posted before about my realization that I need a strategy for prioritizing my to-dos. As my thinking has evolved – or perhaps as my frustration level has become unbearable – I’ve also realized I need a structure. Something to keep the daily list below 25 items. Or even if I'm using the post-it method (which is that your daily list has to fit on a post-it - see here), I need something to prevent those items that never make it onto the post-it from completely falling through the cracks.

So now I’m trying the “days of the week” method. In other words, categories of projects are assigned to different days of the week.

Now, some tasks need to be done every day. Like client work – I do whatever it takes to get it done, get it done well, and get it done on time. Also exercise – I really try to do this every day. Also Twitter, reading and commenting on blogs, and other social media activities – I spend time on them most days, although not the same amount of time each day. (Why waste time on this? See here and here.)

Another item I can’t assign a day to is in-person networking events. I see big benefits from these for my business, so I attend them whenever they occur and schedule everything else around them.

But the bigger biz-related projects? I’ve assigned them days. For example, I reserve the same day each week for working on my Newsletter. (Not a subscriber? See the sidebar!) I reserve a different day each week for article writing. And yet another day for my website. Etc.

What’s helpful about this is it thwarts my temptation to switch projects every time I get an idea. Say I get an incredibly great idea about organizing an article I’m writing. Typically I would start worrying about the article, and maybe I would even stop what I’m doing to work on it. But this way, I jot the idea down, tell myself I’ll flesh it out on my article writing day, and then continue what I was doing. Or suppose I get a sudden surge of panic that my newsletter isn't ready and it has to go out next week - OMG! I tell myself to relax, that I’ll finish it on my upcoming newsletter day. And I go on with what I’m doing.

Another benefit is that I can actually assure I will get to my accounting, and other administrative stuff! After all, I’ve reserved Mondays for that! It makes it much harder to come up with a convenient excuse to avoid working on that stuff I don't enjoy but need to to!

This method is working for me at the moment, and I find I’m managing to move more projects forward. How about you – what do you do about managing your to-do list?

Virtual Paralegals in Litigation Part 4: Trust!

Can a virtual paralegal benefit a solo or small office litigation practice? Absolutely! The purpose of this series is to discuss those benefits, and answer some of the questions litigators have about working with a virtual or remote working paralegal.

In recent posts I discussed a way to think about the title "virtual paralegal," the readily available technologies virtual paralegals use, and issues related to security and confidentiality.

Today we discuss another area to investigate when contemplating working with a virtual paralegal:

Trust. In all work relationships, trust takes time to build and develop. When attorneys hire permanent staff, they do their best to assure the new employee will be an asset to the team, and then take the time to get to know the employee's work first hand.

Of course, when a full time or contract paralegal works in house, the attorney can obverve his or her work ethic and output. But how does an attorney monitor a remote working paralegal?

First of all, every attorney contemplating hiring a paralegal, whether full time, contractor or remote working, inquires into the paralegal’s training, background, work history and references. In my home state of California, an attorney will also want to verify that the paralegal has met the training and continuing education standards required by Bus. & Prof. Code §6450.

As we discussed last time, all paralegals are bound by the same rules of professional conduct regarding client confidentiality that attorneys are. A qualified virtual paralegal selling services to attorneys knows this, and wants to protect the confidentiality of an attorney’s clients. Moreover, the virtual paralegal’s Contractor Agreement will no doubt address this issue.

In addition, a competent virtual paralegal will have enough work experience to provide a reasonably accurate estimate of the amount of time a given project will take. She or he will provide regular progress updates, and immediately advise an attorney client of the reasons for any delays or revisions to that estimate. A remote working paralegal’s business will suffer if she proves herself unable to perform the requested work in the allotted time frame.

Attorneys and firms will want to vet any virtual paralegal they are considering hiring. Perhaps they will even want to spend time developing a professional relationship prior to hire, or assign small jobs to see how the paralegal performs before entrusting her with major projects.

As with all other aspects of the working relationship, clear and frequent communication is the key to developing trust when working with a virtual paralegal. When each party communicates clearly about his or her expectations, the project instructions, and the progress being made, everyone wins.

And finally we come to the last question to consider in hiring remote working paralegals: Delegating suitable tasks. Tune back in next time in for Part 5.

Virtual Paralegals in Litigation Part 3: Confidentially Speaking

Can a virtual paralegal benefit a solo or small office litigation practice? Absolutely! The purpose of this series is to discuss those benefits, and answer some of the questions litigators have about working with a virtual or remote working paralegal.

In recent posts I discussed a way to think about the title "virtual paralegal," and the common, readily available technologies used in working with a virtual paralegal.

Today we discuss another area to investigate when contemplating working with a virtual paralegal:

Security and confidentiality. All attorneys have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure the security of all their clients’ confidential documents, as well as their own work product. They have a duty to strictly maintain the privileged nature of all their communications with their clients. Naturally, they are reasonably concerned that their staff – whether employees or contractors – treat all documents and communications with the same diligent care.

These concerns lead attorneys to be careful about how and with whom files and documents are shared. While attorneys, and perhaps even staff, work from home, they do so with these security and confidentiality needs in mind. Although documents are routinely exchanged with clients, experts, witnesses and co-counsel via hard copy, email, fax and other means, lawyers assure themselves that this information will be handled with appropriate confidentiality. These same concerns apply to exchange of documents and information with a virtual paralegal too.

It is incumbent upon the virtual paralegal to provide reliable evidence that she or he can maintain strict security of all paper and digital files. Any lawyer contemplating hiring a remote working paralegal will want to inquire into her business practices.

• How does the paralegal secure and store paper and electronic files? 
• How long are paper or digital copies retained, if at all? 
• What computer back-up systems are used to ensure that files are not deleted or otherwise lost? 
• What security measures are taken with computer files, on-line storage, and back-up files to prevent disclosure? 
• Does the paralegal's system have a firewall and secured WiFi? 
• Are the cloud or internet based software the paralegal uses encrypted?

Paralegals, whether employee or contractor, share with attorneys an ethical duty of confidentiality. The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, state rules modeled thereon, and guidelines for paralegals adopted by state bar associations, state courts and paralegal professional organizations, all require paralegals to guard the confidentiality of all client information. This duty of confidentiality applies as firmly to paralegals working remotely as it does to a law firm's own staff.

Moreover, these issues should be addressed in the contractor agreement executed between the attorney and paralegal before any work is performed. The agreement should at a minimum state that the paralegal will not disclose, by any means, information regarding the attorney’s business processes, clients, or client information.  The agreement should also discuss the virtual paralegal’s business practices regarding document retention and security.

So you see, with a firm understanding of a virtual paralegal's business practices, and a contract in place, a litigator can have confidence in using the services of a virtual paralegal.

However, this leads to the another question to consider in hiring a remote working paralegal: Trust. Tune in next time for Part 4.

Virtual Paralegals in Litigation Part 2: You Do Have the Technology!

As noted in Part 1, many virtual paralegals encounter resistance among litigation attorneys to utilizing our services. Even though their offices might be perfectly suited to using a virtual paralegal, many litigators are most comfortable with a contractor whom they can see and hear, no matter how small their office might be.

In my last post, I discussed ways in which confusion about the title Virtual Paralegal can give rise to resistance about hiring us. Today I discuss the next roadblock:

Technology. Some attorneys believe they do not have the requisite technology for utilizing a paralegal working from a remote location. However, this is not the case. Tools employed by every office – telephone, mail, email, fax, scanning and internet access – can be used to share documents, information and projects back and forth with a remote working paralegal. In fact, these are the tools routinely used for sharing documents and data within the office, and outside it to clients, experts and the courts.

In addition, virtual paralegals are already set up to work remotely. They typically have additional tools at their disposal to work effectively and efficiently with a law firm client in any location.

There are a number of software programs available for securely sharing files back and forth between remote locations. The oldest tool is an FTP client (File Transfer Protocol), which enables both lawyer and paralegal to upload and download large files over the internet.

Other software programs provide secure on-line repositories for documents. While designed for safe on-line computer back-up, they also provide a secure means of file sharing. Using one of these programs, a remote working paralegal can create a series of folders and sub-folders for storing case documents. These files are accessible via link or password to both the lawyer and the paralegal from any computer or location. In this way, both lawyer and paralegal can store, access or revise any case related materials whenever they need to. Dropbox and SugarSync are two examples. (Note: Dropbox gets a lot of great reviews in the legal community, and for good reason - it's an excellent product. I prefer SugarSync myself. I’ll tell you why in a future post.)

Finally, there are software programs that actually create a secure collaborative project management system of sorts on line. They enable the lawyer and paralegal not only store case files and edit documents, but also to design a project, assign tasks to different team members, and track everyone's progress. Box.net and Basecamp are a couple of examples.

So you see, every lawyer has all the technology he or she really needs to work effectively with a remote working paralegal. It's much easier than you think!

However, this leads us to another roadblock to hiring virtual or remote working paralegals: Security and Confidentiality! Tune in next time for Part 3.

Virtual Paralegals in Litigation Part 1: Think of us as Telecommuters!

In the legal industry, virtual paralegals are gaining ground in a number of practice areas, such as bankruptcy, corporate matters, and estate planning. However the reality encountered by many of us working virtually is that in the area of litigation many attorneys and law firms are reluctant to contemplate hiring virtual paralegals. To be sure, there are bold exceptions. For example, I work with some solo practitioners who are delighted to get help without relinquishing precious office space.

But many attorneys in litigation cite roadblocks to working with virtual paralegals. Their practice may be perfect for it. They may be superb candidates because they have frequent work overloads which tax their existing staff, they have no budget for adding to their payroll, and their physical space and equipment resources are limited.

Yet many resist.

Thus begins my five part series looking at the reasons behind this resistance, and what we as virtual paralegals can do to allay these fears and convince litigators of the benefits of hiring us.

So what is the first roadblock?

Misunderstanding the term. First and foremost is a misunderstanding of what the term “virtual paralegal” means. True, lawyers active in social media or keeping abreast of technological trends may understand it well enough. But I have encountered many a blank stare when I’ve used the term in gatherings of legal professionals as I seek to explain to them what I do. If an attorney doesn’t understand what a virtual paralegal is, he or she won’t understand the benefits of hiring one. In fact, some in the field are abandoning the term altogether for this very reason.

In the case of a virtual paralegal, “virtual” does not mean “almost,” as in “virtually unknown.” Nor does it mean “simulated,” as in the “virtual reality” of a video game.

It simply means working remotely - virtual as in “occurring mostly online.” Think of it as telecommuting!

Telecommuting is certainly not a new concept in law practice. Both lawyers and staff work from home at many law firms. Technology permitting, they even log into a work server remotely to exchange emails and edit documents from home. Heaven knows when I worked in BigLaw, I spent many happy hours searching databases, drafting privilege logs, and all manner of other fun tasks from my own home computer.

Virtual paralegals are telecommuters! It's just that we are not full time employees, and we use our own equipment instead of the law firm’s resources - two factors which can and should be viewed as cost saving benefits!

However this leads us to the next roadblock: Technology! Tune in for Part 2 of this series coming soon!

And please share your thoughts in the comments!