Outsourcing Time Loss For Legal Firms: 5 Common Tasks That Can Be Handled Remotely To Free Up Your Time & Cut Your Costs

Do you know what’s inside the filing cabinets at most law firms?

Organized crime…

I’m just kidding, of course, I’ve helped to optimize a few law firms before, and most of them are a lot less organized than you might think.

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It’s not that they have trouble organizing a filing cabinet — they don’t, they’re typically quite smart folks. The problem is, they waste their time organizing the filing cabinets.

Perhaps that’s not the best example, but what I’m trying to say is that while legal firms typically hire some pretty intelligent and efficient experts to do the complex jobs… they sometimes forget to hire someone to do the easy, but time-consuming jobs.

That’s the sweet spot, the money saver, and more importantly, the low-hanging fruit that can let us get better organized, back on track, and up-to-speed… without a lot of billable hours for your high-cost attorneys.

Think of it this way: if you’ve got a team of top-tier legal operators, but they’re busy organizing documents for several hours each day, how much money are you wasting?

The answer is likely a lot… but don’t worry, the fix is super easy. All we need to do is determine which steps are safe to outsource, and then hand them off to someone capable, trustworthy, and a lot less costly by the hour.

That leaves your top operators free to do what they do best, take on more cases, collect more clients, and in general, make the firm more money.

Obviously, we can’t just outsource everything, and we shouldn’t — but there are many common, boring, and time-consuming tasks that certainly can be off-loaded with very minimal risks and maximal benefits.

Here are the 5 tasks I recommend outsourcing, if you want to free up the maximum amount of high-cost legal power from everyday administrative tasks.

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1. Scheduling & Calendar Coordination

You don’t need a degree to figure out a calendar, though the best remote services only use college educated professionals — so you can safely hand off management of your calendar and schedule to someone else.

How much time do you spend setting dates and times, checking the schedule, and trying to fit someone in?

Now multiply that by all the people in your office, and you can see how much time is being wasted here.

Offload this easy stuff to someone else, who costs a lot less by the hour, and you’re already saving money.

2. Answering Phones, Communicating With Clients

There are certain times when you really need to talk to the client yourself… but most of the time, whether it’s to ask a question or pass on a note, it’s not really required.

The same goes for answering the phones. While you may be needed occasionally, most calls could easily be answered by someone else, and how much time would that save?

Take all your call time with clients, both calls received and made, and then subtract every call that could have been done by someone else.

That’s a lot of time added to your day, and it could add time for everyone in the office.

You do have to be sure that you’ve got an assistant with great English skills, but any reputable virtual service provider will be able to take care of that.

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3. E-Filing & Data Entry

Obviously, there are certain things that can’t be handed off to a remote worker because the information is sensitive, but that’s a small amount of data compared to the large amounts we deal with every day.

Why not take the majority of the workload off by having someone else do all the long-form typing?

Whether you’re filing papers online, or inputting info into your database, it’s time-consuming and not particularly difficult.

Why pay a lawyer to manage what a remote worker could do at a fraction of the cost, while also freeing up that lawyer to do something more important?

It’s a win-win for everyone, even the assistant, who’s getting a great job out of it.

4. Document Organization & Management

Last but not least, one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks in our office is organizing and managing all the data and documents that are coming in, going out, and being added to along the way.

It’s a slog, and no one in my office thinks it’s particularly fun, or that it requires the skills of a specialized attorney.

It’s one of the first things we outsourced and what got the entire process started for us, because once I had someone else to do all the boring bits, I had much more time to find even more ways to improve our efficiency.

Sometimes the trick to getting more done isn’t doing more with less, but doing more with a bit of extra, low-cost help, so that your top team members can do more of what they do best.

Everybody has a strength, and now my team members can focus on them, rather than the paperwork.