Law firms are making progress in their efforts to improve the effectiveness of their core business processes. Firms are achieving increasing benefits in everything from technology development to staff nearshoring. In fact, law firms have been freed to concentrate on advancing legal services by shifting some support staff responsibilities in both the practice and business of law to nearshore staff.
Nearshoring your legal practice strategically can help you organize your operations, and moreover, failing to capitalize on the opportunity to delegate tasks might inhibit a firm’s growth by overburdening the attention of the attorneys; therefore, it is essential to adopt a clear strategy to properly acquire nearshore staff or even build a whole remote team in an offshore or nearshore location.
This article is aimed at law firm partners and managers, and it presents how to fully realize the benefits of nearshore staffing for a law firm. We provide some examples of positions that, if nearshored, can easily result in boosted productivity and lowered payroll costs.
Prioritizing Tasks
First, consider all the routine tasks that pull at the attention of busy attorneys but that could otherwise be completed by others. To save time, money, and resources, capitalize on the expertise of others. This enables you to concentrate on your strengths. In particular, nearshoring frees up time for generating new business and supplying post-qualification clientele.
Nearshore staffing may also be very helpful for solo practitioners and small firms. This approach can enhance your work–life balance and help you focus on the needs of your clients. Decide how many hours you can work each week as a maximum, and then allocate the remainder of the tasks unaccounted for to nearshore staff. Track everything you do daily, from actual client work to invoicing and billing and dealing with IT problems for a week or two. You may start to recognize areas that could be improved after attaining a comprehensive understanding of how your time is currently spent. For all types of businesses, considerable time and effort are spent on nonbillable activities, and law firms are no exception.
You May Get Much More from Nearshore Employees Than Just Paralegals
In addition to legal operations, nearshoring can provide a firm with versatile legal assistants and lawyers who can be trained in areas of US law such as family law, employment, compliance, securities, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, intellectual property, and more. Finding the right talent for these areas might take months or even years when sought locally; however, access to a whole nearshore talent pool expedites the speed of the search and hones in on the best match. In addition, nearshore teams offer know-how in innovative and technology-assisted practices. Employing a legal assistant could be a good idea if you mostly require assistance with administrative work; such candidates are now available from nearshore staffing agencies such as Remote Team Solutions. More specialized professionals who can handle responsibilities such as document review and production or litigation support and research are also available.
Positions for Your Nearshore Staff
We have mentioned paralegals, invoicing teams, tech support, and legal assistants. But in addition, we can also find other nearshore staff for back-office operations, allowing a firm to save up to 60% in wage costs. Staff are available for employment as remote executive assistants and for accounting and finance, marketing, human resources, and others. Remote Executive Assistance From general questions and client inquiries to website management, a remote executive assistant might be the right solution. The assistant could also write briefs or complete paperwork depending on your business needs. Accounting and Finance A bookkeeper might like working with numbers and billing much more than you do, and highly qualified professionals are available in Mexico’s talent pool. The same goes for a senior accountant, who could also be an important addition to your law firm’s finance department or payroll team. Some of the jobs we can staff in the accounting field are the following:
- Financial analyst
- Finance assistant
- Risk analyst
- Legal cashier
- Payroll specialist
Marketing
Blogs and social media postings could also be handled by a community or content manager, depending on the firm’s focus, or a marketing specialist who can oversee your firm’s online presence as well as social media could be the right choice. Additionally, growth in digital media might be best handled by a designer who could work on advertisements, promotional videos, or any other project to help your firm’s reach. Human Resources An HR team can do much more than just make optimal hires. You can also easily acquire a group of experts who work for your firm to maintain a positive working environment and strong relationships with employees. An HR team can also ensure every employee is aware of the terms and conditions of their employment, and they may plan staff events and even resolve workplace conflicts. Some relevant positions are the following:
- Human resources manager
- Onboarding specialist
- Training manager
- Talent acquisition manager
- Legal recruitment
HR functions, however, should preferably be executed by a team of professionals specialized in different disciplines so that you can grow your team with any position or profession that you require. In this sense, it is possible to acquire a true extension of your HR department.
In Law, Time Is a Priority Resource
Finally, and most importantly, don’t wait to recruit until you are in need. You want to provide yourself enough time to thoroughly evaluate prospective employees for cultural fit and other factors. Hasty hiring frequently results in ineffective alignment and frustration. Our closing argument? As your legal practice expands, you must think bigger than yourself and your main associates. You need additional individuals if you want to grow into a mid-level law practice that can handle more or larger customers, and for all of this, Remote Team Solutions is ready to assist with your staffing needs. We are already trusted by important finance and law firms in the US, and we ask, in this case called growing market, will your firm be just a witness, or will it stand on the winning side?
