What Services Are Outsourced by Law Firms? By Mark Etinger At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

As a rule, law firms are generally well-run and fiscally-conscious enterprises. Always concerned with maximizing billable hours, and getting the most out of every employee from partner down to paralegal, they are “time equals money” personified. It should come as no surprise then that law firms in the 21st century are trying to outsource as much of their business and administrative needs as possible.

Here’s a look at the types of tasks that law firms around the country are currently outsourcing:

Court Reporting

Only the biggest of the big law firms maintain full-time court reporters on their payroll. For the other 99% of the legal population, it is much more cost effective to hire these skilled individuals as needed. Court reporting services make it easy for attorneys to bring in a reporter on short notice for depositions, motions or even full on trials. Court reporters can provide a variety of valuable services to a law firm including transcription of audio or video, translation services as more.

Paralegal

Once the mainstay of every law firm in the country, tough times have exiled many paralegals out of the full-time role and into the “on demand” world of outsourcing. Now, many firms will bring on paralegals only as needed, on a project by project basis for document indexing, filing papers with the court and of course, legal research. The paralegals can still be billed out to the client at a generous rate, but without having to pay them an annual salary.

Operator/Front Desk

These days, attorneys are so busy that they don’t even have time to get the phone throughout the course of the day. So it’s no wonder that they are willing to outsource their phone operations to a virtual office company. Unless a firm needs a physical presence at the front desk, the virtual office services make great sense – and cost much less than hiring a full time receptionist.

File Clerk

Another one-time staple of law firms, file clerks are now more commonly brought in occasionally throughout the year to maintain large filing systems and make sure everything is accessible and well-organized. Once, not having a file clerk at a law firm would have seemed impossible, but the advent of the “paperless” law firm have pushed the bulk of the correspondence online – making the flow of documents much easier to handle.

Other Attorneys

That’s right, lawyers are now saving money by outsourcing their own legal work. Why do they do it? When a clients comes in with a big case that is going to stretch resources to the limit, the firm can do one of two things – they can hire additional attorneys at a tremendous cost, or outsource chunks of the work to other lawyers on a piece-by-piece basis. With the former, there is no guarantee that the full-time attorney will be needed after the case is over, but in the latter, the firm is only paying for the work they need done.

VeriText is nationwide leader in court reporting and transcription services. With expert court reporters available throughout the United States, VeriText provides courtrooms and law offices with professional reporting services for a variety of legal proceedings. Visit www.veritext.com today for more information.

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