How Using A Legal Virtual Receptionist Service Can Create More Time In Your Work Day

At Answering Legal, we truly believe that we have a lot to offer attorneys. Our 24/7 receptionist team makes sure all of your new leads get to speak with a live person, so you always have a chance to convert them into paying clients. Our service is ready to handle all of your calls during after hours and weekends, so you can actually maintain a personal life and get something resembling eight hours of sleep each night. Our bilingual receptionists are ready to help you connect with Spanish speaking prospects, and give your firm a distinct competitive advantage.

Those of course are some of the main highlights of what our legal virtual receptionist service can provide, features which have been the focus of many posts on this blog over the years. In this particular blog post, we’re going to take a closer look at one of the less discussed benefits of becoming an Answering Legal customer— our ability to free up more time in your work day.

Below, we’ll explain how our service provides lawyers with more flexibility in their daily working life, and how getting started with our team allows you to do more of the work that actually gets you paid.

You Didn’t Go To Law School To Be A Receptionist

We’re guessing you got into this industry to actually practice law and help people, and not to spend your entire day fielding phone calls. Unfortunately attorneys working at growing firms with limited staff, will often end up spending hours of their work days performing receptionist duties. Lawyers will do this, because they feel like there is no other option for keeping their firm going. They couldn’t be more wrong.

By signing up with Answering Legal, you’ll be equipping your firm with a team of 24/7 trained legal receptionists, who will be ready to pick up any calls you can’t get to or prefer not to pick up. If you’re in the middle of important case related work, and the phone rings, you can comfortably ignore the call, knowing that one of our receptionists will be there to handle it in a highly professional manner.

When new leads call your firm for the first time, you can count on our receptionists to pick up the phone right away, greet them in a highly welcoming fashion and take them through a proper legal intake process (using questions customized by your firm). After the intake is complete, you’ll receive text and email messages from our service, which will include full details on your new lead and their reason for reaching out. Based on the information you see, you can determine how quickly you need to call the prospect back.

When existing clients reach out to your firm with questions you don’t have time to answer right away, our receptionist team will be there to take the call, collect a message from your client, and let them know that they will hear back from you soon. Your client’s message will be sent to you via text and email, giving you the chance to review their concern first, before derailing your work day with a potentially lengthy phone conversation.

The Benefits of Being Able To Ignore Calls

With our legal virtual receptionist service handling your firm’s phones, your work day can go on at a much more relaxed pace. Well...as relaxed as a lawyer’s work day can be anyway. Eliminating the task of having to answer every incoming call for your office should lead to a decrease in daily stress and anxiety, and over time, make your work life much more enjoyable. If we can’t sell you on increased happiness and peace of mind alone, let’s talk about some of the financial benefits that can come from spending less time answering phone calls.

According to Clio, the average lawyer spends only 2.5 hours on billable work each day.

There’s no denying that a significant number of law firms fail to reach their maximum income potential, because their attorneys don’t have enough time for billable case work. Clio data also confirms that being constantly interrupted throughout the work day is one of the biggest reasons why attorneys fail to get more billable work done. According to their report, 25% of legal professionals are interrupted more than 10 times per day, and 30% are interrupted between 6 and 10 times per day.

While putting a stop to all attorney interruptions is virtually impossible, investing in quality phone answering assistance from Answering Legal can severely cut down on the number of disruptions attorneys face each day. Having our team handle all the phone calls you don’t have time for will allow you to take back more of your work day and start making more cash.

Let’s assume your firm falls somewhere around the average and are currently getting about 2.5 hours of billable work done per day. And let’s also assume that investing in our phone answering helps you significantly cut down on work day interruptions, and allows you to add another 2.5 hours of billable time each day. According to Clio, it takes an average of 23 minutes for lawyers to get back to work after being interrupted, so the idea of freeing up 2.5 hours each day by not answering calls isn’t that crazy.

By adding 2.5 billable hours each day, your firm would end up gaining 12.5 billable hours per week and 650 billable hours per year!

Now that you know about the incredible benefits Answering Legal can potentially provide, it’s time to find out if our legal virtual receptionist service is a good fit for your firm. Get started with your 7-day free trial today by filling out this form or call us at (631)686-9700 with any questions.