50 Tasks Lawyers Should Delegate to a Virtual Assistant
See also: What Is a Virtual Assistant?, How to Hire a Virtual Assistant, How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost?
Attorneys are among the highest-earning professionals in the country - and also among the most buried in administrative work. Studies consistently show that lawyers spend 30 - 40% of their time on tasks that do not generate billable hours: scheduling, document prep, email management, client intake, and billing follow-up. Every hour spent on those tasks is an hour not billed at $250, $400, or $600. A legal virtual assistant can take those tasks off your desk so you can focus on the work only you can do.
For more on this, see our guide on email management assistant.
Administrative Tasks to Delegate
The day-to-day operational tasks that consume your morning before you ever open a case file:
- Managing your calendar - scheduling consultations, court dates, depositions, and client calls
- Handling email triage and flagging time-sensitive messages for your review
- Maintaining and updating your case management system (Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther)
- Sending appointment confirmations and reminders to clients and opposing counsel
- Processing incoming mail - scanning, categorizing, and uploading to your document system
- Ordering office supplies and managing vendor relationships
- Maintaining your contact database with updated client and opposing counsel information
- Booking court reporters, process servers, and expert witnesses
- Coordinating conference room bookings and video call logistics for depositions
- Filing deadline tracking - maintaining a master calendar with all statute of limitations dates
You can learn more in our court filing support VA resource.
Client Communication Tasks to Delegate
Keeping clients informed is essential, but not every touchpoint requires the attorney's voice:
- Sending case status update emails to clients on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule
- Following up with prospective clients after initial consultations
- Sending intake questionnaires and collecting completed forms from new clients
- Responding to general client inquiries that do not require legal advice
- Coordinating document collection - requesting and tracking outstanding items from clients
- Sending fee agreement and retainer documents for electronic signature via DocuSign
- Notifying clients of upcoming deadlines, hearings, and required actions
- Sending post-matter surveys and requesting online reviews from satisfied clients
Marketing and Business Development Tasks to Delegate
Growing your practice requires visibility - a VA handles the execution:
- Writing and scheduling educational content for LinkedIn, Facebook, and your blog
- Managing your Avvo, FindLaw, and Justia profiles - keeping information current
- Responding to Google Business Profile reviews and questions
- Creating social media graphics and quote cards using Canva
- Writing newsletter content featuring legal updates relevant to your practice area
- Building referral lists - researching bar association directories and attorney networks
- Tracking and reporting on website traffic, lead form submissions, and consultation bookings
- Coordinating speaking engagements - researching opportunities and handling logistics
- Drafting press releases for significant case wins (with your approval)
- Managing your Martindale-Hubbell and Super Lawyers profile submissions
Financial and Operations Tasks to Delegate
The billing and back-office work that delays your revenue cycle:
- Preparing and sending client invoices using your billing software
- Following up on overdue invoices with a structured accounts receivable process
- Tracking billable hours from your time entries and flagging unbilled time
- Reconciling trust account records and preparing reports for your review
- Processing credit card payments and logging transactions
- Preparing monthly financial summaries for your review
- Managing expense reports and submitting receipts to your bookkeeper
- Tracking bar dues, CLE credits, and professional membership renewals
Legal-Specific Tasks to Delegate
Tasks that support your legal work without crossing the UPL line:
- Drafting routine correspondence - demand letters, status letters, and cover letters from your templates
- Preparing first drafts of standard pleadings, motions, and agreements for your review and revision
- Conducting initial legal research using Westlaw or LexisNexis and summarizing findings
- Formatting and proofreading legal documents for consistency and citation accuracy
- Organizing and indexing case files - creating binders and exhibit lists
- Preparing deposition summaries and chronologies from transcripts
- E-filing documents with court systems and tracking confirmation numbers
- Preparing closing binders and transaction summaries for transactional matters
- Researching corporate records, property records, and public filings
- Drafting client intake forms and engagement letters from your templates
- Managing discovery document review logistics - organizing productions and tracking requests
- Updating your internal precedent and clause library with approved language
- Preparing CLE presentation materials and outlines from your notes
- Monitoring legal news and regulatory updates in your practice area and delivering a weekly digest
How to Get Started Delegating
Step 1: Calculate your cost of non-billable time. Multiply your hourly rate by the number of hours you spend on admin each week. That number tells you exactly what delegation is worth.
Step 2: Start with intake and calendar. New client intake and scheduling are the highest-impact, lowest-risk tasks to delegate first. Your VA follows your process exactly.
Step 3: Build document templates. For every type of correspondence or form your VA will draft, create a template with clear placeholders. This protects quality and keeps you in control.
Step 4: Expand to research and billing. Once your VA has proven reliability on routine tasks, add legal research summaries and accounts receivable follow-up to their scope.
Start Delegating Today
A legal virtual assistant from Virtual Assistant VA can recover 15 - 20 hours of billable capacity every week. At even $300 per hour, that is $4,500 - $6,000 in recovered revenue monthly - from a VA who costs a fraction of that investment. Stop leaving money on the table. Start delegating today.