We know that your days are hectic.
You practically run to the office every morning for the opportunity to eat your breakfast while you’re listening to the messages on your voicemail and writing down the numbers you need to call back as soon as you’ve finished your coffee.
Between preparing your own court filings, appearing in court for your clients and handling your own calls and appointment setting, running your legal office by yourself is the most important thing—and the one that you can’t do all on your own.
A Legal Answering Service Can Help Solo Attorneys
You can’t possibly do it all alone, but there’s not a budget for a full-time employee—it’s ok, you’re not the only one in this situation. That’s why there are legal answering services. They do a lot more than answer the phone, they can actually free you up to do the real work of a lawyer and give you a break from the demands of your client base.
These are just a few services legal answering services can offer:
Message relay. Having a message log is a great way to prioritize callbacks and figure out how to structure your day, but message relay gets messages to you fast. If a hearing is rescheduled for another day, it’s great to know that someone’s able to take the call and get the message to you right away.
Overflow answering. Even when you are in the office, the phone can ring off the hook. Rather than lose all those callers because you’re putting them on hold and hoping they’ll stay there until you can get to them, or that they’ll leave a message and wait for a call back, your answering service can take the extra calls. Overflow calling kicks in any time you can’t get to the phone, whether you’re on hold with the cable company or discussing an important case with a client.
Appointment setting. Without appointments, you don’t have any business, but setting appointments can be a full time job in itself. The solution is to turn that job over to your answering service. They can handle all or most of your appointment setting, freeing you up for other legal duties. If you do need to schedule an appointment in the office, the fully integrated software will keep your schedule up-to-the-minute so there’s no risk of double booking.
Follow Me. Once in a while there’s an emergency so great that you have to be reached in person and only you will do. That’s why there’s Follow Me. This service is designed to ring you until you’re found, but only under the conditions you specify. So, if you’ve got a client that suddenly finds themselves in hot water, you might tell your answering service to use Follow Me to track you if they call—but not if your neighborhood fundraiser calls again trying to sell magazine subscriptions.
Legal answering services can be a great compliment to a solo attorney, no matter how busy (or small) the office. If you’re just getting started, there’s no need to worry about big bills since you’ll only pay for the time you use, but if you’ve been around a while and your business is growing, it’s a smart partnership that can save you a great deal of money over a full-time employee.
