Managing Offshore Teams: How We Grew to 40 Virtual Legal Assistants - #222

Virtual legal assistant programs take years to get right. We started with one in 2018. Now we run 40 across our firm. 

If you're trying to scale without burning out your lawyers, this is the conversation. Real structure, real mistakes, real results from our firm. 

Kelley walks through the reporting structure shift that fixed our two-team problem, the culture work behind our remote legal team, and the law firm efficiency math that makes it pay off.

📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughes

                                https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocket-clicks
📚 Order The Waterfall Method Book here: http://rocketclicks.com/the-waterfall-method/
📝 Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/

---

📄 CHAPTERS

0:00 - Virtual Legal Assistant Team: From 1 Person to 40 in Seven Years 

2:19 - The Reporting Structure That Created a Two-Team Problem 

3:32 - Why Each Virtual Legal Assistant Now Reports to a Department Manager

5:11 - Building One Team Culture: Christmas Cards, Cameras, and Daily Lightnings 

8:09 - Every Function Except Lawyer: QA, IT, Intake, Web Dev, and More 

11:13 - The Cebu Trip: Why We Fly to The Philippines Every Year

----------------------

Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers? 

Follow these steps:  

1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/  

2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/  

3. CONNECT WITH US: 

LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Facebook: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Instagram: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls

4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:  
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.

Transcript

0:00

think the overarching goal here, right, if I'm a law firm owner and I'm thinking about, well, do I need to explore this is creating efficiencies for your most valuable assets, right. If you run a law firm, your lawyers are the ones that need to do so much of the heavy lifting. And if you can add support resources to them, you are creating efficiencies everywhere, which is translating into profitability for the firm. Well, hello and welcome to the Sterling family Law Show. I'm Jeff Hughes, I'm your co-host, along with Tyler Dolph as well. And we have a guest, Kelly Shaw, who is the director of operations in our firm. And Kelly has worn just about every hat in our firm, with the exception of lawyer. And she is our second or third longest serving teammates. So Kelly, welcome back. And I asked you to come on today to talk about how you have built a structure for managing our offshore teammates. So if you can just help us understand the volume of teammates, the number of teammates we have that are not here in the United States, and the history of how we used to work with them and how we've changed that for the better. I think there's some real good information there to share. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me back. Yes, I could certainly talk about our offshore team. That team is exclusively located in the Philippines. They're spread all throughout the Philippines. And there's about. I believe there's about 40 team members on that team now. And so, yeah, just to talk a little bit about how they are structured now versus when we first started utilizing the team, I think we've been utilizing individuals in the Philippines. Gosh, it's got to be like five years now. Well, actually, we went back to 2018 is whenever I started working with Eden, who was helping with our sales process and kind of auditing kind of our process and what we were doing. So that was our first one, and it has grown from one seven years ago to where we at, we're at today. Can I just interject quickly if you are thinking about this? We have found that these team members are incredible humans, very dedicated to the cause, very easy to train and open to. To doing whatever is needed to help the firm. Thank you. Tyler was great. I heard you refer to them as offshore. That's actually a term we don't really use a lot internally, so. But for identifying it for our listeners, that's why you did that. So talk to that because there's I'll let you take over from your explain kind of the process that we've developed over the years. Yeah. So originally, as you mentioned, and you brought up Eden. So Eden was one of our original team members there. So she actually then went on to kind of oversee that whole team. She was responsible for training, for hiring, for recruiting. And regardless of what team that an individual was supporting, they all kind of reported up through her. She did all of the coaching, the one on one, like all of that. As that team began to grow. That obviously was not a very sustainable structure, not just because it was very difficult to for one manager to know and train ten different functions. There's many more now, but also because it inadvertently kind of created a two team structure, right? Like we had this offshore team that kind of was their own. And then we had our onshore team and that that just didn't have the culture that wasn't supporting the culture that we that we were striving for here. So I think about 3 or 4 years ago now, we made the transition to have each of those team members just report directly to the manager of the team that they're working for. So for if you're on our QA team, if you're doing QA for the legal team, you're in the legal team. If you're doing QA for the intake team, you're in the intake lens. That allowed for those team members to really feel part of the team that they were supporting. They know. They know those individuals now. They're better connected to the processes that the team is executing. They have inputs. They do the training with those team members. They're engaged in the various activities that that team might do. You know, I know intake is very they're very engaged with each other. They do a lot of types of team building, even virtually. So, you know, to your point about, you know, I'll speak a little bit to how do we make this feel like one team. We are pretty intense. We're very intentional about including everyone. Right? Like they're in management meetings. They're in lightness. You know, Elton's for those of you that aren't for maybe familiar, every team in the firm has these standing lightens each week for that team. So they're in all of those meetings. In addition, the managers are doing one on one meetings with them, just like they're doing with their state side individuals. So there's really not a distinction anymore in terms of what one team is doing versus the other, That's a huge best practice that we've learned over the years, is that it should feel like a single team, not oh well, you're off shore, you're on shore, you're whatever. It's like, no, you're part of the team. You're doing this thing, and we're all lined on the goal. And that, you know, that comes down even to like a Christmas party, right? Like we do a virtual version of our Christmas party for to facilitate our offshore team, to make sure that they're feeling included. I send Christmas cards to the Philippine team members every year. I put pictures together and handwritten notes to send to them. I have to do it like next week in order for it to get there in time. But so it's just little things like that. I mean, I know we've done like after our social events just to make it really feel like, like we're one team. So that I think, is if you are considering utilizing offshore team members, making sure that they actually feel like part of the team is is huge, and you'll see the difference in how they engage with your clients and how they engage with your internal teammates like they they are part of the family. So you also didn't mention that they work the same hours as we work here. Right. And because our teammates here in the US are frankly, spread out among, what, 5 or 6 states and all over Illinois, in Wisconsin. So we're almost exclusively virtual already. So adding in these teammates from the Philippines who speak English tremendously well, it doesn't feel any different. I don't even think of them any different as some as a US based teammate. On that topic real quick, I think if you if you aren't a firm that has like we are very virtual, everybody's virtual. Like you were just saying he was even in the States, even if you're not set up that way, if you start to have team members that are in other countries, wherever they may be, you have to really dedicate and be intentional about the camera stuff like there. It is just a part of our culture. Now. Anytime you jump into a meeting, your your camera is on and if your camera is not on, it's like it is. It's frankly weird. Like, are you in a bad spot? Are you okay? Are you sick? Like, we're worried about you if your camera is not on. And I just think that's important to call out because I think people underestimate how important that is. And having that face to face interaction when you're virtual, it's hugely It's extremely important. And that's something we've actually mandated across the firm over the years. I know so many meetings. When we first started switching over to this was like, hey, put your camera on, we expect to have a camera on. So there's a lot that happens in connection with people whenever you can, like look you in the like each other in the face, talk to if you would. Kelly I want to build a little bit more and kind of double tap on. Each Philippine teammate is on a team and they report up just like anyone else on that team. Talk about the number of different functions and teams, because I think a lot of people don't appreciate that. It's not just answering the phone, it's in every department other than lawyer. We have teammates that are in the Philippines. So talk talk about all those different functions. Sure. Yeah. See if I can remember them all off the top of my head. I'll start with the ones I work with closely the closest. So our to start echo. He supports our ticketing system. So anytime you put in a ticket into Salesforce saying I'm struggling or I have an issue or my email is not working, I got locked out, that's going to echo. And so he's doing that correspondence, he's following back up, he's jumping on a Google meet with you to to troubleshoot and get through that. Our web developer Yuri, he's also in the Philippines. So he works very closely with us. Also with rocket clicks. Right. So he works pretty seamlessly, you know, in that remote environment doing all of those items. We also have a fair amount of team members that are on our QA. So they're listening to phone calls on our intake team and literally shaping it like giving a score, saying either you miss the mark or you nailed it based off of your script. Similar for the attorneys. So there's a individuals that will review consultations. We do have a proven process for our consultations. So they're doing giving a score of how well newer attorneys are adhering to that process. We also have individuals that are working as a more traditional personal assistant. So helping some of our team leaders kind of stay organized, helping them with small projects they may be working on, whether that's Sterling Day or, you know, other projects. They might be doing project work for me, but they work closely with Katie, or they're Katie's direct personal assistant. So those team members, we've got quite a few of them that are kind of sitting in that utility role, like they're they're supporting their supporting the leaders in the firm. We also have a couple of what we've dubbed as a virtual legal assistant. So kind of this hybrid between a paralegal and an assistant, they will they'll do some drafting, but they're reaching out to the courts. They're scheduling things they're client facing. So they're having interactions with clients. Just trying to think of any other What you have e-filing, they do e-filing as well right Thank you. Yep. E-Filing. So they state those court communications to the clients. They're doing intake. So the first time a client will call us they're answering the phone. So we're that's a high level of trust that we're going to go to put our you know, the people that we're trying to, you know, help and serve in our. And we have the data that backs it up, right. They're doing a tremendous job in doing that. I think the overarching goal here, right, if I'm a law firm owner and I'm thinking about, well, do I need to explore this is creating efficiencies for your most valuable assets, right. If you run a law firm, your lawyers are the ones that need to do so much of the heavy lifting. And if you can add support resources to them, you are creating efficiencies everywhere, which is translating into profitability for the firm. And last thing I want to close with Kelly is that your investment, our team's investment in our team in the Philippines is you you went over there this last year, right? And you put together a 2 or 3 day event on an island. And I know Jeff Kurland did that last year. I'm on deck, I believe, to go in 26. So talk to about that a little bit on the the investment that requires to get everyone together and then go over there and spend time just with each other. Yes, I mean it. It's an awesome trip and I'm excited for you to go. But it's the goal of it is just give give that team an opportunity to get together and just be with each other. They spend they put a lot of work into putting that event together. So like last year we went to, we went to Cebu. And so I had a planning committee that they really took. They took care of all of the details. They found the resort, they coordinated the food, they coordinated getting everyone, 40 of us to each of those locations. And that's I mean, the point of it is like, we want them to feel they want we want to give them the opportunity to engage and be together, just like we prioritize that state side here with Sterling Day. So I love that the firm has made that investment. And the fact that we now send someone from, you know, the states over to go and do that with them. It just makes them feel like like they are valued and they they are so valued here. And we just love having that additional interaction with them. And it was just some of these people I've been working with for 5 or 6 years. And to finally see them, not with a screen between us was just really, really fun. And yeah, it was just a really engaging weekend. And you always kind of wonder it will it be different when you finally meet someone in person? And it was like, you don't skip a beat. It's like, hey, remember that conversation we had last week, right? Like every it does. There's nothing awkward about it, right? Because they are just part of everything that we do. There's no there is no this them two different teams, everybody is very much working together. Tremendous. Well, thank you again for coming on and explain the process that you've developed over the years. It was really helpful. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.