The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
A series of conversations with those in the legal profession navigating the ups and downs of the law during and after lockdown. How has this changed the profession as we've emerged from the global pandemic?
The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
Interview with VA to the legal profession, Danielle Judge of Judge Associates
Danielle was a legal secretary and paralegal before deciding to create her own VA business during lockdown.
Danielle is a Virtual Assistant for neurodivergent & academic professionals helping them relieve the overwhelm and the anxiety of too much admin, and she's also been a finalist in the VA of the Year 2023 awards.
In this episode we talk about how Danielle supports lawyers and other professionals and also why lawyers don't always reach out for support and instead try to do everything themselves!
You can find out more and connect with Danielle on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-judge-va/
About your host, Hannah Beko
Podcast host Hannah Beko is a lawyer, author, coach, corporate trainer and speaker focusing on leadership skills and mental health and wellbeing.
Hannah has also created the Build Your Legal Business Podcast, which you can find here: https://authenticallyspeaking.co.uk/p..., and runs The Legal Business Incubator membership for lawyers who want to improve their business development skills in an authentic way!
If you are a legal professional, please feel free to join our free Facebook Group for networking, tips and support - Legally Speaking, a group for the legal profession https://bit.ly/fblawyers
Do connect with Hannah on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahbeko or visit www.authenticallyspeaking.co.uk for blogs and resources to support legal professionals.
You can also find Hannah's bestselling book, "The Authentic Lawyer, How to Create More Success in Your Practice and More Balance in Your Life" on Amazon and Kindle.
Join us for an upcoming event here - https://hannahbeko.eventbrite.com
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Law in Lockdown and Beyond podcast. And today I'm really looking forward to speaking to Danielle Judge, who is a VA, works with lots of different people, but does quite a lot of work with lawyers. And until a few minutes ago, I didn't actually know this about Danielle, that she did work inside legal firms for a number of years, both as legal secretary, I think, and then as a paralegal as well. I'm Danielle, do tell us a little bit more about you and the sort of work that you do.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me. So yeah, I'm Danielle. I've been running, I'm a VA and I've been running my business for, it will be three years on the 27th of January. So my business is called Judge Associates. I did a slight rebrand after about a year. I was initially Danielle Judge Virtual Assistant, but I wanted to kind of grow a small team. So I'm now Judge Associates. So I personally, I offer admin support to lots of different clients from different sectors. I work with some lawyers, some marketing agencies, quite a few legal director consultants who kind of help with all the legal rankings for the firms. So kind of in the legal world, but not fully. And compliance companies. So again, in the legal field. But I also work with two lovely ladies who are private autism assessors. So quite a nice variety. Plus there's lots of others in between but yeah I typically do admin so I love love love admin which everyone thinks is really quite strange and I love it and I love helping people so being a VA is kind of like the perfect role for me and I do have a team so I've got one associate who works with a couple of clients for me and another one who is waiting to come and join the team and the plan is to grow and have a nice small team of wonderful VAs who you know they offer admin but they will also So offer like marketing and social media, which are two things that I don't offer and don't like. Well,
SPEAKER_01:at some point I might need to talk to you about that. But where did the, and I've totally gone off script already here, so Danielle's going to take me off later, but where did the idea of growing a small team come from? So you started off out for yourself. I know after COVID, you said it was after COVID you decided to set this up for yourself. What then changed that made you want to build a team
SPEAKER_00:as well? initially it was kind of always in the back of my mind that I did then I was like no I can't I just need to be myself but as it kind of just I found my first client very quickly and then it kind of spiralled and I've been very fortunate that I've you know been that capacity for quite a while now and so obviously there's only so much that I can do and and When I started out, I was an associate to some other VAs. So, you know, I like to be able to help people. So if I can bring someone onto the team, that obviously helps them. And then eventually I would like to kind of reduce my working hours. because everyone thinks so you know being self-employed you can do whatever hours you want you know you don't have to work as much but I think I'll work more um and you can never really switch off because obviously it's my baby and I can't you know if someone emails me in an evening and it's a new inquiry you know you have to kind of jump on it so you can never fully fully switch off um so yeah having a small team um would be ideal because then I've got you know Plus also, it's kind of isolating being self-employed and going from the roles that I've had previously, being in offices, surrounded by people every day. If you've got a day where you've got no calls, it can be, if you are on your own, quite isolating. So having other people that you can check in with or even just bounce ideas off. And obviously, they have their own VA businesses, so they're fully aware of how it all runs. And if you've got any difficult jobs, situations or clients you know you can bash ideas out with them so it's nice to have a little community to be able to fall back on.
SPEAKER_01:Do you know it's so true because when I first started out as a legal consultant a bit similar to you actually and it was interestingly the three-year mark as well loved it loved it you know so different to what I'd done before I was working at home I could spend more time with the children theoretically until as you say you get busier and busier and then because you're building a business you say yes to everything and you want to be responsive so you're available all the time which is quite natural for someone building a new business understandably um but then you you do hit that point where yes you're up to full capacity and you couldn't physically take any more on and also the loneliness i totally agree with you yes i might have been surrounded by my family but not around other people who get it or who you could as you say bounce ideas around or just understand um so it is i think covid reminded us but i'd already seen it before when i was building that business that actually not only are we sort of social animals and we need other people around, but business owners as well just need that interaction, don't
SPEAKER_00:they? Yeah, especially with other, like, because, like, you know, your family know what you do, but they don't really know what you do and don't really understand it. You know, if you're not a business owner, it's completely different to, you know, just being an employee and, you know, just rocking up, doing your hours and, you know, you can kind of switch off and forget.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Obviously, not in the law. You can't really do that, I found, anyway, when I was a paralegal. But, you know, typical nine-to-five jobs, you kind of just switch off at the end of the day. Yes. Whereas my brain's just constantly like, Oh,
SPEAKER_01:I understand that. I understand that well. Yeah. Well, interestingly, linking to what happens to me after that three years, one of the things I needed to do or realized I needed to do was bring on some assistance in the form of a VA and eventually a paralegal as well. So I know obviously what sorts of things they did for me. But and I know that having worked with you myself, that you would do things like diary management, making appointments, you know, cross checking different people's different directors in solicitors diaries to get appointments. books and all that sort of thing but just give us a flavor what other sorts of things do you do particularly for lawyers I know you work with lots of different people as you say but particularly for lawyers what sort of services do you provide?
SPEAKER_00:So it can be obviously I've got a private client background and so I don't actually work with any private client lawyers at the moment but something that I feel I could offer and would be you know I was when I was a paralegal I was a fully fledged fee earner with a caseload of like 100 plus matters, doing wills, powers of attorney, court protection orders, dealing with estates. So I can kind of offer within the private client sector, like a more of a paralegal assistance. So it could be, you know, helping with the drafting of the wills or the powers of attorney or kind of, you know, proofreading them. I absolutely love, love, love dictation. I love putting earphones in and just typing away. So obviously, you know, when I first started in the law back in 2007, it was the good old fashioned tapes, which we had in the small firm that I worked for, for a number of years, and then it moved to digital dictation. But yeah, I love love typing like the autism assessments that I do that was transcription and I just love it I love to get lost in it so things like that and obviously like you know helping with like bog standard forms that can be filled in you know or kind of checking like downloading title deeds things like that anything kind of admin based to kind of give the lawyer more time to work on the actual fee earning rather than all the backend admin and uploading things that need to be uploaded. typing letters, any sort. And then, as you say, inbox management, diary management. And sometimes that can be across multiple time zones, which can sometimes be a bit wild. I
SPEAKER_01:know. When I agree a meeting time with somebody and they're in the States, I always have to check about five times. Whose time are we actually on with this thing in the diary? Is it their time or my time? Am I at the right? Oh, goodness, yes. It is wild. It's wild. What... i know you and i have talked about this a little bit before um what i tend to see with lawyers is when they're within a law firm and the services and the support is provided for them they seem to be sort of fine to use that you know they have access to a secretary or dictation or whatever it is and they use it but what i find is when um lawyers are outside of that environment whether they're self-employed or it's their own business or whatever it is um they tend to be, it takes a while for people to get around to the idea of paying for somebody's services. What do you think is the difference that it makes? I know the difference it makes to me is the difference as to whether I could carry on doing my business or not, whether I was going to burn out and crash out
SPEAKER_00:or not.
SPEAKER_01:But what sort of difference do you see it make when somebody who perhaps hasn't worked with you then starts working with you? I
SPEAKER_00:think, like we say, you know, if they are, you know, a consultant, they're running their own business and they're on their own at home, just having someone, you know, who's there supporting them, backing them, you know, that is one major benefit to them. And with me, and I'm sure other VAs are the same, like, I love all of my clients and their businesses and I like to be part of their business and, you know, really help them and back them and help push them forward as best I can. So just having that backing, you know, is a massive, makes a massive difference to them. But also, you know, it saves them a lot of time because the admin does take up a lot of time, even just like setting up a file. You know, it's so time consuming and like doing ID checks and all of that. the fun stuff that you have to do to even, you know, get started. They can be focusing more on, you know, marketing, bringing in more business, seeing the clients, doing the client-facing work or, you know, the actual nitty-gritty of, you know, the actual legal work that they need to do. So it saves them so much time and will hopefully enable them to bring in more business and more money and, you know, improve, you know, build their client base. Absolutely. and it also would reduce you know it's I can imagine setting up as a self-employed lawyer being completely stressful um because I know mine was but obviously you know being a lawyer I can imagine it being you know 10 times and and also like like I say I work with some compliance companies and so you there might be other connections that I've got that I can you know kind of help
SPEAKER_01:you know
SPEAKER_00:well I know this company and they do this so they could help you and So, you know, there might be other people that you can kind of tap into through the VA to kind of help iron out, you know, policies and things like that and make sure everything is kind of fully on board.
SPEAKER_01:It's amazing. There's so much. I love your point. I hadn't thought about the point around the actual support, you know, just like somebody else within your business that's not within your business. So it's not scary stuff or that sort of thing. Yeah. Within your business. I really like. I like that idea. I hadn't thought of it like that. I totally agree with you about the freeing up their time. And also, it's not, yes, it's time to then go and do things that is within their expertise, you know, that they can charge good fees for or get new clients in or that sort of thing. But also... I mean, I might just be talking about myself here, but I suspect I'm not. It's not always our skill set. You know, you talked about how much you love admin and that attention to things. I mean, you know this from having worked with me. I'm not very good at that stuff. Like the energy it takes me to take that focus is massive. So I put it off and I procrastinate over it because I know it's going to be hard for me and I'm going to have to use so much energy. Whereas, you know, give me a client BD event or a webinar to do or, you know, review a lease or whatever, and I'll just run off and do it. So it's like, it's not always within a lawyer's skill set to do all these things and yet it's within not just your skill set but you enjoy it so I always think how can we reach that point in our career where we spend more time doing the stuff that we're brilliant at and that we enjoy and less time doing the stuff that someone else is brilliant at and enjoys
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah
SPEAKER_01:it makes a difference I think yeah it's fantastic so how does how would somebody know that they were ready to need your services Who are the right people to come and work with a VA?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people don't necessarily know that a VA exists. I think it's becoming more and more common, but I'd never heard of a VA. I was a PA for eight years and I was in-house, but I'd never heard of a VA until lockdown came around and I regrettably downloaded TikTok. And then... I came across videos and I was like, what is a virtual assistant? And when I then realised what it was, I was like, that would be perfect for me. And, you know, I think getting the awareness out that, you know, VAs are there will help because I think a lot of people don't actually know that they're there. But, you know, you might have small business owners or like, you know, professionals who are in that kind of like high stress sector so like lawyers or even like people in the financial sector um you know it'd be ideal for them because they can just like you say just all the admin that they hate just pass it across um but kind of anyone like who is When you're kind of overwhelmed, I suppose, you then know, like, I need to get some help. But I work with quite a few neurodiverse business owners and a lot of neurodiverse professionals do become self-employed and run their own businesses because they just don't fit into that, the mould of, you know, being an employee. But obviously they suffer a lot with overwhelm and, you know, Like you said, you know, you just put off, put off, put off. But that's what, you know, a lot of my neurodiverse clients do. So having, you know, they know that they can just pass something across to me that's going to get done. They don't have to worry about doing it. You know, people are saying just like small business owners tends to be, Lawyers, it doesn't tend to be like the firms, the larger firms, because they've got the in-house teams. They don't need it. But the lawyers who are self-employed or consultants or like the legal studio model, which I am seeing more and more of, which is good. There might be the consultants there who are like, I need to bring in more work and I can't whilst I'm doing this. So having that... that person who I can just get some assistance. And the beauty of EVA is you only pay for what you need. So, you know, I work either on an adult basis, so we just kind of rack up hours throughout the month or clients buy, say, like a block of 10 retained hours a month or 20 or, you know, whatever. And then you know you've got that time. But the beauty is that if you kind of don't, might be a month where i don't know you're going away you're going traveling for a month and you're not working or you've got a quiet period you and you know you can kind of pause things so you're not having that you know the outlay of having to pay someone every single month and it can be quite flexible having a va that's the absolute beauty
SPEAKER_01:of it for me i mean that's why i always built my businesses that way because you're not taking the risk of agreeing to you know either a salary or whatever when you might have months that are up and down and even the fear of that then stops people. Whereas the idea that it, you know, on your busy months, you get more assistance. On your quieter months, you might have less assistance. It's that flexibility is the beauty of it, I think. It really is.
SPEAKER_00:I actually asked TrapGPT, like the comparison between having a VA and employing. I actually printed it out. It was quite staggering. So it was kind of basing it on 10 hours a month as a VA and my hourly rate is£35 So obviously that's£350 a month, which is£4,200 a year. An employed PA, including the overheads, because obviously with EVA you don't have to pay for office space, office equipment, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay. You don't have to contribute to pensions or national insurance. You don't have to stock tea and coffee and all of the good stuff. You don't have any of that. You literally just pay for the hours that you need. So an employed PA, including overheads. Traggy PT told me it was£37,040 a year. So comparing that to£4,200 for 10 hours a month with a VA is quite a staggering amount. Obviously, if you had 20 hours a month, it'd be obviously double that, but it's still a lot less. And with the law, I found, especially with a private client, you did have peaks and troughs. You'd have the colder months that might be a bit busier. And then the summer months where people aren't bothered about making a will, people are going on holiday. It's the last thing on the mind. They just want to go and have fun. Really, they should make sure they have a willing place first, just in case anything happens on that holiday. But it was very much like pizza and troughs. So having the flexibility of a VA rather than someone that you've got to pay regardless of whether you've got enough work for them. Plus then, like if I'm sick and I'll just, you know, tell my clients, I'm going to be around, or I'm not going to be around, I'm not going to be able to do as much, then they know that obviously they're not going to get support for that time, but they also don't have to pay for that time, more importantly. So, but I was quite staggered by the difference. It is a
SPEAKER_01:big difference. And that's why, you know, for small business owners or new startups or whatever, I know a client of mine has his own law firm and he's three or four years into it. There is a pattern here. He does employ people and he uses a mixture of other services as do lots of my clients. And I think even if you do have your own firm with quite a number of people, it's that flexibility, even having some employed resource and then the ability to outsource a little bit more. It just gives you that flexibility to spin up when it's busier or you're going away yourself or somebody's off sick or somebody else is away and spin down when you don't need it. And not just for business need, but The amount of lawyers I know that lose sleep at night to pay people's salaries, wondering if there's going to be enough income coming in to pay those salaries, never mind paying themselves anything. That is not an option. And I just think, you know, until the business is at a certain level, that flexible resource is the only way. I think that's the only way. Yeah. Based on your, say, newly found, to me, legal experience, so you worked inside law firms, you know, eight years, as you say, on the secretarial side, and then time as a paralegal as well. So you know lawyers pretty well, working sort of in traditional law firms, plus the work you've done as a VA. Why don't, why are lawyers hesitant to use services like yours? Why don't more use it? do you think?
SPEAKER_00:I think a lot of it is to do with awareness. And if you are in, you know, if you're just a partner or just, you know, a solicitor in a large law firm or a high street law firm, that support is already there for you because, you know, they've got the secretarial teams and the, all the, you know, all the admin help that you need is there in that building. You can just walk up to someone and, you know, or email them. So I think they're just not aware. Whereas the more Like I said, the legal studio model of the self-employed consultants who are at home or in the office sometimes, they're the ones who are probably going to use the services more of a VA. Plus, I think a lot of people don't actually realise how beneficial it is in terms of the pricing because people probably think it's going to cost a hell of a lot more to have a VA. But with that comparison, it's... It's staggering the difference. Plus, I think the law is quite traditional, isn't it? It still is traditional, especially the firms I worked at, very traditional high street firms. And I just think they like that model of the in-house secretaries and having someone there. I mean, it might be different. I left like in the middle of COVID, middle of 2020, I left the law and So I just had like a few six months of working from home. Whether the firm that I left is now more flexible to remote working, I don't know, because I'm not really in touch with anyone. they did quite like to have people in the office so that they could see what was kind of going on and the time that was being spent.
SPEAKER_01:And we do get stuck in our ways. You're right. And if somebody has come out of that sort of firm environment and set up on their own or consulting or whatever, you're right. They won't necessarily be aware. And then what I see also is they fall into the trap of, oh, well, it's my business. I need to keep hold of all the money and couldn't possibly part with it. And I think they miss that opportunity that actually it is an investment. investment because that you part with that money to pay for some admin support that frees up your time to go and make more money and also enjoy your business more because you're doing less of the things that you don't want to do more of the things that you do and you will always hit that ceiling of how much you can actually do alone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, hopefully some people listening to this will, if they don't already have the services of a wonderful VA, reach out to one, maybe to you, maybe to somebody in their local area. But if people do want to reach out to you, how can they find
SPEAKER_00:you? So you can find me on LinkedIn and you can drop me an email. So I'm sure you'll pop them somewhere for people to do so. I will pop them in the show notes. I mean, as I say, I've got the legal experience and my team have different experiences. Obviously, there's a lot of VAs around. The beauty of having a VA is that you don't necessarily need them to be in the same area as you. Obviously, sometimes it's nice to meet clients face to face occasionally. But there's VAs all over the world. Obviously, you sometimes need to make sure that they've got They register with the ICO, they've got insurance, they've got contracts, make sure everything's above board. But there's so many VAs from different backgrounds. I've got my legal background. There's VAs who have come from nursing, who are teachers, and everyone has just got a different skill set to offer and expertise. And I'm quite keen to grow my team and have a nice mixture. So I've got my associates who do the marketing and the social media, but I'm quite keen to kind of grow and have more VAs with legal experience as well because obviously if someone wants that and I'm at a point where I can't take on any more I'd like you know still be able to help them so growing that team to have a nice mixture of backgrounds expertise and skill sets it's hopefully we can then you know service anybody from any sector with any we also do like a lot of business admin as well as lifestyle admin and which like again with some of the neurodiverse business owners they just they can't handle and so I know one of my clients I was helping him and his partner him and his wife was looking to move house so I was on the phone for the agents setting up all the viewings for them and playing out the route and Just random, some random things. I also had a client who, him and his family went away on the Eurostar and these little boys took some, they had like stuffed teddies, some rabbits I think they were, and they lost them en route. He tried emailing the Eurostar and wasn't really getting anywhere with them. So I got in touch with them and then on the return journey, they were reunited with their stuffed bunnies. So just any kind of random thing, you know, we can help with.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. If you're someone who loses stuffed bunnies on the Eurostar, Danielle is the person to get in touch with. We lost, my son is 14 and he still has a favourite bear. He's going to go mad at me for saying that. But yes, it fell down the track at Manchester Piccadilly actually once and we had to be like oh you can't go yet someone had to go and get a grabber and pull him out but there you go people heard it here that's the sort of thing you can help them with and maybe there's people listening who are thinking oh Danielle maybe I could work with you so perhaps they could get in touch with you you know as part of your expanding team maybe if they fancy that so thank you so much I'll make sure I put all the contact details down in the show notes for people to find you thank you so much for coming to talk to me thank you for having me you're very welcome so having heard from danielle i hope that maybe it gets you thinking about what support you might need around you whether that is va support admin support delegation friends, support networks, whoever that is. I hope that there's been something there for you to think about, whether it's for now or in the future. If you'd like to find any of our other resources that I've created for people in the legal profession, then do visit www.authenticallyspeaking.co.uk, find us on YouTube or on LinkedIn. Thank you.