How to Delegate Effectively in Your Law Firm

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign, most firms survive. The best ones scale. Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin. Daisy. Let's jump in hell. Welcome to the show. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Real quick, everyone, welcome to the show. Me and Raquel actually met at was it National Trial lawyers in Miami, 2025, so the beginning of this year, and just had a great conversation. Got to learn more about how she's helping law firms and her company. Her background, her story, just incredible. So I wanted to have her on the podcast to share with you all about her and her companies, but also just her story and what she's done and what she's accomplished, I think will be great for everyone here to. To hear. So I wanted to ask you right off the bat, too, for all my ladies out there, all the women listening to the show, what's something you would like to share? What's. What's just a word of wisdom from you? [00:01:21] Speaker B: Well, as a business woman, I would say that we as women can have everything we desire from life and live the life of our dreams, but only if we don't do everything in our business and for our business, only if we can learn to delegate effectively. And that's my. That's the code I was able to crack. And that's what I love helping other women, and especially female law firm owners, to achieve as well in their lives and in their business. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Love it. I love that it's such a powerful thing and a hard thing to do in the beginning, I think, as someone that's headstrong and likes to take charge and lead and, you know, to delegate and to get out of your own way sometimes. So great tip. Great message. And we're gonna learn more about that, too, as we talk here today. So, Raquel, tell us about yourself and your story and how you got to be here today. [00:02:20] Speaker B: All right, So I grew up in the south of Brazil in a very traditional family where my father was an entrepreneur and my mom was fully dedicated to her family. And I heard often that because I was a woman, I had to choose that I couldn't have everything I wanted from life. And my mom lived her life like that. And I love and admire my mom dearly. She is an incredible lady. But that never sat well with me. That created an inner fire. And I studied psychology, actually to challenge those limiting beliefs. And I decided early on that my mission was to help women believe that they could get to live a full life with everything that they dreamed and desire and that we can have a profitable business while having Time to do the things that we love while being able to be present for our families, while being able to stop work early because I enjoy picking up my daughter from school, for example, or take those guilt free vacations where you're bonding with your family and your friends. We were just discussing that you were in New York with your family recently while I was in Spain with my family for spring break. So those things are so valuable in life. And I feel that time is our most valuable asset and that being able to be present is the most expensive, expensive luxury that there is. And if you are doing everything yourself or your business, you're killing yourself. That's not the life that I want to live. And that's not a life that I want any law firm owner to live either. And that's what staffy, that's what we do here at staffy. We provide you with the support your business needs in order for you to be able not only to grow your business exponentially, but also to live the life of your dreams. And we do this by providing the best talent that there is in Latin America. They're fully bilingual, college educated, trained and ready to go. But we also provide the support to alleviate you from onboarding, training and managing of that va, because anyone can tell you that they can provide you with a VA talent, but then it's on you to onboard, to train, to coach, and to incorporate your VA into your law firm. And that's challenging because VAs are in another country. You know, they're living a different culture with different pays, different expectations. So we go one step further and we have built a methodology that provides all of that support to the law firms. And I'll pause here because I can't keep on talking. [00:04:44] Speaker A: No, you are absolutely fine. No, that's what. When I met her, and having had VAs in the past in Philippines and other countries, it's work to onboard them, to get to know them, to understand each other, processes and getting them on board with what you need done. So I think it can deter a lot of people from using a VA because they, they're like, wow, yeah, yeah, I could do it myself by the time I got them up to speed. And you know, there's a time difference and all these other things and it's. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Time consuming to be able to, you know, you have to have processes and procedures in order to incorporate to do the onboarding properly. And a lot of law firm owners, they, especially the smaller ones, they don't have those things in place. Right. A lot of the mistakes also the law firm owners do is like they're thinking, they bring a VA and they think the VA is going to figure things out on their own. They won't, they won't. That's they're going to fail big time. Another big mistake they do is isolating that VA and only giving specific tasks, not incorporating them fully into their law firm. You know, another mistake is waiting too long to bring that va. So you're like so desperate that you're not taking the time to properly that screen. Make sure you assign putting the right person in the right seats. That's like number one thing to do before bringing anyone, including a VA as well. VA is no different than any other hire. So I think where law firms, they have a bad experience, I would say is when they think that a VA is going to be different than any other hire and they're not taking the proper measures that they would if they were hiring someone in person. It should be the same type of processes, you know, and actually I'm going to be appealing the presentation that I'm going to be presenting there. It's really giving that formula that we've identified that you should follow to have a successful journey with bringing VAs into your law firm. [00:06:57] Speaker C: Today's episode is brought to you by Answering Legal. Now I just switched my company Array digital over to Answering Legal and it's made my life a whole lot easier. If I can't get to the phone, their 247 virtual receptionist take the call and take them through a full intake process so we never miss new business again. Now Answering Legal has been at this for more than a decade and they specialize in answering phone calls for law firms like yours. They even have a brand new, easy to use Apple and they integrate with all the top legal softwares and platforms. So from our listeners today, we actually have a special deal of a 400 minute free trial offer of answering Legal services that you can try out by going to answeringlegal.com array. You can also call 631-437-4803 and use special code Daisy. That's my last name. D A I S E Y. So go check them out and let's get back to the show. [00:08:01] Speaker A: If you're a law firm owner out there listening, I mean, you know, being able to grow your team and scale and get things done efficiently is a major factor. Especially if you're trying, trying to grow. You're up in your mark and you're, you're bringing in more leads, you're opening new offices. To me in this day and age, like some of them, you know, connect with someone like her or her company is. You have to take a look at this, you have to be doing this just like using AI, just like doing digital marketing or anything like that. That you have to be playing the game. You have to be on social. You have to be doing these things to win these days. And from experience, I have a, an AE or a VA in Columbia. Her name is Daniella. She's on every morning huddle with my whole team. She's a full time employee of this. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Company to your culture. That's when you have the most successful experience with your VAs too. [00:08:54] Speaker A: A hundred percent. She gets kudos rewards kind of thing we do internally with core values in our Slack channels. All the meetings with all my employees that and most of my employees around the country, Florida, Miami, all over the place, it's no different. And for me she's the same time zone too. [00:09:12] Speaker B: No different, just they're gonna cost one third of what you will pay locally. So you'll be able to hire three people for the price of one. That's back to what you were saying. It's something you have to do because other law firms are doing. So if you're not, your costs are so high that you're not being able to keep up, you're not scaling at the same pace, you know, you're not as profitable. So then you're going to fall behind. Right. So that's one of, one of the things and I have built my entire business leveraging top notch talent from Latin America. You know, we've built an eight figure business and that's what we do for, for law firms. You know, the same methodology that we apply within ourselves is the methodology that we apply to our law firm clients as well so that ensure that they have a successful experience and they can. We have law firms that have 20 VAs with us. You know, so you start with one and you see how terrible it is and then you start adding and adding and covering different areas within your law firm too. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So no it's again it's from experience I want to say we have, you know, I have three companies and we have one or her in the Central era, South America. And these folks are, I mean just amazing. And I have internally, you know, in array digital, I think we have three or four in Spanish Americans that are fluent. But you don't have to be like literally I'm talking about this. These are just some of the, they're friends of mine at this point. They're employees, they're, they're team members, they're very skilled. And again, for me it's been just an amazing experience. And again, something I get. Some of the law firms out there, they're like, well, we're in the office and we show up here. Trying to hire someone locally takes ten times as long. They have to be able to drive to the office, they have to be nearby you. And with a program like what she's got, you can scale that very quickly for the positions that you can fill like that. So again, trying to hire someone locally, it's just a lot more challenges that go along with it. [00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, the employment tax, all the insurance in some states is like extremely expensive. Like looking to California. Right. To hire New York too. So and, and even in states that are cheaper, like Florida, still, like, I don't know, the minimum wage now is, I don't know, $15 an hour. Like you get like someone that works at a McDonald's type of thing. In California, I was talking to someone's like 22 or something like that. But then those are not the type of talent that you want representing yourself, right? Your law firm, talking to your clients. You need to have skilled workers. So not only is it important to look for the best talent there is and be able to truly vet them and screen them. And when I say vet them and screen them, it's not only looking to their resume and looking to their background and experience, but we are big into looking into testing their personalities and soft skills as well. Besides doing all that, you know, calling the past years, the five years of previous employers to make sure they would be rehired, validating those diplomas. We only work with people that are graduating when we're placing a paralegal, they're lawyers in their home country with years of experience. So these are top notch employees. But let me tell you, even the most qualified people, so we only hire 1% of everyone, they're not ready to go. You have to train them, you have to, you know, so we have a university that we have over 400 modules. And if you are a personal injury attorney, they're going to be trained and ready to go in the personal injury field, you know, collecting medical documents, insurance verification, things like that. There's a lot of courses. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Wow. [00:12:52] Speaker B: So you have to get them trained so they're ready to go to get the most value of them. But not only that, once they are placed with you, you have to train them, the whole onboarding, making sure that. Okay, do you have a process for that, probably most, most law firms don't. Coaching them, mentoring them. These people, they're working from home, they feel lonely, they feel anxious. I'm a psychologist. We have mindset coaches. They are working with RVAs day in and day out to make sure they have a safe space to talk about their feelings. Because I know that if you're not doing well here and here, guess what, you're not producing good work. We have senior paralegal coaches with expertise in different areas of law to serve as escalation points. So, for example, in personal injury, family law, immigration, probate and state planning, we have different coaches that they go to so that they don't have to go to the lawyer with questions every 30 minutes. They go to our coaches. And if you have SOPs in place already, you provide those to us. And our coaches will use those SOPs to train your VA specifically to your processes and procedures. Guess what? If you don't have SOPs, we have the task and organizational coach who will help the VA put together those sops for your law firm specifically. And all of this sits in the delegation hub, which is a proprietary software platform that we've created that allows for clients, our VAs and coaching team to be always connected. And it's a place where the VAs will input their daily recaps so you have easy access to everything your VA is doing day in and day out. You can escalate issues. You can request additional training to the staff, university. What else? Every time the coaches meet with the VA's, every, you're going to find a summary there, everything that was covered. So it's, it's really incredible. It's like we've created this methodology that I'm very, very passionate about and it's, you know, because of my background in psychology and is to really free up the law firm owner's time. Our average client tells us that it gives them back about five hours in a week on that support alone. So it's really like when you work with staffy, you're not only just having a va, you have an entire team backing up. Yeah. [00:15:00] Speaker A: That's amazing. I was going to ask you what makes you different, but I think you just told us. Well, I mean, okay, there's a lot of things there. Like, you know, I think I'm. I'm over 15. We're about 50 employees. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Which I don't manage myself. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Thankfully, I think I was removed from that for reasons, but it's a lot of people. Right. And so as a law firm, you're growing. You're, you know, whether you have one person or you have dozens of people, it takes your time. You know, you're the. They want to, Everyone wants to get to you for questions or your attention or whatever it may be. And I think some of the reluctance of folks to use a VA or to use someone outside as we were talking before we were recording is that, well, I gotta tell them what to do and I have to get them up to speed. And then I have to. And then you, you just start talking yourself out of it. That, yeah, I could probably just hire someone that's here or I just don't do it at all. And we'll just keep doing this work that is work that we shouldn't be doing or as an owner that you. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Should be doing out or until you burn out others in the team that you end up quitting. So those are the things you want to avoid. So that's why so important to hire early and take the time to think through what are the tasks that you want to be delegated to that va. And that's why going back to. We run an initial strategy session that is actually for free and our clients tell us that it's very valuable. So we divide the law firm into four different areas of work. Admin, legal, client facing and marketing. And we've identified 80 tasks that can easily be delegated that fall into each one of these areas. And the initial strategy session that one of our HR specialists sits down with you, it's great because you take the time to think about what are the things that I want this VA to master the first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. And based on that, we're going to look for the ideal match to fulfill those tasks. And that's so important because that goes back to the personality. So for example, let's say you need someone to cover client facing work. That person needs to be highly empathetic. The person needs to come with a background in sales and client care. We need to test their personality to make sure that they are very good at communicating. And they have to have a type of personality who thrives from human interaction. So those things, if you're not taking into account when hiring someone to do client facing work, guess what? They're not going to stay and they're not going to do a good job and they're going to hurt your law firm's reputation. So you need to really take. That's why I like to say hire early and take the time to think through before you hire. What do you want that person to take on. And I find that. So that's something actually that no strings attached. Like, if you, if you're interested in knowing who your next hire should be, that's something we do. And I like to say, not because I'm trying to sell anything, it's because you just so you can find out who your next hire should be. Because if, if most of the tasks fall under legal, that person also needs to have very high attention to detail, be highly organized. And that's why for legal, we only place people who are lawyers in their, their home country doing that type of work. But it's so important. And one of the biggest mistakes the law firm owners do is they hire when they're desperate and they are. They need someone, anyone. [00:18:24] Speaker A: They're too far past. [00:18:25] Speaker B: They're too far past. And then what happens, it turns into failure and wasted time, and then they have a better experience and they think it's because vas don't work. But that's not what it is. If you do it right, if you follow a process, there, there's, there's a formula that if you follow, you're going to be very successful and you're going to be able to scale your business very quickly by leveraging incredible talent from Latin America. And there's that there is this myth that, oh, people from Latin America, they are not as, you know, qualified or smart. And wow, you know, my entire business is leveraging these incredible professionals. I mean, I'm from Brazil myself. And it's. Those are myths and they're. They're wrong. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I back that up because again, Daniela probably listening to this because she edits and runs this whole podcast. She runs this whole podcast and does, you know, all our promotional stuff, you know, marketing, social media, videos, processes, lots of stuff beyond this. This is just one of the pieces. But she's a rock star. Sales support, you know, I mean, you name it. And half the time I find myself, you know, having to give her more stuff to do because she's so efficient and fast. I mean, graphic design, Adobe products or stuff, she's like, I'll go figure that out. And we're doing all kinds of new stuff with new softwares and things along the way for more that we can do because she's that fast and that's that skilled. So it's been a, it's been a pleasure. So, yeah, I would say if law firms listening right now, you're wanting to be competitive in your market, one that's. You gotta grow and scale you gotta get more leads and marketing, you have to backfill that with, with, with intake folks. You need to have, you know, paralegals and folks who do the work. [00:20:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:16] Speaker A: To keep up with that. But then at the same time, your cost. Right. So you want to put more money towards advertising, marketing, lawyers that you need to have as partners to grow certain areas of practice. This is a great, A great strategy that you need to tap into, in my opinion. So. And I'm not trying to sell her services. [00:20:34] Speaker B: No. [00:20:35] Speaker A: I don't get nothing from this benefit. [00:20:38] Speaker B: From it at all. It just knows you work. [00:20:41] Speaker A: It works for me and it's impressive. It works for me. But I think, you know, the cool thing of what you've put in place is so much more like the training, the coaching, the SOPs. I mean. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:57] Speaker A: That all that. [00:20:58] Speaker C: Right. [00:20:58] Speaker A: There is just another layer on top of it that makes you that more impressive to me. [00:21:04] Speaker B: And that's why people come to us in conferences and they ask what makes you different from the. You know, there's someone else there doing virtual staffing and what, what your competitors are like. No, we're not competitors. We do something completely different here. We don't compete. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And just, you know, just having processes and documenting and all that stuff, that's, that's, that's a big part of any business to be successful. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:21:28] Speaker A: One that usually lacks and, or they might have some core ones, but they don't keep up with it. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:34] Speaker A: So just think about, you're getting the help and you're getting processes developed along the way and you're getting coaching and you can scale. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:42] Speaker A: And you, you can do all that in one spot. I mean, just the value that this. [00:21:47] Speaker B: And you mentioned a very valuable point there, that SOPs, they're leaving documents. Right. Always, constantly have to be updated. And there's law firms, they're like, okay, we have SOPs, but they're five years old and we haven't done anything. Then we help them, we take a look at them. Anything if the VA is involved in doing those processes will help get them updated, you know, and that's the. We have a specific coach that does that and works on that with the va. So yeah, you get a lot of support. And all of this was built having the female law firm owner in mind, because that's my passion is to help women. I was talking about my background. Background a little bit, but my passion is really to help women be extremely successful but also be able to live the life of their dreams. And I feel like if you are. If you. Because a lot of us go into building a business because we want to have more control of our life, of our lives and our time. And then in the end, we end up not getting that because we. We work so much harder when we are starting our business. But then some of. Some of us. That was me also 10 years ago. But some of us can get out of it, right? But some of us can't. We're staying a trap. And then you have to go back to, why did I start my firm? Why did I start my business? Go back to that and work on our mindset. Why is it that it's getting. It's so difficult to delegate, you know, And I feel that you can build a successful firm, but then you're doing. You're overworking. You are not being able to take the time away. You're not being able to be present. You're missing out on a lot of things from your kids and your family. Is that the life you want? Right. So you're not. You're being successful, but you're not being as successful as you could be if you had a team behind you. And that team should be growing and growing and growing every whatever month, three months. We're constantly hiring. But that goal is also having the right processes, procedures, platforms, right. Not only the people. And I feel that. So that's. My passion is really to help women achieve everything in life. So I went for every women. I specifically work with lawyers because I saw myself in the law. In the female law firm owner. You know, I come from a career in large corporate America. I was very successful. Like, I started as a sales rep, I became a vp, I became an executive. I was managing large teams. And I was able to prove to my family, to myself, that as a Latina woman, I could be successful. But I was miserable. You know, I was. I wasn't enjoying my life. I was traveling every week, home on weekends. I was missing out on a lot of things. I wasn't being able to truly take care of myself physically, mentally, emotionally. I was just work, work, work, work, work. And that's when I, you know, I reached my breaking point and I took a break. And then. And then Steffi was born. So, yeah, I feel like my mission is to really help women reconnect, like, be able to. We can have everything we want. We can live the life with desires. It all starts in our mind, really. Our minds are, I feel like, can be our best friends, but also our worst enemies. And we gotta work with our minds. You Know, hire, coaching, do therapy, whatever you have to, to be able to. Because I'm telling you, you can, you can, you can have a full life. And that's what I'm here to help you achieve. [00:25:16] Speaker A: I love it. I appreciate you sharing all that and what you've done is impressive. And how long you been in business yourself? [00:25:21] Speaker B: 10 years. [00:25:22] Speaker A: 10 years. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker A: And how many folks there at Eight Figure at an Eight Figure company? [00:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we have about. I lose count. I was at, I was at an event and I said we have 200 law firm clients. And they're like, no, it's much more now. I think we're about 250. I have to check. We have two services though. We have the fully dedicated service that is the VA that assigned to you with all of the training, the coaching and the subscription. We also have a live receptionist and intake service exclusively to law firms as well. So between both services we're like about 150 clients, about 350 representatives right now assigned. And we have a large team internally to be able to provide incredible service to our law firm clients. We are about 90 people internally. Yeah. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Impressive. That's awesome. I mean obviously anyone listening to hit the eight figure mark to have that many folks on the team, depending on where you are, some bigger firms that listen in thus, that's big. That's, that's moving. So I'm at 50 or so. And what I love crazy. Yeah. Let's say if you've done what you, you're, you're living the dream and you're, you're inspiring others and women listening to do, to do big things and they can get it done, then they can do what they want. So I love it for sure. What is the best way to find out about Staffy or best way to connect with you? If someone wants to, you know, connect with you personally or on social, what's the best way to check you out other than Staffy? You can share that, that website address too. It'd be good. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Okay, so Staffy's website is www.staffy s t a f I.cc um, I'm also very active on LinkedIn. I love sharing personal stories and really inspiring women out there. That's my thing. So you can look me up. It's Raquel R A K Q U E L. Gomez with an S. And we love to stay connected. Feel free to send a direct message. No, I love connecting with other women out there who are, you know, aiming to have a, to live a full life and maybe you're struggling. Maybe you're in a different. Whatever phase you are in. Life is full of phases and ups and downs and I'm here to help you and motivate you. And you know, we're never alone. That's the truth. There's always hundreds other women out there. We might not know the struggles, we might not know what they're going through, but there's, there's always, I feel like it's very important to build a community. So that's what I aim with my LinkedIn, is to build a community where we can support each other. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And if, yeah, anyone who wants to connect with, with her, I have, you know, I can connect you by email, by LinkedIn. Yeah, drop a comment. Also, if you have any questions too about VAs or intake or staffie or whatever, if you're looking at this, if you're watching this on LinkedIn or if you're on YouTube, whatever, you know, leave a comment. I can tag her and we can make sure we answer your question. So yeah, drop a comment if you want to connect with her. Obviously should be tagged here in this as well. So. But awesome company, great service. Check her out. If you're a law firm, you're looking to grow and scale, hopefully that's why you're listening to this podcast, you know, the Virtual assistant. I mean it's something that you need to incorporate into your business going into the future. Just like AI, it's here. It's going to help you figure out how to leverage it and make use of it. And you know, we're helping amazing people in South America. These are great folks. Again, friends, employees of mine and my team members. [00:28:56] Speaker B: And that's something I didn't mention here helping especially we hire a lot of women in Latin America. I thought there's a lot of gender inequality. I know there's something we leave in the US as well, but it's very strong in Latin America. So for me, it's very close to my heart being able to change lives of women in Latin America and provide them with living that change in their lives. So since you mentioned yes, you're, you're by using vase, not only is helping you scale your business more rapidly, but also you're helping change lives of people in Latin America and create a social impact. So it's a wonderful thing. [00:29:33] Speaker A: It's just been great. And so we do like a core value award every quarter for each of our core values. And we have these like, really nice. They cost a couple hundred dollars each. Or hand blown glass like awards and we send them down to, you know, wherever Columbia or whatever country our folks might be in. And again, they're included in everything that we would do for anyone that works. I love that in the office or in a state in the U.S. that's, that's how we've done it. And that seems like what she's recommending you do and I think that's the right way to go. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And I just. One last thing. If you're going to be at Pioma, I'm going to be there. I'm speaking one of the days, I forgot right now which day, but I think it's the Thursday and we have a booth so if you are there please stop by to say hello. I'm going to be there personally. So yeah, we'd love to connect in person. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Mpilma Denver, please find her, connect and go see her her talk. I'm sure she's got a lot of good things to share outside of what we just talked about. So impressive. Thank you for coming on today and share. Everyone else, thank you for listening, thanks for tuning in and please connect with her. She's. It sounds like she has a way to help. If it's just having a chat or talking. Any of our women out there listening, she would love to connect. [00:30:48] Speaker B: So thank you. [00:30:51] Speaker A: All right, everyone, thank you. Raquel, you stay on with me and we'll say goodbye. [00:30:56] Speaker B: Goodbye. See ya.