The Future is Virtual—Work, That Is

Nixon Law Group was founded in 2010 as a virtual workforce. We never “made the leap” to remote work or experienced a virtual “transformation.” We have access to office space for client meetings on an as-needed, hourly basis, but most of our clients are based in different locations around the country and the bulk of our work has always taken place from home offices.

Our philosophy has always been to reduce unnecessary overhead and pass the savings on to our clients. To do so, we invested in software tools to help manage projects, documents, client intake, timekeeping, marketing, employee benefits and 360° evaluations. We sought feedback from our team, our clients, and other experts about how to manage interpersonal communication, give constructive support to our team, and manage disagreements in a virtual environment. We sought to maximize client and attorney collaboration and

minimize overhead with the enduring belief that we could develop a better way to practice law--one that would best meet our own needs and those of our clients.

As we grew, we listened, and researched, and tested, and learned to adapt to the demands of a growing practice and a geographically distributed team of amazing and unique individuals who each have their own vision of how to be happy and productive in a virtual work environment. True to our core values, we continue to innovate constantly, and to seek feedback from our team.

With the sudden upset in many traditional workplaces due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Carrie and I count ourselves grateful because (1) we are a healthcare innovation firm, and advice regarding telemedicine and remote patient monitoring technology is in high demand these days, and (2) as an already fully virtual company, we have not had to struggle to transition our employees out of an office because we already have the flexibility to serve our clients from any location. However, we’re also observing our local businesses, clients, and colleagues as they grapple with the sudden necessity of shifting to remote work, so our team has come together to share some of what we’ve learned in the hopes that it eases their transition somewhat. Supporting a virtual workforce isn’t as easy as buying a Zoom membership and Google Drive account, but it’s not impossible either! There are lots of things we’ve learned through the years about how to be present, compassionate, productive, organized leaders in this work environment.

For our team’s perspective on working from home, check out The #WFH Life: Tips for Working From Home from a Virtual Law Firm!

We can get through this, together. 

PRODUCTIVITY: Keeping Us On Track

Goal Setting and Goal Tracking. Team members are encouraged to set daily or weekly goals. We help them track these goals on a daily or weekly basis using a combination of software tools and manually compiled weekly Key Performance Indicator (“KPI”) compilations sent by our Legal Operations director. For our team, these goals might include the number of new clients onboarded, authorship of web site articles, speaking engagements, the amount of time billed to a project or client, and others. For other businesses, that might be the number of sales calls, deals closed, revenue per day/hour/week, tickets closed, etc. We find this eliminates the need for micromanagement while encouraging self-accountability. 

Carrie and I review team productivity and KPIs on a weekly basis and check in with team members early to identify challenges and how we can support each other’s productivity and progress. 

Enhancing the Working Environment. We provide a budget upon hire for initial home office set-up and a monthly stipend for our team members to help them create the environment that best supports their happiness and productivity. We love seeing the office makeovers!

For some of our members, being able to interact in person with other team members and other working professionals from time to time is important. We recently approved a program to support our team members in co-working environments while they are still connected remotely to our whole team and our clients. 

TEAM MANAGEMENT: Keeping it all together

Individual check-ins. We schedule regular check-in meetings with each member of our team, at least one every two weeks, to help connect with them and to discuss how we can support them. We don’t like to be too rigid, but we do try to focus these discussions on the attorneys’ topic areas for development, which we discuss and agree upon as part of our semi-annual performance reviews. 

Team meetings. We host an all hands team meeting each week, during which we focus on an area of professional development and the overall workload of the staff, but also discuss challenges and victories the team experienced during the week, providing both kudos and support as needed. Cameras ON.

Virtual Socializing. Once a month, we host a “virtual happy hour”, where we talk about anything BUT firm business 😊 Virtual games like trivia or charades can be a fun addition.  Or, we just chat about what’s going on in the world. Cameras ON. 

Providing Feedback. We structure feedback discussions and encourage the team to talk “live” when tough conversations are needed. A lot can be misconstrued when a team is communicating via text, email, or other asynchronous means. Picking up the phone to clarify things like tone, context, and purpose is vitally important. 

Real life meetups! We meet (in person) twice per year so that we can enjoy each other’s “live” company and help bond together as a team. Karaoke is a staple. 

CLIENT MANAGEMENT: Keeping client service at the forefront

Project Management Tools. Asynchronous communication tools for project management are a great way to keep a record of background, timeline, commentary, and other details about a particular project or matter. Once you adopt one of these tools, it will be very important to train the team on how to use them. Protocols and procedures and training (though time consuming endeavors) are worth the investment of time. 

Client Management Tools. You can gain tremendous overhead savings by utilizing software tools for client onboarding and practice management. (This might be more helpful for professional services firms like CPAs, lawyers, etc.). However, there are several client relationship management (CRM) tools that are available and well designed for many industries.

Client Communication Tools. Synchronous video conferencing tools help us to connect in a more personal way with both clients and our team. We work with healthcare innovators, many of whom are very comfortable with video technology, but most platforms these days are incredibly easy to use, even for a novice. When we can, and the clients request it, we make the effort to meet in person. This is rare, but our goal is happy clients, so we try to accommodate them if we can!

Firm Management Tools. Our practice management software allows us to provide client access to invoices and important files. Some of our clients enjoy the ability to log in and view their important documents without having to wait for mail, fax, or a returned email. 

We’d love to hear YOUR tips and tricks! Send them to operations@nixonlawgroup.com.

Stay Safe. Be Well.

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