December 31 Is Coming, Will You Meet Your Deadlines?

As we enter the last quarter of the year, many firms and in-house legal departments turn their attention to planning growth strategies for the upcoming new year, part of which includes assessing their productive abilities in order to set proper achievable goals.

Q4 is also when legal workloads tend to increase more than other times of year, simply because many deals or transactions must be completed before the year ends.

While this in itself may be challenging, what compounds the problem is the need to address the variance of available personnel to process this increased workload. During this time of the year, the highest amount of holidays occur, and it is often the case that staff not only take the holiday off, but several days before or after, leaving gaps in coverage that can be detrimental to successful completion of all assigned projects. Deadlines will not wait, nor can the firm’s or legal department’s responsibility for meeting them. And what about you, don’t you deserve a little time off too? So how do you make sure you have the coverage you need to ensure you meet your year end obligations?

You can solve this problem before it arises, by taking advantage of the availability of highly specialized paralegals who can jump right into a large variety of projects and execute any necessary tasks with ease and can function as an extension of your firm or department. When the projects are complete, your clients are satisfied and your team hasn’t been taxed with more than they can handle, you can take comfort knowing you’ve got external colleagues you can call on whenever needed.

Finding on-demand, highly skilled paralegal support can be a challenge, but having access to it can be vital to many corporate projects that arise, from lien searches, diligence, drafting and filings needed in connection with transactions, to intellectual property, SEC filings and research and other general paralegal support. A virtual team may be the solution to filling vacation and holiday staffing gaps both during the holidays and year round.