How to Track the ROI of Your Legal VA
As a solo or small firm lawyer, hiring a Legal Virtual Assistant (VA) can feel like a leap of faith. You know your time is stretched thin, and you suspect that offloading administrative tasks could free you up to focus on higher-value work. But after you’ve taken that leap, how do you know whether your VA is actually making you money rather than just adding another line item to your monthly expenses?
Here’s the truth: if you’re not tracking the Return on Investment (ROI) on a VA, you could be missing a critical part of your firm’s financial picture. And worse, you could be flying blind on decisions that affect your time, your clients, and your bottom line.
Start With What Matters Most: Your Time
When I hired my first VA, I quickly realized the biggest return wasn’t just the lower hourly rate compared to in-office staff. It was getting my time back. Every client intake form they reviewed, every follow-up email they sent, every deadline they tracked on my calendar — that was time I could reinvest into client work, marketing, or even just a much-needed breather.
To measure the ROI, start by identifying which tasks you’ve delegated and how much time those tasks used to take you. For example, if your VA now handles five hours of admin work per week, and your billable rate is $300/hour, you’ve theoretically freed up $1,500 worth of billable time. That alone might cover or exceed what you’re paying your them.
But don’t stop at theory. Are you actually using those freed-up hours for billable work, business development, or high-level firm growth? Or is that time just disappearing into the noise? Tracking how your time is reallocated is key to seeing real return.
Hidden Savings That Add Up Fast
The ROI isn’t just about time. There are hard-cost savings too. If your VA is remote and an independent contractor (1099), you’re not paying employment taxes, benefits, or for extra office space. That’s money that stays in your account each month.
Then there’s geographic arbitrage: if your VA lives in a region with a lower cost of living, you are probably paying a highly competent professional far less than what a local hire would cost for the same skill level. That differential can represent thousands in savings over the course of a year.
Are You Getting Leverage or Just Delegation?
Another way to look at ROI is to ask: is your VA just taking tasks off your plate, or are they making your systems better? A good Legal VA doesn’t just follow instructions — they improve your processes. Maybe they create templates, track deadlines more consistently than you ever did, or help implement automation tools you didn’t have time to figure out.
When your VA starts contributing to systems and workflows that continue to pay off even when they’re not actively working, that’s leverage. And that’s the kind of ROI that compounds over time. Track the time they are spending on tasks to see if they are doing it faster and more efficiently than you did.
But for this to happen, you need to look for that initiative in the hiring process. Be sure that the person you hire has the necessary discipline and skillset to make that happen.
Tracking It All Without Making It a Chore
You don’t need fancy software to track your VA’s ROI. A simple spreadsheet works fine: log what tasks they handle, how long those tasks used to take you, what you’re paying them, and what that time is now worth to you. Revisit it monthly.
Better yet, talk with your VA regularly about what they’re doing and what they could do more efficiently. Make ROI a shared goal and have them track it on the spreadsheet or a project management app. If you treat them like a partner in your business, they’ll rise to the level of that expectation.
Is It Time to Reassess — Or Finally Hire?
If you’ve already hired a VA and aren’t sure you’re getting the full value, take a beat. Evaluate. It might be time to refine your delegation or to clarify priorities. Sometimes the VA is doing great work, but the lawyer isn’t reinvesting that freed-up time wisely.
And if you haven’t hired a VA yet because you’re unsure if the ROI is there? The only way to find out is to start small, track smart, and be strategic.
I help lawyers like you figure out how to get the most out of every hour and every day. If you’re ready to build a more profitable and sustainable practice, book a consultation with me today. Let’s make sure your investments are really paying off.
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