- US median pay$47,540 a year[2]All industries, BLS May 2025
- One-time fee$2,500–3,000[1]On the start day, only if you hire
- Free replacementWithin 180 days[1]One per placement, fee paid, role, hours and pay unchanged, no refund
What the week looks like at a law firm
A small firm's week is shaped by the court calendar and by billable hours. Hearings and filing deadlines are fixed; everything else moves around them. New enquiries arrive by phone and web form and need a conflict check and a quick reply before they go to another firm. Attorneys draft during the day and catch up on email at night, while time entries, invoices and client document requests slip until someone chases them on Friday.
What a virtual assistant does for law firms
- Send intake questionnaires and engagement letters from your templates and log what comes back
- Run the conflict-check list against your case system and pass any possible match to an attorney
- Name and file incoming documents in the right matter folder the same day
- Chase clients for missing signatures and documents on a weekly list
A virtual assistant, in job-title terms an administrative assistant working remotely, handles the repeating office work of a team: documents, data updates, scheduling, simple customer emails and research. It is broader and less senior than an executive assistant, and it works best with written procedures.
Tools law firms commonly use
- Clio
- MyCase
- PracticePanther
- Microsoft 365
- Google Workspace
- Calendly
- QuickBooks
- Excel
Common in this kind of business, not a checklist: name your own stack in the brief.
How to test a candidate for a law firm
Give the candidate ten badly named sample documents from two made-up matters and your naming rule. Ask them to rename them, file them and write the client a polite request for the one that is missing. Errors in dates and names matter more than speed.
What to keep in-house or check first
Legal advice, signing, court appearances and client-money decisions stay with your attorneys, and trust account access stays with whoever is responsible for it. Professional conduct rules usually make the lawyer answerable for anyone working on a file, including outside staff, so check your bar's guidance on outsourcing and client confidentiality before sharing matter files, and ask for a written confidentiality agreement.
General caution, not legal advice: check the rules that apply to you with a qualified adviser.
Available now
1 virtual assistant on Stafka, English B1, updated 5 November 2026. The count is for the role, not for law firms: name your business in the brief.
Administrative Assistant0 years of experience · AM-1007
- English B1
- $800–1,000 a month
Anonymous profiles of people who asked to be shown to employers. Most applied through our Telegram bot with a written and a voice English task; Silkstaff checks English on a live call before any client interview. Names, contacts and employers stay hidden until a candidate accepts your intro request.
Choose a country: shared hours
Repeating admin work can run on a written checklist with a daily check-in, so a partial overlap with your day usually works. Anything phone-based needs agreed hours.
Against a 9–17 client day in winter[3][4][5][6]; for New York, on a 9–18 local day or a 13–22 shift. Check your own office.
What it costs
We do not publish a pay band for virtual assistants yet: where a profile lists a monthly rate, that is what the person asks for. The BLS figure of $47,540 a year is for Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive[2] across all industries: we have no separate figure for this niche. Paying through Deel adds $49 a month[7]; Wise and Payoneer also work.
See also: virtual assistant pay in the US, by state · pricing and replacement terms.
How hiring through Stafka works
- Send the brief or post the job free. List the recurring tasks, how often each one happens, and the person who will answer questions in the first month.
- Within 5 business days of a confirmed brief you get 3 matching profiles, or a plain no. Most apply through our Telegram bot with a written and a voice English task; each profile shows the English level (B1–C2); Silkstaff checks English on a live call before any client interview.
- You interview, choose and contract the person directly through Deel, Wise or Payoneer. Candidates never pay.
Questions
Is a virtual assistant the same as a paralegal?
No. A virtual assistant does office admin. A paralegal drafts and researches legal material under an attorney. If you need legal drafting, ask for a paralegal in the brief, because the test and the pay are different.
Can a remote assistant see client files at a law firm?
It depends on your bar's guidance on confidentiality and supervision of non-lawyers. Many firms start the person on scheduling and billing admin, then open matter folders one at a time, using individual logins, a confidentiality agreement and no local copies. This is general information, not legal advice.
Where can a law firm hire an affordable virtual assistant?
The usual routes are a freelance marketplace, an agency with a monthly margin, or a direct hire in a lower-cost country. On Stafka it is a direct hire: you pay the person the monthly pay you agree with them, plus $2,500–3,000[1] once if you hire, with no monthly margin.
General information for small employers, not legal or tax advice: check contracts, tax and data rules for your country with a qualified adviser. Tool names belong to their owners; we are not affiliated with them. Spotted a mistake? Write to hello@silkstaff.com.