The thing is, Andrea started figuring out how to fix things at the office long before she launched the premiere virtual assistant service in legal. In life before the internet, Andrea worked in and around New York City for crazy busy and not exactly technologically savvy lawyers. Whether for an Equity Partner at a large, corporate firm, or the rain making successful almost solo, it was her job to keep them organized, their schedules the way they needed them to be, the files/document/ information immediately at hand, and to be the buffer between them and anything that interrupted what was scheduled/what they needed/wanted to be doing. Gate keeper. Wrangler. Go to girl. Manager. Mom.
After launching her service-based business, Andrea became very aware that organizing others was not the same as organizing one’s own business. As her business rapidly grew, she knew she needed to fix how things were done, and to plan herself out – or she would be working nights and weekends forever.
Not only did she learn to shift, pivot, leverage, implement and adopt; more than two decades, a few financial meltdowns, and even through a pandemic, the service business she set up in 2001 has served those who entrust their documents and data entry work to get done – reliably, accurately, and timely every day since 2001. That’s over 8,000 days of getting the work done!
This isn’t a fairytale ending. Far from it. After doing all that was necessary to make her own service-based business scale to any size law firm environment and basically run without her, Andrea shifted her focus to being able to educate as many attorneys as possible about securely working on and through the web. In 2005, she launched Law Firm Solutions and her newsletter The Legal Connection was born.
Since 2005, Andrea has also freely spoken at the local, national and international level, doing her best to help all the overworked, overwhelmed and stressed-out lawyers by teaching them how to organize their offices and processes. She has attended, been faculty, or official media for LegalWeek in New York and ABATechShow in Chicago. In 2016, Andrea was honored to be named a Woman of LegalTech. Pre-pandemic, Andrea hosted monthly lunches and annual meet ups where she would bring together all kinds of interesting people to connect, learn and laugh!
Andrea has always been active on twitter, has written countless articles and blog posts, hosted and guested on podcasts, webinars, and at in-person gatherings, including coordinating the LegalTypist SuperPass for ABATechshow. She is responsible for bringing over 100 lawyers, some of the first legal educators and many core legal technology representatives to ABATechShow. For over a decade, Andrea has freely spread her knowledge with lawyers and those who work at law offices.
But she knows it is still not enough! Not enough stressed-out lawyers even know her name, let alone how she helps those on the brink – of exhaustion; burn out; freaking out – and walks them off the ledge before implementing the processes she knows will work (for them).
Ready to put what Andrea knows to use for you? Set up a free CoffeeTalk, or select to fix one process or align the whole office.