The Virtual ParalegalAlternative Office Staffing Solutions for Attorneys and  Law Firms

Are you looking for great software for your virtual law office or virtual paralegal / legal assistant business?

Through my years working as a virtual contract paralegal and legal assistant for attorneys in all different jurisdictions, I have come across a vast amount of software that can make collaboration between the virtual paralegal and your law office almost seamless. Whether you are an attorney stumbling across this free software or an idividual looking for great virtual software ideas, you have come to the right place.

Accounting Software

Waveapps - Waveapps is a completely free onlinve invoicing and billing software system, complete with the ability for your clients or customers to pay their invoices with a Visa, Mastercard or Discover Card. You can also set up direct payments to your bank account and keep track of expenses. After years of searching for the best invoicing software, I finally found it with Waveapps.

Wordprocessing

Open Office - This is a great completely free program that provides features similar to Word products such as Word processing, Excel, and PowerPoint. Open Office products are compatible with Word products and Wordperfect. You can save documents created in Open Office in word and wordperfect format so your client's can still access the information. Go to OpenOffice.org

Ebook Software 1 - This is a free, powerful and user friendly ebook creator.

CutePDF - Free PDF creator all for free. This is a great alternative if you cannot afford to buy Adobe Acrobat.

File Storage and File Sharing Software

Dropbox.com - Dropbox offers 2 gig of free space that you can share files with others if you wish.  Very easy interface.  The program is set up to look just like any other folder in your Windows Browser.  It is a very secure alternative for sharing files. There is also an Ipod app available.

Syncplicity.com - Syncplicity offers 2 gig of free space to share files with others.  Syncplicity is similar to dropbox.com.  I use both since my clients all don't use the same file sharing tools. There is also an Ipod app available.

Box.net - Offers 5 gig of free space to store and share files.

Google Docs - Offers for free 1 gig of space for storing and sharing your files. However, this is a great document storage option and if you want to purchase additional space it is very cheap. You can purchase an additional 20 gigs for only $5.00 per year and 80 gigs for only $20.00 per year. Google Docs also serves as a great alternative to backing up your files. ( You will need to sign up for a google account for free.)

Windows Skydrive - Skydrive gives you 25 gig of free space to upload, share and organize. It also acts as a great back up for your important office files. It is web based but there is a program called Gladinet Cloud Storage (which is also free) that allows you to create a mapped drive on your hard drive so you can access your account through your windows explorer. All you need to do for a free Skydrive account is sign up. And yes, that's free too.

File Backup Software

Mozy.com - Backup for your files. Make sure you sign up for the "MozyHome Free" version. You can store up to 2 GB for free.

Calendars

Google Calendar - Google Calendars. Simply the best on the net. You can share your online calendars with clients and colleagues and you can access your calendar anywhere. Great for calendar collaboration with a client when you manage their appointments. Go to Google to sign up for your free account.

Airset - This calendar offers online collaboration with your clients, contact list, photo album, web site, messaging and more. Go to Airset to set up your free account. Recently Airset also started offering cloud storage and sharing options, also free.

Voice and Fax Machines

EFax - You can sign up with EFax for a free fax number that allows others to send you a fax and you receive the fax in your email. Does require software download, but that is free too. You can upgrade if you wish to have a fax number that looks local or if you want to purchase an outgoing fax number. But the incoming fax number is free. Go to EFax to sign up for your free account and get your free inbound fax number.

K7 - K7.net offers free inbound faxes to your email and voice mail.

Fax Zero - Fax Zero allows for you to send two (2) free faxes per day. Only catch, it does have a small bit of advertising. But if you are not sending many faxes, this is a great place to send a fax from, especially if it is a personal fax. Wouldn't use so much professionally for a virtual office.

Remote Access

Work directly online with colleagues and clients with these great free remote access sites or access your work computer from any other computer in the virtual world wide web.

Logmein (Simply the Best) - There is a free version of Logmein that suffices my needs to access my office computer from a remote connection and also from my Ipod Touch. Yes, there's an app for that.

Teamviewer - You can't be without free Teamviewer if you want to remotely collaborate with your team members in your law office or with your virtual legal assistant. It is completely free. TeamViewer connects to any PC or server around the world within a few seconds. It allows you to remote control your team members computer as if you were sitting right in front of it. Great for presentations and meetings.

Joinme - Joinme is also a great free tool that allows you to remote access another person's computer or if you want to collaborate and screen share with your client or customer.

Free Legal Documents for your Business

Docstoc - Docstoc is a great free resource of legal and business documents that others have uploaded to share with you. You can find anything from sample business plans to simple correspondence examples. Free registration.

File Converters

Zamzar.com - No software download required. Just go to Zamzar.com, select your file to convert, choose the format, enter your email address where you want to receive the file, then convert. (This has come in handy throughout my virtual days.)

Primo PDF - You can download a free version that allows you to create PDFs from any file, even Excel and PowerPoint. Go to PrimoPDF to sign up for your free account. This is one of my favorite free tools my virtual paralegal office uses every day.

Free OCR - Turns scanned pdfs into text.  PC Magazine said this tool “does a pretty great job for a tool that costs nothing and works with any image with text.”

Time Tracking and Invoicing

WaveApps - This is a free online accounting program that you can access anywhere. Also includes apps for your iphone, ipad, ect. This bundle includes invoicing capabilities, business accounting software and the ability to allow your customers or clients to pay your invoices by credit card. Very easy interface and you can invoice your customers or clients easily by email at a click of the button.

Stopwatch - This is a great tool that I use daily to keep track of my time for billing purposes. Very small but very useful program.

Dictation and Transcription 

Express Scribe - Express Scribe is a great free digital transcription software. You use your keyboard for the controls. I use this on a daily basis.

M4a to Mp3 Convertor - Some Transcription software does not support the M4a files. If you should receive a M4a file to transcribe but your software will not support it, you can use this free program called the M4a to Mp3 Convertor to convert the file into an Mp3. I use this program daily.

Telephone Online Solutions

Skype - I use Skype in my virtual paralegal office as my main office telephone. It is cheap and free for PC to PC calls. However, I purchased for $2.95 per month, the ability to make long distance calls to anywhere in the United States and Canada and I purchased my online telephone number for as little as under $60.00 per year. So for approximately $95.00 per year, I have an office telephone versus the cost of long distance charges, a seperate phone line, ect. It would have cost me hundreds per year for installing an additional business line and phone charges each month. Way cost effective for any virtual office. You can use a headset or any Voice over IP telephone that hooks into your usb port. My phone is wireless.

Office Management and Organization

Evernote - allows you to organize in a notebook style.  You get 60 mb per month free storage, which is more than enough to add photos, ect.  I use not for business but for organizing my recipes and other personal stuff.  You can access Evernote from anywhere or download the desktop version.

Just Plain Fun Stuff to Waste Your Time

Smilebox - All free - create free cards, slideshows and scrapbooks with your photos.

Photofilter - A great and completely free alternative to Photoshop. Create great newsletters, advertisements or create scrapbooks and/or just have fun editing your photos.