The average lawyer in the continental United States spends just 2.5 hours a day on billable work, according to the 2019 Legal Trends Report by Clio, a law firm software provider. Practice time is often lost to administrative work that could be handled more efficiently by staff. With the right support, lawyers are able to boost their productivity and focus on growing their practices.
With more than 700 lawyers in Amata’s network, Tisha enjoys working on a wide variety of matters. Attorney Ricardo Meza, a former federal prosecutor and owner of Meza Law, is now practicing from Amata’s 161 N. Clark office and has asked Tisha to help on a number of matters. Ricardo has found Tisha to be knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the various projects and looks forward to her contributions.
Tisha Delgado, Amata’s director of legal support services and a senior paralegal, works to ensure that the lawyers in Amata’s Chicago network get the assistance they need. Tisha, who has 24 years of paralegal experience and is president of the Chicago Paralegal Association, said she and her team focus on understanding each individual attorney’s needs and “pain points.”
Tisha’s efforts often go beyond paralegal work. She has helped lawyers become more technologically savvy—and productive—by teaching them how to take full advantage of software and advanced application capabilities, including the suite of Microsoft Office. Amata’s additional legal support services include receptionists, and administrators who can help with tasks like scanning documents and court filings. “At Amata, you have your own office, and you’re not alone,” Tisha said.
Terri Brieske, who practices family law from Amata’s 77 West Wacker Drive location, especially appreciates the support of paralegal Diana Garcia, who she works with regularly. Brieske often relies on her to review documents before they go out the door to ensure that there is a fresh review by a reader of the document’s contents. For example, when an opposing counsel put the wrong case number on a court document, Garcia caught it, saving billable time in the event the document was misdirected.
This professionalism is evident across the legal support services team. “Paralegals and administrative staff are always available to help—and when I say ‘always’ I mean always,” Brieske said. On a recent Friday, she had a busy day of meetings. By the time she got home and realized that critical client documents she needed to work on over the weekend had not been delivered, it was 9 p.m.
With apologies, she called Tisha to see if she could help track down the missing package. “This was after hours on a summer Friday and she could not have been more accommodating,” Brieske said. Tisha traced the package—it had been delivered by the messenger to a business located in Brieske’s building—and Brieske was able to promptly focus on her client’s needs and finalize the emergency petition for a Monday hearing.
When hiring legal support services staff, Tisha said Amata values experience. “Our attorneys don’t have time to train,” she said. “They need people who get it, and we speak their language.”
Beyond the demand for legal support services, attorneys in Amata’s legal-centric work environment receive valuable services including: scalability, built-in networking, remote work options, customized contracts, legal services partnerships, a personal-requests portal, webinars, and CLEs.