Current Landscape in the New Zealand Legal Profession
- As at 30 June 2024, there were 17,009 lawyers holding practising certificates in New Zealand (15,769 practising in NZ, the remainder overseas).
- The NZ legal services industry is valued at roughly NZ$4.7 billion in revenue.
- Firms have been experiencing volatility: after strong demand and growth in transactional work in 2020–2021, many firms saw a slowdown in 2022–2023, though recent reports suggest stabilisation and mild rebound.
- There is considerable pressure in recruiting and retaining support staff: legal secretaries, paralegals and other administrative roles are in demand.
Legal / Regulatory Obligations
- Rules of Conduct and Client Care (administered by the New Zealand Law Society / Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa) require lawyers to protect clients’ confidentiality and privacy. The retainer must specify who will do the work, how the work will be done, and how client information will be handled.
- The Privacy Act 2020 sets out Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) for collection, use, storage, disclosure of personal information. Any business (including law firm) handling personal information must comply.
- Legal professional privilege must be preserved. Communication for legal advice (solicitor/client privilege) and litigation privilege must be guarded against inadvertent disclosure.
Why Virtual PAs Are Increasingly Relevant
With increasing cost pressures, higher client expectations for swift and responsive service, and growing competition among firms across both regional and urban centres, many New Zealand law practices are exploring more flexible ways to maintain service quality without increasing fixed overheads. Virtual or remote administrative support has become an effective solution, allowing firms to access skilled assistance as and when needed — without the expense of additional in-house staff. These arrangements offer scalability, continuity, and efficiency while ensuring confidentiality and professional standards remain firmly in place.
What Virtual PAs Can Do (Safely and Usefully) for NZ Law Firms
Here are tasks that virtual PAs can take on, provided suitable controls are in place:
| Task / Function | Value Add | Key Conditions / Safeguards |
|---|
| Diary, meeting and court-date management | Frees up lawyers’ time and ensures deadlines or court dates aren’t missed. | Use secure systems and limit access to relevant scheduling information. |
| Client intake & triage | Ensures initial information is gathered correctly and helps lawyers assess matters more swiftly. | Use secure communication channels and ensure lawyers review intake notes. |
| Document preparation & formatting | Formats documents to court requirements, proof-reads, and prepares bundles or templates. | Templates and precedents must be clear; final review to be completed by a lawyer. |
| Matter / project management | Tracks deadlines, status reports, and follow-ups to improve efficiency. | Set clear standards and maintain supervision for all active matters. |
| Billing admin & time-capture | Ensures billing is accurate and timely by managing entries and preparing draft invoices. | Lawyers must approve all fees; Virtual PAs should not determine legal billing amounts. |
| Non-privileged legal research and summarisation | Gathers public sources, summarises statutes and cases to save lawyer time. | Lawyers retain responsibility for legal conclusions; only non-confidential data should be accessed. |
| Client communications & follow-ups | Provides status updates, appointment confirmations, and collects documents. | Must use secure communication methods and avoid sharing privileged details. |
| E-discovery / document review support | Assists with tagging, indexing, and other high-volume administrative tasks. | Requires strict protocols and supervision, with appropriate data protection controls in place. |
Security, Compliance & Best Practices
To ensure that outsourcing or using Virtual PAs does not run afoul of duties to clients and legal obligations, firms should ensure:
- Written agreements including a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement that covers the work to be done, data handling, breach notification.
- Data minimisation – provide only the data needed for a task. Remove unnecessary identifiers.
- Secure systems – encrypted storage, secure file transfer, strong authentication, ideally tools that comply with NZ privacy standards.
- Compliance with Privacy Act 2020 – understand the Information Privacy Principles; ensure personal information is handled lawfully, securely, and disclosed only when permitted.
- Role clarity & supervision – define what Virtual PAs can do, and ensure lawyers retain oversight of any legal or strategic work or advice.
- Training for the VA in confidentiality, NZ legal procedure, ethical norms.
- Audit & access logs to track who accessed what data and when.
Suggested Engagement Models
- Retainer-based Virtual PA services: pay for a block of hours each month, predictably covering regular admin tasks.
- Task-based or fixed fee packages: define specific packages (e.g. “client intake + court bundle preparation”) at set fees.
- Matter-based support during peaks: when firm has heavy workload (e.g. litigation, conveyancing rush, regulatory deadlines), bring in VA support for a specific matter.
- Hybrid local/remote model: for sensitive, client-facing or highly-regulated work, use NZ-based VA; for more generic, lower risk administrative work, remote/offshore support may be acceptable with appropriate safeguards.
Implementation Plan (First 90 Days)
0-30 Days
- Identify tasks in the firm that are repeatable, time-consuming, but not core legal judgment.
- Map risks (privacy, confidentiality, breach) associated with each task.
- Draft SOPs (standard operating procedures), confidentiality agreements, define who is responsible.
30-60 Days
- Select a pilot task or matter with a Virtual PA.
- Onboard with secure tools, ensure communication lines and oversight established. Monitor time, errors, client satisfaction.
60-90 Days
- Evaluate pilot: what worked, what didn’t; adjust processes or scope.
- Expand tasks gradually; build templates; define performance metrics (turnaround time, error rate, cost savings).
Conclusion
For New Zealand law firms — whether sole practitioners, small regional firms or larger commercial firms — Virtual Personal Assistants offer a strong opportunity to increase efficiency, manage costs, improve responsiveness to clients, and free up lawyers to focus on higher value work. Provided firms clearly manage risk — particularly around confidentiality, privacy, professional obligations — the benefits can be significant without undermining ethical standards or client trust.
