Proposition:   For lawyers or any other business person who uses an office, why pay full rent and be saddled with handling administrative tasks and maintaining offices with furniture, equipment and crushing overhead? You can  focus on your practice without being so burdened, and scheduled to use the office only when it is most efficient and convenient for you to be there. At all other times you can have computer access to your complete files over the internet through the technology of scanning, and your documents can be backed up onto a redundant server such as X-Drive. When your cases are finished, there won't be any need to store the paper file.   We offer physical space and support facilities in the San Fernando Valley, subject to availability, on flexible terms.  For example, click here to view a window space.

If you've ever worked at an "internet cafe" with wireless internet access, completed projects at a place like Kinko's, or been a tenant in a full service professional suite, you have experienced parts of the virtual office concept. Your primary physical location can be anywhere, often out of your home. You can still have access to a commercial business address and all the physical assets and services you need to support your operations on an as-needed, non-exclusive basis without giving up any strategic advantage for your practice.

Take the Interactive Law Center (ILC) as an example of the virtual office concept. The ILC has its corporate headquarters on Ventura Boulevard in a high rise office building in Encino, California on a floor of executive suites.  The landlord holds the master lease and installs the furnished reception area, telecommunications, high speed internet access, law library and photocopiers, also providing staff to answer the phones, sort the mail and greet clients, thus spreading the cost over a number of tenants, but the rates for this support are extremely high.  

Through the ILC, you can have access to physical offices near the government center in Van Nuys with the work space, telecommunications, high speed internet access  (which can be used instead of a library) and office equipment you need to use for meetings or in connection with your work, at far less cost. Beyond this, the ILC concept is to

(1) promote and market legal services in various practice areas, creating the opportunity for you to come into contact with prospective clients who have sought out a specific type of legal assistance over the internet, and

(2) set up your virtual office by scanning all incoming documents and saving all your computer generated files, assigning file names according to a unique system of classification that enables you to easily find what you need on a server that is accessible 24/7 over the internet..
 

The prices you will pay for an "identity package" [address, telephone answering, limited use of conference room] at an executive suite range from $325 for off premises affiliation; $750 for a work desk without a view; and $1,500 and up for a 150 sq. ft. office. The cost of access to office equipment such as copiers and fax is on the order of $.14/page for copies and $1.00 per page for fax. Telephone lines are owned by the lessor so you pay approximately double the cost for useage as compared to a regular phone company. An internet connection runs $100/mo. Total monthly cost adds up to roughly $2,000. We can potentially furnish some or all of the foregoing at less cost  if you are based in the San Fernando Valley.  The major differences, however, are that we can help you bring in and follow through with your interface with clients, and in the back we will work with you to exploit scanning technology and to establish a file server with static IP address for your electronic files.

These support elements are primarily for attorneys in Southern California from the standpoint of marketing and the interactive platform. Scanning and;server support are advantageous whatever your base of operations, including your home.  You can access your virtual office from anywhere in the world via the internet  (you might want to consider a laptop if you move around a lot).  There's no need to carry around paper files or to fumble through them to retrieve things.

Please contact us to discuss arrangements specifically suited to your needs.