Small and Solo Law Firms: Make Money While You Sleep
“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
In small law firms or solo practices, especially those that are just starting out, there exists an inherent dilemma when it comes to scaling your firm. It is no groundbreaking news that, in order for a firm to grow, there needs to be:
An increase of hours to be billed; and
Higher quality clients with bigger cases
Often, an attorney that runs a small or solo practice will try to accomplish both attracting and finding this work as well as handling the work produced as a result on their own. They begin to work more hours in a day and sacrifice their weekends to make up for their staff shortage and work increase. They are taking on more cases with a higher complexity of legal issues in jurisdictions in which they are not well versed, resulting in an immense amount of legal research that is practically unmanageable for one person to conquer while juggling the rest of their case load.
Expecting yourself to invest more hours in a day, sacrifice your weekends, and watch your personal and family life diminish before your eyes will, in turn, significantly reduce the quality of work you are producing. Nobody can realistically maintain productivity at full capacity during all times of the day and night.
This results in either increasing the amount you’re billing to your client for the short falls in productivity or cutting your clients discounts and taking the loss to keep them happy and pray for a good referral in the future. It is no wonder why attorneys are one of the highest professions prone to burnout.
Few attorneys are explicitly experienced in every area of practice, every type of research and every type of writing, to be as effective and efficient as an attorney who does that type of work on an exclusive basis.
By trade, paralegals are experts at researching and writing new or unknown areas of law. Our job is to find the answers not readily known by the attorney(s), and we take great pride in being able to do that. Specifically, senior level paralegals are paralegals that have at least 7 years of experience doing this. They can do everything a paralegal does, but better and faster with minimal supervision and an incredibly high level of professionalism and accuracy.
Senior level paralegals can handle complex legal matters and are well versed in court jurisdictions and procedures as they differentiate from federal to state courts. To put it in short-form, senior paralegals can be paid less than an attorney yet handle many tasks with minimal supervision that would otherwise be performed by an attorney.
With the above-mentioned credentials of a senior level paralegal, it is no mystery that they come with an average annual price tag of $88,750.00. This does not include the additional average W-2 costs of $26,624.00 per year. This leaves small and solo firms with the reality that, in order to hire someone that is actually capable of assisting in the growth of their law practice, they are facing an annual cost of roughly $115,374.00.
On the other hand, many small and solo law firms that are based in smaller, remote areas do not even have access to this level of experience. They simply do not exist within their area, and they aren’t going to be able to offer an attractive salary and benefit package that will inspire one to move to take that job.
Firms in the predicament of either not having the funds to compete with the salaries expected in their area of a senior level paralegal, or firms that simply do not have access to the same end up having to hire the next best thing: a paralegal with less experience or someone with experience only in secretarial roles or banks. Taking on these employees, attorneys will have to make the time to train, develop and review closely all work produced, all with a high risk of turnover. This solves nothing.
THE GOOD NEWS IS, law firms and solo practitioners have another option. They have access to affordable freelance senior level paralegals at the tip of their finger. I have made it my mission and passion to provide this service for these firms at a cost that will provide them only a return on investment.
My team of freelance paralegals are deeply experienced in a wide range of practices in multiple jurisdictions and carry 15 to 30 years of experience. We work as a team to complete your work in a way that you wouldn’t even expect from a third-year associate.
With our level of experience, you could (quite literally) sleep while we perform work that will make you money and help win cases. We will bring back balance to your life, offer you your weekends back, and allow you to take those long overdue family trips without being glued to your cell phone the entire time.
If you don’t want to sleep while we work, you can go out and network, work on the cases that bring you the most enjoyment, engage deeper in your business marketing, or work more efficiently in finding those higher quality clients that will bring your firm the right attention.
We bring a level of experience that makes this all a possibility to you without the risk of losing us to a better offer. You no longer have to carry the anxiety of firing or laying off when your firm has a lull in your caseload.
I deeply believe in my ability to help your firm. Contact me today to take advantage of 10% off of your first month of services.
