How Small Law Firms and Solo Practitioners can Utilize and Benefit From Freelance Paralegals | Short-Term & Long-Term
During my time working as a direct hire paralegal and law office manager for small law firms and solo practitioners, I developed a deep recognition of the common struggles these firms face. Small firms can experience extreme fluctuations in their caseload, issues with staffing, and a scarce or limited amount of support that prevents them from being able to grow their law firm and reach their bottom line.
Many firms juggle the idea of if it is time to hire a freelance paralegal. There are many ways in which these firms can utilize one in a cost efficient and economical way.
THE SHORT TERM USES OF A FREELANCE PARALEGAL
When you need assistance on a particular case or legal issue in which you do not have direct experience
Attorneys, whether they have been practicing law for several years or recently have been admitted to the bar, can likely all agree that from time to time, cases will come their way in which they are not particularly well versed. There may be a new area of law, a different procedure, or a different court in which you do not have direct experience.
Instead of turn these clients away, or staying at the office until midnight researching, Jaclyn Foster Paralegal Services, LLC is a team of experienced, senior level paralegals in multiple areas of law with a variety of experience across the nation. You can hire a freelance paralegal on short-term, no strings attached contracts to help you with your unique and out of the ordinary cases.
When you need professional and experienced support for your biggest cases
Big trials and appeals can be an incredible burden on law firms. Even worse, when you have an appeal due within the same week you are at trial and have exhausted your motions for extensions. While assisting attorneys in trial, it became clear that we over burdened secretaries and administrative assistants with paralegal level work while we were gone. After all, your other cases are still equally as important.
If you need direct assistance with a trial, hiring my company will give you access to senior level paralegals to prepare trial binders, pre-trial motions, manage discovery, prepare exhibits and witness lists, research jurors and prepare you for voir dire, write post-trial submissions and much more. For your appeals, you have access to assistance with legal research, brief writing, formatting, tables of authorities, indexes and more.
In the alternative, or in addition, you can lean on us to keep the rest of your cases and administrative work efficiently moving forward, increasing your overall client experience.
When you need the ability to take a real vacation or support your family
If you’re about to take a vacation, or have a big personal event coming up, the backlog of work in your office may give you incredible anxiety. This may force you to bring work along on your trip, or cancel the trip all together.
You can hire a freelance paralegal to get you caught up and file all of your lingering deadlines prior to leaving the office so you can have that much needed, stress free time away (without being bothered). You can come back refreshed with zero make up work.
When you have temporary staffing shortages
Law firms with permanent, full or part time staff also have to deal with short staffing issues when an employee takes maternity leave, FMLA, paid time off, or bereavement. What typically happens in these situations is you or your remaining staff become overburdened by your case load. If you have only one paralegal, that work is suddenly all on you.
Instead of allowing these situations to drag your firm behind in a backlog of work, overstressing you and your staff, and frustrating your clients, you can stay on top of your demands by bringing in a freelance paralegal on a short term basis. My team and myself are all senior level paralegals. There will be minimal to no training required to cover you during these times, making my company a more attractive option than utilizing a temp agency.
When you are noticing too many mistakes happening in your final and filed work product
If your office seems to be running inefficiently and too many mistakes are happening with your filed work, resulting in clerks rejecting the same or inefficient representation, pleading templates or an additional pair of eyes may be a solution for you.
Freelance paralegals can create templates for your commonly used pleadings and documents such as petitions, demand letters, discovery requests and demands, notices, proposed orders and much more. Additionally, we are here to give you one last proof read, with a fresh set of eyes, before you serve or file your document (proof reading is a one hour turn around within working business hours at JF Paralegal Services).
THE LONG-TERM USES OF A FREELANCE PARALEGAL
When your firm is experiencing retention issues or difficulty finding affordable and experienced staff
Many small firms and solo practitioners experience extreme retention issues with their employees. Whether access to skilled and educated paralegals is minimal in your remote area, or you cannot compete with the salary expectations set by larger firms in bigger cities, it is difficult to find good employees.
A solution to your high turn over rates could be a freelance paralegal. In hiring a company such as my own, you have access to senior level paralegals with direct experience in your area of practice. In hiring a freelance paralegal on a 1099 relationship, you do not have to stress in bed at night about your unemployment insurance increasing or potential law suits due to firing or layoffs. My team and myself are experienced in all courts from the state level up to the United States Supreme Court. You never have to worry if your staff is capable of supporting you as you begin to obtain a higher level of clientele. We are able to support you through your firm’s growth for the long haul.
When the added costs of an employee are becoming too much of a burden on your firm
Small law firms and solo practitioners are shocked to find out that a direct hire will actually be costing them up to 40% above the employees salary. In hiring employees for your firm, you are subjected to the extra costs and liabilities that come with a W-2 employee. This includes state and federal payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, fringe benefits, office space and equipment, retention, paid time off, and unproductive hours.
In hiring a freelance paralegal in a 1099 relationship, you eliminate all of the aforementioned costs. You don’t have to pay us for leave, vacations or unproductive down time in the office. You are not required to pay payroll taxes or factor us in for your unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance. We are not of the expectation, nor can we receive fringe benefits of any kind due to the governing independent contractor laws. We provide our own Internet, computers, office space and materials. It really is a that simple: Hiring a freelance paralegal for a long-term relationship will save your law firm money.
When you are extremely busy and work is piling up.
Many small law firms and solo practitioners are extremely busy with a consistent incline of retaining new clients (law firms are expected to get even busier from COVID-19). This is great news. However, sometimes eight hours a day is just not enough to cover the work required to diligently represent your clients, leaving them happy and willing to give a small town worthy referral. Your staff may be resentful or outright revolt those overtime hours. If they are willing to stay late and come in on weekends to make up for that time, it’s going to cost you in overtime pay.
When you have a freelancer on your team, we don’t charge overtime. Whatever hours you need are billed at the exact same amount, no matter how many hours you need us to go over 40. In fact, you get a discount when you utilize us this much. We are willing to stay up with you until midnight to get that deadline met, and are here to support you in overwhelming situations.
When you are personally getting bogged down in administrative tasks and you can’t grow your practice because of it
Administrative tasks can destroy the profit abilities of a small law firm and solo practice. Many of these firms do not have the resources to hire an employee specifically for office management, but someone has to do it. That someone is typically the managing attorney. Attorneys that work an average eight hour day, those that have to handle their own business tasks realistically are only collecting 1.6 hours of billable time per day, shorting you an upwards of $1,280.00 in billable hours per day (at a $200.00 per hour rate). This is extreme and troubling for the long-term sustainability of small law firms.
In my company, you can also utilize a senior level freelance paralegal to handle your bookkeeping, secretarial roles, time entry, invoicing, bookkeeping and more. These particular services are billed at a lower rate than paralegal services, but you are still having a wonderfully experienced paralegal performing them.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As you can see, whether for short-term needs or long-term relationships, there are multiple ways in which a small law firm and solo practitioner can significantly benefit from bringing a freelance paralegal onto your team. My passion for serving small law firms runs deep. Because of this, I have created my company around principals that will always bring you a good return on investment in hiring me. You will never pay paralegal rates for simple legal assistant work, even though a senior level paralegal is performing them. You have incredible quality control in the representation of your clients with this approach.
I offer short-term and long-term services to meet your immediate needs. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss them further with you.