Are you using old ways for the new laws?

I knew a lawyer, a sole practitioner, who took a certain approach to employing a paralegal. The lawyer knew she could not offer a salary that was competitive with the big law firms. Instead, she would hire someone who wanted to break into the legal field and offer to train them. In return she asked that they commit to work for her for at least 2 years.

After 2 years (if they fulfilled their commitment), every one of her paralegals would be trained and then anxious to move to a higher paying firm. It was a never-ending cycle of training and then training again.

Do you spend your time practicing law?

Why did you go to law school? Most likely not to spend the better part of your day training staff or watching over them to make sure their work is correct. Every hour you spend managing staff dilutes the hourly rate you should be earning practicing law.

More about increasing profitability

Can you trust an off-site paralegal to be accurate?

Yes. Even more so than hiring a new employee. If you can afford to hire a highly trained paralegal you can probably breathe more easily. But if you have to be a bit thrifty and hire someone closer to entry level, you’ve got a training and ‘hope’ period ahead of you. (Hoping that your new hire will work out.) We could be talking months to a year or more.

In contrast, there is zero training period with me. I am the ‘highly trained paralegal;’ already working on many cases for other attorneys. And I guarantee to end the ‘hope’ period with the first petition. I’ll complete the first petition at no charge just to prove the quality of my services.

More about my experience