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Managing Staff as a Solo Attorney

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At some point, small and solo law firms will have to deal with hiring or managing a team outside of themselves. While managing staff as a solo attorney presents a unique set of challenges, it is ultimately a sign of success: your business has grown and is thriving. However, time is of the essence: it takes work to build out your team, and you may be banking on time you can’t afford to spend on recruitment, training, and management.

In this blog, we highlight strategies solo attorneys can leverage to ensure that they are able to build out their operations without compromising their efficacy in day-to-day activities. Hiring staff doesn’t have to equate to a temporary reduction in billable hours.

3 Tips for Managing Staff as a Solo Attorney

Hiring In-House vs. Leveraging ALSPs

Before making the decision to hire your team, weigh your options. Does the role you’re hiring for require full-time support? While it may seem best to hire for the positions that you’re looking to manage, utilizing alternative legal services providers may be more effective in terms of cost and time management.

Hiring a full-time employee can be a huge time sink. The recruitment process is broken down into fielding job applications, reading over those applications, and the interview process. This time-intensive process can distract you from your billable work, and doesn’t guarantee immediate results.

Recruiting an employee is only the beginning – once hired, they will need to be trained in on your existing methodologies and systems. Depending on the role that you’re recruiting for, this can range from a matter of hours to ongoing training lasting weeks.

Hiring employees is expensive and challenging – ALSPs offer a range of services that can be deployed as-needed. Recruiting and training comes pre-packaged with alternative legal services, allowing you to leverage them as a plug-and-play solution to staffing needs.

Alternative legal services, such as contract paralegals and virtual receptionists, offer a scalable, simple solution to your issues. They should be considered if:

  • Your workload fluctuates enough not to necessitate a permanent hire
  • You need to scale your operations quickly
  • You do not have the time or resources to hire staff yourself

Setting Expectations and Keeping Accountability

Exiting the pandemic work environment, the American workplace has changed for virtually all professions, lawyers included. As more employees return to the office, it is critical not only to set expectations for behavior for new hires, but existing team members as well.

Are you managing a hybrid legal team? If so, you’ll need to carefully delineate communication requirements, as well as best practices for issues like internet outages and time spent during the work day. These expectations should cover not only time during work hours, but time outside of work. The home office is convenient, but has also pressured workers to operate well outside of their normal business hours.

Setting expectations from day one can significantly mitigate risk and improve performance when managing staff as a solo attorney. On one hand, you’re ensuring that their working hours are spent productively. On the other, clear work boundaries ensure that employees don’t feel overworked, a culprit in high turnover.

With more employees working remotely, it is more important than ever that you have implemented systems to track and monitor their performance, as well as respecting their time outside of the workplace.

Open Communication

When hiring new employees or leveraging ALSPs, keeping open communication channels is essential for aligning goals and ensuring needs on both sides are met. With virtual or remote workers, this issue is even more essential.

Establish systems or routine meetings to communicate needs throughout the week. Whether this is as simple as a daily checkup, or more standardized meetings periodically set throughout a month, checking up on workflow keeps companies aligned. It also ensures that your employees’ needs are being met. Ensure each meeting has an agenda set beforehand, and don’t schedule meetings to be longer than absolutely necessary.

Amata Law Office Suites Makes Managing Staff as a Solo Attorney Easy

Managing staff as a solo attorney can be a tricky business, and often isn’t something taught in law school. Private practices often require the assistance of other team members to manage their daily workload, and without the right systems in place, these tasks can become complicated.

At Amata Law Office Suites, we offer a range of services catered directly to solo and private legal practices. For those looking to build out their team, we offer alternative legal services such as virtual receptionists and contract paralegals that can be deployed and scaled as-needed.

As pandemic restrictions end, it is more important than ever to find systems that work with your legal practice. Contact us today to learn more about how Amata helps support Chicago lawyers with a full range of services.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

Law Firm Efficiency: 4 Ways to Maximize Your Productivity

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The most productive law firm is one in which lawyers are spending the maximum amount of time practicing law, and minimizing the amount of time performing ancillary tasks that, while important, do not result in billable time. Regardless of a lawyer’s expertise or successes in the courtroom, the main financial commitment of a lawyer depends on spending time with casework.

This is, of course, easier said than done. A lawyer may want and intend to practice as much law as possible during any given day, yet certain tasks are essential to their business. Ongoing training, client acquisition, marketing efforts, and other activities fuel your activities.

In this blog, we analyze the best methods for remaining as productive and efficient as possible without neglecting other duties crucial to your practice.

Four Routes to Law Firm Efficiency

Track All of Your Time, Not Just Billable Hours

As a lawyer, it can be tempting to only track the amount of time you spend working for clients. After all, this is where revenue comes from, and is arguably the most important part of the profession from a financial perspective.

While billable hours account for your profit, other time spent throughout the day can help illustrate where the rest of your efforts are spent. This can help lawyers gain a better understanding of your most productive periods of the workday, as well as where time could be better spent.

By understanding workflow on a granular level, lawyers can fine-tune their process to maximize revenue and learn their weaknesses.

Avoid Multitasking

Although it is sometimes impossible to avoid, multitasking is a less efficient way of getting results that you need. Blocking off time to perform a single task, as opposed to trying to accomplish multiple things at once, can help ensure that the most immediate and demanding jobs get done first. It also makes it easier to track your time performing certain tasks.

Alternative Legal Service Providers

Lawyers, particularly solo or private legal practices, must wear many hats throughout their career. Sales, marketing, management, secretarial work, and other fields all fall under the umbrella of the lawyer at some point or another.

With only so many hours in a day, how can a lawyer expect to fulfill all of these tasks? Hiring alternative legal service providers, or ALSPS, can often serve to rectify lost time. While these services incur expense, the amount of money saved by utilizing these services by netting higher volumes of billable hours eclipses the payment required.

A primary advantage to utilizing ALSPs is that they require no training and can scale with your business as needed. Smaller legal practices are often strapped for cash and time, and don’t have the resources required for recruiting and training employees. ALSPs offer a plug-and-play approach – their models adapt to your business.

For instance, consider virtual receptionists. Traditional avenues of hiring a receptionist require you to conduct interviews, find a candidate with proper experience, and train them into your business. This also requires paying them a salary and benefits, as well as carving out a work space for them to operate. This takes a great deal of time and money. Hiring virtual receptionist services from an ALSP, by contrast, makes this process considerably easier. Their messaging can be customized for your business, they can handle your onboarding pipeline even after regular business hours, and can even be temporarily turned off.

Contract paralegals serve a similar as-needed ancillary function. Smaller law firms often have to manage the ebb and flow of unpredictable workloads, and may not require a paralegal on staff full time. ALSP paralegal services allow for assistance as the need arises.

Solo and private legal practices often cannot manage their workload alone. Alternative legal service providers offer a range of services that can help lawyers focus on accruing billable hours first.

Sharing Information with Other Lawyers

While many lawyers operate small practices, they are never alone. Networking with lawyers can give you a sense of how they run their operations. This is made easier than ever when you’re working in the same office environment as them.

Amata Law Office Suites offers more than just office space for lawyers. We provide a community where lawyers can work side by side and access the expertise across a wide variety of specializations. More, we offer alternative legal services in-house. Virtual receptionists and contract paralegals are all a part of our services, making us the premiere legal office experience.

Are you looking to make your practice more efficient? Contact us today and learn more about our services.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

What is an Alternative Legal Service Provider?

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If you’ve spent any time looking to expand or improve your legal offerings, you may have come across the term “alternative legal service provider.” For many practices, these services, commonly referred to as ALSPs, have become the new norm. They increase firm IP – for example, by adding expertise from contract paralegals to the matter – and do so at an affordable cost.

Especially for partners going solo or opening their own private practices, ALSPs provide a path forward. Hiring staff in-house isn’t always an option for the firm, especially not with the expertise their clients expect. ALSPs allow the firms to provide more competitive pricing without sacrificing quality and efficiency.

What is an ALSP, and how can it benefit your legal practice? In short: ALSPs take over the burden of tasks attorneys need not perform or provide additional expertise to assist a firm in a given matter or for long-term engagements through use of contract attorney and contract paralegals. This saves the attorney time, money, and boosts their firm’s IP, all at once.

Defining the Alternative Legal Service Provider

An ALSP is defined as any service that could normally be provided in-house by a law firm that is instead performed by an outside entity. It is not a law firm; it operates as an outsourced model that law firms can leverage to perform tasks that are too costly or time-consuming to perform in-house.

ALSPs offer a specialized service at-scale to meet with the demand of legal practices. With specialized tools, processes, and even technology at their disposal, an alternative legal services provider offers high quality service at affordable prices. As a result, ALSPs can outperform on the same tasks that are normally undertaken in-house.

The Thomson Reuters 2019 Alternative Legal Service Providers report found the top five services firms use ALSPs for are:

  • E-discovery
  • Legal research
  • Litigation and investigation support
  • Document review/coding
  • Non-legal/factual research

As the legal profession pivots from practicing in traditional law office space to operating from shared spaces, hybrid offices, and even the fully virtual law office, ALSPs provide expertise and efficiency for attorneys and law firms.

An Alternative Legal Service Provider Benefits Any Size of Legal Practice

A 2017 study by Georgetown Law School reported that over half of all law firms are using alternative legal service providers in some capacity.

While larger practices have been leveraging these services for a while to increase firm efficiency and lower overhead cost on work produced, partner law practices, solo attorneys, and boutique law firms can all leverage ALSPs to compete.

Private practice law firms are most likely to use the following types of ALSPs (as defined by Thomson Reuters):

  • Independent Legal Process Outsourcers (LPOs) – perform project or matter based work on behalf of the law firm
  • Managed services providers – usually handle on-going work for the law firm; like a contracted in-house legal team
  • Contract and staffing services – provide temporary staffing to the firm, from legal admins to skilled workers like attorneys and paralegals

For partner and solo practices that operate on limited resources or do not have the budget to hire full-time staff, an ALSP can also alleviate time spent on recruitment, training, and management of employees. Additionally, providers offer fully qualified employees that can immediately benefit your legal practice.

Alternative Legal Services Provided by Amata Law Office Suites

Solo and partner practice law firms rely on flexibility and adaptability to achieve success. At Amata Law Office Suites, we understand that time isn’t the only thing on your mind – quality of work and budgetary concerns come into play. We are committed to providing you with the services you need to accomplish the goals of your clients and focus on the practice of law, at a rate that assists your firm with running profitably and with expertise that contributes to your firm IP.

Our Legal Support Team Services

Expert Paralegal Support

For client matters, legal projects, and billable work, the Amata paralegals are some of the best in Chicago and led by Tisha Delgado, Chicago Paralegal Association President and litigation and e-discovery expert. Our paralegals average 27 years of experience each and have developed expertise in specific areas of law. As a team they provide support such as locating defendants and witnesses; preparing third-party subpoenas; Westlaw and LexisNexis legal research; document review; e-discovery and data collection assistance and more.

Additionally, they are knowledgeable on the inner workings of the courts, allowing them bring an efficiency to tasks like document processing that proves burdensome to many attorneys.

Better yet, their time is entirely billable by the firm back to the client and offered at cost-effective rates.

Legal Admin Support

For time-consuming tasks and attorneys looking to focus their own time on billable work, the Amata legal admin team steps in. They assist over 700 Chicago attorneys with client billing inputs, calendar management, mail processing, Microsoft office assistance and more.

Their assistance allows attorneys and firms to focus on the practice of law and relieve stress by outsourcing this non-billable work to a trusted partner at an affordable rate. Legal admin support is charged by the minute, not the hour, at Amata and fixed-fee items like court runs are also available.

Live Legal Receptionist Services

For solo attorneys, partner legal practices and boutique law firms, client intake processes are crucial for continued business and time-management. The Amata Live Legal Receptionist team brings proved process to firms just starting out or looking to improve call-management and client-intake efficiency.

Greetings, transferring processes, screening, and client-intake are customized specifically for the law firm. The team is also available at extended hours. While the typical workday is from 9-5, prospective clients don’t always operate on the same schedule – the Amata legal receptionist services operate from 7AM-10PM CST.

Amata Law Office Suites also offers office space for like-minded lawyers to collaborate and work. We provide our lawyers with comprehensive solutions to many of the problems they face on a day-to-day basis. Alternative Legal Services are offered as part of our model and allow solo or private law firms the resources they need to achieve success in their law practices.

Contact us today to learn more about how Amata can help you. Email [email protected]

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

When to Hire Law Firm Staff

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portrait of focused group of lawyers working in office

Solo and private legal practices often find themselves asking the perennial question of when to hire law firm staff.

You landed that case, the one with the prestigious client who could bring the firm a good deal of future work. Your firm’s attorneys are ready but this engagement will require hours of researching memoranda and creating reports and the client doesn’t want to pay the hourly rate of a lawyer for these kinds of activities. Realistically, you only have time to directly address the issues that need your expertise anyway.

A paralegal is key to your success. Hiring full-time staff would solve the problem, but do you have the time to find the right people? And can you justify the cost?

Contracting paralegal and legal admin services from an alternative legal services provider (ALSP) like Amata Law Office Suites could save you time and allow you to present impressive costs for high-quality work, ensuring this client continues working with your firm. And potentially getting you some referrals for work well done.

When to Hire Law Firm Staff, and When to Outsource From an ALSP

Time Management

Hiring the right paralegal for the project involves vetting the candidate’s expertise in the area of need. Are you confident you can find the right person for the job? Time is money; every hour you spend recruiting a capable paralegal is a billable hour lost. Once you make the right hire, onboarding that person also takes time. A full-time individual needs to become acquainted with everyone in your practice, your current clients as well as other support staff.

By contracting with an ALSP like Amata Law Office Suites, you’ll find professional, previously vetted, support staff (secretarial and paralegal services) ready to partner with you on an as-needed, pay-as-you-go basis. Developing relationships with Amata’s professional paralegals ensures you have the best person available for the client’s needs when that client returns with another project.

Monetary Considerations

Cost of Experience

Employing full-time certified paralegals and/or legal admin staff increases both your direct and indirect costs.

Direct expenses like…

  • salary
  • payroll taxes
  • employee benefits (such as insurance)

And indirect costs that increase as staff increases such as…

  • office space
  • equipment
  • software licenses

If you want a solid member to join your team, it’s going to mean much higher salaries as well. The Amata paralegal team, for instance boasts an average of 27 years of experience (as of 2020) and they specialize in certain areas of law. Expertise means they can excute items quickly and accurately for your clientelle, but that costs more money than an entry level paralegal. For solo and private practice firms, taking on the salaries that accompany this level of support and experience is not an option.

Since ALSPs charge for work done, however, you can receive this experience at a cost that is affordable. Plus, an experienced team can execute documents quickly. It may only take a staff member fifteen minutes to complete the work you need, which means you’re only billed for those fiftenn minutes. And you can bill your clients back for the work.

Cost of a Bad Hire

But the after-hire expenses represent only part of the cost. The U.C. Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment estimates recruiting costs for a new employee can range from $2,000 to $7,000. Ongoing expenses include the employer’s portion of FICA, 7.65% of the employee’s annual salary, healthcare coverage, unemployment insurance, and retirement benefits.

And what is the cost of a bad hire? The U. S. Department of Labor recently listed the average cost of a bad hiring decision at a minimum of 30% of the individual’s first year salary. In legal work, your service is your brand; a bad hire can turn away clients and leave you repairing a damaged reputation. It can also bring more of a headach to you as you try to manage inexperienced staff, versus having an experienced staff member who is only an asset.

Hiring Takes Work!

Unless you practice employment law (and are already well versed), you, as an employer of full-time staff, must now also stay current on HR policies. The legal requirements change from time to time; medical benefits need explanation and annual review, sexual harassment training is required by certain states. Plus, personnel problems can arise. Managing a larger staff adds complexity. You can avoid this work by contracting an ALSP like Amata Legal Office Suites to handle work instead of hiring yourself.

Before you decide to hire a full-time paralegal, legal admin, and/or receptionist, consider how your firm can benefit from contracting with an ALSP.  Gain the trust of that important client while saving time, money, and work by contracting with Amata Legal Office Suites. We provide impressive office spaces, and well-vetted paralegal and legal admin services. Contact us today for more information about our services.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

Lawyering and Parenting? Legal Support Services Help Lawyer Moms Do Both

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Michelle Sinkovits' Family

When it comes to juggling motherhood and practicing law, Natalie Harris, a partner at Baron Harris Healey, candidly admits that it’s no easy task.

“It was totally horrible,” she said about transitioning back to work after becoming a mom 11 years ago.

At the time, she was an attorney at a boutique law firm and roughly 10 years out of law school, the typical time frame for rising to partner status. The firm had few full-time, female partners and no one before her returned to work at the firm after having a child. 

As her family’s primary breadwinner, Harris couldn’t afford to take a few years off. While she was able to negotiate a “generous” amount of time for maternity leave, she said she didn’t receive any accommodations, such as daycare assistance, to help her ease back into her role. The firm also reduced her annual billable hour goal and salary — for the next few years.

“It was as if I came back from vacation,” she recalled. “Hope you had fun. Now, let’s get back to work.”

She eventually made partner after having her second child, but she thinks motherhood “absolutely” delayed her promotion.

Does Being a Mother Impede Career Prospects as a Lawyer?

It’s no secret that the legal industry is struggling to retain female attorneys. While roughly 50% of law students are female, legal news service Law360 found that women represent less than 40% of attorneys in law firms and just over 20% of equity partners. 

Becoming a parent certainly seems to factor into the diminishing numbers. A 2019 study from the American Bar Association reported that nearly 60% of female lawyers cite caretaking commitments as an “important influence” on their decision to leave their firms. More than half said arranging child care is their full responsibility, compared with 1% of male lawyers.

As a solo practitioner specializing in international law, Sandra Chiarlone agreed that it was “very difficult” to manage her practice and a new baby in 2017. While she was able to find a babysitter whenever she had in-person client meetings, she often depended on others to visit the various entities with which she communicates, such as the Illinois Secretary of State office and Consulate General of Italy. Her quarterly trips to Italy also stopped.

“When you’re lawyering in your early 20s, no one asks you, ‘What kind of lifestyle do you want?’” Harris said. “Do you like being in the office all the time? Or do you like having control of your schedule?”

Family law attorney Michelle Sinkovits Ferguson decided not to wait for others to ask. Instead of continuing her career at an established firm in 2012, she chose to start her own practice, Greenberg & Sinkovits, LLC, with fellow attorney Stephanie Greenberg. She knew that working for herself would eventually provide more flexibility when she wanted to have children. But a firm with two women at the helm also poses unique challenges.

“I think my first maternity leave … was a learning experience for both of us … how to handle things when the other one is on leave for an extended period,” Greenberg said.

Now, Greenberg and Sinkovits Ferguson are both moms and split their time between their at-home and in-person offices. While many other attorneys find challenges with working from home, they relish the ability to see their children the moment they stop working.

Legal Support Services Help Lawyers Who Are Mothers Excel

According to the 2019 American Bar Association study, levels of stress at work and work-life balance are top reasons that women leave their law firms. Luckily, the COVID-19 pandemic has stirred change in the legal industry. A hybrid setup — renting a few offices that attorneys can share during their periodic downtown trips — or working completely remote is no longer frowned upon. If more female attorneys feel empowered to find a work setup that suits them, it could improve overall retention. 

Chiarlone, Greenberg and Sinkovits Ferguson have learned to adjust their schedules so they could devote necessary time to their children and practices, and they credit Amata Law Office Suites (Chicago’s first legal community of more than 700 attorneys and six Class-A downtown offices) with helping them reach their law practice and parenting goals. In addition to physical office space, teleworking services and virtual office programs, Amata offers them premier legal support, such as live legal receptionists who perform client intake and an experienced legal support team. Not to mention the potential to network with fellow lawyer moms and other attorney parents.

Greenberg and Sinkovits Ferguson decided to move their office to Amata last summer when their previous lease ended. For now, they prefer the virtual office approach rather than a hybrid or completely on-site option. They use Amata’s reservable day-offices and meeting room space for client meetings and have taken advantage of the live reception services. Sinkovits Ferguson said the arrangement is working “really well.”

 Chiarlone appreciates the location of her downtown office, as it’s very convenient for clients to visit. But what she loves most about Amata is the empathy that she found in the personnel.

“On a scale of one to 10, they’re more than 10,” she said. They do what you need in a very precise and kind manner.”

After 15 years with her previous firm, Harris also made the move to Amata in 2019 when starting her partner practice with former colleagues. The goal was to live a more fulfilling life. She said Amata has helped them keep overhead “extraordinarily low,” earn more revenue and be more selective with their work. Most importantly, she has more time to spend with her kids.

“We enjoy our time together so much more,” she said.

There’s more work to be done to empower lawyer moms. Call us or visit our website and take an online or in-person tour of one of our six Class-A law firm office spaces and consider joining the Amata community. Or keep the conversation going by contacting us at [email protected].

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

Mellisa Grisel: Unbundled Legal Services Provide a Bright Future for Law | THE 1958 LAWYER Podcast

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Few attorneys build their law firm against the billable hour. Mellisa Grisel is one of those. Atlas Legal Services, LLC, was made to offer flat fee “unbundled” legal services and provide affordable assistance to the under-represented. A set-up that not only helps the average citizen navigate through legal processes but, she argues, will be a huge component in the future of law.

Key moments:

  • “Unbundled” legal services explained and why they work (04:16)
  • How new service concepts play out in a real-life firm (16:26)
  • Technology’s role in the “unbundled” service setup (21:57)
  • What Mellisa Grisel wants to see changed in the legal profession (30:32)

Follow “The 1958 Lawyer” on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

MEMORABLE QUOTES

“I didn’t really have other business models to work off of [when setting up my firm] so I had to do a lot of trial and error. But then you’ll see bigger firms who have the funds to do faster trial and error. They are moving some of their practice to flat fee services and they’re really starting to follow the money.”

“[Lawyers] don’t have to just be the hammer in the courtroom. They can the facilitator…. besides moving towards flat fees, I think it’s awesome moving towards collaborative law.”

“The entire frame of legal services, the provision of legal services, needs to change to provide access to justice.”

“I’ve had judges personally thank me for taking on clients on a limited scope basis because the judges couldn’t tell the litigants ‘hey, you need to bring me all your evidence tomorrow, get your bank statements in line.’ They can’t give that person advice.”

Mellisa Grisel

CONNECT WITH MELLISA GRISEL

Mellisa Grisel began her firm, Atlas Legal Services, LLC., right out of law school because she wanted an innovative way to provide legal services to people who may not have gotten legal assistance otherwise. Atlas is able to provide à la carte (otherwise known as “Unbundled”) legal services to people who may only need or may only be able to afford certain steps in their legal case.

This way of providing service is ideal for people with family law cases like divorce, child custody, adoption, litigation regarding unpaid bills, services that were never performed, personal property, and also landlord-tenant law. Atlas is quite literally designed to help small landlords who need help with a tenant – be it collecting unpaid rent, drawing up a lease that complies with local laws, or if it comes to it, eviction.

Atlas Legal Services: www.atlaslegalservices.com

Call Mellisa: 312-291-4643

LEARN MORE ABOUT LIMITED SCOPE REPRESENTATION

Have comments, questions, or concerns? Contact us at [email protected]

“The 1958 Lawyer and his 1938 Dollar” still defines the business of law…
It’s time for a change.

If you’re a lawyer, you’re familiar with the ABA article “The 1958 Lawyer and his 1938 Dollar” which gives our podcast its title, and its inspiration. That article was the start of the billable hour for law firms…And the last major change to the business of law, 70+ years ago now. Well, it’s past time for another change.

This podcast is all about bucking the status quo of the business of law. Your hosts Ron Bockstahler and Kirsten Mayfield run Amata Law Office Suites, providing law firms an alternative to the traditional fixed-cost business model that places unwanted stress on attorneys to work long hours that often-times lead to burn out, broken relationships and in many cases substance abuse. Each week they’ll discuss alternatives to the 12 hours days, endless rotation of clerks and paralegals, and the expensive offices leased to impress clients who rarely show up in person anymore. They’ll interview successful lawyers who are doing law differently, and finding a work-life balance while still running a successful firm.

Do you want to find a better way to run your law firm? It’s time for the next big change in the business of law, and you’ll get it here on The 1958 Lawyer.

More episodes of The 1958 Lawyer podcast

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Legal Support Lets Lawyers Do What They Do Best – Practice Law

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Ricardo Meza

The average lawyer in the continental United States spends just 2.5 hours a day on billable work, according to the 2019 Legal Trends Report by Clio, a law firm software provider. Practice time is often lost to administrative work that could be handled more efficiently by staff. With the right support, lawyers are able to boost their productivity and focus on growing their practices. 

With more than 700 lawyers in Amata’s network, Tisha enjoys working on a wide variety of matters. Attorney Ricardo Meza, a former federal prosecutor and owner of Meza Law, is now practicing from Amata’s 161 N. Clark office and has asked Tisha to help on a number of matters.  Ricardo has found Tisha to be knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the various projects and looks forward to her contributions.   

TISHA DELGADO | AMATA LEGAL SUPPORT TEAM

Tisha Delgado, Amata’s director of legal support services and a senior paralegal, works to ensure that the lawyers in Amata’s Chicago network get the assistance they need. Tisha, who has 24 years of paralegal experience and is president of the Chicago Paralegal Association, said she and her team focus on understanding each individual attorney’s needs and “pain points.” 

Tisha’s efforts often go beyond paralegal work. She has helped lawyers become more technologically savvy—and productive—by teaching them how to take full advantage of software and advanced application capabilities, including the suite of Microsoft Office. Amata’s additional legal support services include receptionists, and administrators who can help with tasks like scanning documents and court filings. “At Amata, you have your own office, and you’re not alone,” Tisha said. 

Terri Brieske, who practices family law from Amata’s 77 West Wacker Drive location, especially appreciates the support of paralegal Diana Garcia, who she works with regularly. Brieske often relies on her to review documents before they go out the door to ensure that there is a fresh review by a reader of the document’s contents. For example, when an opposing counsel put the wrong case number on a court document, Garcia caught it, saving billable time in the event the document was misdirected.

Terri Brieske

This professionalism is evident across the legal support services team. “Paralegals and administrative staff are always available to help—and when I say ‘always’ I mean always,” Brieske said. On a recent Friday, she had a busy day of meetings. By the time she got home and realized that critical client documents she needed to work on over the weekend had not been delivered, it was 9 p.m. 

With apologies, she called Tisha to see if she could help track down the missing package. “This was after hours on a summer Friday and she could not have been more accommodating,” Brieske said. Tisha traced the package—it had been delivered by the messenger to a business located in Brieske’s building—and Brieske was able to promptly focus on her client’s needs and finalize the emergency petition for a Monday hearing. 

When hiring legal support services staff, Tisha said Amata values experience. “Our attorneys don’t have time to train,” she said. “They need people who get it, and we speak their language.” 

Beyond the demand for legal support services, attorneys in Amata’s legal-centric work environment receive valuable services including: scalability, built-in networking, remote work options, customized contracts, legal services partnerships, a personal-requests portal, webinars, and CLEs.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

How to Get Affordable Support for Your Law Firm

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How to Get Affordable Support for Your Law Firm

Hiring more legal support staff is a catch-22 situation for most attorneys. On the one hand, they are overworked, struggling to keep up with never ending tasks and casework. On the other hand, they have a tight budget.

A new employee is not only a time investment – during the hiring process and training – but a risk. Will they be worth the lost money to the firm? Will there be enough work to keep them occupied eight hours a day? Will revenue ever go back up after investing in this new hire, or will the benefit only be in decreased stress?

Then there’s the ultimate question. Which is more stressful: Having more help but less money to run the firm, or having more money but less help?

If you’re reading this you need support for your law firm. We’ve worked with attorneys for a long time, and over the past twenty years they have shown us that there are more options then simply hiring someone new.

Before Hiring a (New) Permanent Employee for Your Law Firm

Offer overtime to an existing employee or employees

If you have an employee who puts in 6-8 hours a day, ask them to work overtime occasionally to clear more tasks off the to-do list. Be careful you don’t push your employees too hard, though, or this method won’t actually benefit your firm. As this study from John Pencavel, of the Department of Economics, Stanford University, shows more hours logged doesn’t mean more hours worked, especially if the employees are already working long-strings of time without significant breaks.

Offer higher-level training to an existing employee

Your law clerk is a hard worker, but you need the expertise of a paralegal more and more. Your legal secretary is wonderful, but office and client management isn’t as important as the casework piling up on your desk. Before you hire that second employee, you could offer your current one more training.

Putting your law clerk through paralegal training can present a significantly lower cost to your firm versus hiring an additional employee. Plus, you’ll receive the added time benefit of avoiding hiring and training processes. Your current employee already knows you, your business, your priorities, and your clients. Invest in them first, and the benefits can be astounding.

Hire on-demand support with virtual paralegal services, virtual CFOs or more

Whether it’s for paralegal support, billing & collections assistance, or even a part-time, case-by-case attorney, hiring exactly who you need for only the time you need them is the most straight-forward way to find affordable legal support. This solution is not always easy, though. On-demand support is cost-effective and provides great benefits to your firm, but this support comes via a contracted employee and therefore they may not always be available. Which means the person you work with could change more often than you’d like.

If you hire on-demand support, find someone with great references, and make sure you inquire about their objectives. Are they doing this because they are trying to pay bills during law school? Because they can’t find full-time work? Or because they like the case-diversity the role provides? This can help you find someone who will provide longevity. A new law school student could be a great hire in a few years, but the contractor who is simply having a hard time in the job market could provide instability once they do land their dream job.

When to Hire a New Employee

At first you think it’s just a “tight period.” A couple months of low resources and high demand. You keep your head down and work hard, knowing that with enough overtime the path will clear, the demands will slow down.

But the tight period does not seem to wane. Because it’s not a tight period. Your practice is doing well and your demand has superseded the quantity of people at your firm (whether it’s a count of one – yourself – or twenty). Now is the time to hire. Your new employee will help not only relieve stress, but take on a size-able portion of the work. They will be worth the money. And because your firm is growing, you will see the return on investment from spending time training this new hire. Take the leap and get the legal support you need and deserve.

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Law School Students Get Exclusive Treatment at Amata

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Law School Students Get Exclusive Treatment at Amata

Amata is aware of how hard and costly it can be to get your law firm up and running. And for law students, if you want to be successful in the legal world, you need more than stellar grades and an innate knowledge of law.

The increasingly competitive nature of the legal marketplace has meant that attorneys need to make sure that all aspects of their business are flawless. And your physical workspace can’t be overlooked. In fact, it has become more important than ever before. After all, it can make a meaningful difference in your productivity and longevity.

Discover How Amata Can Help

Starting a law firm, particularly in today’s aggressive market, is no easy task. But Amata Law Office Suites is making it our business to help law students’ transitions to the legal marketplace easier than ever before. For any startup law firm that’s looking to grow, Amata can provide credibility and a more professional image, both of which are key to selling legal services.

Qualified participants in the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Solo & Small Practice Incubator program are able to receive many of Amata Law Office Suites’ services at no charge. With our assistance, you can maximize your chances of success.

Instantly Jump Start Your Law Practice

We also offer a program available exclusively to attorneys – both those that are leaving the Chicago-Kent Incubator program and those in their first year of practice – specifically designed to financially assist new attorneys in getting started with their solo law practice.

Amata knows that the environment you choose to work from can have an instrumental impact on your success. Establishing a strong network is one of the most important steps to starting a law practice. Word of mouth will always be a key driver of law firm growth, so building up a network of attorneys, as well as other professionals, can help generate business.

Enjoy Immediate Access To The Features And Services You Want and Need For Your Firm

The legal profession is one that involves great responsibility in the handling and resolution of important matters in our clients’ lives. Trustworthiness and professionalism are a necessity for any attorney to be successful at landing clients and growing their firm.

Perhaps even more crucial is the workspace environment and staff on hand.

Take Advantage of Amata’s Highly Trained Staff With A Personal Receptionist

Having a polished office space with high-end finishes is an easy way to exude professionalism. Amata comes complete with luxury finishes and even a highly-trained receptionist to greet your prospective clients. We provide these professional reception services at no charge, so you can concentrate on what’s truly important.

  • Incoming calls are handled by a professional receptionist
  • Assistance is provided with any new client intake
  • Receptionist greets visiting clients and announces them upon arrival

Daily Task Assistance Made Easy

The daily tasks of a burgeoning attorney can stack up very quickly, and when you’re still burdened with finishing law school, coming up with the funds to pay for these services can seem overwhelming.

  • Custom call answering based on your requests
  • Personal phone number with voice messaging
  • All assigned phone numbers are owned by you and easily portable
  • Free document scanning at all Amata locations

Grow Your Practice With Exclusive Networking

Attorney networking opportunities can be the platform for taking your law firm to the next level. Working at Amata Law Office Suites with other attorneys is an excellent way to form strong relationships early on. You can establish mutual referral arrangements, share resources and information, and learn valuable lessons about marketing and running a business from other attorneys who are in a similar position.

What’s more, Amata offers exclusive networking events tailored specifically for attorneys like yourself.

  • Membership with 800+ Chicago-based attorneys
  • Social activities designed with lawyers in mind
  • Networking events and speaker series for professional development

Make It Professional With Bonus Access To Many Amenities

The daily needs of a law student preparing to start their own firm extend far beyond routine services. You need a place for working and meeting clients, as well as a collaborative and vibrant workspace. Amata has all your bases covered.

  • Access to all of Amata’s open work areas
  • Private huddle room and client intake room access
  • Free access to WiFi at all of Amata’s locations

A La Carte – Member Rate Services

When you need to go beyond the routine services and are looking for access to specific needs, Amata is your complete source. Amata Law Office Suites offers law school students the ability to gain access at member discounts.

  • Copier and mail machine use when you need it
  • Utilization of our paralegal and administrative team and court filing services
  • Access to our network of business partners and discounted rates

Starting a law firm is no easy feat. There’s a lot to consider, including your potential revenue and expenses, as well as the environment from which you work.

For your workspace needs, let Amata Law Office Suites be your ultimate solution. You can customize your plan today, and take advantage of all Amata has to offer. As a law student, it could be just what you need to get your firm up and running.

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Amata Brings More Opportunities for the Firms of the Future

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Law Firms – How Big is Too Big for Law Office Suites

Over the past five years, the landscape has dramatically changed in terms of what today’s practicing attorneys consider to be viable, and logistical, space for their firm.

Law Offices Changing with the Times

Traditionally speaking, law firms elected to have their own office spaces, which meant signing a non-flexible lease with a building. However, such is not the case these days.

Technology has many attorneys working remotely, greatly reducing the need for an office dedicated to every attorney in the firm.

Eliminating Large Overhead Costs

For instance, Amata has a fourteen-attorney firm here in Chicago where the attorneys reserve the use of our Amata offices in advance. Between them, they share ten offices, and because they are all rarely in the office at the same time, it allows the firm to keep their office costs down while continuing to grow their practice. The firm maintains an ongoing option to add or remove an office as the needs of their firm change.

Coworking Becomes Commonplace

We live in a business environment where coworking has become the norm for small companies and large corporations alike. It seems only natural that attorneys would want to adapt to this new reality and reap the profitable, worthwhile benefits of shared office spaces.

“So while the world around the legal profession is changing dramatically, few lawyers are making changes to the way they practice law.” – Law Practice Today

The old adage says lawyers are slow to change, and that may still be a true statement, but the firms that will lead the way in the future are quickly moving to play by new rules.

Shared Office Space – Not a Foreign Concept

In many ways, solo and small law practices have already been sharing office space with larger firms for years, so the concept is not totally new.

However, this traditional way of sharing space with larger firms can present several very real, very big problems for those smaller practices.

Traditional Law Firm Space May Leave Your Firm Stranded

The biggest problem is that you may get kicked out with short notice when that large firm you’re sharing space with needs more space for their own growth.

Trying to scramble to find a suitable place at an affordable cost that’s still convenient to your current clients as well as your own needs becomes increasingly difficult when you’re juggling a crunched timeframe.

Another downside to this arrangement is that the larger practice is focused on promoting themselves, not you within the space.

Traditional Law Firm Space Poses Problems for Your Firm’s Expansion

Another rather large issue that should be addressed is when a mid-sized firm takes traditional space with plans to grow. Normally, they will sign a long-term lease for more space than the practice currently needs with plans to add attorneys and staff in the future.

But when those plans don’t materialize as quickly as planned, the firm ends up playing the role of landlord, forced to find other tenants to occupy the empty space until they need it for their own firm.

In the real estate world this “empty space” is referred to as “shadow space”.

Playing Landlord Isn’t Using Assets to Your Advantage

Perhaps the worst part of this process is the fact that the attorney leaseholder rarely has the experience and knowledge of the market and therefore ends up charging tenant-attorney rates below cost, covering the balance with income from the law practice.

At the end of the day, are you practicing law to cover the cost of excess space? Isn’t there a better way to utilize this excess income?

Amata Law Office Suites Provides the Solutions

Amata Law Office Suites is office space designed specifically for attorneys, providing the comradery, connections, and atmosphere attorneys enjoy without the overhead for unused space and long-term equipment lease, reducing the risk of operating a law practice.

You Can Grow and Downsize Your Law Firm as Needed with Amata

As your firm grows at Amata you are easily able to add office space, controlling your costs and incidentally, being aware of your exact cost to add an associate or staff member.

If times become hard for your practice and you need to reduce, you have the option of removing office space to keep your costs in line with your revenue.

Amata Offers Perks You Won’t Find in a Traditional Firm Setting

At Amata Law Office Suites, we’ve been supporting attorneys for over twenty years, so we understand the things you and your clients truly want and need. These are just a few of the perks Amata provides that you won’t get in a traditional firm setting:

  • Lead and Referral Generation
    Amata places great importance on providing a road for your firm’s success. We host numerous attorney networking events throughout the year where you can gain high-quality leads that are often pre-qualified.
  • On-Site Paralegals, Ready to Assist
    Not ready to expand your firm’s staff yet but still need some extra hands on deck? The paralegals located at Amata Law Office Suites are incredibly trained and ready when you need them.
  • Professional, Trained Reception
    Our reception at Amata raises the bar for all others. Professional to the core, they greet your clients and screen your calls so you can focus on the casework you need to.
  • Exclusive Marketing Exposure
    Amata loves nothing more than to proudly support and promote our members. We offer opportunities that include getting published in Attorney-At-Law Magazine, guest blogging at Amata, and more!
  • Flexibility for Every Budget
    Why pay for space you don’t need? Add an attorney or staff member, add an office or workstation; lose an attorney or staff member, remove the cost of the space with a one-month notice. Pay for only what you need, when you need it, and increase your profits. Amata Law Office Suites features plans built-to-suit so you can run your firm more efficiently, including virtual and telecommuting packages!

Place your law office where it should be – with Amata Law Office Suites.

For more information, give us a call us at 312-741-1000, or complete the form below.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.