Persons of Interest: Modern Staffing Options Abound for Law Firms

June 1, 2021 - Law Practice Management

Business growth is what everybody wants; but, it’s not easy to manage. Managing people brings with it new duties, and added headaches. Of course, it’s the only way to scale your business beyond yourself.

Fortunately, for law firms owners, there are more staffing options now, than you can shake a stick, even if you’re not ready to make the move to hiring an employee.

Many expanding law firms choose to engage contract attorneys, who can make their own hours, and are often experienced enough to manage their own worfklows. These folks don’t require benefits, or a salary. For contract attorneys, the advantage is that they can make their own schedule, which works well, for moms who want to be home with their kids, for example. Law firms using contractors are advantaged because of the cost savings — in addition to salary and benefits, you’re also often saving office space and technology costs. Law firms with enough definable specific needs can hire contract attorneys to work in a very defined niche, which really means that you can have specialists surrounding your practice. If you’re interested in a more formal arrangement than the one you would have with a contractor, you can try an of counsel relationship, which would allow you to co-market with another law firm. In addition to the obvious cost savings advantages related to hiring contractors, there is the marketing fodder you get by working with highly qualified lawyers with deep subject matter experience.

And, these benefits don’t just extend to other attorneys. If you can become comfortable with managing a distributed workforce, you can hire the best staffpersons wherever they are. Cloud software also makes it easier than ever before to add or eliminate access to essential law firm management tools, and to stay on top of what’s happening with remote workers.

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If you’re interested in rethinking your workforce, we can help.

The Wyoming State Bar offers free law practice management consulting services through Red Cave Law Firm Consulting.  To request a consult, visit the Wyoming State Bar’s law practice management page, and start running your law firm like a business.