Personnel in a Law Firm I
A partner hired from another law firm.
What is a lateral hire?
An attorney who brings fee-generating cases into the office due to his or her contacts and/or reputation as a skilled attorney.
What is a rainmaker?
Time spent on tasks for which clients cannot be asked to pay.
What is non-billable time?
A business or other venture jointly owned by town or more persons who share its profits and losses.
What is a partnership?
When can attorney’s fees ever be deposited in the attorney’s personal account?
Never
A partner who has been passed over for partner status but who remains at the firm.
What is a senior associate?
A special category of partner who does not own the firm in the sense of an equity or income partner; also called an income partner.
What is a Non-Equity Partner?
A form used by some law offices that is the source document for the creation of all necessary accounting records that are needed when a law firm begins working on a new client case or matter.
What is a new file worksheet?
Paying an outside company or service to perform tasks usually performed by one's own employees.
Examples: word processing, transcription, printing, and photocopying.
What is outsourcing?
What is the difference between Law Clerks and Legal Interns?
Law Clerks – Law firm employee who is in law school studying to become an attorney or who has graduated from law school and waiting to pass the bar exam. Or one who provides research & writing assistance to a judge.
Legal Intern – A student in a law office seeking practical experience.
A full-time attorney employee who has no expectation of becoming a full partner.
(Also called a second-tier attorney)
What is a staff attorney?
An attorney hired to work for a relatively short period, usually on specific cases or projects
(Also called a project attorney)
What is a Contract Attorney?
A form on which timekeepers record how much time they spend on particular client matters.
What is a daily time sheet?
A required bank account controlled by an attorney that contains client funds that may not be used for general operating expenses.
What is a client trust account?
Name at least 3 settings in which attorney's practice law in the private sector.
Sole proprietorship
Office sharing agreement
Partnership
Professional Corporation
Limited Liability Entity
Corporate Law Department
A full owner partner in the firm.
(Also called a capital partner)
What is an Equity Partner?
An attorney who practices alone. The office has no partners, associates, or employees who are attorneys.
What is a sole proprietorship?
A method of charging for legal services based on factors such as the results achieved and the complexity of the case rather than solely on the number of hours spent on the client’s case.
What is value billing?
Two or more attorneys with independent practices who share the use and overhead costs of the office.
What is an office sharing arrangement?
What is the distinction between bundled and unbundled services?
Bundled Services - all the tasks needed to represent a client; all-inclusive legal services
Unbundled Services - includes discrete task representation for which the client is charged per task as opposed to paying a single fee for all tasks to be performed (also called limited assistance representation)
Someone who recruits and hires paralegals, assign projects to paralegals, prepares financial & statistical reports pertaining to profitability and value of paralegals.
An attorney who is semi-retired or has some other special status in the law firm.
What is an of counsel attorney?
An office in which an attorney provides limited-scope legal services mainly or exclusively through online communication.
What is a virtual law office?
The codes used by law firms to describe the tasks they performed for the clients and the time it took to perform them.
What are billing codes?
What are some of the main categories of administrative support staff in a large law office?(Name at least 3)
Billing Clerk, Comptroller, Docket Clerk, Employee Benefits Manager, File Room Clerk, IT Specialist, Librarian, Mail Clerk, Receptionist, Telephone Operator