Re: Joining a solo attorney, what to expect?

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On 7/21/06, Steve wrote:
> I am a May graduate, and I recently had an interview with
> a solo attorney in a small East Tennessee town(I'm OK with
> living there because it is very close to my
hometown). ...
>
> Can anyone give any advice as to what a fair salary
> structure would be for this type of arrangement? Is there
> anything I should request in the structure of my salary
> based on long term considerations? Also, how common is
> this type of arrangement for someone straight out of law
> school, and is it a good opportunity for someone who wants
> to work in a small firm? Is there a good long term
> opportunity in this type of arrangement?
>
> Thanks.

Thats a hard one, though its seems fairly common. What are
average salaries and costs in small Town Tennessee? How much
work does he expect to give you?

This is what I would do... go find out the starting salary of
a government lawyer in your area... DA, PD, County Counsel,
etc. Figure out what it comes down to on an hourly. A fair
salary will be somewhere around there. Not that you might
not be willing to work for less, but that gives you a
starting point. If the salary offered is significantly below
that, you need a correspondingly higher % of cases brought
in. What he wants is to make sure you cover you share of
space, overhead, and staff, plus your salary and a little
profit before you start getting bonuses. On the otherhand, if
you are bringing in enough to cover the above, you want to
correspondingly bring up your percentage.

In terms of percentage, theres going to be some kind of
sliding scales. So you might get 15% of the
first "something", 25% of the next something, etc. Where
those cut off points are going to be are going to really
depend on your salary, the cost structure of the guy you are
working for, and the nature of the market you are in. In the
big firms they also have a sliding scale bonuses based on
hours worked, but I'm fairly sure thats not going to be much
of a consideration at a smalltown practice, but you never
know.

As a minimal standard you want a percentage of 15% of gross
collected fee. Ie. if you brought it in, no matter who works
on it, you want 15% of the amount actually collected from the
client. What sometimes makes this messy is that firms like
to deduct the cost of uncollected amounts.

So for example... You bring in Bob. Your Boss does 100 hours
of work on Bob's case at $100 and hour, or $10,000 in
billings. Bob sends in a check for $8000 and says... "sorry
thats all I got." What you want is 15% (minimum) of the
$8000...as a $1200 bonus. Your boss is going to say... "whoa
now, I didn't get paid for 20 hours of work, and that time to
me was worth $2000, so no bonus for you."

The reality is that every client is a potential under-
collection. So you have to work out an arrangement by which
you adjust the bonus by the actual cost, not the "retail
charge". And thats something the two of you have to negotiate
amongst yourselves.

It requires some honestly and goodwill among the attorneys,
but its not that difficult if everyone is straightforward and
thinks about it. For example... you might agree (as a worse
case senario for you)that the $8000 is reduced by the amount
uncollect to a bonus base of $6000 and then muliply by
the .15, for a $900 cut. Or your boss says that his salary
cost is $33 an hour minimum so you might agree to reduce the
bonus base of $8000 by $660 (20X$33) to $7340 and take
your .15, for a $1101 cut. Or something in between.

Now I'm using the term minimal, because, you have to factor
in how you are actually getting the clients. But my guess is
that to start you are not going to be running yellow page
ads, or anything like that.