It is not earth-shattering to state that attorneys’ clients often focus on the amount of money being spent on legal fees. This topic has been written, rewritten, and expounded upon often, especially since the so-called Great Recession commenced. This article serves to provide individuals and businesses—from small to Fortune 500—an alternative means to receive efficient and effective counsel, with successful results, while also curtailing spending on attorney fees.
At the outset, it must be noted that this article does not propose sending “bet-the-farm” matters to firms whose primary expertise is not centrally focused on the practice area contained within said matters. Taking a well-known example of representation of an insurance company, it was worthwhile to an insurance company to ship out major litigation like the oil spill that commenced approximately five years ago to larger firms. After some time, the bulk of the oil spill claims were settled for nearly $10 billion dollars. Clearly, this settlement value made the legal fees expended appear miniscule. In “bet-the-farm” litigation, large companies will certainly, and understandably, seek the biggest name(s) in the legal field for representation. Legal fees typically should, and are, put aside for such matters. However, the bulk of legal representation does not consist of these litigation matters that might bankrupt even the largest companies in the world. For the rest of these matters, attorney fees should be taken into account, with, of course, taking great care to avoid sacrificing proper and effective legal representation. The question is where to find such value from a law firm.
