The Lawsmiths of Southern California: Information for Law Offices

This page of The Lawsmiths' web site will explain both the principles and the practices of The Lawsmiths, and how we believe we can be of service to you, as we have been to so many law offices and corporate law departments, large and small, over our twenty-year history.

Getting Attorney Help From The Lawsmiths

Getting the help you need from us could scarcely be simpler or easier. Just give us a call at 1 (800) 995-4080, or email us from right here, right now, and tell us these few things:

• the practice area in which you need assistance;

• the depth of experience you require from candidates;

• the average anticipated workload, in hours a week; and,

• the anticipated duration of the project.

(Please note that we no longer handle requests for pure appearance work. If you have a project that may include some appearance work by the attorney, that is no problem: what we do not handle is one-time appearance-only requests.)

Quickly--normally within a maximum of 24 hours and sometimes within minutes--we will fax over to you candidate resumés with specific rate quotations for each. Review the resumés, ask us what you will about each, tell us which candidate or candidates you want to follow up with, and we will coordinate getting you and each such attorney together on the telephone. After that, it's completely your choice as to how, and how thoroughly, you want to examine and evaluate any candidate; satisfy yourself as fully as you want about their qualifications and suitability.

Whenever you and a candidate agree that you do indeed want to work together, just let us know and we will handle all the paperwork. What you will get from us at the outset is our master Contract form and a one-page Contract Supplement which simply names the attorney and sets forth the agreed-on hourly cost to you for using that attorney. Because we normally handle all paperwork by fax, the attorney can in almost every case begin work for you literally within minutes of your decision to use him or her.

Attorney Costs

The minimum hourly rate that The Lawsmiths bills is $60 an hour. While there is no set maximum, it would be quite a rare need that could not be met in the two-digit cost range. Obviously, the rate will depend on the depth and specialization of expertise that you need. If you tell us that a third-year associate could handle the task (even though the attorney you would get will almost surely be substantially more experienced than that), that will usually mean the $60 rate. If you tell us you need a ten-plus-year litigator who has had substantial jury-trial experience, that would likely push the upper edge of the two-digit hourly rate.

That information is obviously only a rough guideline; tell us your particular needs and we will get exact rates.

Keep in mind that all candidates we refer to you are seeking work as independent contractors; thus, the single hourly rate we quote you covers everything--both the attorney's and our compensation--with no further taxes or record-keeping required on your part (we issue annual Form 1099 reports to the attorneys). There are no hidden fees or any of the many patent and latent costs, risks, and overheads of actual employment.

Billing Procedures

The Lawsmiths works on two-week billing cycles which each run from from a Sunday through a Saturday, inclusive. (Those cycles are fixed and not relative to when any given attorney starts work for any given law office, so an attorney beginning work for you might come in at the start of such a cycle, the end, or anywhere in between.)

At the end of every billing cycle during which an attorney we have referred to you has done any work for you, that attorney will complete a standardized Lawsmiths' Timesheet Form; those forms are very simple, comprising 14 daily hours-entry slots, a cycle-total slot, and two signature lines--one for the attorney and one for your approval. (The Lawsmiths' Timesheet Forms are very simple because they were explicitly designed to shield us from any knowledge of your cases, even case titles or numbers; you will thus normally want the attorney to also keep time records in whatever form your office usually uses for such records.) The attorney will complete our Timesheet and sign it, then submit it to you for your review and approval. You thus get to see and, if there is any question of any kind, discuss the hours with the attorney before you get any billing.

Once a Timesheet is approved by you, you will receive an actual billing Invoice shortly thereafter (often literally in minutes, because, as we said, we normally handle all paperwork by fax); the Invoice will be accompanied by a copy of the jointly approved Timesheet on which it is based. All Invoices are net 10 days. You simply send one check to us, and we pay the attorney his or her funds from that sum (always on the same day that we receive your payment check).

(What constitutes billable time is entirely between you and the attorney. It is always best to resolve any potential questions--travel time to outside locations, for example--before you have the attorney put in time.)

Some General Observations

The actual size of The Lawsmiths' current Southern California portfolio is about two hundred fifty attorneys, including those awaiting final interview (but exclusive of our separate San Diego portfolio). The reader should beware of comparisons with published numbers about "portfolios" in this field. The Lawsmiths' portfolio described below comprises only those attorneys who have met our screening standards, and who--to the best of our knowledge--are currently available for assignments; if we included, as some apparently do, all resumés ever received by us, the total would be deep into the five-digit range. We prefer to deal more candidly.

The reader should be aware that the information herein is a snapshot of a moving target: attorneys enter and leave our portfolio every day. Further, there is no assurance that a particular attorney, even if "available" in the general sense, is available for a specific assignment at a specific moment.

Law Schools Represented

The following list shows all law schools represented by three or more JDs in The Lawsmiths' portfolio (excluding those pending final review and the separate San Diego portfolio).

* Those eight are all second-career attorneys--four engineers, a pharmacist, an R.N., a psychotherapist, and a customs/ import-export expert. We also have a licensed psychologist and an engineer/patents attorney from U.W.L.A.

Just the 16 schools listed account for over 83% of the total portfolio. Other schools represented by more then one attorney include Duke, Northwestern, and the University of Wisconsin.

About one of every eight attorneys in our portfolio is a Phi Beta Kappa.

Backgrounds and Experience

Regretfully, we do not feel it appropriate to list the various firms (and corporations) with which the attorneys in our portfolio have at some time been associated. It is, however, a list representative of some of the best law offices in this and other major areas of the country.

Backgrounds and Experience

The average experience (1998 minus year of J.D.) of The Lawsmiths' portfolio members is between 15 and 16 years' worth; the median is 13 to 14 years' worth; the commonest level is 10 years (9%). Almost 89% of the attorneys in The Lawsmiths' portfolio have partner-length (8 or more years' worth) experience. Nearly 25% have 20 or more years' experience (several have a quarter-century or more). Except one second-careerist, all have at least five years of experience (and none less than 3 years). Roughly three in five are in the 5-to-15 year experience range.

Geographical Coverage

The Lawsmiths of Southern California, Inc. has attorneys in locations from Paso Robles (north of San Luis Obispo) to San Diego. The primary concentration is in the greater Los Angeles area, but with a substantial number of attorneys in Orange County and Riverside. We can also draw on the resources of our sister company in Northern California, which maintains a portfolio of similarly qualified contractor attorneys for all areas north of those just described.

Other Bar Admissions

One or more attorneys in The Lawsmiths' portfolio are also admitted in one or more of the following States:

We also have attorneys admitted in France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Canada (Ontario Province), and South Africa (Transvaal).

Languages

One or more of the attorneys in The Lawsmiths' portfolio list fluency sufficient to deal with clients in one or more of the following languages:

In many cases, the attorneys have the fluency of a native-born speaker of the language in question (since a number of them are such). We also have attorneys skilled in the cultures and business and legal customs of a number of foreign countries.

Areas of Practice

The Lawsmiths' database of available attorneys is divided into a number of practice-area categories, listed below. In each area we currently have attorneys listing senior-associate level skills and at least one per area listing partner-level skills (in most areas, many of each).

Other Considerations

In addition, there are various forms of experience and expertise not readily expressed by set categories. We have, for instance, attorneys listing significant or substantial expertise in such diverse areas as import-export and customs law, sports law, fine-arts law, military procurement contracts, mineral-rights law, Pacific Rim culture, commercial arbitration, land use/urban planning, and FSLIC workouts (this list is representative, and by no means exhaustive).

Moreover, some of these attorneys have backgrounds or experience of special interest, from a PhD. in clinical psychology to 26 years of practice in the Antitrust Division, from practice as an NLRB trial attorney to practice as an FDIC Senior Attorney, from international commodities trading to C.P.A. work.

Our point is that we would like to be remembered not only as a reliable supplier of quality attorneys for everyday tasks, but also as a potential source of highly qualified experts on a variety of matters everyday and once-in-a-blue-moon. We can't guarantee we can meet every need every time, but we think we're well worth trying.

There are today many companies in the same business as The Lawsmiths--agency placement of independent-contractor attorneys has become a veritable industry. That pleases us, because although many other such agencies hide behind the legal protection of "commercial puffery" for their claims of being "pioneers" and "the first" and so on, it was solely and truly us, The Lawsmiths, who founded this industry (back in very early 1984, so new is it), and for many years we were the only such full-service organization in the world.

Today, as two companies--The Lawsmiths of Southern California, Inc. and The Lawsmiths of Northern California, Inc., with common ownership and interlinked management--we remain a statewide provider dealing exclusively in experienced attorneys from top-drawer law schools (see the Southern California portfolio outline above for fuller information). We have dealt with many of the largest and most prestigious law firms and corporate law departments in the State, as well as medium-sized firms, small firms, and sole practitioners. It is trite but true that we are large enough to help anyone and small enough to help everyone.

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