Doing this was crucial to the firm's success. Equity partners have voting rights to determine decisions relating to firm investment, growth and staffing. They supervise attorneys, support staff and – depending on the firm’s size – are often the heads of firms’ practice groups. Next in rank were "of counsel" lawyers. There are two types of the “of counsel” attorneys in law firms. The first are veteran attorneys – often former partners or semi-retired attorneys – who want to be affiliated with a firm without the revenue requirements. They may work part-time and only for a particular client or on matters upon which they have specialized expertise. The other “of counsel” attorneys are experienced mid-career lawyers who work full time and may have leadership roles on specific matters. While some are building the book of business they need before they can become partners, others remain permanently in their “of counsel” role. Associates are attorneys who join law firms as members of a “class,” and their status is based on how many years they’ve worked at a firm since graduation.
Even newbies could be associates. For example, a “first-year associate” is straight out of law school and learning standard concepts and practices. “Senior associates” have been at a firm for years. Much like younger partners, they’re handling more complex matters with a leadership role in some cases and supervising junior associates under them. Finally came the paralegals. Paralegals are the left hand of the attorneys. They provide critical support – documentation preparation, research, case management and even basic client communication,” Sullivan says. They free up attorneys from those tasks, so the attorneys can do more strategic work. And paralegals can, in practice, shift the firm hierarchy, particularly in smaller firms where a senior paralegal can effectively outrank an associate. Their real-world experience can trump a first-year associate's, no matter how involved they were in law school. They each had their own fields of expertise to start them off on a good foot. Percy and Trish took on property law. Chet and Thad had civil rights. Quinn was a nice defense attorney.
Feeling frisky at the time, Anna elected to become a violent crime lawyer. She specialized in taking clients accused of committing a violent crime. Anna wanted things to be a bit exciting. She did not want to be sat in a boring room looking over contracts all day. That would be a massive waste of her time. She would much rather spend the time doing something cool. Now that it was established, they needed to find a place to work from. Luckily it did not take long before she found a strip mall with a couple of stores empty. That would be the perfect place to start up their law firm. When she got in contact with the owners, she actually had enough to pay for the security deposit and rent for the first 2 months. She forked over the cash and it was time to get started. Since they were all part of the guild, it was easy to see what people needed what kinds of legal help. I took a couple of clients that needed an attorney. Lots of people needed attorneys. For us starting out, it was important to actually win the cases so people trust us more. I stressed that to them when they picked. They took one each.
