Tips To Streamline Small Business Legal Services

Small businesses always look for various ways to cut their costs, especially during an economic downturn. One of most expensive arena is managing an in-house legal department. However, most of the companies hire law firms these days, instead of appointing in-house legal advisers. But here again many have casted doubt on the “billable hour” that these firms charge. Many have also accused that these firms often incentivize attorneys improperly whether or not they resolve the legal matters. On the other hand, the attorneys complaint that they are not been adequately paid as law firms are becoming too lenient about “billable hour” to pull potential businesses. This has created the biggest challenge for the business owners and attorneys, which is to learn how to value their legal services. The main task is to determine fees for the legal services in a way so that it suits both the business owners and the attorneys. Thereby, you need to draft a pricing model so as to subside such concerns. Be it a rubber and plastic plant or an IT firm, the following tips will help you to streamline your legal services.

It has been often noticed that companies hire one firm to deal with their legal matters in their country of origin and others to deal with the international matters. This usually increases the costs of your company. On the other hand, you can appoint one single firm to handle all your cases of a specific region or country. If required, the same firm can arrange attorneys to represent your company in cross border legal issues. For corporate clients such relationships are very beneficial as the attorneys of the particular law firm become well accustomed with your business practices and cultures.

However, you must make sure that the firm has adequate knowledge and experience in cross border laws as certain business laws differ from place to place. Another drawback of appointing single legal service provider is the amount they charge for resolving  international matters. As said earlier, not all law firms have their representatives in different states and countries. What they do is hire another local firm from that particular area to deal with your case. This way your legal costs increase as the primary law firm charges a commission in most of the cases. But this can be easily solved if you have a good business relationship with the firm.

Another tip is to go for a yearly flat rate while hiring a firm. Under this agreement, you can pay a fixed amount and there is no need to be bothered about “billable hour”. In addition, you can try capped fees under which you will be charged up to a fixed amount either on an hourly basis or according to the  litigation tasks. Thereby, you can always control the maximum amount that the firm may charge you. In case, your legal firm is not ready for such agreements you can ask them to charge you a flat or capped fee for some specific legal tasks. Similarly, you can even opt for results-based fees where you pay the fees only when positive results are achieved or the work is completed.