This one is worth keeping on file for when that partner is looking for yet another cost saving
Link to their website….
I recently had the opportunity to speak to, and then conduct a written interview with, Tracey Steinberg, owner of Per Diem Attorney NOW, a service for busy lawyers and law firms with court appearance coverage needs. Over the course of our conversation, and as reflected in Tracey’s answers below, it became clear that technology is beginning to shape legal practice in interesting and perhaps unexpected ways. My own research revealed that there are a number of similar court appearance on demand-type services sprouting up, suggesting that these new services are finding ways to satisfy market demand. While these types of services seem limited at this point to high-volume practices with frequent court appearances, we have clearly started down the road towards innovators like Tracey finding ways to offer technology-driven alternatives for lawyers handling more complex matters as well. I hope that readers find the interview with Tracey interesting, and I am personally impressed with the service she has built and is running in the helter-skelter New York legal market.
GK: What types of matters does your service work best with?
TS: PerDiemAttorneyNOW.com is a new “attorney-sharing” site where small litigation law firms can quickly hire experienced litigators to (1) cover routine court appearances and depositions and (2) write legal documents such as motions, contracts, and appeals. We mostly handle personal injury, malpractice, commercial, landlord-tenant, criminal, and matrimonial cases.
Our goal is to help small litigation law firms avoid the mad scramble to find a trustworthy attorney to help out when their own attorneys are too busy or unavailable. Hiring Per Diem Attorney NOW frees up the law firms’ own attorneys to handle the more lucrative and challenging work, provides coverage in times of emergencies, and enables overworked attorneys to work fewer hours. With the help of technology, we make getting your cases covered as easy as getting an Uber.
GK: Are there any obstacles to expansion to other areas of law, and how do you address them?
TS: Per Diem Attorney NOW enables law firms to hire attorneys quickly whenever they need help. In theory, I believe that we can help every law firm in every area of the law that can’t financially justify maintaining an adequate staff on a full-time basis but need attorneys to help out sporadically.
But since I’ve spent the past 20 years handling litigation cases (as both an associate and on a per diem basis), at the present time we handle only litigation cases. It’s what I know and what I’m good at, so currently it’s all we do.
GK: How do you make sure that the lawyers handling the appearances are happy within your network?
TS: Unlike attorneys who work in traditional law firms, our attorneys are in total control of their schedules and can choose the number of hours, type of work, and type of cases they handle. Our attorneys can work on their own terms and are free to accept or refuse work, which is very important to many who have family responsibilities, recently hung out their own shingles, or want free time to pursue other passions. We also pay competitive rates within 30 days.
GK: Can this model work in non-urban areas, or do you need a large concentration of lawyers close to the courthouses?
TS: In theory, I think our model could work in every courthouse in the United States. But it is more expensive for law firms to hire per diem attorneys to go to remote courthouses where we can handle only one case at a time.
For example, I’ve spent most of my per diem attorney days in New York County, which has a large number of judges who have a large number of cases on any given day. I’ve often handled several court appearances in the same courtroom at the same time, which enabled me to earn a decent living while charging the law firms a reasonable amount for my services. Financially, it was in everyone’s interest because it was much less expensive to hire me to cover the case than for the law firm’s attorney to appear in court themselves that day.
Currently, Per Diem Attorney NOW has attorneys in court every day throughout NYC, Long Island, and Westchester. Of course, all of these courthouses have a large number of cases on every day. I have some attorneys who can go to the more remote courthouses throughout New York. But they aren’t there every day, and they charge more for their appearances.
GK: How do you respond to concerns about the quality of lawyers providing this service?
TS: I’ve been a per diem attorney in NYC for over 15 years, and I know who all of the “regulars” are in every courthouse in NYC, Long Island, and Westchester. The “regulars” know the courts, judges, and courtroom rules intimately because we are there every day. Per Diem Attorney NOW only hires litigators who have over 10 years experience, have excellent reputations, and undergo my extensive vetting process.
We are well connected and can at times get better results than the attorneys of record because of our expertise and our relationships of trust with the judges and their staffs. The success of Per Diem Attorney NOW depends on the quality of our lawyers’ work, and our livelihoods depend on that. I take that very seriously.
GK: What else can the profession do to support technology-based solutions to increasing access to quality representation for individuals?
TS: Technology can enable us to provide individuals with legal services that weren’t economically feasible in the past because we can now do everything faster, cheaper, and better. It can help us research our cases faster, communicate remotely through video conferencing, have a paperless law firm, create documents automatically, and create workflows with automatic tracking.
The most important thing our profession can do to support technology-based solutions is to embrace it. Some lawyers I know are having difficulty accepting how fast technology is changing everything. But technological change is inevitable, and the quicker we embrace it and allow it to help us, the better off our profession will be.
