“The traditional Big Law model . . . is to sell the client a Cadillac, even when he only needs or wants a Ford,” write the authors of “Disruptive Innovation: New Models of Legal Practice¹,” a report by the WorkLife Law Center at UC Hastings College of the Law. But, that model has changed with more and more firms delivering a Ford with a price to match.

This requires a new approach: A strategic and creative reconfiguration of staffing, with a critical eye toward the client’s, and the firm’s, current and future needs. Over-staffing and under-productivity are sapping law firms’ financial health, according to Altman Weil’s Law Firms in Transition² survey. Some 77 percent of firms that changed their approach to attorney staffing increased their profits per equity partner, compared to 56 percent of firms that made no such changes, according to the survey. In some cases, I’ve helped firms create entirely new job categories. In fact, Ricoh’s legal board along with recruiting firm Robert Half & Associates have noted the following new, emerging roles:

• Apprentice – Legal Residents: New lawyers who join the firm at a lower, non-associate salary and billing rate for the first year, after which they may transition to an associate or practice-group level.
• Career Associates: Non-partner-track attorneys who work as part of the firm’s practice group but have no staff management or business development responsibilities. They earn about half the salary of traditional associates on the partner track.
• Practice Group Attorneys: These lawyers are not on a partner or shareholder track. They do associate-level work at reduced hours for about half the salary of partner-track associates.
• Department Attorneys: They do the same legal work as traditional associates but with reduced billable-hour expectations and with no partner-track status.