Although we are a cloud-based and low-overhead firm, we recognize that some partners may need more traditional support resources from time to time. Therefore, we have assembled a number of on-demand resources and protocols that partners may call upon and pay for on an a la carte basis as described below.
Robert Half Legal Support Staffing
The firm has negotiated rates with RHL as part of a national service contract. Partners contact RHL directly, enter into a Statement of Work, and remain in charge of managing the resource. The partner gets a draw deduction for the costs of the RHL resource. There is no separate contract (other than SOW) required to use RHL and partners pay a set rate that is already negotiated uinder our national account. However, the partner enjoys the overage if they choose to bill the resource to a client at a higher rate. For more information and pricing, go to the RHL Support Staff page.
Contract Staff Hired by Partners (aka The Kim Package)
For partners who want to hire their own resource on a contract basis, they should contact Kim Verska at kverska@cm.law for guidance on the firm’s process. In summary, the partner signs an agreement with the firm that indemnifies CM from any financial, employment, or other liability arising from the partner’s hiring of the resource. The partner is responsible for negotiating and setting the financial terms of the relationship directly with the resource and for managing the work. The firm receives 20% of what is billed and collected for the resource (similar to the partner contribution), but the partner enjoys the overage of what the partner pays the resource vs. what is collected by the firm after the 20% firm contribution. If the resource is non-billable, the partner pays a $90/month resource fee for use of the firm’s technology platforms, added admin costs and added insurance costs.
Administrative Assistant (Stephanie Powers)
CM’s full-time Administrative Assistant, Stephanie Powers, is available to assist partners with projects on an on-demand basis at the rates listed below. These fees will be automatically deducted from your draw. Below is an overview of sample tasks/services she can provide. Email her at spowers@cm.law to request assistance and check her availability.
- Document Assistance & Troubleshooting
- PDF creation, compilation and editing (e.g., compilation of signature pages, page extractions, fillable fields, etc.)
- Document conversion (e.g., JPEG to PDF; PDF to Word document; etc.)
- Microsoft Word
- Editing & fixing formatting (e.g., TOC construction, number/styling issues, alignment/spacing issues, comparisons, table reformatting, hyperlinking/ cross-referencing/bookmarking within documents, etc.)
- Proofreading and redlining
- Updating/drafting letters, templates, etc. (e.g., firm stationary, mailing label templates [basic or MailMerge], etc.)
- Excel Spreadsheets
- Database design & management
- Data organization
- Troubleshooting with formulas and formatting
- Marketing & Presentation Materials
- RFP design & information compilation
- Marketing graphics & digital design (Photoshop)
- Handouts
- Presentations – PowerPoint or Prezi
- General Administrative Assistance
- Draft engagement letters and client intake tracking
- Completing forms on Partner Portal (e.g., conflict checks, NCMFs, etc.)
- Filing and organizing documents/emails into the DMS and OneDrive
- Entering time/expenses in B4T
- Processing/tracking foreign associate fees
- Non-legal research (e.g., CLE credit, IT/computer support, office space use, etc.)
- Set-up of CLE courses
- Specialty/Other
- IP Specific:
- Creation of TM Specimens
- Edit logo images to meet USPTO resolution specifications for upload
- Personal organization, planning & itineraries, including but not limited to:
- Events
- Vacations/travel
- IP Specific:
Hourly Rates
- Document Assistance
- Word – Basic Processing – $35/hr
- Word – Advanced Processing & Troubleshooting – $40-45/hr
- PDF Creation, Conversion, Editing & Assembly – $40-45/hr
- Copyediting/Proofing/Redlining – $40/hr
- Excel – Basic Data Entry – $35/hr
- Excel – Advanced Data Entry, Design, & Troubleshooting – $40-45/hr
- Marketing
- PowerPoint/Prezi – Basic Design & Editing – $40/hr
- PowerPoint/Prezi – Advanced Design & Editing – $45/hr
- Image Editing & Design (e.g., sizing, resolution, etc.) – $50/hr
- Misc. Administrative Assistance
- General Client Admin (e.g., eng. ltrs., tracking, mailing labels, etc.) – $35/hr
- Enter Time/Expense Entries in B4T – $35/hr
- Invoice Processing & Tracking – $35/hr
- Non-legal Research – $40/hr
- Filing/Organizing Files in DMS – $40/hr
- CLE Course Administrative Assistance – $40/hr
- Personal Organization, Planning & Projects – $35/hr
Daily Bookkeeping, LLC (Pam Daily’s Team)
Daily Bookkeeping, LLC is the vendor that provides CM’s normal back office support. Additionally, members of that team are available to provide certain support functions to our partners on an a la carte basis. For pricing and a list of available services, email Pam Daily at backofficeteam@dailybookkeepingatl.com (NOTE: This is a different email than Pam’s normal CM Admin email). Costs incurred for this service will not be handled via draw deduction and the firm has no say as to price and servicing because this is a completely separate relationship between the partner and Daily Bookkeeping, LLC.
Microsoft Word ER Service
Having problems with a Microsoft Word document? Can’t get automatic paragraph numbering to work properly? Can’t get text aligned properly? Need page numbering to start over, turn off, or change formats? Need automatic table of contents created? Can’t get table of authorities to automatically generate?
Our IT consultants, Affinity Consulting, is now offering a lower price for their “Microsoft Word Emergency Room” Service, which is a flat fee of $85 (normally $250) to take any Word document you are having issues with and fix it for you (and they even send you instructions on how they did what they did). As quickly as they can fix your document, you’ll receive your repaired document back via email, plus an explanation of what they did, and a brief instruction sheet which explains how to use the tools we built into your document (such as styles, auto-updating tables of contents, tables of authority or cross references).
If you’d like to use this service, you simply email your document to WordER@AffinityConsulting.com, indicate you are on the Culhane Meadows account and explain what you need help with. They fix the document for the flat fee (as well as fix any other formatting issues they find). Their hours are pretty good … 8am to 11pm ET – 7 days a week. When I asked them about their turnaround times, they said “The turn-around time on a Word ER issue is typically an hour. We can solve virtually any issues in Word and fix any document, no matter the type or complexity. Just ask anyone who sends something to us to let us know their time frame. If we can’t hit the time frame, we’ll let them know but it’s extraordinarily unlikely unless they waited until the very last minute.”
If you use the Word ER service, the $85 flat fee will be automatically deducted from your draw.
Examples of what they often fix:
- Can’t get automatic paragraph numbering to work properly.
- Can’t get text aligned properly.
- Need page numbering to start over, turn off, change formats (i.e., from Romanettes to Arabic).
- Need automatic table of contents.
- Can’t get table of authorities to automatically generate.
- Need paragraph cross references to automatically update.
- Trouble with indents, tabs or tables.
- Getting signature lines to line up correctly.
- Any issue with headers or footers.
- One footnote spreading across multiple pages.
- Trouble with automatic spacing between paragraphs.
- Need schedules/exhibits to auto-number/letter themselves so they’re always right even if moved around
- Any question people want to call about regarding how to attack and issue, or deal with a formatting problem
The things not covered by the $85 flat fee can be categorized pretty easily: 1) training requests, 2) converting documents from one format to another (b/c this usually takes so little time), or 3) template building (or creating fillable form templates). These requests are not included in the flat fee rates, but can be requested for their hourly rate amount of $195/hour. Affinity will always give you an estimated time before they do any work in those categories. If it’s a training request (like how to create AutoText entries), they can schedule it, and the person from the firm who requested it can invite anyone else they want to attend the training, and it has no effect on the cost. So for example, showing someone how to add the AutoText button to the Quick Access Toolbar in Word and then how to create AutoText Entries probably only takes 20 minutes. So that would only be $65 and anyone at the firm could watch it if they wanted to and were available when Affinity conducted it.