Big vs. Boutique Law Firms

The lawyers at big law firms aren’t bad lawyers or bad people. They’re simply prisoners of the big-firm, inflexible, high-fixed-cost structure.

The big-firm pyramid structure makes it impossible for them to cost-effectively deliver the appropriate expertise in the right dosage to their clients. Their lack of actual operating experience and narrow specialization too often results in heavy-handed, friction-causing, impractical, and expensive advice.

Beacon does not operate on the traditional pyramid structure. Instead, our firm is rectangular-shaped – i.e., comprised of experienced attorneys who work efficiently and interact directly with our clients, rather than training junior lawyers on the client’s dime. With Beacon Law, you will get a superior product that will be delivered on time and on budget.

The High-Fixed-Cost Problem
Big law firms have expensive space, junior attorneys and staff, and high payrolls. This means high fixed costs. Accordingly, big law firms have to chase revenue to cover these costs. This causes them to be indiscriminate in client intake, because they need revenue – any kind of revenue – to pay their big monthly nut. Thus, they bring in business – any kind of business – and quickly push the work down the pyramid to inexperienced junior lawyers. All too frequently, this discourages efficiency, creativity, and custom solutions. It also wastes clients’ time and money. In the end, clients are frustrated and have to fight to get attention.

The Silo Problem
Many big law firms create silos between their departments, keeping corporate and securities, tax, intellectual property, licensing, and employment departments separate from one another. The corporate and securities lawyer, however, typically has the closest ongoing relationship with you, the client, and she should have the greatest visibility to and familiarity with your business.

This silo problem flares up when the corporate lawyer needs to bring in, for example, the tax specialist or the IP specialist because a matter falls outside her core competency. Too often, these specialists lack the judgment to apply their expertise in the appropriate form – which results in poor advice, delays, added expenses, frustration, and, at worst, lost deals. Since the big-firm corporate and securities lawyer doesn’t have expertise in, for example, tax law, then she won’t be able to manage, rein in, or even understand the value of the tax specialist. When it comes to practicing law, expertise without experience can be dangerous. The corporate lawyer is a generalist, so more often than not, she’ll defer to the specialist without question or concern. And that isn’t good for the client.

All the attorneys at Beacon Law, by contrast, are deep in several core related areas. We each started with a corporate and securities foundation, and have added further expertise in tax, IP, employment, and licensing. We deal in depth with several of these overlapping arenas every single day. Thus, we can apply our superb technical expertise – tempered by our operating experience and deal judgment from our corporate and securities foundation – in a way that is custom fit for your needs, delivered as frictionlessly as possible, and with relatively fewer cycles.

Another happy byproduct of this “deep-in-several-core-related-areas” approach is that it further helps us manage our fixed costs, which enables us to place more bets on our clients.

Contact us today to learn more about the value we can offer your business. There’s no obligation, and no fee, to start the conversation.