Solo Practice

Starting a Legal Research Firm

By R. Garrett Worley III

A few months ago I read an article about a legal research firm.  At the time, I had heard of law professors providing legal research and writing services to attorneys to supplement their income, but I had never heard of an actual firm dedicated solely to legal research.

As I began investigating, I noticed that legal research firms are a new trend.  I can’t really say they’re springing up all over the place, but a handful of small research firms (and a couple of huge ones) have emerged in the legal market lately.

I also noticed that there is a huge demand for legal research and writing services.  Rather than hiring a new full-time associate, firms can simply order research and writing services on-demand.  This eliminates the overhead of employing an associate and the firm because the firm need only pay for the time billed by the research attorney/firm (which can usually then be billed to the client).

Using a legal research service not only reduces firms’ overhead; it allows smaller firms to compete better.  The ability to outsource legal research and writing tasks to a group of dedicated research attorneys gives small firms an incredibly flexible method of managing workflow.  If the small firm’s workload decreases, so to does the cost of legal research.

With all of this in mind, I’ve been looking into starting a legal research firm with three of my classmates (we all graduate in May 2009).  I’ll be writing more on this topic in the coming months.  Perhaps you’re interested in starting a legal research firm.  Or maybe you’re interested in learning more about outsourcing your work to a legal research service.  In either case, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss anything.

Full post as published by Garrett Worley's Blawg on September 27, 2008 (boomark / email).