During all the Black Friday/Cyber Monday hype, I was thinking, why don't law firms ever offer sales, discounts, promotions, or anything like that? Too many useless young attorneys to pay? Too many marble floors to polish? The three firms I worked for before starting my own practice never even hinted at it. In fact, one of them added an extra charge to offset the office's extra electricity expenses. I demanded the charge be removed from my clients' bills and the managing partner looked at me like I was nuts. . Six months later, I found myself starting my own practice determined to offer fairly priced legal services for the small ISP/CLEC market that I enjoy serving.
That was twelve years ago. To start my thirteenth year of LoKT, here's a list of deals I am offering through the end of the year. *VoIP Regulatory Compliance Flat Fee Package:* Normally $1000, now $800. Includes assistance with USF/Form 499, CALEA, CPNI, handicap accessibility certification, and state utility commission compliance. *CLEC applications:* I usually charge a flat fee based on one of three pricing levels depending on how difficult the particular state's process is- $7500, $5000, or $2500. Through the end of the year, I'll drop that to $6000, $4000, or $1500. That is the cost for the CLEC license alone. If you need an interconnection agreement with your local, friendly ILEC and/or pole attachment agreement with the electric utility, that's usually an extra $1500. I'll drop that to $1000. *Eligible Telecommunications Carrier Applications:* This one is a bit risky because I never can tell how aggressively a state commission will review these, but I am setting a flat fee of $5000. If you want access to Connect America Fund round 2 funding, your CLEC needs to be granted ETC status by the state commission. *Flat monthly retainer option (aka "rent a general counsel"):* After requests from several clients, I will also be offering a new flat monthly retainer option in 2014. Little legal/regulatory things come up all the time. But then you have to decide whether it's worth paying for and wonder if cash flow can handle it. This is especially the case when something bigger than expected comes up. What ends up happening too often is that the problem grows, gets completely out of hand, and then the legal fees to fix it really pile up. I'd like to figure out a way to prevent that from occurring. Here's how the flat retainer option will work. We discuss generally how many hours a month you'd like to have available. We then agree to a set amount that gets paid in advance at the beginning of the month. Some months there will be more work and you'll get a deal; others not so much. In the end, it should average out to something that we agree is fair for the time vs. value received. Meanwhile, the amount can be budgeted in advance so there won't be any surprises. The retainer would apply to day to day matters that are outside of the experience of your local attorney. One of my clients calls this a "rent a general counsel" deal. If you suddenly decide to sue CenturyLink (and please, someone let me do that again) or have a big project outside the scope of the retainer, then we can discuss how to handle that. For example, we can agree on a flat fee for it, or a fee cap, and then spread that amount over a number of months. This offer is different than a regular retainer that you constantly fill-up and then get billed for any billable time over the retainer mount. That's how it usually works. My plan is flat and you don't have to pay anything extra than we've already agreed. If the monthly amount ends up being wrong one way or the other, then we'll adjust it. Minimum monthly amount is $500. If you don't need me for more than an hour and a half a month, then you'd be better off just going with regular billing at $350/hour. If interested in any of these or need clarification, please send me an email to [email protected] or give me a call. Keep fighting the good fight. Kris *Law Office of Kristopher E. Twomey, P.C. *300 Commercial Street, Suite 2 Boston, MA 02109 617.953.0359 www.lokt.net Counsel to the Competition®
_______________________________________________ Advertisements mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/advertisements
