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My team is 1 attorney, 1 lit assitant and me as lit paralegal and we have over 700 cases in personal injury. We divide the work and it has not been that bad.
Heard that! Thank you. Keep up the good work!
One Paralegal or Legal Assistant for every 50 cases
I agree with this. My caseload fluctuates but is usually around 100 and I feel like I’m drowning.
Now plz teach me how to get so many clients as a new attorney 🤣 I recently opened my firm and came to learn its hard to break into PI. I am starting to go out and network more but if there are any other tips I would appreciate it.
Thank you! That’s very nice of you. DMed
Rising Star
You should be doing one paralegal per attorney, and depending on your lit to pre-lit ratio, you should be investing in some litigation assistants as well.
Rising Star
I don’t have a rule on the number of cases to be split, but I believe in controlling the way responsibilities are split between paralegal & attorney; this really depends on the stage of the case, the complexity of the work, and somewhat the amount of experience the attorney has.
If it’s prelit and the case is in the treatment stage, the attorney should be overseeing treatment and checking in with the client periodically to get status updates on their recovery; the paralegal’s role is making sure the client isn’t missing appointments and is consistent with treatment and that the attorney isn’t missing any correspondences with the adjuster and treaters.
If it’s prelit and demand stage, I have two approaches: 1) if it’s a new attorney without prior PI experience, they’re responsible for getting all records and bills from treaters and for writing all drafts of their demand letter to be reviewed and revised with their paralegal and supervising attorney; 2) if it’s an experienced attorney, their paralegal can handle reports & bills and writing drafts of the demand letters, but the attorney is responsible for the final draft that goes out and any issues that may come out from it. The experienced attorney is going to get a bigger caseload, so they won’t have as much time as the inexperienced attorney to be more hands on when it comes to records retrieval and writing demands.
If the case is in litigation, then the attorney is responsible for all written/oral discovery, motion writing & appearances, with the paralegal being on top of all calendaring, making sure correspondences are received and responded to in time, and all filings are done on time. If the case has a lot of work to be done, then the paralegal and/or litigation assistant can step in and help with discovery responses and motions, but the handling attorney is again responsible for the outcome of the case.
I’ve seen a lot of PI fins use attorneys to sign up a case, only for the case to then be dumped on the paralegals desk to be taken care of; I can’t stand that approach. Our clients sign up with us because they want an attorney to help them, so our attorneys need to be on top of all of their cases and communications with their clients.
Sorry if this doesn’t directly answer your question. The caseload split isn’t my focus; the quality of work and responsibility split is what I focus on. I hate micromanaging so I let the teams do their thing, and if at any point their work becomes unmanageable, then I - or others - will step in and help them get on track.
How many will be expected to be in lit and pre-lit at any given time?
Maybe 10%
Check your dm☺️
Right now I'm helping with about 100 cases and I feel comfortable with that.