Scope of Practice

The scope of our practice is limited as described under the "Services" link on our home page.

Because we are a small and relatively specialized office, we must often decline assignments that our clients present to us because they are outside of our established areas of practice. We must also occasionally decline representation even for matters within our scope of practice for other reasons, such as caseload or conflicts of interest.

Our policy on referrals is simple and straight-forward: If we were the client, knowing all that we know about what needs to be done and the qualifications of various potential service providers, would we retain ourselves to do this work? If the answer is yes, we take the assignment; if it is no, then we refer to another law firm or non-legal service provider whom we believe is best equipped to meet the client's need.

For example, we usually refer non-routine labor matters involving our business clients to a national firm that specializes in labor matters, because that firm has more staff and resources than we do to maintain expertise in this complex area. Similarly, we refer tax collection matters to non-lawyer professionals who specialize in collection practice because they provide the service competently and at a better price than we can offer.

In a few areas, we retain other specialists to supplement rather than totally replace our representation of the client. Currently, for example, we associate litigation specialists to handle some business litigation assignments for our existing clients. These arrangements give the client the forensic skills of the litigation specialist while retaining our familiarity with the client's business and our expertise in the business, economic and tax aspects of the assignment.

We want our clients to feel free to bring us any kind of legal problem, even if it is not within our practice specialties. When they do this they have a right to expect that we will give them our best advice, not only on what to do but on who to use.