What's up everyone. Some pics, an update, and a question.
***
Office PicsA lot of you chimed in and helped with my office move and setup, so I thought I'd post some pictures.
The view when you walk in:
Receptionist/waiting area:
Kitchen/production room:
Conference/meeting area:
My desk/work area:
***
Office ultimately came out great. There's tons of storage here. I tried to blend being me versus looking professional, and I hope I struck a nice balance there. I'm really comfortable working here, and clients are also very comfortable here. It's not stuffy at all, which is what I was going for.
***
Big Picture UpdateBig picture, things are getting busier and busier. I still have a nice income stream from a variety of sources -- appearance work, appointment work, my own cases, and co-counseling. I had a bit of a lull in September, but it's picked back up, and I'm busier now than I've ever been.
Gross income is at approximately $130,000 year to date. Pretty good year so far. $21,000 is from that huge settlement in January.
There are currently $15-16,000 in accounts receivables. I expect to get most of these by years end.
I switched to an S-Corp this year. Everything is a bit more complicated but I'm finally starting to get this on auto-pilot.
Total expenses, excluding my own salary and taxes, are approximately $20,000, or about $2,000 per month. This is higher than I'd like, but the office move was about $5,000 total once the dust settled.
As stated more below, I have partnered up as co-counsel with two very reputable lawyers on about 10 cases total. They are very well renowned and are in their upper 60s. It's provided a ton of billable work here lately. This, plus my other income streams, mean that 2020 is going to be a good year.
I also have four pending contingency cases. I hate this work and I'll probably stop doing any of it next year. I can't wait to close these files.
Should I Hire Part-Time Help?So here's the big issue I'm facing. I have started partnering up with two other lawyers on about 4-5 cases each. This is all hourly billing at $200/hour, and I want to knock these out of the park so these cases keep coming.
This, on top of my already pretty busy workload, means that the smaller, more menial BS has been getting put on standby. Things like sending letters, doing small criminal motions, cleaning the office, reviewing mail, calendaring things, running errands, etc. is all not really getting done the way it used to. Granted, it's getting done, but much slower, and it piles up and then takes a whole day to accomplish.
A secretary I used to work with moved jobs to a state agency. She's looking for a little side work. I think I could pay her between $12-15 an hour. She is honestly an awesome secretary and, perhaps more importantly, she knows that I'm a perfectionist after working with me for quite a while. We get along.
My only concern here is that I'm trying to run a lean and mean practice. Expenses have flattened out to about $1,500 a month. My wife works less now that we have a kid, so I'm a little cautious in adding an additional expense.
My thought here is that she could come in for about 4-8 hours per week. This will free up my time to bill hourly clients. Plus, Ohio allows "value billing," so when she does criminal motions, for instance, she can bill for that. I'm thinking she ultimately pays for herself just through this, but she will also free up a ton of time for me to bill more $200/hour stuff.
Assuming she wants $15/hour, an average of six hours per week is a yearly expense of $4,500. That seems like a really good expense to me.
I think this decision is obvious, but I'm looking for someone to push me over the ledge here. Any thoughts?