Below are three key facts you need to know about being a client of a small firm vs a large firm that should help you make the right representation selection and also manage your expectations:
1. Not all small firms are the same and not all large firms are the same. Some small firms are overwhelmed and can barely keep up with doing the minimal work on each case they handle, while others are doing a very thorough job on the small number of cases they take on. In many large law firms, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and you will have a really hard time ever getting a hold of the attorney who handles your case. You will be forced to speak with a secretary or paralegal and your case is likely to be passed once or more than once from one attorney’s hands to the other because of that firm’s needs and because of the turnover of attorneys in large firms. Other large firms run a very tight ship in terms of assigning and handling their case, their attorney turnover is low, and it’s not going to be an issue. In other words, the size of the firm isn’t what determines the quality of representation you will be receiving.
2. Going against a large opponent. Some people assume that having a large firm on the opposing side necessarily requires having a firm of a similar size on your side. This isn’t necessarily true for a rather obvious reason. What makes your case stronger or weaker is the facts and the evidence that supports your claims or defenses. This doesn’t depend on how many lawyers work in that firm but on the availability of such evidence and on your and your attorney’s ability to obtain a more favorable evidence if necessary. At the end of the day, whether this is a three-attorney or three-hundred-attorney firm, each attorney is assigned a certain number of cases and what other attorneys do in that firm doesn’t really help your attorney make your case stronger.
3. When going with a large firm is important or even necessary. Certain cases, such as anti-trust litigation, patent litigation, various class actions, and a few other types of specific cases require much more work and often much more financial investment than other civil cases and therefore are best handled by bigger firms with larger support staff and an ability to take the necessary financial risks.