A Better Employment Bargain
We want to build the highest-compensated family law firm, and we intend to be known for it. That goal only works if we attract and retain exceptional people who can help us create the level of performance and results that make those compensation levels possible.
At Pacific Northwest Family Law, we take a broader view of compensation and benefits. A good employment arrangement includes competitive pay, opportunities to earn more, useful benefits, steady work, strong systems, professional support, clear expectations, and increasing independence as you demonstrate that you can handle it.
Our message of healing families attracts attention. We need people who want to help execute that model at a high level.
When excellent people produce excellent work, everyone in the organization benefits.
We Believe Pay Should Reward Contribution
Many organizations talk about merit-based compensation while paying almost everyone according to title, tenure, or a salary band that changes slowly regardless of performance.
We take merit more seriously.
Compensation at PNW Family Law varies by position, experience, responsibilities, performance, and the value someone creates for the firm and its clients. Current salary ranges appear in our individual job postings so candidates can evaluate the position using current information.
For attorneys, compensation can take different forms. Salaried arrangements are available and advertised, and percentage-based compensation tied to revenue generated by the attorney’s own work is also available. Percentage-based compensation can particularly reward highly productive attorneys because compensation rises directly with the revenue their work generates. It also aligns the attorney’s economic interests more closely with the firm’s.
The underlying principle remains the same: greater contribution creates greater opportunity to earn.
Attorney Standards
Our longstanding productivity benchmark is 1,500 hours annually. We consider that a reasonable expectation for a full-time attorney, especially in a firm where attorneys are not required to spend substantial portions of their time conducting consultations, marketing themselves, networking for business, or trying to generate enough work to stay busy.
Attorney compensation may also recognize:
- Leadership and management responsibility
- Client service
- Work generated for the firm
- Referral and rainmaking activity
- Contributions that improve the firm and the people around them
We do not believe exceptional performers should have to wait years for a title change before their compensation begins reflecting what they contribute.
We also do not treat persistent underperformance as harmless. When one person consistently fails to carry a reasonable share of the work, other people carry more of it. That affects clients, coworkers, compensation, and the firm’s ability to invest in everyone else.
A firm that ignores that problem eventually asks its strongest people to subsidize its weakest.
Attorneys Should Practice Law
Many law firms make attorneys do several jobs at once.
An attorney may be expected to practice law, generate leads, conduct consultations, network for business, follow up with prospective clients, worry about collections, solve technology problems, supervise administrative processes, and invent personal systems for keeping everything together.
That model wastes expensive legal talent on work that can often be performed better by people who specialize in those functions.
PNW Family Law has deliberately built a different model.
Our attorneys primarily concentrate on the work that requires an attorney:
- Client counseling
- Legal strategy
- Negotiation
- Legal analysis
- Writing
- Hearings
- Trials
- Leadership of case teams
Attorneys are not required to
- conduct initial consultations
- market the firm
- network for business
- build a personal book of business simply to have enough work
Attorneys who enjoy developing business may do so and can receive additional compensation for it. We simply do not force every attorney to become a salesperson in addition to being a lawyer.
A Firm Should Provide Infrastructure, Not Just a Logo
There is a significant difference between a true firm and a collection of individual practices operating under the same name.
Isolated practices force each lawyer to solve many of the same problems independently. Attorneys develop separate habits, separate systems, separate approaches to cases, and separate ways of handling clients. Knowledge stays trapped with individuals. Mistakes get repeated. Attorneys can spend years reinventing solutions someone else in the organization has already discovered.
We believe a firm should operate as a firm.
PNW Family Law invests in shared infrastructure that supports the work across offices and practice teams.
That includes:
- Centralized intake
- Firmwide marketing
- Accounting and billing support
- Written policies and procedures
- Standardized systems and workflows
- Technology and software
- Client grading and case-management tools
- Evergreen retainer systems
- Attorney meetings and case discussions
- Shared legal resources
- Experienced attorneys available for strategy discussions
- Management focused on operating the business
We are also moving more matters toward fixed-fee arrangements where they make sense. Fixed fees can further reduce the amount of attention attorneys must give to hourly billing and collections and keep the focus where it belongs: accomplishing the client’s legal objectives efficiently.
Pacific Northwest Family Law organizes people, systems, and resources around attorneys so they can spend more of their time doing high-value legal work and do that work better.
Collaboration Makes Better Lawyers
Family law involves judgment.
Facts rarely arrive in neat packages. Clients are under stress. Opposing parties can behave unpredictably. Courts vary. Strategy matters.
An isolated attorney has one person’s experience available when making a difficult decision.
Our attorneys have one another.
We hold attorney meetings, discuss strategy, share legal developments, compare approaches, and ask other attorneys for another perspective when doing so improves the work.
That does not mean decisions are made by committee. Attorneys remain responsible for their matters.
It means they do not have to practice alone.
Experienced attorneys can draw on colleagues who have encountered similar issues. Developing attorneys can learn from people who have already made the difficult judgment calls. Everyone can sharpen everyone else.
That is one of the principal advantages of practicing in an integrated firm rather than an isolated practice.
We Value Professional Independence
We also believe genuine independence comes from demonstrated competence.
People who consistently communicate with clients, meet deadlines, exercise sound judgment, follow firm systems, produce strong work, and take responsibility for results earn greater freedom over how they accomplish their work.
Newer employees generally spend more time in the office because direct interaction, observation, and immediate feedback accelerate development.
More experienced employees in positions that support remote work may have significantly greater flexibility.
We care much more about whether someone reliably performs at a high level than whether that person occupies a particular chair for a particular number of hours.
Stability Has Value
PNW Family Law operates as a business as well as a law firm. Our growth has historically been constrained more by finding qualified people than by finding clients who need our help.
We use professional management, written policies, defined systems, financial controls, technology, marketing, staffing plans, and performance measures because those things help build an organization that can survive problems and continue growing.
- Employees receive regular payroll every two weeks.
- The firm invests in generating new matters rather than shifting that responsibility to every individual lawyer.
- Standards apply across the organization.
- Policies matter, and we enforce them.
Those practices may sound less exciting than a signing bonus or an office perk. Over the course of a career, they matter considerably more.
A poorly operated firm eventually makes its operational problems everyone’s problems.
A well-operated firm gives its people a stronger platform from which to succeed.
Health, Retirement & Time Away
We also provide the traditional benefits people reasonably expect from a professional employer.
Medical, Dental & Vision
The firm offers group medical, dental, and vision coverage.
PNW Family Law pays 75% of the employee’s medical insurance premium.
Health and similar benefits generally become available following the applicable eligibility period, currently 60 days for eligible employees.
401(k)
Eligible employees may participate in the firm’s 401(k) retirement plan with employer matching.
Paid Time Off
Employees can earn up to two weeks of PTO each year, and up to one week may carry forward, allowing employees who preserve accrued time to have as much as three weeks available.
The firm also provides paid holidays and sick leave consistent with Washington law.
We expect people to use their time away from work and return ready to perform.
Cell Phone Reimbursement
Employees receive a $50 monthly cell-phone reimbursement.
Professional Benefits for Attorneys
Practicing law carries expenses that are part of doing the job.
We believe the firm should bear many of them.
For eligible attorneys, PNW Family Law provides:
- Washington State Bar Association dues
- Family Law Section or DRAW membership dues
- Unlimited NBI continuing legal education
- Professional liability insurance
We want attorneys developing their skills and staying current on the law without deciding whether each educational opportunity is worth paying for personally.
We Want Great People to Do Great Work—and Benefit From It
Benefits extend beyond the items that appear on a payroll statement. Steady work, reliable systems, professional management, experienced colleagues, strong support, and the ability to focus on your highest-value work all affect what a job is worth.
Our ambition is straightforward:
We want to build an exceptional family-law firm staffed by highly capable people who understand how their individual performance affects clients, coworkers, and the organization around them.
We want those people to earn well.
We want them to have the tools and support necessary to perform at a high level.
We want them to grow more independent as they demonstrate judgment and reliability.
And we want the firm to become stronger because strong people choose to build their careers here.