Innovation
The legal profession is experiencing rapid evolution in the way that services are provided and priced.
Change
Evolving with the needs of our clients while maintaining traditional high standards of work and conduct.
Our goal is to create greater benefit for our clients through increased productivity, greater efficiency, lower cost and a depth of knowledge and expertise that in the end, produces results.
Billing Practices
“Managing your legal costs” is not a marketing statement at Kavinoky Cook. It’s a major part of what we do.
Lower Rates
We begin with low billing rates.
When all the discussion about alternative billing is done, lower rates are lower rates. We encourage you to compare our rates with the rates of any other law firm anywhere in the U.S. doing comparable work.
Location
Why are our rates low? One reason is that we are based in Buffalo, New York. Our cost of doing business is significantly lower than in most urban areas in the United States, consequently, we are able to be more flexible with rates. Another reason is that we have been actively managing our overhead for years. The firm is not highly leveraged and does not need to pay the class-based compensation found in large market firms.
With each year, we find that our location in Buffalo is less significant, if not irrelevant, to our national client base which extends into Canada. We have an office in downtown Toronto. We use every piece of technology available to take care of our clients, wherever they are, regardless of time zone. While we have a long and extensive record of involvement in our local community, we do not think of ourselves as a local law firm only. We estimate that fewer than 30% of our clients are based in Buffalo.
Discussion
We think it's important to discuss legal costs with clients, especially new clients. Gone is the era of simply engaging counsel to handle a matter. Our clients generally want to talk about this subject.
A realistic approach to managing legal cost involves judgment and an up-front discussion. We offer suggestions about how to allocate our legal resources and strategies for managing costs. Tailoring our approach to each assignment, whether it's a business deal, litigation or a regulatory matter, is the key to a good result and a good relationship. We strongly encourage this discussion.
In the current environment where legal services are increasingly viewed as a commodity, we offer this comment. All of the discussion about expense is irrelevant if our clients do not obtain the right result. No one comes to us with the objective of saving money. They come with a business deal, a legal problem, a dispute, an idea or just something that needs to be done. Achieving our client's objective is always the goal. Success at a reasonable cost is something we know how to do and have been doing for years.