June 2012 Archives

Paul Dooley and John Karbaf bring FindLaw newsletters to 90,000 subscribers each month. Unlike the paperboys of yesteryear, they aren't just delivering the news to the masses, they're curating it.

Dooley and Karbaf oversee production for almost 100 FindLaw newsletters, covering topics ranging from court opinions to cool jobs. The latest addition to that lineup is The Supreme Court Digest, a new offering to satisfy readers' demands for news and views about the Nine.

Jonathan Huie, FindLaw.com's Lead Quality Assurance Analyst, hasn't visited his native Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in nearly 20 years. Why? It's not that the Southeast Asian country has been ruled by a military dictatorship for the past several decades, Huie "just [doesn't] like hot and humid weather."

Fair enough. He wouldn't be the first one lured here by the Bay Area's famously perfect climate.

Everyone knows lawyers are expensive, even lawyers. Surveys cited by Wikipedia suggest a range of $200 to $1,000 per hour for large U.S. law firms. That's per hour, and we haven't even mentioned paralegal time, court costs, private investigator fees, administrative costs and other types of legal costs (including travel expenses and expert witness fees).

No two cases are alike, so the cost of a lawyer really depends. See "How Much Will it Cost to Hire a Lawyer?" for guidelines on how lawyers' fees typically are tallied.

So what is the cost of not hiring a lawyer? We'll get to that shortly (hint: usually you get what you pay for).