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Administrative Law Firm


A Short Guide to Administrative Law Firms

What is an administrative law firm?

Administrative law firms try cases pertaining to the administration of United States governmental bodies. These cases concern when the interests and desires of individuals and businesses conflict with the greater good as understood as governmental law. Administrative law firms must have specialists in all matters of local, state and federal law.

What kinds of cases do administrative law firms try?

The government remains the United States’s largest employer, proving the huge scope of the nation’s administrative infrastructure. That huge scopes is reflected in the scope of administrative law, which handles more and more important issues everyday. Here are a few of the cases that administrative law firms are often hired to try:

• Construction Approval: It is no secret that getting a new construction approved is an incredible hassle, one which requires approval from several different regulatory bodies, from the elected officials on a city counsel to the bureaucrats in sewage offices. One mistake can cost you dearly in time and money, so you should hire an administrative law firm to help you keep all of your legal requirements straight and see it to that everything is filled out correctly.

• Disciplinary Hearings: Government officials, as well as many other professionals whose occupations are overseen by legal regulatory committees including lawyers and doctors, will be charged at a hearing if disciplinary allegations are made against them. If not found guilty, officials can end up losing their job or even going to jail, so it is in your favor to hire an administrative law firm and see to it that your name is cleared as soon as it is mentioned. 

• Environmental regulation compliance: Administrative law firms can fill out the appropriate forms for you, attempt to expedite the testing process, and appeal a rejection of compliance status is you are deemed to not be in compliance with regulations.

• Liquor Licensing: It is no simple business to get a liquor license approved by a city counsel, yet an establishment may not be able to survive without one. Get in touch with an administrative law firm to try and see what you can do to make sure the process is a success for you.

• Real Estate Disputes: Even if you’re sure that a property belongs to you, that won’t necessarily stop someone else from making predatory claims, nor will it stop them from attempting to halt your construction for doing harm to theirs in some way. Settle these real estate disputes with an administrative law firm that will be able to see beyond the petty back-and-forth to what a judge will make of the case and what will be a fair settlement.

• Tax Conflicts: Most tax conflicts require specialized tax law firms, but if your case deals in particular with the minutia of a regulatory body rather than the fact that a party did or did not pay their taxes, then it may be a great case for an administrative law firm.

• Worker’s Compensation: The government has an official stake in whether employers are paying their workers correctly. If you’re judged to be paying less than the minimum wage, not properly providing benefits for your employees, or not paying taxes for them correctly, then you should hire an administrative law firm to ensure that your company stays in business.

How much will I pay an administrative law firm?

Exact payments will be based more on the prestige and experience of a particular firm than any other factor, and there can be such wide-variation there that it is difficult to plainly estimate the price of an administrative law firm. Most charge at an hourly rate, roughly $50 to $200 per hour. 

You might also be able to find administrative law firms that charge clients a lump-sum agreed upon at the beginning of the law firm’s services. These are for cases simpler than the ones requiring per-hour charges, cases where a lawyer doesn’t have to make too arbitrary of a guess as to how much time they will spend working on a client’s materials.

Don’t be surprised if your administrative law firm also charges you auxiliary fees. These are extra fees for something like arranging a meeting or paying a paralegal or legal researcher. Such costs should be discussed at the beginning of services.

What should you ask an administrative law firm?

Administrative law firms might try to hurry you out of your first consultation with them, which should not be behavior that is too shocking. It just means that if you want answers to all the questions that you need to ask, you have to prepare ahead of time and be confident or even aggressive during the meeting. Here are some questions that you should not leave without having answered:

1. Have you dealt with cases like my before? — Remember that all the great case experience in the world won’t be a suitable excuse to hire an administrative law firm that has yet to have any experience in the field.

2. What type of administrative law do the lawyers at this firm specialize in? Local, state or federal? — These aren’t arbitrary divisions, they are bolds lines between the different branches of administrative law, each of which is unique and important.

3. How much will you charge to take my case? Will you also be charged auxiliary fines? — Under no circumstances should you hire an administrative lawyer that is cagey about their fees.

4. Will more than one attorney at this firm deal with my case? If so, can I speak to them now? — This can be less a cost-saving mechanism that a time-saving one for an administrative law firm. Different lawyers with different areas of expertise can end up in different positions on the same case to save everyone time so that only the skilled writer drafts petitions and only the skilled litigator ends up in court.

5. How do you plan to proceed with my case? — Don’t hire someone who doesn’t agree with you on what you want to happen with your case.

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