New off-site legal firm offers flexibility

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Mar 21, 2008 by Tampone, Kevin

SYRACUSE - Seth Azria knew one thing for certain when he graduated from law school in 2004.

"I didn't want to be chained to a desk 80 or 90 hours a week," he says. "It just didn't appeal to me. Sometimes I like to work in the middle of the night. Sometimes that's when I get the most done."

Azria interviewed with major law firms in New York City, where he earned his law degree from New York Law School. He interviewed with big firms in Atlanta, where he lived for a time after graduation.

He even worked at a firm in West Palm Beach, Fla., where a partner assigned him to write a federal appeal in just his second week on the job.

But none of it fit. So late last year, Azria, now back in his hometown of Syracuse, launched Seth Michael Premier Legal with a fellow lawyer he met while working for the state Attorney General's Office in New York City.

The new business provides off-site legal services for small law firms and solo practitioners. It allows Azria to focus on what he says he enjoys most about the law.

"For me, it's a lifestyle choice," he says. "I enjoyed the research and the writing and making arguments and that sort of thing more than anything else. What we do is provide the things that normally a first-, second-, third-year associate would do for a law firm."

That includes researching cases, writing briefs, and preparing memos. Basically, Azria says, it's anything short of going to court and meeting with clients.

Between the two of them, Azria and his partner Christopher Rogers are admitted in New York, Georgia, Florida, and New Jersey.

Although ethical rules allow them to provide services to lawyers anywhere in the country, Azria says that for now they're working only in the jurisdictions in which they're admitted to practice.

"If I can't find enough clients in New York, Florida, and Georgia, I'm not doing something right," he says.

For the attorneys that use a service like Azria's, it's a matter of convenience.

"As a solo practitioner, you don't always have the need for someone on a full-time basis," says Stuart LaRose, a solo lawyer in Syracuse who has used Azria's company. "And you don't always have the time to do it yourself."

Azria says lawyers might hire him because they can't afford to hire a full-time associate or paralegal. Or maybe they want to hire someone, but can't find the right person immediately.

Or maybe their workload is sporadic. They might have a lot to do this week, but maybe not next week. Or maybe they don't know if a high workload will continue at all.

"I've tried to roll it into a package where it's good for everybody," Azria says. "The attorney hiring me benefits and I can do what I love to do; think about law, read, and learn divorced from the administrative side of things."