Our country is hurting, and it is impossible to encapsulate all the complexities of where we are now into an appropriate statement. Simply posting to social media about standing in “solidarity” and “support” for justice and equality is merely empty posturing unless it is backed up with meaningful action. It is sad that it took a catalyst, much less of this magnitude to move some to action because true justice and equality should be our way of life.

One of the core strengths of Parlatore Law Group comes from our inclusion of attorneys from diverse backgrounds, who represent the full spectrum of political beliefs.  As attorneys who took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as well as the Constitutions of the many states in which we are each licensed, we all act in solidarity with our fellow Americans who are expressing legitimate outrage at systemic inequalities and brutalities, by fighting them every day for our clients’ constitutional rights.  The issue of racial inequality is inextricably intertwined with the legal industry and we recognize our responsibility to uphold equal protection under the law for all Americans. 

Before founding Parlatore Law Group, I began my career as a criminal defense attorney in New York City.  Although I had a relatively privileged upbringing, I had the opportunity to dive directly into the belly of the beast and was stunned by what I found.  As a new lawyer, I remember representing a Black man who, despite having lived a completely law-abiding life, suddenly found himself charged with resisting arrest and multiple counts of assault on police officers.  The complaint was shocking and appalling. It began with a simple broken taillight and ended with the list of physical injuries that he had allegedly inflicted upon these officers – broken knuckles.  He was charged with assault because the officers broke their knuckles while punching him repeatedly in the head.  A few years later, I fought a hard trial for another Black man who tried to do the right thing by turning in an illegal gun to the police for a friend.  At trial, we faced prosecutorial misconduct from a prosecutor with a history of murder convictions being overturned for his misbehavior.  At one point, I caught this prosecutor trying to pass a note secretly and illegally to the jury with the false claim that my client was a member of the Bloods gang.  The judge gave consistently bad rulings, even ignoring the law when I read to him directly from the book  (coincidentally, the same judge who denied a motion to release the grand jury transcripts about the death of Eric Garner just prior to our trial beginning). While the case is still under appellate review, a good and innocent black man has been sitting in a jail cell for the past two years.  I have witnessed the brutalities and pervasive failures in our justice system, and we will continue to fight against those failures.

Timothy Parlatore, Founder and Managing Partner

Innocent people do go to jail. People who have committed crimes are often convicted of offenses far more severe than their actual conduct. Prosecutorial and police misconduct is a far greater problem than anyone wants to admit and they do disproportionately affect minority defendants, especially those who are unable to afford attorneys who are able to effectively counter this misconduct and hold the government accountable for its wrongdoing. 

While some of our more public courtroom battles have garnered support from one side of the political aisle, the reality is that our firm is not a political firm. Our partners represent a diverse cross-section of society and we fight for justice based on the law and the facts. As attorneys, we each devote many hours every year to providing pro bono or no-cost legal services to clients who are unable to afford any counsel and will continue these efforts as our personal commitment to fighting for equal justice.

As with every important issue of our time, the details are nuanced, and we recognize that the criminal conduct of certain members of law enforcement does not extend to the entire population. Similarly, many of our attorneys are military spouses or veterans and we understand that most people in uniform signed up to be part of the solution, not the problem. 

We founded Parlatore Law Group to provide a platform of inclusivity, both for our attorneys and our clients.  While many law firms tout their diversity by hiring a diverse group of young associates, many of whom will never be promoted to partner, we instead focus on inclusion by providing that advancement and partnership opportunity to attorneys of all colors, genders, and political persuasions. We are a growing firm and are committed to recruiting and promoting top talent from all backgrounds.

While we as Americans navigate how to pull ourselves out of this tumultuous time together as an even better and stronger nation, we recognize that providing opportunities for economic endeavors are one of the best ways that we can help empower black people.  We intentionally designed Parlatore Law Group as a platform that could provide affordable legal services to help build small businesses, particularly Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs are defined as woman and minority owned C).  Assisting these entrepreneurs and small businesses provides much needed jobs and opportunities for economic advancement.

The benefits of the cloud-based law firm model should not be limited to Biglaw lateral transfers. Parlatore Law Group’s hiring philosophy differs from that of existing cloud-based firms, many of whom prioritize or mandate strictly recruiting Am Law 200 alumni. Instead of subscribing to rigid pedigree requirements, Parlatore Law Group prioritizes proven success and the right mindset over academic background. Many of the best lawyers in the country did not graduate from Ivy League law schools or begin their careers at the largest firms. While those resume points establish a valuable benchmark, we believe clients place more value on successful and efficient results. Many of the most effective lawyers built successful track records working in smaller or solo firms, where they mastered handling every aspect of client matters rather than being one small cog in the Biglaw machine.

But why would an attorney want to leave their small firm to join Parlatore Law Group? Why would a solo consider closing their practice, where they control all aspects of the business and keep all of the profits? These are questions I faced when deciding to close my solo practice in 2015, to join a cloud-based firm. I soon confirmed all the reasons why I swear never to look back from the cloud. The biggest benefit cloud-based law firms offer former small/solo lawyers is a tremendous boost to infrastructure. As a result, attorneys receive improved administrative support and marketing, as well as a significantly enhanced range of legal capabilities, which helps each partner maximize their own originations, as well as their personal billable workload.

Being part of a larger organization with such a technologically advanced system allows our partners to be free from the administrative aspects of running a law firm, so they can focus on developing client relationships and practicing law, while still keeping the lion’s share of what they bill. Parlatore Law Group employs a secure platform that includes a document management system with an integrated practice management software that simplifies the handling of client files, deadlines, and billing. An online portal provides clients with a seamless way to securely upload documents directly to their files and to view and pay bills online. For solo and small firm attorneys, the dramatically increased efficiencies make Parlatore Law Group a much more profitable and enjoyable business model, even when accounting for just an attorney’s existing revenue. With the addition of each new partner, the firm’s scope of practice areas will become more comprehensive, which will create more opportunities for partners to generate revenue.

Small and solo firms, by definition, provide expertise in a limited number of practice areas. As a result, clients with wide ranging legal needs must hire multiple smaller firms or a single larger firm, where they will pay significantly higher rates. However, Parlatore Law Group gives clients the best of both worlds, as all of their legal needs are overseen by the attorney with whom they have established a strong trusting relationship. That trusted attorney can add other partners to the team by matchingthe client’s needs with the expertise of the partners, but with the cloud-based model, clients do not pay astronomical rates to have all of their needs met by a single firm. When I was a solo, I built very strong relationships with my clients after having helped them through some of the most challenging experiences of their lives. Because of that strong trust, many clients asked me to oversee and advise on all their legal needs, most of which fell outside my areas of expertise. Back then, I had no choice but to decline the business and offer them outside referrals. As a partner at a cloud-based firm, I was able to keep all referrals within the firm.

Parlatore Law Group’s compensation structure recognizes that attorneys who originate clients to the firm provide significant additional value well beyond their own practice areas through communication and coordination of all efforts on behalf of those clients. For this reason, Parlatore Law Group uses a sliding scale for origination and client management compensation, whereas the solo must forego all the revenue from referring the client to another firm. Being a member of a cloud-based firm boosts opportunities for attorneys to acquireadditional work by helping to service their partners’ clients, thus, a rising tide lifts all boats.

This brings us to one of the final, significant benefits for a small or solo lawyer to join Parlatore Law Group. You will be part of a team of like minded and motivated attorneys. Because partners are not co-located in a physical office, some cloud-based firms tend to become a network of islands. Parlatore Law Group believes strongly in fostering teamwork and esprit de corps so that the term “partner” is more than just a corporate title; it is how you feel about the people you work with.

Written By: Timothy Parlatore

Whether you’ve worked your way up the ladder or find yourself somewhere in the middle, life at Biglaw leaves much to be desired. More and more, forward thinking Biglaw alumni find themselves drawn to cloud-based law firms for a better lifestyle and way to practice, as well as a plan for the future.

If Amazon’s disruption of the book publishing industry through technological innovation is an indication of how cloud-based technology could revolutionize the legal industry, the implications for traditional brick and mortar law firms is something to take into serious consideration.

Two centuries ago, the “Cravath System” revolutionized how law firms were organized and operated and established the foundation upon which present day Biglaw was built. Known for their large, expensive offices with a matching support staff and cadre of inexperienced but well-paid associates, the result is a “law firm centric” system, where every action is calculated to maximize the profit for the firm, after covering its bloated overhead. Billable hour quotas rise, as do the hourly rates, leaving many Biglaw inhabitants to realize they have become slaves to the billing timeclock while missing out on both the joy of practicing law, as well as a quality family life. While brilliant and ground breaking for its time, the Biglaw business model as we know it, like many revolutionary concepts from the 19th century, cannot keep up with the times.

The concept of cloud-based law firms was originally developed by Biglaw alumni to compete directly with Biglaw by providing a first-class, advanced platform that makes more sense for both clients and attorneys. To a significant degree the model has been successful, since partners making the jump from Biglaw to cloud-based law firms immediately see a dramatic improvement in both their quality of life and compensation. The external pressures to meet “law firm centric” revenue-based requirements disappear, allowing lawyers to be focused on practicing law. Incredibly, this freedom to focus primarily on clients rather than revenue is also coupled with increased compensation because a cloud-based partner keeps a much larger percentage of the revenue they generate. Consider that at a traditional law firm, partners are lucky to take home 30% of the revenue they generate, whereas at most existing cloud-based firms, they can take home over 70%. At Parlatore Law Group, we take this a little further, as our compensation structure employs a sliding scale that allows partners to take home well over 80% of revenue that they generate.

Beyond the obvious benefits of increased compensation and quality of life, the cloud-based model also provides motivated partners with a superior product to offer potential clients – top quality legal services at a much more competitive price point. In a saturated legal services market, this powerful differentiator from Biglaw’s traditional brick and mortar business model makes for an incredible competitive advantage and invaluable selling point, even for matters outside of a partner’s specific practice area. Parlatore Law Group’s compensation structure encourages its partners to develop clients who require a broader range of legal needs, so that the partner can then build a team with other firm partners for working collaboratively to satisfy those needs.

Once the decision has been made to leave Biglaw for a better life at a cloud-based practice, there are a few options, depending on your individual needs. While many cloud-based firms prioritize working for existing, larger corporate clients, Parlatore Law Group may be the perfect choice if you have a passion for helping businesses grow and succeed. Our business acceptance policy is much more friendly to individual clients, startups and small to mid-size businesses, rather than focusing on only representing Fortune 500 companies.

Beyond our business strategy, Parlatore Law Group also distinguishes itself through its culture, which focuses on promoting teamwork. In addition to regular social get-togethers and happy hours for partners in various geographic regions, the firm hosts an annual retreat to bring all partners together nationwide for a few days of fun. Unlike other firms, these retreats are not all-day “death by PowerPoint” marathons, but rather are organized and run by non-lawyers who specialize in team building.

Over the past few years, I have spoken with many Biglaw alumni who have made the switch to cloud-based firms. While they all enjoy the increased compensation, their eyes truly light up when speaking of the transformative impact their move has had on their mental health and quality of life. If you are tired of the Biglaw grind and want to upgrade your practice and quality of life, come on over to the cloud. Life is better here.

Written By: Timothy Parlatore

Parlatore Law Group is proud to announce that on January 24, 2019, all charges have been dismissed against Kenneth Rubero. Mr. Rubero had been arrested and charged with Social Security Disability Fraud on April 11, 2018 by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. This dismissal is the result of effective negotiations between Parlatore Law Group and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to demonstrate that Mr. Rubero is innocent of the charges against him.

Mr. Rubero is a medically retired detective with the New York City Police Department (NYPD), who has been unable to work due to his disability and has been collecting social security disability benefits as a result. The allegations which led to Mr. Rubero’s arrest was that he had returned to work and failed to inform Social Security Administration (SSA) that he was no longer eligible to receive benefits. These allegations were demonstrably false.

Because he was unable to work, Mr. Rubero decided to invest his savings into a small business but remain a passive investor. This is absolutely permissible under social security rules, which allow disabled persons to invest as they wish, as long as they aren’t actively employed in that business. If a beneficiary is able to work, then they are no longer considered disabled and are no longer entitled to benefits. Mr. Rubero is disabled and therefore unable to work at the business that he invested in.

Lead attorney, Timothy Parlatore explained, “the charges against Mr. Rubero were the result of a deeply flawed investigation by Social Security investigators who didn’t understand their own regulations. This was a unique situation where the facts were not even in dispute, because the investigation demonstrated that he had an ownership interest in the business and occasionally stopped by to check on his investment but was unable to perform any work because of his disability.”

To maximize press coverage, Mr. Rubero was arrested along with two other unrelated individuals and made to look like he was part of a larger fraud ring. However, Mr. Rubero’s case was immediately distinguished from the others because he refused to engage in any plea negotiations and immediately invoked his constitutional right to speedy trial.

The government’s case soon fell apart as it was revealed that Social Security investigators made several key errors. First, the claim that Mr. Rubero never informed SSA of his business interests was shown to be false through disclosure forms that Mr. Rubero had submitted to SSA, but investigators did not include in the file they presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Thereafter, it became clear that in the investigators rush to prejudge Mr. Rubero guilty, they ignored their own regulations about investment activity and falsely claimed that Mr. Rubero was working. After negotiations, the U.S. Attorney agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement with Mr. Rubero. This agreement culminated in yesterday’s dismissal.

“Mr. Rubero is grateful that the U.S. Attorney’s Office, under the leadership of Geoffrey Berman, took a good hard look at this case and worked with us to ensure a proper and just result. It is unfortunate that the Social Security investigators failed in their duties, resulting in Mr. Rubero being forced to endure this completely avoidable event,” Mr. Parlatore said. “After serving his community honorably as an NYPD detective and enduring lifelong disability as a result of his selfless service, Mr. Rubero deserves to have his exoneration publicized as widely as his arrest.”

Mr. Rubero commented, “I am grateful to put this terrible chapter behind me and I am thankful to have attorneys who believed in my innocence and knew how to fight to prove it.”

As I set out to build a new cloud-based law firm, I conducted extensive research, but also drew heavily on my experiences working at a large, successful cloud-based law firm, my time in solo and small firm practice, and my time in the Navy. One thing that I was not inhibited by was the traditional big-law mindset of “this is the way that it’s done” and its associated prejudices. I was focusing on providing service to a different client group and could therefore focus on building the best platform to service those clients, instead of the trappings of the traditional “law firm centric” model.

Parlatore Law Group is recruiting across a broad base of practice areas for the purpose of providing a comprehensive legal solution to small businesses and individuals. A friend of mine who had built a multi-million-dollar e-commerce business from scratch told me that when he was starting, he had three options:

  1. Pay over a thousand dollars an hour for a big firm that could handle all his needs.
  2. Pay a smaller local firm a more reasonable fee, but only receive deep expertise in a small number of distinct practice areas, or
  3. Figure it out on his own.

He had unfortunately tried figuring things out on his own and ended up spending over a thousand dollars an hour to fix the problems. Parlatore Law Group aims to be an entirely new choice — the quality and comprehensive services of option 1, at the price point of option 2, without the risks associated with option 3.

If a prospective client invents a widget, they should be able to come to Parlatore Law Group so that we can file for their patent, form their company, register their trademark, create their employment policies, handle the real estate for their new factory, coordinate the raising of capital, negotiate contracts, and if necessary, defend them against any litigation. Most importantly, Parlatore Law Group aims to provide this wide-ranging solution at the most competitive price possible.

Without the necessity of a central office location, there is more freedom in hiring. I began with the support staff by tapping into a very talented, but underutilized market; active duty military spouses. These men and women are very talented and motivated, but often have difficulty maintaining steady employment because their family relocates every few years based on the needs of the military. Because the entire support staff at Parlatore Law Group works remotely, we have hired active duty military spouses to fill all these roles.

The ideal attorney candidate to join Parlatore Law Group is an extremely wide and diverse group. Primarily, we are looking for motivated and talented attorneys who are team players. Some will be solo or small firm lawyers, looking to expand their capabilities. Others will be big-law attorneys looking to significantly increase their quality of life while simultaneously earning a higher compensation percentage. Some will even be lateral transfers from other cloud-based firms, looking for a different business strategy. While Parlatore Law Group’s recruiting efforts are broad based, there are two groups of attorneys that are frequently discriminated against by traditional firms, that Parlatore Law Group is actively looking to hire.

Attorneys who are also members of the National Guard or Reserves face unique challenges. Although federal law prohibits employment discrimination, these attorneys often face more subtle pressure to resign or pretexts for rejected job applications. When I was a solo practitioner, I had to take a step back from the Reserves because a potential mobilization would have been devastating to my clients and to my practice. Many other solo practitioners face similar problems. However, with a firm structure and culture like Parlatore Law Group’s that understands and appreciates the service of these reservists and national guardsmen, this does not have to be viewed as a liability. Parlatore Law Group’s hiring initiative seeks to employ a large number of reservists and national guardsmen and encourages them to continue their service while working for the firm. When one of our attorneys is mobilized, the rest of the team steps in to support that attorney and cover their work load while deployed. Upon their return, they are quickly reintegrated and supported to get back into the fold. Parlatore Law Group views military service as an added asset rather than the liability that our competitors often privately believe it to be but will never admit publicly.

Similarly, there are many attorneys, who are married to active duty military personnel and have encountered significant hurdles during the hiring process at traditional law firms. While most firms find excuses and pretext not to hire this incredibly talented group of attorneys, Parlatore Law Group embraces them.

With this structure and hiring initiative in place, Parlatore Law Group is ideally positioned to service start-ups and small businesses in a number of industries. However, with our significant connection with military and government service, our natural market is in the government and defense contracting industries. Parlatore Law Group’s strategic goals of providing a comprehensive legal solution to small businesses and individuals is perfectly supported by these hiring initiatives.

Written by: Timothy Parlatore

How did I come to create a law firm? The easiest way for me to explain is to tell you about my background and how I got to this point. I began my career as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy and went to law school after transferring from active duty to the reserves. After graduating law school, I became a criminal defense attorney in New York City. All my experience came from one to three attorney firms, handling all aspects of complex criminal, and often the related civil litigation matters. I built a successful solo practice, but soon realized that I was hitting the glass ceiling of what a criminal lawyer can do in a solo practice. The largest criminal cases, which were once the exclusive domain of boutique law firms began migrating to the larger firms, which had established white collar practice groups. As New York City’s world of criminal defendants transitioned from John Gotti to Bernie Madoff, so too did the legal needs of the market. In order to keep ahead of the curve, I began exploring opportunities at larger firms and ultimately joined a large nationwide cloud-based law firm. At the time, I had never heard of cloud-based law firms and was initially concerned about whether it was even a legitimate model. But, over the course of the next three years, I found it not only to be legitimate, but brilliant.

Cloud based lawyering truly is a better way to practice law for both attorneys and clients. Clients appreciate the high quality, cost effective solution without the unnecessary overhead. From my perspective as a lawyer, my quality of life improved, my compensation improved, and my capabilities were greatly expanded. It was a win-win, so why did I leave? I will be very upfront with the fact that while I loved the business model, I disagreed with the firm’s business strategy. They wanted to focus on representing large corporate clients, to the exclusion of smaller businesses and individual clients. If we represented a smaller business that became adverse to a larger corporation, even if there was no conflict, the firm would not accept that business. There is nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t for me. Their pitch to large companies is that by switching from a traditional white shoe firm to a cloud-based firm, they could potentially save millions of dollars a year in legal fees. That’s a great strategy, but I would prefer to provide that opportunity to smaller and growing businesses. If a Fortune 500 company can save a few million dollars a year in legal fees, how much effect will it really have? Will it move their stock price a fraction of a point? Increase executive bonuses? What if I took a small company with 100 employees and helped them cut their annual legal expenses in half? To that smaller company, the effect would be significant and the savings can be used to create new jobs and generate identifiable growth. Why should the benefits of a cloud-based law firm only be reserved for the large companies?

I researched the other large cloud-based law firms and found them to mostly follow a similar philosophy. Having identified a gap in the market, I decided that rather than try to fit my practice into an existing law firm model, I would rather start something new and innovative to serve this unmet need. And with that, Parlatore Law Group was born.

Witten by: Timothy Parlatore