Law Beez provides on-demand freelance lawyer services to law firms of all sizes, as well as in-house legal departments. Law Beez is here to help lawyers grow their law firms by giving them the tools needed to easily outsource their legal work to freelance lawyers. Whether your goal is to catch up on a backlog of work, keep a balanced workload, or decrease overhead and increase profit margin.
Whether you use the term “freelance lawyer” or “contract attorney”, it's all the same. A freelance lawyer assists other lawyers, law firms, and in-house legal departments on a fixed or hourly, project, contract, or part-time basis. They act as independent contractors and in a “lawyer on-demand” capacity. Freelance lawyers that work through Law Beez only work with other lawyers and do not take on end-clients directly.
Law Beez is a resource for freelance lawyers looking for more legal freelance work, but need help finding it. Once accepted into the Law Beez hive, you’ll have access to all sorts of legal project work at your fingertips.
As a part of the Law Beez hive, you have the flexibility and control to search for available projects, choose whether to apply, and accept offers depending upon your schedule, expertise and needs.
Easy. All you have to do is register for an account and you can join our hive of freelance lawyers.
This is an important one and here’s how it works:
The hiring attorney is required to complete a conflict checklist upon posting a project. Once the hiring attorney is interested in a candidate, the conflict checklist is sent to that freelance lawyer. After the freelance lawyer reviews the checklist and answers the questions, the hiring attorney will receive a notification to review the answers. If no conflict is found, the hiring attorney may proceed with the hiring process.
In addition, Law Beez has a confidentiality agreement with all of its freelance lawyers within our Terms of Use, which is signed by all freelancers within our platform. This applies alongside their usual professional obligations and, as licensed attorneys, they are ethically bound by their duty of confidentiality.
The simple answer is yes, absolutely! Your success is our priority, which means that all things related to ethical compliance are at the top of our list.You can read more here
Once your account has been approved, you can search for and apply for any projects that interest you and that you qualify for.
When considering whether to apply for a project, it is important to thoroughly review all of the details and make sure it is something you want to, have the expertise to do and can do by the deadlines and within the project budget. It is important to note that all projects are on a fixed/flat-fee basis. Therefore, the project budget is the compensation you will receive when the project is completed. If during your review of the project, you feel that the project is potentially more complex and lengthy than what the proposed budget affords, you may suggest a higher budget along with your reasoning for the increase. You are also free to message the hiring attorney to get further clarification before you apply for the project.
When applying for a project, you are required to complete a cover letter, indicating why you should be selected for the project. We encourage you to take advantage of this to its fullest so that the hiring attorney can get to know a little more about you during the selection process.
Once you apply for a project, the hiring attorney will review your profile, which includes your bio, resume, writing sample, and reviews. This is the information that the hiring attorney will use to help in determining which candidate to select for the project.
There are no limits on how many projects you can apply for.
You made it to the Law Beez hive which means you’ve got the talent and experience that other attorneys need. Here are some tips to help you stand out from the rest of the hive:
As a freelance lawyer, the first step in establishing yourself as an active and successful member of our hive is to create a profile. First impressions matter, so begin with a professional headshot and an authentic bio. Be very detailed in your work history and your skillset. This is your chance to show what you’ve got.
For more on how to increase your chances of getting hired, read more on how to get started
Each project includes a secure and encrypted messaging portal specific to that project. This makes messaging easy to access and track.
Any time a new project is posted that fits your expertise, a message is sent and/or any other important notifications, you’ll receive an email notification and alert on your dashboard.
Once you are hired for a project, you are provided access to a secure and encrypted document library. Documents can be viewed from the project details page through your dashboard.
Anytime that you work on a project, you should record an entry to your project timecard. This can be done from the project details page through your dashboard. You will not be able to submit a draft, or any project work, until you have completed an entry in your timecard.
You’ve done an amazing job and delivered quality work. You’re the beez kneez! Now it’s time to get paid.
Law Beez uses Paypal as a third-party payment processing company. Before you can apply for any project, you will be required to enter your payment preferences and account information. Your payment information is securely stored by Paypal and Law Beez cannot view or access that information.
If you choose to be paid via USPS, your pay will be processed bi-weekly and payment for all projects that fall within that pay period will be bundled as a single total.
Law Beez takes care of all tax reporting by issuing IRS Form 1099 on or before January 31 of each year. The IRS Form 1099 is sent out only if you have received $600 or more from Law Beez for that tax filing year.
Hourly work is when the Hiring Attorney posts a job in order to hire a Freelance Lawyer for multiple weeks or months at a time.
There is no minimum commitment for the hourly Freelance work agreement. Every Hourly Freelance work agreement will lay out an estimate of an anticipated duration of the engagement. Included in that is a maximum allowance of hours to be worked each week. There maybe a week or two that the Hiring Attorney does not need help and there may not be any work to do for those weeks. If for some reason, your situation changes and you are no longer able to work with the Hiring Attorney, you will need to notify the Hiring Attorney and send an email to info@lawbeeez.com to inform us that you are no longer able to provide help to the Hiring Attorney. Before being hired for an hourly freelance work agreement, you will be required to agree that you are available to work the weekly number hours provided by the Hiring Attorney. Do not apply if you are unsure about your availability.
The maximum number of hours per week provided by the Hiring Attorney is to within a certain budget and to ensure that they won’t be surprised by a large bill that is outside of their budget. If you are working on an item that you believe will exceed that maximum allowance, then you can exceed the maximum hours per week as long as you get approval for the work ahead of time.
Freelance Lawyers must log their time every instance they do any work by adding time to the “Timesheet Tab” within the project details page. Each timesheet entry must include the date the service is rendered, the hours worked, and a reasonable description of the work performed. Time MUST be logged the same day that work is done.
LAW BEEZ’s automated platform tallies the time logged for the week beginning on Monday at 12:00 a.m. PST and ending on Sunday at 5:00 p.m. PST in order to calculate the hours, charge the Hiring Attorneys credit card and tender payment to Freelance Lawyers. As such, Freelance Lawyers will only be paid for the hours that are logged on the “Timesheet Tab” within LAW BEEZ’s dashboard prior to 04:59 p.m. PST on Sunday. Please note that time cannot be altered, added, or modified after 04:59 p.m. PST on Sunday night.
By logging time on the Site, the Freelance Lawyer represents and warrants that the Freelance Lawyer has completed the assigned work fully and satisfactorily and the logged hours are true, accurate, and complete.
We understand that things happen. If you find that you can no longer continue work and need to discontinue working under your Hourly Freelance Lawyer agreement, please notify the Hiring Attorney and LAW BEEZ immediately to coordinate a smooth conclusion of the Hourly Freelance Lawyer relationship.
For all hourly work, LAW BEEZ can only address Disputes regarding the number of hours logged. LAW BEEZ will not and cannot address any disagreements pertaining to the quality of the Freelance Lawyer’s work or services. An example of hourly freelance work disputes that will be rejected would be something like, the Freelance Lawyer logged 20 hours for an opposition to an MSJ and the Hiring Attorney thinks the quality of the motion only justifies logging 15 hours.
If the Hiring Attorney has an issue with the Freelance Lawyer’s work product, the Hiring Attorney must discuss the issue with the Freelance Lawyer and resolve the dispute between themselves. The suggested resolution in the paragraph above is also available for work product issues.
If the Hiring Attorney and the Freelance Lawyer are unable to consensually resolve a Dispute regarding the hours logged in the prior week, the Hiring Attorney must open a Dispute within the Dispute Period by clicking the “Dispute” button on the Timesheet Tab which can be accessed through the project details page.
Some examples of hourly freelance work Disputes that may be resolved in favor of the Hiring Attorney: would be something like, the Freelance Lawyer billed hours without providing the work product by a deadline clearly set by the Hiring Attorney in writing and without follow-up or communication from the Freelance Lawyer about the work or the deadline; or if the Freelance Lawyer billed hours and then failed to provide work or respond to the Hiring Attorney for multiple days when the engagement required consistent communication.
If the Freelance Lawyer rejects the Hiring Attorney’s proposed solution, then LAW BEEZ will review the Dispute, contact the Freelance Lawyer and Hiring Attorney to obtain any necessary documents or information, and render a determination within five business days after all requested information has been provided to LAW BEEZ. No payment will be tendered to the Freelance Lawyer until the Dispute is resolved. LAW BEEZ’s determination of the Dispute will be sent via email to the Hiring Attorney and Freelance Lawyer and is final. To the extent applicable, payment to the Freelance Lawyer will be tendered, and the Hiring Attorney’s credit card will be refunded the difference of the number hours logged and the number of hours approved for the Dispute.
Payments to Freelance Lawyers will be paid either by PayPal or by USPS.
On Sunday evening, the Hiring Attorney and Freelance Lawyer will be provided, via email, with a copy of the Freelance Lawyer’s logged time for the week. Access to the Freelance Lawyer’s logged time is always available through your dashboard. The Hiring Attorney has until Friday to review the Freelance Lawyer’s timesheet. Unless a dispute is submitted by Friday at 5:00 p.m. PST, the Hiring Attorney will be deemed to have approved all undisputed amounts and authorized LAW BEEZ to pay the Freelance Lawyer from the Retainer and/or the amount charged to the Hiring Attorney’s credit card.
Payments to Freelance Lawyers will be processed on Mondays following the end of the dispute period, or the first business day after a holiday, which, depending on the financial institution’s regulations, may take several days to be available in the Freelance Lawyer’s account.
