How Law Firms Stay in Compliance

As law firms grow, so do the complexities of managing employees. Hiring more employees equates to more time spent making sure the practice is in compliance with the ever-changing list of employment laws. Managing compliance can interfere with the precious time needed to focus on your practice or an important case. You’re very busy practicing law and defending your clients, but who is taking care of you?

Law firms that want peace of mind surrounding compliance choose to engage in the co-employment relationship, which also happens to save them time and money! In the co-employment business model, the PEO’s job is to ensure compliance, but it’s also in their best interest to perform this service as best as possible.

Why? Well, under the co-employment relationship, employees are co-employed – which means that the PEO is sharing the risk of managing your employees. If your firm is slapped with an EPLI claim, this becomes the PEOs situation as well.

PEOs’ best practices include HR and compliance audits to prevent as many claims as possible. At the onset of a PEO relationship and periodically thereafter, the PEO will perform a complete audit of your firm’s policies and procedures as it pertains to hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, workplace safety, employee training, and more.

It is not uncommon for PEOs to also provide law firm partners or hiring managers with management training courses to review best practices, employee relations, employee communications and various employment-related laws that need to be abided by.

Best of all, PEOs provide ongoing HR support inside and outside of the office, especially concerning the management of faulty claims. If an employee of yours makes a claim, it is up to the PEO to fight that claim in court… PEOs manage and fight all types of claims such as unemployment claims or workers compensation claims.

For more information on PEOs or to determine if a PEO is the right solution for your firm, please contact us.