1. Common Accountability Sense Says
   a. Salaried workers achieve more than average when under a watchful eye. Salaried workers achieve less when working from home or when no one is watching. It’s human nature. Paying staffers for trying hard is subjective and not as good as performance-based pay.
   b. Why should anyone pay attorneys and paralegals for hours spent at the office or for the scheduled work hours in a day instead of paying them for hours billed to clients?
   c. Performance pay, where monthly results are displayed on a dashboard where all staffers can see each other’s performance numbers, creates a built-in watchful eye (accountability).
   d. Performance pay workers achieve more than salaried workers when working from home or when no one is watching.
   e. Cats, dogs, and people behave better and are more accountable when in view of alphas or properly incentivized.

2. Staff Incentives Lead Firms to Higher Success Levels
   a. Encourages attorneys to bring in business, bill more hours, become responsible for collections from their assigned clients, and help keep firm Critical Numbers and therefore firm profits high.
   b. Encourages paralegals to bring in business, bill more hours, and help keep firm Critical Numbers and therefore firm profits high.

3. Increases Productivity by Rewarding High Performers
    a. Top-producing attorneys and paralegals feel recognized and properly compensated for their contributions.
    b. Reduces turnover among high-value legal staffers who might otherwise leave for firms with better pay incentives or where they can earn more pay by becoming junior partners. Performance-based pay removes the need to have Junior partners and creates more accountability.
   c. Performance pay reduces complacency compared to a flat salary and arbitrary bonuses at year-end. When bonuses are arbitrary, ill side effects often occur.
   d. Staff will set personal goals and strive to attain and sustain them.
   e. Friendly competition among staff is created, leading to higher staff performances.

4. Helps Control Fixed Costs
   a. Shifts fixed salary costs to variable costs tied to revenue, lowering the risk of high overhead and reduced profits during slow periods.
   b. Especially cost-effective for small to mid-size firms with fluctuating caseloads.

5. Encourages Business Development
   a. When tied to new client acquisitions, attorneys are incentivized to network and bring in clients, reducing reliance on firm rainmakers.

6. Boosts Morale & Business Engagement
   a. Staffers feel better when their hard work directly affects their income.
   b. Creates a more entrepreneurial culture.
   c. Being well paid boosts staff morale.

7. Attracts and Keeps Ambitious Talent
   a. Competitive, accomplished high-value attorneys and paralegals prefer firms where they can control their earning potential.
   b. It can differentiate the firm from competitors with rigid and lower salary scales.
   c. Higher pay, which performance-based pay allows, encourages loyalty and longevity.
Managers, please view the must-read Netflix’s Philosophy.

8. Provides Flexibility
   a. Firms can design the pay systems around priorities (billable hours, collections, and working efficiently, which all translate into creating higher profits).
   b. Allows for flexible staff work schedules. Staffers chatting in the hallway or taking breaks no longer needs to be scrutinized. Using the ineffective nag method to drive staff is replaced with an effective method that benefits all.
   c.  Sick days, personal days or time off, and coffee break times no longer exist, which encourages staff to work more efficiently. This is not unfair to staffers, who gain overall in having more flexible work schedules and significantly higher pay. Working at home can be encouraged.

9. Simplifies running the business & Improves Outcomes
   a. Eliminates the need for year-end arbitrary bonuses by essentially creating monthly bonuses that are proportional to efforts.
   b. Eliminates the need for yearly salary reviews and arbitrary salary increases because performance-based pay changes every six-months and is in proportion to each individual’s prior six-month’s performance and hourly billable rates. As hourly billable rates increase, performance-based pay increases proportionally.
   c. Reduces lost billings from legal staffer’s carefree billing habits, forgetting to bill, or under billing out of sympathy for clients or for under billing for many other possible reasons.