Reference no: EM132407256

You are HR director for a growing law firm in Louisville, Kentucky, which currently has need of writing 24 legal briefs every hour. Each of your company's attorneys can write on average four briefs per hour. You are considering hiring four paralegals to shoulder the load; each paralegal is slower than the attorneys and can write on average only three briefs per hour. You scan the current wages in the Louisville area and notice that the lawyers in your company earn the local occupational median wage of $42.82 per hour, but that the prospective four paralegals will likely want to get paid their local occupational median wage of $21.81 per hour.

a. Would your company save money in the writing of the 24 legal briefs by hiring the four new paralegals and firing some attorneys?

b. The local Law Firm Guild has observed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of paralegals over the next decade will rise almost twice as fast as the employment of lawyers, which it assumes will push paralegal wages up to $22.50 due to their high demand. Further, your analysis of the larger pool of paralegals suggests some decrease of their productivity, and that paralegals will soon be able to write on average only two briefs per hour. If the other values remain the same (attorney wage and writing speed, need for 24 briefs per hour), would the company save money in the writing of the 24 legal briefs by hiring four paralegals and firing some attorneys?