(NEW YORK , NY) – Tower Legal Solutions, a leading national staffing and managed review company, announced the appointment of legal solutions veteran Michael D. McGowan as National Director of Business & Strategic Development.  McGowan, a proven executive leader who has run successful businesses, will be responsible for expanding Tower Legal’s national sales initiatives and growing the business development team.

McGowan has over 20 years of experience in the legal industry.  McGowan first gained experience at intellectual property law firm Pennie & Edmonds.  Thereafter, he was the President and Founder of Skyline Legal Technology in New York until it was acquired by Document Technologies (DTI), where McGowan held the position of Managing Partner for DTI’s New York office since 2007.

“I was impressed with Tower’s vision, energy and value proposition.  Tower’s reputation with its clients and candidates is built on honesty and integrity and I am excited to be a part of the Company’s growth, continued success, and commitment to client services.  I look forward to being a part of the Tower team and the opportunity to expand the Company’s growth as a leading National Legal staffing & managed review company,” commented McGowan.  

“Mike is a great addition to our management team,” said Leslie Firtell, President and CEO of Tower Legal.  “He is a proven business success and he brings with him a wealth of experience.  Plus, Mike has a deep understanding of the importance of customer service and he also has a broad network of industry relationships that will help to increase our growth.  His credibility, passion and dedication to delivering the highest level of client satisfaction makes him a great fit within our culture.”   

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 In only four years, Tower Legal Solutions’ (www.towerls.com) young management team has quickly built this WBENC-certified enterprise from the ground up, leveraging its high professional standards to build a “Rapid Response” unit that provides law firm and corporate clients with exceptional temporary attorneys, paralegals, managed review and foreign language services. Tower can — and has — launched several 100 plus person document review projects with less than 24-hour notice, and stepped into a floundering review project managed by a competing firm and successfully refocused the project to meet critical budgets and deadlines.

Tower Legal Solutions Appoints Michael D. McGowan Director of Business Development from Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.

(CHARLOTTE, NC) — Tower Legal Solutions, the growing NYC-based legal staffing and managed review company, announced the addition of its 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art document review facility at 129 West Trade Street, already open and providing clients with contract legal services. The new facility can accommodate 300 document reviewers and will also house Tower Legal’s internal staff. Charlotte’s real estate holdings were expanded to keep pace with the demand by its corporate and law firm clients for cost-effective legal staffing and managed review services for document reviews and foreign language translations.

“Our clients are really excited about leveraging the advantages of our Charlotte review facility. This expansion supports our continued growth and our commitment to working with our clients to manage legal expenses and increase workflow efficiencies,” says Leslie Firtell, President and CEO of this WBENC-certified provider of outsourced document managed review services to Fortune 500 corporations and law firms. “Clients who have recently utilized our Charlotte facility have provided only positive feedback and a great interest in relying on the facility for future projects. The quality of the work is excellent and it provides a cost effective alternative to higher-cost markets,” added Firtell. “It is exciting to be a part of Tower Legal’s growth,” commented Holly Meredith, head of Tower’s NC operations. “Tower is a place where quality and people come together. Our company culture creates an environment for review professionals to “buy in” to the success of each project in a way that makes us stand out. We encourage our reviewers to provide feedback on the process and to use their knowledge and skills to recommend improvements. In short, Tower creates a team environment and, fortunately, we have been able to keep the majority of our reviewers steadily employed.”

 For clients preferring to keep contract workers offsite, Tower’s new offices permit the company to house and oversee a growing team of skilled professionals to execute document review, foreign language translation and legal research. The firm also provides permanent and substantive temporary legal staffing services.

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In only four years, Tower Legal Solutions’ young management team has quickly built this WBENC-certified enterprise from the ground up, leveraging its high professional standards to build a “Rapid Response” unit that provides law firm and corporate clients with exceptional temporary attorneys, paralegals, managed review and foreign language services. Tower can — and has — launched several 100 plus person document review projects with less than 24-hour notice, and stepped into a floundering review project managed by a competing firm and successfully refocused the project to meet critical budgets and deadlines.

Tower Legal Solutions Expands Its Charlotte, NC Review Facility from Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.

By Tina Traster

Published: December 16, 2011 – 5:59 am

Leslie Firtell loved legal recruiting but grew tired of working for someone else. So after a dozen years as a corporate legal recruiter, Ms. Firtell risked her financial security to open her own full service legal staffing firm, Tower Legal Solutions Inc.

Instead of using $850,000 she’d saved over a decade to buy a Manhattan apartment, in 2007 Ms. Firtell signed a five-year, $1 4,000-per-month lease for 4,500 square feet of office space downtown on Broadway. She also bought software, 25 computers and professional office furniture

Thirty-six years old at the time, she lived in a rental with a roommate, quit taking vacations and stopped shopping for handbags.

Today, Tower Legal Solutions occupies 23,000 square feet on three fioors in the same downtown building where Ms. Firtell began, and another 35,000 square feet in Washington D.C. and Charlotte, N.C. Ms. Firtell is gearing up to open an office in Pittsburgh.

She employs 25 full-time staff and more than 650 part-time contractors.
The company’s temporary attorneys, paralegals, project managers and translators work from its Manhattan office and off-site at other law firms and in financial, pharmaceutical and telecommunications firms.

Temporary lawyers in New York and D.C. command between $35 and $70 an hour, while fees are about 10% to 20% lower in Charlotte. Temporary attorneys for Tower Legal Services keep 60% of the fees she charges.

In four years, Ms. Firtell has grown her legal staffing company’s annual revenues to $23 million. She projects sales of $40 million for 2012.

“I knew I was taking a big gamble when I started this business,” said the entrepreneur. “But without risk, you can’t tum a dream into reality.”

HITS

Locating downtown, an unconventional choice for a legal recruiting firm, proved to be a boon for Ms. Firtell. She got space for $30 per square foot, thanks in part to city tax credits available through a downtown revitalization program. Rent uptown would have been double. And she was able to take 4,500 square feet, which she needed for project rooms for on-site attorneys. “There’s no way I would have found an uptown landlord to guarantee me that kind of space without a signer,” she said.

Ms. Firtell admits that some clients she had from her previous job would not initially follow her downtown. To change hearts and minds, Ms. Firtell often agreed to pay transportation costs for lawyers to come downtown. More recently, she’s been able to persuade clients that her offices are only a “short subway rideQ away-the same time it might take to travel crosstown in a cab.

MISSES

Eager to expand, Ms. Firtell put the “cart before the horse” when it came to her first toehold in Washington, D.C., in 2008. A client in the area persuaded her to open an office with a four-month lease and promised to provide business that would more than cover her rent. It didn’t turn out that way: Instead, Ms. Firtell found herself with empty rooms and a $16,000-a-month rent she had to cover from the New York office’s revenues during the height of the recession. She closed the office. “I took a bath,” she said

Regrouping, she nurtured multiple client contracts in both D.C. and Charlotte before opening offices. And now, she is looking to do the same in Pittsburgh, before she opens her next outpost.

Entire contents ©2012 Crain Communications Inc.

Article can be found at http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20111216/SMALLBIZ/111219924

Legal Recruiter Gets Through Its Trials from Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.

In only four years, Tower Legal Solutions’ young management team has quickly built this WBENC-certified enterprise from the ground up, leveraging its high professional standards to build a smooth-running legal services SWAT unit that provides law firm and corporate clients with exceptional temporary attorneys, paralegals, project management and foreign language services. Tower can — and has — launched a large document review project with less than 24-hour notice, and stepped into a floundering review project managed by a competing firm and successfully refocused the project to meet critical budgets and deadlines. 

Tower Legal Solutions Triples DC Office Space from Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.

NEW YORK, NY – JULY 5, 2011 –

“We have clients in the Pittsburgh area and now we will have a presence in their backyard. Pittsburgh is an economically healthy city with a strong sense of community. Coupled with the widespread corporate commitment to saving money on legal expenses, Pittsburgh is another fantastic market for finding large talent pools at a lower cost without having to sacrifice quality,” commented Leslie. “I am determined to continue to find ways to save our clients money on document reviews, for example, without having to go offshore.”

Tower Legal’s other offices include New York, Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC. “We are very excited to have a presence in Pittsburgh, commented Leslie. “We are committed to the Pittsburgh market and we will continue to exceed expectations.”

With a management team having 30+ years of combined legal staffing experience and branch offices in Charlotte, DC and Pittsburgh, Tower Legal is expanding its national presence and is fast becoming the most reliable and flexible resource for law firms and corporations requiring contract attorneys and paralegals for temporary assignments. Tower Legal is an expert in providing exceptional staffing and project management, overseeing document review teams of any size and budgets throughout the life of a project.

Clients of Tower Legal receive no-fee document review facilities and on-site management for projects taking place at Tower Legal’s offices in New York, Charlotte, Washington, DC and Pittsburgh. 

Tower Legal’s Charlotte office is located at One Oxford Centre, 301 Grant Street.  To contact the Tower Legal office in Pittsburgh, call (412) 255-3755 or email ContactPitt@Towerls.com.

About Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.

Tower Legal is full-service WBENC-certified women-owned staffing company dedicated to providing its law firm and corporate clients with exceptional temporary attorneys, paralegals, project management and foreign language services. Tower Legal is owned and operated by a team of legal professionals who have earned a solid reputation in the industry by consistently delivering and maintaining the highest standard of performance. Its Corporate Headquarters is located at 65 Broadway, 13^th Floor, in downtown New York City.

For more information about Tower Legal, visit http://towerls.com/.

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From our perspective as a legal staffing firm, that’s encouraging news. We’ve been very busy staffing jobs these last few months and we see that accelerating.

We want to hear how this trend is affecting you over the last year. If you’re a contract attorney, what have you noticed? Comment below and share your personal story.

Reference Sites:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/03/good-news-in-jobs-report-as-unemployment-rate-dips-under-9-percent.htm

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

In Today’s News: Jobless rate declines, how is it affecting you? from Tower Legal Solutions, Inc.