BERNE, Ind., March 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sprunger PEO, a professional employer organization, offers a comprehensive range of services like payroll processing, IT support, mail handling, employee benefits, and more. They handle the behind-the-scenes work, which typically takes up far too much of a small-town lawyer’s time and makes it harder to build a client base and expand a firm.
It’s the brainchild of attorney and Sprunger PEO Managing Partner Cory Sprunger, a highly qualified lawyer with work experience that includes the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Major Crimes Unit. However, his lifelong focus has been on improving rural quality of life.
“America needs both its big cities and small towns,” he says. “Right now, rural areas don’t have the access to the lawyers they deserve because attorneys have to focus too much on administrative duties instead of practicing law. What we’re offering is a way for them to delegate those tasks so they can expand their firms.”
The need to increase access to lawyers in small-towns and rural areas is evident, as recently highlighted by a Pew study that found 1,272 out of 3,141 US counties, or about forty percent, are deemed “legal deserts” – meaning they have fewer than a single lawyer available for every one thousand people. That’s a major setback for these communities, who may find it impossible to secure legal support for wills, real estate, civil and criminal cases, and more.
A vital reason these legal deserts exist? Lawyers often find it difficult to build a profitable firm based on these areas – not because the potential clients aren’t there, but because so much of the lawyers’ time is consumed by administrative tasks like payroll.
“Everyone deserves access to an attorney, and we make small-town living more viable for lawyers. The clients are there; a professional can have a waiting list of clients on day one in a rural area,” says Sprunger. “Demand is so high in small towns that you don’t have to give up big city income, but you do need to solve the problem of administration.”
IT, invoice processing, banking – all of these have nothing to do with excelling as a small-town lawyer, Sprunger notes. “But highly-qualified attorneys can’t make a good income because they have to reduce their billable hours to do all of this work themselves.”
These firms also likely don’t need a full-time bookkeeper, which is how Sprunger PEO provides the perfect solution. They connect individual small-town law firms with a network of professionals who can quickly and competently handle all administrative tasks. That frees the lawyer up to devote all their time to helping clients and building their firm.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/835c0ca4-1193-4183-83b9-4727ccab9a7f
