Reference no: EM132320286

Can you please help me understand how to answer this question?

You are HR director for a growing law firm in Flagstaff, Arizona, which currently has need of writing sixty legal briefs every hour. Each of your company's attorneys can write on average six briefs per hour. You are considering hiring six paralegals to shoulder the load; each paralegal is slower than the attorneys and can write on average only two briefs per hour. You scan the current wages in the Flagstaff area (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm) and notice that the lawyers in your company earn the local occupational median wage of $51.54 per hour, but that the prospective six paralegals will likely want to get paid their local occupational median wage of $23.12 per hour.

a. Would your company save money in the writing of the sixty legal briefs by hiring the six 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 considerably faster than the employment of lawyers (https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_107.htm), which it assumes will push paralegal wages down to $21.50 due to their high supply. Further, your analysis of the larger pool of paralegals suggests some increase of their productivity, and that paralegals will soon be able to write on average three briefs per hour. If the other values remain the same (attorney wage and writing speed, need for sixty briefs per hour), would the company save money in the writing of the sixty legal briefs by hiring six paralegals and firing some attorneys?