AEGIS is an innovative, business-focused, modern law firm offering integrated legal services to emerging and established companies throughout the country. Like its clients, the firm is driven by a fierce entrepreneurial spirit, and prides itself on getting behind the opportunities and risks within its clients’ businesses. And the lawyers who support them.
The traditional law practice is set up without a particular distinction between the business of law and the practice of law. As a result, most lawyers perform double-duty in managing both aspects of their firms, and the stress has measurable consequences. A recent study by the American Bar Association revealed that around 28% of lawyers experience mild and high levels of depression.
It wasn’t a statistic that Scott Levine necessarily set out to combat when he established AEGIS Law in 2003. Like any business, they first focused on supporting the needs of a growing client base. Then, out of necessity, AEGIS began to add attorneys to support that growing client base. That was where the innovation began.
“In order to attract talented attorneys to an untested law firm, we needed to present them with something new,” says Scott. “We focused on creating an environment, culture, economic model, and technology platform that met the needs of the attorneys joining the firm.”
AEGIS forewent a site-specific server, for example, committing instead to being cutting-edge in their technology and building up a custom platform that would allow them to work from anywhere on any device.
When it was time to hire more attorneys to manage their workload, it germinated for AEGIS Law what shouldn’t have been a novel idea for the industry—that is, the idea that lawyers should practice in an environment where they can learn, grow, and simply put, be happy
“There are a lot of miserable attorneys out there,” Scott says. “The pressure of these antiquated business models—to produce a lot of work and to work a lot of hours—hasn’t changed in many, many decades. And for some attorneys, there’s also not much of a future in well-established firms dominated by partners that are nearing retirement.
AEGIS Law, by contrast, employs a non-equity model, which accounts for its innovative separation of the business of law and the practice of law. The model frees the firm’s attorneys to focus their undivided attention on practicing law, and it lends itself to collaboration; without the traditional ladder to the top of the business, attorneys can work together more collaboratively and leverage each other’s experiences.
“It’s a more entrepreneurial approach,” Scott says. “We also have a creative bonus program tied to the firm’s profit that we share with everyone- from our support staff to our most senior attorneys. We want them to know that everyone is part of what we’re building and we want people to care about the firm’s success.”
AEGIS Law’s model is disruptive in other ways, too. Its hub-and-spoke model allows the firm to be location-agnostic; attorneys can work from virtually anywhere. Today, AEGIS Law also has attorneys in Kansas City, Chicago, Tampa, O’Fallon and Ann Arbor, and the firm’s growth has not gone unnoticed. In 2019, AEGIS was named an Inc. 5000 company, in addition to making the Fast 50 in St. Louis and the Fast 500, a national ranking of the country’s fastest-growing law firms.
Because St. Louis is on the leading edge of innovation, it remains the perfect hub for AEGIS Law as it expands.
“We started the firm here, it’s an easy place to function with all of the entrepreneurial support, and the innovation ecosystem has exploded in terms of growth. We’ve ridden that wave, and we have committed to supporting early-stage and emerging companies in a way that larger firms were slow to come to. We’ve always had a business model that could support the volatility inherent in startups,” Scott says.
That ability comes in large part from the firm’s early decision to using cutting-edge technology, which has streamlined the firm’s processes. In an industry where time is almost literally money, AEGIS Law, because of its focus on efficiency, can offer its services at more affordable rates—which has been key in supporting smaller companies and thus the St. Louis’ ecosystem
Such insightful decisions early on set AEGIS Law up for success, but its attorneys—current and future will sustain that success. AEGIS Law’s model, in turn, supports them in doing so. It’s a cycle the firm wants to keep going.
“We’re offering a refreshing way of practicing law,” Scott says. “Our management team knows how to meet attorneys’ needs, and our team is collegial; there are no politics to navigate, and we can all be one another’s associates—even when some of us have been practicing for twenty, thirty, forty years. We work together to help our clients. That lack of hierarchy is something we’re eager for new attorneys to see.
