Today we’d like to introduce you to Dustin Paschal.
Hi Dustin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As an undergraduate student at Baylor University majoring in Human Resource Management, I thought that I might go to work in the HR field, but I ultimately went to Baylor University School of Law and focused on the employment law classes there. After my graduation from Baylor Law and taking the bar exam, I started working as a contract attorney for a small employment law boutique while I waited for my bar exam results. I continued to work there for a few months after receiving my bar exam results before I got a full-time position with another small employment law boutique in Dallas, Texas.
I worked at that employment law boutique for seven years, during which I handled all aspects of employment law litigation and provided employment advice to a variety of clients. My primary work in litigation was on behalf of plaintiffs, and I honed my litigation skills during this time.
After seven years, my co-worker and I left that firm and started our own firm in Dallas, Texas. Simon | Paschal PLLC is an employment and business law boutique focused on litigation advice, and counsel. During the life of the firm, we have transitioned to a firm that primarily represents businesses and employers while we still represent the occasional executive employee. We started the firm in 2013 and just recently celebrated our 10th anniversary. Our firm is now based in Frisco, Texas.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting and owning a business is never a smooth and easy road, and our law firm has been no different. There are always the lean years when you start when you don’t know if you will have enough clients to keep the doors open. In fact, when we first started our firm, we worked out of our homes for the first five months and relied on the generosity of lawyers we knew who provided us space for depositions and mediations.
We also dealt with relocating our firm to another office in the middle of COVID.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
We are a law firm focused on employment law and business law. On the employment law side of things, we advise our employer clients on all aspects of employment law and Human Resources. This means we provide advice regarding hiring, terminations, employee discipline, workplace investigations, wage and hour matters, leave matters, and workplace training. We regularly draft employee handbooks and other workplace policies and procedures.
On the business law side, we assist entrepreneurs and startups with entity formation, we provide advice and counsel regarding contracts and simple leases, and we assist with business negotiation.
For both practice areas, we are also active litigators, which means that we represent our clients in court, arbitrations, and before government agencies. We have significant trial experience in both areas.
We represent small to mid-sized businesses and owner-operators. As a small business ourself, we approach every representation with the understanding of what small business owners deal with daily. We are zealous and thorough in our representation, but we are also focused on the bottom line and do everything we can to keep our clients’ costs and expenses as low as possible. While we are litigators, we understand that sometimes the best thing for our clients is to avoid litigation.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I think the mid-size to large law firms will continue to consolidate and become larger and larger. While this is great for large companies, I believe this consolidation will result in pricing out smaller companies that still need legal services. Thus, smaller law firms will become critical to the success of our many small business owners and entrepreneurs.
I also believe that technology and remote access will continue to expand how the general public and lawyers access our court systems. It’s my hope that this will bring the cost of legal services down.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.simonpaschal.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonpaschallaw
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/simon-paschal-pllc/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SimonPaschalLaw
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SimonPaschalPLLC
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/simon-paschal-pllc-frisco
