You are HR director for a growing law firm, which currently has need of writing 24 legal briefs every hour. Each of your company’s attorneys can write on average four briefs per hour. You are considering hiring four paralegals to shoulder the load; each paralegal is a bit slower than the attorneys and can write on average only three briefs per hour. You scan the current wages in the Shreveport-Bossier area and notice that the attorneys in your company earn the local occupational median wage of $35.93 per hour, but that the prospective four paralegals will likely want to get paid their local occupational median wage of $21.84 per hour.

a. Would your company save money in the writing of the 24 legal briefs by hiring the four new paralegals and firing some attorneys?

b. The local Shreveport-Bossier Paralegal Union 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, and suggests that all paralegals now push for wages of $25.39 per hour. Feeling like their future is safe, most paralegals now reduce the stress in their lives by only writing on average two briefs per hour. If the other values remain the same (attorney wage and writing speed, need for 24 briefs per hour), would the company save money in the writing of the 24 legal briefs by hiring the four new paralegals and firing some attorneys?