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THE EPITOME OF A BOUTIQUE LAW
FIRM:
The Law Offices of Randall J. Gillary is the epitome
of a boutique law firm. Founded by Randy Gillary in
1993, the firm is primarily involved in litigating
sales commission disputes on behalf of
manufacturer's representatives and other sales
representatives. The firm also performs related
services for its sales representative clients such
as drafting and negotiating sales representation
agreements. Prior to starting his own firm, Randy
had been practicing in various firms after passing
the Michigan Bar in 1979. Randy would like to thank
attorney John D. Sills for giving him his start at
Moore, Sills, Poling & Wooster, P.C., in May of
1979. Randy handled his first sales commission case
there in 1980. Gradually sales commission cases
became a larger part of his practice and today these
represent almost 100% of the firm's working time.
Randy credits much of his success to his long
standing membership at the Detroit Golf Club. Many
of the members at DGC over the years have been
manufacturer's representatives in the automotive
industry. In fact, Randy can attribute more than $1
million in legal fees to one golf game that he had
at the DGC several years ago with a fellow member.
Randy recognizes that the primary mission of
his practice is to serve his clients.
"Our primary focus is to obtain the best
result that we can for our clients. We
know that the practice of law is a
service business. We want our clients
to be satisfied with our services and
the result in their case when we are
done. Satisfied clients are the best
source of referrals for new clients."
Randy's practice has been devoted almost
exclusively to representing sales people in
commission disputes since 1993.
"We only represent sales
representatives. We do not represent
principals. Part of the reason for this
is that it goes against my nature to
argue in court against the rights of a
sales representative. Additionally, I
would not want to have my words in one
case, where I may represent a principal,
used against me in another case, where I
represent a sales representative. We
avoid these problems by solely
representing sales representatives and
other commissioned sales people."
In a recent 12 month period, Randy Gillary
and his associate, Kevin Albus, obtained awards
and settlements of more that $20 million in
favor of the firm's clients.
"Our office has successfully represented
many hundreds of sales representatives
over the years. Much of our business
comes from referrals by satisfied
clients. Occasionally, we get new
clients referred to us from defense
counsel in other cases that we have
handled, and in some cases we have even
gotten referrals from defendants who we
have successfully sued."
The Internet has also had a significant
impact on the legal business in general, and on
The Law Offices of Randall J. Gillary, in
particular.
"The Internet has impacted our business
in two key ways. First of all, sales
representatives are generally computer
savvy and perform research on the
Internet. If a sales representative has
a sales commission problem, he or she
will often check the Internet and look
for a lawyer who specializes in sales
commission cases. Sales representatives
generally are smart enough to realize
that it is not a good idea for their
case to be a learning experience for
their lawyer. The practice of law, like
most other businesses, is a speciality
business and it's definitely a good idea
to have someone represent you who is a
specialist in solving the type of
problem that you have.
The second way that the Internet has
impacted our business is that defendants
and defense attorneys also do research
on the Internet. One of the first
things that a defense attorney or a
defendant does after they are served
with a complaint in one of our cases is
to "Google" our office on the Internet.
When a defendant or defense attorney
investigates who we are, they will find
out that all we do are sales commission
cases and that we are very good at what
we do. We have found this results in
many cases settling at a very early
stage."
Randy gives a lot of credit for his firm's
success to his associate, Kevin Albus.
"In our office, we have somewhat of a
division of labor between Kevin and me.
I handle the Court appearances,
depositions and trials, and Kevin does
the legal research, prepares the briefs
and handles discovery documents,
including the preparation of
spreadsheets for unpaid sales
commissions in our cases. Kevin is
probably the only attorney in the
country who spends virtually all of his
time performing legal research,
analyzing sales commission records, and
performing related tasks solely for the
purpose of making sure that sales
representatives get paid the commissions
that they are rightfully owed. Kevin
has probably written more legal briefs
on sales commission issues than any
attorney in the country. He does a
great job.
One of the advantages of our firm is
that they are very few issues that will
come up in a sales commission case which
we have not previously addressed in one
of our prior cases. This helps to give
us a leg-up on our competition. We
spend our entire working time thinking
about andworking on sales commission
matters."
Virtually all of the sales commission cases
handled by The Law Offices of Randall J. Gillary,
P.C. are handled on a contingent fee basis. The
client is responsible for costs such as filing
fees, deposition fees and expenses, witness
fees, travel and other out-of-pocket expenses.
These costs are normally covered by a retainer
which is deposited in the firm's client trust
account to be used during the course of
litigation. The firm only gets paid attorney
fees if, and when, it recovers sales commissions
for the client.
"Occasionally I have prospective clients
ask me about having our office handle a
sales commission case on an hourly
basis. I have yet to agree to do that
. I run my business the same way that
most sales representatives run their
businesses. In many instances we have
to work for more than a year and in some
cases more than three or four years,
before we get paid. Obviously, that
hurts cash flow, but that is they way
that we operate. I want our focus to be
on winning and not on generating
billable hours. Believe me, there is
nothing more motivating than to realize
that if you win you get paid and if you
lose, you don't. It makes us work
harder."
One of the unique aspects of the firm is that Randy
and Kevin are prolific legal writers. Randy's first
law review article was entitled, "The History of the
Procuring Cause Doctrine in Michigan". This was
written by Randy in 1995 and published in The
Michigan Bar Journal at 74 Mich. B.J. 1264.
Kevin was a law clerk for Randy at the time and did
much of the legal research for the article. This
was followed by "Michigan's Sales Commission Act
Revisited Again -- Or, Does 'Intentionally' Mean 'In
Bad Faith'?", written by Randy and Kevin and
published in 2001 at 2001 L. Rev. Mich. St. U. Det.
C.L. 965. This article was written about a case
that was pending at the time in the United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in
Cincinnati. There were two other law review
articles written about the case by lawyers
advocating for the side of the principal. The key
issue in the underlying case was whether or not a
sales representative was required to show that a
principal acted in bad faith when withholding sales
commissions in order to win an award of penalty
damages under the Michigan Sales Representatives
Commission Act. Randy's position on behalf of his
client was that an intentional failure to pay,
triggering penalty damages under the Act, did not
require a showing that the principal acted in bad
faith. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals certified
the question to the Michigan Supreme Court, as
requested by Randy, and the Michigan Supreme Court
unanimously ruled in favor of Randy's client,
holding that "intentional" does not mean "in bad
faith". As a result, the jury verdict affirmed an
award of penalty damages and attorney fees under the
Sales Representatives Commission Act. In reaching
its decision, the Michigan Supreme Court cited Randy
and Kevin's article as partial authority for the
Court's ruling. As far as Randy and Kevin know,
this is one of the very few times that any appellate
court has ever cited an article written by the
attorneys in the case before the court in the
court's decision. See Kenneth Henes Special
Projects v. Continental Biomass Industries, Inc.,
468 Mich. 109; 659 N.W.2d 597 (2003).
Randy and Kevin also wrote "Unsupportable
Limitations on Michigan's Procuring Cause Doctrine
in the Case of Roberts Associates, Inc. v Blazer
International Corp." in 2004. This is published at
2004 Mich. St. L. Rev. 101.
In 2003 Randy published his first book,
Protecting Your Commissions -- A Sales
Representative's Guide. This is a handbook for
salespeople. The book starts with key terms and
provisions that should be included in sales
representation agreements. It then addresses
problems that can occur during a sales
representation relationship and concludes with
litigating sales commission disputes. Randy often
recommends that new clients read his book to get an
understanding as to how he thinks and what they are
in for with their case. The book has received
excellent reviews on Amazon.com.
Please
click here
to purchase a copy of Protecting
Your Commissions -- A Sales Representative's Guide
by Randall J. Gillary for $14.95 plus shipping and
handling.
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