The firm was founded in 1979 with one simple precept: to provide diverse businesses with practically oriented high quality legal advice in a timely, synergistic, and efficient fashion. That concept has carried the firm forward since that time, with a very high success ratio.

The foregoing was the product of Timothy McCollum having been engaged in an international business, predominantly import and manufacturing for over 20 years and his interaction with other business persons around the world. Too often he found that lawyers presented massive technically correct erudite opinions, costing tens of thousands of dollars, of little or no practical value.

Mr. McCollum attended law school, and practiced thereafter on behalf of what was then the second largest privately held company in the United States of America, as chief counsel, before establishing this firm. In his words, his education "started when he graduated from law school." It is that background, and the foregoing principles that set this firm apart from all others.

The firm integrates the disciplines of several specialties (employment/labor), bankruptcy as well as all business and corporate areas in such a fashion so as to draw from a diverse client base for the benefit of all clients.

It is that synergy that helps to further differentiate the firm from all others.

The firm extensively uses the latest in technology. For example, the firm performed the beta test for the first CD-ROM offered to the legal profession. Thereafter, it became one of the first users of the legal/CD-ROM technology. The firm believed then that it was the most efficient method of storing and reacquiring information then available. The firm no longer believes that, and has switched to customized WestPro access, with everything being on line at extremely low prices. The CD-ROMs, even in a 24X reader were comparatively slow and clumsy, hardly the most efficient use of a lawyer's time. The firm retains the CD-ROMs for use by its paralegals in less than emergency situations.

Another example of the foregoing is that the firm centralizes all of its word processing and bookkeeping in Fresno. This allows the lowest possible overhead costs. By way of one example, a skilled word processor operator costs the firm $17,000, the same person in Los Angeles is $38,000 per year.