Little Rock attorneys, Kathleen McDonald and Benjamin McCorkle founded the Beacon Legal Group in Little Rock in 2013.
Little Rock attorney Benjamin McCorkle says he speaks geek.
“I used to design databases,” said the 67-year-old McCorkle. “I know what they can and can’t do.”
McCorkle said his experience in his first career as a computer programmer helps him now as an attorney in his practice, which focuses on Internet law.
McCorkle and his law partner, Kathleen McDonald, a former deputy prosecuting attorney for the 6th Judicial District, founded the Beacon Legal Group in January 2013 to handle Internet law issues and other cases involving domestic and international business law. The firm also handles claims against Internet companies, offers consulting work and can manage other legal cases.
“What Internet law amounts to is applying well-established principals to a virtual world,” McCorkle said. “A virtual world provides its own interesting set of issues.”
Conducting business on the Internet these days could be a legal landmine for business owners. Online retailers must be in compliance with various state and federal laws, he said.
“It’s not quite as daunting as it sounds,” McCorkle said. “Most states have similar laws.”
And then there’s the issue of taxes. McCorkle said that he thinks within the year, states will require online retailers to start collecting taxes.
“As the local governments struggle to keep themselves solvent, all of a sudden they realize that there’s literally billions of dollars in taxes not being collected,” he said.
To get the word out about the firm, Beacon’s marketing strategy involves blogging and using social media.
Beacon Legal has a staff of six, which includes a communications director to help “educate the market as to what we can and can’t do.”
The firm’s hourly rate is $200, but not all billing is charged by the hour.
The law is McCorkle’s second career. He began working in the computer industry in 1981. But he finally decided to go to William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock in 1998 — when he was in his early 50s.
“I’d been interested in the law most of my life,” McCorkle said.
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