She is not full time...28 hours/week minimum with a yearly salary as an exempt employee, meaning during the busier times of the year in preparing quaterly reports if she exceeds 28/week, she does not get over time. That is my understanding.....

A friend of mine's Wife works for an accounting firm that is local here with 12 employees. She is one of 8 accountants and the company bills her out at $150/hour and she makes $100/hour. It's a well established firm with 3 partners as an LLP and been in business over 20 years. $72.90......not over board for this town as an employee IMO. Yes, with benefits and other costs for an employee it's costing $100 or a tad more.

The Markman was Jan 28, 2011..."decision" end of June....yes, we anticipated to be getting real busy in the "beef dept" but this threw a fly in the ointment...oops...then the reexams, thus delayed Round III.

I'll give this opinion from observations and chatting with Fred about the position and why the need for it....we were out sourcing these services, it has always been an expense, he saw something special regarding her skills, anticipated the need, so grabbed her before another company did, and to me, he has a great employee for a reasonabale price in a major city, is very happy how she has taken charge and contributed.

Frankly, this subject and Fred's salaray is old hat anyway. Why it keeps coming up I don't follow, but it does.

Here's a thought:

Renee heads up the audit committee and is on the BOD. MarDee does her thing, Renee the final touches as needed, then off to the SEC it goes. I can see a day down the road that MarDee assumes this audit role (check her resume) and is appointed to the BOD.

To me this position is a must and we have a quality employee...cute too...lol.