Out of all the companies in the game, Law Firms are far down the list that players want to join... Yet they're one of the most useful right now both for player services and personal progression.

If you didn't know, Busting & Bailing has 11 merits tied to it, I've estimated that it could take around 6-8 years to achieve these merits through 'normal play', being in a law firm cuts down this time to only 2-3 years, potentially less if you REALLY put the effort in and get lucky with the busting book.

An old joke in Torn is that the only reason you join a law firm is for when you've done 'everything' except the busting merits.

But when you're actually in a Law Firm... How do you actually cope with 2 to 3 years of... basically being trapped doing nothing for very little rewards?

Well having recently finished my 10k busts, I decided to pen together a few notes based on what I learned and how you can make the most from your time in a Law Firm, aka, you've finally lost your mind and decided to go for 10k busts!


How useful is a law firm for busting?

This is a screen shot of my busting progress set to all time...


So.... What happened?

2010-2011... Yeah I don't know... I don't know what happened there.

2017: This was the period where I start to do busts more often, very slow going and not very good...

2020: At some point during this year, I completed all crime merits and began to focus more on busting, hence the small but not very impressive spike...

The next screenshot, shows the moment I joined a law firm...



November 10th, 2021, that's the date I joined a law firm, 3 days later the perks became active and... look at it... The spike is quite incredible...

Obviously there were some months where it slowed a bit, but you can see just how drastically being in a law firm changes the speed of your busting progression.

But there's two other points I'd like to highlight...



What happened between July and September? Island War. All faction perks went to war mode, no more bust perks on top of it. So obviously things slowed...

But if you look at the weeks just before it started, between june 2023 and July 20203, you can see there's a spike in the rate... what happened there?

Crimes 2.0 did... With Crimes 2.0, players are being jailed for less time than they were under the old crimes, this means they're both easier to bust and don't hit your daily bust limit as much.

So if you're on the fence about joining a law firm, I'd strongly consider it before most Crimes 2.0 players stick with the 'harder' crimes.

But before you do join a law firm...

There are a few things you should do before you join a law firm which will really help you get the most out of it. However, even just being in one is a huge help at anytime, so technically these are optional, but they are HIGHLY advised!

At the minimum you should aim to do the following first.

1: Complete the entire Law education.

This drastically adds to your busting skill and cuts bailing costs, all of this stacks with law firm perks and there is no cap on how high this goes.

2: Have minimum working requirements for the popular roles.

TC Wiki has a list here that you can look at.

3: Join a faction with busting specials.

This is optional, but it's so useful it's highly recommended. Faction specials can bring bust costs down to 2 nerve per attempt and increase your busting chance. This is VERY useful, but obviously, your faction can have other useful specials you may want or need.

4: Have the busting book.

For reference, I have NEVER had this book... So it is optional, but if you do get it, and join a 10* law firm and have all faction specials + education perks... You can do 1,500 - 2,000 busts in a month, combine this with a crime related event like beer day for maximum gains.

Having this book can save you 3 - 6 months of time depending on what perks you have.

Do I need to join a 10 star Law Firm?

Yes you do, but no not really.

Let's take a look at the specials for the company and go through each one.



1 Star: Decreased Bail Costs

This is only useful to very new players in the game and is also almost completely useless, do not join a 1 star Law Firm, unless you are being paid in the literal multi-millions, DO NOT DO IT!

However... there is a use for this that not many people take advantage of.

You can actually use this as an alternative to LBC's for virtually any crime that isn't a PA failure.

If you have all other bail perks unlocked, even a level 100 player in a 5 hour long jail time is only around 300k to bail out. You can't really sell this ability, but it is very useful to friends and faction members who need to be out of jail asap and their bust chance is too low.

And you can even bail yourself, need to be out? Ask someone to send you the cash, bail and pay them back.

It's not at all worth joining a company for alone, but has its use with faction mates.

3 Star: View Someone's Stats

We'll cover this special more in the 'How do you actually make money' section, but whilst this special is VERY useful, at 3 star range alone, it is totally useless.

Spies are not a guaranteed 100% success rate, see this newspaper article for more information on that one.

But again, see what I said in the 1 star section... this is not worth joining a 3 star firm for....

5 Star: Easier to bust more people

This is it! This is the one! This is a minimum level of a law firm you should ever want to join! This is a massive improvement to your busting ability, it takes you from being able to bust multiple people in the single figures to the double digits.


This is the skill that cuts your total busting time by years! This is why you join a law firm!

But let's cover the other two.

7 Star: 20% OC Skill.

I'll cover this a little later since it ties more to making income when in a law firm.

10 Star: View bust success chance

Behold Torn! You're about to see a first!



To my knowledge, nobody has ever posted a visual of what the 10* Law firm special looks like, well there it is!

That one line... IS SOOOOOOO USEFUL..... For the first month you do busts...

This special is essentially a quality of life game perk that you eventually grow out of, you eventually start to learn who you can/can't bust without this perk, it's useful, but not essential.

Some might say, there's even a few scripts that give you a 'bust score' and make it easier, this special is useless in any scenario... Well here's the thing... I don't think these scripts are 'that accurate', I've had some scripts tell me a target is easy, yet my % chance says otherwise.

Take a look at this screen...



That's quite a difference in % success chance, and whilst some scripts do take time and level into account, there's no way they can give you this level of instant accuracy, and for mobile/no script users, this perk is extremely useful!

But like I said, you do sort of learn to do this anyway.

So what level a Law Firm should I join?

A 10 Star, no question about it.

But you said a 5 star was fine...?

If you are perfectly happy with just busting, join a 5* firm, if however you want the most out of it, you need to be in a 9 or 10 star firm because the daily job points factor directly into the only way to make somewhat guaranteed money from a law firm.

Which brings me onto the part of being in a law firm a lot of players tend to overlook...

How do you, actually make money in a law firm?

From the specials, there's two ways to make somewhat reliable cash, so let's start with the 7* special first....

20% organised Crime Skill Bonus

This... really does depend on your faction and you. If you're in a PA team, this special is VERY useful and if you're getting a cut of PA's this is extremely valuable.

Think of it this way, if your faction pays you 10% for a PA pass, that's 10m extra per week minimum. Most factions do give more... That's pretty good, not amazing, but sort of alright, especially if you consider that weekly salaries for law firms are usually little to nothing.

From my own experience, this perk is NOT a guarantee of a PA Pass, but it's one of those 'this can't do anything but help you!' and from what we can see, yes it does stack between players... but I'm unsure if there is a cap to this between multiple players.

But what you can do, if you have someone in your faction who organises the OC's let them know you're in a law firm and have this skill unlocked. If you're borderline for a PA, they may bump you up into it since that skill bonus is VERY useful for them long term.

Otherwise, you need to look at this as being part of a payment in crime XP for whatever OC you're doing, which in turn helps your crime skill XP and better paying crimes... It's lame as all hell to think that way, but it's the best way to think about it.

But the biggest reason to join a 10 Star firm over a 5 Star... is that it drastically increases your ability to make money through...

Spying

Spying has seen somewhat of a new golden age thanks to ranked warring, when the system first launched, people were charging between 4-5m for a full reveal.

Today it's more around the 3-4m range.

And for multiple reasons, lots of people in law firms don't do them, there's a few reasons for this, mainly it's quite a bit of work and very boring... But with just a minimum amount of effort, you can make some decent money each

1: Join a Spy Agency.

I only list this because once you join a law firm, spy agencies will start contacting you, yes these exist, and they're great for factions wanting a quick order, and great for the people running it, but not that great for the spies doing the jobs.

A spy agency will usually offer to pay you for your spies, the last one to contact me offered me 2m per spy... And I know for a fact this particular agency charges factions 3.5m for a full spy reveal.

Do this if you don't want to mess around with the chats or a forum thread, this is the easiest way to sell spies with as little effort as possible... Otherwise...

2: Make your own thread, players will come to you.

Can you do the following?

• Make a thread in trade?
• Advertise you have spies for sale?
• Post a price for a full or partial reveal?

Congratulations you can now sell spies at your own rate without anyone taking a cut. I'm not going to advise you on pricing, but when you consider agencies can charge 3m+, you can probably figure out how to go about doing this.

3: Sell your spy list the following week.

This is one of the areas where most law firm players don't take advantage of. When you get a big order, like say half of, or an entire faction. Chances are it's for a Ranked War that week, once you have that data, hold onto it, and check the next week if that faction is in another war. If so, contact the opposition and offer them the spies.

The data might be a week old, but it's not that out of date since that faction was likely fighting and not training. Obviously this isn't true for everyone.

But depending on how many stats you took the previous week, you can some discounted stat reports for a decent sum. Again, think about what you think is valuable, but I've gone as low as 5m and as high as 20m in the past.

Not bad for work you've already done and doing this increases the value of your job points, as well as covering failed spy results.

And that's it...

Oh really... WAIT THAT'S IT!?

No really, That's it!

I wanted to make this guide because whilst it's common knowledge that law firms cut down the time it takes to get busting merits, I don't think people have fully clocked on just how much time they cut it down by.

But the other reason is that lots of players who are in a law firm don't realise how useful some of their perks and specials can be, yes there are companies out there which are better, but if you're going to go for your busting perks and are trapped in one for 3 years, you might as well get the most out of it.

So I hope this guide or rather list of notes disguising a cry for help has been useful or somewhat amusing to you. And if you are about to undertake the hell that is the 10k busts, good luck to you, and hopefully this guide can help ease some of that pain.




P.S. At the time of writing: My company is now hiring! I want you, to take my job!