Tips on Getting Started in a New Law Office

  

BY ROBERT C. MATTERN

Legal Management, September 2009

One of the exciting aspects of moving into a new office is that you get to start fresh – with a new atmosphere, new equipment, new systems and workflows, and possibly new vendors. The whole “change” of the move offers your firm the perfect opportunity to implement new policies and procedures that can substantially improve the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of your operation.

 
Here are several guidelines to consider so you can make the most of your office move.
 
1. Learn from your current operation. To determine what to do in your new space, find out what is working – and what is lacking – in your current space. Objectively analyze your current costs, survey your end users, and evaluate your cost recovery program to map out exactly what you are doing now. Then do an honest assessment of what’s working well and note where improvements can be made.
 
2. Take a fresh look. During a move is an excellent time to roll out new services and to discontinue old ones that are no longer required. Examine your current service levels. Do you really need hourly internal mail runs when people are now e-mailing attachments that are time-critical? Are your secretary and paralegal workstations going to be configured differently, perhaps in the “pod” type arrangements that are so popular in today’s offices, thus changing your requirements and use of multifunctional devices (copiers with print and scan functionality)?
 
3. Think print and scan, not copy and fax. Today’s workflows are based on prints and scans. Determining your new support services model based upon copy and facsimile is like buying a VCR instead of a Blu-ray player. There is still some usefulness left in it, but it does not position your firm for future success.
 
4. Avoid moving equipment, even if you think it is free of charge. Those eight-year-old fax machines in your office are paid for, but they aren’t “free.” Every page that comes out of them can cost the firm as much as 10 cents. They also take up space, require maintenance, and are much less efficient than newer models or the facsimile functions many now have on their desktop computers or multifunctional devices. Discard old antiquated equipment and eliminate the expense of moving it.
 
5. Reevaluate the goals of support services in the new space. Are you getting the most from your support services? Is now the time to expand the service dollars and reduce your secretary-to-attorney headcount? Or do you evaluate your cost recovery revenue and perhaps downsize the services to create more of a direct pass-through operation?
 
6. Address onsite paper records. Why move something that has no value to you? Before you move, purge your onsite paper records and either digitize or send offsite any paper records that you must keep.
 
7. Right-size your equipment. Just because you always had 60-pages-per-minute copiers on your floors doesn’t mean you need them now. Your equipment contract should allow you to right-size your units as your workflows require.
 
8. Right-size your contracts. Do you really need a daily pick-up and delivery from your offsite records storage contract company, or will you now have room to store these boxes?
 
9. Roll out new or additional “green” initiatives. Lessen your firm’s carbon footprint by making room for recycling bins in your new space, using more recycled paper, and reducing deliveries from vendors.
 
about the author
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Robert C. Mattern is President of Mattern & Associates, LLC, a consultant for support services solutions for law firms. Contact him at mattern@matternassoc.com.

 

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