top of page

Mattern Helps Burns & Levinson Analyze In-House vs. Outsourced Services. Firm Elects to Continue Outsourcing with Significantly Improved Contract

Headquartered in Boston, Burns & Levinson LLP is a 125 attorney firm in 4 domestic offices. Firm leadership wanted to analyze the value of in-house versus outsourced services so Burns & Levinson could make the right decision to either continue to outsource and improve upon its outsourcing situation or to bring front and back office services in-house. In addition, the firm wished to refresh its MFD fleet.

OPPORTUNITY
Headquartered in Boston, Burns & Levinson LLP is a 125 attorney firm in 4 domestic offices. Firm leadership wanted to analyze the value of in-house versus outsourced services so Burns & Levinson could make the right decision to either continue to outsource and improve upon its outsourcing situation or to bring front and back office services in-house. In addition, the firm wished to refresh its MFD fleet.

Burns’ leadership selected Mattern to lead the project. The firm’s objectives at the onset of the engagement included:

Unbiased assessment of current outsourced back and front office services:

- Which services might still be required – how can they be improved/streamlined?
- What services are not provided today, but needed in the future?
- What are the best practices for such services?
- How to best support satellite offices?

Recommendations for bringing services back in-house:

- What would be the pros and cons?
- What would be the appropriate staffing levels and associated costs?
- Obtain monthly reporting with required stats from MFD provider.

PROCESS
Mattern performed a comprehensive review of the firm’s outsourced staff and services provided along with the firm’s MFD fleet based on usage during Covid while also accounting for post-Covid scenarios in its recommendations.

Based upon its evaluation and utilizing its industry knowledge and benchmarks, Mattern made key recommendations for both bringing operations in-house and continuing with outsourced services, all which improved service levels, elevated reporting and metrics, and improved contractual terms to ensure the provider lived up to firm expectations.

RECOMMENDATIONS
- An option to bring operations in-house, including an overview of resources required to ensure a successful operation.
- A secondary option to continue with outsourced operations with a focus to improve upon services provided, integration of unstaffed offices, reporting, hospitality and audio/visual needs.
- The firm also had Mattern evaluate the advisability of creating a dedicated client experience coordinator position in lieu of reception.
- Mattern provided extensive contractual recommendations to ensure the firm had a competitive, firm-friendly agreement with mechanisms in place to ensure the firm’s expectations were met.
- Right-size MFD fleet based on current and future, post-Covid output needs.
- After careful evaluation, the leadership at Burns & Levinson ultimately elected to keep operations outsourced, and Mattern assisted the firm in structuring a Request for Proposal (RFP) which captured the outsourcing recommendations from the evaluation process.

The RFP was sent to four (4) labor and equipment service providers including the incumbent. After reviewing responses from all service providers and meeting with each, the firm selected a new provider, Canon, to partner with for labor and equipment for a 5-year term.

RESULTS
A new contract was entered into with Canon incorporating key labor, equipment and contractual elements missing from the prior agreement to ensure a future successful relationship:

- Labor included a Community Experience Lead to focus on hospitality and audio/visual needs.
- Detailed service level agreements included to ensure proper service delivery.
Labor and equipment scorecard with performance standards and penalties for service failures included to encourage high-level services.
- MFD fleet right-sized and standardized.
- Labor contract terms updated to include key items such as staff underage and untrained backfill credits, removal of non-solicitation, 100% backup for vacations and absences, staff turnover strictures, reporting requirements, and escalation caps.
- Equipment contract terms updated to include key items such as reporting requirements, uptime requirements, response time requirements, fixed pricing, flexibility, replacement of unsatisfactory equipment, and no installation or removal costs.

CLIENT COMMENTS
Mattern has been terrific throughout this entire process and has taken time to make certain we are seeing the whole picture and thinking about all aspects of the RFP and onboarding our new provider. Mattern has been great!
- Jill Couillard, Operations Manager

Mattern’s attention to detail has taken away (or at least reduced) my need to monitor every detail. They have been strategic about the process, careful in presentations, truthful in argumentation, and simply a pleasure to work with.
- Paul Morton, Chief Operating Officer

A prominent Texas-based law firm with over 260 attorneys and a 70+ year history enlisted Mattern’s expertise to address escalating offsite records storage costs. The firm sought a strategic solution to manage its paper records efficiently, aiming to reduce storage expenses and ultimately eliminate the need for offsite storage altogether.

Mattern Assists Texas-Based Law Firm in Consolidating Offsite Records Storage, Securing a 16% Cost Reduction Through Strategic Contract Negotiations

Mattern Assists Texas-Based Law Firm in Consolidating Offsite Records Storage, Securing a 16% Cost Reduction Through Strategic Contract Negotiations

Headquartered in Charlotte, this well-established 275-attorney firm with 8 offices serves clients throughout the southeast and Washington, DC.  The firm had multiple offsite records providers serving location-specific offices.  In an all-too-familiar scenario, a larger provider which housed a significant portion of the firm’s records had recently been purchased by another provider, the result of which had caused the firm’s service to go from bad to worse - including missing boxes - raising serious doubts as to the accuracy of the firm’s inventory.

Mattern Helps Regional Firm Consolidate Vendors, Increase Destruction Limits, and Win a Significant 31% Savings in Offsite Records Costs

Mattern Helps Regional Firm Consolidate Vendors, Increase Destruction Limits, and Win a Significant 31% Savings in Offsite Records Costs

With more than 80 attorneys, Woods Rogers PLC is one of the largest law firms in Virginia.

In 2020, the firm’s offsite records storage contract with their national provider was coming up for renewal.  After a complimentary benchmark by Mattern, Woods Rogers’ leadership knew their pricing and terms could be dramatically improved.

Mattern Helps Woods Rogers Find a Way Out of Prohibitive Offsite Storage Contract at No Cost to the Firm

Mattern Helps Woods Rogers Find a Way Out of Prohibitive Offsite Storage Contract at No Cost to the Firm

Pierce Atwood LLP is a multi-service law firm based in New England with over 160 attorneys in six offices in the northeast U.S. The firm utilized Mattern in the past to complete a competitive request for proposal process for their outsourcing services.

Pierce Atwood Turns Again to Mattern to Assist with Incumbent Outsourcing Renewal and Achieves 17% Savings

Pierce Atwood Turns Again to Mattern to Assist with Incumbent Outsourcing Renewal and Achieves 17% Savings

With nearly 400 attorneys across 24 domestic offices, this Southeast-based Am Law 200 firm had a firm-wide initiative to examine and strategically reduce back-office expenses.

Southeast-based Am Law 200 Firm Leverages Mattern to Find Savings and Improved Services in Office Supplies

Southeast-based Am Law 200 Firm Leverages Mattern to Find Savings and Improved Services in Office Supplies

This 350 attorney, New York-based firm is one of the leading law firms serving the financial services sector.

Mattern’s Contract Compliance Delivers Savings, Captures Headcount Reduction of 27% for Am Law 200 Firm

Mattern’s Contract Compliance Delivers Savings, Captures Headcount Reduction of 27% for Am Law 200 Firm

This 45-attorney, Northern California firm sought to improve costs and contract terms and conditions for its offsite records storage as well as on-site services including thousands of square feet of basement records storage, shredding services and also address an overall need to develop an information governance (IG) program that would allow for the defensible destruction of decades worth of records.

Northern California Firm Improves Information Governance Program and Reduces Offsite Records Storage Costs, Achieving High 6-Figure Savings

Northern California Firm Improves Information Governance Program and Reduces Offsite Records Storage Costs, Achieving High 6-Figure Savings

Marshall Dennehey is a highly regarded Am Law 200 firm with 500 attorneys across seven states. They have been practicing law for over 60 years and are one of the nation’s largest law firms devoted to civil defense litigation.

Mattern Helps Marshall Dennehey Reduce Office Supplies Spend by 33%

Mattern Helps Marshall Dennehey Reduce Office Supplies Spend by 33%

This Am Law 200 firm with 312 attorneys in 18 offices engaged Mattern in 2014 to analyze and make recommendations to improve the firm’s offsite records and ultimately lead a Request for Proposal (RFP) process and contract negotiation.

Mattern Helps Am Law 200 Firm Enhance Value of Offsite Records Contract with Ongoing Contract Compliance

Mattern Helps Am Law 200 Firm Enhance Value of Offsite Records Contract with Ongoing Contract Compliance

This Boston-based firm had approximately 3,000 cubic feet of files in storage with a national off-site records storage vendor the firm had targeted for destruction prior to the pandemic.

Mattern Reduces Records Destruction Costs by 62.5% for Boston Firm

Mattern Reduces Records Destruction Costs by 62.5% for Boston Firm

In 2022, Mattern was selected to evaluate traditional outsourcing services in 4 of its 19 offices for this Michigan-based Am Law 200 firm with more than 450 attorneys.

Mattern Helps Am Law 200 Firm Reshape Outsourcing Strategy for Substantial Savings and Wins Six-Figure Signing Incentive

Mattern Helps Am Law 200 Firm Reshape Outsourcing Strategy for Substantial Savings and Wins Six-Figure Signing Incentive

This Global 100/Am Law 100 firm has 700 attorneys and 13 domestic offices and had previously engaged Mattern to negotiate the firm’s offsite records contract, achieving solid results; however, when it came to renewal time, the firm’s long-standing provider proposed an increase in storage and service costs of up to 13% each year of the new term—an offer leadership felt could be better.

Mattern Turns Offsite Records Contract Renewal Into Significant Win for Global 100/Am Law 100 Firm, Incumbent Pays Fees

Mattern Turns Offsite Records Contract Renewal Into Significant Win for Global 100/Am Law 100 Firm, Incumbent Pays Fees

More Case Studies

bottom of page