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Mark Del Bianco provided me with his “two cents worth” concerning working from a home office. Not only does Mark have an informative website. He has a blog called BroadbandLaw.info. Thanks Mark for your guest post.
Let me throw my two cents worth in. I love working from a home office.
I went from twenty years of downtown DC firm practice – the last eleven my office was literally one hundred yards from the White House – to almost 3 years now practicing at home. Distractions are few. My kids are older – the youngest is a college sophomore. I don’t have a view of the water or the mountains, but the yard can be beautiful in any season.
I save money and wear and tear, not to mention time. By not commuting 50 minutes each way 5 or 6 days a week, I’ve gained an entire day (9-12 hours) every week. I have a telecom practice with no client closer than 100 miles, so I rarely have client meetings, and when I do they’re usually at the FCC. Everything I do can be done over the phone or internet. Luckily, many of my clients live and run their businesses the same way so no one questions it. The dog barking is not unusual on a conference call, but everyone accepts it. And it’s only my dog about half the time.
So I would highly recommend a home office if it fits with your practice and just as importantly your personality. If you can’t motivate yourself, it will never work. If you don’t keep up your social/professional network, you’ll get cabin fever, especially in the winter. There are definitely days where I just have to pack my computer and papers and go hang out at Starbucks or Caribou Coffee for hours. Luckily, I can work in noisy environments. So in deciding among home, virtual and real office, I’d say figure out first if a home/virtual arrangement will work from a professional standpoint (i.e., your clients’ perspective) and then from a personal standpoint.
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Personally, what I have come to find out is that we, as solo practitioners and small firms, are not on the cutting edge of this type of practice. Corporate in-house operations appear to follow this model aggressively. Case in point, I received a call on an adversary proceeding I had filed from a large national creditor. I received the call from a lawyer of whom I was familiar in an attempt to settle the case. She was now with this major creditor’s in-house legal department located in Connecticut. (I promised not to mention the company because she was sworn to secrecy, stating it was in her contract not to tell). The number she called from was a Connecticut area code; the fax number she gave me had a Connecticut area code; and, her email address was with the company. I remembered the lawyer being from Houston, Texas and asked when she moved to Connecticut. After a lot of quizzing on my part she finally informed me that she had not moved. She found a way to get an East Coast salary while living on a Houston, Texas budget, the insurance was good, and she had retirement. However, she was actually working from her home, less than 20 miles from where I live and work. She told me that the in-house office in Connecticut actually had about 3 people (one a lawyer), but the rest were outsourced across the country and worked out of their homes (or branch office cubicle if available). The phone number was handled through a VoIP pbx system and acted like an intercom with her staff and other attorneys. The fax number was an e-fax that somehow sent the fax to her computer and the home office (should it be needed). The company used some type of collocation server or thin technology system that only required each attorney or staff to plug into broadband be connected with the individual computer of their choosing. All files were centralized. The long and short of the matter, we settled the case and this attorney turned the matter over to her paralegal to complete the paperwork and get the settlement finalized. I was called by the paralegal and it turned out that she worked from her home just outside of St. Louis. So we have a Houston attorney, working for a Connecticut in-house counsel department of a major corporation, and her paralegal lived and worked in St. Louis. They operated like they were in the next office from each other in that they were in constant contact over the intercom phone system and email. The Connecticut based corporation got rid of most of its expensive office space, did not have to provide offices, desks, computers, broadband, printers, phone units or dedicated phone line for their in-house attorneys or staff. The attorneys and staff gain a great degree of freedom from commuting, wardrobe, and flexibility. Many attorneys that I know just cannot make themselves let go, discussing how it would or could affect their competitiveness. My point is that in-house counsel offices are becoming more competitiveness and are already on the bandwagon. We as solo practitioners and small firms need to compete with in-house counsel offices by taking these steps now.