Practice Management

I think the term "telecommuting" is a bit old school, but I like this article about Rebecca Bell, Operations Manager for Lee Esposito Associates, being allowed to work remotely from It aly.  The article appeared in Business First of Columbus.  It is not a story about a law firm in that Lee Esposito Associates is a public relation firm, but that is close enough.  The point is that professional businesses in general, and law firms in particular can and do allow their employees to work away from a central location with great success.  Law firm maybe a little slow to the take.

The article is right that this is an issue of empowerment.  Lee Esposito hired Rebecca Bell knowing she had an opportunity to spend a few months in Italian wine country. "We felt Rebecca was so right for the job," he said about why he hired Bell despite the possibility of an extended leave".  But, the extended leave only dealt with the physical person from the workplace and not the work being performed.

With some cheap technology from pc.com and VoIP, Bell answered calls and performed her office duties from the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean.  "As long as you have Internet access, you can do almost anything," said Bell, who ran Esposito's office from Pietrasanta, Italy on the country's western coast. "I couldn't put paper in the copier or place postage stamps from Italy, but that was about it."

The truth of the matter is that business have to get away from copiers and stamps in order to make their businesses more mobile.

The time difference between Ohio and Itally seemed to be more of plus than a minus.  "I'd come into the office and so much work would already be done," said Esposito. "We lost no continuity with the clients, and they enjoyed knowing about it."

Jack Buchanan, principal of B&A Branding and Advertising - formerly known as Buchanan and Associates - said he believes the best way to keep good employees is to empower them to make decisions and as creative as they can. The company environment is designed to encourage those aims.  For example, at B&A there are no walls, all office furniture is on wheels and is moved often, and the electronics are wireless and mobile. Buchanan said it's one way to fight what he calls "cubicle-itis."

All of that is wonderful in my opinion, but really the way to empower employees or professionals, to create flexibility, and to save the planet by reducing carbon is to send everyone home to work.  I hope what is learned from all of this is not just that allowing an employee to work from a distant location for a while will work, but that you do not need the central location, or the central location can have a very small footprint.

The truth of the matter is that it is the solo practitioners and small law firms who benefit the most and who are the most resistant to this type of change.  More big firm lawyers work away from a central location and corporations are sending their in-house lawyers and staff home.

The hurdles to set up you office so that you can work from where you are, wherever you are, whenever you are available is just not that difficult.  The reluctance to do so by lawyers has always amazed me.  It invokes a since of dread and failure it seems in the brightest people to think this is a possibility.  I have come to learn that what we see as empowerment they fight because it literally crushes their dreams, image and aspiration of what a lawyer is all about.  But, for me, being a lawyer is not about wearing thousand dollar suits, having a desk, a secretary, a receptionist, a paralegal at my beckon call, or being encased in my own office where everybody can see me.  It is only about the help and assistance that I can provide to others, and I do not need to be entrapped in all of this physical stuff to do this.  Those that resist will claim that is not the issue, but talk to them further and it is.

I tend to think what Lee Esposito Associates will learn eventually from this experience is not that an employee can work remotely and  their world will not fall apart, but all of this centralization, costs and expense related to the centralization is unnecessary.  Further, they will learn their world will not fall apart if everybody works remotely.