May 2012
3 posts
Opting out and outsourcing – Is the fear factor...
Here at Mattern & Associates, we are communicators. Time and again, one of the highest compliments we hear from our clients is our ability to communicate effectively and openly. It may sound like a matter of course, but it is not. We all know that effective communication is an art as much as it is a skill, and certainly one of the key ingredients in everything that we do here.
So, we...
Cost recovery: 450% more important than expense...
Our 2012 Cost Recovery Survey is wrapping up shortly and promising to be the most rewarding to since its inception. It is interesting how different people and firms react when they learn that we conduct a national survey every two (2) years. Some can’t wait to participate and share in the results; some show absolutely no interest, indicating that they believe cost recovery is dead—or at...
Go ahead, make my day: Some thoughts on a recent...
I know what you’re thinking: “Did he fire six shots, or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry, 1971
Recently while discussing with...
April 2012
2 posts
5 tags
When it comes to output management, don’t sully...
In a guest column today for LegalITProfessionals titled “Output Mangement: The Nirvana Strategy,” I put forth the argument that, in light of increases in output volume law firms are experiencing, this actually ushers in a key opportunity for firms to increase workflow productivity and capture cost-efficiencies through output management.
The overall volume of output (copies, prints and scans), in...
5 tags
What do Evan Chesler of Cravath, Swaine & Moore...
This past November, Mattern & Associates were sponsors of the Hildebrandt Institute’s 16th Annual Law Firm Leaders Forum in New York City where Mr. Chesler was one of the featured speakers. Overall, the program was excellent, informative and forward-thinking with many outstanding speakers; however, Mr. Chesler’s comments regarding law firms’ predominant method of billing based upon an...
March 2012
1 post
1 tag
Is your firm part of the current state of cost...
Of all the areas that we consult in, the soft cost recovery area is the one undergoing the greatest amount of change both from an internal viewpoint and, most importantly, from an external one. Clients are on the offensive to reduce or eliminate soft costs, internal constituents are fighting them, and the whole support service workflow is going through dramatic changes as a result of decreases in...
November 2011
1 post
Do you fear your vendors?
Quite often when we meet with a potential new client, the discussion will come around to analyzing the performance and pricing of one of their vendors. Surprisingly we will get the response from the potential client that goes along these lines – “Oh – I can’t do that, that may get XYZ vendor upset” or “Geez – that may upset Bobby (who works for the vendor)”
Typically when I hear these...
October 2011
1 post
What is the oldest legal document?
Rob Mattern with The Code of Hammurabi in Louvre, Paris.
It is widely believed that the oldest legal document known to mankind is the Code of Ur-Nammu, created in 2050 BC by King Hammurabi. This is not entirely accurate. In truth, the oldest legal document known to mankind is the off-site records storage contract that was created in order to store the code off-site from King Hammurabi’s palace....
September 2011
1 post
I don’t know if E-Discovery killed Howrey but it...
In the July 2011 issue of Legal Technology News under Action Items there was a piece written by Monica Bay titled “Did E-Discovery Kill Howrey?” The gist of the piece was how Howrey created a wholly-owned subsidiary called Capital Litigation Support to provide litigation support services to the firm’s own clients. The problem was, as reported by a former employee named “Paul W” on the WSJ blog,...
July 2011
2 posts
1 tag
The Impending Demise of Cost Recovery
By Rob Mattern
This article was first published in ILTA’s June 2011 issue of Peer to Peer titled “Law2020TM: One Year In”
The recovery of costs associated with managing a legal matter is as old as the legal profession itself. However, as we sit here in 2011, changes to the traditional model are already taking place, and by the time 2020 arrives, law firms will have completely changed their...
3 tags
Maximizing the Efficiencies of the New Office...
By Rob Mattern, Published NYC ALA May-June 2011
Office Design: This article will focus on the structuring of the support services to maximize the efficiency of the new wave of the legal office environment. Areas of focus will be deployment of multifunctional equipment, exploration of the services that should be offered and the concept of off-site services.
The role of support services in the new...
June 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Output Management – what is it and what does it...
I don’t get it.
The price of black ink contained in the ordinary ink cartridge costs in excess of $4,731.00 per gallon. Color ink is in excess of $7,000 per gallon. But we have people all over the United States rejoicing because the price of gas has dropped to less than $4.00 per gallon (even though last year it was less $3.00).
Hewlett Packard’s profits, according to their latest quarterly...
As with Little League baseball, the pendulum is...
On May 11th Daniel Fischer in his blog Full Disclosure (http://blogs.forbes.com/danielfisher/page/3/) writes about a gentleman David Paige and his company Sterling Analytics that audits law firm’s bills for companies such as Regions Bank and Avalon Bay and KB homes. He lists none (9) different ways” law firms pad partners’ profit-sharing at the end of the year but don’t pass the legal or ethical...
May 2011
1 post
McCarter & English and Marshall Dennehey increase...
As mentioned in out Mattern Minute of April 29, 2011, the 2010 Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey has generated quite a bit of media attention and justifiably so. If a Firm takes the benchmarks and industry trends that the study highlights and applies them to their support services operation, they will be able to make a significant impact on their billable cost recovery revenue. As I...
March 2011
2 posts
“Controlling Library Costs - Creating an...
It is very rare that we encounter another consulting company that we are comfortable recommending to our client however; Cable&Clark is one of them. Since one of the hottest areas in support services from a cost and cost recovery viewpoint are library costs and legal research, we have decided to host a webinar conducted by them.
We are proud to announce “Creating an Information Strategy to...
3 tags
McCarter & English restructures Support Services...
As with many firms, McCarter & English, has begun to offer more and more litigation support services to their staff through their outsourcing provider Williams Lea. The only problem was that the staff was not actually using the on-site services, due to issues with quality and the rates the firm had to charge for these services to cover costs. Compounding this was the fact that a large...
February 2011
1 post
LegalTech Highlights:
This year’s LegalTech was the best in a long, long time. Attendance seemed to be up in spite of the lousy weather. In speaking with the vendors there was overwhelming feedback on great traffic and interested contacts.
Some of the highlights for Mattern & Associates were:
· The press release announcing the release of the results of the 2010 Cost Recovery Survey. We have been publishing...
January 2011
2 posts
What’s the Bottom Line? Rob Mattern Interviews...
Attorney Ed Poll is a nationally-recognized law firm management consultant and author who has coached and consulted with lawyers and law firms in strategic planning, profitability analysis, and practice development for over 20 years.
Most recently, Poll was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the State Bar of California (LPMT Section), is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice...
3 tags
A penny billed is a penny earned?
In the December 31st posting to the blog “Above the Law”, Elie Mystal writes about how Hughes Hubbard (a Mattern Client) has just implemented a new policy as of January 1stthat implements a 5% pay cut for the first time an Attorney is late entering their time. This increases to 10% for the next instance and 20% for the third time. Lateness is defined as more than five (5) days of time prior to...
December 2010
2 posts
1 tag
400+ Lawyer Firm McCarter & English Saves 23% on...
Why pay more than you have to for support services? McCarter & English agrees.
McCarter is a firm of over 400 lawyers with offices in Boston, Hartford, Stamford, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia and Wilmington. In continuous business for more than 160 years, they are among the oldest and largest law firms in America.
The firm will reduce its support services costs by 23 percent in the...
3 tags
DLA Piper Sets the Green Bar High- As Covered in...
In the December/January issue of Managing PartnerMagazine (wwwmpmagazine.com) which is hot off the presses, Mattern & Associates’ consultant Brady Schoenrock co-authors an article with DLA Piper sustainability experts Elaine Radford and Jeff Harper to talk about DLA’s initiatives for sustainability and to raise the point that “going green” has real bottom-line benefits...
November 2010
4 posts
1 tag
The Mattern & Associates 2010 Cost Recovery Survey...
Do you know what percentage of Firms with between 100-149 Attorneys charge for scans in the Southeastern United States?
Or which high profile chargebacks clients are now objecting to - and what can you do about it?
Well, now we know, and so do eighty-one of your fellow law firms that participated in the survey. And we want you to know, too!
The Mattern & Associates 2010 Cost Recovery...
1 tag
Triple RFP Play Leads to 19% Spend Reduction for...
Reducing overhead expenses is always important, though at times it becomes a major priority to approach head-on with a focused initiative - or two or three. And now is a good time to get a better deal, even from incumbent vendors, since the economy is still tight and it’s a buyer’s market.
As an example of a savvy firm that really “gets” this idea, Marshall, Dennehey,...
1 tag
Things to consider for a Multi-functional RFP
For a possible upcoming Request for Proposal (RFP) project to procure multi-functionals for an AMLAW 50 law firm, the firm’s CAO asked Mattern & Associates to put together a list of things to consider in advance of sending out an RFP. I thought it was an excellent first step in starting a project such as this, and decided to share them here.
1. What is the Firm’s position on the recovery of...
2 tags
The Time has Come for Mattern Plan B Cost...
Today Mattern & Associates issued a press release announcing our filing of a patent for the Mattern Plan B Cost Recovery™ method. We truly believe that this process, in which we structure your on-site support services as a hard cost pass-through increasing the realization of your billable cost recovery revenue, will be the future of cost recovery in the legal environment. In every situation...
October 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Soft Cost Recovery: What is the Future in the...
Published by Robert C. Mattern in the ALA New York City Chapter Magazine September/October issue - Pages 20-23 (link to article below)
The practice of soft cost recovery in the legal environment is under intense scrutiny. As clients are increasingly pushing back on soft cost charges and partners are reluctant to charge anything “extra,” now is the time to take a fresh look at cost recovery...
1 tag
Do Alternative Fee Arrangements Really Lead to...
At last week’s COO & CFO Forum – Managing in the “New Normal” hosted by The Hildebrandt Institute where we were a sponsor, the vast majority of the topics and discussions were centered on expense reductions, Alternative Fee Arrangements and the client’s perception of value. The speakers emphasized how Law Firms and Lawyers must be more like project managers, how law firms must be able to work...
Unbiased Assessments are Worth their Weight in...
Recently, I was watching the news and there was a segment on about these companies that will buy your old gold jewelry and send you a check. The news reporters got an unbiased jeweler to give them $400.00 worth of gold and they then sent it to a variety of these gold buying companies that advertise on the web and in newspapers. After a few days, they received checks back from these companies...
2 tags
Not to Beat a Dead Digital Copier, but...
Rich Melville, Litigation Support Manager for Maynard, Cooper & Gate, PC in Birmingham Alabama wrote an excellent post for Law.com titled “Are Digital Copiers Targets for E-Discovery?” based upon the CBS News report about the fact that images of documents that were copied or scanned were found stored on hard drives of discarded copiers.
After conducting his own research (actually removing...
September 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Legal Management Coverage of Robinson & Cole Case...
Times have certainly changed when it comes to managing office services at a law firm. Robinson & Cole LLP (R&C) is a Hartford-based law firm with eight office in the Eastern United States with more than 240 attorneys. The firm recently came face-to-face with the fact that it needed to modernize and consider outsourcing its office services for the first time.
Nancy Hayes is Chief...
1 tag
Don’t Get Ripped Off in Your Support Services!
The biggest rip offs in support services are:
1. Offsite Storage Permanent withdrawal fees
2. Termination charges on outsourcing contracts
3. Severance pay for outsourced employees
4. Equipment return fees
In each of the above instances, there is no justifiable reason for these charges. Their sole purpose is to impact you, the client, if you want to attempt to terminate...
4 tags
Isn't it Time for a Change?
In a preliminary review of the 2010 Mattern & Associates, LLC Cost Recovery Survey, the average net realization on billable items (the amount the firm actually gets paid for after internal and client write-offs) is below 50%. In other words, the firm is only getting reimbursed for less than 50% of what they are billing their clients on soft cost items. If you factor in the non-billable amount,...
Economy Tanking = Golden Opportunity for Law...
On Sept. 2nd, there was an interesting post on 3 Geeks and a Law Blog concerning the downturn in the economy and the opportunity it provides to right-size, getting rid of slackers and the sacred cows that are not carrying their weight.
You can look at this two ways. Obviously the downturn in the economy forces you to make some tough decisions and look at certain situations/people under a more ...
1 tag
Computing Needs: Making tech hardware purchases
Published by Robert C. Mattern today in the Chicago Lawyer Magazine - (link to article below)
Rob Mattern says: Over the years, a law firm will procure millions of dollars of technical hardware for the benefit of its employees and physical plant. These technical items can range from multifunctional devices to cost recovery systems to vertical lifts for 34-story office buildings - quite a...
August 2010
4 posts
2 tags
Is it time for a Checkup?
Quality in terms of end-user-experience is best measured through satisfaction surveys. Firms often survey their end-users when it is time to renew their outsourcing contract. These surveys help to identify “pain” the end-users may be experiencing with their current vendor. Results of the survey assist the Firm in adjusting any service level agreements (SLA) already in place and developing new...
1 tag
Here's My Two Cents......
Last month, the United States Postal Service filed for a price increase with the Postal Regulatory Commission. First class stamps will increase from $0.44 to $0.46 – two cents. Overall, the increase will average approximately 5.6%. The Postal Rate Commission has ninety (90) days to respond and may change the proposed rates. The new rates are targeted to be effective for January 2,...
1 tag
"Wit" or "Wit-out"?
In Philadelphia, we order our cheese-steaks “wit” or “wit-out” onions.
Is your click rate “wit” or “wit-out”? Paper that is. Do you have paper included in the per click rate of your outsourced copier agreement? Or do you purchase paper on your own for use in the outsourced copiers?
When an outsource vendor includes paper in their per click rate, firms do not have to manage their...
1 tag
Can Your Outsourcing Contract Grow With Your Firm?
Is your Facility Management contract structured to address the needs of your firm as it grows? Or are you at the mercy of your vendor to provide pricing when the time comes to grow? Do you know today what the cost will be to add labor and/or equipment in subsequent years of your outsourcing vendor Contract? Structuring your FM contract to include pricing to add equipment or labor as you grow is...
July 2010
6 posts
2 tags
Realizing Your Realization
For many years, firms have tried to retain duplicating, print and scan work on-site. One of the reasons for this was to maximize recovery revenue. The reasoning went something like this: “we are paying for this equipment and people to run it, and we have a mechanism in place to capture these costs and charge them back to our clients.” Firms would focus on driving billable volume, thus...
1 tag
Countdown to Cost Recovery Survey 2010 - Last...
Mattern & Associates’ 2010 Cost Recovery Survey will close 5 pm Saturday, July 31st. If you haven’t taken the time to participate, please consider doing so today. All participants will receive a summary of the results, allowing you to benchmark your cost recovery efforts against other firms. This year’s survey includes several firms based in Canada!
Since our last survey in 2008, the...
2 tags
Review Your Contract
When was the last time you reviewed your contract with your equipment and/or outsourcing provider? Have you conducted an audit to verify that you are being charged correctly? Have the standards of performance been updated as your requirements have changed? Take some time and make sure your contract reflects the equipment, services and supplies being provided by your vendor. When conducting...
1 tag
Hartford, Conn.-Based Robinson & Cole's Reduces...
Robinson & Cole LLP, a Hartford, Conn.-based law firm with eight offices in the Eastern U.S. and more than 240 attorneys, recently came face-to-face with the fact that it needed to modernize and consider outsourcing its office services for the first time.
Robinson & Cole COO Nancy Hayes (photo below) noted that although many firms have been outsourcing office services for years, her firm...
1 tag
Offsite Records Storage - Passing the costs along...
Firms have traditionally struggled with the creation and implementation of a records retention policy. As an alternative option to consider - pass the storage costs on to your clients. I know you are probably struggling with getting clients to pay for traditional cost recovery items, but if you are charging for copies, prints, scans, etc. then technically, the documents belong to the client. ...
2 tags
Follow-Up: Are Your Fax Machines Holding...
With the recent attention on copier hard drive security and the potential for confidential information to fall into unfriendly hands, our clients are asking the next logical question: if my copiers are storing confidential information, what about my fax machines?
Industry best practices tell us we should not be using facsimile as a means of transmitting or receiving confidential client...
June 2010
7 posts
1 tag
"Can I Get That in Writing?"
That is a phrase we use with regard to many different areas, however we may be overlooking one very important area — contract escalators.
Often, annual escalator provisions are not executed by both parties, formally in writing. In many cases they just go into effect on a specific anniversary date.
We should be receiving formal documentation regarding pricing changes. In fact any pricing...
1 tag
George Wolf and The Greg Wolf Fund – Generosity in...
It is not often that in the course of business, or life for that matter, that one is struck by something that someone is doing that is so meaningful and “right” that it makes one step back and reflect. I had such a moment last night when I attended a fund raiser for the Greg Wolf Fund. The Greg Wolf Fund was established to commemorate the life of Gregory Joseph Wolf, by his family and friends. At...
1 tag
Last Chance to Participate in Mattern &...
Time is running out — it is your last chance to participate in the Mattern & Associates 2010 Cost Recovery Survey! The deadline is July 15.
Every two years, Mattern conducts this survey to assess how law firms are handling cost recovery. This year, Mattern expects the survey to show changes in the areas of print and scan recoveries at law firms, as well as shifts in overall cost recovery...
1 tag
Adding to Existing Agreements
Have you recently added new equipment/services/labor to your existing agreement? Was the equipment/services/labor added on a coterminous basis?
Adding on a coterminous basis will allow you to add new equipment/services/labor such that both the original agreement and the addendum will terminate at the same time. However pricing may be higher, depending on the length of time remaining on the...
3 tags
Reduce Printing Costs
What if you were made privy to a few simple steps that could save your firm a lot of money. Would you put them to use? Of course you would! Vince McHugh of The Connected Copier provides a few tips as to how you can do just that by implementing simple strategies to reduce your printing costs.
A few of Vince’s ideas include: 1) Set all of the MFDs to default to B&W 2) Set both the...
1 tag
Overages
The typical facilities management contract is structured with either a “zero based plan” or a “minimum allowance” for impressions”. A zero-based plan only requires you to pay for impressions made. With a “minimum allowance”, you are allotted a certain number of impressions per month/quarter and, if you do not meet that minimum, then you are paying for unmade impressions.
One way to avoid this is...