Editorial
Introducing “Meet the Consultant”
If the summer is usually when things at the office slow down, somebody forgot to tell the consultants at Mattern. We continue with engagements on a number of fronts, including outsourcing of office services, equipment, off-site records storage, and overall Information Governance. In this edition, we inaugurate “Meet the Consultant” a section that highlights our team members and their recent success. We are proud to kick it off with Consultant, Ben Schmidt.
Meet the Consultant: Ben Schmidt, JD
Ben Schmidt, JD, has over 5 years of business strategy and support services consulting experience and 8 years in legal practice. His recent engagements include: Frost Brown Todd, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Thompson Coburn and most recently,
Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry, headquartered in Houston. We asked Ben a few questions, including his favorite quote: “The three great essentials to achieve
anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.” — Thomas Edison
Chamberlain Achieves 0$ Dollar Permanent Withdrawal Fee and 40% Savings with New Off-site Records Vendor
Background: Headquartered in Houston, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry (“Chamberlain Hrdlicka”) is a highlyregarded law firm with over 135 attorneys with offices in Atlanta, San Antonio and Philadelphia. Sherry Laughery has been Chamberlain Hrdlicka’s Director of Client Intake and Records for over two decades. During
that time, the firm had essentially remained with one major provider for its off-site records storage while other factors changed: the firm grew, opened new office locations and the vendor changed hands more than once. Over time, these developments resulted in an off-site records situation that was less than ideal.
Information Governance and Closing the Gap on Discovery Materials
Is your firm going for information governance gold? Information governance and protection of corporate data are top concerns of General Counsels — and some clients are now tying payment to compliance with outside counsel guidelines to ensure their standards are met. While an increasing number of firms are deploying formal Information Governance (IG) programs, even in these firms, many overlook client discovery materials in both firm and vendor-hosted systems. This may include Relativity databases or legacy Summation and Concordance repositories.
Can Your Firm Get Out of Offsite Records Storage in 10 Years? Yes.
On March 28th the Mattern Team presented: “Get Out of Off-site Records Storage in 10 Years.” To say it generated interest is an understatement. Over 81 individuals signed up for the webinar representing over 75 firms. Our typical webinar generates about half that
amount of interest. Firms are starting to get serious about attacking their off-site holdings. Some of the strategies we discussed can be found in our case study, highlighting the recent success at Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry. We were able to help the firm get into position to get out of off-site storage in ten
years by radical reduction of the permanent withdrawal fees.
Outsourcing: What Makes the Difference Between Success or Failure?
Does the structure of your outsourcing contract determine the difference between the success or the failure of your engagement? In a word, yes. We recently helped a West Coast, AmLaw 100 firm accomplished this for an increased savings of 90%.
Is It The Write-offs Or Is It The Clients Causing Decline in Recoveries?
While there is no doubt that larger clients have been taking a stronger stance against cost recovery, there has been an increase in internal write-offs by 18% and, for charges that do make it to the invoice, there has only been a decline of 4% over the past decade+.
Is 40% percent of something better than 0%? In regards to cost recovery, most people would say “yes”. For copies, prints and scans, if your recovery percentages are at industry standards/benchmarks, your actual costs are in line and the recovery rates you are using are acceptable, you are probably recovering in the 35% to 45% range.
Read the full Mattern Matters Early Summer 2019 PDF, here.
