How to Run Your Law Firm Like a Startup ... or Not.

Jason Calcanis heads up Mahalo, a human-powered search engine.  In this post, widely circulating around the tech/startup blogosphere, Jason gives 17 tips on saving money while running a startup that will (I didn't say should) surely resonate with some BigLaw managing partners.  Some of his "really good" ideas (since toned down a bit in an update to the post):

• Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ordering in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea. 
  
• Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
• Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.
  
• Fire people who are not workaholics... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game.  Don't work at a startup if you're not into it.  Go work at the post office or stabucks if you're want balance in your life for realz.
• Get an expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going to starbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs 20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial, get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc. 50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for the company, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
• Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
  

Sound like BigLaw to you?  Well, except for the awesome coffee machine.  That's not a cost like copies that you can pass on to clients.

Comments

[Ashley]

I was directed to this blog today and you are to be commended.

As a lawyer who works as a management consultant I agree with some - not all - of your comments. The workaholic firm is not a good look - ask yourself would you want to buy expertise from anyone who is at the end of a 12 hour day. From a physiological perspective people's efficiency degrades exponentially when they work long hours continuously. For examplw would you let a surgeon operate on you when he had already done 12 hours straight - I think not.

The key issues from my own perspective are leverage, assiduous time recording and maintaining high quality communications with colleagues and clients. Manage the stakeholders expectations effectively and everyone is happy, including the bank manager!