Today, many law firms have more than one location. In Connecticut, our firm, Carter Mario Injury Lawyers, has six locations alone, two of which we opened in the last few years — one in New Britain and one in North Haven, which we unveiled just last month. With growth comes some growing pains, and attention to the management structure and corporate culture of your law firm becomes the most essential piece of the puzzle.
How do you effectively keep continuity among multiple offices, with dozens of employees, who are a significant distance from each other and who don't necessarily interact with one another on a daily basis?
How do you keep a consistent corporate culture spread out over multiple locations all comprised of staff and attorneys with very different personalities? The answers to these questions aren't easy, and achieving consistency in the management of an assortment of locations certainly is not something that can be done overnight. But by using technology and staying connected with each office in your firm, keeping everyone on the same page can be easier than you think.
This is not just picking up the phone and calling your counterpart in another office, not just sending an email, but using video to virtually connect two people, or as in our case, nearly 100 members of our firm's staff, in a moment's notice without having to travel.
Carter Mario Injury Lawyers has been using video conferencing technology to connect each of our six offices across the state for the last three years. Without a doubt, it has proved to be a successful addition to the internal corporate communications strategy that we employ daily.
Our firm holds once-a-day meetings first thing in the morning, which we call our "Morning Huddle." During these brief five- to 10-minute all-staff gatherings, we connect via our video link in each office, and a staff person in each location is assigned the daily task of giving a rundown of major cases ongoing on that particular day, clients visiting, or updates on corporate community events happening that week. We also use this time via our video link to give weekly reports on new trends in specific practice areas, or to update the entire staff on procedural matters.
Each office is equipped with these video conferencing systems, which has allowed our offices to meet in real time, with smooth audio and video with no digital lag in the feed.
Another communications tool we've found useful is a firm-wide network of flat screen TV's in each office. All of these displays are connected to our intranet dashboard from our main corporate offices in Milford and updated daily with news and events that are important to staff at our firm.
What seems like a lot of effort for such brief messages has actually been an essential part of how our business ticks, and could help your multi-location firm thrive as well. Maintaining consistency through multiple channels using technology such as case management software tools, intranet dashboards, and regularly scheduled video conferencing with our entire staff has helped us grow without many setbacks, and has helped our firm's management to keep a more consistent corporate culture throughout our six offices.
Video conferencing can be expensive to do it right, averaging $10,000 and up to connect two or more offices, but it's well worth the investment in the technology if your firm is spread out across multiple locations. Giving your firm's attorneys the ability to conference about a particular case or issue directly without leaving their offices, essentially creating a more efficient, more productive and more informed workforce will benefit you and your bottom line for years to come. •
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Carter Mario is the president and CEO of Connecticut's Carter Mario Injury Lawyers. For more information about the firm, visit www.GetCarter.com.You must be signed in to comment on an articleSign In or Subscribe">
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