A quarterly newletter by the Boston Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators
Home> Newsletter> Partnering with ALA Vendors… A Great Move!
More than we may wish for, as law firm managers, sooner or later we all will come face to face with the challenge of leading a task force to plan, manage, coordinate and oversee a construction build out and move of our office. As many of you may be aware, my firm, Kopelman and Paige, recently moved to our new office location at 101 Arch Street in Boston. This was no small task; the build out of 38,000 square feet included the demolition of two entire floors at our newly acquired space. Of course, the move itself had to be done over a weekend, or perhaps a three day weekend if we get lucky, and we are expected to ensure that our firms are fully operational, up and running first thing Monday morning.
This past year, I was awarded the assignment most of us dread; to manage and coordinate a build out and ultimately move my 100+ person firm. After sitting and contemplating life, and why we do what we do, I determined that I would have to seek whatever help and guidance I could to make this move happen. In a last ditch effort to maintain my sanity, I decided my first order of business was to visit the Boston ALA web site and familiarize myself with the vendor/sponsors who are there to assist us as we plow through our jobs on a daily basis.
It was here that I found the support, guidance and assistance I so badly needed. My first vendor hire was AEC Solutions, a relocation business consulting firm who assisted me in more ways than I could imagine. John Pilkington, President and owner, provided me with the assistance and support which proved to be invaluable through out the entire construction project. We had many meetings in which John paved the way and resolved difficult issues with his knowledge of architecture, electrical, data and construction. He proved invaluable to be on more than one occasion during many time sensitive and tense situations.
Then it came time to select and order workstations. I think I now know everything one probably does not want to know, or perhaps care to know, about the style and color and ergonomics of workstation design. I received proposals from two ALA vendor sponsors and decided to go with Union Office Supply. Ron Gasper, the manager at Union was terrific and a pleasure to work with. Union met my deadline for delivery in spite of my last minute decision to re-think the entire layout and color scheme. Yet throughout the process the employees at Union who assisted with the design and installation were professional and thorough. Catherine Morrin, one of their designers, did a fabulous job in creating the product that works best for our firm.
We bid on three movers and ultimately decided on ABC Movers based in Somerville, another ALA sponsor. ABC Movers, Sam Graves, Jr., and Bob Greenleaf, did a fantastic job meeting our deadlines, assisting with pre-planning sessions and coordinating the move and delivery of so many pieces of furniture, computers and office equipment and all within my budget! The movers we worked with over a five day period from ABC were not only professional, but pleasant to work with and more than willing to help out often going far beyond what I expected of them. This was my first experience to work with movers who actually smiled at you in spite of 12 – 14 hour days! They were the best!
I contact Hasler Mail Systems in mid December and purchased a new mail machine and sure enough it was delivered and installed just before move in day.
We had the unfortunate situation of having our relatively new internet router decide it just did not want to work when we installed it at our new location on Friday night of move weekend. I wanted to ensure that our clients and employees had access to e-mail, not only as a form of communicating to employees as to how the move was progressing, but also to ensure that our clients knew we were here if they needed us. Panic set in. I immediately began calling many of my ALA peers who I thought would be working on a beautiful weekend in early February and sure enough our President, Chris O’Sullivan came to my rescue. As we all know, Chris is always prepared and he was able to loan my firm a router which got us up and running until a new one could be delivered the following week.
Many calls were made to Iron Mountain to assist with the clean up of the file room. Iron Mountain provided us with the support we needed to get files off site and also made sure that whatever we needed on move weekend we could get, even without access to our own database.
Commodore Builders came in on a last minute call when it was discovered that many of the system unit storage bins had to be reconfigured and wall mounted. Assistance was provided first thing on Monday morning to complete the installation even before employees arrived at the new office.
And of course, All State Legal and Tuttle Printing provided us with our letterhead and print needs, everything was delivered in time and with 100% accuracy.
I took full advantage of the Boston Chapter’s Message Board system and received many recommendations from ALA members when I searched for a sign company. Many recommended SignsOnSite which is the company we ultimately decided to work with. Jessica Erickson and her staff did a terrific job on designing and installing all of our signage throughout our two floors – once again within my budget.