HOBO Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

At the end of the following week, we had put together a proposal to present to Richard Butler, Carlos Reyes and Jeremy Land. During that entire week, there was absolutely no way you could tell Belinda and I had slept together. She did give me the occasional wink when we were alone, but nothing was said for the first week at all.

I met with the three partners that Friday afternoon and presented my findings. After going back for five years and doing research on corporations this size several things were noted. Most attorneys in the firm billed less than four hours a day to their customers. The average lawyer would bill between five to six hours a day to his customer. With the average billing rate being between four hundred to nine hundred per hour. Leaving one to two hours unaccounted for per day was a loss of eight hundred to eighteen hundred a day per attorney.

The second issue was the firm spent entirely too much money on office supplies. After a quick check of the storeroom it was noted we were overbuying. And each floor had the ability to buy anything they wanted technically, which was another huge problem.

The next thing addressed where the credit card bills which seemed unusually high. The other problem that I encountered was the receipts. In a lot of cases there was simply no receipt to match the monthly bill. Then if there was a receipt for it to be a deduction on our taxes the reason for the bill had to be listed along with the name of the client. Very few bills were filled out properly.

I then noted the high turnover of cell phones on the bill. I suggested that all phones that had a problem should be taken to out inhouse IT guy for evaluation. Let him make the decision on whether a new phone was warranted or not. Some employees traded in phones once a year which was excessive.

For the past five years, our profit had been running somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-seven percent. That profit was what the employee bonuses came out of. Hence, the larger the profit the bigger the bonus we would receive.

They seemed pleased with the results and told me they would take some time and talk about the findings. They would then meet with me and we could put new procedures in place to try and correct a few of these issues.

During, the first week of December I was asked to meet with the three partners again about the financial review I had performed. We met on a Tuesday morning in the conference room. Richard Butler informed me of several things that were about to take place. First and foremost, a meeting of all attorneys would be held on this coming Thursday. Richard was implementing a new system with a formal time card being put in each attorney’s customer file. When you were working for that client you logged your time the card. At the end of the month all cards would be pulled and time billed accordingly. Richard would then review each month’s timecards and see exactly what each attorney was billing.

The credit cards were addressed next with a new policy to be put in place. No charges on the credit card would be paid unless a documented receipt was attached. The receipt had to show the date, time and client the card was used for. If it was a company expense that had to be documented as well. Someone would be hired on my floor to track all credit card expenses and match them to the appropriate bill. The office supplies would also be housed on my floor and the same person who handled the credit card receipts would take care of getting the supplies to the appropriate floor via the courier.

As mentioned before, the IT department would allow or disallow all requests for new cell phones to company employees. All expenses would be routed through my office and each month beginning January of the coming month, we would do a monthly financial report.

Since we were taking on this much work, Richard wanted me to have more help. Since Nora Davis’ floor was being alleviated of all the financial work that we had taken over, he suggested I take two or three employees from her and transferred them to my floor.

Richard Butler scheduled a meeting with all of the department heads for this Friday at nine o’clock in the morning. Apparently, anyone who was anyone at Butler, Land and Reyes would be there. There was a buzz around the office all week with people trying to find out what the meeting was about but somehow it was kept quiet.

It was standing room only in the conference room Friday morning when Richard Butler, Carlos Reyes and Jeremy Land walked in the room. They sat down at their appropriate seats as everyone remained silent. Richard took a drink of water from the glass in front of him, set it down and looked around the room.

“Thank you to everyone for being on time and I’m sure you are dying to know what we are here. Well, this is it in a nutshell. The three of us knew we needed to streamline things for this firm and we needed the right person to do it. That is why a few years ago, I sought out Tim Williams and hired him right out of the University of Texas. Now what many of you know or maybe don’t know, here is the story.”, he started.

“Tim, skipped grades in high school and started college a year early, if I’m correct. He earned his accounting degree and master’s degree in a little over four years. He passed the CPA exam in seven months and has now completed six law classes at SMU. He is not twenty-five years of age yet. Whether you like him or do not, I personally don’t care.”, he started.

“The four of us just spent the last month evaluating the way this firm handles it’s money and the conclusion was not what I hoped for. We are sloppy, unorganized and lazy when it comes to documentation. This will change as of today. Carlos, Jeremy and I started this several years ago and this is where it has brought us.”, he continued.

“Therefore, we are going to meet with each department head and go over the changes that will be made on your respective floor. I will also meet with all the litigators together and explain what changes you will make. I will start with the attorneys and Carla will call for you department heads one at a time. Department heads are excused for the time being.”, Richard announced.

Everyone filed out except for the attorneys that had assembled in the room. We had seventeen full time litigators on staff and all were present. Richard broke it down all in the first sentence. He simply told them they were not billing enough recordable hours on their cases. He had the new file folders with the inner pocket and the new timecards which would be in each folder. He explained that he wanted if possible five to six hours billed each day by each attorney. No one really objected and they filed out fifteen minutes later.

One by one, we met with the department heads with Richard leaving Nora Davis for last. I felt that Nora, who had been with Richard a long time was going to be the toughest sell on the new system. Finally, Nora Davis arrived in the room and sat down.

“Sorry to keep you waiting Nora, it’s been a long day. As you are unaware, all financial matters now go through Tim’s office. You are no longer be responsible for credit cards, statements, expense accounts or ordering of any material of any kind. You will now head up the clerical division and will be responsible for closed files on all of our customers.”, he started.

“So, you’re taking most of my work away from me ?”, Nora asked, not very happy.