A Professional and Effective Home Office

by Terri Olson

High rents, long commutes, family demands, few clients. What links them together? They all contribute to a desire on the part of many lawyers to flee the traditional office environment for the pleasures and travails of practicing from home. Some lawyers just can't afford to rent an office; others don't want to spend 10+ hours a day away from home and family; others feel that a traditional office isn't cost-effective given the number of clients they currently have.

In the past, most consultants felt that working from home was a no-no: it would be perceived as less professional; equipment and supplies would be inadequate; time would be fragmented. Nowadays, largely because of improvements in computer and communications technology, experts are less pessimistic, although still somewhat cautious. This article isn't intended to explore the pros and cons of working from home. Instead, it's aimed at helping those who have already decided on the home office route to create the most efficient and most professional environment possible.

If there is a Golden Rule, it should be Don't isolate yourself. The lawyer practicing in a traditional office does have a substantial advantage when it comes to day-to-day networking. He or she may be in an office suite in a high-rise with literally hundreds of other lawyers, or in a firm with four or five partners to consult, or next to the courthouse with three more firms on the other street corners. At home, there's just you. Unless you're at the courthouse daily, you may see other lawyers and judges very rarely, and miss out on the referrals, advice, and shoulders to cry on.

Therefore, as a home-based practitioner, it's critical that you take steps to meet with other lawyers on a regular basis. Local Bar association meetings, Bar section and other special interest group meetings, regular Bar-wide meetings -- all are an excellent way to stay in touch with the legal community. Even hanging around the courthouse can be productive, especially if you have few clients and contacts and want to get others used to seeing your face.

Equip your office properly. Most lawyers who begin working from home anticipate moving on to a more traditional office space when finances permit. Because of this, their home offices frequently have a "temporary" feel, as if the occupant is in the process of moving to new and better digs. Files may be stacked here and there; furniture is uncomfortable; little attention is given to aesthetics or traffic flow; office equipment is substandard.

I encourage all those in home-based offices to equip and organize their work area as if they planned to continue working there for the next twenty years. While you don't have to run out and buy a $1200 partner's desk, you should have the standard paraphernalia of filing cabinets, a large desk space, comfortable chair, desktop organizers, computer, copier, printer, and fax machine. If space is limited, you may wish to look into the multi-function copier/printer/fax machines (commonly called "hydras") available now for $800 or less. Use in and out baskets and real filing cabinets bought from an office supply company instead of ordinary drawers or bookshelves. Resist mightily the temptation to drag a chair over from the dining room -- buy a good, solid, ergonomic chair designed to be sat in for long periods of time.

Treat your home office like an office. While in your office, continually remind yourself that you are "at work". (You may need to frequently remind others, like children, spouses, and chatty friends of this as well!) Because a traditional office has an obvious boundary -- the office door -- it's easier to differentiate work and home. This naturally affects the line between free time and work time, which can rapidly become blurred in a home office. For many home based workers, this is seen as an advantage: you can curl up and watch Oprah with advance sheets on your lap. Unfortunately, the flip side of the coin is that you may find you are never completely free from work -- you're reading law books in bed, talking to clients with children at your feet, and dictating during commercial breaks in Seinfeld. For those reasons -- being fair to yourself and to your loved ones -- as well as the fact that you will be more productive, you should maintain discrete office and home hours.

This blurring of the line between work and home affects your use of space as well. Bad habits like spreading files all over the house, on the dining table and upstairs in the bedroom, are much more readily fallen into when the line between office and home may be an imaginary one on the floor instead of a door you walk out of each night. Just as you should try to keep work confined to work hours, you should also try to keep work product confined to your office space.

Find room for staff. Most lawyers who start home-based offices don't start out with staff, so organizing work space to allow for a secretary or paralegal may never occur to them. Then, when the client list grows and the work load increases, they look around and realize that there's no place to put a helper! If you anticipate a full-time legal practice, you should also plan for staff. Planning includes such things as (of course) budgeting; arranging for private work space (including space to collate documents); procuring appropriate equipment, including a desk and computer; and setting up communications, including at minimum a telephone extension and networking your computer with your assistant's.

Take advantage of technology. A lawyer with a computer with sophisticated calendaring or case management software, a reliable Internet connection allowing at a minimum for e-mail and Lexis or Westlaw, time and billing software, and a good understanding of his or her word processing software can quickly level the playing field between the home-based business and the high-rise lawyers. The flip side is also true: lawyers who work at home must take advantage of technology in order to remain competitive, especially if they have no staff.

Provide for visitors. Without a doubt, having the kind of practice that does not require you to meet clients in your home is the most desirable. Very few private homes have enough space to allow for a reception area or private entrance. Most lawyers who practice from home arrange to rent meeting space in an office building elsewhere. At a minimum, though, you should have comfortable office-type chairs for the occasional visitor. If at all possible, try to have your office located near a side or back door so that visitors don't have to walk through private areas to meet with you.

Claim those deductions. The I.R.S.'s position on home office deductions has softened from impossible to merely difficult. Previously, many who worked from home were terrified to take even obviously legitimate deductions for fear of audits. It is true that home-office deductions are still more likely to be audited than are standard business deductions, but so long as your deductions are legitimate, you can quantify your business use, and you maintain adequate documentation, you should not hesitate to claim all the law allows.

Review your situation. All lawyers, but especially those working from home, should regularly ask themselves: "Why did I choose to work the way I did? Do my reasons still apply?" Circumstances change, and these changes may dictate a move away from home. If your home office was started because you needed to economize, do you have the same financial limitations? If you work from home because your law practice was part-time, is this still the case? Many lawyers move from a home-based practice to a more traditional one within a few years. If, however, you set up your home office because you liked the flexibility, wanted to be closer to your family, or faced a harrowing commute, you may find that you are content with the situation and want to remain where you are.

Teri Olson is the former Director of the Law Practice Management Program.