Understandably, law firms across Australia are trying to respond to the global financial crisis by cutting costs, and are evaluating everything from staff, to technology budgets to purloined meals.

Holding Redlich managing partner Chris Lovell explained to ALB Legal News that the economic downturn has his firm closely scrutinising the budget.

Computers; an IT ad-on lost in the fripperies purge

‘There are a lot of totally discretionary costs that we should have looked at before but we overlooked because everyone was too busy. Things like IT add-ons and tools which frankly I’m not sure people were using anyway. We have also postponed some IT upgrades and scaled back some marketing functions. We still have them, but not as many.’

Even stationery and free food are being questioned by partners.

‘We’re careful not to upset the culture of the firm. We certainly don’t want to compromise the integrity and robustness of the business. But there were a lot of frills and fripperies for which there was no glaring demand.’

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