Mattern Releases “2021 Cost Recovery and Hybrid Law Firm Operations Survey” Results

Global News

28
Oct
2021

Editor

Leading law firm operations consultancy, Mattern, announces the company has released the “2021 Cost Recovery and Hybrid Law Firm Operations Survey” results which shows the substantial impact the pandemic has had on recoveries.

Survey participants were provided customized results; non-participants are invited to request an Executive Overview of the results here. 

As the undisputed leader in cost recovery strategies, the Mattern 2021 Cost Recovery and Hybrid Law Firm Operations Survey was designed to understand firms’ go-forward strategies for cost recovery and cybersecurity costs, investigating both soft cost and hard cost recoveries, and drilling into where firms intend or don’t intend to recover costs (i.e., home output versus in-office output) or whether firms will use this opportunity to forego this revenue stream.  

Mattern’s data shows a substantial decline in volumes -- the basis of traditional soft recovery--which experienced a substantial decline of approximately 40-50% for black & white copies and prints, color copies and prints, and scans.  

Some of the other key findings of the Survey include:

• 97% of the firms responding to the survey are still utilizing the traditional cost recovery model 
• 3% of the firms have abandoned traditional soft cost recovery or are utilizing a flat percentage of the hourly billing
• 51% of firms will only recover costs created in the office and have no plans to recover any costs created in the home environment. 
• 40% of firms plan on recovering costs in both the home and office environments 
• 60% of firms responding stated that the recovery dollars as a percentage of the firm’s total revenue was lower than 1% while 30% reported it was greater than 1%.  14% reported it was greater than 3%.  
• No firms surveyed are currently recovering cybersecurity costs, though a small percentage (8%) are considering

“We are proud to consistently provide the thought leadership that our law firm partners and the industry needs,” comments Rob Mattern, President of Mattern, “and to have been the leader on cost recovery strategies for the legal market for over two decades.  As law firm operations change, Mattern’s expertise provides the insights to make great decisions.  We look forward to providing those valuable insights here for our law firm partners.”

To request the Executive Summary of the 2021 Cost Recovery and Hybrid Operations Survey, go here.