Buffalo-area lawyers have made significant moves to new offices recently, selecting their base of operation as carefully as they might select a jury.

A highly visible, ultimately convenient location is important for attracting clients. But equally significant are building and design features that can maximize efficiency and productivity.

Location

Law firms generally want prominent locations that make a statement, and for a corporate firm such as Damon Morey LLP, the region's third largest, that's in the new, signature Avant building in the central business district. The 200 Delaware Ave. address puts the firm's lawyers near courts, government offices and law firms they interact with daily, plus restaurants and places where they entertain clients. That's according to Michael Montante, vice president of Uniland Development Co., which created Avant from the former Dulski Federal Office Building,

It's a similar arrangement in a different package for Hodgson Russ LLP, the area's largest law firm and one of the nation's oldest, which moved two years ago into the century-old landmark Guaranty Building on Pearl Street.

Prominent locations that make a statement have a small scale, too. Personal injury lawyer Jed Dietrich III, a solo practitioner, searched for three years before buying the 1860 schoolhouse at Maple and North Forest roads in Amherst last year.

"I wanted a building with character but some historical significance," he says.

Parking

History aside, parking was primary for Dietrich. Just outside the door of his office are a dozen, barrier-free spaces, which are a particular convenience for those clients dealing with a physical injury. The easy access - "They pull in off the main drive," he says - also fosters development of the lawyer-client relationship.

Without the impediments of big parking garages, elevators and long walks to a high rise that are associated with downtown office space, clients feel comfortable stopping in, Dietrich says.

Downtown law offices address the parking issue with special arrangements: Hodgson Russ has relationships with parking garages close by and a private garage while Damon Morey pays for valet parking for clients.

Lighting

The Amherst law firm HoganWillig PLLC in February moved across the street to new offices at 2410 N. Forest Road. The space, built by Iskalo Development Corp., is based on top design features of law offices across the country. Among them: ceiling-to-floor windows that that draw natural light into the offices ringing the perimeter of the floor. The light extends into the center work area, which had been an artificially lit space where legal secretaries and paralegals spent their days. Overhead lighting reflects up and casts a soft glow that replaces the downward glare of stark fluorescent lighting.

The lighting features are part of a design strategy made with the firm's 100 employees in mind, said Diane Tiveron, managing partner.

"It may save money in the long haul," Tiveron says, "but there's less illness, more productivity, less turnover and (staff take) more pride in where they work."

Floor configuration

Newer buildings are able to accommodate an entire firm on a single floor, or at least consolidate several floors to a few - an arrangement that maximizes firm efficiency and encourages a unified approach to the firm's work. But even the 19th-century architecture of the Guaranty Building can be gutted and redesigned to fit today's office-design thinking.

Hodgson President and CEO Gary Schober said the firm's physical configuration stacks practice areas within reach of each other, a distinct difference from the sprawling design of its previous space at One M&T Plaza. But the Guaranty's wide, marble staircase and expanded bank of elevators in the center of the building foster interaction, he said.

Technology

Law book libraries and storage space filled with paper files commanded a lot of the floor space in law firms a decade ago. But electronic versions of both have freed up much of that square footage, says Paul Iskalo, president and CEO of Iskalo Development. Aside from paper copies of active cases, Dietrich, for example, stores everything electronically on a system configured by David Crawford. Crawford's company, Strategic Consulting Solutions of East Amherst, works primarily with the local legal industry.

He set up Dietrich's system with a Windows 2003 server, which provides security by limiting access through a log-in control, a couple of large hard drives for storage, workstations for each staffer and a scanner. The cost for such a system: basic servers are about $1,500; scanners run in the range of $700 to $800 depending on their speed; and workstations cost about $800 each.

To those setting up new offices, Crawford advises to be sure the computer system matches the size of the staff and the anticipated caseload. A 15-laywer firm doesn't need a server fit for 100 users.

"If they're careful to design it," Crawford said, "then the cost point isn't that bad."