Whats the Worth of a Linear Foot?
In their book The Lawyer’s Guide to Records Management and Retention (ABA, 2006), George C. Cunningham and John C. Montaña make this compelling point: An informal 2003 survey among mid- to large-sized law offices shows a wide range in the amount of office and secretarial file space allocated to each lawyer, from a low of 12 linear feet to a high of 50 linear feet each. If this survey is extended to closets, war rooms, conference rooms, and on-site storage areas, it is not unusual to find total on-site file storage that approaches 150 linear feet per lawyer. The firm at the higher end of the range is incurring a substantial and unnecessary annual cost, considering space and equipment that probably is not necessary. In law offices that have never dealt with the issue of records retention, it is not unusual to achieve 30 to 40 percent reductions in the space devoted to on-site records after developing and implementing a records retention schedule. Okay, let’s do some math. At 12 linear fe
