New law practice delivers lifestyle benefits

By ELLEN READ

A year after opening its doors, the niche Auckland law firm LeeSalmonLong has expanded, developed and learned a few lessons.

But things must be going well because partner Julian Long says the biggest mistake was setting up shop with a second-hand photocopier.

"We should have leased [a new] one straight away," he says.

He also said there were hiccups with the accounting system not working well with the firm's computing system, making it a short list of problems for a new business.

Long said the decision to use an application service provider was one of the best they made.

It meant they didn't face a huge capital outlay and did not have to spend time administering the system.

"As we hire more staff, it's clear that's the best thing we've done."

More staff have been taken on and a fourth partner, Matthew Pasley, joined the practice in July.

"I don't think we'll get very much bigger because then it gets hard to manage people and you end up putting a lot of time into that," Long said.

"We never wanted to be a big business anyway. That was the point."

When he and founding partners Davey Salmon and Greg Lee left large law practices to set up on their own, one incentive was to provide a better balance between work and the rest of their lives.

This appears to be paying off.

Long said they now worked just as hard but it was for themselves and they could be more flexible about their hours and family commitments.