(15-Feb-2012) As the full-time administrator of a major Northern California law firm, Chris Carvalho is in constant demand: He deals with personnel issues, he handles accounting, and he manages technology. Carvalho oversees all operations for the two-office firm, Gagen, McCoy, McMahon, Koss, Markowitz & Raines, which has 17 lawyers and 18 support staffers. Everything comes down to efficiency, he says. Something as seemingly simple as managing, maintaining and stocking supplies for the Danville, Calif.-based firm’s 12 printers can take up more time than Carvalho probably has.
A couple of years ago, he took a hard look at the printing — and printing problems — within the law firm. Legal work is file-intensive, and Gagen McCoy’s printers often needed toner, experienced paper jams or simply worked poorly. Addressing users’ printer needs could sometimes take hours out of Carvalho’s day and even affect the productivity of the lawyers.