The legal profession revolves around offices, boardrooms and courtrooms - not the most energy-intensive environments - but it also involves lots and lots of paper.
"It turns out lawyers use a lot of resources," said Timothy B. Borchers, managing partner of Borchers Ware & Guglielmo, P.C. "Though we sit in offices all day, we use 10 times the normal amount of paper. Because of our 'paranoia,' we like to have a copy of everything."
So Borchers' firm broke with tradition, and is now printing double-sided, single-spaced documents and not printing e-mail whenever possible. He said the firm is saving about a ream of paper per week.
The firm then started buying recycled paper. It also installed programmed thermostats and a small water heater underneath the sink to conserve water. And there is a new office policy allowing employees to work from home one day per month - if they work an extra 15 minutes per day the rest of the month - to encourage staff to drive less.
For its efforts, the firm is being honored today by the Massachusetts Bar Association as one of four leaders in the association's "Lawyers Eco Challenge" to run more environmentally friendly law firms.
"You can try to do a big thing for the environment or a lot of little things," Borchers said. "A lot of little things are easy to do, it saves just as much in the end, and it works for the office."
More than 50 firms have joined the challenge since the Massachusetts Bar Association issued a set of "green guidelines" earlier this year. Other changes made by the three other firms being honored today include commuting by public transportation, recycling printer cartridges, and changing to more efficient light bulbs.
"The membership has been amazingly supportive," said association President David W. White Jr. "Lawyers can be leaders not just on legal issues, but also on social issues. People feel it's good for the image of lawyers to show we have environmental concerns and will take steps to do something about it."
His firm, which practices personal injury law, has installed motion-detector lights, changed to more efficient bulbs and is using recycled paper for its copier and letterhead.
Borchers, whose firm specializes in estate planning and real estate, said the changes are not hurting business. They have been "invisible" to clients, and will eventually pay for themselves in energy savings. The biggest obstacle was convincing his 12-person staff to change their work habits, he said, but now everyone is on board.
"There's something about the atmosphere - people are getting excited about this," Borchers said. "Everybody's proud of it and it's helped team building."
