If you’ve ever been into a solicitor’s office – or work in one – you’ll know that on the face of it, everything is super clean and organised. Or at least, it should be!

But for those who work in back offices, mail rooms, or on the non-client-facing side, it can be just like any other office space.

Staff kitchens, toilets, and break rooms in solicitors’ firms can fall foul to the same spills and smells as any other office. Rooms hidden from view, like document archives and IT, can easily become forgotten about. But these are essential areas for business operations and continuity that need as much care and attention as any other part of the office.

Usually though, front of house reception areas, waiting rooms, client meeting spaces, and boardrooms are spotless. After all, the law is rooted in trust; and who’d trust a firm with an unorganised, dirty office?

In this post, we’ll uncover the reasons why cleaning for solicitors’ offices should extend to every area, and how to ensure security and confidentiality.

The Unwritten Laws of Legal Office Cleaning

How is cleaning for solicitors’ offices different? There’s a few extra details, beyond wiping down desks, computer screens and telephones…

1. Trust Your Office Cleaners!

A tidy office is a secure office, but busy solicitors’ offices can become untidy under big workloads. It’s not that uncommon, but there should be best practices in place for all to follow (cleaners included).

Confidential documents left out in the open would spell disastrous news if they were to fall into the wrong hands – especially in high profile cases.

But we explicitly trust our cleaners, and you should too. Great office cleaners are trustworthy enough to know when not to interfere. If something looks important, but maybe like it’s in the wrong place, a good cleaner would not remove it from the area, alert someone to a potential issue, or make a note of it if the office is empty.

To make everything clear from the offset, we’ll learn your rules and codes of conduct about confidentiality – to make sure everything is in order. Plus, for extra peace of mind, our staff have all passed security checks, and can go through any further checks your solicitor firm requires to meet standards.

2. Your Back Office is JUST as Important as the Front of House

A clean, tidy office is a happy office. Staff in every department deserve to have a clean, organised, safe space to work – and as talent is hard to come by these days, it would be a shame to stumble on something so fundamental and essential as a clean place to work.

Mail rooms are busy places in legal firms and can get dirty quickly. Even if there’s not much downtime for it to settle, paper gives off a lot of dust – and this can become noticeable in recesses and corners very quickly. The constant inflow and outflow of post means dirt is constantly getting tracked in. Keep it in check, with a tight cleaning schedule. The same goes for copy rooms – and don’t forget about archives and server rooms.

Dust and improper humidity doesn’t just risk your legacy documents or IT equipment getting damaged; it’s a fire hazard.

Read more about server room cleaning.

3. Timing Cleans is Vital

Some legal offices run late into the night, but during busy core hours, cleaning might not be possible. We understand that, for security reasons, your cleaners might not be able to access the building with their own key. Thankfully, we know how to work to a tight schedule and can assign teams to work in tandem with your own, in phased cleaning that minimises disruption – and often eliminates it entirely.

If out of hours cleans are not possible, the timing of your cleans might mean that we are present during some client or board meetings. In any situation like this, our presence will be understated – and our uniforms will clearly show who we are to all who see us. With that said, we can be flexible, and adapt to any unforeseen changes in your working day – all you have to do is let us know what you need.

Cleaning for Solicitors and Legal Firms

The Abbey Cleaning Service is a professional team of commercial cleaners based in Cardiff, who know how to carry out professional cleaning for solicitors offices.

Here’s what one of our clients, a solicitors’ firm in Cardiff, has to say:

“Thomas Simon Solicitors have been using The Abbey Cleaning Service for the past four and a half years now for the cleaning of their 4 storey facility on Newport Road. It is a pleasure to not have to complain about the standards of cleaning and Abbey are always willing to fit in extra tasks at short notice to assist. I have no hesitation in recommending their services.”

Sally Murphy
Practice Manager, Thomas Simon Solicitors

Ready to upgrade your commercial cleaning? Call 029 2067 9323 – or use our contact form – today to get an office cleaning schedule that works for you.