On Moving

In the last week Wainwright & Cummins’ housing, immigration, crime and prison law departments have been undergoing that rite of passage – the office move. After many years at our old office on Brixton Road, we have moved five minutes’ away in Brixton, to a new office on Acre Lane.

It is a big change! Our old office was a converted house, and you could tell – it was spread over three floors, each floor containing one department. There were lots of small rooms and no large open areas. The new office, on the other hand, is one massive open-plan area. It is all on one floor, with a very high ceiling, and all of the staff previously arrayed over three floors in our old office are now sharing the space together.

There have already been and no doubt will continue to be teething problems with this new arrangement. I for one am just beginning to notice quite how loud my voice is when I speak on the telephone – which wasn’t a problem when I sat mostly alone at the top of the old office, but is quite a big issue now, when the entire criminal law department has to listen to me talk to my clients!

In addition we have had not insignificant problems with various suppliers, particularly in connection with getting our internet up and running. This has inevitably had a knock-on effect on the efficacy of the firm’s functioning and our ability to serve our clients as well as we would like. It has been a frustrating period; however, with the internet now working and our systems in place, we are back to doing what we do best: working on behalf of our clients and representing them in their legal matters.