Attorneys and court reporters spend a lot of time in conference rooms conducting meetings, having consultations, running depositions or taking care of closings for business and real estate transactions. Given how much of the job involves meeting in these conference rooms, it’s always important to have reminders of the types of conference room etiquette you should practice, especially when you consider these conference rooms are almost always shared spaces.
So, with this in mind, here are some tips from a legal videographer in Phoenix, AZ about how you can improve your conference room etiquette:
- Schedule your rooms in advance: Don’t just assume you can walk into a conference room and start working. Again, these are shared spaces, which means there are going to be other people who need to use them. You don’t want to have a deposition scheduled and walk into a conference room to find it already being used for an important meeting. Therefore, schedule out your conference rooms in advance so you can avoid these types of awkward situations. Similar to this, you shouldn’t just assume a conference room is free if it’s empty—it could very well be booked for use any minute now. At the very least, check the schedule and see if you’re able to get in there.
- Clean up before you leave: During your meeting or deposition, it’s likely you’ll have a lot of papers, coffee cups, water bottles and other items set out on the tables and in the general vicinity. This is fine, as long as you remember to clean up afterward. The responsibility for cleaning up your mess shouldn’t fall on the next person using the space.
- Don’t use a conference room as an office: Conference rooms are often more spacious than offices, sometimes because of your own doing, especially if you have a hard time keeping yourself organized. But for as much space and comfort as conference rooms provide, it’s important to remember that they are not office spaces. If you’re just taking care of your own work, keep it to your own desk or somewhere that isn’t a shared space likely to be reserved or needed by other people.
- Cancel if needed: If something comes up and you need to change the day or time of your meeting, make sure that you cancel the initial booking so that the room can be opened back up for other people who need it at that time. This is also true if you accidentally double book—cancel one of the rooms to make sure you’re not reserving more space than you actually need.
- Handle conflict maturely: Hopefully this isn’t something that ever becomes an issue for you, but if you ever find yourself in a conflict scenario over the use of a conference room, make sure you have the proper people resolve the conflict and avoid escalation.
For more information about conference room etiquette, or to schedule web based deposition services in Phoenix, AZ, please reach out to Bartelt | Nix Reporting, LLC today.