If you manage the office of a solicitors’ firm, you may already have asked which is the best cleaning company for law firms. No honest list can answer that, because the right fit depends on your building, your hours and the work your firm handles. What you can do is judge any cleaning company for law firms against a short set of criteria, and ask each provider to meet them in writing.
This guide is a selection checklist for the office or practice manager of a solicitors’ firm or another professional-services office. It covers confidentiality undertakings, key and alarm control, access to file and archive rooms, evening against early-morning visits, the standard of reception and meeting rooms, and how vetting is evidenced. It ranks no provider and does not call any company the best, Exclusive Pro Cleaning included. It is not legal advice.
Why a law firm office is a different brief
A law firm holds information that calls for particular care. The Law Society’s cyber security guidance for solicitors says that legal professionals hold sensitive, confidential and valuable data, such as client names, addresses and banking information, and that law firms also manage commercially sensitive information such as client contracts and financial data. The same page says that critical assets can be digital and physical, and it lists computers, mobiles and smart devices among them.
A cleaner is in the building when most people are not, and passes desks, screens, files and archive rooms on the way. That makes a cleaning contractor part of the firm’s access picture, whether or not anyone planned it. The Law Society page is written for solicitors, not for cleaners, and it says nothing about cleaning contractors. This guide uses it only for what it says about data and access, and it does not suggest that the page creates a duty for a cleaning company.
Confidentiality undertakings
Ask what the company will sign. Some firms have their own confidentiality wording and expect suppliers to accept it. Some contractors offer their own. Either way, find out whether the undertaking is signed by the company only or by each person who will work in your building, how it covers cover staff, and what it says about information seen or overheard, photographs and talking about what is seen on site. Have your firm’s own adviser settle the wording. A signed undertaking helps, but it does not replace the practical controls below.
Keys, fobs and alarm codes
A law firm has more than one level of access. The front door, the general office and reception are one level. Partners’ rooms, the file room, the archive and any strong room or comms cupboard may be another. Decide which areas the contractor needs and which stay locked, and do not rely on a cleaner to guess. Then put these questions to the provider.
- Who holds the keys, fobs or codes at the contractor, and is it a named person?
- Is each cleaner given an individual code, or is one code shared?
- What happens when a cleaner leaves the contract or a key goes missing?
- Is there a record of who entered the building and when?
- Who can change a code, and how quickly can it be done?
- Are keys labelled in a way that identifies your address?
Exclusive Pro Cleaning’s cleaning contractor page describes a dedicated team for each contract and a named account manager. Whichever provider you choose, a small, stable team makes key and code control easier, because there are fewer people to track.
Supervised access to file and archive rooms
Decide whether a cleaner should enter file rooms and archives at all. One approach is to leave them out of the routine clean and arrange an occasional supervised visit, with a member of staff present for the whole of it. Dust in an archive is a real cleaning need, but it does not justify unsupervised access. Put the decision in the written scope, with each room marked as in, out or supervised.
Then ask the contractor how it handles a room marked as supervised. Does it expect a member of your staff to be there? Does it stop work if no one is? A provider that has dealt with this before will have a simple answer.
Screens, devices and things left out
The Law Society page lists poor access controls and the use of unsecured devices among common cyber security risks, and it says that firms should regularly review who has access to assets and how they are stored. It also says staff should understand how to safely store and dispose of confidential documents.
Put that into practice on two sides. Your own staff lock screens, put away laptops and phones and file documents before they leave, because that is part of your own routine. The contractor should know what to do when something is left out. The agreed answer might be to leave it untouched, clean around it and report it to a named person, without reading or photographing it. A cleaner should never need a password or be asked to deal with an unlocked machine. How desks and papers are handled in detail is a separate subject. Here the question is what you should ask the contractor to commit to.
Evening or early-morning visits
Both patterns can work for a law firm, and the risks are different.
- Evening visits start after most people have gone. The risk is that someone is still working late and that files and screens are still out. Ask how the cleaner deals with an occupied room and who decides whether a room can be entered.
- Early-morning visits finish before the day starts. The risk is overlap with the first people in, and wet floors or lingering product smells when the first client arrives. Ask when the visit finishes and how reception is left.
On its office cleaning page, Exclusive Pro Cleaning lists early morning, evening and weekend slots, so either pattern can be asked for there and with other providers. The right choice depends on when your last person normally leaves, when your first client arrives and which areas take the longest.
Reception and meeting rooms
Reception and meeting rooms are the parts of the office that clients see. Agree the standard in plain terms. For example, tables wiped and cleared, chairs straightened, cups and glasses removed, bins emptied, floors clean and dry and nothing left from the last meeting. Say what time the rooms must be ready, because a clean that finishes at the wrong time is no use. Exclusive Pro Cleaning’s office cleaning page lists reception areas and boardrooms among the spaces it cleans, and it mentions a law firm in Spinningfields among its examples of workplaces.
How vetting is evidenced
Vetted is a word you will see often. What matters is what sits behind it. Ask which checks are made on each person who will work in your building, who carries them out and when, and whether they are repeated. Ask how the contractor will show you the evidence without handing over personal data that it should not share, for example a written statement of the checks made, a named list of the team and identification worn on site. Ask what happens when cover staff attend, whether they are checked to the same standard and whether you are told in advance.
Exclusive Pro Cleaning’s commercial cleaning services page says that every member of its commercial cleaning team is vetted, trained and insured, and its office cleaning page adds that office cleaners are background-checked. Those are claims to ask any provider, this one included, to support with evidence.
Questions for your shortlist
Put the same short list to every provider you are considering.
- Will you sign our confidentiality terms, or what do you offer instead?
- Who holds keys, fobs and codes, and is each code individual?
- How do you handle file rooms and archives, and who supervises?
- What do you do when you find files, devices or screens left out?
- Which visit times do you offer, and how does the team deal with an occupied room?
- What standard do you work to in reception and meeting rooms, and when is each one ready?
- What checks are made on each person, and what evidence can you show?
- Who covers absences, and is the cover vetted to the same standard?
Questions about cleaning companies for law firms
Is there a best cleaning company for law firms?
No single company is best for every firm. The better question is which company can show arrangements that fit yours, such as a signed undertaking, controlled access, evidenced vetting, visit times that suit your day and a clear standard for the rooms clients see. Compare providers against that list, and ask each of them the same questions.
Does the Law Society require a firm to vet its cleaners?
The Law Society page does not mention cleaners. It says that under the UK General Data Protection Regulation a firm must process personal data securely, and that the Solicitors Regulation Authority requires solicitors to take appropriate steps to protect client data against loss, damage or unauthorised access. It also lists access control among the things to review. How that applies to your cleaning arrangements is a question for your firm’s compliance lead or adviser.
Should a cleaner ever be alone in the file room?
That is for your firm to decide. If the answer is no, say so in the scope, keep the room locked and arrange a supervised visit when it needs cleaning.
Is an evening or an early-morning clean better for a law firm?
Neither is better in every case. Choose by when your building empties and when it fills, and ask the contractor how each pattern would work with your own staff and clients.
Choosing a cleaning company for a law firm is less about a name and more about a set of arrangements. A signed undertaking, controlled keys and codes, supervised access to sensitive rooms, a visit time that suits your day, a stated standard for reception and meeting rooms, and vetting that can be evidenced. Ask for each in writing, then compare the written answers side by side.