The specific motivations leading a law firm to outsource some or all of its support functions to a facilities management vendor are varied. My firm is now in the fourth year of a facilities management contract with a vendor that provides a broad variety of support services. The frustrations and limitations that led to our outsourcing those operations were many, and included some pain points.
Firm lore includes a story (which I have been assured is not apocryphal) that one of our early and desperately-needed file room employees was drafted by a senior partner who happened to share an elevator ride: "Would you like to work in our file room?" was the sum total of the job interview.