The librarian
behind the drawers.
JER DURFEE CONSULTING LLC is a Utah limited liability company keeping a working practice catalog at 108 E Windlass Rd, Saratoga Springs, Utah 84045, on the shore side of Utah Lake. The firm's premise is simple: seventy-six consulting practices is too many to improvise — so every one of them is indexed, scoped and filed like it belongs in a reference room.
An index, a method,
and a file.
Drawer A is the house practice: how organizations run — admin, finance, reorganizations, site and strategy. Drawer B is people: compensation, benefits, assessment, labor and development. Drawer C is the market-facing shelf.
Drawer D is the biggest cabinet bay — twenty operations cards from freight rates to utilities. Drawer E keeps the environment practices. Drawer F is the science and technical wing: twenty-three disciplines from agronomy to waterproofing, engaged where the question needs a specialist's shelf.
Every engagement leaves a filed record — the question, the work, the answer — so the next question starts further ahead than the last one did.
Three rules the
catalog runs on.
Scope before advice.
No engagement starts without a written scope: the question, the deliverable, the boundary. A card pulled without a scope is just conversation — and we bill for work, not conversation.
Bounded cards stay bounded.
Actuarial opinions for insurance, customs filings, veterinary diagnoses and investment advice all belong to credentialed specialists. Where a question crosses a licensed line, we say so and point at the right professional.
File every engagement.
Each engagement closes with a record — scope, work performed, recommendations, and what was left open. Clients get their copy; the catalog keeps its copy. Nothing valuable stays only in somebody's head.
How a question moves
from intake to file.
Five stamps per engagement — so a client always knows where the work stands.
Asked at the desk.
Do you really consult on all seventy-six practices?
The catalog is the full register of practices we engage — each under a written scope matched to the question. Engagements run against the right drawer with the right method; where a question spans drawers, we say so and scope it explicitly rather than blurring it.
What does the "Bounded" tag on some cards mean?
It marks practices adjacent to licensed work: actuarial (we exclude insurance actuarial opinions), financial management (we exclude investment advice), customs (licensed brokers file entries), nuclear energy (licensees and regulators sign safety decisions), veterinary (licensed veterinarians diagnose). We advise within consulting scope and name the boundary in every scope letter.
How is an engagement priced?
By written scope — fixed-fee for defined deliverables, retainer for ongoing drawers, hourly for open-ended research. The scope letter states the rate structure before work begins; there are no surprise line items.
Who sees the filed engagement records?
The client gets the full record; we keep an operational copy for continuity and our files. Confidential material is handled per the engagement letter — see the privacy policy for how records are stored, shared and retained.
Can you start mid-engagement on work someone else began?
Often, yes. Send the prior scope, deliverables and where the work stands — the librarian will assess whether a clean handoff is possible and what re-scoping is needed before we touch it.