I was watching Angel the other day, and something struck me as odd.  Angel always has problems going in the building because of vampire detectors.  But why would W&H feel the need for this?  Aren't some of their clients vampires?  Like the guy Angel rolls out the window in "City Of."  Would he have always had to meet his W&H attorney in his own buildings?  Seems like an evil law firm shouldn't have something to keep evil from getting in the doors.  W&H has no problems with various other demons coming and going, whether they are hired, or clients.  Is there some reason they're only worried about vampires?

I guess you could say they put them in after Angel makes the scene and they learn about his destiny.  (And obviously there are no alarms in the rebuilt W&H for S5.)  But after thinking about it, the vampire detector bit seems a little plot device-y, just to keep Angel out of the building.  Any thoughts?

Well, Angel was a huge problem/threat for them.  They couldn't kill him, cause of the prophecy and all, but they also didn't want him barging in whenver he got pissed to rough up their lawyers.  I don't recall if the vamp directors were installed during season one...but if they weren't, cutting off Lindsey's hand was definite just cause.  Waltzing in to kill their clients...anyway, they weren't that great--Angel snuck in plenty of times in spite of the detectors.  Anyway, it was fun watching Angel pretend to be a lawyer in that suit :P

Yeah, they existed in Season 1. They researched Angel after he tossed Russel out in "City Of" and Lindsey calls in to say there's a new player in town. Lindsey knows who he is the next time they run into each other.

He looked so GOOD in those suits. I'd totally forgotten until I watched S1-3 recently, and yum! (Looks good now on Bones, too, of course.) I ended up taking notes for fic details, and really noticing little tidbits, like Angel even wears an expensive watch to go with those suits. :)

CM

If the vampires are employees or clients, they'd be coming in the building regularly, so they could always do something that allows the vampire detector things (I guess they were demons?) to recognize them. They could be familiar with the particular signatures of those vampires and thus would only sound the alarm when an unauthorized vampire came in, or the vampires could be given some sort of talisman that blocks the detector, so that it doesn't sound the alarm every time.

It's all magic, so you can pretty much come up with any explanation that vaguely makes sense and it's possible.

The demons would always be recognizable, but the vampires could look human, so WH might want the detectors to keep tab on those sneaky vampires.