Even the most progressive law firm may not be able to reduce expenses and serve more clients in less time if it’s operating with antiquated voice technology. Teenagers with cell phones can send text messages, play video games and exchange photos; but many lawyers are still unable to move to a remote location—even to another desk—without losing access to their telephone extension, voicemail or calling features.

The voice networks of most law firms are based on a proprietary piece of hardware called a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), a modern version of a telephony device that has been around since the horse-and-buggy era. Over time, PBXs have been optimized to switch calls very efficiently and provide a high degree of reliability; yet their primary limitations remain unchanged. Some of the problems are:

Traditional telephone systems are difficult and costly to extend to remote locations.

* When remote offices don’t share the same telephone system, different offices often have different levels or types of voice service, forcing users to dial up to 12 digits to reach colleagues in other offices.
* Law firms have to pay long-distance charges for calls between offices.
* Attorneys who work from home, a client site or a courthouse have no access to their desktop voice services.
* Administration of traditional phone systems is labor-intensive and frequently outsourced, making the firm dependent on the outside vendor for all its phone support needs.
* In a business environment in which agility and flexibility are paramount, adding a new employee to the phone system or moving people from desk to desk can be costly and time-consuming.
* It is difficult or impossible to implement productivity-enhancing voice and data applications that depend on the ability to run voice, data and video over a single network.

The case for convergence goes beyond simply eliminating the existing, antiquated voice network—it’s about creating a single network that is more resilient, easier and more cost-effective to manage, more extensible, and it supports far more features than separate voice and data networks.

Is there a strong case for convergence for law firms? Let’s compare the real-world experiences of two prestigious law firms: Preston, Gates & Ellis LLP (Preston), a multi-office, 425-attorney firm head-quartered in Seattle; and Thacher, Proffitt & Wood, LLP (TPW), a multi-office, 200-attorney firm based in New York.

Both firms have implemented an end-to-end converged network solution based on Cisco Systems® equipment. What were some of the benefits they hoped to achieve and what was the final verdict?

Playing Well with Others
Unlike proprietary telephone systems, a standards-based converged network platform makes it easy to integrate many third-party software applications. This is particularly important for firms that are growing through mergers and acquisitions and need an infrastructure that can support disparate applications. TPW integrated Dimension Data’s XML-based cost-recovery product that can account for the duration and client matter of any phone call. Preston integrated its system with Equitrac, the firm’s cost-accounting system.

Working More Productively
Network convergence gives firms access to a whole new world of productivity tools that can add up to more billable hours and greater responsiveness to clients. For example, unified messaging lets users listen to voicemail messages on their computers, receive faxes as e-mail attachments and listen to faxes and e-mail messages over the phone. A study by Radicati Group of Palo Alto, a consulting and market research firm, found that unified messaging could add 25 - 40 minutes per day of additional productivity per user. One application lets each individual attorney specify priority callers and route all other calls to voicemail or support staff. A wireless IP phone or virtual IP phone on a laptop enables attorneys to have full access to all their voice services even when they’re in court, visiting clients, or working from home, an airport or hotel.

TPW deployed Cisco’s unified messaging application for its New York and New Jersey offices and integrated everyone’s voicemail boxes with their Microsoft Exchange 2000 inboxes. All users have the ability to grab voicemail from within their inboxes. No matter where an attorney is, he or she can listen to a missed phone call on a PC, flag it, forward it to other people just like an e-mail, save it in a client file, review messages for priority items and perform other convenient features. Partners even have the ability to be notified on their BlackBerry handhelds when they have a new voicemail message.

TPW has been testing a softphone application that enables computer users to access their phone extension and call features from any location by connecting to a secure virtual private network (VPN). This enables a phone call to be routed to any remote location while preserving cost recovery and other phone features. Dierk Eckart, TPW’s Director of Information Technology says, “Our firm has been able to accomplish things with a converged IP Telephony network that we never could have done on a traditional system. We’re configuring the system with extension mobility to allow attorneys to travel between offices or anywhere in the world and log into a phone and make it theirs. Recently, for example, I traveled to our Mexico office and took calls over my laptop, and callers had no idea I was not in New York. At the end of the day our costs are being driven down and lawyer ubiquity is truly being achieved.” 

Saving Money
Before the move to convergence, Preston was spending a substantial amount of money on conference calls. “The conference connection feature plays a significant part in the short time for ROI we expect from the new network,” says Kim Church, Preston’s Chief Information Officer. Users can now go to a webpage and set up a conference call themselves, without having to remember conference identification numbers. And the system automatically e-mails all participants. Administrators and attorneys save time, because they don’t have to call a service provider, set up an appointment for a conference call and manually notify all attendees.

Simplifying Administration
Simplifying the administration of a network has both cost and timesavings ramifications. With its new unified infrastructure, TPW manages a single network for both voice and data. Because administrative services are accessible via a Web browser, TPW’s IT staff can respond to requests from virtually anywhere, doing updates remotely through a secure VPN connection.
Preston finds that physical office moves are a snap with its new converged network. With a traditional phone system, each desk phone number is associated with a port on the PBX; someone has to manually reprogram the PBX to assign a new extension or change voice services. Now when Preston employees change offices, they simply take their phones with them and plug into the network at the new location without any technical assistance from the administrative staff.
For smaller law firms that outsource voice services, deployment of a converged network eliminates the cost of support for voice services. In an outsourced arrangement, firms pay a premium for service calls and may still have to wait several days to resolve a problem. With a converged system, issues can be resolved in house in short order.

Same Comforts, More Luxuries
A well-designed, end-to-end converged network delivers the same high quality as a traditional telephone network, while providing far greater flexibility—even reliability.

For example, TPW has been able to achieve greater resiliency with its converged network than it had with its legacy voice network. Preston has added greater safety through software that identifies the actual physical location of an Emergency 911 call made from the system, not just the street address and alerts the appropriate administrative staff. Both Preston and TPW are extending their new converged network to more offices.

The unlimited potential of a converged network will appeal to any law firm that sees its own future as unlimited and wants a network infrastructure that can take the firm as far as it desires to go.

About our author . . .

Brian McDonald is a Senior Manager in the Commercial Marketing organization at Cisco Systems, focusing on the Professional Services. Prior to joining Cisco in January 2001, Brian was Vice President of Marketing for New Edge Networks and Micron Electronics. Visit www.cisco.com.

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