While the voice communications industry is now embracing the transition to voice over IP (VoIP), the question remains as to the manner in which the legal profession needs to make the change. While some cost models indicate that there will be cost savings over the traditional TDM PBX architecture, this may not be the case when all of the cost factors are considered.

The four primary questions to consider when evaluating a change to IP-based communications are:

* Is the business environment of your firm driving your communications systems to a real-time model?
* Is the way your firm practices law becoming more mobile?
* Are high value IP-based applications becoming available that make the way your firm practices law more efficient?
* Will cost savings and increased efficiency of firm communications assets justify the costs of a transition to IP voice communications?

With the advent of the cell phone, Instant Messenger, videoconferencing and BlackBerry devices, clients have come to expect instant access to their legal counsel. Real-time communications between all devices on the network is becoming widely available and, in some areas of the legal profession, it’s a proven significant competitive advantage.

Recent studies clearly indicate that lawyers and their staffs are being required to be much more mobile. But these lawyers-on-the-road will find it increasingly difficult to remain as productive in this evolving environment unless they are able to maintain access to all of the tools that are currently available to them in the office.

While access to some of the high value applications like unified messaging, CRM, billing and voice recognition-driven systems are not exclusive to IP, many of the new software products were developed first for the IP environment. Whether these new applications are ever ported to the old phone architecture will depend on have fast the transition to VoIP takes place. Today, very little investment is being made in the purchase of applications that run just in a TDM environment.

The most compelling reason for adopting an all-IP network is the ability to utilize a single set of communications channels for all of the firm’s communications needs. The need for POTS lines, ISDN BRI and PRI lines and voice T1 lines, in addition to the IP data lines, is greatly minimized. This usually saves dollars and decreases management costs of the communications network. Yet, in many cases, the cost of investment in new equipment, training, network infrastructure and higher bandwidth IP lines may far exceed any savings in cases where an existing infrastructure is already meeting most of the firm’s needs.

A recent survey conducted by InfoTech suggests that major organizations are now comfortable with the direction of VoIP and are moving their pilot IP implementations to multi-site rollouts. These statistics indicate that firms are making VoIP into a major part of their communications infrastructure.

The question then becomes, what is the best strategy to move your organization to VoIP? As used herein, the term “converged” means a combination of tightly integrated TDM and IP PBX while the term “pure IP” means a solution with architecture such as the one provided by Cisco. The correct answer differs, depending on these issues:

* The status of current wiring and network infrastructure on a site-by-site basis
* The ability to make a smooth transition to a converged environment with your current vendor
* Whether converged or pure IP supports your current and future applications requirements
* Whether converged or pure IP supports high value applications on IP phones
* If money will be saved on the use of outside services and if real-time communications will be facilitated with integrated audio bridging capabilities
* Whether network voicemail may be lost on a site-by-site basis as offices are transitioned to pure IP

Once you have decided to transition your voice communications system to IP, what are the opportunities and strategies to move forward?

The following situations present you with the best opportunities to fully implement VoIP:

* You are moving into a new space and intend to purchase a new PBX.
* Your current PBX is at the end of life and must be replaced.
* You have targeted opportunities to install-small remote offices and/or a new branch office.

There are a number of areas of risk that you should consider in the design phase of your transition to VoIP:

Transition from Legacy PBX to VoIP. Make sure that your selected vendor understands your current environment completely and can produce a detailed migration plan that ensures success. If you are moving away from your current phone vendor, make sure that your selected partner can handle the transition issues with your legacy system, as your current vendor may become less motivated to help as he loses the business.

Voicemail. If your organization uses networked voicemail, begin the transition by replacing your existing voicemail system, while leaving your old PBX infrastructure in place. Your users rely on their voicemail and may become unhappy if you take away features while you are moving into the IP world. This will also lower your transition risk.

Redundancy. Ensure redundancy, remembering that your current PBX environment is very reliable. A misstep here could be very difficult to explain as these kinds of failures can significantly disturb a law firm’s practice.

Support. Make sure that your selected VoIP vendor has the proper service agenda and the staff to support it. Many data vendors don’t really understand the importance of a rapid response to a phone capability that has stopped working.  As a result, they have staffed to act at the speed that they have responded to data-only issues in the past. That speed may be inadequate for phone issues.

Conclusion
When you decide to transition your firm’s voice communications to VoIP— whether to a converged system or to a pure IP system—you will need to do so in such a way that you maintain your current services during the transition and for compelling reasons. Do not justify your decision on potential cost savings alone. Base it on the fact that your firm’s practice has become more mobile, that it has a need for real-time communications and that high-value IP applications have become available that make the way your firm practices law more efficient.

About our author . . .

John E. McGreevy is President and Co-Founder of Freeport Technologies, Inc., which develops, manufactures and installs enterprise-wide conferencing, collaboration and presentation systems that can be monitored, managed, tested and scheduled from a central location. He can be reached via e-mail at jmcgreevy@freeporttech.com or at 703.272.0064.