Law firms now depend on a wide range of technologies to communicate with clients and other service providers. As the legal industry consolidates, many of the surviving firms are operating ever larger networks of offices. Providing effective means of internal communication is increasingly important to ensure consistency of service, distribution of vital know-how and better team working.

At the same time, many lawyers are now faced with a communications overload – swamped with e-mail and expected to be contactable 24 hours a day, seven days a week via a growing number of devices and delivery mechanisms. To be unavailable at any time is increasingly unacceptable. But how should they and their firms manage this rapidly growing burden? The growing demands for home and mobile working facilities will surely have an impact.

Nathan Morris, a spokesman for Star Internet, admits that exciting developments in the telecommunications field have been pretty thin on the ground recently. "It is more a case of things that have been around for four or five years and used to be cutting edge, now becoming a reality for most companies," he says. "For instance, it is no longer difficult to roll out a VPN."

Home working has also seen a paradigm shift from dream to reality, since bandwidth has come down in price and is fast becoming a global commodity, according to Morris. He also attributes much of the current appetite for DRP and business continuity solutions to cheaper bandwidth. Of course, there are other drivers but it helps that the cost of streaming data to a remote back-up site has become more affordable.

"Many law firms are now thinking in terms of moving everybody into a home working scenario in the event of a disaster, rather than putting them into a fixed back-up facility like an emergency office," he says. And because broadband and VPNs have become the norm in the commercial world, outsourcing and managed service offerings are becoming more appropriate models for corporate IT.

However, by embracing home working, firms may be opening a whole new can of worms on the security side. Home PCs may have inadequate or poorly installed filters and firewalls, they may represent a convenient back door for somebody intent on hacking into the network – and keeping tabs on machines in hundreds or thousands of lawyers' homes can put a strain on any IT department.

Thin-client solutions running over Citrix may reduce security risks and if a firm were to provide dumb terminals rather than PCs it may reduce the risks associated with 'Trojan horse' software. The main advantage, however, is the saving in software licences and the greater degree of central control over home workers' machines.

Then there are the peripheral concerns. What about home workers' children using the firm's equipment – to download albums and games via Kazaa while they are typing up their homework? By providing dumb terminals, a firm can presumably reduce its exposure to dawn raids by the Federation Against Software Theft or punitive lawsuits from the film and music industry.

However, Citrix itself is not completely without issues – last year a number of law firms complained to Legal IT that the inability to send voice files over Citrix was crippling their ambitious digital dictation projects. (At least one of the dictation vendors now claims to have a solution).

Morris expresses doubts about the validity of some metrics used to demonstrate the cost savings of voiceover IP (VoIP) to a mid-size law firm, or a large one with just a few offices. "For a reasonably large organisation the savings from list-cost routing can be fantastic," he says. VoIP may not actually shave a huge amount more off the price.

He says we are unlikely to see firms scrambling to install video conferencing on lawyers' desktops this year. The technology works quite well in a controlled environment such as a sales demo, but performance is less impressive in the real world.

"Realistically you would need a global guarantee for your bandwidth," Morris says. "There are no genuinely global telcos, they are all made up of regional telcos and because of the way the internet is set up they cannot guarantee that your data will stay on their network."

For a lawyer who takes for granted the high quality of a dedicated video conferencing suite, Morris says using desktop video conferencing would seem like a step back. "It would be like me giving up my ADSL line and going back to dial-up," he says. However, an international firm whose network runs on private circuits could make good use of desktop video conferencing internally, perhaps to encourage lawyers in different countries to work collaboratively in virtual teams. One law firm with large offices in the UK and Germany has been evaluating this approach.

What the IT directors think

Back when large telcos were among the star performers in the world's stock markets, there were several emerging technologies that were seemingly destined for rapid take-up and – amusingly, some would now say, rapid payback – within the legal sector.

Unified messaging (UM) was going to put an end to the communication overload that lawyers were beginning to suffer, while ensuring that clients received a better and more timely service. Costly leased lines would be replaced by other networking solutions, voice and data would converge and all communication would be routed over internet protocol. Video conferencing (VC) would largely replace business travel and most meetings would be conducted in the virtual world – some even went so far as to say that lawyers and clients would for the most part communicate via video and audio links from PC desktop to PC desktop.

Obviously, one can see with the benefit of hindsight that these views were hopelessly optimistic. But most of the technologies have indeed been deployed with some success by law firms – which is not to say that many other projects and deployments have met with failure. To create a rough benchmark of their relative successes, Legal IT conducted a straw poll of 20 IT directors. Their experiences demonstrate an increasingly pragmatic approach to the deployment of communications technology, as yesterday's dreams take shape as usable business applications. It would seem that some are far more usable than others.

Video conferencing

Gerard Neiditsch, head of IT at Mallesons Stephen Jacques, says his firm has been using dedicated VC facilities across its network of international offices – in Australia, Asia and the UK – since the late 1990s. "Initially, the adoption by lawyers was patchy, mainly because of reliability, cost and quality problems," he says. "The firm is now using its third generation IP-based system and gets upwards of 90% usage during business hours."

Neiditsch says most of the meetings held on VC are by lawyers or mixed lawyer-client-support services teams. "VC is also frequently used for lectures. It would be fair to say that it has simply become part of the way business is done."
Feedback from Mallesons' lawyers suggests that the VC experience ranks somewhere between a person-to-person meeting and a conference call, according to Neiditsch. "The areas that are still in their infancy and inhibit a higher degree of adoption include immature technologies to share whiteboards and applications, limitations in video quality at a given cost, and the 'ease of use' of the technology as a whole," he says. "One issue which is just now being resolved is the 'quality-of-service' (QOS) guarantee of bandwidth when video conferencing shares a network with VoIP and data. These recent improvements will address most remaining performance and quality issues."

Neiditsch sees considerable pent-up demand by lawyers to unite conference room VC technology with individual units attached to PCs and telephones. "I anticipate that we will start seeing user friendly solutions in this area within the next six to 24 months both from VoIP vendors such as Cisco and PC players such as Microsoft, HP, Dell and IBM," he says.

"The standards are progressing rapidly to a point where a carefully designed system will allow individuals to participate in meetings with great ease. At the same time we are seeing broadband replacing dial-up connections. Both developments will be key enablers for remote working, a way of working that seems to become increasingly popular with lawyers. The business case will, in my view largely be determined by how much value (monetary and otherwise) lawyers, clients and support staff and the firm as a whole can extract from video enabled remote working."

However, for some other large firms usage of VC has remained largely static. At Addleshaw Goddard, IT director Damian Griffiths says nothing has changed in the past three years. "We use VC extensively, but video conferences featuring more than two video parties are still an 'experience' – for example, there is still the two second delay when speakers interrupt each other," he says. "The actual equipment is cheaper and more straightforward to use but the limitation, for us, is still the number of meeting rooms we actually want to put this into."

Griffiths' personal view is that it is only a matter of time before VC becomes a standard multimedia technology in all desktop PCs, probably as part of an overall instant messaging (IM) and desktop collaboration solution.

"That does not mean we need it now, however," he says. "A business case for today would need to set out the benefits of it improving collaboration, meeting some overt client need, or improving the productivity of one or more people. I may be wrong, but I do think IM may have more immediate appeal."

At Bevan Ashford, VC is used primarily between the practice's three main offices to enhance communication and collaboration between fee earners. IT director Dick Sayers says VC usage and requirements have grown since the firm adopted the technology a few years ago. "It is an essential means of communication between our offices," he says. "Although it is used mainly for internal meetings we have used it several times for client meetings."

Sayers has doubts about the real benefit from desktop VC – other than for specific ad hoc requirements. "I have seen an application of combined desktop video conferencing with collaboration and training software," he says. "This may be applicable in the future for project collaboration or to deliver training to a diversely located audience."

So VC has done well in the legal arena, it seems. But not at every law firm. One Manchester-based IT director is less convinced. "It is very rarely used to be honest," he says. "I only know this because I sign off the invoice and it is next to nothing every month."

Meanwhile, one City law firm that began using VC in the late 1980s saw the lawyers' enthusiasm fading away in the mid-1990s. There has, however, been something of a resurgence lately. "We are about to buy new equipment as we are receiving many requests from clients about wanting short meetings," the IT director says. "This is not a replacement for meetings but a useful tool where a telephone call is just not adequate. We have reviewed VC at the desktop. Lawyers are nervous in relation to clients but seem less nervous if it was for internal meetings."

Unified messaging

Rather like CRM systems, UM solutions look great on paper – the benefits are so obvious that the decision to install could be termed a no-brainer. But that is before the users' resistance to cultural and procedural change is taken into account. Most users of an expensive CRM system might only perform low-level contact management tasks that can be more economically done in Microsoft Outlook. Similarly, the functionality that convinced a firm to invest in a UM solution may only be used to full effect by a minority of staff.

The greatest barrier to firms' success with UM may be the users' residual laziness, but the synthesised voice interface may also put some people off. One IT director was probably only half-joking when he told Legal IT: "The main change I would like from our vendor would be to replace Stephen Hawking, who reads me all my e-mail messages, with someone else. While Professor Hawking is undoubtedly a towering intellect, I can think of several other celebrities who might read my messages to me in a more pleasing fashion. And they could probably do with the money."

UM has its enthusiasts; among them is David Hamilton, partner and head of IT at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. "We find our systems invaluable," he says. "We have been using Avaya's UM in London for several years and have rolled out to a number of other offices.

"We are rolling out Cycos' UM system in Germany and looking to see which system is most appropriate going forward. The basic combination of e-mail and voicemail in one interface makes things easier for everyone. It makes things easier 'on the road'. Most importantly, the ability to forward voicemails to team members outside of the local office is fundamental." Hamilton does not see any disadvantages associated with UM, so clearly here is a large deployment that is paying dividends.

Hamilton says the Cycos product has extended the boundaries of UM, also providing SMS (text messaging) and CTI (computer telephony integration) functionality. "Providing we can make use of this functionality outside of their application – can we use the CTI function from our CRM – then I lack imagination as to what else they could offer," he says.

Chris Roberts, IT director at Simmons & Simmons, says UM is increasingly useful. "The mobility of lawyers is always increasing and they want to carry less and less equipment and paper," he says. The electronic transaction is now making that mobility feasible and UM is important for business continuity in disaster situations.

However, the advantages of flexibility – users choosing where and when to work – are counterbalanced to some extent because the whole environment becomes increasingly intrusive, Roberts says. But good UM is reliable across international borders and delivers time efficiencies.

Roberts says the key applications in a UM solution are e-mail, fax and voicemail but he would like to see SMS facilities, which come a close second in terms of importance. "Access to documents will be key when the other things are in daily use," he adds.

Jon Gould, IT director at Charles Russell, says UM is certainly useful. "But most of our lawyers would probably say that Blackberry has had more of an immediate impact on them," he adds. "UM helps to ensure lawyers are able to get to their messages in one place rather than having a series of repositories they need to check on a regular basis.
Also, UM can allow access to messages where other delivery mechanisms are not possible."
Gould says the main drawback of UM is predominantly one of usage – changing the users' habits to ensure that UM becomes more than just a very expensive voicemail system.

VoIP

VoIP, where phone calls are routed across the internet rather than via traditional phone companies' voice networks, is an area of IT that looks set for a mini-boom in the legal sector this year, according to Legal IT's straw poll. IT managers in many law firms have been keen to install VoIP for a number of years but have been continually frustrated by what they view as unacceptably low levels of resilience.

"We do not balance cost against resilience," says Nathan Hayes, head of IT at Osborne Clarke (OC). "Resilience is king in relation to what is the lifeblood of the firm: the telephone. The key is to design your resilience as efficiently and effectively as possible whilst striking a hard bargain when procuring the fault tolerant components of the system. Then, six months later, do it all again when the market has moved on once more."
Many law firms use a procurement company for telecoms purchasing but OC has decided to go it alone. "We now have both a procurement manager and a telecommunications specialist," he says.

"Therefore, between them we have a good knowledge of the telecoms market and the skills to negotiate highly favourable deals."

Hayes argues that VoIP is a problem for international law firms. "We have a highly integrated voice and messaging system operating across Europe and the US," he says. "Also, the usual cost savings associated with VoIP can only be fully achieved by reducing the level of resilience within the voice network.

"Combined with the sheer technical complexity of completing this work on our systems and the associated risk that goes with this, the decision to implement VoIP is not one taken lightly. Having said this, we are going to do it before the end of our financial year as the benefits in terms of at least some cost saving and more flexible telecoms service delivery do make a justifiable case."
So what exactly has changed, to tip the balance from law firms' point of view, in favour of VOIP solutions that, 12 months ago, none of them would touch with a barge pole?

"Finally, after years of the usual lies and hype, it is easy to go to VoIP at low risk, without polluting voice systems with the inherent unreliability of computer networks, and without buying IP phones," says Daniel Pollick, IT director at DLA.
"We are migrating right now, based on our existing meridian technology."

DLA does use a telecoms cost consultancy each year, or every two years, to audit its costs. "We are happy that with good advice and in-house knowledge we can do the operational procurement ourselves," Pollick says.

Value for money

There are some bargains to be had in the telecoms area: one large firm reports having recently changed data provider on the basis of cost, getting double the bandwidth for less money. "We cannot speak to quality of service as we have only just done it," the IT director says.

But when balancing cost against resilience, how do you decide where the happy medium is? According to one IT director, "it is located in the spot where you have satisfied yourself that resilience will be rock solid – you cannot compromise on that". More cynically, he adds, as long as the service you procure is as reliable as the service offered by the industry's leading supplier – BT in the UK – you can buy on price alone.

Most of the firms questioned seemed fairly happy about the resilience and quality of service offered by their existing providers. But they were less convinced that their contracts represented good value for money. "It is an expensive system and I wish the firm had gone for something else," one IT manager said. Only one respondent thought quality of service was lower than overall value for money.

So what's next – speech recognition?

Large law firms can provide round-the-clock reception and switchboard services for clients and fee earners alike, but smaller firms and those engaged in less profitable work types cannot absorb this cost if they are to remain competitive. Taylor Walton Solicitors, a 24-partner firm with four offices and a workforce of 250, is by no means a small practice but as a full-service firm for both commercial and private clients it operates on a different business model to a top 10 City practice.

Aiming to provide a better service outside normal office hours, the firm has adopted an automated call-routing solution, driven by speech recognition technology. This runs in parallel with the firm's reception staff, handling calls only when they are overloaded or when they have gone home. At one office where there is no receptionist, it now handles all the calls.

Following a pilot in the firm's Luton office Taylor Walton has implemented the system, ContactPortal from Telephonetics, on a firm-wide basis. When the firm went through major restructuring and many staff received different extension numbers, the system rerouted them automatically. Lawyers can route calls to their mobile or home phones when they are out of the office.

Still, most law firms would not dare entrust their phone switchboard to an entirely automated system – what would the clients think? Most personal injury law firms would say having a human voice on the end of the phone is crucial because as often as not, the prospective client is making a distress call. But perhaps domestic conveyancing customers – or even small commercial clients – would appreciate the cost savings if the firm passes them on.

"We have minimised our receptionist costs whilst offering better client service," says Jim Wrigglesworth, partnership secretary at Taylor Walton. "The system handles about 5,000 calls a month and its accuracy has been astounding."