Law firm case study
Technology solutions and support for law firms
Your legal practice can face a range of technology challenges, from managing increasingly complex compliance requirements to storing and protecting the data and documentation necessary for a wide variety of clients. Poorly managed IT and slow response time can result in costly consequences. Technology is fundamental to the success of your law firm and it’s critical to work with an experienced team of IT professionals.
Smart Dolphins IT has been working closely with one of Victoria’s largest law firms for over a decade. The partnership has been incredibly beneficial for both parties. In this case study, we share the impact of IT infrastructure on the productivity of a progressive, IT-dependent law firm.
The productivity your firm needs
While there are still many “old school” law firms, technology is pervasive at Victoria’s largest. With over 20 busy lawyers and many more supporting staff, the diverse and progressive firm has many technology elements that Smart Dolphins IT has integrated and supported. Firm-wide downtime would be costly with over 40 people utilizing the network. Also, recurring small problems that cause even a small drag on productivity across the firm’s staff could come at a tremendous, insidious cost. The profitability of the firm and the firm’s high quality service rest on the quality of the IT infrastructure.
The antithesis of productivity is problems. Smart Dolphins quantifies problems by tracking the number of problems per computer. This “network noise” is expensive to a progressive firm like this one. Each problem will be sapping potential billable work, not to mention the energy and momentum of the person affected. A single problem might appear to only steal 15-20 minutes and only take an hour to fix. But, if you consider the math across a sizeable organization, experiencing a lot of these kinds of problems on a recurring basis, this can be a major loss. We should also factor in the time leading to the resolution as well as the time spent coordinating the required IT Support work. In short, on a macro level, IT problems, large and small are more costly than they initially appear.
25 employees wasting just 10 minutes per day on minor IT issues is like hiring someone to do nothing for 6 months of the year.
IT challenges we see at law firms:
Technical debt (legacy IT)
Poor decision-making process related to a lack of IT leadership/management
Major cybersecurity risks and a common cyber attack target
Legal industry support services results
One of the many benefits of technology with porpoise is a pronounced reduction in network noise. When most businesses start a partnership with us they have a lot of IT problems during the first year due to the lack of proactive service previous to this. We have a lot of clean up to do. It is common for a new client to have between 1 and 2 problems per computer per month. This starts to decline within 3-6 months after we apply our proactive processes to the network. With enough time, the customer benefits from having their network noise decline to between 0.2 and 0.4 problems per computer per month. This is 20% of their initial “noise”.
Managed IT Services Comparison
In the following chart, we show six months of real world network noise versus two of the newest Smart Dolphins customers that joined us afterwards. All three companies are similar in size and complexity. You can see the impact that applying years of Technology with Porpoise has had on the law firm. They have a quiet network in comparison to the two new customers that have just begun.
Managed Service Technology with Porpoise
How does Smart Dolphins provide such dramatic results? The key to success in IT support is not technology. Certainly having great people is important, but lots of IT companies have great people. The critical element for Smart Dolphins is our structured, methodical, proactive approach. It’s our “process”. It is HOW we do what we do.
What our legal clients have said about us...
Very helpful, friendly, and professional. I appreciate the quick response to my request for help.
Leah H.
Fast, efficient and very helpful, thank you.
Lisa E.
It was a quick and easy fix by Kel. He is always pleasant to work with. Thanks!
Azalea J.
I really appreciated Matthew dealing with a strange email. I was afraid to open it. He took a look, saw that no one else in the firm received emails from this sender. And blocked the sender. Very much appreciated!
Patrick S.
I have been very impressed with Smart Dollphins’ level of service over the last 10 years. I highly recommend them for any business looking to improve its IT systems.
Scott F
Fabulous, as usual! Thank you!
Lorna A.
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