The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/34686
CASE STUDIES CDW’s services team maintains regular contact with us to provide assistance as issues arise, and coordinates with the integration partners appropriately to resolve issues in a timely manner. Happily, however, our McKenna Long & Aldridge engineers were able to assume near- full responsibility for the care and feeding of the system virtually on day one of the cutover, due to the careful planning and work that went into this project. virtual THE RESULTS: SUPERB BUSINESS AGILITY, LOWER COSTS McKenna Long & Aldridge was one of the first law firms in the United States to implement a Cisco UCS-based datacenter. The total solution — integrating the Net2EZ carrier service, NetApp storage solution and VMware’s virtualization platform — provides a scalable and cost- effective infrastructure that contributes to our effectiveness and competitiveness as we look to 2020. Since implementation, we have seen gains in efficiency, which in turn leads to less management overhead and allows our engineers to focus their attention on continued evolution of the firm’s application infrastructure and BC/DR capabilities. The new datacenter has been a practically no-touch system. Our remote management capabilities have improved dramatically. Overall, there is considerably less administrative overhead, less maintenance and fewer site visits, which were key goals that we wanted to achieve. With this leaner and more efficient operation, there is no doubt that we’re achieving our cost-savings targets. Beyond cost reduction, our new datacenter enables almost instant response to processes such as evaluation of new practice management tools. When someone at the firm wants to kick the tires on a new technology — for example, a new ethical wall system to protect client confidentiality within the firm — we can spin up a new Bob Lamy is the Chief Technology Officer at McKenna Long & Aldridge, where he is responsible for all aspects of IT infrastructure, including line of business application development, data and voice communications, litigation support and business continuity planning. Bob began his career in technology as a network administrator for Frank, Bernstein, Conaway and Goldman, before moving to McKenna where he has been an integral part of IT for 19 years. He can be reached at blamy@mlalaw.com. machine very quickly. It only takes us minutes to bring on a new server, plus storage, while it would have taken days with our older systems. This technology has also enabled us to quickly scale up our litigation support systems, an area of law that has seen dramatic growth in the firm and an equal demand for IT resources. The resulting efficiencies we’ve been able to achieve from this innovative technology have had a positive impact on our practice teams and end users, many of whom were a bit apprehensive about going to a centralized model. They are now directly experiencing process times that are just as good, if not better, than what they had before, which confirms for our team that we made the right decision to go the UCS route. ILTA Is discovery straining your very last nerve? LEXBE ONLINE is a web-based document management/review tool that makes even the most complex, document- intensive litigation a breeze to handle. v Lightning-fast document review. Powerful search; flexible coding; Bates stamping; auto production/privilege logs. v Up-and-running in minutes. Simple user interface; easy to learn and use; free training and support. v Secure, multiple-level access. SAS70 audited; encrypted case materials; continuously monitored; easy remote access. v ‘Cloud’ convenience and economy. Always-available service means no hardware, software or personnel investment; no long-term contracts. v Latest technology. Level the litigation playing field with the tools you need to handle today’s cases. LITIGATION UNLEASHED for a free trial or demo see LastStrand.lexbe.com 58 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer ILTA Quick Poll: Will cloud architecture have completely replaced the client/server in the legal industry by 2020? Yes=20%; No=80%