The Invisible Admin

At Williams Schifino MangioneSteady, one employee stands out even though he can't be seen. The law firm's invisible man handles its information technology.

"Lawyers do a lot of communicating with a lot of people in the courts over e-mail," says Rob Williams, senior partner at the Tampa, Fla.-based firm. "We knew we needed to be technologically advanced, since it was important to us as lawyers to make sure we could communicate efficiently, transfer important documents efficiently and not have a lot of kinks in our armor."

Williams Schifino knew it needed more IT talent, but the law firm also knew that it would rather spend its hiring budget on legal eagles than technical know-how. The company called on solution provider API to help it find ways to cut down on the day-to-day computer snafus that were reducing productivity and slowing down its lawyers. Now, with the help of automated desktop availability products, the firm's PCs take care of themselves, and the company can continue to grow and flourish without having to hire a team of technology gurus.

"Our law firm has been very diligent in being there on the front lines in terms of using contemporary technology to buttress our law practice," Williams says. "API is a leader in this area."

Finding the Right Fit
As a first step, Williams Schifino asked a number of solution providers to do a cost/benefit analysis of available technologies and recommend a set of financial, e-mail and word-processing solutions that would allow the firm's lawyers to do their work worry-free. The law firm stressed the importance of reliability, robustness and ease of use.

"We said that we didn't want to deal with the perturbing, irritating things that always happen with software," Williams says. "We wanted a robust software system that the staff and lawyers could learn to use easily and efficiently. If you're constantly trying to learn how to use something, you aren't being efficient."

API was quickly identified as the right fit for the job.

"They did exactly what we asked them to, and at a competitive price," Williams says. "They shopped it well and came back to us with a number of scenarios, ranging from the Rolls Royce to the Buick. We were looking for a Jaguar--a robust system that would solve our problems--and that's what we got."

API started out nine years ago providing outsourced management and business-consulting services, but IT consulting services soon became a priority.

"We figured out that there weren't a lot of good integrators to put solutions in place, so we started to do that," says Greg Pierce, vice president of technology services at API. "We're devoted to trying to maintain a proactive presence with our customers."

In addition to addressing the law firm's day-to-day challenges, the solution was a known quantity, since API had done several other projects for Williams Schifino in the past.

"We started off providing management services to help them run their business--anything from copier lease negotiation to phone services," Pierce says. "By 1999, we did consultative services, and that was a good impetus to replace their system. We helped them get a Microsoft-centric environment, [which they did in] 2006."

The law firm also appreciated that the solution provider spoke its language. "API understood what we were trying to achieve and articulated it to us in a language we could understand," Williams says. "Computerese is the same as legalese. You can't understand it if you aren't a guru. API's Pierce was proactive in convincing us that he would look out for our pocketbook, but not at the cost of quality."

NEXT: Williams Schifino debates when to upgrade.

The law firm was willing to consider updating its entire technology system, including servers, desktops, firewalls, switches, routers and applications. As a first step, the 42-person solution provider recommended upgrading all of the hardware to the newest offerings available, since the law firm's PCs were all three to five years old. Williams Schifino had been hoping to wait on technology upgrades until it moved into its new offices later in the year, but API urged it to reconsider.

"Often, moving a law firm in a new technology direction can be like turning an aircraft carrier into the wind with a canoe paddle--it takes time," Pierce says. "They were getting a lot of complaints that things were slowing down; they were having to reboot and dealing with system errors. Angry people were sending e-mails all over the place. We sat down and had a conversation about it. We wanted them to realize that they would have to pay in pain or time or money. They realized they needed to upgrade."

The solution provider also recommended Persystent Technologies' Persystent Enterprise to allow the firm's half-time IT person, hired as a contractor from API, to concentrate on critical projects rather than picayune support tasks.

"We started to look at Persystent because the law firm was up to more than 70 workstations. They didn't want to pay the support costs associated with hiring someone internally, and they didn't want to pay to have someone from a partner on-site," Pierce says. "Instead of imaging desktops, we could add images on the fly. There was no longer a need to focus on level-one support calls."

The software automatically repairs a desktop's operating system, registry, applications and settings based on policy, in order to reduce or eliminate the need for human intervention. Persystent allows applications to be "self healing," says Pierce, so that changes are made automatically when a computer is booted.

"As a lawyer, the last thing I want to have to deal with is a problem on the computer system that prevents me from doing something I need to do, especially on the weekend," Williams says. "The Persystent technology solved all of those problems."

"With Persystent, if you forget something, the software allows you to make changes and just reboot," Pierce says. "By removing hours spent making little changes manually, we made the engagement more successful and more profitable."

More For Less
The project, although comprehensive, went without a hitch. In fact, in the middle of the project, Williams Schifino asked the solution provider to move more quickly to get it done before Williams left for a trip to China. "They implemented sooner than they were supposed to by working overtime to get it done," Williams says. "We would have expected bugs and problems, but we had very few. Things are working smoothly."

By automating repair and support, Williams Schifino saves considerable time. Normally, API would need to put in a full-time person to support 60 users, Pierce says, adding that the VAR has handled 85 percent of the law firm's IT demands for more than a year now and, in the past 14 months, hasn't had to answer a single call that was outside the scope of its half-time IT contract.

"API told us that we would save money in the long run, and I think that we have," Williams says. "We still have our half-time person, and we think we can do that for another five years--and maybe longer."

In addition, Persystent's technology continues to allow the API IT person to make the most of the 20 hours a week he spends at Williams Schifino.

"Persystent does the little stuff and frees up really good resources to work on the server side of things. Now [the IT staffer] can work on the projects we want to get done," Pierce says. "We can leverage his talent to keep the system up and running, make sure SQL Server is running the way it should be or focus on intrusion protection. If you're able to devote attention to the right places, you have more uptime."

Today, API continues to be an invisible presence at Williams Schifino, making sure that the company avoids bumps on the technology road.