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Technology Industry

Law firm deploys converged network

Communications News, Feb, 2008

In the highly competitive law field, every little advantage can make the difference between being considered a good firm and a great one. With this in mind, Gibbons, a leading law firm in the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, decided to completely revamp and overhaul its network. Given the firm's reliance on phone and e-mail to support its typical business operations, Gibbons needed a system that would allow its attorneys and employees a broad range of applications and remote-access tools to communicate and collaborate inside and outside the office.

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Gibbons has a long legal history dating back to 1926. With 220 attorneys, the firm provides transactional, litigation and counseling services to leading businesses. With its relocation into a new 100,000-square-foot headquarters, the firms collaborated with IT consulting firm Business Technology Partners (BTP) to implement a new converged voice and data network, unified messaging system, as well as time-tracking, billing and telephone recording applications.

Gibbons wanted a network that would allow it to harness next-generation technology, while enabling significant productivity gains, reduction of costs and delivery of improved business communications to support its growing client base.

"Our relocation into the Newark office enabled us to rethink all aspects of our technology infrastructure," explains Patrick Dunican Jr., managing director of Gibbons. "We realize as a firm that in order for success to continuously happen, we need to be ready technologically for the ever-changing needs of not only our clients but also our staff."

Gibbons and BTP teamed up to implement an end-to-end IP network within the new Newark headquarters. This included a full voice-over-IP-based communications system utilizing a Cisco backbone and phones. BTP designed a unified messaging platform that combined the firm's VoIP phone system with e-mail and voice mail through one common interface, enabling attorneys and employees to have a centralized repository for receiving and handling all of their client communications.

Also, to track billable phone time, BTP installed Dimension Data's CATT application that integrates with Cisco's VoIP technology. This application automates the process of capturing billable time, creating reports and invoices. BTP also specified CallRex software to allow attorneys to record and archive important telephone conversations with clients.

On top of this new messaging platform, Gibbons leveraged a Cisco SSL virtual private network (VPN). The VPN allows attorneys and employees that are working remotely to have secure access to their voice and data applications, as well as other documents. The VPN provides remote connectivity to the Newark data center.

Using the Cisco IP SoftPhone application, Gibbons' "road warriors" have full access to their telephones on their laptops to access personal phone extensions and call features from any location. Additionally, Cisco's Mobility Manager allows attorneys to log in to any phone and have full access to their profiles and settings, such as call forwarding, follow me and other routing features.

To support the firm's VoIP-based communications, BTP designed resilient systems that include redundant gateways in Newark and New York. These "survivable routers" are capable of continuing to offer full voice communications from Gibbons' remote offices, even when connectivity between them is temporarily lost.

Ensuring continuous availability of the firm's data center operations in Newark, BTP worked with Gibbons' WAN connectivity provider to improve bandwidth and performance. Using an MPLS-based backbone, the new WAN now offers up to four to 10 times the performance of Gibbons' previous network. Additionally, the WAN allows Gibbons to place business-critical network resources and backup operations off site as part of its disaster-recovery strategy.

For more information from Business Technology Partners: rsleads.com/802cn-256

Technology Industry

Law firm deploys converged network

Communications News, Feb, 2008

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