Legal Technology Journal

The relocation of six of its offices into new premises provided an ideal opportunity for Norton Rose to consolidate its communications systems. IT programme manager Anthony Salter gives LTJ a progress report.

Although the initial driver was the move to More London, there was another purpose. Norton Rose’s new unified communications system facilitates and encourages the firm’s 2,000 lawyers and business support professionals, throughout its offices across Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia, to access knowledge and expertise and work more collaboratively with each other and their clients. Programme manager Anthony Salter explains that the project was initiated in the winter of 2005, some 18 months ahead of the move. ‘We knew we were moving to a new building and we needed to define the IT infrastructure. Our digital communications strategy was based on two key priorities: it needed to be resilient, future proof and flexible; it also needed to offer staff new ways of working.’ Other priorities included saving time, money and environmental impact by facilitating collaboration while reducing the need for people to travel to meetings. Environmental considerations were also an important element of the relocation project, which included printing and recycling strategies for the new building.

The first step was to find suppliers for the infrastructure, including the cabling and wiring that would support the new system. There is total wireless access throughout the building, including a guest wireless network, which clients can access via their laptops similar to that which had been in place in their old offices.

According to Salter, the move represented an ideal opportunity for Norton Rose to upgrade its entire information and communications system and explore the very latest technology. In October 2006, Affiniti, the communications integrator, was awarded the £1.9m contract for the managing the upgrade, which included implementing the equipment, system integration and training. ‘Our choice was based on their strength of implementation,’ says Salter.

The initial equipment included a new internet protocol telephony (IPT) system from Cisco. ‘This provides core functionality and is an excellent platform for integrating our IPT services with our operating systems and data and introducing new ways of working including video conferencing, synchronised messaging and online collaboration tools that enable lawyers and clients to work together on the same documents.’

How were suppliers selected? Having reviewed a selection of products and suppliers in the market and invited several key players in the IPT field to tender, Cisco was eventually chosen to provide the unified communications system. ‘Although there are plenty of IPT providers, ultimately we decided on the Cisco system via a proposal from Affiniti. Cisco’s networking and future proofing ways of working fitted our business,’ explains Salter.

The choice of providers was critical to shift communications from a simple transactional model to a unified collaborative system. ‘As law firms in general tend to be quite slow to adopt new ways of working, we looked at the latest developments across different industries and selected applications that specifically supported our business,’ says Salter.

Unified messaging

Unified messaging is a key component of the collaborative workspace. The new IPT system synchronises telephony with e-mail and mobile devices. Salter explains how it works. ‘When you get a voicemail, you receive a message via Outlook. You can then listen to the voicemail via Outlook rather than having to access it on the phone. You can also listen to your voicemail on your BlackBerry without having to dial into the voicemail service.’

New applications on trial

Norton Rose is currently trialling a number of additional applications. The idea is to introduce people to new ways of working and show them what equipment is available and how it can improve their working lives and enhance the service they deliver to their clients.

In September 2007, Jeff Roberts, director of IT, organised an exhibition at the More London office to demonstrate three key applications from Cisco:

• MeetingPlace – this collaboration tool enables lawyers and their clients to work online together on documents at the same time.
• Video conferencing – this supports MeetingPlace by enabling lawyers to see people and talk to them at the same time, thereby reducing the need for people to travel to meetings.
• Presence – this enables anyone in the firm to check whether a colleague is at their desk before attempting to contact them by phone or video conference. ‘You can avoid telephone tag by checking whether someone is on the phone or in a meeting because the system interfaces with their Outlook calendar,’ explains Salter, adding that although the system is set up for internal use at the moment, eventually it will enable clients to see when their lawyers are available.

Feedback after the exhibition was extremely positive. Roberts says: ‘The partners and associates were inevitably very interested in the new hardware my team had on show, such as the tablet PCs and new BlackBerrys, but this was just the start. All of our lawyers readily saw the potential benefits to them and their clients of the Cisco applications after demonstrations given by Affiniti and Cisco, who helped us with the exhibition.’ He emphasises that getting feedback from the trials will be vital. ‘Even during the exhibition the benefits of using Meeting Place to work on documents with colleagues while in different locations was clear to all. Such technology will facilitate more effective cross-office working and support our drive to offer flexible working to our lawyers.

However, many of the partners had justified reservations in using Meeting Place to draft, agree or negotiate clauses in contracts with clients and other external parties, interactively.’ So the IT team are currently organising the deployment of the new technology for the trials and subsequent deployment.’

The lawyers also saw a lot of value in using the latest tablet PCs, which have improved over earlier models. Trials in Norton Rose of earlier models had shown these to offer benefits, although the associates found time had to be invested in learning how to handle the stylus, which previously often lacked the required accuracy. These enable lawyers to scribe on documents rather than typing in amendments and revision. ‘Although not everyone wants to work on a laptop, some lawyers prefer to mark up documents this way rather than printing them out, annotating them and scanning them in,’ says Salter, adding that this also saves paper.

The exhibition provided Roberts and his team with an ideal opportunity to recruit volunteers to trial the new tools and applications. These comprise a mixture of fee-earners from partners to associates from all the practice areas. ‘We had already identified some champions,’ says Salter. ‘Like most organisations, we depend on IT and people are generally keen to have the latest equipment.’

Integrated mobile communications

The new infrastructure provides the foundation for integrated mobile and wireless communications. ‘As our lawyers tend to travel around a lot, they welcome anything that facilitates mobile working,’ says Salter. ‘We’re trialling dual technology mobile phones, which switch over automatically and operate as wireless phones within the building. Although that technology isn’t brand new, not many devices are available, so our choice is limited.’

As the unified communications system is based on an IP network, it will include softphones. ‘When people travel, they can use their laptops as phones, so that calls to their office phones can be diverted to their laptops, wherever they are. It’s another way of bringing together different tools to facilitate communication between our lawyers and their colleagues and clients,’ says Salter, adding that the combination of dual technology mobiles and softphones might ultimately do away with the need for office phones; however, he concedes that this is unlikely to happen in the short term.

A new data centre

The unified communications system extends to Norton Rose’s new data centre. Prior to moving to More London, the firm replaced its entire underlying IT infrastructure. According to Malcolm Todd, head of systems delivery, this was part of the future proofing of the new building. ‘Prior to the move we built a new data centre in Uxbridge. Rather than risk any outage during the move, we transferred our core production to Uxbridge. All our core systems are there and we use our More London data centre as our disaster recovery centre.’ As the Uxbridge data centre is manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it provides the firm with a more resilient infrastructure for its entire IT operating environment, including the IPT system.

Key benefits

The main benefit of the Cisco solution is that all the facilities are integrated, providing a genuinely flexible workspace. Users simply log into the system via the device they want to use at a particular time. ‘The system will recognise when you’re using your mobile, for example and divert calls to that device,’ explains Salter. ‘Equally, it will know when you working wirelessly or when you’re logged into your laptop and want to use that as a phone. You simply log on to whatever device you want to use and that’s the one it will use to contact you.’

A gradual approach

The next step is to get the trial started, install the softphones and video cameras and get MeetingPlace up and running by November 2007. Salter anticipates installing Presence towards the end of the year. ‘We’re taking a gradual approach,’ he says. ‘Rather than deluging people with new technology, we’re trying to do it piece by piece. We’ve found that it’s better to change one thing at a time and get feedback as we go along. That enables people to learn new technologies and incorporate them into their working practices.’

Training and evangelising

Immediately following the move to More London, Affiniti provided training and support to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, including ‘floor-walkers’ to assist lawyers and staff. Secretaries were given extensive training on the phones and desktop applications so they could help to support their teams.

According to Salter, most of the new equipment currently being trialled is very user friendly, so it is expected that volunteers for the pilot study will require little training. ‘For example, softphones are used in exactly the same way as any other phone. The difference is that they are accessed from people’s computers and laptops. Video conferencing is accessed simply by clicking on the relevant icon.’

Those involved in the pilot study will receive additional training and guidance on MeetingPlace as this can be used in a number of different ways. For example, it can be used as a conference tool or a document collaboration tool. ‘Of course, the amount of training required will depend on the extent to which users plan to deploy it,’ observes Salter.

As well as developing familiarity with the new technology among participants, the various trials and pilot projects are designed to raise awareness and interest throughout the firm. ‘We are encouraging those involved to be evangelical about the new technology – we want them to use it and tell other people how good it is,’ says Salter. ‘Obviously some people will use it more than others. We’re not prescribing that people have to have a softphone, it depends on whether or not they use it. The same applies to video conferencing: some people use it every day, especially if they work internationally, and others don’t require it. Certainly those who’ve volunteered to participate in the trial are all very positive and want it to get going as soon as possible.’

Next steps

If the results of the trial are as successful as they are expected to be, the applications will be rolled out office-wide early in 2008, which will also see further extensions to collaborative communications.

VoIP roll-out internationally

The logical progression of the project is to extend VoIP and collaborative communications to the Norton Rose Group’s 20 international offices. ‘Three of our offices are already on VoIP, but when data is sent over the network it goes into an analogue system at the other end,’ explains Todd. ‘The next step is to extend VoIP further and if necessary to update the technology in the other office environments so that they can enjoy the same facilities as we do in London, including softphones, video conferencing and MeetingPlace.

Although this will be a huge project involving considerable outlay in terms of costs, it has a clear business case as it will produce significant savings in the medium and long term. Because VoIP calls go over the firm’s internal network, which it already pays for, it will reduce call costs significantly firm-wide.’

One number for all devices

Another development is to deploy BlackBerry devices which use the same Cisco technology as the unified communication system. ‘This means that people will be able to set up their BlackBerry devices so that anyone who phones their direct dial office number will be transferred directly to the BlackBerry,’ explains Salter. ‘So clients will dial one number to reach their lawyers’ office phone or mobile device, whether they are at their desk, using the softphone on their laptop while working remotely or on the train using their BlackBerry.’

Putting the user back in control

A potential downside for lawyers is that they can be contacted wherever they were. ‘This is where Presence comes in,’ responds Salter. ‘Not only does it save time by letting people see whether you are available, but it also shows whether you are in a meeting. So if you put a meeting in Outlook, no one will interrupt by calling your mobile.’ In this way unified communication not only facilitates collaboration and enhances efficient client service, but ultimately it brings control back to the user.