Feature Story

January 1, 2007

ShuffieldLowman was founded in 2003 as a full-service commercial law firm. Its 31 attorneys, 13 paralegals, administrative and support staff occupy the 17th floor of the beautiful Gateway Center building in Orlando, Florida. Legal professionals in central Florida have awarded ShuffieldLowman the highest possible rating, evidence of the firm's commitment to the utmost professional and ethical standards.

ShuffieldLowman was created when it spun off from an insurance firm. In preparing to operate independently, it purchased an analog phone system with a unified messaging solution that was supposed to serve the needs of a small business. Over the years, however, the company found that its phone system was just not keeping pace with its business. In 3 ½ years, the firm grew from seven attorneys to more than 30. The system wasn't capable of handling the volume of calls that were coming in, and the way the voice messages were stored often caused the email system to crash. The firm would then contend with outages in its Microsoft Exchange solution and with its other servers.

"We're a service organization, and we absolutely must have phone service so our attorneys, CPAs and staff can reach our clients," says Scott Wendel, administrator for ShuffieldLowman. "Our phone and technology problems reached a point where our IT person was working with The Revere Group several times a week to clean up crashes."

The RevereGroup is headquartered in Chicago, and has five offices in eastern and southern states, as well as in Banaglore, India and Singapore. It is a Cisco Premier Certified Partner as well as a Cisco SMB Select Partner, and addresses client needs through five practice areas that include custom application development, ERP implementation, business transformation, and business intelligence/performance management. Its fifth area of expertise, networking/communications, is a committed Cisco networking and Microsoft client/server practice, and The Revere Group office in Orlando had been serving and supporting ShuffieldLowman with its Microsoft and Cisco solutions for several years.

Cisco Partner Revere Group Offers One-Stop Solution; Alleviates Multi-Vendor Headaches

While many law firms are steeped in traditional business processes and not always comfortable adopting new technology, ShuffieldLowman is definitely an exception.

"I came from a 40-year old law firm that was one of those very conservative companies," says Wendel. "I switched firms in order to work with Bill Lowman, one of this firm's founders, because he is young, aggressive and likes to try new things. We both like to be a step ahead of the game in technology because we both believe it gives us a competitive advantage over other firms." So both Wendel and Lowman were in agreement that a new phone system was needed and welcomed communications technology recommendations from the experts at The Revere Group.

"The technology implemented previously for ShuffieldLowman was a traditional analog system that simply could not keep pace with company growth," says Scott Anderton, vice president of business development for The Revere Group. "As the company grew, they had to keep adding cards and ports and cables. Every time they made a change, they had to call someone in to do wiring. They ended up relying very heavily on their voice-only vendor who, frankly, was not able to scale with their growth."

Anderton wanted to see ShuffieldLowman get into a Cisco Unified Communications system. It would offer the flexibility and scalability that the dynamic, growing young firm needed. A VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) solution that included IP telephony with Cisco Unified CallManager and Cisco Unified IP Phones, and unified messaging with Cisco Unity could integrate with the company's Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange and provide stability and flexibility for years to come.

New Technology Helps Law Firm Stand Apart

"Our motto here is 'Expect More From Your Law Firm'; we want to stand apart from other firms, and that includes technology," says Lowman. "When looking for lawyers and staff to hire, we want aggressive, technically savvy people. The technology we chose needed to reflect that." The company chose to work with The Revere Group not only because of the successful partnership the two companies had formed on earlier projects, but because it could deploy and help maintain the new Cisco converged network as well as the firm's Microsoft client/server setup.

"If they went with another company for a phone system, that's another vendor involved and ultimately more headaches," says Anderton. "We understand the needs of the SMB space - they have limited IT staff and need someone to service technology without creating more problems. We can support their computers, email and phone system with no finger-pointing."

ShuffieldLowman considered the benefits of adopting a Cisco Unified Communications system designed and deployed by The Revere Group. The list was long, and included having a communications system no longer limited by hardware to cards, ports and chassis. When a staff member is added, they simply purchase another Cisco Unified IP Phone. Rather than calling a vendor to add a phone, the firm's own IT staff can easily configure the phone, and plug it in. Mobility was another important issue. ShuffieldLowman wanted a solution that would enable sharing of phone extensions so employees could easily work at home or while traveling.

Scott Wendel and Bill Lowman visited a nearby Cisco lab to see a Cisco Unified Communications system in place, and see first-hand how ShuffieldLowman could benefit from it.

"Price really wasn't an issue," says Wendel. "The cost of the Cisco solution may have been a little higher, but we knew in the long run we would make that investment back ten times over because we would have the best, most flexible phone system available." The other vendors Lowman and Wendel spoke with had unified messaging types of solutions, but no solid plans in place on moving forward with the technology.

"The Cisco roadmap of Unified Communications technology was a big consideration in going with that solution," says Lowman. "The fact that we can add XML applications on top of our phones when we're ready, such as for time/billing, was really important. I want our firm to be on the forefront of communications technology, and Cisco is driving it."

The Revere Group went to work upgrading the company's infrastructure and deploying Cisco Unified CallManager 4.1 call processing software, unified messaging with Cisco Unity and 85 Cisco Unified IP Phones 7900 Series. They integrated Cisco Unity with Microsoft Active Directory. Knowing the busy ShuffieldLowman legal staff wouldn't have time for formal training, The Revere Group conducted training on the new phones for the administrators and paralegals, who could then train the attorneys as needed.

"The Cisco Unified IP Phones are very high quality and very intuitive," says Wendel. "Within 15 or 20 minutes people were setting up their speed dials. There are also booklets available and the Web site answers questions very quickly. A service organization can't have people sitting around trying to figure out how to arrange a conference call. The MeetMe audio conferencing was very easy for our staff to set up and use."

Lowman and Wendel have found the Cisco name means they sleep well at night. Solid security and redundancy is in place, and email and phone system crashes are a thing of the past. The Cisco Unified Communication system can handle a company expansion up to 3,000 employees. When a new employee is added or an existing employee moves to another office, an IT person can set up a phone for them in five minutes. They also know Cisco and The Revere Group are long-term partners who will be there to answer questions and make additions to ShuffieldLowman's system when it's needed.

These kinds of benefits are changing how SMBs look at their communications options, says Anderton. "Companies used to choose whether they wanted to go with a traditional PBX solution or an IP solution, and that argument is no longer even made," he says. "All of our clients and potential clients are looking at IP communications, and the driver is usually mobility. A small business typically has a few key people and they want to work from anywhere. Also, when a small business grows and need a second location, their complexity grows exponentially and they have instant technology issues. Cisco Unified Communications addresses all of that."