Modern law firm fights impact of COVID19 by securing its endpoints with the Microsoft Surface family of products

For UK law firm Shakespeare Martineau, a roll-out of new Microsoft Surface devices was driven by the desire to marry greater agility and freedom with improved end-point security, flexible productivity and practicality. In practice, switching to Microsoft Surface has resulted in improved morale, increased productivity, reduced downtime, an increase in billable hours and enhanced client satisfaction. It has brought unexpected benefits throughout the time of the pandemic by enabling the firm to continue with operations and demonstrate their expertise across a wealth of areas impacted by the pandemic through enhanced services and a much-improved digital presence.

“Microsoft Surface complimented our strategy and was the device of choice to support our Positive, Passionate, People. The product is very good – in style, different ways of working and real performance – and it gives our staff the agility and freedom to work in a way that suits their lives whilst maximizing productivity and effectiveness.”

Dal Virdi, IT Director, Shakespeare Martineau

Shakespeare Martineau is a top 55 law firm intent on shaking up the legal profession for the better and building something different, even bordering on disruptive, for its clients and its people. A big part of this ambitious, forward-thinking and client-centric firm’s vision is collaborative working and providing the right tools for their Positive, Passionate People to work in the way that suits them and their personal lives. The company has chosen key Microsoft technologies to help it deliver on this vision and take the firm to the next level.

From cooperation to collaboration

After nearly a decade of aggressive growth and numerous acquisitions, the Shakespeare Martineau leadership team wanted to strengthen the way in which the various groups across the firm operated which meant evolving from a model of cooperation to one of collaboration, cohesion and support.

“We knew we needed to enhance our operating model, reshape the way we were structured and encourage much stronger collaboration, tenacity and pioneering spirit if we were going to support our strategy and get significantly bigger,” explains Dal Virdi, IT Director at Shakespeare Martineau.

This evolution was being held back in some cases by the existing and legacy technology stack, which wasn’t delivering the flexibility or agility the business needed. For example, aging thin-client technology meant that fee earners had to book out loan equipment from the IT department every time they needed to travel to be able to function productively. This cumbersome process was time consuming and frustrating for both fee-earners and IT staff.

Style and substance

Shakespeare Martineau began a six-month project to identify the technologies it needed to enhance the mobility and flexibility of fee-earners and staff and to be able to build a strong foundation for change.

“It was really important to us to be able to facilitate agility across the firm,” states Virdi. “Microsoft Surface aligned with our strategy to support our Positive, Passionate People. The product is very good (in style, different ways of working and real performance) and it gives our staff the agility and freedom to work in a way that suits their lives whilst maximising productivity and effectiveness..”

Previous experience with different supplier’s meant changes in hardware specs had prevented users from roaming freely and required ongoing investment, but Virdi says: “With Surface, because the docks work across the product range. This gives us simplicity and longevity in terms of our future state and really allows our fee earners to do what they do best: deliver valuable services to our clients. That really did appeal to us.”

Improved employee satisfaction and retention

Shakespeare Martineau is now offering all staff a much more versatile range of mobile solutions. The options for detachable screens, digital pens and lightweight Surface Pros for users who wish to be more nimble are appreciated by users.

“We bought the first consignment at the end of February,” explains Virdi, “and that was a real blessing because they were delivered very quickly and were ready to provide core services within a few days, just as COVID hit very soon after.”

Fee earners used their new Surface laptops to operate at home. “Without those devices, much of the firm, our fee earners and their supporting teams wouldn’t have been able to work from home securely,” continues Virdi. “It was an important time of year for us, as our year end is April, but we ensured everyone could continue working in the most productive and comfortable manner possible under very difficult circumstances.”

“Many of our clients have insisted that they will only use Microsoft Teams for calls and collaboration for security reasons.”

Dal Virdi, IT Director, Shakespeare Martineau

A six-month deployment delivered in a few short weeks

Most importantly, the new Surface laptops enabled Virdi and his team to optimise the user experience, by deploying a more enhanced build based around Microsoft 365 apps, including Teams, Projects, Visio and OneDrive.

“We were able to take away the poor-performing elements of the thin provisioning world,” Virdi explains, “and take advantage of the capabilities we’ve provided for users via our new laptop family and elements of Microsoft 365.”

To support deployment of the enhanced build remotely, which included domain-joining all the devices and ultimately registering them within InTune, users were given permissions to securely log on to the firm’s Azure tenancy to access and download scripts they could then run to automate the new upgraded build on their Surface laptops with the new Shakespeare Martineau standard configuration. The necessity of COVID drove the internal IT team to deliver this in a small number of weeks: a six-month project of work truncated into less than a month, helped by the selected technologies and pioneering nature of the firm.

“It was a massive leap of faith for us,” admits Virdi, “it went brilliantly and we are now working to transition more applications away from the thin provisioning world and into Azure as we modernize the firm and the way we operate, digitally.”

Better Teams working

For a legal firm like Shakespeare Martineau, client confidentiality is key. And enabling internal users to access key Microsoft apps has had unexpected benefits that are greatly appreciated by clients.

“Because of the security concerns around other video conferencing platforms, many of our clients have insisted that they will only use Microsoft Teams for calls and collaboration. So, again, we’ve been able to do everything our clients have wanted to do.”

Internal users also appreciate the security and freedom of the new Surface laptops. The firm’s General Counsel and Risk Director was one of the first users of Microsoft 365 and is part of an active community of pilot users who are sharing useful tips and tricks about the new ways of operating that work for them with other users around the business.

A COVID-secure environment

Almost everyone in the firm now has their own Surface Laptop, Arc Mouse and personal headset. Offices are being reconfigured to be pure hot-desking environments that are clinically clean.

The next step is a planned move away from legacy telephony systems to a virtual PBX in Azure. This will make it possible to clear desktops of hardware entirely – personal Surface devices will be the only hardware users will need.

“We’ll be as coherent with the new COVID guidelines as it is possible to be, which means keeping everyone as safe as possible,” says Virdi. “Users absolutely love it. Surface has enabled people to operate the way they would normally outside of work – users say we now feel like we’re in the twenty-first century and can work from anywhere, which is great.”