The client
LHD Solicitors Ltd is a 16-person Criminal Defence Practice working across the Northwest from a base in Lancaster, with fee earners moving between courts, police stations, and the office.
The challenge
Each LHD case carries hundreds of pieces of information and evidence, from witness statements to CCTV and bodycam footage. It must keep records on each of these cases for six years. This had pushed its on-premises server to its limits, affecting users who often needed data urgently.
“Employees would all come to me at least once a week complaining that their systems had crashed and downtime was affecting our high service standards. This was costing us money and causing potential reputational damage,” says the company’s Practice Manager Jo Clements.
This unreliability is unacceptable in a Criminal Defence Practice. Solicitors locked out of evidence during a live trial can’t simply reschedule. The firm wanted to be paperless but had to retain paper backups because it couldn’t trust its tech when it mattered.
The incumbent provider wasn’t solving the problem. Clements recalls a three-hour wait for a callback during a full outage, and portal tickets were unacknowledged for days.
LHD’s IT wasn’t up to the demands of supporting the business, which presented a significant risk to operations and reputation.
With reduced downtime and regained confidence in IT, the business now works efficiently, and fee earner productivity has increased as a result - Jo Clements, Practice Manager at LHD Solicitors.
The solution
When commited started working with LHD Solicitors Ltd, it took a three-pronged approach to getting the company’s tech back on track.
Performance:
commited fixed the immediate problem with a temporary server upgrade so that staff could work reliably without worrying about file access or slow system response.Productivity:
To take sustained pressure off the local server and offer a better mobile working environment, commited migrated data and workloads into Microsoft 365.Protection:
With newly enhanced performance and productivity, LHD Solicitors Ltd could focus on resilience. commited enhanced cyber security with firewall and email protection and introduced Multi-Factor Authentication to reduce risk of hackers compromising employee accounts. The team also introduced support and security for mobile devices in the field and installed a managed data backup service. This paid off when it quickly recovered files that employees had deleted accidentally.The outcome
For Clements, the impressive factor isn’t just the tech, it is commited’s great communication and responsiveness. A busy Practice Manager that isn’t a tech expert wants results, not jargon!
“They don’t talk tech to me,” she says. “They put it into lay terms so I can understand”.
“With reduced downtime and regained confidence in IT, the business now works efficiently, and fee earner productivity has increased as a result”.
“commited takes ownership of tasks, which is fundamentally giving me time back. The team worked effectively alongside 3rd party software vendor The Access Group during system updates, without my usual intervention.
“With a truly approachable and responsive service, end users now go direct to commited’s IT helpdesk rather than routing via me. Issues get resolved faster,” she explains.
Rock-solid technology is a must-have for a busy Legal Practice dealing with cases that could change peoples’ lives. Thanks to plain-English communication and reliable support, LHD Solicitors can now walk into a courtroom confident they have the information needed at all times.
Clements concludes; “With regained confidence and time, we are now reviewing new legal case management software to enhance and grow the business going forwards.”
