Internal system crash leads to hosted move

Law firms have a professional and legal obligation to safeguard their client data, most of which is highly sensitive personal and financial information.

There are various rules, regulations and standards which demand the protection of data held in databases, for example the Data Protection Act 1998 and ISO 27001 information security management standard. The same applies to supporting client accounts which are governed by the SRA Accounts Rules.

It’s easy to understand why this legislation exists when you consider the threats to data held in house on firms’ servers from cybercrime and other technological vulnerabilities such as IT failures. In these instances, end clients may become victims of identity theft or law firms suffer an irrecoverable data loss respectively.

The challenge:

Falling into the latter category, Ponteland legal practice, Nicholson & Morgan Solicitors, experienced an internal network problem 9 years ago, resulting in a loss of data which eventually led to a move to cloud-hosted software to avoid repeat occurrences in the future.

“You can never predict IT infrastructure issues”, explains Angela Rumney, Cashier at Nicholson & Morgan. “When my computer crashed unexpectedly, we lost 6 months’ worth of data which had to be built up again from scratch. It took a period of 4 months for full recovery. You can imagine the man hours lost on the task and we obviously didn’t want anything like this to happen again”.

The solution:

As long-term users of the locally installed Quill legal accounts and practice management software, the solution was readily available simply by switching over to hosted Interactive.

“I’ve been with Nicholson & Morgan for 20 years and was part of the decision-making team when Quill was first purchased and installed way back then”, continues Angela. “We have long-standing relationships with Quill and find the teams helpful and responsive. Also, our staff are really familiar with the workings of the software. Because the hosted version is very similar in terms of functionality, the changeover was quick and easy. 2 days including training, to be exact! The major difference is how it’s delivered. Instead of being stored on individual PCs, it’s hosted by Quill. The added benefit now is that, as well as managing the software, Quill looks after the security side of things”.

Interactive is a secure cloud-based solution which uses state-of-the-art ISO 27001-accredited and EEA-based primary and secondary data centres for safety and protection.

The future:

“It was important to us to continue our professional relationship with Quill and we hadn’t really considered other suppliers for this reason”, adds Angela. “Following a short stint of training, we went live with the new system, without disruption. For us, security is the biggest plus point of Interactive. Data is automatically backed up and access is secure with the ability to lock down confidential information to nominated users for extra security. With back up from Quill, we have reassurance of maximum security levels. Our data’s in safe hands”.