Premier Law Firm Partners with Afinety to Modernize and Secure Their IT Solution

Hawley Troxell law firm was searching for a new MSP partner that could offer top-tier support and security in their solution.

Background

Susan Olson has been with the Hawley Troxell law firm for more than 20 years. As of January 2023, the firm has 104 lawyers. Hawley Troxell continues to grow and expand including a recent expansion outside of Idaho into Spokane and Yakima, Washington. In her previous position as Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer, Olson supervised operations, technology, marketing, finance, and human resources. She is now the CEO at the firm.

History

From a technology perspective, the firm had been forward-thinking, having converted to a cloud-based hosted desktop back in 2016. Though it was a huge paradigm shift switching to the cloud, the firm had great success with the new approach. Being cloud-based also came in extremely handy in March 2020 when the national Covid shutdowns came – the firm was already set up to work remotely and did not miss a step. In fact, Olson noted that the firm had some of its most productive times ever during those initial few months of the pandemic.

However, the firm’s managed services provider, which supplied the firm’s hosted cloud-based desktop, was changing and deteriorating over time. The vendor had been acquired by a large company, resulting in heavy turnover among their support people and engineers. Olson noted the firm was experiencing problematic latency and performance issues which led to slowdowns, not tolerated well by the partners. Realizing the relationship was going in the wrong direction, Olson asked the firm’s IT manager to send out an RFP (request for proposal) to prospective alternatives.

Narrowing the Search for a New MSP Partner

After reviewing the RFP submissions, Hawley Troxell saw several product demonstrations. The firm narrowed down the decision to Afinety and one other organization. Afinety emerged as clearly the best option.

According to Olson, “Afinety had an excellent managed desktop platform, and had also recently hired several of the known, trusted support people who had previously been at the firm’s incumbent provider. We decided to go with Afinety because they had the system, the security, and the support that were the right fit.”

A New Partnership

Olson recalls, “Our firm is very people- and relationship-oriented. I looked the Afinety people in the eye and felt confident they were going to take good care of us. I trusted them, and we also liked the Amazon Web platform the Afinety system was based on. Afinety offered us a partnership and room to grow. They have an excellent project manager who keeps us on track. I am 100% convinced that they have a good grip on security. We are very comfortable with the Afinety team and are excited to migrate over to their system. Afinety is a great match for our firm.”

Outcome

Hawley Troxell recently migrated over to Afinety’s ACP system at the end of Q1 this year. Olson enjoys already benefiting from “the increased security, zero latency and strong connectivity that Afinety offers. Also, we have thirteen plug-ins for different applications, and Afinety can integrate all of them into a cohesive, secure desktop. I know that Afinety will not disappoint us.”

Frank Mariello, Senior Director, Legal Services at Afinety, will be one of the leaders handling the Hawley Troxell implementation. Mariello notes, “Susan Olson and her team at Hawley Troxell were pioneers in switching to a cloud-based desktop, and we are looking forward to rolling out our state-of-the-art Afinety system for them soon. There are many cloud-based desktop providers on the market, but Afinety’s standard of excellence in the legal market sets us apart. Therefore, we are uniquely qualified to deploy a great new secured system for the firm. We will make sure all application integrations work well from the outset, and that these integrations are properly maintained over time. Our goal is for Susan Olson and the lawyers and staff at Hawley Troxell to be thrilled with the results of deploying Afinety.”