The Invisible Admin

At Williams Schifino Mangione & Steady, one employee stands out even though he can't be seen. The law firm's invisible man handles its information technology.

"Lawyers do a lot of communicating with a lot of people in the courts over e-mail," says Rob Williams, senior partner at the Tampa, Fla.-based firm. "We knew we needed to be technologically advanced, since it was important to us as lawyers to make sure we could communicate efficiently, transfer important documents efficiently and not have a lot of kinks in our armor."

Williams Schifino knew it needed more IT talent, but the law firm also knew that it would rather spend its hiring budget on legal eagles than technical know-how. The company called on solution provider API to help it find ways to cut down on the day-to-day computer snafus that were reducing productivity and slowing down its lawyers. Now, with the help of automated desktop availability products, the firm's PCs take care of themselves, and the company can continue to grow and flourish without having to hire a team of technology gurus.

"Our law firm has been very diligent in being there on the front lines in terms of using contemporary technology to buttress our law practice," Williams says. "API is a leader in this area."

Finding the Right Fit
As a first step, Williams Schifino asked a number of solution providers to do a cost/benefit analysis of available technologies and recommend a set of financial, e-mail and word-processing solutions that would allow the firm's lawyers to do their work worry-free. The law firm stressed the importance of reliability, robustness and ease of use.

"We said that we didn't want to deal with the perturbing, irritating things that always happen with software," Williams says. "We wanted a robust software system that the staff and lawyers could learn to use easily and efficiently. If you're constantly trying to learn how to use something, you aren't being efficient."

API was quickly identified as the right fit for the job.

"They did exactly what we asked them to, and at a competitive price," Williams says. "They shopped it well and came back to us with a number of scenarios, ranging from the Rolls Royce to the Buick. We were looking for a Jaguar--a robust system that would solve our problems--and that's what we got."

API started out nine years ago providing outsourced management and business-consulting services, but IT consulting services soon became a priority.

"We figured out that there weren't a lot of good integrators to put solutions in place, so we started to do that," says Greg Pierce, vice president of technology services at API. "We're devoted to trying to maintain a proactive presence with our customers."

In addition to addressing the law firm's day-to-day challenges, the solution was a known quantity, since API had done several other projects for Williams Schifino in the past.

"We started off providing management services to help them run their business--anything from copier lease negotiation to phone services," Pierce says. "By 1999, we did consultative services, and that was a good impetus to replace their system. We helped them get a Microsoft-centric environment, [which they did in] 2006."

The law firm also appreciated that the solution provider spoke its language. "API understood what we were trying to achieve and articulated it to us in a language we could understand," Williams says. "Computerese is the same as legalese. You can't understand it if you aren't a guru. API's Pierce was proactive in convincing us that he would look out for our pocketbook, but not at the cost of quality."

NEXT: Williams Schifino debates when to upgrade.