Lenahan, Slater, Pearse & Majernik, LLP (Lenahan) is a Sacramento-based law firm that has been in business for 70 years.
As is the case with many law firms, Lenahan has undergone a measured digital transformation over the past two decades.
The partner responsible for technology
Tiffany Corona is the partner at Lenahan who now oversees the digital transformation. Corona’s role includes vetting & selecting software packages and technology partners.
When your primary job is to provide legal services and run a legal practice, you do not want to spend time focusing on issues better left to IT professionals.
A tenuous existing IT support situation
As part of its transformation, the law firm had hired a Sacramento area IT support company in 2017 to keep its network infrastructure running.
But over time, the confidence and trust in that provider’s ability to create and manage a stable, functioning network environment dwindled.
According to Corona, “Our IT situation had become untenable. Every time the prior IT company performed a ‘fix,’ inevitably, something else would break. It felt like we were at the mercy of their constant ‘trial-and-error’ approach. Everyone in the firm had lost faith in our previous provider.”
Some of the firm’s partners, lawyers, and administrative staff had to become pseudo-IT professionals in order to keep things running smoothly.
The time it took to attempt to resolve issues internally resulted not only in frustration, but also lost productivity among partners, lawyers, and administrative staff.
The overall level of frustration finally came to a head. The decision was made to look for a new IT services partner.
The search for a new IT services partner
“As we began our search for a new IT partner, we realized that we wanted to find a local, Sacramento company that was in the Goldilocks Zone,” said Corona.
In other words, Lenahan needed an IT company that was large enough to instill trust, but not so big as to be rigid and inflexible. To Corona, the large, multi-market MSPs seemed overly structured in their approaches.
The firm’s partners were also interested in an IT provider that would be able to consult on bigger-picture IT infrastructure projects. They were interested in a partner that could be a long-term IT partner, rather than simply a vendor that was driven by short-term financial gain.
Corona found Fortis through an online search. “After our first meeting with Fortis, we realized their organization was squarely inside the zone that we had identified.
“Fortis took the time to sit down with us and figure out the needs for both sides to see if the relationship would work.”
A clear path forward
“After the Fortis team listened to our needs, they presented a clear path for transitioning from our existing provider,” said Corona.
The first order of business would be to secure Lenahan’s data. The next step would be to take care of a “punch list” of items that the previous vendor was not able to resolve. From there, the Fortis team would become subject matter experts on Lenahan’s environment and configurations.
With these steps taken care of, Fortis would then be equipped to provide attentive and proactive IT support on an ongoing basis.
Fast turnaround on a proposal
Fortis was quick to give Lenahan a clear proposal for IT services.
The proposal spelled out an approach, technology coverages, and costs in straightforward terms.
A smooth transition away from the legacy vendor
Lenahan was able to quickly sever ties with the old vendor and all the problems that came along with that relationship.
Living on pins and needles with the fear that a major incident was looming, soon became a thing of the past.
Getting work done again
Users throughout the firm have re-gained trust in the fact their issues will be handled and resolved, and in a timely manner. They no longer experience the lack of productivity that comes with constant IT issues.
Corona said, “Making a move as we did can be scary and requires a leap of faith. But it’s an investment in your future, which I can say has paid off because it has made us infinitely more efficient. Once we made the transition, I was able to go back to handling my normal caseload, and not having to make room in my day for the daily IT problems we were experiencing with the prior vendor.
“It’s clear that Fortis understands what makes a professional services business tick. I’d recommend that any Sacramento area professional services organization that’s dissatisfied with their current IT situation sit down for a conversation with Fortis.”
