“Office 2010 is highly intuitive and appreciated by all our staff. It helps them increase their efficiency, getting more done each day.” Danutė Verikaitė, IT Director, LAWIN LAWIN, a leading law firm in the Baltic States, needed to upgrade its email messaging and information worker tools with a standardised platform integrated with its core systems. The company upgraded to the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system with Hyper-V virtualisation technology, and also chose to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. The virtualisation solution, along with Microsoft Office 2010, has helped reduce administration costs by 70 per cent. Business Needs LAWIN, one of the most highly rated business law firms in north-east Europe according to leading legal directories including Chambers Europe, operates in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, where it employs more than 130 legal professionals. LAWIN is the only firm in the Baltic States belonging to Lex Mundi, a global association of independent law firms. In the first quarter of 2010, LAWIN in Lithuania began evaluating a replacement for its messaging and collaboration server technology and its suite of Microsoft Office tools. Danutė Verikaitė, IT Director at LAWIN, says: “We needed to update our email messaging system to increase availability and storage, improve usability, and help our legal professionals become more productive.” LAWIN wanted to standardise its server and client technology on the latest versions of information worker and collaboration technology, and integrate them with its core systems. The law firm had already implemented Microsoft Dynamics software for its enterprise resource planning system and Microsoft Office SharePoint for its intranet. Verikaitė says: “We ruled out a cloud-based solution, but wanted to take advantage of virtualisation to make scaling the environment more cost effective.” The LAWIN legal team needed the flexibility to access its email accounts instantly from any location, while being sure that client data was secure and accessible at all times. Verikaitė says: “In a busy law firm, any system downtime potentially results in delay in service provision to clients. Round-the-clock stability and connectivity are vital to maintain our competitive edge. And, as our existing system was out of warranty and no longer fit for purpose, we needed a solution fast.” Solution LAWIN decided to address its email migration as part of a larger project to improve its IT environment. Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Alna Intelligence―a business partner since 1997―LAWIN upgraded to Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology, and decided to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. After a proof of concept, work began on deploying the solution in the third quarter of 2010. It took three months to complete. Customer: LAWIN Website: www.lawin.com Number of Employees: 137 Country or Region: Lithuania Industry: Professional services—Legal services Partner: Alna Intelligence Customer Profile Highly rated for its competence in commercial law, LAWIN operates in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Enterprise − Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Standard − Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise − Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 − Windows 7 Enterprise Microsoft Office − Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Technologies − Hyper-V − Windows Automated Installation Kit For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies Microsoft Server Product Portfolio Customer Solution Case Study Law Firm Reduces Administration Costs by 70 Per Cent with Virtualisation Technology