Godwins Solicitors embraces a cloud-first strategy with Oosha

With its current on-premise servers around a decade old, Godwins’ infrastructure was looking outdated and didn’t adequately support the changing demands of the business.

Godwins Solicitors is based in Winchester, Hampshire and was founded almost two centuries ago in 1832. Its staff totals around 35 and its team of lawyers possess a wealth of experience working with large firms, both in London and in regions across the UK. Godwins specialises in legal issues around property (both residential and commercial), family (including divorces), and private client work for a number of high-net-worth individuals.

The challenge

Godwins was looking for a partner to help conduct a thorough review of its IT strategy. With its current on-premise servers around a decade old, its infrastructure was looking outdated and didn’t adequately support the changing demands of the business. The partners identified that a change was needed to execute their growth plans and support their current lawyers to work more productively.

Andrew Neal, member (partner) at Godwins, says: “I can’t even remember which Windows system we were running, but it was coming to end of life. We couldn’t put digital dictation on there and we had to make other investments elsewhere to be able to do that. The internal infrastructure also needed upgrading, so it was pretty much a entire, new system that we needed.”

At the same time, Godwins wanted to pivot towards a new provider that could provide a digital workspace solution – as well as one that had specific expertise geared towards law firms. “We were using a smaller IT provider for cost reasons and it ran a good help desk; but the problem was that it didn’t really specialise in working with law firms.”

The solution

Following a competitive tender process, through which Godwins sought a partner that could demonstrate the practicality and security of a cloud solution, it teamed up with Oosha. This resulted in an implementation of a digital workspace via a virtual desktop multi-cloud solution that combines Oosha’s cloud platform with Microsoft Azure – replacing Godwin’s on-premise server hardware.

This infrastructure, and its related IT support, covers all of the third-party applications that Godwins’ users rely on day to day, including the virtual desktop. Andrew says: “We log into Citrix to access our virtual desktop. Everything we need is on the desktop, and with the guidance of Oosha, we decided to lock down the local PCs, so that everyone adheres to the same security measures.”

When defining the IT strategy for Godwins, Oosha introduced the digital workspace concept. With this agile solution, Godwins’ users can securely access a virtual desktop from multiple devices, which provides reliable and secure access to Microsoft Teams and other legal applications. This enables the team to work seamlessly from the office, home or on the move – a vital consideration at a time when Covid-19 has reshaped how law firms operate. Oosha also provides IT support for end-users, which also includes managing issues relating to its various legal and Microsoft applications.

The benefits

As well as technical excellence, Andrew felt that Oosha stood out thanks to an up-front integrated approach with no hidden costs, and because every requirement was covered by Oosha in-house. He explained: “A lot of the other companies had hidden costs, whereas Oosha was quite upfront and made it clear what the one-off costs were going to be, and that our monthly costs were fixed. Then there was the in-house element: the people who came to do the initial migration weren’t sub-contracted. And Oosha owns its own data centres, so we know that Oosha is in control of everything, if anything happens.”

Andrew also singled out the service Oosha provided, from the initial migration and integration through to special support as the pandemic took hold: “From the very beginning, three Oosha support staff came on site for three weeks after the comms team had done the initial networking. Everyone was extremely nice to deal with. On top of this, the laptops we sourced at the time of the first lockdown in March were given really good backup by the team in terms of getting them ready for use at home.”

The future

Godwins and Oosha are now working together to build on their success and find new ways of bringing technology into their operations, including document security, as well as look at how sensitive information can be better protected when transferred digitally.

Andrew is keen to make sure that, while Godwins can move away from many of the outdated practices that still prevail in the legal sector, any new solutions that are introduced must provide strong user-friendly experiences. “Some of my clients are in their 80s. So, it’s important we provide a system that is user-friendly and accessible to them especially – not one that requires logging into a port or answering five security questions before you get to a document.”