LAW FIRM UPGRADES PHONE SYSTEM FOR BETTER CALLS AND COLLABORATION

COMPANY: Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, P.C.

LOCATIONS: Based in Peoria, Ill., with offices located across the state in Chicago, Edwardsville, Rockford, Springfield and Urbana

EMPLOYEES: 320, including 120 lawyers

I.T. STAFF: Four full time

BRIEF HISTORY: Heyl Royster began in 1910 when Clarence W. Heyl opened his law practice in Peoria. Today, the firm represents clients in all 102 Illinois counties as well as in Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin. Heyl Royster lawyers regularly rank among the best in Illinois in their fields of practice, and several have been elected to the American College of Trial Lawyers and College of Workers Compensation Lawyers.

At a Glance

After a communications hardware overhaul, law firm Heyl Royster witnesses greater productivity and interoffice collaboration among its team of lawyers and support staff.

A new ShoreTel communications system brought great advantages to lawyers and staff, says John Snider, IT director at Heyl Royster.

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Lawyers have always depended on fast, reliable

communications. Yet in the digital age, communication

means far more than just voice calls. These days, lawyers

need video, messaging and other advanced collaboration

tools to fully serve clients.

Last year, when John Snider, IT director at Peoria, Ill.,

law firm Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, looked at his

organization’s nearly 20-year-old phone system, he didn’t

see just antiquated hardware. Instead, he saw a great

opportunity to help the firm. “The system was, in many

ways, a productivity-robbing dead weight — an obstacle to

achieving peak performance,” Snider says.

Heyl Royster is a Midwestern law firm with 120 lawyers

and six offices serving clients in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri

and Wisconsin. Using their old phone system, Snider says,

Heyl Royster attorneys struggled with even the most basic

communication capabilities. “While we had voicemail, we

didn’t have features like four-digit extension dialing,” he says.

“Integration with Microsoft Office was simply not possible.”

Calling OutSnider knows a lot about IT hardware and software, but

planning and deploying a new phone system had him

moving into entirely new territory. He began his research

by visiting a popular legal IT website operated by the

International Legal Technology Association.

“It’s an aggregation of law firms located around the

world,” he says. Snider posted a message to the site

asking for comments about specific vendors and systems.

“For law firms our size, ShoreTel was far and above the

recommended system.”

Reaching out to Paul Gaimari, a senior account

representative at CDW, Snider began investigating

systems from ShoreTel, as well as two other vendors.

After deciding that the other vendors couldn’t meet Heyl

Royster’s needs on price, features and support, Snider

selected ShoreTel Onsite, an on-premises Voice over

IP virtualized communications platform that runs on

industry-standard x86 servers.

“ShoreTel’s price point was a lot better, and the system

seemed easier to manage,” Snider says. “We are our

own system administrators, with Microsoft education,

so we were looking for a telephone system that could be

managed easily without a big learning curve.” Heyl Royster

also acquired a ShoreTel support package that covers

breakdowns, repairs, patches and major releases.

Snider says that CDW made finding the right solution

comprehensive, logical and painless. “Paul worked with me

through the whole process,” Snider says. “Paul was a great

partner, a great resource, and we ultimately purchased the

system through CDW.”

Partner Approach Justin Hester, a CDW collaboration specialist, says Snider’s

experience wasn’t unusual. “We work with customers in

an agnostic way to evaluate all the collaboration players,

like ShoreTel, that are pushing the industry forward and

reinventing what it means to collaborate with one another,

both within the company and with their customers.”

Hester examines each organization’s needs. “I’m able to

look at what applications they have from a voice, video and

collaboration perspective, and then help them apply the

right technology to that problem or to that gap,” he says.

“Then I engage a player, like ShoreTel, to help the customer.”

Snider appreciates the fact that ShoreTel and CDW

treated him like a partner, not just a customer. “The one big

thing that ShoreTel brought to the table, through CDW, is

that I talk directly to ShoreTel engineers and ShoreTel is my

support,” Snider says. “What we get through working with

CDW is priceless.”

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“What we get through working with CDW is priceless.”— John Snider, IT Director, Heyl Royster

800.800.4239 | CDW.com 3

Moving ForwardIn early 2014, Heyl Royster announced it would move its

Chicago office and Peoria headquarters to new, larger

locations within their respective cities. “That’s really what

triggered the firm to start looking for a new phone system,”

Snider says, “because we didn’t wish to replicate the old,

inferior technology in the new offices.” The firm’s four other

offices would also receive the ShoreTel telephone system.

Planning began almost immediately. “We started

planning the Chicago office move in May of 2014 and then

took January, February and March to plan the Peoria office

move,” Snider says. A Heyl Royster IT team visited each

office approximately two months prior to installation to

determine the amount of physical space available in the

site’s network racks, locate the Primary Rate Interface

(PRI) and identify any additional network drops needed.

When installation began, old phones were replaced with

new ShoreTel phones. “Music on hold and paging had to be

adapted to work on the ShoreTel system, which wasn’t a

problem,” Snider says. “We also had to make sure we could

provide Power over Ethernet to all of the ShoreTel phones.”

During installation, ShoreTel equipment joined new or

existing network racks. Each installation required two rack

units and an uninterruptible power supply. In some cases

the PRI phone circuit extended into the office server room.

“Some network wiring needed to be done in four of our

offices,” Snider says. “We also had conference rooms that

needed new network connections and a few wall phones

that required network connections.”

The Chicago office, with its ShoreTel phone system,

opened on Dec. 22, 2014. The remaining offices migrated

to the ShoreTel solution over the next few months, with

companywide adoption by July 2015.

“We had ShoreTel trainers and a ShoreTel engineer onsite

at every installation,” Snider says. “ShoreTel has a process

for identifying and understanding all users, extensions and

system features, and then making sure that the system will

meet every possible need and situation.” Snider’s IT staff

and ShoreTel representatives went through the analysis

process a total of six times with them — once for each

office. “The first time was a bit challenging; the second time

was slightly easier,” Snider says. “The third, fourth, fifth and

sixth times, however, were a piece of cake,” he says.

Convenient CommunicationsThe solution met Heyl Royster’s need for a full-featured yet

easily expandable and manageable phone system. “A nice

thing about ShoreTel is that they offer you a base system

that has practically everything you need,” Snider says.

“You can then logically scale upward from that over time.”

Scalability proved crucial for Heyl Royster, observes

Steve Katz, ShoreTel’s CDW team lead. “They can start out

with 10 or 20 users, which is what we did in Chicago, and

then just add on more pieces,” he says. “It’s very Lego-like

in terms of the architecture.”

Simple, centralized management allows Heyl Royster

to save time and utilize its IT staff more effectively. The

ShoreTel system’s server resides inside the law firm’s

main data center in Peoria. “If we have to add users,

change users or move users, it’s all done through a single

interface,” Snider says. Previously, an IT team member

would have to log in to each individual office phone system

The VerdictShoreTel Onsite integrates features such as video conferencing, instant messaging, mobility and online collaboration into a single IP PBX solution, which leads to a variety of business benefits, including:

Better decision-making: Access to a full range of communication modes allows users to collaborate with remote employees, clients and other business contacts more effectively.

Shorter process time: Reduce the time required to identify, locate and reach out to key experts, allowing users to quickly and easily gather the insight they need to make decisions.

Seamless collaboration: Provide the appropriate communication medium for tasks such as voice calls for one-on-one issues, online collaboration to share ideas and video for presentations.

800.800.4239 | CDW.com

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to make changes related to that site. “Today, it’s a single

phone system,” Snider says. “We log in at one place and

save a lot of time.”

“In the past, phone systems have been unclear and

required outside technicians and service agreements that

basically lock the customer out from touching and keeping

their system up to date,” CDW’s Hester says. “That’s no

longer the case for Heyl Royster.”

Feature RichWith the ShoreTel solution operational in all six Heyl

Royster offices, employees can use fast and convenient

four-digit dialing when calling among offices. There’s also

tight integration with Microsoft Outlook. “When a

call comes in on the ShoreTel system, it automatically

looks at my contacts and instantly presents the caller’s

name on my computer screen,” Snider says. “At that point,

I can click on a button that says ‘Answer’ or ‘Send directly

to voicemail’ because I’m busy.”

Additionally, Heyl Royster employees use ShoreTel

Communicator, a software app available for Windows

and Mac OS X web browsers, which provides a suite of

tools for managing real-time communications on their

computer or mobile phone. The apps allow users to move

seamlessly between voice, video or IM as needed.

“When you open this app, you can see the telephone

directory and your call history; you can also create

conference calls and many other different types of

services,” Snider says.

The ShoreTel system opens new communication and

collaboration avenues for time-pressed attorneys. “Many

law firms, for instance, will conduct depositions over video

conferencing, which can be a part of a phone system,”

Hester says. “They can record, share or archive the

deposition, speeding up how they do their jobs.” Rya

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Satisfied UsersKim Rutledge, Heyl Royster’s administrative services

and training director, says the system makes her work

less stressful and more productive. “I do a lot of interoffice

calling, so I love that our offices are now all connected

through one phone system,” she says. “Going into

Communicator, I can type in anyone’s name to see if

they’re available or if they’re out of the office.”

Snider enjoys the “Find Me” feature, noting that the

service comes in handy whenever he travels from his

Peoria base to the firm’s other offices. “Say I’m in our

Chicago office for the day,” he explains. “When I get to

the Chicago office, I can sit down at any ShoreTel phone and

say, ‘Make this phone my Peoria phone,’ and then whenever

anyone dials my extension, or my direct dial number, it

rings in Chicago — nobody notices the difference.”

Another feature Rutledge really likes is the ability to

receive voicemail files via email. “It’s very important to our

attorneys, especially when they are traveling,” she says.

Plus, the classroom training provided by ShoreTel was

a snap, according to Snider. “We were in small-enough

groups — no more than 10 or 12 — that the trainer wouldn’t

lose control of the class,” he says. “It was really like getting

personal training the way everything was presented.”

Training the IT staff was also fast and pain-free — a four-

hour web-based training got Snider’s team started.

Snider, meanwhile, has one final bit of insight for

organizations planning to replace their existing phone

systems. “Do your homework, look at multiple vendors

and talk to references,” he suggests.

“I love that our offices are now all connected through one phone system.”— Kim Rutledge, Administrative Services, Heyl Royster

Learn how legal firms increase productivity and collaboration

at CDW.com/legal.