Forward Thinking

Trade publications have placed Duane Morris in the top 100 law firms, and in the upper echelon of law firms utilizing technology. Hundreds of lawyers working around the globe quickly communicate and collaborate using the firm's integrated network, accessing sophisticated software, information-rich databases, and other knowledge-sharing tools. When Duane Morris acquired California-based Hancock Rothert and Bunshoft, it inherited contracts with vCom. It was not long that one regional agreement soon turned into a real partnership in the ongoing management of Duane Morris’ Telecom Environment, nationally.

With vCom’s vManager platform and skilled professional services team, Duane Morris realized the immense benefits of outsourcing the ongoing management of their telecom environment to vCom: simplicity, savings, support and exceptional service

The Challenge


Throughout its growth, Duane Morris has always been driven by the same principle: a partnership and agreement to pursue all clients' goals. Duane Morris LLP, among the 100 largest law firms in the United States, is a full-service firm of more than 700 lawyers. With offices in most major markets, and as part of an international network of independent law firms, Duane Morris represents clients across the nation and around the world. Lawyers who are leaders in a range of legal disciplines and have diverse backgrounds join Duane Morris in order to use the latest technology, professional support staff and other resources in pursuit of maintaining the most efficient technological communication networks.

Managing a network infrastructure across multiple offices, products and carriers can prove to be challenging. Duane Morris dealt with multiple Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers; received 150+ invoices on a monthly basis; had multiple support teams and numbers to contact for trouble or order management. Ordering, supporting or reconciling telecom services at each office was a challenge, even to an experienced IT team of Duane Morris’ caliber. Hours were spent dealing with GL coding invoices, on a monthly basis. When Duane Morris acquired Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft, it wasn’t looking for alternate telecom resources but acquired vCom contractually through HRB, and little did it know how great this acquisition would prove to be.

The Solution


Shortly after a successful and seamless move in one of Duane Morris’ offices, vCom began a close partnership with Duane Morris’ CIO, John Sroka, Amy Silvestri, the Telecom Manager, and their team of capable IT professionals who have built a state of the art network infrastructure. "We were impressed with vCom’s people and services and not only did we leave existing services in place, we expanded their services in those locations where we were no longer contractually bound,” said John.

vCom reviewed Duane Morris’ carrier invoices, developed a migration plan, per site, to implement new local and long distance services. vCom worked with Amy and her team to roll out the new services with minimal disruption or user impact. “Once I started working with them, I realized vCom’s service is far superior to what I have experienced in dealing with carriers directly over the past 12 years,” said Amy. The next step involved working with Amy to integrate a cloud-based disaster recovery system across the enterprise. The initial impression of the vManager demo was effective, but the task of entering all inventory appeared a bit daunting. Much to Duane Morris’ surprise once the project was underway, the ease of the process and availability of information was realized. “It ended up taking about 20 minutes of my time to provide a list of GL codes, and vCom did the rest,” said Amy.