Email is critical to every law firm now but there are many ways in which you can easily waste expensive time if anything goes wrong; not to mention the stress and tension that even the smallest hiccups can create for lawyers, support staff and clients.  We have all seen it sometime!

Managing this critical email system is becoming increasingly difficult and even more critical, with demands on your IT team's time and expertise increasing in a number of areas:

• Making sure the system is up and running most of the time, even over weekends and at night when more and more people are using email from home and on the move.

• Anti-virus, ensure that all incoming and outgoing emails and attachments in many formats are scanned and cleaned effectively and that these systems are constantly updated.

• Anti-spam, ensurning that the highest possible percentage of spam is removed from emails to desktops without interfering with legitimate emails and that the spam that has been filtered out is checked effectively to keep this balance right.

• Archiving and retrieval of emails and attached documents so that they can be kept and readily searched for regulatory and compliance (e-discovery) purposes but with minimal manual administration and interference for lawyers.

• Encryption of outgoing emails to make sure all emails and attachments are secure, with the ability to read incoming emails without disruption.

• Management of the connection to the Internet and blips in speed or availability that can result in lost data.

Here are a few demos that try to explain what a "hosted" Exchange (email) system does in terms that are not too technical. The smallest files are probably good enough quality for you to watch the material as quickly as possible.  These solutions are from Microsoft direct, but they are invariably implemented by Microsoft Business Partners, some of which have developed these solutions (integrated with all the rest of your technologies and systems) specifically for law firms.

Exchange Hosted Filtering
This video shows how Exchange Hosted Filtering can help protect your organization against e-mail borne malware.
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Exchange Hosted Archiving
Watch to learn how Exchange Hosted Archiving can help your organization satisfy retention requirements for compliance.
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Exchange Hosted Continuity
View this video to see how Exchange Hosted Continuity can help your organization recover and preserve e-mail in emergency situations.
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Exchange Hosted Encryption
This video shows how Exchange Hosted Encryption can help your organization maintain confidentiality.
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To find out more about these solutions and legal-specific providers, or other technology options that might improve productivity in your practice, please email acarton@managedservicesconsultancy.com